Author's Note:Ah, a momentous occasion, for two reasons. First, the much-anticipated (by me) chapter fourteen! This might be the second big turning point in the story, the first being chapter nine.

The other reason is more entertaining to me personally. I received a staggering total of two guesses as to my age, gender, occupation, and in one case nationality. Two. Interestingly, they were almost polar opposites, in every way aside from age.

And they were both wrong. I am most definitely not a Russian woman with a desk job or a bouncer with free time and a wasted college education. Great guesses though!

In complete honesty, I am much less interesting. 18, male, American. Just starting college in the last two weeks, enjoying a true uninterrupted internet connection for the first time in my life. I plan to be a Material Engineer, which means all of this is completely irrelevant towards my future. That might be why I enjoy it so much. Well, enough about the author. No one really cares about the author's biography unless said author is famous (or infamous). On with what everyone came here to see.

Hiccup hopped off of Toothless's back and took two small, thin metal rods out of the saddlebag. The levers that opened the pens had no lock, but the big gate that was the exit to the arena did. Finding Gobber's key for the gate should prove simple enough, so the rods were just a backup plan. He had been taught how to pick locks by a childhood friend from another village when she and her mother visited Berk. Their tribe visited every three years, but she hadn't been with them when they showed up last year. He hadn't seen her in over four years now and rarely thought of her, so he wasn't sure if she still counted as a friend. He was probably rusty at picking locks, but that was why it was just the backup plan.

He moved over to face Toothless, and look him in the eyes. "Don't worry. I'll be fine. Besides, you'll be watching the whole thing, right? You'll probably know about any dangers before I do."

'Your village doesn't stand a chance of catching you. You're sneaky, fast, smart, and have a Night Fury giving you advice. Now go, and don't make me a liar by getting caught!'

Hiccup laughed softly and scratched the dragon's head before turning and setting out through the fringe of the forest. He could feel the large green eyes on his back. He made his way into the village.

The village was dark and empty except for the unlucky few on night patrol, armed with lanterns that destroyed their night vision in exchange for light for all of three feet. They wouldn't be an issue unless they got really close. And that wasn't going to happen, because Hiccup could see them coming from halfway across the village. He moved quickly and silently, making his way to the bridge that led to the arena. Here was where it got a bit risky. Hiccup's silhouette was distinctively slim among the massive Berkians, and he really did not want to be seen crossing this particular bridge on the night the dragons were let loose. He stopped in a shadow, and slowly turned in a full circle, checking with his own eyes for any watchers. Toothless also checked through Hiccup's vision. 'Nothing I can see.'

Hiccup still hadn't wanted to risk his silhouette. So, as they had planned beforehand, he crawled across the bridge on his hands and knees. now his outline would just be a small, not very human looking blob. He made it across the bridge in a few heart-stoppingly long minutes. He had made it to the arena.

Now for the tricky part. The moon was only partially covered by the shifting clouds. This meant that the ambient light level was shifting. Right now, it was just light enough in the stone arena's outside area to see the racks of practice weapons. They were here because Gobber left them here, too lazy to put them back after every training. Besides, who would steal blunted training weapons? There were blunt knives, axes, a few swords, and one unusual object, all hanging on the sharp weapons rack. The unusual object was Gobber's blunted training hook. Hiccup had noticed he used a different hook when teaching, mostly because Gobber had yanked a Gronckle by the inside of its mouth to save Hiccup from a blast the first day of training. Hiccup had noticed that the hook had no blood on it, and from there noticed that it was blunted. He had asked Gobber about it.

That was how he knew it existed. He knew it would be here because he had seen Gobber remove it, but not take it with him when he left the arena. As to why it was important, that was something Gobber probably thought no one knew. There was a hidden compartment where the prosthetic fit over his stump. Hiccup had helped Gobber make this part of the prosthetics once, a few years ago, and Gobber had explained that it was for things like hidden knives and the like. Hiccup knew, though Gobber never told him, "the like" meant stuff like playing cards. Gobber never had an ace up his sleeve, but he sometimes had one inside his arm.

After that, it was simple logic. Gobber had a key, but Hiccup never saw him use it. Gobber also had no pockets and was terrible at remembering where he kept things. So, where would he store a key he would always have to have on him in the arena, but only then?

Hiccup pulled the prosthetic off of the rack and flipped it so that the hook end pointed down. There was a little shine of metal, poking out from between the metal bowl and leather padding where the prosthetic was in contact with the stump.

'Tricky.' Toothless was impressed. He hadn't thought the old man was that smart, from what he had seen, though Hiccup had assured him that he was much smarter than he looked.

"But not tricky enough." Hiccup grinned, holding the key. That had been a gamble, even if it made sense in his head. He was glad he wouldn't have to rely on his rusty lockpicking skills. He opened the main gate to the arena, and in defiance of all tradition, left it open. It was now a straight shot to freedom. Hiccup went over to the area over the levers. He looked at them. They weren't labeled, but that didn't matter. He was planning to open them all anyway.

'Start with the Terror.' Hiccup knew why Toothless said that, and he had no problems with that. He pulled the lever he assumed was connected to the Terror's pen, as both the lever and pen were on the far left. HIs assumption about how they worked was correct, and the pulley system groaned as it lifted the log that held the small flap of the Terror cage closed.

The Terror flew out, and both Toothless and Hiccup sighed in relief. It had been one of the Terrors that followed them back to Berk. It looked around in confusion, saw Hiccup, saw the open path to freedom, and left. It flew around Hiccup's head a few times, and then took off. Away from Berk entirely. Hopefully, it was going to find the other two it had been with. Hiccup silently wished him luck.

Now for the others. Hiccup opened the gate for the Nightmare next. The dragon burst out, wreathed in flames, but it looked confused. It saw that Hiccup was alone, outside the arena. It also saw the open gate, just as the Terror had. What was different this time was that the dragon made eye contact with Hiccup for several seconds, not moving towards freedom.

'He's thanking you. He doesn't know you have me translating, but he's thanking you even though he thinks you can't hear him.'

Hiccup felt he had to respond. "You're welcome. Now get out of here!" He gestured towards the sky.

The Nightmare got the message, and walked out of the arena, and leaped into the air. It had put out its flames, and the moon was almost completely covered at the moment, so it would have been impossible to see from a distance. The dragon flew into the night, heading south. Directly away from Helheim's gate, and the Queen. It stood to reason, actually, that all of the arena dragons had been knocked unconscious at least once at some point, and thus all were free from the Queen.

The Nadder did almost the same thing as the Nightmare, thanking Hiccup as a sign of respect before flying west. Hiccup was about to let the Zippleback out when an explosion rocked the village.

Hiccup froze, and Toothless told him what was happening even as the distinctive horn was blown.

'The Queen is raiding. Tonight, of all nights! Hurry up and get back to the forest!'

Hiccup yanked all of the remaining levers at once and watched anxiously as the Gronckle and Zippleback looked around in confusion. "Get out, quickly!" Hiccup yelled at them. They started at his voice, noticed the open gate, and heard the raid, pretty much simultaneously. They bolted and flew as fast as their respective species could fly, again straight south.

That was Hiccup's mission accomplished. Now he had to get back to Toothless. By going through Berk in the middle of a raid. Actually, did he? He could just stay here, and get to Toothless after the raid was-

'HICCUP!' Toothless sounded more than worried, he was frantic, and his fear was tinged with excitement now. 'Look through my senses!'

Hiccup did so, and he could see the raiding dragons fairly clearly through Toothless's eyes. That was when he heard it. That signature whine, building... He knew exactly what Toothless wanted him to see, and it hurt him that neither of them had considered this possibility before. This was something they should have considered, made a plan for, waited for. He saw the Night Fury blaze through the sky, and destroy the one watch-tower that had been fully repaired and functioning. That was the only real target worthy of a Night Fury at the moment, so soon after the last raid. Hiccup remembered past raids, where the Night Fury had disappeared and apparently left after it had destroyed all viable targets. Toothless probably had been intending to leave after destroying that last watchtower the night he had been shot down. Rather, the Queen probably had. He knew he probably wouldn't make it to Toothless in time to stop her from leaving. Toothless knew it too.

'Mom...' Toothless's voice was soft and sad.

But with that, Hiccup knew he had to try. There was still a tiny chance he might make it in time. And he couldn't tell Toothless not to try and save his mother, not when she was right there. He couldn't not try. His loyalty to his friend wouldn't let him. He broke into a full sprint, no longer caring who might see him as he passed over the bridge. Not that anyone would. The village was in the middle of a raid after all. "Toothless, if I have any chance of getting to you before she leaves, you need to help me now!" This was true, but it would also stop Toothless from trying to meet Hiccup in the middle of the village. That path of action only led to his death.

'I will.'

Hiccup leaped off of the end of the bridge and began running through the middle of a war zone. At full speed. Fire was everywhere, in all forms and intensities. Dragons were also everywhere, fighting off Vikings wherever he turned. This raid was more destructive and bloody than any in the recent past, as the Queen had ordered her slaves to destroy as well as steal this time, in retribution for the death of one of her two favorite thralls.

Hiccup didn't know that and didn't care. He ran through it all, taking the most direct route unless it was entirely impassible. He, with Toothless's frantic instructions, ran as a Night Fury would, with agility and foresight. Not many villagers would remember that night clearly, but of the few who did had a story to tell about hallucinations that night. They spoke of Hiccup, running faster than they had ever seen him move. Running, not in fear, but in what they would swear seemed pure determination.

They knew it wasn't real, they said, because of the way he moved. He moved with none of his usual clumsiness, but with sure footing in the middle of chaos. He leaped burning logs, ducked flying blades hurled by Vikings at dragons, and did it all as if he knew what was coming ahead of time, and had practiced for it. That was enough to dismiss as hallucinations in itself, the strange prewarning and practice he seemed to have, but some would swear they saw even more impossible things. Ack swore no matter how much anyone laughed in the years to come that he had hallucinated that he saw Hiccup running, but a Nightmare landed, completely blocking his path by pure coincidence, mere feet away. He swore that in his hallucination he saw Hiccup fully leap off of the ground, landing in a roll on the other side of the dragon, having jumped under its head and over its lowered wing-claw, right between the two. the Nightmare had stopped, utterly dumbfounded by the action, and stared at the running boy's retreating form. That might have had to do with the fact that as Hiccup passed right under the Nightmare's head, the dragon had caught a whiff of Night Fury, but Ack didn't know that.

Astrid was another who saw something she had thought impossible, though she kept it to herself, and knew it was no hallucination, unlike Ack.

She had been working with the fire brigade, seething with hidden rage because she wasn't allowed to fight yet (among other things) when she had caught sight of Hiccup. He was running. He was running straight at, and as Astrid watched, straight through a burning house, in the front door and out the back, moments before the roof collapsed. But he wasn't fleeing anything, like previous raids. The sight of him running like this pulled bad memories of the chase to Astrid's head once more. That had been impressive, the ease at which he moved through tangled forest debris. This would be, for anyone but Astrid, jaw-dropping coming from Hiccup.

This couldn't be argued, because unbeknownst to Astrid, Fishlegs' jaw was currently doing its best to dislocate itself, his bucket pouring out unnoticed on a small fire that had started on his foot, saving his shoe and the foot inside it. His analytical mind was trying to process Hiccup, the boy with a clumsiness factor of seven and an intelligence factor of twelve, dodging the movements of fire and flame as if he understood them completely. In reality, Toothless was in his element as a dragon instinctively understood fire better than any human could. But to Fishlegs, it was Hiccup who was predicting and countering the seemingly random movement of flame as he ran full speed through the street full of burning debris and liquid fire that was unique to Nightmares. He at one point leaped straight through a wall of flame, just as the wind caused it to flicker enough that this didn't burn him. He was literally running through an inferno and hadn't even been singed yet.

Actually, Hiccup had been burned multiple times, but Fishlegs didn't see that.

Fishlegs only saw Hiccup outthink and outrun fire itself. He mentally decided to give Hiccup a score in the category of 'fire'. He felt it was appropriate, though that category was reserved for dragons, not humans who had no firepower and who Fishlegs had always assumed had no affinity with that element. Hiccup got a twenty, the maximum, as the only human Fishlegs had ever seen do anything like that. It threw the scoring out of whack for the dragons, almost none of which had a perfect twenty, but Fishlegs would sort that out later. Hiccup had run out of view, and Fishlegs was snapped out of his statistic bookkeeping when his other shoe caught on fire.

Hiccup ran, and to him, while he would look back later in awe, at the moment he just wasn't moving fast enough. He had been burned in various places, and it was slowing him down, though he ignored the pain. For all of his newfound agility and built up endurance and speed, he was still a human. His maximum speed would never be as fast as Toothless, and right now he just wasn't fast enough. He wasn't quick enough. He knew this as he took dangerous shortcuts, as he leaped past dragons instead of avoiding them, as he ran through buildings rather than go around, as he didn't even bother to make any attempt at hiding his skill and apparent unnatural precognition from the rest of the village. Despite all this, despite the dragon giving him instructions that let him move more accurately than he could have hoped and predictions on how the fire would move, despite his training, he was still human. And no human could have made it to Toothless in time for them to catch his mother before the Queen withdrew that night.

But he had tried. He knew this as he heard no more Fury plasma blasts, as Toothless's voice in his head lost hope, though never faltered. He had done all that he could, and he had made it to Toothless faster than any other Viking currently on Berk could have. He had done that, at least. He had tried his best. It was the least he owed his friend, and he had delivered on that.

Toothless rushed to meet Hiccup as he stumbled into the cover of the forest. He crouched, and sprung into the air as soon as Hiccup settled into the saddle.

"Bud, she must be gone by now." Hiccup spoke softly but urgently as they raced into the sky, searching for the distinctive black dragon.

'I have to keep looking!' Toothless wasn't going to give up, despite the futility of the search. His mother was likely already well on her way back to the nest.

And then his prosthetic stopped responding. Or rather, Hiccup did. It was very disorienting, as if a part of him had just gone numb. Hiccup moved the prosthetic so naturally he always forgot he wasn't moving it himself.

"We can't afford to be seen. By Vikings or the Queen's thralls."

At that moment the raid began to break, the enthralled raiders beginning to move away from the village, heading North. Toothless was faltering in midair, but as soon as he chose to drop out of sight, Hiccup resumed his operation of the fin. They landed softly a few dozen yards into the forest.

Hiccup hated using the tailfin to force Toothless to do anything. But it had been necessary. He dismounted slowly, favoring the burns he had acquired.

Toothless interrupted Hiccup's thoughts by licking his arm. He didn't react immediately, and only vaguely noticed that the dragon was treating his burns with his saliva. The pain was already fading in the burns Toothless started with, but Hiccup barely registered the numbing sensation.

Toothless noticed that Hiccup was burned more than he had thought in several places, his lower legs and forearms mostly, where his clothing had briefly caught before he smacked it out while running. He quickly rushed to treat those more serious burns first, feeling horrible that his friend had gotten hurt rushing on his behalf, and all for nothing. He was also touched. Hiccup had demonstrated that he would literally run through fire if Toothless needed him to, and without a second thought. He had followed all of Toothless's advice, trusting that the dragon wouldn't get him burned, clawed, or cut in the frantic race.

Hiccup sighed sadly. "I wasn't fast enough. I'm sorry."

Toothless stopped and whacked Hiccup with his tailfin, making sure to hit with the natural side, and to not hit any burns. 'You were fast. There wasn't time. The Queen had no reason to stick around.' Toothless refused to let Hiccup blame himself. He also refused to let Hiccup see his own disappointment. He crooned softly before continuing. 'And don't think it's your fault we weren't together. If anything, the only one to blame for that is...' Toothless wasn't sure he should go there.

Hiccup had no such reservations. "Stoick. If he hadn't moved the final test and Nightmare to now, we might have been able to get to her. But we had no plan." Hiccup considered that. "We had no plan. And we might have wasted our best advantage. If we had tried something and failed, the Queen would know that you're still alive. That you will be coming for your mom. She would be wary. Right now, our best bet is the element of surprise, and we can only use that once."

The raid was breaking up entirely now. The few remaining dragons were disengaging and flying off in the direction of the nest. Hiccup only had a few minutes before he would need to put in an appearance in the village so that no search parties were sent or questions asked about where he had been. But there was something he needed to say first, face to face. "Toothless. We will think of a plan. And once we do..."

Toothless finished the thought. 'We'll get her back. And the three of us can attack the Queen together. We'll think quickly, so we can do it during the next raid. The Queen has no other Night Furies, she'll bring her for sure.'

Hiccup grinned. "That we will." He turned to go join the village in searching for the wounded among the destruction and chaos left behind.

Toothless called out to him before he left. 'Hiccup!' He turned. The dragon met his eyes. 'Thank you for trying. I know it was hopeless from the start, and you risked your life and secrets being discovered to help anyway.'

Hiccup had the perfect answer for this. "That's what friends do for each other. And we are friends."

'No.' Toothless sounded thoughtful. 'I think brothers is more accurate.'

Hiccup agreed. "Yes, it is. Brothers." He returned to the village that no longer felt like his own, and spent the rest of the night helping villagers. He worked alongside Stoick, the father he could never be like in any way, and didn't want to be anymore. Outwardly, he was a perfect member of the village, focused on helping what appeared to be his people. But in reality, he was plotting with his brother. He couldn't be further from being a member of his village in his head.

The Vikings had yet to check the dragon pens and the arena. No one knew that not only a raid had occurred that night. Not yet.

Author's Note: In response to the guest NoOne, who said; 'Also, I would like to mention one more thing. I know that what I'm about to ask isn't going to happen in the next few chapters but are you planning to get hiccup and Astrid together? I understand that insane maniac Astrid is important to the plot but it feels a bit weird since their relationship is a core part of the httyd story. But that's just my opinion. This is your fanfic and you can do with it as you wish but you're a great author and I know you'll come up with more great chapters in the future :)'

Uhh, no? Definitely, without a shadow of a doubt, no. She's only going to get worse, albeit slowly. And honestly, I personally feel the only core part of HTTYD is the interactions between Hiccup and Toothless. Everything else is secondary. This story, and the one that will follow, Living Anonymously, will develop Astrid along the way though. She does have a character arc… but it does not involve dragons in a good way.

(And I'm not at this time ruling out alternative pairings for either Astrid or Hiccup at some point in one of these stories. I might have something planned, or nothing at all. You'll see eventually, if you stick around. For all you guys know, she might up married to Snotlout, or something equally far-fetched. I promise to make it believable, and not out of the blue, if I do anything with that kind of development. Or maybe all of this is a bunch of Red Herrings.)