Hiccup's POV

Eret reached the lid above our heads and gave it a push. It needed him some extra force since the lid had not been opened for years and roots and vines made it harder for him to open it. But, with extra pairs of hands, and some cutting on the vines and roots, we managed to open the lid, which fully exposed us to the sunlight. It blinded me for a moment.

We climbed our way up one by one. Once on the surface, I took my moment. The woods of New Raven Point. It's been too long. The woods were still greener than ever, probably even thicker; but that quickly changed once I laid my eyes upon a tree bark that was never there. Behind it, I spotted some more.

"Must be their doing, aye Chief?" Eret asked, examining the same thing.

"Yeah… I wouldn't be surprised if they have done some redecorating," I cracked my knuckles in irritation. I turned around to the royal sisters, who were doing the same thing as I was, admiring the environment.

"Don't think we've ever seen anything greener than this, Hiccup," Elsa admitted while circling around. "I mean, it's everywhere… I can barely spot a spot where it isn't green—oh."

She cut herself when she spotted the tree bark I noticed previously.

"Well, welcome to New Berk, our loyal Arendellian partner," I welcomed formally. "Let's maintain stealth. We'll never know who's in the woods."

The two sisters nodded and followed my lead. Usually, a walk in the New Raven Point would always be the leisurely kind. Its greenness was something we adored as Berkians. It was a few of other perfect escapes that I would go to whenever I had myself worn out after a full day of chieftain works. But now, it's an exception. We had our awareness level to the max to every single direction.

Moving from another tree to another one, peeking from one bush to another, we finally saw a sign of civilization. Sadly, as we progressed in closing in, I learned that it was no longer the Berkian civilization that I knew before.

We reached a relatively high point on top of a hill that was still covered in trees. Hiding behind a tree, I inspected the civilization ahead of me. Activity was minimum, since it was very early in the morning. I reckoned the Therondians were not much of early birds, either. The terrain was very much still the same; I recognized the hills, the plaza, but one big difference made me click my tongue. Many of the original houses were brought into the ground, replaced by ones that I barely recognized. Well, they're Therondian. There were still a few original Berkian buildings, but its number was depressing to see, let alone their conditions.

I kept scanning the view that I had, and a gasp escaped my throat when I saw the absence of one particular object.

"W-Where is it?" I breathed. A hand landed behind me; it was Anna, looking puzzled by my question.

"Where's what, Hiccup?" She asked.

"Oh… the statue of my father… We had it built in memory of him," I responded. "It was large, it's supposed to be over there, by the hill," I pointed to the direction I referred, "but it's not there!"

Anna remained silent, only letting out a sigh.

"Where do you reckon they keep the dragons, Hiccup?" Eret approached.

I scanned the buildings ahead of me to make a guess of where the dragons were resided. However, nothing really fitted my qualification. I suppose in order to keep overly-grown reptiles, you would need space to do so, right? But neither of the Therondian buildings within my sight seemed to be able to keep dragons inside them.

"I dunno… I wonder?" I asked myself.

"How about that building over there?" Elsa pointed to a direction. All of us turned to see what she meant.

It was a large building, almost like a dome, sitting behind the trees. In my memory, my people never built such building, so it must be new. The color of the dome itself was green, almost like it was meant to mimic the color of the trees for whatever reason. From our tall point of view, we could see a large Therondian sigil painted on top of the dome. The building itself looked totally out of place, as the other buildings that the Therondians built only seemed to be utilizing as normal houses or workshops.

"Good find, Elsa," I complimented. I scanned the route we were to take to get to the place.

"We would need to… go around inside the woods. We can't risk entering the village, there are too many eyes that can spot us," I analyzed.

"Come to think, we should've gone during dawn, don't you guys think so?" Anna asked, holding her chin.

I processed her proposal, and so did Elsa and Eret. The two seemed to agree with the idea as they slowly nodded. Anna was right, we probably should've gone during dawn.

"But we're already here," Eret said. "Sure, it will be harder, but the woods are our best friend, for the moment. We can sneak our way in the woods."

"Yeah. It will be a much longer walk, but we have an entire day. Let's go," I gestured the three to follow my lead. I led the three along the woods, close enough to civilization to keep our eyes out for anyone who might approach us unintentionally and deep enough to have our movement undetected.

Along our way, obstacles were there to put it into a halt several times. At one point, we had to stay down as two Therondians were seen crossing the woods back to the village while carrying a basket of fish. At another point, we encountered a man strolling by, probably doing his morning walk. We had to wait for a good five minutes until he was really deep into the woods since he walked so slowly. Sure, it was only five minutes, but five minutes of waiting for something like this felt like fifteen.

The most ridiculous one was the one Anna spotted. A movement inside a bush. We immediately ducked down to avoid being spotted. Through the leaves, we watched the bush, until what seemed to be a couple walked out of it. They were doing finishing touches on their attire as they walked. It could only mean one thing, the couple just had one hell of a night.

"Perhaps… they didn't have any room in the village?" Anna commented in a whisper with 'optimism'.

"At least they're done with it. Were they still asleep, we would've never found them at all," Elsa replied.

The four of us proceeded to continue our journey to the dome after the couple was gone. We kept approaching the dome until it made me realize what the dome really was judging from the entrance of it.

"Eret? Are you seeing this?" I asked.

"Clearly, chief. Can't believe they'd done it," he replied.

The dome that was built was a part of the old village hall. The entrance of the place was the entrance of the village hall, but the rest of it was completely reconstructed into something else. The village hall was the only building on the island that had clearings around it. Hence, it would make sense why the Therondians built something so big on this very spot to keep whatever's inside it.

From a safe distance, still in the woods, I saw two guards guarding the entrance of the dome.

"How do we get inside?" I asked myself.

Almost like coincidence, the two guards entered the building itself. Seeing that the clearings around the dome was clear from anybody, I took the chance and gestured the others to follow my lead in a rush.

We rushed across the clearings toward the entrance. Through the big door we entered the building. We were inside the small lobby of the hall that weirdly didn't change at all from I last left the place, which gave us an advantage.

"We wait them until they return. Behind the statues, now!" I commanded. There were large statues inside the lobby, reminiscent of our old friends that had left us for good; dragons. Behind these statues we kept our breaths low and steady. From the door across the entrance ones, we heard footsteps. I took a peek, and it was the same two guards, with some breads in their hands.

"By the way, did you hear anything from the eight men that were sent to map the underground labyrinth?" One man asked.

"Nothing. Maybe they're lost. I heard it's quite the large place down there," the other man replied.

"You think there are still Vikings down there?"

"Nah, don't think so. Bet there's nothing to eat down there, let alone sunlight to enjoy."

With that, the two took their conversation back outside. I came out of hiding after giving a signal that it was clear to do so.

"So, they know," Eret said.

"Yeah, best we hurry," Anna replied. We slowly entered the double door that led us to another room that seemed like an office or something, filled with tables, couches, books, files; basic office stuff. Luckily, there was nobody inside, but this was definitely not a part of the interior of the old village hall.

"What is this?..." I asked myself again. I grabbed several files and discovered that they were old Berkian documentaries of the dragons. I even found several ones that I wrote by myself. Anna and Elsa joined my inspection of these documents.

"Quota to fill… two hundred dragons," Elsa spoke of the writing of a piece of paper she randomly picked.

"King Alduin, King Edward VII, Queen De La… how do you read this? I think these are the names of the customers of the dragons, as there are numbers next to them," Anna said, examining a piece of paper with a long list of names on it. "This list goes on and on."

I grabbed a random file and tried to read into it. There was a drawing of what seemed to be… black dust, or sand. It seemed important, so I gave it a read.

"Huh?" I raised a brow.

"What is it?" Anna asked.

"It says… that the Therondians used this sand, or substance, whatever, to control the dragons. The keyword in here is 'fear', they control the dragons with fear," I explained. "What could it possibly be?"

"Any information of the 'man' that our guy referred?" Anna asked. "There might be a lead."

Elsa shifted from paper to paper on the table. "I don't see anything…"

"Hiccup? You might want to see this."

We turned around to Eret, who was looking out of window that neither of us really noticed it was there. We approached the man and looked out of the window. The view dropped our jaws.

It was a giant circular hall, filled with dragons kept in cages, varying from all sizes and shapes and colors. I spotted Deadly Nadders, Gronckles, Timberjacks, Raincutters, Hideous Zipplebacks, everything! Most of the dragons were asleep, so not much dragons were producing any cry or anything. Several Therondian men were organizing the placement of the cages with heavy machineries that I've never seen before. In the process, they often used violence if one dragon were to attempt to harm them. The scene, of course, grew anger inside me.

"Let's take a closer look," I proposed. The three nodded and followed my lead. We entered a series of doors that led us to rooms that we didn't bother checking until we were inside the dome. We quickly hid ourselves behind empty cages as we made our way to the ones that were already filled with dragons by circling the dome.

"Elsa, Anna, whatever you do, do not make any sudden movement," I warned the sisters as we walked in silence. "Do not be startled if they suddenly intimidate you or something, kay?"

They nodded.

Slowly but surely, we reached the area where the filled cages were. We stopped behind one that was filled with Deadly Nadders, Astrid's favorite. The dragons obviously noticed our presences, but they remained collected and calm, and curious. Most likely due to our different appearances from the usual Therondians and our slow movement.

"They're beautiful… and seem…to be in one piece," Anna commented. "You think the Therondians are only going to ship them?"

"I suppose so," I replied, inspecting the cage in front of me. The bars were incredibly thick, nothing compared to the ones that were used to keep human prisoners. Perhaps five times thicker.

"Elsa, can your magic break this?" I gestured to the bars. She touched the bars and gave them gentle knocks.

"I think I can… but it will take a very looooong time, I'm afraid," she admitted.

"Figures…" I replied. I grabbed my chin, pondering of a quick and effective method to release the dragons. While doing so, one really curious Nadder approached us from behind the bars. Its large nostrils were right in front of us, breathing out steaming hot breath. The sisters backed off a few steps, but Eret and I remained still, being the more experienced ones in interacting with dragons.

"Hi there…" I greeted. I stared into the dragon's eyes reassuringly. Slowly but surely, I laid a hand on the dragon's nose, and gave it a rub. The dragon grumbled lowly, tilting its head down and closing its eyes, a sign of trust. Eret soon joined in, giving the dragon affection. However, the Arendellian sisters were hesitant.

"Hey," I called for them. "Come on."

The two walked slowly. I gently took their hands and made them open for the dragon, and slowly pulled them between the bars, close enough for the dragons to realize their presences.

"Let it come to you," I softly spoke.

The Nadder gave their hands a sniff. Both Elsa and Anna were so scared, their hands were shaking and they couldn't look up to the dragon. However, the dragon simply closed its eyes again and closed the gap between it and the sisters' hands. Once making contact, they opened their eyes in disbelief.

"Whoa…" Anna said. "You're beautiful…"

The sisters proceeded to really feel the dragon's smooth scales. They seemed rough from the outside, but really, they were as smooth as a polished table. That must've have surprised the Arendellian.

"This species is the one Astrid used to have," Eret informed. "Stormfly was her name. Wonder if she's one of these?"

"Oh? Astrid had one of these?" Elsa asked.

"Yes, Your Majesty. Beautiful one, isn't it?" Eret asked.

"Yeah… Wow, very lucky of her to keep one of these…" Elsa replied.

I scanned the other Deadly Nadders inside the cage, studying them one by one to determine whether or not either of the Nadders was Astrid's old one.

"I don't think Stormfly is either of these… let's hope not," I said. "Either way, we still need to find out a way to get the dragons out of these cages. No way we're going to find the key for each cage," I gestured to the large key of the cage.

"How about freezing the lock?" Anna suggested, still having her hand on the Nadder.

Elsa and I approached the lock of the cage, which was placed on the bottom of the cage. The door of the cage was basically one of the four vertical sides, with double hinges on top. Elsa knelt down to take a closer look.

"This lock… I've never seen it before. Must be one of their inventions. Therondia and their brains, huh," Elsa scoffed. "Breaking this into pieces by freezing it will still take me a long time, too. It's so big. Look at it."

I scratched my hair. "True…"

All of us inspected the cage thoroughly. While doing so, we noticed that the Therondian workers had apparently left their stations, so their absences provided us more time and space to work.

"You know what? Let's check the other cages. Who knows if they are different models that require different approach," I suggested.

Anna, Eret, and Elsa nodded to the suggestion. We bid a little farewell to the Nadders before leaving them to another part of the dome. While walking, Anna suddenly grabbed me by the arm.

"Hiccup? Is that Toothless?" Anna pointed to a direction. Hearing the name, I immediately looked to the very cage she pointed

She was right!

"Oh goodness!" I breathed. I rushed my way toward the cage and stopped by it. The Night Fury was not alone, he was accompanied by his partner, the Light Fury, and to my surprise, a Stormcutter that belonged to no one else but my mother, Cloudjumper!

"Toothless!" I called with a loud whisper. The dragons turned to me and immediately hissed, since they never realized of my arrival. Both Cloudjumper and Toothless approached me steadily, their eyes still showing distrust. Despite very much excited to see my old friend, I kept my approach gentle and not sudden. I did the same procedure; I raised my hand, looked away, and let the dragons come to me.

I could hear sniffing. Next thing I knew was my hand was licked off.

I turned to see both Toothless and Cloudjumper looking excited and all, very much remembering me. However, the bars between us prevented the dragons from crashing themselves into me. Seeing so, I hugged my dragon from behind the bars as much as I could. It was a hard attempt, but it worked.

"I miss you too, bud, haha!" I gave the Night Fury rubs with one hand, and the Stormcutter scratches by the nose with the other. I then noticed the Eret, Anna, and Elsa simply watching me being 'attacked' with affection from behind while smiling.

"Hey, Toothless, you must remember Eret. But do you remember Elsa and Anna?" I asked, pulling away from the dragon's hug and gesturing to the sisters. The Night Fury inspected the duo as they approached the dragon himself. Anna and Elsa knelt down to see the dragon more closely.

"Hi…" Anna greeted. Elsa greeted with the same phrase. They leaned their hands closer to Toothless, and stopped when it was close enough for him to smell the scent of them. Once done, the two landed their hands on the dragon's nose gently. The dragon closes his eyes, accepting them.

"He does remember you two," I smiled.

Smiling in relief, the sisters began to give the dragon scratches.

"What are the odds that Toothless was kept in the same cell as your mother's Cloudjumber?" Eret asked, who was petting the Stormcutter.

"That's Valka's dragon?" Anna asked. "He looks so magnificent!"

"I know, right? What are the chances—wait."

I stopped myself when I saw some bruises and cuts on mother's dragon, particularly on the wing area. They were not major, but still seemed painful, and they were all over the dragon's four wings.

"What could've possibly caused these marks?..." I approached Cloudjumper to have a better look.

"Cloudjumper is not the only one, I'm afraid," Eret replied. "Look at Toothless."

I looked to Toothless and discovered the same bruises and cuts on his wings. Some even were found on his spine. Luckily, his wing tail was still intact.

"They will pay for this…" I cursed under my breath.

"What about that one back there?" Anna asked, referring to the Light Fury on the other end of the cage. She was merely laying down while watching us curiously. The dragons noticed that we were looking at the Light Fury curiously, so Toothless gave the dragon a low grumble, calling for her to come over.

The Light Fury slowly rose from her position, right away giving away the reason why she preferred to remain laying down in the first place. There was a big bulge on her stomach area. The dragon was pregnant!

"Hiccup, is the Light Fury pregnant?" Eret asked in disbelief, apparently noticing the sight as well.

"She is… Hoo boy, we will have to handle her extra gently once we free the dragons," I replied. Once close enough, the dragon laid down again. Her attention was directed to Elsa, somehow.

"I think she likes you, Elsa," Anna suggested. "You two are look-alikes, somehow."

Her sister raised a brow, giving her hand to the dragon slowly. "How so?"

"She resembles you so well, look at her!" Anna chuckled. "Wouldn't you guys agree?" She looked up to me and Eret. I agreed to the idea, so I nodded my head down. Eret seemed to agree as well.

Almost startling, the Light Fury touched Elsa by the hand with her nose. Her eyes were shut, showing trust to the fifth spirit of Northuldra. The dragon even purred, in a way.

"Oh, you are beautiful…" Elsa softly spoke. "Does she have a name?"

I pondered for a moment, sharing a glance with Eret who seemed to have the same idea. The Light Fury never received a name. Though, to be fair, she never did stick around for long enough for us to name her.

"No, she doesn't. I'll let you decide what it should be, Els," I suggested. The blonde's mouth rounded widely.

"You sure?"

"Uh huh. Why would I not be?" I shrugged.

"Okay… I'll think of a name…" She said, giving the dragon more affection and occasionally sharing them to the Night Fury as well.

We chuckled at the sight of Elsa falling in love with the Light Fury. I let the two bond together while inspecting the cage from every angle. While doing so, my eyes caught something substances lying on the horizontal bars. I grabbed a pinch and had a closer look.

"What is this?..." I asked.

Eret approached me and had a closer look as well. "Some sort of… black dust?"

"Is this the thing that they used to control the dragons?" I asked.

"Control the dragons?" Eret raised a brow.

"In the office, I found some papers describing this very thing. It said that the dust causes fear, and Therondia utilized this to control the dragons," I explained. "This could very well be it."

"How does it even work?" Eret asked.

"I don't know… Maybe it's chemical? Maybe, if inhaled, the effect will kick in? I mean, how else is a bit of dust supposed to cause such fear?" I shrugged, letting go of the pinch I had. "Let's keep looking."

"Hiccup?" Anna called.

"Yeah?" I replied.

"I think I have an idea."

I walked over to Anna. "What's up?"

"The hinges," she pointed up to the two hinges of the door of the cage. "They seem small and weak. Maybe they are easy to freeze and break. What do you think, sis?"

Elsa looked up to the objects that Anna referred. "Hmm… I think I can break it within ten seconds, eleven tops. But one problem, there are many cages to open," she gestured to the other hundreds of cages inside the dome. "Not that I do not want to do the job, but I think all of us will have to work together to open all of these cages."

"Brute force? A swing of a hammer or axe will surely break 'em," Eret suggested.

"Too much noise. It will distract too much attention," I rejected.

The three of us crossed our arms, almost simultaneously, pondering of a solution for the case. We needed a solution that would work effective, fast, and silently. Elsa's ice magic would be one, but making her work on all cages would be too slow and tiring for her. Brute force will produce too much noise. What could possibly solve this problem?

My eyes spotted some dragon saliva on the bars left by Cloudjumper. The saliva reminded me of the time attempting to refuel my inferno blade with it. But I ended up being a laughing stock since the power of the saliva was uncontrollable, though it was only mother who was there to spectate me.

Wait, that could be it.

"Anna, give me your blade," I requested out of the blue.

She shoved it out of her belt. "What for?"

"I have a solution," I took the blade. "We'll burn the hinges."

I took out the canisters of the fuel of the blade from inside the handle. "I once had a funny incident with Cloudjumper's saliva—"

"Eww…" Anna commented.

"… Not that. In the incident, I discovered that a Stormcutter, this species right here, possesses a very strong saliva. Now, a dragon's saliva is the fuel of the dragon's flame breath. And like we've seen before, Eret, Cloudjumper is quite the… dragon when it comes to burning stuff, right?" I asked.

"You're right. His fire is particularly stronger than other dragons," Eret replied.

I collected the saliva on the bars with the canisters, and some more on Cloudjumper's own tongue to make sure every canister was filled. "I think I can make a device or something… to focus the fire and use it as the dragon's tickets out of these cages. Yeah… yeah, I already have a blueprint inside this head," I nodded vigorously. After done collecting, I returned the canisters into the blade and handed it back to Anna.

"Now, don't turn on the flame of the blade for now," I warned her.

"Why?"

"Well, last time I did it, I was trashed around by its immense fire. Considering this is a prototype, it will most likely explode," I chuckled. The warning was not taken nicely as Anna carefully shoved it in her belt back.

"You think you can make it in a day or two, Hiccup?" Elsa asked.

"Give me a day. And extra brains to think of the mechanism, if you may, then I will probably, and hopefully, finish it within less than a day!" I crossed my arm in confidence.

CLUNK

All of us turned to the source of the noise. Footsteps followed after the noise, tons of them.

"All right, back to work, boys! I want this mess sorted out by noon!" A man exclaimed.

"We gotta go," Eret whispered.

Seeing this, I gave my last pets to the dragons. "We will return, okay?"

Eret, Elsa, and Anna did the same thing I did. The dragons looked up to us with full hope with their large round eyes. With that, we snuck behind the cages again to avoid being seen. Through the bars, we saw more men coming in. I led the three to hide in a relatively tight but safe spot between many cages. I kept watching the entrance in which the workers came in from until it was shut. Once shut, I led Eret, Anna, and Elsa out of hiding back to the way we came from.

Fortunately, no one was in our way. We made it back to the office and had ourselves a moment to catch our breath. We knew that we couldn't spend more time in here, so after giving the view of the cages one last look, we snuck our way out of the dome. Once outside, we rushed ourselves into the woods and crept along the trees to maintain stealth.

"That was nicely done…" Anna spoke, sounding proud.

"Heh… say that once we're back on the elevator…" I replied.

We followed the same route we took to get to the dome to return to New Raven Point. Luckily, we stumbled upon no Therondian who were returning after fishing, or a Therondian who was doing his morning walk, or a Therondian couple who just had a 'sleepover' in the woods. However, the activity in the village was much more active, forcing us to be more aware of our surroundings to the max.

It was a long walk. Walking while maintaining stealth is always bound to be a long walk, regardless of the distance. That's what I learned once we finally reached the New Raven Point.

With one final check, I gave the signal to the others that it was safe to come out to the clearing.

"This is it, right? This is where we came from?" Anna asked, panting her lungs out. "Gosh, my heart has never rushed this hard for this long before!"

"Yeah, we're here," I looked for the lid we came out from and spotted it right away inside the heavy vines and bushes. "Control your breathing, Anna."

I carefully lifted the vines and bushes on top of the lid to give space for the others to come in. "Inside, go."

One by one, they entered the lid. Anna was the last one to come in, "Almost like entering a manhole."

"Manhole?" I asked.

Anna stopped in her track. "Uh, it's this hole, on the ground, like this one! But it doesn't have any openings on the lid, so yeah," she slid onto the platform, landing on it.

I gave the surroundings one final check to make sure no one witnessed us. Nobody was around. With that, I made my way into the hole, landing hard on the wooden elevator. Eret shut the lid above us afterwards.

"All right…" I pulled the lever of the elevator and we started descending.

"That was super nicely done," Anna clapped her hands.

"True. Mission successful," Elsa added.

CRACK

We looked up above and saw a crack on the mechanism of the elevator. Not to mention the rope that carried the weight of the whole elevator was worn out on one spot.

"We spoke too soon—" I warned.

CRACK—SNAP!

The whole elevator plummeted with us on it.

"WHOAAA—"

There's a deleted scene of HTTYD2 that shows Hiccup using Cloudjumper's saliva as the fuel for his inferno blade. You can look it up on YouTube (: thanks for reading, cheers.