A/N: The next three chapters have been pre-uploaded, so I can't reply to reviews until the sixth chapter. If anyone knows a way please let me know, I'm new to this whole thing. Anyways, enjoy!

Chapter 3: Next Morning

"Astrid? Astrid, wake up." A hand was urgently shaking her left arm, rousing her from her sleep.

"Five m-more babe," Astrid mumbled. Why did Hiccup always want to wake her up so early-

Wait, that voice was feminine. Hiccup's voice isn't feminine…

Astrid shot up suddenly, her head knocking against someone else's head with a loud thunk. She rolled her head back for a moment before raising a hand to rub the point of contact. An exclamation of both pain and surprise rang out from in front of her.

"Kari?"

"Thank goodness you're awake, I've been trying to wake someone up for a while," Kari said. Astrid noticed that she continued to rub her head where a particular person had recently struck her.

"Uh, yea, sorry about that," Astrid said, her eyes turning away from Kari.

"It's okay. You're the third to wake up after the events of last night."

Last night! Everyone was fainting all of a sudden! Astrid's eyes began to dart around the hall, looking at everyone who had fainted.

"Rallen woke me up about a minute ago actually, and-"

Kari's words were entering Astrid's left ear and exiting through the other as she was searching for a thin figure with dark auburn hair-

"HICCUP!" A shout from Astrid stopped Kari in her tracks. They both looked around, trying to find him. But no matter where they looked, all they saw were the unconscious Berkians and Founders; no sign of the Chief of Berk.

"Where's Hiccup?" Astrid asked urgently. Kari looked around in bewilderment.

"I have no idea, you were the closest to me so I woke you up first."

"But Hiccup was sitting next to you!"

Kari stopped, taking in what was said. It was true, Hiccup had sat next to her during the feast. She vaguely remembered seeing him stand up from his seat as she passed out.

"Where's Rallen?" Astrid continued. "Did he see Hiccup?"

"He went to get a healer. I don't think he saw Hiccup, he didn't mention Hiccup to me."

Astrid tensed up, worry etched in her face.

"Astrid," Kari's gentle voice continued, "he might have woken up earlier and gone for a walk or something. Don't worry."

"But that's not like him at all! If he woke up first he would've tried to wake me up."

"Maybe he went to the healer-"

Kari was interrupted again - too many times for her liking, she thought to herself - by Rallen entering the Hall with the healer.

Astrid frowned. Hiccup was definitely lost. She quickly woke everyone else up, pouring the cold water that Rallen and the healer had brought in on their faces. Snotlout being Snotlout, he screamed like a little girl when the cold water struck his face. After recovering from his shock, he had chided Astrid for disturbing his beauty sleep and destroying his beautiful morning look by pouring water on him, but a stern glare from Astrid prevented him from continuing, as Snotlout mentioned. Kari thought that the fist to his left cheek was more effective than the glare though.

After Astrid told everyone that Hiccup was gone, there were many different responses. Fishlegs was obviously worried, muttering to himself things such as "oh Thor, oh Thor". Snotlout was whining about how it was typical of Hiccup to get lost and get into mischief just like when he was small. Ruff and Tuff were being their usual annoying selves, asking each other why Hiccup was always the one to go on these adventures on his own.

The only sensible ones were Eret and Gobber. Upon hearing the news, Gobber immediately left to search for Hiccup.

"Any idea where he could've gone?" Eret asked Astrid.

"No idea, I really can't think of any place he could've gone. He's not the type to simply wander around town on his own. And if he went back to get something, it's been way too long..." Astrid replied. "And besides," Astrid diverted her gaze towards the ground, a longing look replacing the fear in her eyes, "he wouldn't go anywhere without trying to wake me up first."

The two of them sat in silence for a while. Then all of a sudden, the main door burst open. All eyes turned to look at the figures standing in the doorway. Zephyr, Nuffink, Smitelout, and Gobber had burst open the doors to the hall in their rush to return. But when the people in the hall saw them, the looks of fear, worry, and anxiety was replaced by looks of horror. Because in Smitelout's hands was something that no one present wanted to see.

It was the bloodied and torn clothes of their good friend and leader, Hiccup.

Light began to filter through his eyelids although his eyes were closed. The fatigue from the night before had worn off, leaving Hiccup with a massive headache. It felt like Gobber was hitting the right side of his head with a hammer repeatedly. Hiccup let out a groan, but it did nothing to quell the throbbing. The floor was rocking from left to right as he stood. He pulled his left hand down to rub his head-

Clink.

Clink. Clink.

Clink. Clink. Clink.

Every time he tried to pull his hand down to his head, it was met by a metallic clink. Wait, down to my head? He slowly opened his eyes, squinting them against the light. He took a second to adjust to the light, and when he did, he was greeted with the sight of wooden planks surrounding him. Directly in front of him was a wooden door with metal locks around the sides. A torch burned by the right side of the door. On his left side was a table filled with many tools and devices, some of which Hiccup had never seen before. Hiccup slowly looked up to where the metallic clink came from. Both his hands were stretched up and chained to the ceiling. He looked around him warily. The room was a rectangular one, about five meters long and three meters wide. And directly behind him was a guard seated on a chair. His head was slumped forward and resting on his chest. He was fast asleep.

Hiccup noticed that a chill swept through his body although he was wearing clothes. He looked down, trying to spot a hole in his clothing. But what he saw was worse than what he expected. He was not wearing his typical metallic armour, or his fur coat that he made to sail to the Hidden World all that time ago. He was wearing a thin black shirt, and thin black pants. He had no armour on him at all, and the material he was wearing did nothing to keep out the cold. He shivered. He knew that he had to try and get out before anyone noticed him. Wait, the guard is sleeping! Hiccup took this opportunity to try pulling on both his chains hard.

CLINK.

The only thing he managed to accomplish while doing this was to arouse the sleeping guard. He looked straight at Hiccup with a dazed look, before quickly coming to his senses. With a groan, he stirred from his chair and rushed to unlock the door.

"Sir, the prisoner is awake!" He screamed down the hallway.

As the guard bolted out of the room and into the hallway, Hiccup took the opportunity to look around him. He noticed the ground continued to sway left and right, so he was probably on a ship unless they invented a rocking chamber which Ruff and Tuff kept trying to make. There was a small window on his right where light was streaming in from, and where a chilly wind blew in from. Yep, I'm definitely on a ship. Hiccup noticed water outside the ship.

"You've finally woken up," a tenor voice sounded from outside the chamber.

Hiccup turned his head in the direction of the sound. In the doorway of the chamber stood a man who did not look like a Viking at all. In fact, he looked like he came from the Far East; Hiccup has seen one or two people who came from there so he could recognise the look. He was middle-aged, and had wrinkles on his forehead. His eyes were thoughtful and the edges of his mouth revealed a small smirk. Hiccup could not tell if the smirk was menacing or merely his natural face. He was clad in the same clothes that Hiccup was wearing, except he was wearing a fur coat as well. His shiny metal armour covered his shoulders and the top of his arms, as well as his entire chest. There were purple stripes spanning across the armour diagonally from the top left to the bottom right. He also wore armour for his legs, which had black stripes running from the top of the armour to his feet.

"Who are you?" Hiccup asked, scowling at the man in the doorway.

"Oh, pardon my manners," the man continued in a heavy accent, "I have an Eastern name, but ever since I came to this area I've taken up a much simpler name. You can call me Krizzen. Krizzen… Chan."

Silence ensued between them.

"Okay, it's not the most menacing second name but I was born with it. I'm also known as Krizzen the Conqueror too," Krizzen continued.

Silence ensued between them.

"Alright, I know Krizzen starts with a K, and conqueror starts with a C, but it sounds the same okay?"

His style of speech greatly reminded Hiccup of Dagur. He spoke his words quickly; Hiccup thought it sounded more like rambling, and it was eccentric, to say the least.

After a short pause, Hiccup asked warily. "What do you want?"

Krizzen chuckled. "Simple. The dragons. I've been told that they're no longer with Berk, but are at some hidden world or something. I want to know where that is"

That was something Hiccup had not heard in a long time, in fact he had not heard it since Grimmel had attacked Berk. This was enough to shock him and cause him to fall speechless for a moment.

"Yo, you there? Hello?" Krizzen's voice shook Hiccup out of his thoughts and back into the real world.

"Why do you want them?"

"World dominion. I'm not known as Krizzen the Conqueror for nothing," he scowled.

"Well I'm not giving them up so easily." Hiccup said in the toughest voice possible.

"I expected that," Krizzen let out a disappointed sigh. "So I've gotta use these bad boys." He waved his right hand to the table of tools. Hiccup shifted his glare from Krizzen to the table of tools he saw earlier. That was when he finally realised what was on the table. The table was not loaded with simple tools, they were loaded with tools that could cause… pain. Extreme pain.

Dread began to swell up in Hiccup's chest. He suddenly felt extremely vulnerable in the position he was in, hands chained to the ceiling, leaving his entire body exposed. A cold chill ran down his spine. His eyes widened in horror and he gulped at the sight of the tools, fully understanding what Krizzen meant. Krizzen noticed the change in Hiccup's behaviour and let out a small chuckle.

"I see you understand what I mean."

Hiccup shook his head to clear his mind. Managing to shake off the feelings of dread, he straightened his face, continuing his cold glare at Krizzen.

Krizzen sauntered over to the table, running his right hand over the tools. There were knives, whips, hooks, daggers, tiny containers containing who knows what, and more. His hand slowly ran over the tools, finally stopping at a whip. He picked it up and walked over to Hiccup. Placing a strong left hand on Hiccup's face, he leaned in close to Hiccup. "You've one more chance to talk, or my friend in my right hand here-" he whipped the wooden floor for good effect, creating a loud whipping and cracking sound, "will explore your body," he hissed in Hiccup's face. Hiccup turned his face sharply to his right, hitting Krizzen's hand away in a show of defiance, and continued to glare into the cold light blue eyes of Krizzen.

Krizzen retracted his hand, and putting both of them behind his back, he looked at Hiccup keenly, waiting for a response, but when none came, he let out another disappointed sigh while closing his eyes and drooping his head as though he has admitted defeat.

"Well, you leave me no choice," he said as he walked around Hiccup's left side, stopping towards the back left corner of the chamber.

He raised his right hand and the whip in said hand over his head, and got ready to strike. Hiccup closed his eyes and tucked his head into his neck as best as he could, bracing himself for the impact. He knew that whipping was a very painful experience, as he had heard from other people who had suffered. He knew that the new clothes he had would do nothing to protect his back. He knew that there would be scars on his back, and he knew that the pain would be almost unbearable.

But he knew that he could not reveal the location of the Hidden World, no matter what.

He steeled himself for the impact, expecting the worst. Despite all he had done however, he was not ready for the sharp pain that permeated his entire body. The loud crack of the whip rang through his ears, followed by a searing pain. It felt like his flesh was ripped from his skin in the most brutal way possible. The rope licked his back, ripping off some of the skin and exposing the flesh underneath. He screamed in pain, despite his best efforts to hold back any sound. And this was only one stroke, he thought to himself.

He tried to distract himself from the pain. He thought of Astrid, of her beauty, her beautiful blonde hair-

CRACK.

The second strike hit him squarely on the back, snapping him out of his thoughts. The searing pain was back, and more of his skin was torn off his back. It overlapped a bit with the first strike, hitting the raw exposed flesh and sending sharp pains down Hiccup's back. Instinct caused him to jerk his back as much as he could, and he let out another blood curdling scream.

Blow after blow rained down on his back, so much till the point he had lost count after seventeen because the pain was too much to handle. After what felt like an eternity, an eternity of torment and pain, the blows stopped and Krizzen walked back in front of Hiccup, the whip in his hand coated with some blood. He looked straight at the Berkian chief. His head was facing the floor, and he was panting heavily. Small whines and groans of pain continued to escape his mouth, and he shuddered now and then as the sting of the whip continued to race down his back even though the blows had stopped. The thin material covering his back had tears in the shape of the whip all over, and his back was red and raw from the whipping, blood oozing out of some of the deeper cuts.

Krizzen gripped Hiccup's chin tightly and lifted his head upwards, forcing Hiccup to look into his eyes. A pained grunt escaped his lips when Krizzen jerked his head up quickly. His emerald green eyes showed fear and pain for a moment, but he quickly hid it by changing to a look of defiance and anger. Krizzen leaned in close such that his mouth was beside Hiccup's ear, and hissed menacingly, "and this is only the beginning if you don't tell me what I want to know."

He released Hiccup's head, letting it slump back downwards. With a tight slap across his face, he turned on his heel and walked out of the room.

Hiccup winced in pain. The whipping has left him in a constant state of pain. Every time he took a breath, there was the chance that the shirt would touch one of the whip marks, which would cause him to shudder. Some of the wounds were slightly deeper and were bleeding since the whip tore the skin and then the flesh from the multiple blows. He let out another pained whine and turned his head towards the window on his right, a longing look replacing the anger and fear in his eyes. I hope they know where I am, he thought. Astrid… where are you, I need you to save me… again.