A/N: Thank you guys so much for your continued support! I really feel like this story is starting to go some fun places :D

Guest: Mmmm, a true meeting is still a chapter or two away, but it's coming, I promsie!

JustADerangedFanGirl: thank you :)

: thank you for your input, by the way :D It's really hard to choose a dragon that can act as a substitute for Toothless, but I hope the one I went with goes over well. And I had no problem understand you ^-^

toothlessgolfer: All about the terror train! And only good things can come from what is happening :)

Canon Archives: Hiccup is a smart boy. Though, to be fair, Hiccup probably would've been too busy with Toothless to notice much about Horrendous if it wasn't for the fact that the man claimed to be his relative and is living in the same house as him. And I'm glad my plan to get you hooked has worked! I hope i'm able to maintain your interest

gwencarson126: they are indeed

It took a couple of days to get the terrible terrors trained, but it was nice how familiar it was. Training dragons was the same, whether it was the past or the future. When Horrendous was in the woods, teaching the dragons commands and watching as they steadily learned them, he could forget for just a few moments that this wasn't technically his home.

The previous night, Horrendous had told Gobber over dinner that he had plans on exploring more of Berk and probably wouldn't be around much during the day. Gobber seemed fine with it, just warning him to take an axe with him into the woods and kill any dragon he may see.

The next morning, he put his (still damaged) armor on and a long and flowing cloak he'd sewn from some fabric he'd bought and wrangled the terrible terrors underneath it. He'd tried to convince them to stay in the woods the night he'd first started training them, but they'd followed him back to the Haddock house and had almost gotten seen by Astrid - who had apparently stopped by?

Horrendous had brushed it off, having more things to worry about. It was probably just one of the small changes that had happened from his being here, like the thing with the gronckle.

The morning grass was dewy as Horrendous walked across it. When he got through the treeline, he lifted up his cloak and let the terrors out. They squeaked and barked in excitement. Aorta perched on his head while Spine and Pine claimed his shoulders. Umber, Blossom, Crackle, and Stormy flew around him as if trapped in his orbit. He let them stay like that for a while as he walked through the woods, carrying the terror rigging.

He passed by the cove where Toothless was, and Horrendous glanced own. Toothless was still curled up on a scorched patch, sleeping. It wasn't his best friend down there though. Horrendous felt like there was an open wound in his chest as he thought about the night fury. It was different than with the others. He knew that all of his friends were probably worried about him (if time moved? While he was in the past?) but at least he knew where they were. They'd be on Berk, or maybe looking for them.

Horrendous still had no idea where Toothless was. But at least he was making a step towards finding his dragon.

The terror rigging looked a bit crazy. It was like a saddle with strings coming off of the back and the front that were hooked to terrible terrors - three in back, four in front. He would've liked to make it a bit more stable, but as it was he only dared take some rations and some rope with him, not wanting to weigh down the terrors too much.

"Let's go!" Horrendous pointed forward and the with a bark from Aorta, the thunder flew off to the sea.

oOo

"Well. This could've gone better."

Pine gave an agreeing squawk.

They had been flying for hours. They were going in vaguely the direction of the Dragon's Edge, even though there was no way they'd be able to make the journey is just a single day and Horrendous didn't want to get too far from Berk. He had an excuse for being gone today, but being gone for two days in a row would surely start making people wonder where he was. Him and his terrors were making decent time, but he'd been having trouble finding dragons. There had been a few spotty islands they'd stopped by, but there hadn't been anything there. It was a bit frustrating, but Horrendous just kept going forward. You had to be patient with dragons.

Then they got shot out of the sky by a net.

The landing had been a bit harsh, and Horrendous knew he was going to feel it in the morning. In fact, he was feeling it in his left arm right now. They'd flown over a few ships during the day, and while there had been some shouting and pointing, nothing had happened until now. His own dismissal of it had brought this upon himself. Dragon trappers.

"I can work with this." Horrendous murmured. The men on deck were edging towards him, obviously confused about exactly what they were looking at. He snapped his fingers, catching the attention of his dragons and stopping their squawking and panicking. They scuttled over to him as best they could with the net and his started fiddling with the latches connecting them to the saddle as fast as he could.

"What... Is that… a person?" One of them said.

"Dear Odin, are those terrible terrors? What are supposed to do with those?" Another complained. They were leaning over him by now, clearly unsure what to make of him. Horrendous looked around, doing his best to get a grip on his surroundings.

He grabbed his dragon blade from where it was snapped onto his leg and clicked the bottom, letting the hideous zippleback gas pour out. He was trapped close to the ground, close to the gas, and Horrendous now regretted leaving his helmet back on Berk. He buried his face as best he could in his arm, sucking in air sharply through his teeth at the pain of moving his arm, and drew out the flaming blade of the weapon, lighting the gas on fire, scorching his cloak and surprising the men, causing them to jump back while he used the blade to cut through the ropes.

Either the terrible terrors read the room or were just going to their natural state of causing mayhem, because as soon as they had the chance they started attacking the trappers. Horrendous didn't look back as he ran to the open hatch to below the deck, not bothering with the ladder and just jumping down, wincing a bit from the fall.

There was only one dragon. He was tied up well, front and back legs bound, rope tight around his mouth, and Horrendous slowly approached the hobblegrunt. The dragon's frill spread and it eyed him cautiously, obviously unsure what to make of him as his coloring mixed between purple and red in waves. Horrendous did his best to ignore the sound of mayhem above and put his hand out to the dragon.

"Hey there bud. Don't worry, I'm not here to hurt you. I'll help you. Do you think you can do the same for me?" There was more stomping above, and then a high pitched squeal that obviously came from one of the terrible terrors. Horrendous grit his teeth. They didn't have time for this. "By Thor I hope you trust me!"

Horrendous cut through the ropes on the hobblegrunt's legs. The dragon ripped off the one around his mouth on his own and then, opening his jaw, to let out a stream of fire, burning a hole to the upper deck. Horrendous climbed onto his back just as the dragon jumped to the deck, growling deep in his throat, color resolving into a ferocious red.

"Umber, Blossom, Pine, Crackle, fetch!" Horrendous shouted, pointing to the saddle. The terrible terrors let go of their prey - three screaming trappers they'd been biting - and followed the dragon trainer's directions, grabbing it and flying into the air. Aorta and Stormy were both blasting the man who looked like the captain of the crew as he tried to swat them away while not getting burned and keeping a tight hold on Spine.

The hobblegrunt saw this too and stomped over, head drawing back as it readied another blast.

"Don't!" Horrendous slid off the dragon's back and pointed his dragon blade at the captain. For a moment it seemed like the dragon wasn't going to listen to him, but at the last moment the hobblegrunt redirected his blast to just above the man. The trapper was looking from the hobblegrunt, to Horrendous, to the two terrors that had left him to land back on their normal perches on Horrendous, eyes wide with fear. "Drop the dragon."

The captain did just that, hands up in a surrender position, and Spine fell like a rock - a rock that the hobblegrunt caught in his mouth, delicately holding him there, and then took off.

Horrendous thought that perhaps he would have to fly back to Berk with one less dragon instead of one more.

Then the hobblegrunt flew in a circle and grabbed him with the dragon's back two legs. Horrendous cried out at the tight grip on his injured arm and held on tight to his dragon blade. It would be a pain trying to make a new one.

They stopped on the nearest island, which was little more than a pillar of stone rising out of the sea with a handful of trees on top of it. The hobblegrunt dropped him, and Horrendous tumbled across the sparse grass. He held his arm. Yeah, it was definitely broken. He started to get up, but found the violet mouth of the hobblegrunt in his face.

The dragon sniffed him, hot air blowing Horrendous's hair out of his face. He scrunched up his nose in response. Spine was still in the hobblegrunt's mouth, and the terrible terror chirped a greeting. The rest of the terrors landed around Horrendous. The dragon trainer lifted his good arm, hand outstretched to the hobblegrunt, and sighed in relief when the snout butted up against his palm and yellow spread out across the dragon's scales. He ran his hand along the face of the dragon, scratching it a bit, and stood back up.

"Hey there. Nice to meet you too." Horrendous smiled despite the pain. "Why don't we head home, huh?"

It took a minute to convince the dragon to let Horrendous tie the ropes he'd brought onto him, but the hobblegrunt - which he decided to name Serrated - eventually relented, seeming to understand that Horrendous meant no harm. He hooked six of the terrible terrors back up to the terror rigging and took Spine out of Serrated mouths. One of the terror's wings had gotten injured in the scuffle above deck, but it wasn't anything that wouldn't heal.

The hobblegrunt took to the air again, and this time Horrendous was able to bask in the feeling of being in the air, of being free, once again.

oOo

"And you haven't seen him all day?"

"No, uh, I even, uh, checked a bit of the woods! Y'know, after Dragon Training? I, uh, didn't seem him though." Hiccup stuttered, glancing at her nervously as they walked along the shore, and Astrid rolled her eyes.

The chief's son had been keeping up with his promise to keep her uptodate with what was going on with Horrendous the past three days. The man seemed to spend most of his time in the forge and in the woods. His backstory of being a blacksmith's apprentice checked out, with how well he seemed acquainted with the things in the forge.

It did nothing to explain why he kept going out into the woods after dinner, though. Hiccup claimed that he had a hard time following the man in the dark, and Astrid had attempted to do so too but never seemed to be able to catch the moment when he slipped out of the Haddock house.

"Well that's just great. I'll bet he's been consorting with another tribe, maybe telling them our secrets." Astrid huffed.

"Maybe." Hiccup said. Astrid eyed him. She wasn't thrilled about having to work with him, but if she wanted to figure out what Horrendous was up to, the less people she confided in the better, and Hiccup already knew. Horrendous could notice if any of the others started suddenly acting weird. But for the past couple of days, it seemed like Hiccup was hiding something as well.

People like him don't just suddenly get good.

At least this alliance-agreement they had also allowed her to keep a closer eye on him, though she still hadn't been able to figure what he was doing.

Something moved ahead of them, and Astrid was immediately on alert, drawing her axe and motioning for Hiccup to stay behind her.

The thing crawled its way out of the water, chest shaking as it coughed.

"Who are you?" Astrid demanded.

The thing - a man, definitely a man - turned his head to them. He raised an arm like he intended to say something, but the arm went down, suddenly boneless. They both approached and Hiccup poked the man's arm. He didn't move.

"... I'll go get Gobber."

A/N: Cookies to anyone who can guess who the New Challenger Approaching is! (are cookies still a think? Do people say that?)

It took me a while to decide who Horrendous's new friend was going to be. For a bit I was thinking about having him find a crimson goregutter, since those things are just so rad. I'll probably find a way to shove one in somewhere.

Thanks so much for reading!