CHAPTER 1: Grugg Hawkon

Here's a fun fact that none of you might've known. And it's a fact only ever known by Stoick the Vast and he kept it hidden solely on the basis he had no reason to share it with anyone. Not even Hiccup. There was another island akin to Berk. It was much more rounded and steep, and consisted of levels of villages with rural communities of vikings. You've just read that right. There's another island of vikings akin to Berk. And it was based in a direction adjacent to Berk. This whole time.

Why didn't Stoick ever reveal their existence during the war between his tribe and Drago, or generally whilst he was alive? because this tribe wanted nothing to do with the outside world, to an extent. They were simply comforted in protecting their own, staying out of conflicts, and living their lives whilst avoiding the chaos and the battles of brutal war. They were literally called the Pacifist Tribe. The name didn't lie, and because they were a peaceful tribe, Stoick saw them as nothing more than an innocent island who'd pose no threat in the immediate future or in the future at all. He knew their tribe quite well, he knew their chief(s) pretty well, and he made an agreement at the time never to disclose their location.

They were uniquely anti-war and conflict, which made them distinct from the other tribes surrounding them on the archipelago.

Stoick deliberately insisted on Hiccup and Toothless at the time to not go in that direction of their island, adjacent to Berk, and he made the same suggestions to everyone else with dragons who had a desire to explore the archipelago. None of this ever crossed Hiccup's mind, as to why his father had casually thrown in the suggestion not to explore a specific direction, and as a result, the Pacifist Tribe were never ever discovered. Not even Grimmel or Drago knew of their existence.

There was an aspect of the Pacifist Tribe that firmly drew a line between them and the other tribes of this world too. Democracy.

The tribe didn't have one lone chief because every four years, they held elections across their island to choose their next chief. People who wanted to stand to be chiefs had to have been members of the tribe for at least two years, and needed combat experience and to generally be capable of leadership, strength, and difficult decisions. The elections were held in wooden ballot boxes across the island, and it was a first and second round vote.

The first round involved a maximum of ten candidates standing to be chief. The top two who earned the most votes were then put forwards to a second round a week after the first ballot. That way, the people were able to have a fully fair choice between the two most preferred candidates out of a plethora to begin with.

Their whole system operated under their pacifist banner. They wanted no conflicts, no war, and in keeping with that mindset they also wanted to operate their tribe internally in a way that matched up to their outside view of the world. Fairness, peacefulness, and dignity. Having elections unlike any other tribe on the archipelago helped them to live up to that proud self-acknowledged reputation.

It's on the basis of this previously unknown tribe that a former Hooligan comes into play. His name was Grugg Hawkon, and to say he was vengeful, outraged, and feeling betrayed by the people he once fought with was an understatement. His backstory led him to become utterly humiliated in the eyes of his former viking brethren and his views had since spiralled into a 'superior race' type of perspective on the world.

Returning to the day that Hiccup woke up from his slumber after losing his leg in the battle against the Red Death...

It was a warm day as Hiccup emerged out of his hut after emerging from his life-dangering slumber following the loss of his leg in the battle against the Red Death. Stepping outside into the sunlight, he took in the brand new environment of Berk as dragons were working with and alongside the many Berkians.

"Come on guys, get ready! Hold on tight! Here we go!" yelled Snotlout, flying on his newly named dragon, Hookfang.

Hiccup could be seen outside the front of his hut shockingly looking at the brand new world surrounding him. It wasn't dragons fighting humans, it was dragons working with, befriending, and bonding with humans. From the wooden structure in the middle of the set of huts carrying fish which were being feasted on by a couple of dragons, to a group of Nadders making the top of another hut their territory as they congregated together, to dragons wandering the village paths, Hiccup couldn't take his eyes off the spectacle.

"Hey look, it's Hiccup!" one viking yelled, as everyone stopped what they were doing to gather around the hero of the village, a massive contrast to his personality and reputation previously, prior to his triumph over the Red Death with him and Toothless.

Stoick held his son by the shoulder proudly as everyone gathered around the son and father like celebrities. Their voices mixed in with each other as they tried asking Hiccup if he was okay, the loudness of their voices being the equivalent of a stadium of a thousand people.

"Turns out all we needed was a little more of...this.." Stoick said to Hiccup, as everyone congregated around him out of gratefulness, relief and excitement.

Behind the gathering crowds of vikings, a mother and father couldn't believe what was happening. The people they knew, the vikings they liked and worked alongside all those years, they couldn't believe how easily they were succumbing to what was, in their view, an appeasement of the beasts. They watched on with disgust from near Hiccup's hut. They were supposed to be FIGHTING dragons, not making friends with them.

"Son...this is going to have dire consequences. What is Stoick thinking here?" the father asked.

The son in question looked up at his dad. Grugg Hawkon was as outraged as his dad and mum were. Their tribe wasn't the viking fighting machine it was under the peak days of the war, it had merely become an appeasement nest to the dragons. Grugg Hawkon, the fourteen year old boy, wearing his steel helmet feeling betrayed by his own chief as were his parents, had no words to explain the situation.

Maybe that was normal, because he was just fourteen, but he was angry. He was sceptical about this so-called 'peace'. After what the dragons did to him and his parents and their ancestors before then, and their ancestors before them. There was no way their family could accept them.

"Dad...I don't know...I'm scared..." Grugg said, trembling at the lips, horrified that they're forced to suddenly pretend the dragons were their friends after all of the conflict, all of the intimidating attacks, fires, and aggressiveness.

"One day son, you're going to grow up and do something about it. Stoick is our chief and your mother and I respect him, as you should, but one day you're going to right the wrong in this world, this being the biggest wrong of all."

The family continued watching on as Astrid concluded with a kiss to Hiccup. Watching the teens jump onto their respective dragons from afar, Astrid with a Deadly Nadder called Stormfly, and Hiccup on the newly named Night Fury, Toothless, Grugg Hawkon and his parents felt humiliated and ashamed; all of those years of warfare, put to an end so people could succumb and appease to the dragons and ride them like a delivery cart.

Returning to the day of Drago's defeat, with Hiccup and Toothless finally taking their respective positions as leaders of their own kind.

The Bewilderbeast was defeated. Berk was safe from Drago's wrath. Toothless and Hiccup landed back onto the island taking in the defeat, to a roar of cheers from the delighted Hooligan tribe. Hiccup and his mum stood besides Toothless as the newly crowned alpha watched numerous dragons land around his vicinity in the midst of the delighted cheers of the vikings. The dragons circled around their new alpha.

Toothless couldn't help but look around in all directions as all reptilian eyes looked at him. Then, in a moment of symbolism, Cloudjumper arrived, making a swift landing in front of the crowd of vikings. Walking up to Toothless and standing before him, Cloudjumper took a dignified bow, acknowledging the new status of Toothless. The Night Fury straightened his chest up and closed his eyes with a smile that he couldn't wipe off, enjoying the moment of recognition.

Soon enough, all of the dragons around were bowing to their new alpha.

Culminating the moment, Toothless had let off a masculine, calling roar, to which all of the dragons responded with roars of respect. Toothless looked on as the air became filled with dragon roars of respect, smiling with an open mouth.

Walking up to his best pal, Toothless closed his eyes as Hiccup embraced his dragon.

"You never cease to amaze me bud, thank you," Hiccup whispered, thankful for Toothless.

Laughter began echoing through the air as Toothless tackled Hiccup to the ground, licking him endlessly. To which Hiccup quoted one of his most famous phrases, one that doesn't even need repeating given how known it was to that point.

A short while after, Hiccup was crowned the new Chief of Berk. Cheers from the usual friends could be heard as the dragons raised their heads and blasted heated fires into the air that resembled fireworks, banging with thuds appropriate to the significance of Hiccup's new position. Life was good.

"No..no..no..NO, NO, NO, NO, NO!" a battered, emotionally damaged, humiliated and grieving Grugg Hawkon yelled, watching on from an elevated part of the landscape the moment between Toothless and Hiccup and the subsequent crowning of Haddock as the new chief.

He couldn't bear being anywhere near what was going on right now, not after what happened to him. He found himself on this elevated bit of land where he got a clear overview of the moment whilst staying isolated. Everyone on Berk was happy that Drago was defeated and freedom was saved as were dragons, but Grugg Hawkon had different priorities. He didn't see any of this through that lens, not in the slightest.

The fireworks set off by the dragons didn't make him flinch as he kept looking down at the gathering of vikings and dragons, even in his saddened state.

"Mum...dad...come back, please..." he further spoke, his eyes as red as tomatoes as he collapsed to his knees, sinking his entire face into the grass.

Losing your mum and dad in a battle could possibly be the most dreaded outcome of any fight. Grugg Hawkon, now 19 years old, never even got to see his mum and dad as they went out to fight to protect Berk. Not for Hiccup, not for the dragons, but to preserve Berk for the day their son would return the past to the present, no dragons, no conflicts, nothing. But they'd no longer be around to see him accomplish such a thing.

Hawkon looked up and he didn't just look, he glared with beaming rage at Hiccup as he and Astrid hugged and kissed. The sheer audacity of Hiccup to be celebrating what he's done not just to himself but to everyone here, he felt like a volcano waiting to explode. The way Hawkon saw it, it wasn't Drago's fault that everything culminated in a battle between him and Hiccup's tribe and the dragons, it was Hiccup's fault.

It was Hiccup's fault because of the peace he made with the dragons. He believed that in making peace with the dragons it'd cause outrage across the archipelago that such a notion could ever be achieved. Hiccup brought this on the tribe, on himself, and because his parents fought in the battle against Drago's men, he had an even bigger reason to view the cause of the conflict between the Hooligans and Drago as Hiccup's own fault.

Hawkon lost his mum and dad because of Hiccup's antics in his view. It was only a matter of when, not if, that someone would attack because of his alliance with the dragons. He didn't blame Drago for their death at all.

But equally, he saw Drago as an enemy too, but not because of what you'd expect. He saw Drago as the enemy too because he, like Hiccup, utilised dragons to get what he wanted. To start the conflict. He could understand Drago attacking if it was because of an alliance with the dragons that humans had formed, which Hawkon thought was the reason, but equally, Hawkon also believed that any viking who merely touched, communicated or befriended dragons, were traitors who deserved to be punished by all educational means, physically and mentally.

That was reinforced by the loss of his parents in the battle today, the biggest battle the tribe had faced by far, quite appropriate given it was between two Bewilderbeasts and the return of Hiccup's mum.

"Mum...dad...I'll build extermination camps...I'll unify our whole archipelago, I'll return to the past, and I'll build a movement, I won't stop until I avenge you...until I avenge the past, and until I bring back the past...peace with the dragons killed you, I'll kill the thing that killed you both!" Hawkon whispered as the tears dropped from his face like a waterfall.

Hiccup and Astrid and Valka embraced as the cheers of the Hooligans celebrated their new chief and the new alpha of the dragons.

Back to the night Hiccup had called an impromptu meeting of the Hooligans in the Great Hall following his encounter with Grimmel in his own hut.

It was a dark night, shortly after Grimmel's threat to Hiccup in his own home, that if he didn't hand Toothless over he'd 'destroy everything he loved'.

The Great Hall was packed with vikings. Hiccup could only describe one solution that made his heart heavy, but he had no other choice. The tribe needed to evacuate and leave Berk in the hopes of finding a new island that'd protect them from the threat of Grimmel. The two giant torches of red flames lit up a hellish type of environment, somewhat appropriate for the topic that was being discussed.

"My father left me to protect it, but Berk is more than this place, WE are Berk, the people, the dragons, I'd say Berk is wherever we go!"

There was a short silence in the hall. Many were bewildered at the scale of the plan. But they were in agreement with their chief.

"I'M WITH HIM, WHO ELSE?!" Tuffnut yelled, awkwardly putting the attention of everyone on him.

After Tuffnut's little announcement, a wheezing dragon could be heard echoing near the back of the hall, around the doors. It was struggling, in pain, and it sounded like it was losing air quickly. The silence of the hall meant that everyone heard it right away, and Hiccup, Valka, Astrid, the dragons at the front of the hall near the crew, turned directly to the doors. The crowd looked in shock too at a collapsed Gronckle with its chest breathing up and down rapidly, and a blade hanging off of its side.

"WHA...WHAT?!" the crowd yelled, many people horrified...a Gronckle was just stabbed inside the hall.

"WHAT THE...WHAT?!" Hiccup yelled, "IS GRIMMEL HERE? QUICK, SOMEONE, GET TO THAT DRAGON, COME ON BUD!-"

"YOU STARTED THIS!" yelled an angered Grugg Hawkon, now 20 years old.

He had inflicted the Gronckle with his dagger after listening to Hiccup's speech. At this point in time Hiccup had known of Hawkon's dangerous, extremist views, but he brushed it all aside. Inflicting a wound on a dragon however, that was the final straw.

"YOU GOT MY MUM AND DAD KILLED, PEACE WITH THESE DRAGONS HAS RUINED US, YOU RUINED MY FAMILY, AND I DON'T BLAME DRAGO FOR WHAT HE DID, I DON'T EVEN BLAME GRIMMEL, I BLAME YOU! YOU DESERVE THIS, YOU HAVE TAKEN THE NAME OF VIKINGS AND DESTROYED THE MEANING! WE MUST STAND UP-"

Hawkon's angered speech was interrupted by him being tackled to the ground by numerous bulky vikings, as Hiccup and Toothless flew across the hall and tended to the collapsed Gronkle as it struggled to recover from the gradual loss of blood. Its wheezes grew louder and vikings quickly gathered around the reptile to try and recover it. Hiccup could only look at Grugg Hawkon, cheek first on the ground as everyone piled on him, and could only mutter five significant words.

"You're not coming with us..." he pledged.

Hiccup knew Grugg was trouble, extremist even given the confrontations he's had in the past with him, but this solidified Hiccup's biggest fear: Hawkon was a fanatic who was akin to entryism by the enemy. Anyone who kills a dragon willingly in Hiccup's view didn't deserve to be in the tribe any longer.

"MUM," Hiccup yelled across the hall, "CAN YOU AND CLOUDJUMPER TAKE THIS GRONKLE TO SOMEWHERE SAFE? WE'LL PATCH HIM UP AND TRY AND GET HIM BACK!"

Returning to the Isle of Berk shortly after Grimmel's men left it after they initially arrived on it following the evacuation of the Hooligans.

Grugg Hawkon, firmly abandoned on the Isle of Berk and left to rot for himself. Hiccup couldn't tolerate him killing a dragon in this day and age to take him with the tribe. He was, in the words of Hiccup, 'expelled' and 'kicked out'.

Shortly after the tribe left Berk, Grimmel and his men arrived on the now abandoned island to scope out potential islands that they might have gone to. It was during this time that Grugg was hiding out. For as much courage as he shown in the hall last night in inflicting death upon a lone dragon, which had led to him being tackled down and handled physically harshly, he didn't want to lose his life in the hands of the slender Grimmel.

In fact, Grugg Hawkon saw Hiccup in the same league as Drago and Grimmel. As contradictory as it may sound, Hawkon's mindset went like this; any viking who communicated with, engaged with, befriended, used, or rode with a dragon, had committed the most traitorous betrayal of all time. Why? because the dragon peacetime agreement formed after the defeat of the Red Death had firmly shut the 'good old' past as Hawkon saw it, into extinction.

Vikings using dragons, whether that'd be Drago or Grimmel, and Hiccup, were enhancing and endorsing today's future, today's future of a fake viking lifestyle and the sole causes of conflicts between humans. A world in which the past was back, where humans were all united as one in fighting the common enemy, and not each other, was one Hawkon saw as a blueprint. A future in which vikings fought as one, crafted weapons as one, and had a living balance as one with no fear of conflicts between their own tribes, was another aspect of his blueprint. This future relied on the dragons staying out of the picture, the same for any vikings who had a dragon as their friend.

This was why he considered Hiccup, Grimmel and Drago to be traitorous equally. And although he said in the hall to Hiccup's face he could understand where Drago and Grimmel were coming from, they were no endorsements of the two. Nor was it an endorsement of them when Hawkon said that Hiccup was the bigger reason that those conflicts began, and not Drago or Grimmel.

But regardless, Hawkon remained hidden whilst Grimmel and his men were on the abandoned island of Berk he now had to live on for the time being. Fast forward to now, he was merely a lone figure on a huge rock in the middle of the seas.

Laying flat on the ground on his back, Grugg Hawkon could only look up to the skies. Huts surrounded him as their emptiness made it easier for the winds to flow through the open windows.

He thought he could see his mum and dad in the clouds, shaped out. He could sense them talking to him. After losing them in Hiccup's sought for battle against Drago where they fought in the tribe against Drago's men, nobody else came into his mind more. He was going to live up to their mission they asked of him no matter what.

"HELLO?" a distant voice yelled, as it emerged near the shores.

Grugg Hawkon sat up and looked to the shallow waters ahead. There, a miniature, small boat with some guy wearing entirely white viking gear came into vision. Grugg was too tired to stand up on his feet so he remained put on the ground in his current position. The entirely white clothed viking stepped out of his boat and skipped across the shores and onto the land of Berk, quickly catching up to Hawkon's fallen body.

"You...be seeking refuge? you looking desperate here?" he said, his words not seeming to make much sense, but they were understandable.

"Why would it concern you?" Hawkon politely asked.

"I come from Pacifist Island...we don't normally sail near fellow tribes but after hearing 'bout this Grimmel thing, I was sent to see the scale of it for security reasonings...you look starved."

"Well that's one way of putting it. I have been betrayed by my own people!" Hawkon yelled.

"Calm calm calm, our tribe lacks conflict, we usually don't bother with the outside world but we seek to make people like you welcome at home. This is once in a chance lifetime opportunity. The only time we do this is after huge consequential conflicts, and we know your tribe has recently had one and have abandoned archipelago to escape it. Please, come with me?" the white-geared viking asked, holding his palm out to Grugg.

"You're offering me refuge even though I just spoke to you like that?" Grugg Hawkon asked, taken aback by the offer.

"Look, where I come from, we have understandable empathy to what you other tribes get up to...we know sometimes it tires you out. You're abandoned, you're alone, you must come with me and we will get you somewhere safe and out of conflict. Come with me?"

Sometimes this guy's sentences didn't quite flow in a way where they made sense, sometimes they did. For example, this white geared Pacifist viking would always miss out needed words whenever he spoke as seen above, but that appeared to be the nature of his unknown accent.

Regardless, Grugg Hawkon couldn't turn down such an offer. He felt quite emotional at the generosity.

"Our elected Chief would praise us for doing this whenever we do it..."

"Elected?" Hawkon asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Yes, elected. We have ballots every four years to choose new Chief of the Pacifists!"

"...Elected? Hm..."

And those were the last words ever spoken by Grugg Hawkon in that moment in time above, before being taken to Pacifist Island to be converted from an abandoned, vengeful Hooligan into what're known as Pacifistians.

Throughout the years, Grugg Hawkon's backstory was complicated. But having seen it above in its entirety, his backstory only furthered his ultimate goal. That ultimate goal? something totally undesirable in the views of some vikings, and that's putting it gently.