As soon as those dragons were released it was utter chaos in the ring. 8 students, 8 dragons. This couldn't possibly get any worse. They were all questioning Gobber's teaching methods now. In the ring were a lot of different dragon types, Hunter knew them all. He studied a lot during his home-schooling. There were 2 Gronckles, 3 Nightmares, a Rumblehorn, a Nadder, and a Zippleback. Wonderful. The others were terrified but Hunter and Heather just looked around wondering where to start. Everyone had been excited for this course until now where Gobber was throwing them into the fire so to speak. "Hunter, watch out!" Astrid yelled in fear. Hunter looked as the Nadder shot its spines at him, he jumped back avoiding them. "Are you alright?"

"Fine. Heather! Lets do it." Hunter called to her.

"Got it." Heather nodded as everyone blinked wondering what they were doing. Both of them raised their hands to their mouths and let out a loud roar, the others dragons stopped racing around and stood still. Hunter and Heather lowered their hands and smiled at one another after high fiving.

"What the hell?" Their friends asked.

"Dragon calls. Don't tell me you never learned them here?" Heather smiled.

"Good work you two. What dragon call was that?" Gobber questioned now coming inside the ring.

"Night Fury." Heather and Hunter said together.

"No Night Fury has been seen since the dragon racer, Shadow showed up with his. You two watch?" Eric asked curiously.

"Who doesn't watch dragon racing? Night Furies are Strike class, and known to be the most elite of any other dragon known to man from knowledge to speed. They are considered an alpha species so the other dragons won't challenge it." Hunter explained, the others blinked.

"You can talk about dragon racing later, this is class time. Well done calming them down but it won't work forever when they realize there is no Night Fury around." Gobber said.

"Well you shouldn't of thrown us all in here with them. Makes it too chaotic...Really, Gobber?" Hunter rolled his eyes.

"I was just testing yer skills lad." Gobber chuckled.

"You mean trying to kill us...Do you know how dangerous that was? Should of been one at a time." Heather remarked.

"I won't do it again. So what's the next step, anyone know?" Gobber asked.

"Bonding. The process where a dragon and a human earn one each others trust and establish a bond between them. One that can never be broken." Hunter said.

"Correct. How would one begin such a process?" Gobber questioned.

"By earning a dragon's trust and seeing if the bond is established. You know the bond is made when the dragon places its snout in the human's palm." Astrid added.

"Very good Miss. Hofferson." Gobber nodded. "Demonstrate?"

"I'll try..." Astrid said nervously as she looked around the ring for what dragon to try with, she saw the Nadder. Beautiful female with blue, yellow, and red. White underside. 'Okay, think Astrid...' She told herself as she looked over the Nadder again and reached for a fish in the bucket, she held it out slowly to the dragon. "Hi there girl...I'm Astrid. You're really beautiful." The Nadder squawked calmer at her, "I'm not going to hurt you, I promise...Maybe we can be friends? What do you say?" Astrid said gently, the Nadder leaned forward sniffing her then accepted the fish from her hands. It ate it down then looked over Astrid before nuzzling against her face. 'Time to see if she'll bond with me...' Astrid took a breath as she put her palm out to the Nadder and it didn't respond. Astrid frowned a bit.

"Turn your head and close your eyes with your hand out." Hunter said, Astrid looked at him a little confused but she closed her eyes and turned her head away with her palm out. It took a moment but Astrid felt the Nadder's snout to her open palm, Astrid looked to see the Nadder's eyes closed too.

"Well I think that's bonding right there. Good work, Astrid. Why don't you name her since she's yours now. End of the year these dragons get to leave with you. And you can start riding them to and from school once we cover flying and riding but that is not until the second half of the year." Gobber smiled.

"Stormfly." Astrid smiled as the Nadder pressed against Astrid's cheek gently with a purr of content.

"I think she likes it." Heather giggled. Astrid faced Hunter now, curious as to why he would suggest turning the head with the eyes closed. Its like he knew the bonding process, oh well. She could ask later.

"Alright, you two move off to the side and let the rest try." Gobber said, Astrid and Stormfly moved off to the edge of the ring and sat down watching as the others tried with the remaining dragons. Eric bonded to the Rumblehorn who he called Skullcrusher, Fredrick bonded to Meatlug, a brown Gronckle. The twins were sharing a Zippleback that they named Barf and Belch. Each head had its own name, Barf was Rylee's and Belch was Travis's. Shaun was trying with a very stubborn Nightmare. Hunter and Heather hadn't bonded yet either, but neither if them seemed worried about it.

"This dragon is so stubborn. How am I supposed to know if he'll bond to me if he won't sit still!" Shaun grumbled. Hunter walked over to him now with his hands on his hips.

"Need a little help?" Hunter offered.

"Please?" Shaun pleaded, Hunter chuckled as he grabbed a fish from the bucket. "I tried that, he just spit it out..." Shaun said.

Hunter waved the fish in front of the Nightmare's face as it opened its mouth to grab it and follow the movements Hunter made, with the mouth open now Hunter could see the problem, a bad tooth. Hunter reached in real fast and pulled it out, the Nightmare roared flaming up, then it moved its jaw a bit and calmed down dousing its flame and nuzzling against Hunter's cheek with a purr. "Heh, you are welcome." Hunter said as he tossed him the fish and the Nightmare ate it happily. "Try now." Hunter said.

"If you...say so." Shaun replied as he reached his hand out with the palm up, his head turned and eyes closed. Not more than a second later, he felt the Nightmare's scaly skin against his palm.

"And this guy is now your bonded dragon. Give him a name, Shaun..." Hunter smiled.

"Hmm...How about Hookfang." The Nightmare smiled almost, "Yeah, you like that boy. Alright, Hookfang it is." Shaun laughed.

"Good work Hunter. But don't be doing that again, yer father would kill me if I had to explain his son was missin an arm." Gobber said. "So everyone bonded but yew two..."

"Don't worry about us. We know we'll bond eventually." Heather smiled softly as she looked at Hunter who nodded agreeing.

"Well I guess you two can use these for now for trainin purposes." Gobber motioned to the Nightmare and Gronckle remaining.

"Fine with us. You want the Nightmare or the Gronckle sis?" Hunter asked Heather.

"I'll take the Gronckle." Heather replied, Hunter nodded as he moved to the Nightmare who rubbed against his face. The Gronckle happily licked Heather's face and purred.

"Good then! Starting tomorrow we work on hand signals, dragon calls, and more." Gobber stated. "The rest of the time you can just sit around and talk I guess but pur yer dragons away in the stables."

"Aye sir." They all said leaving the ring with their dragons towards the stables, everyone picked a stall and put their dragon away, Gobber came by with a roll of tape so they could label them with their name and then their dragon's name. Hunter named the Nightmare he would be working with Torch, and Heather named the Gronckle, Obsidian. When all that was taken care of, the group sat around in the grass relaxing until the bell rang in 15 minutes.

"Alright so I gotta ask since no one else is...How did you two know the Night Fury call would settle the dragons down?" Eric asked.

"Didn't we already explain this?" Heather asked.

"Not really." Travis added in.

"The Night Fury is an alpha species dragon. As such being an alpha, other dragons shall we say...bow down to it. They won't challenge a Night Fury, its roar is law. Lack of a better word." Hunter shrugged.

"And how did you know about the hand thing? Turning your head with your palm up isn't something we learned in the last 2 years..." Astrid questioned.

"We took our courses elsewhere, and the trainers there taught us that one. Turning your head with your eyes closed means your giving the dragon your trust that it won't hurt you and the palm up means you won't hurt it." Heather smiled softly.

"That's so cool." Rylee beamed.

"Alright, so I have to ask now...Why is he here? Two years ago he couldn't stand us..." Hunter questioned pointing to Eric.

"After you two disappeared, Rylee developed a crush on him and he was always flirting with her. They started dating middle of sophomore year." Travis replied.

"And after that he just joined up with our group." Shaun said.

{Astrid's POV}

I was beyond thrilled Hunter and Heather were back but something wasn't right. Hunter and Heather were different, still looked and talked the same but their behavior, and actions were different. How had they gotten close enough to a Night Fury to learn that its roar was law to other dragons? The only Night Fury seen in the last 300 years belonged to a dragon racer who went by the name of Shadow, this was a rider who wore all black and gray, a mask too. He was the only rider who wore a mask actually. His dragon's name was Toothless and those two were definitely best friends. Fans believed the two could actually communicate but in interviews Shadow only said that he just understand Toothless. Whatever that was supposed to mean. I kept running over their story in my head, the one they gave us at lunch about why they disappeared for two years.

Heather's mom died, she was adopted as Heather Haddock and lived with Hunter, and his parents who all picked up and moved because the house wasn't big enough for the 4 of them? And then they two were home-schooled by Hunter's dad for 2 years because Heather didn't want to face anyone. And now they were back because Hunter's dad was now the principal of Berk Academy. Sure it was believable, but I still felt like something was off. I guess it didn't matter, Hunter was back now and I would have my chance to tell him how I felt about him. First chance alone we got, I wasn't going to wait. I'd waited two years. I looked at him, he was smiling and talking with our friends. It was like nothing had changed, like he hadn't been gone for so long. It felt good.

"So you two said you like dragon racing?" Rylee asked.

"Who doesn't?" Heather smiled.

"Who is your favorite?" Travis questioned.

"I'm between Deranged Spark and Shadow. They both have amazing dragons." I answered, "But I guess if I had to pick between the two, its Shadow. Nothing beats a Night Fury, fastest dragon known to man and he's never lost a race either."

"Did you know that the Night Fury's speed can break the sound barrier?" Heather asked.

"Must be true going against Deranged Spark's Skrill, Shocker." Eric offered.

"Shadow is one lucky guy, I wonder how he found a Night Fury though...I mean this guy randomly joined the races about 18 months ago and stole all the hearts of the Archipelago." Rylee giggled.

"Who knows." Hunter shrugged.

"Wouldn't it be awesome if he went to school with us!" I beamed happily. They looked at me confused, "Come on, he can't be older than us. He has to be a high schooler, Deranged Spark is. His real name is Damien Lanvock, he attends Berserker High. The other riders are in college I think." I explained.

"I guess it would be cool to think that Shadow could be someone among us, but hiding a Night Fury couldn't be easy. People have tried to find the stable where Shadow keeps him but no luck." Shaun shrugged.

"Maybe he doesn't want everyone to constantly bother his dragon because he's the only Night Fury found in 300 years, at least according to legend." Hunter replied calmly now. I looked over at him, strange answer. Maybe he wasn't as big on dragon racing as Heather and the rest of us were.

"Well if he didn't want to be in the spotlight then maybe he shouldn't be racing." Travis remarked.

"Ever cross your mind that he's a simple guy like any of us and racing is his hobby?" Hunter arched a brow at everyone as he sighed getting up.

"If that's true then why not take off the mask and show everyone who he is?" Eric asked.

"Because he's a famous racer and if everyone knew who he was, they wouldn't leave him in peace or his dragon. So he keeps concealed to have a normal life. No one know what he looks like, so that makes it easy for him to blend in with a normal crowd and not rise suspicions about who he is." Hunter stated as Heather glanced up at him. The bell rang and we all got up too thinking about what Hunter said. It was true, if Shadow was a high schooler then he raced concealed so no one would harass him or his dragon. But still, it was weird to everyone why he would want to be a famous racer but not show anyone who is under the mask. What was the point of being famous if you didn't live in the spotlight and let everyone know who you were. It didn't make sense but whatever, it was the guys choice.

There was a rustling in the trees as we all froze, Gobber wasn't there anymore so it couldn't of been him and we were on the forest edge, a good mile from the school. We all looked to see a large dragon, covered in metal with green eyes emerge. "No way. It's a Razorwhip!" Fredrick exclaimed happily.

Heather approached the dragon and put her hand out as the the Razorwhip instantly pressed her snout to her palm and we all gasped. "Windshear, you were supposed to stay at home girl..." Heather smiled as the dragon nuzzled against Heather's cheek. Our eyes went wide, this dragon was...Heather's bonded dragon.

"I guess she wanted to make sure you were alright since you've been with her the two years and then we came back here." Hunter smiled as he rubbed Windshear's head.

"Woah woah, what the hell is going on here!" We all yelled in shock.