Wow, so much to catch up on!
-HTTYD-
How dare they intrude on her sanctuary? Violate the safest place for any dragon? Growling, Valka turned away from the awful scene below - she needed to get to Cloudjumper, get her armour and go out there now.
"Val, Val, slow down!"
"No!"
"Hey" Stoick gripped her forearm, frowning for a beat when she jerked away from the unfamiliar hand "we're a team. What are we doing?"
Sucking in a breath, Valka nodded. Right now nothing mattered but the dragons. She could figure out whatever was going on with Hiccup and Eret and Stoick later.
"We have to save the dragons."
Hiccup nodded at her, hand brushing hers before Stoick was making agreeable sounds as they all headed in. Their dragons were all twitchy, waiting, anxious. Valka began to strap her armour on, relieved at least to see the baby dragons were nowhere to be seen, grateful Eret had been so quick to put plans in to action. They'd agreed on course of action a while ago if they were ever worried, with the trappers edging closer, Drago getting bolder or perhaps simply madder.
"You three go, I have something to do first."
"What is it mom, can we help?"
"No, no. The dragons have left, you need to go fight alongside them. Now!"
Hiccup jumped, and Valka winced. She'd already noticed he was jumpy.
"Sorry."
"It's fine. Tough times. Come on dad, Gobber. Let's let mom do her thing. You're coming out right?"
"Of course. You won't miss me."
Hiccup nodded tightly, already putting on a helmet to match his flight suit. Valka avoided Stoick and Gobber's eyes, pulled on her helmet and sprang up on Cloudjumper's back. He was as anxious as her, hearing the other three take off behind them as Cloudjumper took the few steps to get to space he could spread his wings.
"Tell me you're not doing what I think you're doing."
"Eret!"
She lifted her helmet to look up at him, where he was circling the top of the nest, holding a squirming little baby Zippleback (Valka had no idea how they'd gotten up there!) and looking down at where Valka was clearly heading toward the Alpha.
"You know Drago-"
"Has his own, yes. That's the point! The Alpha won't stand idly by while his charges are massacred. I wish the challenge hadn't come to our door, but what choice do I have?"
Eret sighed, mouth twisted tightly before he nodded, though it clearly pained him to agree. Part of Valka ached to fly up to him, to demand to hear he still loved her before they threw themselves in to the fight they'd been dreading for far too long.
But he was already gone, ensuring that the nursery was secure, that the babies were safe. Valka stamped down on her feelings - later, she chided her torn, traitorous heart - and heard Cloudjumper warble sadly.
"I know my dear, I know. But we must."
The Alpha was already ready to leave when Valka got to him, but still he trusted her to lead him into the fray, two decades of mutual respect and common goal uniting them. She placed her hand on his massive head, felt him nudge her gently and felt the gentle brush of icy breath, his little show of affection.
"Come on old friend, time to defend our home."
She pulled her helmet back on, braced herself against Cloudjumper's back and they darted through the small space above where the Bewilderbeast dove down, knowing he'd resurface outside seconds later.
The minutes she'd been gone seemed to have been spent locked in awful, awful battle.
Rather strangely, there were more people riding dragons. Valka sincerely hoped they were Berkians, that they were friend not foe as she rose with the Bewilderbeast. His call distracted Drago's armoured dragons - he rarely truly called upon the power of his control, but no dragon could truly resist the command, though she'd noticed any dragon carrying a human seemed not to be quite so affected.
She'd never had cause to wonder before then, whether bonding to a person gave dragons a different kind of strength, of resistance. Now was hardly the time.
There was no sign of Drago, and no sign of his Bewilderbeast either. Valka glanced around for Eret, but he was equally absent for the moment. So she and Cloudjumper joined the battle, leaving the Alpha to make short work of some of the ships. He knew to avoid the traps, as they'd undoubtedly contain lure dragons and he would never risk them. Cloudjumper, on the other hand? He was quite partial to destroying traps, as were the dragons of her nest, who followed her staff and went to free their kin, to do their best to take down some of the hunters bearing arrows and bolas.
Three ships exploded violently in flames, one after another, and Valka didn't need to look up to know what, or rather who, they would see. Sure enough, Cloudjumper roared happily at the sight of his mate, who was dispensing her unique brand of fiery justice upon the hunters ships.
"Hey mom?"
A Night Fury came up alongside her, both their dragons spitting fire to burn away arrows and nets that came toward them.
"Yes Hiccup?"
"Are they on our side?"
Well, the only things he knew about Tripfire were from her angry introduction, and Valka's words that she did not like people. And now burning ships...
"Yes."
"Who's that riding- whoa!"
They were forced apart by razor netting coming up, Valka catching the last loops with her staff to stall it in mid-air before they dropped it. Hiccup and Toothless had gone to destroy the launcher already, and Valka never got to answer his question.
Tripfire roared angrily at something, and the distraction cost Cloudjumper a few seconds attention span. A few seconds were enough, the net aimed and closing around Valka and Cloudjumper's head, both landing heavily on the ground. Her dragon huffed when she patted his jaw, letting her know he was alright.
"I've waited a long time for this. You won't escape me again."
His voice sent sickening chills down her spine, Valka turning to face Drago. He leered closer, one of the few who could tower over her but she'd never cower before him.
"You'll never take our dragons!"
"We'll see about that" he stepped closer, almost seeming calm despite the chaos around them "but for now I need you."
Valka swallowed bile in her throat, hating the way he drawled but refusing to get closer until she knew his plan.
"Need me?"
"For bait. I want that treacherous coward to see why he made the wrong choice, and you will be very helpful there."
Valka didn't get a chance to respond before she was jerked up in the air, yelping before she recognised Tripfire was the one holding on to her. Eret's sword had freed Cloudjumper from the net a few beats later, and her dragon quickly came up to meet her so Tripfire could drop her on his back.
"Get out of here!"
She bit her lip. Valka didn't want to leave Eret alone with Drago, especially not an incredibly angry, vengeful Drago with a serious grudge against the defector. She missed whatever was said between the two men as they circled each other, Eret's helmet discarded to face Drago properly.
Her heart sank to her stomach when Drago yelled out, and despite it being an absolutely insane idea that said Eret had clearly rubbed off on her, she slid down her dragons tail and landed next to Eret. He gaped at her for just a second, before all their attention was on the Bewilderbeast rising from the ocean, Drago's disregard for his own army clear as the inhabitants of ships were knocked down in to the water.
"No!"
Her anger spiked, so outraged that Drago had dared go so far to try and control dragons for his own ends, putting so many of them through gods only knew what, and he actually stumbled from the weight of her staff slamming into his back. He jerked and knocked her back, Eret catching her before she fell.
"Go! Try to stop them!"
Already the two biggest were squaring up, and she knew Eret was right, much as she hated it.
"Valka!"
Stoick's voice broke into her thoughts, and he landed heavily atop his dragon next to her. Drago actually seemed surprised.
"I watched you burn!"
"Takes more than a little fire to kill me!"
She stood, unsure it was wise to leave Stoick and Eret together... but the deafening crack of massive tusk on massive tusk forced her hand, and Valka jumped back on Cloudjumper before they took off to try and prevent the fight.
It was fruitless in the end, and Valka could only watch in horror as the Alpha was forced up on his back legs, exposing his delicate underbelly as he stumbled before the fatal blow was struck.
"No!"
Eret felt it before he saw it, saw the ripple that ran through every dragon on land and in the sky. Drago was incredibly smug despite being outnumbered, though Valka's not-dead-husband was not ever to be Eret's first choice of teammate.
A strange silent hush seemed to fall all around them, just for a moment.
Then Drago's Bewilderbeast called out, and all the wild dragons shuddered before taking off. Even the wounded crawled, dragged themselves on their bellies to prostrate themselves before the 'new Alpha'. Eret's stomach rebelled at the very idea. An Alpha was supposed to protect, to care, not just control. There was something thick in the back of his throat, a stinging in his eyes at the painful loss.
He knew that it must be nothing on how Valka felt though.
"Finish her!"
No!
Eret barely made it to Tripfire's saddle before she took off, fearing for the safety of her mate as the towering form of Drago's Bewilderbeast turned its focus to those two alone, the sky much clearer now so many dragons had landed.
The ice caught Cloudjumper's tail fins, almost knocking him out of the air. Tripfire fired at him and the ice shattered, just before Eret's absolutely insane dragon started trying to go and pick a fight with the Bewilderbeast.
"Tripfire, no! You'll be dead before you start."
Valka came up alongside him, both watching warily as the Alpha tried to peer around the shattered remnants of their nest, the ice now broken beyond repair Eret felt a fresh pang of loss, because damnit that spiky mountain was his home, and home to all those dragons, and to Valka.
And now it lay in pieces on the ground. Some of the inside rooms ought to have survived, at least for now, but it felt... tainted by the blood already spilled.
Eret didn't even know what would happen afterwards; Valka had her husband and her son back, but he and Valka couldn't truly part ways when their dragons were mates for life. Gods, his life had gotten unduly complicated overnight.
Drago's next wave of screaming drew the Bewilderbeast back to him, and as they watched with trepidation, Valka's pained gasp confirmed for Eret that the Night Fury rider was her son. Despite the original call not quite shaking the dragons with riders, it seemed if he focused, he could - at least, Eret assumed that was what was happening to the Night Fury.
"We have to stop them!"
"I know, I know! But if we rush in, he's just gonna see us and ice blast us out of the air, and then we'll be tasty snacks but no good to anyone. Guys, set us down."
The Stormcutters complied, and Eret ran alongside Valka toward her son and his dragon, jumping over the smashed remnants of ships, traps, hunters... how had he never noticed how freaking big the 'little beach' outside the mountain really was? Chest starting to burn as they couldn't stop to breathe, Eret's ears started to pick up the sound of someone trying to reason with another.
"Toothless, stop!"
"Hiccup!"
It all happened at once; Stoick had found the same situation they did, and before his son could stop him, the man had thrown himself between boy and dragon. The explosive brightness of a plasma blast was not something Eret had seen in years, but it was as unmistakeable as ever nonetheless.
Valka gasped, stopping dead in her tracks only a few feet away from where her husband laid, the smoke still rising from his charred, caved in chest, and Eret heard two words that had haunted his own nightmares for years.
"Dad! No!"
-HTTYD-
Ehhh this chapter feels like it came out a hot mess, but what comes after was too long to try and put in here, so lets just all pretend this came out coherent and I'll leave some cookies over here as an apology.