A/N:
Willow Walker, oh, yes! Muahahahahaaaa!

Dragonrider's Fury, thanks for the kind words.

Toothlessgolfer, yep, Skrill for sure. I think we both know better than to hope that nobody gets zapped. :P


Scourged

Over the past several years, Hiccup had picked up bits of information about the Skrill. Purple in color, a bit larger than a Nadder, two legs, nasty claws at the "wrists" of their wings, and spikes along the back, belly, and tail. They would follow storms, feeding off of the lightning in the clouds and redirecting it as they pleased. Even if their lightning appeared to be depleted, or if they were dead, they always seemed to have enough in reserve to stun or kill someone. They were the only species of dragons known to hunt and kill solely for entertainment purposes as opposed to feeding or protecting themselves and their kin.

Extremely dangerous. Kill on sight.

Even Stoick, many years ago, once told Hiccup, "If you look up and see a Skrill, you're in the wrong place. That's not just Hiccup advice, that's anyone-who-doesn't-fancy-dying-quite-yet advice."

During dragon training, even though no Skrill had been seen for years, Gobber made sure everyone knew their facts.

"Remember," he had said as he paced back and forth in the Great Hall, "Whenever a Skrill shoots lightning, it'll hit something. Instantly. Don't ever doubt that."

"Like how a Night Fury never misses!" Hiccup tossed in excitedly, barely containing his overflowing excitement about the specimen he had in the cove at the time.

"NO!" Gobber shouted so fiercely that everyone cringed and leaned back. "What ah'm sayin' is that there's no difference between a Skrill shooting out lightning and someone or something getting hit by it. There's no fireball, no noise ta warn ya or projectile ta dodge, no shield or armor tha' can protect ya. If yer the target, ya don't know it until yer dead. Ya just throw down yer shield 'n pray ta Thor that ya can kill it before it kills ya. Never ferget that."

In later days, Hiccup had learned from books and veterans like Gobber that lightning seemed to follow certain rules. It almost never struck more than one target at a time, and when it did strike, it was as hasty as one might imagine, going for the closest target it could, so standing behind someone granted some protection. However, there were exceptions to this rule. Lightning hated iron more than wood and so it would go past a tree to incinerate a Viking clad in chainmail. However, those who wore cloth or leather armor and stuck with stone warhammers or bone spears tended to get fried by lightning less often than their sword-wielding counterparts.

During periods when Skrills were at large, the tribes had learned to stick tall iron poles into the ground throughout the village as the lightning was more likely to hit one of these poles than a Viking. In fact, it was just as likely to strike a dragon as anything else, which also helped to even the odds. According to legend, this may explain why Skrill would appear in raids only for a few seasons, and then not at all for several years.

All of this, every shred of knowledge that Hiccup had ever learned about Skrill, flashed through his mind in an instant. It wasn't even a distraction as he frantically flapped his wings in an effort to fight against the unpredictable gales to stay his course towards... well, he had no clue where to go, but remaining inside the storm clouds probably was not wise.

"Stay in clouds!" Toothless shouted over the gale. "Lightning like to hit clouds as much as dragon. Skrill need almost touch you to make lightning hit you in cloud."

Hiccup winced at each blindingly bright flash of lightning that felt like a dagger stabbing his brain. Flying in this wind and pelting rain was tiring him out, and he felt blind and deaf with all the noise.

{We cannot stay here forever, and I don't think I could even find the Skrill up here let alone fight it!}

Toothless hummed in thought.

{What about flying above the clouds? The wind would be calmer there.}

"No! Skrill shoot us, we die! No hiding up there! Go down not up, to island. Trees, large rocks, ridges, they all help."

Hiccup grunted his acknowledgment and folded his wings. He figured he had to be above the island by now, so plummeting straight down should be a good idea–

Something was shooting up directly at him, and he flared his wings with a panicked screech to level out and avoid contact. He had speed on his side, though, so long as his wings only felt like they were being torn from their sockets. Looking behind, he saw only blinding flashes of lightning, but he suddenly had the thought to look up just as a Skrill shot down from above.

He instantly tucked one wing in to roll over, narrowly dodging the dragon, but it was inevitable that he would be struck by lightning as it passed by. For an instant, he could see little lightning bolts arcing across the spines and scales of the dragon, and he felt a tingling sensation that he just knew heralded his imminent demise. All he could do was roll around to place his body between Toothless and certain death–

The sky flashed white. The sound was deafening.

But Hiccup felt... well, nothing, surprisingly, other than a momentary tingle. For a moment, he could sense relief from Toothless, frustration from the Skrill, and surprise from both.

"We not dead?" Toothless asked breathlessly.

Apparently not. Hiccup wouldn't question providence, so he made the snap decision to shoot straight down. The island wasn't directly below as he had thought, but they were close to the shoreline, so he shot for it as fast as he could, blinking at the white spots in his vision. Behind him, shrieks of the Skrill could be heard as it chased him. In fact, there was something about those noises, and a suspicion arose that filled him with dread. He spared a quick flick of his head to look back, relishing the ability to see without being constantly blinded, but what he saw made his heart plummet.

He was not being chased by a Skrill.

He was being chased by two Skrills.

Toothless sensed that something was bothering Hiccup and asked about it. "Not like!" he frantically shouted when told. "Trees! Into trees!"

Hiccup complied, shooting over the shore of flat rocks, spurred onward at reckless speed by the floating, tingling sensation that he was learning preceded a lightning bolt. He folded his wings before even touching the ground and shot into the treeline, his entire being focused on keeping his paws beneath him to avoid flipping over and crushing Toothless as he skidded across the ground. It wasn't an instant later that he saw, through the pine needles and dirt thrown up from his landing, his profile illuminated in bright white light against the foliage ahead, followed immediately by two loud cracks of thunder from behind. He cast a quick glance back to see wooden shrapnel exploding out in all directions.

Now that there wasn't a constant barrage of lightning, he could actually focus on his surroundings without his brain crying out in pain. Skrill could carry only so much lightning in them, and they'd blown it all with those two large blasts, so they were ascending to collect some more. Even without looking with his eyes, his array of sensor lobes that crowned his head allowed him to feel the direction of the twin sources of hatred and anger, so he could "watch" them fly into the clouds without breaking stride or losing focus on his immediate surroundings. He could also sense some characteristics of their mental hum, confirming his suspicion that one was male while the other was female.

Hiccup wasted no time in running deeper inland. He recalled having seen lots of tall ridges and deep gullies, and he planned to use those to his advantage. By the time the Skrills returned, he was deep in the forest and sheltered by tall pines and a rocky spire.

The Skrills settled into circling above like sharks inspecting a curiosity. Hiccup took this opportunity to try to reach out to them and find a peaceful resolution.

{Lightning dragons, why are you trying to kill me? I have no intent to threaten you. Leave me alone and I will gladly leave you undisturbed. If I have inadvertently landed on your nesting grounds, I wish only to leave you in peace.}

The response was depressingly predictable from past run-ins. {Die black dragon!}

At the same time, lightning flashed above, striking the rocky spire and sending fractured boulders crashing down. Hiccup fled in haste, and another bolt struck a tree behind him. He yelped when a splinter of wood as wide as his tail and twice as long impaled the ground just past his wingtip. Another bolt struck soon after, sending him scurrying along underneath a ridge to find some more tall trees for protection.

It was only at this point that he realized they were taking turns shooting out their lightning so that one was always presenting a threat while the other ascended to fill up again. The sight of a rocky clearing past the treeline and the sound of crashing waves made him realize something else; he was being herded. They were trying to flush him out of cover!

Hiccup felt that tingling sensation that heralded a lightning bolt, and a tree behind him exploded into charred fragments. Instead of fleeing away from it, he spun around and ran towards it, checking the skies to confirm that the other Skrill was still descending, granting him a very narrow window. He sprinted across a clearing, away from the shoreline, and made it under cover just as another tree exploded into splinters.

"We can't do this long!" Toothless shouted over the driving rain.

{What else can we do?!}

"I not know!" Toothless hissed in frustration. "Not fly away in this storm. Wait for storm to pass? Ah! Need find cave! Yes! Safe place to rest! Lightning not good there, you have advantage!"

It sounded like a good plan, but this island wasn't exactly littered with caves. There were some ravines or a cleft in a large boulder, but they would not suffice. Remaining in the forest was dangerous as it was only a matter of time until he would grow weary or his luck would run out.

When he had first descended on this island last night, his sharp eyes had spotted what might have been a cave entrance towards the center of the island. There was a mountain that looked like it had been sheared right in half from top to bottom by the gods themselves. Halfway up the flat side was a black void that had to be the mouth of a cave. However, getting there now would be suicide as it was out in the open.

"Hrrrr…" Toothless suddenly straightened in the saddle. "Use fire! You can feel when lighting about to strike. Don't shoot fire then, but shoot after. Yes! Fly up some, shoot fire, dive back down when lightning about to strike."

Hiccup glanced up at the Skrill swooping above, hardly visible to his eyes but plain to see with his sensor lobes. This was the male that was trying to flush him from cover while his mate rose to the clouds.

{But if I shoot fire at the Skrill, I might injure or kill him.}

Toothless snorted and slapped a sensor lobe. "Silly Firefly! If you not kill them then they kill us. Do you want them kill you?"

Hiccup didn't answer. He had been trying to reason with the Skrills, to explain that allowing him to flee would be safer for them than forcing him to defend himself, but the response was always the same.

"Do you want them kill me?"

Lightning struck a rocky formation that looked like a large tooth growing up from the ground, shattering the tip of it and shooting debris everywhere. Hiccup could see that the female was still up in the storm clouds, so he took that opportunity to sprint up the rocky tooth and spread his wings to take flight. He flew right at the male Skrill that had just shot its lightning, already at the same altitude, gathering a large fireball in his throat. Fear washed over the Skrill at this unanticipated reaction, and he quickly backwinged to retreat as Hiccup shot out his fireball.

The Skrill let out a weaker bolt of lightning that tore open the sky between himself and the fireball, and the following explosion shoved them both away from each other, but that was all part of Hiccup's plan. He had already oriented himself to make use of that great shove towards the large rocky spire so that he could build up even more speed. The female Skrill was already descending from the clouds, full of fury and crackling with deadly power, but Hiccup was committed. He was so high that the cave was closer than the forest below, and he flapped his wings hard a few more times to clear the distance.

He shot into the opening as straight as an arrow, wings tucked in just in time to barely brush against the walls. Even as he landed hard and focused on skidding to a stop, he heard a deafening boom behind him. Light flashed bright and white, then there was a deafening rumble that filled the cave, followed by absolute darkness. The Skrill's strike had hit the lip of the cave and collapsed the ceiling in behind him.

For better or for worse, they were trapped.

########


########

It was a dark and stormy night.

Toothless recalled having heard other land-striders sometimes begin a story that way, and it always brought up imagery of lightning, howling winds, and pattering rain.

Inside the cave, though, there was nothing. He could not see, and were it not for Firefly's panting, he would have thought he had gone deaf.

Complete darkness surrounded him, far deeper than anything he had ever experienced even as a land-strider. As a Night Fury, he was at one with darkness because it held no secret from him, but this was entirely different. The darkness was enfolded around him, suffocating him, choking the life from his lungs. The walls were closing in, and at any moment, they would crush him.

"Firefly!" He cried out in despair.

{Be at peace, Toothless, we are fine.} Light leaped into his eyes as his dragon let out a small trickle of burning fuel to illuminate their surroundings, and Toothless took a deep breath as the oppressive darkness lifted. {There is a torch in the saddlebag. Pull it out and light it up.}

Toothless let out a relieved sigh at the light and unfastened the tethers holding him into the saddle. As comforting as it was to bask in the glow from his dragon's maw, he knew that Firefly was panting only a moment ago and could not inhale while holding the flame, so Toothless hastily slid down and rummaged around for the torch; Firefly wisely closed his eyes as the torch was lit since his pupils were dilated very wide. The warm and steady light, and the quiet hiss of the flame, instantly soothed away that feeling that had caused him to panic. He suddenly felt calm and relaxed here in this quiet place that was totally at odds with where they had just come from.

The saddle included a loop to secure the torch – an addition Firefly had added after enough stubbed toes and bruised shins from other cave explorations – so Toothless put it to use before jumping back into the saddle, laying down on his stomach and wrapping his hands around the dragon's neck. He closed his little land-strider eyes and looked through the superior sight that Firefly was helpfully projecting for his rider.

As they padded along, Toothless and his dragon both took some deep breaths to eventually slow down their panting. They reassured each other that the situation wasn't too bad. Sure, there were two murderous Skrills out there in the thunderstorm that wanted nothing more than to kill Firefly, but for the moment, things were calm and peaceful. Maybe the storm would pass on and the Skrills would move along with it.

The tunnel opened up into a chamber that would make a nice nest for a mated pair and their hatchlings. In fact, he couldn't help but wonder…

{There are eggs in here!}

Toothless saw them too. At the rear, tucked into a nest of interwoven branches, were three eggs, their shells purple and jagged. These were definitely Skrill eggs, so it was with a victorious grin that Toothless slid down to the ground, scampered over to the eggs, lifted his leg – the one with the metal prosthetic foot – and–

He was yanked back by his scruff to land gently on his rear.

{What are you doing?!}

Toothless looked back at his dragon, the head of which was a shadow of a profile against the torch behind it. "These eggs of lightning dragons. Skrill. You hear what traders say. What fish catchers and dragon riders say. No sign of Skrill for years. Thought they all gone. These may be last in world."

{You can't just destroy these eggs!}

Toothless stood and tapped at the stone ground with his iron prosthetic thoughtfully. "Think I can, with this. If not, I know you can. Just shoot fireball at–"

Firefly screeched, affronted. {I cannot do that! They're innocent! They've done nothing wrong!}

Toothless stared at his dragon as if he had grown a second shadowy head. Firefly being Firefly again. "They Skrill. Skrill enemy to Night Fury. Always try kill us. Always full of hate."

Firefly sighed. {Are they hatched that way, or is this hatred something they learn from their dam and sire? Can you really blame them for acting on principles they've learned?}

Toothless thought about that for a moment. "Not know. Not care." He started to walk back towards the eggs, but a gummy maw clamped down around his arm. "Firefly!" he whined.

{Destroying these like this simply is not right.}

"Not– Not right?!" Toothless screeched, his arms waving in exasperation. "These Skrill! They hunt and kill me and kin! They bad! Very bad! These grow up into–" he gestured towards the blocked mouth of the cave. "Those!"

He huffed and turned to look at the eggs again. He had been attacked by Skrill in past years, without provocation, warning, or mercy. Firefly had almost died from that, and they both still carried scars… which was more than Toothless could say for his dead sire. It was simply in a Skrill's nature to hate and kill without reservation, especially Night Furies.

"Only good Skrill is dead Skrill."

Through his contact with his dragon, he saw Firefly's sire, Stalwart – or Stoick if one went by his land-strider name – saying, "Son, if there is only one thing you ever learn from me, let it be this: the only good dragon is a dead dragon. Never forget that. Ever!"

Instantly, Stoick was replaced by Gobber addressing his students in dragon training, saying, "Remember, dragons never show mercy, so don't ya either. They always go fer the kill."

Gobber was then replaced by the cover to the "book of dragons", the old one before the dragon war ended, on which was written in large runes, "The only good dragon is a dead dragon." The book was replaced by Hooligan ships as they set sail for a nest hunt, years ago when the tribe's crest was a Monstrous Nightmare with its torso impaled by two swords.

Then, Toothless was in the forest. He was Firefly, staring down at the Night Fury twined up at his feet, knife in hand. "I'm gonna kill you, dragon. I'm gonna cut out your heart and bring it to my father, for I am a Viking. I AM A VIKING!"

{What you say about the Skrill, my kind said about your kind. You tell me if there is no value in questioning tradition.}

Toothless huffed in irritation. "That different. Not same. You show mercy to Skrill and it will–"

He was cut off by loud, rolling thunder. They looked around and saw dust falling from the ceiling of the cave tunnel, over by the caved-in entrance. Another lightning bolt struck the far side of the blockade, followed by frantic scraping and screeches from without. The Skrills were trying to get in.

Instantly, Toothless forgot about the eggs and thought about their options. They would get in eventually, and when they did, they would be fuming mad. They would also be low on lightning, but they would still be dangerous. Slipping past them to fly off would not work with the unpredictable winds of the thunderstorm, so the only option left was to stand their ground and fight. Maybe, just maybe, they could hold the eggs hostage and use them to negotiate a safe escape…

No, the Skrills weren't in a negotiating mood even in the best of moods. A fight against them was inevitable, but a tired Night Fury and a land-strider wasn't exactly overwhelming odds.

{Toothless, up in the sky, we got hit by lightning and I thought we would both die, but we didn't. Why?}

Toothless hummed at that, looking around for inspiration. The torch flickered for a moment. It would not last much longer, making him even less effective in the fight to come. He wished he was back in his Night Fury body and Firefly was in his. Firefly was clever and quick-witted. He would have been able to figure out a way out of this if he only had his land-strider brain with its amazing imagination. If only they never touched that gemstone.

That stupid little gemstone.

He really hated that gemstone.

It was an evil thing, mocking them from where it sat in its evil lair–

"Ha!" Toothless rushed forward and reached into the saddle's pocket that held the gemstone. Sure enough, there was a charred hole in the leather clear through, wide enough to stick a couple fingers through. He fished out the drawstring bag, which also had a hole, and pulled out the gemstone. In its smooth, edgeless surface was the slightest hint of an interesting glow within from the torchlight.

Firefly watched all this and was staring at the stone. Toothless could feel the dragon concentrating, scolding himself as he just knew that he would have already made the leap in logic here, so Toothless proudly declared, "This stone get hit instead of us. Lightning hate stone more than iron or leather or us, so it hit stone instead of us!"

Firefly gave a toothless grin. {So, what you're saying is that we are impervious to their lightning? Their lightning bolts cannot harm us?}

"Hrrrr, maybe? Skrill strike us from left, and stone on left. What if Skrill on right. Would lightning go through you to get to stone? Also, bag and saddle have hole from one strike. More strikes, more holes. Stone will fall out after not many. I surprised it still here after running and leaping and flying so much."

{We may still be able to use this to protect us. However, I don't know if lightning will damage this stone. It may be damaged already for all we know.}

Toothless shrugged. "Better life long like this than die now."

Firefly chuffed at that. With a goal in mind, a problem that only needed to be fleshed out with details was something he could work with. {Inside the saddlebag, I have some parts for repairing the tailfin. You will find some strips of iron. Take those out.}

Those iron bands were the product of a fascinating artifact that Firefly had made years ago. Iron bands were used to hold buckets and barrels together, and Gobber used to form them with a hammer. Firefly invented a thing with a crank that would take an iron bar, hot from the forge, and mash it down little by little to form a band. Being so smooth, with a thickness that never varied, each barrel required less iron to make, which excited Gobber to no end.

Firefly had also constructed a smaller one, with rollers smooth enough that he could make iron bands as wide as a finger and thin enough to wrap around one. These allowed him to make the tailfin even lighter and more durable. Toothless didn't quite understand it all, but that didn't matter. It was land-strider magic.

Toothless pulled out a few iron bands, flexing them experimentally.

{Good. Now, let's go check out the sticks in this nest and see if we can find something useful.}

Toothless grinned lovingly at his dear Firefly, who was suddenly in a very inventive mood.

They could always destroy the eggs later.