After seeing the strange phenomenon in the sky, Toothless with Hiccup on his back continued the fly north at full speed. Dashing past islands, crossing huge clusters of cloud in a blink, Hiccup could barely remain seated on the Night fury. He knew that Night furies were one of the fastest dragons alive, but he didn't know it could that fast. Based on his calculations, they were already at the border of the Archipelago. He tried to communicate with him, no responses. Even by pulling onto the handle didn't make him flinch: the dragon was determinate to reach a mysterious destination only known by him.

After another solid amount of time flying full speed, they started to lose altitude and speed when Toothless wings' flap started to be less energetic. Looking at the horizon, Hiccup said:

"you need to rest bud, we have almost been flying all night, and if we don't land soon, we are going to crash ".

Pupils shrinking to a thin slit, the dragon growled before landing on an island surrounded by a large, continuous beach. Hiccup didn't understand why Toothless choose this specific island between the many that were below them: there was almost no cover, apart for some lonely rocks scattered throughout the beach. Heading toward the center the find some drinkable water, the Viking and the dragon stopped by a short, but crystal-clear stream. Being abruptly kidnap by Toothless to the other side of the Archipelago meant that Hiccup didn't carry anything.

Bringing water to his mouth with his cupped hands, Hiccup noticed a strange taste in it. The seemingly uncontaminated stream had a metallic scent to it. Realizing that it was the scent of blood, he spat out what was left in his mouth and tell Toothless to stay low and quiet, before tip-toeing his way upstream. A couple of steps later, Hiccup cursed at himself to not noticing it when they landed, it has to be the exhaustion, he thought to himself.

The pair saw a familiar dragon munching on wild boar whose blood drip into the stream. Dark, a pair of secondary wings at beginning of the tail, flat head, it was a Night Fury in every aspect. Way to astonished by the discovery of another member the thought to be extinct species, Hiccup didn't see the lack of long ears and the shade of yellow on its scales.

"So, this it was you have been after, you sensed another Night Fury" whispered Hiccup to Toothless before jumping out of the bush.

The startled dragon turned its head to see who bothered him with his midnight snacks, realizing that the intruder was no much larger than boar, but very tall, and looked quite appetizing, it left out a harsh growl.

"Easy, I'm not going to hurt you, I have a Night Fury friend to that I would like to introduce "Said Hiccup peacefully while reaching a hand to its forehead. To his big surprise, the dragon jumped at him, all claw and teeth. Dodging the strike just in time by rolling on the ground, he didn't have much time to stand up again. Thankfully, a shadow passed over him as Toothless jumped between him the aggressive dragon. Taking this opportunity, Hiccup managed to stand up, which was not an easy task given his metal leg, and pull out his fire sword, Inferno.

The beast was clearly surprised by the Night fury, defending its food and by the fire that appeared from said food. Evaluating its chance, the yellow-shaded dragon turned around and ran towards the center of the island, covered by forest.

"Weird." said Hiccup, "they are not usually this aggressive, whatever. Toothless, chase him before he disappears" while mounting onto the saddle. Dashing through the forest, a dark yellow tail in sight, Hiccup was leaving the chase entirely to Toothless, who can see way better than him in the dark woods where moonlight didn't shine.

Why doesn't he fly away? Hiccup thought to himself. Exiting the forest, the two dragons and one human landed on the beach. The chased creature jumped up in the air. Seeing this, Hiccup opened the artificial tail flap off Toothless, allowing him to take off. Against all expectations, the first dragon dived back down, head first towards the ground, making Hiccup and Toothless barely missing it by going over. However, the surprise didn't end here: the dragon swiftly disappeared into the sand, leaving a spiral pattern at the entry point.

"What? can you do that bud?" Yelled Hiccup before landing Toothless. Approaching the pattern, he knelt on one knee to take a better look.

"Night Fury like, unusually aggressive, burrowing into the sand with a spiral pattern," thought Hiccup out loud as he was trying to identify the dragon. Suddenly a memory of the book of dragon surfaced.

"Of course, it is not a Night Fury, it's a Sand Wraith, a distant cousin of the Night Fury, that explains its aggressive behavior," said Hiccup. "Weird, The Sand Wraiths were almost as rare as the Night Furies. What is he doing out here" he said before turning back to Toothless

"Obviously, this was not what you were after, bud, then what it is" Continued Hiccup while marching towards the proper Nigh Fury. Without a word, Toothless launched Hiccup onto his back before taking off at the same speed, this time flying back towards Berk.

"And you're going back now, you undecided reptile." said him painfully, wind gushing on his face, so fast that he felt the air smashing against his tooth. As the duo of dragon and Viking soared over the ocean, water splitting underneath them, the sun started slowly appearing above the horizon on their left, shining a yellow light upon them.

Even though Toothless was flying back in the direction of Berk, Hiccup knew that they weren't going there. Abandoning any type of reasoning on his dragon, Hiccup made sure that he wasn't to fall off in case of unexpected maneuvers. Dodging some sea-shockers leaping out of the water, Toothless led out an aggressive growl before slowing down and flying upward, using clouds as cover. When stabilized, Toothless finally let his human companion know what he was after.

Leaning forward to peek between the clouds, Hiccup distinguished a lonely vessel sailing away from them. Without his spyglass, the dragon rider couldn't see anything relevant but by circling around, he managed to get a good view of the crest sewed into the mainsail. A skeleton was represented, sword in one hand, its own skull in the other, two empty lobs staring at the top of the neck, where said skull was supposed to be. The crest didn't look like anything Hiccup recognized, and gods know that he, in his past adventure, met a fair lot of other tribes, in and outside of the Archipelago.

The vessel didn't look well-armed, long and slim, it was more focused on speed and stealth rather than firepower. However, the entire ship released with a mysterious aura: the deck was empty, with no Viking nor defensive machines. All seemed to quiet, like the ship was abandoned, sailing aimlessly in the ocean, but it was not.

Approaching it carefully, using the Night fury's stealth advantage, Hiccup positioned Toothless at the rear of this ship. Waiting for an opportunity to land, which arrived in the form of a massive wave, crashing against the starboard side of the vessel. In a swift wing blast, they landed on the deck in a muffled 'thud' sound of pawn hitting wood. Hiccup winced, hoping that the sound of the crashing wave was enough to cover it.

Progressing carefully, wary that his metal leg would resonate if the ground below if it was hollow. After reaching the bow and found nothing suspicious nor relevant, Hiccup backtracked. A small groan from Toothless indicated that he found something, and based on his teeth-out, eyes puckered, ears back look, it wasn't good. Kneeling on his bad leg, Hiccup's finger traced the outlines of a trapdoor while gesturing Toothless to be on his guard. Opening the large trapdoor as quietly as he can, Hiccup was greeted with a series of sharp stairs big enough to pass a Stormcutter through that plummeted to the depth of the ship. Nodding to Toothless, he whispered

"Let's go bud, stay alert" before engaging the first set of stairs. When he arrived at the level of what seemed to be the crew quarters, he quickly hid behind a set of boxes to avoid being spotted by a large, bulky Viking.

When he disappeared out of Hiccup's sight, the young Viking decided to go down further, judging too risky to explore this high traffic area. When arrived at the level below, by watching the curvature of the wall, Hiccup finally understood the architecture of the ship: underneath the desk was divided into two levels: the upper one with what seemed to be the crew's quarters and the bottom one, where Hiccup stood, twice as high as the level above it, holding the cargo.

Asking Toothless to lit a torch, the sudden light brought one of the most horrifying views to Hiccup. Cages, rows and rows of cages filled the place. Toothless let out a growl and with his head, nudged Hiccup a bit with an 'I told you so' look on his face.

"You must have sensed their distress back on Berk with your new Alpha instinct, that's why you flew so fast, you knew where they are and knew they are in danger "whispered Hiccup when he finally put two and two together.

As he progressed towards the deep end of it, he noticed that every cage contained one dragon, from the basic Gronckle and Zippeback to dragons far harder to catch like Singetails and Changewings. But that wasn't the worst. It was the fact that every single dragon looked asleep, perfectly still, which was odd. Putting his hand through the bar, Hiccup tried to reach the nostril of a Gronckle. No reaction.

"Let's try a more aggressive dragon" whispered him Toothless before setting himself in front of the Singetail's cage. Before he even reached his hand in it, the caged dragon opened his eyes. Hiccup can still see the fierce dragon in theses yellow iris, but the Singetail can barely move.

Whispering "It's okay, I'm not here to hurt you' again and again," Hiccup slowly put his hand inside, barely touching its nose, before turning his head and closing his eyes.

The feel of cold scale on his palm made him raise them again, looking directly into the Singetail's eyes. With a painful grown that sounded more like a cry, the beast shoved his head aside, revealing a leather collar around his neck, with a needle full of a blue liquid sticking out of it. Hiccup gasped as he couldn't believe who in the world can do such a cruel thing, drugging dragons into an almost dead state.

Barely reaching the edge of the needle, he still managed to pull it out of the leather casing. With no more input of drugs, the Singetail managed to stand triply on his four foot, before falling flat again. Knowing his actions were yielding positive results, he traveled back and forth between the cages, pulling as much needle as he can reach before using the same hand gesture to calm them down.

During his back and forth, he noticed a bigger, rectangular shape covered with a piece of fabric. Approaching it carefully, he grabbed a corned in one hand while, with the other, gesturing Toothless to charge a shot. Suddenly he pulled off the fabric before immediately dodging to his side while yelling "No!" at Toothless.

Below it was a bigger cage, crafted from a different material than the other. While the other didn't seem to be able to sustain a good blast, this one was dragon proof for an obvious reason: inside of it was a Titanwing Deadly Nadder, draped in a fierce shade of orange that just fired spine shots at the poor Viking who deranged it.

"Astrid would love this guy" though Hiccup as he managed to help himself off the ground.

The characteristic growl of it was loud enough to make Hiccup calming him very fast. When the dragon calmed down, Hiccup could hear his heart beating in his chest. Praying to gods that the scream went unnoticed, his hopes were quickly washed away by the dust falling onto his head. Hiccup was already hearing something along the line of "Go check on the big one, it's a valuable head" and footstep coming from above.

Knowing his time was counted, he forced himself to calm down. "Think, Hiccup, Think. What do you have: a lot of caged dragons that seemed to be awake, but not strong enough yet to break out of their cages. A Titanwing Deadly Nadder, a specie known for its deadly precision, agile movement, and a very hot magnesium blast, but he is locked in a dragon proof cage. A good place to ambush the first one that comes down of those stairs, and" his metal foot bump onto something, picking it up, he continued "an empty jar." His eyes swept from the jar to the lock on the cage door, passing a drooling Monstrous Nightmare.

A plan suddenly formed in his head. Could it work? Yes, it should. Hiccup remembered the many trials and errors he and Fishleg went through in the past few months, trying to find a more efficient way to break the ice from Drago's Alpha. Melting it from the outside with dragon fire was way, but it was to not efficient enough, as the dragons rapidly reached their limits. They finally found it that monstrous nightmare gel released a lot of force when undergoing sudden combustion, and that a small cavity dug into the core of an ice shard and filled with the gel was enough to shatter it, the only inconvenience is that the space had to be enclosed enough.

But now, as Hiccup smirked, every condition was satisfied. Collecting every drop of monstrous nightmare gel that he can before pouring all of it carefully in the keyhole, he then gestured to Toothless to stay put and wait for his signal. "You give everything you got, right bud? This is our only chance." said the Viking to the Night Fury before placing himself in a dark corner at the base of the stair.

Footstep approached slowly, Hiccup waited for the last moment before jumping out his hiding spot while simultaneously yelling "Toothless now!", tackling out a Viking by grabbing his waist.

The familiar sound of a charged plasma blast resonated, landing precisely in the keyhole full of nightmare gel, the sudden combustion broke the lock clean open, freeing the Titanwing Nadder, the Night Fury than yelled at it, asking it to help him blow open the cages. Its intense fire melted locks in a blink, freeing every dragon.

Meanwhile, the bulky Viking managed to shove Hiccup off him, both standing up at the same time. The only difference is that, unlike Hiccup, he pulled out a rusty axe from his back while Hiccup lit up his Inferno. Never he had been this glad to take the extra precaution.

"Well, well, well, what do we have here, what's your name, "said him as a vicious grin stretched his face, by no means impressed by the fire sword. Hiccup didn't have the time to answer before his enemy charged him. A slash from the left was parried, an upper chop deflected to the left as the blade of sword lodged into the indent of the axe blade, to which Hiccup followed by a solid right punch to the face. But Hiccup had to quickly raise his good leg to counter a kick directed toward his knee. However, it was powerful enough to put him off balance. While falling down, he still managed to kick the older Viking in the stomach.

The opponents parted, but it was at this moment that Inferno decided to run out of fuel. "Really!" shouted Hiccup, frustration mirrored by a grin from his adversary, who took this moment to lunge forward.

Dodging a couple of axe swings by crouching and sidestepping and parrying a couple more, Hiccup still managed to find himself pinned against the back wall, fear appearing on his face.

"Nowhere to go, ehh? What's the matter, your leg is falling off?" Laughed the other Viking while looking at Hiccup's metal leg "Now, tell me what are you doing on this ship", approaching slowly towards a visible frighten Hiccup.

However, the young Viking managed to pear behind his opponent, and the fear quickly turned into a grin.

"The right thing to do." said Hiccup before dropping to the floor and rolling forward "Now bud!". The other one had just enough time to turn around to see Toothless firing a plasma blast at him, the shock lifting him off the ground, smashing into the wall where Hiccup previously stood. As the sense of liberty woke the last few dragons that were still chasing away the effect of the drugs, Hiccup continued to pull out the needles from the ones he missed.

Meanwhile, in the cabin, the shock of the explosion didn't go unnoticed, wall shacking and floor trembling.

"What is happening, are we being attacked? "said one voice

"Quick," another voice, probably the captain answered "everyone, grab your weapon" Many sets of footsteps than resonated on the stairs, going upward.

The first one to mount on deck was greeted by a surprisingly calm atmosphere.

"But sir," said him, there is nothing out there, no ships, no dragons" The captain, realizing his mistake, yelled,

"If it wasn't an attack from the outside, this means that it came from..." He didn't get to finish his sentence before a huge blast shook the entire ship, creating a large hole on the deck.

From it emerged a dark and fast-moving outline, followed by a flock of dragons.

"Is that a Night Fury, "said one man, astonished by what just happened,

"And is that someone riding it?" Said another voice, equally startled. The captain, first to recover his mind, yelled at the top of his lungs

"Archer, take them down!" before firing in the air. Immediately, a barrage of arrows rained upon them, so dense that many dragons where hit, falling on the deck or in the water.

Toothless managed to dodge some before firing a plasma blast into the group of archers, knocking many of them of their feet. Unlike many of the other dragons, who escaped into the sky, Hiccup and the Night Fury circled back with a few dragons desiring to take their revenge for another strike. However, the lack of numbers made them an easier target.

"Evasive maneuvers !" yelled Hiccup, holding tight on his saddle as Toothless dodged the arrows by varying speed, altitude, and directions. However, the spreading was so dense that one of them managed to hit Hiccup in the shoulder. The sound of pain that his best friend let out must have enraged the Night Fury because he let out a plasma blast that almost blew the entire ship. It was a miracle that it was still floating, shattered everywhere with only the front mast still standing. Ignoring the intense pain, they must coat their arrows with something, though Hiccup, he controlled to Toothless to fly below the fallen central mast, ripping off a large piece of the sail with the crest on it. Taking altitude again, he grinned between his teeth

"Let's go bud, we have to warn the others, this may be bigger than ever" before setting course for Berk.

Looking at the destroyed ship, the captain stared angrily at his crew.

"You know what this means right, we lost a Titanwing, he would not be happy," said him. The pronoun 'he 'was enough to make these tough-looking Viking have shimmers creeping down their back. "Anyway, continued the captain, somebody please tell me who he is."

"Euh, I didn't 'get to see his face, to focused on the Night Fury he rode"

"Yeah, me too, didn't have a good look at him".

Tired of his incompetent crew, the captain sided his hand across his face and let out a deep sight.

"Whoever he is, he managed not only to capture a Night Fury, the unholy offspring of lightning and death itself, a species that was thought to be extinct, but he also managed to controlled it and ride it. He then, somehow, sneaked into the cargo and opened all of the caged before we even got below. We have to report back, this one may cause some trouble. "

"Sir…. I think I have a better description of this man "said a weak voice, appearing from behind. It was the Viking that was sent below, recovering now from the impact. "He is young, brown hair, green eye, shaped like a fishbone. "

"That's all?" Yelled the captain in frustration

"No, he also has a metal leg, must have lost it in a fight. "

The two Vikings then shared an awkward silence, it took the captain to make a gesture to get him to continue "Yep, that's all"

"Well you better have something more to tell him when we get back to the island" sighted the captain while looking at the horizon, "for all our sake" added him heavily.


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