18: Revenge or Not to Revenge

Chills spread through Astrid's bones, and it had nothing to do with the weather that was already cutting into her shoulders. Dragons not being a common thing since the past year in New Berk City, Astrid had not seen many reptilian fights in her life. When the the Night Fury and the Red Death had been fighting, she had been busy trying to defend herself against a crowd of goons. Now, there was nothing to distract her, and it drove her insane.

"Are we too late? What's going on?" Ruffnut ran up beside Astrid; Tuffnut, Snotlout, and Fishlegs were at her heels.

"Moldy Midgard!" Tuffnut exclaimed. "He can't fight her!"

It was true. The only advantage the Night Fury had over the White Death was his speed. It took the bigger dragon twice as long to do anything. Astrid winced as the black dragon almost had his tail bitten off.

Police sirens wailed through the air, and police cars arrived at the scene, parking haphazardly. No one really cared; they were all watching the ongoing fight, and – in true Viking style – cheering for their resident superhero, the Night Fury.

"STOP YOUR FIGHT. I REPEAT, STOP YOUR FIGHT." A captain Astrid didn't recognize efficiently plugged in a megaphone and started shouting at the stop of his lungs.

What good was that going to do? Astrid wondered. It was like asking Snotlout to stop buying hair gel or asking the twins not blow anything up for twenty-four hours!

"That's it! Whoop the white thingy!" a man twenty feet away from the group yelled as the Night Fury swatted the other dragon across the snout, narrowly missing a return stroke. No blood had yet to be drawn, but the spectators were certainly cheering for it. Didn't they know that it wasn't a game?

"Cuz has got a fan club," Snotlout snickered.

"He's not going to win!" Fishlegs wailed, pulling out his phone calculator. "That dragon is twice his mass, and the velocity of the-"

"Oh!" Astrid sucked in a breath, rocking back and forth on the balls of her feet. She could have been up there, ravaging the White Death. She has strong! The only problem? She didn't have wings. She would have to work on that...

Making an unexpected move, the White Death raked a talon across the Night Fury's flank. The two dragons separated, the White Death roaring in triumph, and the Night Fury roaring in pain.

"Where are fireworks when we need them?" Ruffnut moaned, tearing hands through her hair and thoroughly tangling the blonde mess.

Astrid wholeheartedly agreed with her crazy friend for once. Fireworks would surely make a dent in the big dragon, if not help end the scrimmage. In the sky, finesse was thrown to the wind, and the two dragons full out brawled. Suddenly, a light bulb went off in Astrid's head. "Fireworks! Tuffnut, where can one hypothetically buy the biggest fireworks on Berk?"

A few seconds later, her arms were yanked out of their sockets as the twins took off running down the streets. "Oh, your going to love Uncle Tony!" Ruffnut chattered, to Astrid seemingly oblivious to the pressing time schedule. "He's the best thing since... sliced bread! Roman candles!"

The twins pulled her around several corners, distorting her sense of direction, lassoed her around in front of them, and pushed her into a shady-looking shop she didn't have the time to catch the name of. The building was very dusty and dark; Astrid couldn't see very much, and that was probably on purpose. Snotlout and Fishlegs stayed outside.

"Uncle Tony!" Ruffnut sang. "We have a customer for you!"

A door behind a dusty counter opened and a large man in a wife beater and baggy sweats stepped up to the counter. "Ruffnut! Tuffnut! How are Uncle Tony's two favorite customers doing?" He dramatically rolled his r's.

"Fine as frogs' hair," Ruffnut answered, leaning up against the counter and giving "Uncle Tony" a big, but genuine, smile. "We need the biggest thing you've got."

Tony rubbed his shin, which possessed a five o'clock shadow. Or maybe it was actually the shadows of the shop, because it was kind of hard to tell. "Uncle Tony not sure he should give it two you. Have they been good?" he addressed Astrid.

"VERY!" Astrid checked her watch. How much time had passed?

"Uncle Tony-"

"Uncle Tony better get it fast or he will face the wrath of a HOFFERSON!" Astrid hissed, showing him her knuckled. Normally, she wouldn't have threatened a civilian, but desperate times called for desperate measures. Faster than you could have said, "Red leather, yellow leather", four boxes of the most gargantuan (and most illegal) boxes of fireworks were in front of them on the counter.

"Free of charge!" Uncle Tony swallowed nervously.

"Thanks!" Tuffnut snatched the box, and they were back out on the street again, swooping buy Snotlout and Fishlegs.

Astrid shielded her eyes as she ran, nearly stopping in relief when she saw that they were still fighting and the Night Fury hadn't been done away with. The only downside was that thick, hot drops of blood were dropping from both dragons, and Astrid couldn't see who was bleeding more. She hoped it wasn't the Night Fury.

"Set them up in clear range!" Astrid barked when they got closer to the continuing fight. "I hope your aim is good, because if you hit Hiccup I will see you fired!"

"Is there anything I can do to help?" Fishlegs asked.

"Help them with the angles and whatnot. You're good with that kind of stuff." Astrid turned to Snotlout. "Keep people away from here. Break dance or something. I don't care what you do as long as we don't get arrested."

"I love this plan! I'll take care of this!"

Astrid stood, mildly fascinated by the fact that Snotlout could, in fact, break dance, and he was pretty good at it. Too bad there was no one around to see it yet.

"Have you got it set up yet?" she asked the firework crew, tearing her eyes away from Snotlout.

"Almost," Tuffnut grunted.

"A little to the left," Fishlegs advised. "The Coriolis Effect dictates-"

"I don't care," Ruffnut said, moving the object in question to the left. "You don't use that junk when you graduate from high school. In fact, you use the education you get for free in elementary and middle school more than the education you pay big bucks for in college! It's all a scam to force young adults to -"

"WOULD YOU STOP THAT?" Astrid roared. "I don't want to hear about it! Are you almost done?" She took another peek at the sky. The White Death and the Night Fury had been climbing higher and higher, but now they were spiraling back down to the ground.

"You need to time it perfectly to where it hits her, but not Hiccup."

"Re-lax, Astrid," Tuffnut huffed. "What do you think we do at work all day, mess around?"

"Yes!" Astrid hated how the fight was going. Now that the dragons were closer, she could see that the white dragon was beating the Night Fury. "COME ON, YOU IDIOT!" Astrid screamed at the sky, hoping he could hear her. "You beat Alvin! She should be a piece of cake!"

As if he could hear here (and who wouldn't, with that volume?), the Night Fury shot a blast of purple fire at the White Death's chest, doing a fair bit of damage and separating him from it. It was just the chance the twins needed; they took aim,fired, and ran for the hills.

The result was glorious. Streaks of purple and red shot into the sky and barreled into the White Death's wings.

"Yes!" The twins slapped high fives as the white dragon tried to flap its wings and failed miserably. The Night Fury circled above it, blasting it almost angrily. The White Death's wings finally gave out and it began to plummet to the ground.

"Why isn't he finishing her off?" Snotlout asked, finishing his show. Too bad nobody had showed up to watch him.

"I don't know!" The Night Fury was being awfully slow. Instead of rushing her and pinning her to the ground, he was forcing her lower and lower until they were below the tops of New Berk City's skyscrapers.

"Why is he doing? Come on!" Astrid took off running, and the gang followed her, abandoning the firework shooter. Why wasn't Hiccup forcing the White Death their way? She didn't know the pinpoint location of the two dragons were, but she took off in the general direction. How hard could it be to miss a couple of fire-breathing lizards?

Stopping for a second, she sucked in a deep breath to pacify her screaming side and yelled, "HICCUP!" She listened carefully, waiting to hear a reply, but nothing came.

Instantaneously, a column of flame erupted from an alley all the way down the street from where Astrid was and a sharp voice rang through the air. Hiccup.

A thousand possibilities running through her mind, Astrid began running again. Why was Hiccup yelling? Was he in trouble? Stupid question, Astrid. Hiccup was always in trouble. Why did he always try to take things on by himself, without the help of his friends? It only led to more trouble than was necessary. Thirty yards, twenty yards, Astrid narrowed the gap.

"Face me, you coward."

Astrid stopped about ten feet away from the mouth of the side street and rested with her hands on her knees. Fishlegs, Snotlout and the twins came up behind her.

"Why'd you stop?" Snotlout exclaimed.

Astrid hushed him.

"Turn back," Hiccup commanded, his voice strong, "or I'll shoot."

Astrid heard grunting. The lack of a gunshot told her Excellinor had complied.

"So it's the Dragon Boy." Excellinor's voice was cracked, but smooth like an amphibian's. "Come to take his medicine just like Camicazi?"

Astrid's heart dropped into her stomach. She stepped into the mouth of the alley to be met with a shocking sight. Excellinor was crouched at the end of the alley on all fours, blood freely dripping from her nose. Hiccup was standing, arms locked straight in front of him, his hands holding a gun. It was the same gun that Excellinor had pulled at the abandoned factory. With a start, Astrid realized that Excellinor hadn't been the one to reclaim the weapon. It had been Hiccup, and this was a part of his plan, why he wouldn't tell her.

"Six years ago, you killed mother," Hiccup declared, cocking the gun. "Prepare to die."

Had it been any other, any other occasion, Astrid would have laughed and called him a dork. Instead, her stomach sunk to her feet. "You don't want to do this Hiccup," she said.

He didn't turn around to look at her. "Yes, I'm pretty sure I do. If you haven't noticed, she killed my mother!"

Excellinor looked pleased with herself. "Don't forget Camicazi, runt."

Astrid could hear Hiccup's teeth grounding from ten feet away.

"You're going to pay," he hissed through clenched teeth. His white-knuckled grip on the gun was shaking. "Any last words?"

"Hiccup, you can't fix the past by breaking someone else," Astrid said, almost pleading.

"It's justice!" he argued. "She's killed hundreds of people!"

"It's not justice!" Astrid argued. "Murder is murder, no matter how you sugarcoat it. Do you really want to live the rest of your life with the price of someone's blood on your hands?" Astrid did herself. If she closed her eyes tight, she could still see Camicazi lying prone on the ground because of her.

Hiccup's hands were visibly shaking and his lips were pressed together in a tight line.

"Can't pull the trigger?" Excellinor sneered. "I always knew you were weak." She steadied herself up against the alley wall, but somehow even in her weak state managed to look evil.

"Please, Hiccup," Astrid begged, "for me." Slowly, she stepped up beside Hiccup and pushed his hands down. She was met with no resistance.

"Weak!" Excellinor taunted again, hacking into her hand.

Astrid was pleased to inform her, "You're under arrest." Excellinor was so weak, it was hard to see how she could have been almost beating Hiccup twenty minutes earlier. The handcuffs were snapped on the old crone with no effective resistance, and she was pushed into the waiting custody of Snotlout. Excellinor didn't say anything as she was dragged away, but only glared, her gaze promising vengeance that she would never be able to carry out.

Astrid knelt down next to Hiccup, who had sunk to the ground. "Are you all right?" Was is a cliché question? Very, but what else could she ask?

"I almost killed her," he whispered horrified, his face turning pale and then to a sickly shade of green as the revelation came upon him. The mad look in his eyes that he had possessed were gone. "I almost killed her."

"But you didn't." Astrid patted him lightly on the back, almost as if he would break. "You chose the right thing."

Hiccup grunted. His hand clutched his knee, and now Astrid realized that he was more beat up from the fight than she realized. He had several cuts on his face that were bleeding profusely.

"Can you stand?" she asked.

He leaned heavily on her, but as soon as pressure was set on his left knee, he cried out in pain. Astrid helped him back to the ground. "Is it broken?"

Hiccup grimaced. "No."

Astrid rolled up his pant leg, exposing the prosthetic, and she saw the root of the problem. "Detach it."

Hiccup detached his peg leg as ordered and Astrid gave him the evil eye. "You have been pushing yourself too far."

"Yes, Ma'am."

"You didn't go to therapy like I told you to."

"Yes, Ma'am."

"It's infected."

"Yes, it might be." Hiccup sighed. "Whatever gave you that idea? They should give me a frequent visitor card at the emergency room."

If they didn't, the morgue would give him one after Astrid killed him.