And here we go, ladies and gentlemen! Back with yet another chapter for all of you! Please, do enjoy and leave a review for the chapter and what you thought about it! Also, I hope you all like the cover art I did for this story. I do plan to update that later on, but for now, I hope it'll do.

*I still don't own How To Train Your Dragon or Cross Ange!*

Dialogue Key

"Thunderdrum - this reclusive beast inhabits sea caves and dark tide pools. When startled, the Thunderdrum produces a concussive sound that can kill a man at close range. Extremely dangerous. Kill on sight." = Normal Speech

'Timberjack - this gigantic creature has razor sharp wings that can slice through full grown trees. Extremely dangerous. Kill on sight.' = Thoughts.

"Night Fury - Speed: unknown. Size: unknown. The unholy offspring of lightning and death itself. Never engage this dragon. Your only chance; hide and pray it does not find you." = Someone Yelling

~How To Train Your Dragon~ ~How To Train Your Dragon~ ~How To Train Your Dragon~ = Scene Transitions

Meeting the Night Fury

Stoick and his men had managed to tie down the Nadders in the net. However, he found himself turning around when he heard the familiar sound of Hiccup screaming and saw his son running away from a Monstrous Nightmare, the lad just BARELY managing to avoid getting his tail bitten off by the beast. Grabbing his warhammer, Stoick ran off to try and save his son.

"Do not let them escape!" he ordered his men.

"Right!" one of them replied.

With that done, Stoick ran off to try and protect his son.

As for Hiccup, he was running through the village as fast as his legs could carry him, holding onto his tail in order to keep it out of the jaws of the Nightmare. He kept running until he managed to find and duck behind the remaining brazier that was standing. He yelped at the heat as the Nightmare's fire hit the brazier instead of him, but he could still feel the heat of the flame as the attack went on.

When it was over, Hiccup realized that he couldn't run and hide anymore and leapt out of his hiding place. He got into a fighting stance, readying himself for battle… only for Stoick to jump in front of Hiccup and interrupt the fight. Or rather, what would have been either a fight or a slaughter. The Nightmare tried to roast Stoick with its flame, but came upon a horrible discovery. It reached its shot limit, as proven by the smoke that came from its mouth instead of fire.

Stoick smirked cruelly and readied his hammer.

"You're all out." Stoick growled smugly.

Stoick proceeded to pummel the Monstrous Nightmare in the face using his hammer, making the Dragon grunt in pain with each hit. Hiccup winced each time the hammer made contact with flesh. Good thing Dragons have very strong bones, tendons, and other such internal structures, or the Nightmare would have died of a broken neck by now.

Shaking its head after another hit, the Nightmare decided that it had had enough of being used as a living pinata and flew off. Huffing and puffing from fighting so much, Stoick turned around to face Hiccup. His expression was clearly unamused, both by the fact that Hiccup thought he could take on that Dragon alone, and that he didn't stay at the forge like Gobber told him to.

"Oh, and there's one more thing you need to know." Hiccup started to say.

Unfortunately, the brazier had taken more damage than suspected from the Monstrous Nightmare and its fire. It slowly broke apart and fell right in the direction of the Vikings holding down the captured Nadders, forcing them to run for their lives unless they wanted to get crushed under tons of wood.

The Nadders seized the opportunity and freed themselves from the net before flying away with all of the other Dragons. It seems like it was a tie between the Dragons and the Vikings during this raid. The Dragons still got away with their kill, but their haul wasn't big enough to have any sort of impact on the villagers. So, in a way, Hiccup's intervention was actually a blessing in disguise this time rather than a nuisance. Hiccup and Stoick stared at the downed brazier for a moment, both having raised eyebrows at how convenient the timing of that was.

Finally, Hiccup broke the silence. But not with one of his usual sarcastic quips.

"...Sorry, Dad…" Hiccup mumbled before adding "But I hit a Night Fury…"

Stoick just grabbed Hiccup and dragged him through the village.

"It's not like the last few times, Dad! I mean I really, actually hit it! You guys were busy. I had a very clear shot. It went down off Raven Point. Let's get a search party out there before it …"

"Stop! Just stop. Every time you step outside, disaster follows. Can you not see that I have bigger problems? Winter is almost here and I have an entire village to feed!" snapped Stoick.

"Between you and me, the village could do with a little less feeding. Don't you think?" Hiccup asked in a somewhat sarcastic tone.

A few of the more robust Vikings shifted unconsciously as they began to feel a bit self conscious about their weight. True, they might eat just a tiny bit more than their fair share, but does the lad really need to point it out like that? And of course, Stoick was clearly not amused.

"This isn't a joke, Hiccup! Why can't you follow the simplest orders?" the viking chief snapped even more harshly.

Perhaps a little more harshly than he meant.

"I-I-I can't stop myself. I see a dragon and I have to just kill it. It's who I am, Dad." stuttered Hiccup.

Stoick sighed as his anger slowly began to eb away at his son's words. It was still there, but it was considerably less than it once was. He knows that Hiccup means well, but he tends to cause more harm than good. And it's like the old saying goes: the road to Hell is paved with good intentions.

"You're many things, Hiccup. But a dragon killer is not one of them. Get back to the house." Stoick ordered his son before turning to Gobber. "Make sure he gets there. I have his mess to clean up."

Gobber hit Hiccup on the back of the head before following him to his house. On the way they passed the teens.

"Quite the performance." laughed Tuffnut.

"I've never seen anyone mess up that badly. That helped." Snotlout quipped cruelly.

"Thank you, thank you. I was trying, so…" Hiccup began to say.

But he couldn't finish that train of thought as he just wanted to get away from the many disappointed stares of the villagers. At times, Hiccup wished that he could just disappear and never come back. Or that he was dead. That would definitely be infinitely better than having to deal with all of this.

Gobber grabbed Snotlout by his helmet and shoved him to the ground, not at all amused by how he was treating his young apprentice. Fishlegs and Ruffnut were just laughing. Astrid was sitting on a ledge, looking at her axe until Hiccup spoke, then looking at him.

As Snotlout got up laughing he looked at Astrid, who just rolled her eyes and started to leave.

Gobber and Hiccup made it to Hiccup's house, Hiccup complaining about Stoick. And quite honestly, the boy has every right to complain. I mean, you would too if you had a father like that man.

"I really did hit one." sighed Hiccup.

"Sure, Hiccup." said an unconvinced Gobber.

"He never listens." Hiccup complained.

"It runs in the family." Gobber quipped.

"And when he does, it's with this disappointed scowl, like someone skimped on the meat in his sandwich. 'Excuse me, barmaid. I'm afraid you brought me the wrong offspring. I ordered an extra-large boy with beefy arms, extra guts and glory on the side. This here, this is a talking fishbone'." Hiccup said while doing his best impression of Stoick.

And it sounded almost exactly like him, come to think of it. And Gobber would have laughed at such an impression any other day. But today was not one of those days.

"No, you're thinking about this all wrong. It's not so much what you look like, it's what's inside that he can't stand." Gobber said giving one of his 'pep talks'.

"Thank you for summing that up." Hiccup replied in his usual dry, sarcastic demeanor.

"Look, the point is, stop trying so hard to be something you're not." Gobber advised.

And in his mind, it was indeed very sound advice. He can tell from the way Hiccup behaves and that gleam in his eyes that the lad is no dragon killer. He's just trying not to be as blunt and tactless about it as Stoick had been earlier. Really, would it kill Stoick to handle these situations like a father instead of a chief?

"I just want to be one of you guys." Hiccup said, barely above a whisper.

Yet Gobber still heard every word.

Hiccup closed the door with Gobber sighing. Gobber then hobbled off before we see Hiccup leaving through the back door of the house, heading for the forest.

~How To Train Your Dragon~ ~How To Train Your Dragon~ ~How To Train Your Dragon~ ~How To Train Your Dragon~

In the Great Hall, Stoick and many of the warrior vikings of the Hairy Hooligan Tribe were in a meeting discussing what to do about the dragon problem in recent events. As it turns out, after taking inventory, they didn't lose near as much food as they thought they had in this raid. It would barely set them back a week or two, come winter. All they needed to do was catch some more fish to compensate. But that was neither here nor there.

"Either we finish them, or they'll finish us! It's the only way we'll be rid of them!" Stoick declared.

He and his soldiers were looking over a giant nautical map that showed Berk and its surrounding areas. Stoick grabbed a large dagger as he continued to speak.

"If we find the nest and destroy it, the dragons will leave. They'll find another home!" he said before stabbing the dagger into a foggy area. "One more search before the ice sets in."

But the other vikings weren't so sure about their chief's plan.

"Those ships never come back." said a random vikings.

"We're vikings. It's an occupational hazard." Stoick said as a rebuttal before asking "Now, who's with me?!"

But the other vikings were very reluctant to go to a place as dangerous as Helheim's Gate. It would spell certain death for all of them! Various responses came from the gathered men and women of these viking warriors.

"Count me out!"

"Today's not good for me."

"I have to do my axe returns."

But Stoick wasn't worried. He had a feeling that these vikings wouldn't be so willing to rush out to fight the dragons on their home turf, so he came prepared with a contingency plan. Not that he really wanted to, considering today's recent events.

"Alright. Those who stay will look after Hiccup."

That got them all to agree with him faster than a rattlesnake striking its prey. It's actually pretty sad when you stop to think about it, isn't it?

"To the ships!" shouted Phlegma.

"I'm with you, Stoick!" added Spitelout.

With their minds made up, the vast majority of the vikings that had gathered began to clamber out of the Great Hall in order to prepare for the trip. And Stoick just stared at the sight with a bland look. True, he knows it was kind of a low blow to use looking after his son as motivation, but what else could he have said to get them to agree?

"That's more like it." Stoick muttered blandly.

He also, reluctantly, decided that all of these vikings couldn't come on the trip to fight with him. Some of them would need to stay and look after the children and defend the village. Hiccup is a decent hand to hand fighter in his own right, having been training on his own for a while, but he couldn't defend a whole village by himself. And only Odin knows that the lad would willingly try to do so if push comes to shove. And Stoick knows from experience that, against a Dragon, hand to hand will only get you so far against their armored hides. Soon, it was just Stoick and Gobber left in the Great Hall with Gobber taking a drink of mead from his mug hand.

"Right. I'll pack my undies." Gobber said.

He stood up to leave, but Stoick had other ideas.

"No, I need you to stay and train some new recruits."

"Oh, perfect. And while I'm busy, Hiccup can cover the stall. Molten steel, razor sharp blades, lots of time to himself. What could POSSIBLY go wrong?" Gobber quipped.

Stoick took a seat next to his old friend and sighed. He looked irritated, burdened and unsure. But of what, I don't know.

"What am I going to do with him, Gobber?" Stoick asked.

"Put him in training with the others." Gobber replied.

"No, I'm serious." Stoick said.

"So am I." Gobber replied.

"He'd be dead before you let the first dragon out of its cage!" Stoick exclaimed.

But Gobber just waved him off with his remaining hand.

"Oh, you don't know that." he said nonchalantly.

"I do, actually." Stoick stated.

"No you don't." Gobber fired back.

"No, actually, I do." Stoick said a bit sterner this time.

"No, you don't!" Gobber exclaimed with just as much force.

"Listen! You know what he's like. From the time he could crawl, he's been… different." Stoick said, standing up and pacing around. "He doesn't listen to me! He's got the attention span of a sparrow! I take him fishing, and he goes hunting for - for trolls!"

At the mention of trolls, Gobber got a bit more defensive and caused his own stone false tooth to pop out of place and fall into his mug.

"Trolls exist! They steal your socks! But only the left ones. What's with that?" Gobber exclaimed, feeling confused about why Trolls only take left-footed socks.

Stoick sighed as he got lost in a memory of his childhood. Right after coming to an understanding about how and why Hiccup had been convinced that trolls existed. Being around Gobber for that long will apparently do that to you.

"When I was a boy…"

"Oh, here we go." groaned Gobber.

"...My father told me to hit my head against a rock, and I did it. I thought it was crazy, but I didn't question him. And you know what happened?"

"You got a headache?" Gobber offered.

Gobber fished his tooth out of his mug and used the bottom of it to tap it back into place, running his tongue along the tooth to make sure it wouldn't fall out.

"That rock split in two. It taught me what a viking could do, Gobber. He could crush mountains, level forests, tame seas!" Stoick exclaimed before adding "Even as a boy, I knew what I was. What I had to become. Hiccup is not that boy."

Gobber knew he only had one chance left to try and get Stoick to see eye to eye with him on this subject. So, he decided to pull out the big guns. Metaphorically speaking, of course. Vikings don't use guns. Those things are for sissies who don't know how to fight!

Several continents over, a whole civilization sneezed at the exact same time, having just felt like some primitive warrior had just dissed their entire way of life. And many of them began to question how something like that could possibly happen.

"I know how you feel, but you can't stop him, Stoick. You can only prepare him." he said.

Seeing Stoick's confused face, Gobber stood up and continued what he had to say.

"I know it seems hopeless, but you won't always be around to protect him. He's going to get out there again! He's probably out there now!"

Stoick looked as though he was pondering Gobber's words. He has a lot of thinking to do before heading out to find the nest. However, he knew that simply putting Hiccup in Dragon Training wouldn't work. Not without him allowing himself to be severely harmed or worse.

Needless to say, as the chief of Berk returned home, he had a lot of thinking to do so he could get his affairs in order. And maybe try to have a little heart to heart with his son. Odin only knows they both need it after recent events.

~How To Train Your Dragon~ ~How To Train Your Dragon~ ~How To Train Your Dragon~ ~How To Train Your Dragon~

The scene changes to a panning bird's eye view of the mountainous terrain in the forest, before transforming into a map of the terrain, a trajectory line and littered with crosses in different places. It then goes to Hiccup, looking down at his book in hand, charcoal pencil in the other. The boy closed his eyes and held his breath in hopes of finding what he was looking for. He opened his eyes, releasing his breath in a sigh, the area clear of the Night Fury, or signs of any dragon for that matter. The boy looked down and marked another cross on the map in his book using his charcoal pencil. Another failed location. And trust me, there are a lot of them. Hiccup scribbled all over the page in frustration, before putting his pencil in the book and slamming it shut.

"Oh, the gods hate me. Some people lose their knife or their mug. Not me. I manage to lose an entire dragon." Hiccup whined silently to himself.

In his ever growing anger, the lad swatted away the branch of a tree, before it decided to 'return the favour'. How did it plan on doing this, you may ask? By hitting him in the face.

Hiccup looked up in anger to glare at the standing tree, or so he thought. Instead he sees the tree struck down, snapped quite low down (in comparison to the tree's height, not the position of the trunk to the ground), fallen over a hill that has a large groove leading from the tree struck out by something.

Throwing caution to the wind, Hiccup began following the groove, touching a large raised tree root along the way, up to the hill and looked over. A dark dragon entered his vision causing him to quickly hide away. He then grabbed his dagger and looked over again to get a better look. The Night Fury is tied up in the bola cords, tangled badly. Hiccup approaches as slowly and carefully as possible, using a large nearby stone as a form of cover, looking on in a combination of excitement and fear. At first glance the dragon seems dead; no movement, eyes closed, no sounds of breathing.

"Oh, wow. I did it. Oh, I did it. This fixes everything! Yes! I have brought down this mighty beast!" the boy exclaimed, feeling triumphant.

Hiccup put his foot on the Night Fury's leg, striking a victorious pose. But what he didn't count on was the fact that the dragon was alive! The dragon felt the light pressure, shaking his arm and moaning at the contact. Hiccup fell to the ground from losing his balance, before getting up again and pointing his dagger at the dragon's body. He takes a look at the Night Fury's face, sharp eyes of green taking in Hiccup's appearance. After regaining his senses, Hiccup began to loosen himself, rolling his shoulders as he prepared to thrust the blade into the dragon.

"I'm going to kill you, dragon. Then I'm – then I'm going to cut out your heart and take it to my father. I'm a Viking. I'm a Viking!" Hiccup declared, more to convince himself rather than the dragon.

The dragon moans, raising its head to look at Hiccup. Hiccup looked back at him before turning back, raising his dagger above his head. The Night Fury's huffed breathing quickens slightly. Hiccup made the mistake(?) of taking another look at the dragon, seeing the fear in its eyes.

Hiccup momentarily lost his composure before regaining it, closing his eyes so he wouldn't have to see the fear and familiarity looking back at him. The dragon closed his eyes and dropped his head to the ground giving a defeated growl, accepting death.

Hiccup gave himself one final push to try and drive the blade home, but then lowered it on his head in defeat. He cannot kill the Night Fury. He took a few steps back, and turned to the village.

"I did this." he mumbled.

Turning back, he once again looked at the trapped dragon. A few huffed, ragged breaths escape the creature. Hiccup looked down in shame and defeat, not believing what he was about to do now.

The dragon's eyes shot wide open, glancing back as it heard cutting sounds. Hiccup had grabbed his dagger and was cutting the ropes apart to set it free. One of the ropes broke and he proceeded to cut another. The back legs of the dragon moved slightly, shrugging of a couple, subtly enough not to be noticed by Hiccup. The second rope is cut. Fast as lightning the Night Fury reacts, grabbing Hiccup and pinning him against the ground and rock.

Hiccup looked up frightened, gazing into those sharp green eyes, no longer scared and observing but powerful and furious. Hiccup seems smaller, looking up in fear and desperation, almost identical to how the dragon looked before. It growled in anger, baring its teeth and rising up, looking like it's about to strike.

But rather than attacking, the Night Fury bent down and gave an ear-splitting roar, before leaping away. Hiccup could do nothing more than look on in surprise. The dragon tried to fly away and does so, but its flight pattern seemed off to the observant boy with a tail, hitting some rocks and cliff walls before disappearing from sight, roaring all the way.

Hiccup puffed out sigh of relief, slumping further down the rock, if that was possible, before picking up his dagger and getting to his feet. Taking one last look towards where the dragon disappeared he turned around, walking toward the village. He only managed five steps before giving out a strange sound and fainting on the spot, facing downwards.

*To Be Continued…*

Okay, I know I said the actual Cross Ange stuff would appear in this chapter, but I couldn't figure out how to integrate it into this particular chapter. But I'm going to try and get it to happen next chapter, as that's when dragon training begins for the young vikings. Also, I'd like your honest opinion about a few questions I have.

1.) Should I have Hiccup, Ange and the gang train more than just one dragon each? Or should I have it be just Hiccup and Ange?

2.) Do you guys want me to give Ange a weapon forged by the Norse Gods and Goddesses?

3.) And finally, should I have a Bewilderbeast make an appearance in this story?

Thank you guys so much for reading. Please don't forget to vote on the poll I have up if you haven't already. And as I'll say…

May the Force be with you, and have a great day.