"I grew up on tales about the first two Dragon Riders. The stories would be the same, but they always left me excited for the next one. The stories were about the Night Rider and the Shadow Rider, along with their dragons. The Night Rider wore dark armor; so dark people confused him with the darkness of the night. His dragon was the same as the Rider. It hid in the shadows, and he usually talked out of situations, a force to be reckoned with his partner, The Shadow Rider. She was so powerful, she was told to be the strongest, most fierce warrior in the Archipelago. The two went everywhere and saved people while protecting dragons and fighting off Dragon Hunters and haters everywhere. They lived in a place called Dragons Edge, which is where my parents got the idea to name our home: Sanctuary's Edge. After a time, the stories became myths, and now they have become whispers. But now...the time of the Dragon Riders has come once again."
A day before/a week after Battleworld
Fog covered a ship in the night in the middle of the ocean as a man walked amongst the deck, passing cages, a lantern in his hand. He rapped on one of the cages when something growled inside.
It was a dragon. All the cages they were carrying were filled with dragons.
"Quiet!" He looks around and watches as a bright orange flame lit up the darkness as the man saw a dark shadow in the shape of a man, holding a flaming sword. "What are you?!"
The shadow made a shh gesture with his finger. "Shh!"
The man gasped as he turned around and saw a black dragon slink its way off of the top of one of the cages. In a moment of panic, he raced to the man and notices his armor, but the masked figure was able to fight him back with his sword. The man dropped his lantern and it shattered on impact, setting fire to the deck.
The man screamed as the two intruders walked through the fire as if it were nothing to them.
"AAH! You're a demon!" He shrieks.
The shadow raised his hand in surrender. "Shh! Shh, shh, shh! No, no! I'm not a demon! I'm not a demon!" He pushed up his helmet, revealing Hiccup. "See? Just a guy! Just a guy. And I'm here to rescue these dragons, so…" he gestured to the cages around him, but the man continued to panic.
"But you walked through fire!" He points to Hiccup.
Hiccup rubbed the shoulder pauldron of his armor made from Toothless' skin. "Dragon Scales! Dragons shed a lot."
The man shook his head, backing up even more. "No, I know a demon when I see one! No human legs are that skinny." He turns to run away but is met by a Monstrous Nightmare.
"Was that a hot entrance or what?" Snotlout asks when his backside is set on fire, and he starts screaming and running around the ship.
"More demons!" The guard shrieked.
"Actually, it's just a nitwit who forgot to fireproof his butt." Hiccup corrected him when Snotlout gets blasted by Barf and Belch.
"Behold, your worst nightmare!" Tuffnut says before removing his mask. "Along with his sister, who insisted on coming."
"That's my intro?" Ruffnut asks as she removes her mask.
"Guys, too soon. You always come in too soon. How long have we been doing this?" Hiccup asks them, thinking that by now they would be getting this as Fishlegs comes in falling.
"Sorry, still getting the hang of my wings." Fishlegs apologizes and Hiccup sees he brought one of Meatlug's babies with him.
"Fishlegs, again with the baby?" Hala asks as she and Scarlett land. "This is a raid."
"I couldn't find a sitter." Fishlegs defends as the guard goes running but gets his face smacked in by someone with a double blade ax slamming him into the cage.
"He's gonna be fine." A person wearing an all-silver armor says and removes her hood to reveal Heather as Windshear also joins them.
"Heather. I had him where I wanted him." Hiccup complained with a smile as she walked up to him.
"And you got him where I wanted him," Heather replies and places her ax to her back before pecking his lips and raising her hood back up. "Now let's get to work and get back home."
Hiccup nodded, waving down the other dragons. All of which had riders of their own in their dragon scale armor.
They set to work, unlocking the cages, freeing all the dragons on the boat unknowing they were being scouted from the other end.
"Is that all of them?" Hala asks Hiccup after they release every cage and dragon.
"Yeah, that's the last of them." Hiccup promises when more guards come out and start attacking everyone.
Once freed, the dragons would rest and recover at Sanctuary's Edge before being bonded with riders from all over the Archipelago. Those who were not bonded with someone in a month or didn't want to stay would be set free to go anywhere they choose.
Hiccup glanced around, checking all the cages. "We're good! Let's move out!"
"Attack!" They see guards have spotted them and come charging and the Riders all begin to fight them off from all sides.
"I thought this was supposed to be just a stealth mission." Heather reminds Hiccup.
"Yeah, they always start that way, when do they ever stay that?" Hiccup asks when Windshear saved them from some other guards coming from their backs.
Toothless glowed a bright blue, taking command of the dragons before Hiccup climbed on his back, and everyone took flight.
"Fishlegs, Astrid, Ruff, and Tuff! Get the dragons back to Berk. Snotlout, and Shadow, you're with me. We're going to make sure we're not followed."
Hiccup waved to his friends as Snotlout called to him. "What are we gonna do? I'm itchin' for a fight here!"
"Just follow my lead." Hiccup replied, before nudging Toothless down. The Night Fury in question shot several blasts of plasma, knocking down one of the masts with one of them, while Snotlout started setting the ships on fire with Hookfang.
"That's our cue," Heather says, seeing everyone is free. "Clear out, guys. Go, go!" She tells the dragons and riders as she runs to the edge of the deck and gets picked up by Windshear at the last second as the second Night Fury picks up Hala and they fly off back home.
"Nice work team!" Hiccup says as they fly off. "I guess."
"Night Rider!" "Shadow Rider!" They could hear the guards cry out as they flew away.
Back at Sanctuary's Edge, Hope Haddock was resting, with no memory of her death, or even the incursion of the multiverse, her auburn hair currently all around her in a crazed manner.
"You see her? The girl with the bad bed hair? That's me. Hope Haddock. Great name, I know. My parents said they named me that because I was the one thing that brought Hope to their lives. Honestly, I think it's because they settled for it after my father wanted to name me Zephyr, and my mother wanted to name me Dawn."
She was then awakened when someone started clobbering her roof and she is woken up as she looks at her ceiling annoyed by what was happening and quickly got up and fixes her hair before she heads outside and she is met by her dragon, the Razorfury: Delta.
"That's Delta. She's one of the four offspring of my father's dragon, Toothless, and my mother's Razorwhip, Windshear. They're named Blu, Delta, Charlie, and Echo. But Delta and I have always had a close relationship ever since we were small, so she was the one I bonded with. They're part of a new class we call the Hybrid Class of dragons."
"Well, good morning, Miss Bossy." Hope greets her dragon who leaps off the roof and licks her Rider. "Hey! Come on! You know that's hard to wash out!" She laughs as she tries to pry the dragon off of her to no avail. "Come on, you want to get flying or not?"
Later, the two are flying through the air and Hope looks down to the place she has called home for years. She takes a quick flight over the Enchanted Forest and notices her aunt Elsa riding the Water Spirit who waves up to her niece who waved in return.
Hope was growing to almost eighteen, and her hair was usually always tied into one big braid behind her head as to not get in the way as she flies. How her mother does it, she will never know. She was wearing a flight suit that was based on her father's designs as she takes after him in many ways. Like her father, Hope doesn't like getting into physical fights, but thanks to her mother's training, it doesn't mean she will back down from them either.
"This is my home: Sanctuary's Edge. For what we don't have in population, we make up for in neighbors. Most of the people who come to see us are from either the Enchanted Forest or Arendelle. Sadly, it also means I was never really exposed to other children my age. But I did spend a lot of time with my uncle/Aunt Ruffnut and Tuffnut. I'm told they act like children."
Hope flies around and wonders where her parents are since they're usually up and flying around this time of day and just decides to fly until she found them or someone who knew where they were.
Out in the distance, Hiccup, Hala, and Heather were leading the new dragons to their home where Elsa saw them with their new herd of dragons while the others were making sure they didn't fall behind.
"This is Sanctuary's Edge. If the title is too misleading, it's your new home away from home." Hiccup tells the dragons. "A stunning, one-stop, all-expense-paid dream destination."
"So, settle in and let your worries melt away." Hala continues with her brother as they start flying around their home.
"The service here soars, the cuisine is fiery. And the locals are as colorful as you can get." Heather says as they fly past a few locals who start waving happily at their leaders and the new dragons.
"Any run-of-the-mill paradise boasts beaches and sunshine. Well, not us. We've got something no one else can touch. We, my friends, have dragons." Hiccup says and lands on a new invention they created a few years back to help dragons land and not hurt anyone that they land on, and the stacks turn so they get closer to the ground.
"Lots...and lots of dragons," Hala says as she also lands on the stand as they all land and are greeted by some visitors from the Enchanted Forest and Arendelle.
"Gang, meet our latest neighbors." Hiccup introduces the new dragons that were swarmed by locals with gifts for the newcomers.
"Yeah, you're welcome." Snotlout starts boasting about the raid that failed as stealth mostly because of him and drops his helmet on a passing kid. "Took on like a hundred trappers. A thousand!"
"All with burning undies." Ruffnut states.
"My thick, full beard almost caught on fire," Tuffnut yells, even though his beard is just his hair tied under his chin.
"Ugh, just...just stop." Ruffnut rolls her eyes in annoyance at her twin. Some things never change.
"Please, I also beg of you." Hala pleads as Shortstuff lands on her shoulder pad when Snotlout strolled over to her trying to act casual.
"So, Hala, any notes on my bone-crushing assault, or was it pretty much perfect?" Snotlout asks at another attempt to flirt with her, and he isn't getting the hint.
"Oh, it was indescribable," Hala tells him in a sarcastic tone.
"I think the real hero of the day was Toothless," Hiccup says as he approaches his dragon. "Isn't that right, bud? What would we do without you, O king of dragons?" He asks while scratching his dragon's chin who purrs in response to the attention.
"Well, we could train a lot harder, for one," Astrid says and turns to her team. "That was pretty sloppy."
"I agree, but for now, we better get going," Heather tells Hiccup who agrees as the Berk team goes to get some rest before flying back home.
Astrid left Erret in charge of Berk while they were away and there's only so much, he can do without being overwhelmed without some form of help.
Hiccup and Heather walked past the eating area for dragons and see it's starting to be a bit overcrowded, meaning it might be time to expand the place for more dragons.
"We need to get around to those redesigns," Heather informed Hiccup who couldn't agree more just when a flock of Terrible Terrors flies overhead and they duck to avoid getting hit. "This place is getting seriously crowded."
"Yeah, I agree, but we still need to figure out where these new trappers are coming from before we let any of them go." Hiccup reminded Heather as these weren't the first trappers to resurface recently and they don't wanna risk these dragons running into them again.
"I'm wondering who's supplying them?" Heather asks. "They shouldn't have anyone buying them or whatever they're doing with them. There's no one left in the Archipelago that sees dragons as a threat."
"Well, we should focus on our utopia here for the time being." Hiccup supposed and they find their daughter and have their breakfast with their kid in the castle back st Arendelle with Elsa and the rest of the family.
"Mom! Dad!" Hope was happy to have finally found them as she dropped off Delta and raced over. "Where were you guys?"
"We just went for a flight out of the edge for a while, and we found a few more injured dragons on the way." Hiccup lied as they all went to enjoy some well-deserved breakfast.
