Disclaimer: I own nothing you recognise; if you're on this site, you know the drill. Also, thanks are owed to athingofvikings, who gave me a much-appreciated sounding-board for a few aspects of my planned world-building for this particular crossover; hope you like it.

Feedback: Appreciated as always.

The Dragon of Wanheda

Excellent, Grimmel mused to himself as he guided the Night Fury towards the cage he'd specially set aside for this particular dragon. Just as he'd anticipated, once he'd successfully drugged the Alpha of the outpost dragons, the rest of them had followed the call of the Night Fury as nothing but helpless sheep, incapable of resisting the call that was part of their nature.

With his crew prepared for what to expect from his quest, it was simple enough to direct the dragons to the cages set up on the deck. He might have sacrificed one of the rowboats when he went to the island, but it was a minor loss compared to everything he'd achieved. As he'd anticipated, outmanoeuvring a group of children who thought they were safe on their little island was hardly a challenge. He would do them the credit of speculating that they would have noticed if larger numbers of enemy forces had been sent to the island, considering what he had seen of the island's defences, but as it was they had underestimated what a single, well-trained warrior could do, and he had come away from that assault with everything he wanted and no harm done.

He regretted not having been able to spare the time to look for that 'Dragon Eye' that the Grimborn brothers had expressed an interest in, but when he had the opportunity to claim this many dragons in one go he wasn't going to pass it up. He could always send someone to go back to the island and search it while those foolish children were grieving the loss of their 'pets', but when he realised that he had an opportunity to go for the Fury he'd taken it.

As it was, the only downside was that he would now have to send a message to the Grimborns to confirm that he had retrieved their desired target and wait for them to get here. He would be willing to sell off most of the dragons once they arrived, of course, but as much as he was resolved not to give them the Fury he couldn't just kill the black dragon straight away. If he didn't at least show the dragon to the Grimborn brothers they would accuse him of faking the evidence of the death in some way or other; at least seeing a living dragon was the kind of thing nobody could deny.

Besides, it wasn't as though he had anything to worry about. At this distance he'd see any of the residents of the Berkian outpost coming towards him by boat in plenty of time to move away, even if they had boats themselves (another weakness of relying on dragons; such a dynamic would always go badly on you in the end). Someone from Berk itself would probably come to retrieve them eventually, but by that point the Grimborns would have claimed the 'Dragon Eye' and could continue to ply their own trade away from Grimmel's work.

It was almost a shame to have to so thoroughly dash a young man's hopes and dreams, but the sooner Hiccup Haddock recognised that dragons and humans could never be friends, the sooner he could fulfil his family legacy and start killing the creatures once again. It might actually be interesting to see whether Berk or the Grimborns would 'win' this particular challenge, but for the moment Grimmel would be content to leave them to sort their own problems out once he'd delivered the goods and received his payment.

Looking out at the ship that now held their dragons, Clarke fought down the giddy sense of disorientation as she considered what she was about to do. She had been happy to help Hiccup work out some of the technical details of how to make the suits 'work', and his new ideas for how to modify them made sense, but there was still a difference between enjoying something as an academic exercise and intending to rely on it for this kind of jump.

"So… we jump off the cliff… in these?" Ruffnut asked, indicating the flight suit Hiccup had made for her. Each suit was covered in shed scales taken from each Rider's dragon- Clarke even had a few from Charlotte mixed in even if the main suit design was still based on Griffin- and wide flaps of leather under their arms running down to their legs. "That's the best you've got?"

"No," Hiccup gave the female twin a reassuring smile. "You guys are the best I've got."

"And we've got the Night Terrors," Fishlegs added, indicating the small creatures they now carried on their backs. "I get that they don't seem like much, but if we're already gliding… well, at least we'll have some extra support to get out that far."

"Still… seven of us against a whole ship of dragon hunters?" Clarke looked cautiously around at the others. "Can we… do this?"

"We get there, we get our dragons back, and burn the thing into the sea; problem solved," Snotlout said firmly.

"Even with those… what were those dragons anyway?" Clarke looked over at Fishlegs. She had grown used to thinking of dragons as friendly animals, but whatever those spike-covered dragons had been, she wasn't comfortable with the thought of seeing more of them any time soon.

"Uh… based on available notes, I think they're called 'Deathgrippers'," Fishlegs put in.

"Deathgrippers?" Astrid repeated, looking anxiously at Fishlegs.

"I take it that's bad?" Clarke looked over at the group's resident intellectual.

"They're one of those dragons not many people have even heard about, and everyone hopes don't actually exist because what they do is just that disturbing."

"So this isn't like the Smothering Smokebreaths?" Hiccup asked. "There is evidence of their existence?"

"It's been a while since anyone saw them, but they're mentioned, yeah," Fishlegs nodded.

"Does it say anything about how their venom let Grimmel control Toothless like that?"

"Well… their venom is meant to basically render dragons suggestible in small doses, but he won't be able to use that very often if he wants to keep Toothless alive…"

"And he will."

"How do you know?" Astrid looked at Clarke.

"Because if he just wanted Toothless dead he could have done it already," Clarke pointed out. "This guy wanted all our dragons for a reason, and even if that means he just wants to kill them over there in front of somebody, he's too theatrical to just slit Toothless's throat the moment he gets them all onto the ship."

"In other words, we have time to get the dragons back?" Tuffnut asked.

"We have time," Clarke nodded, fighting down her own sense of apprehension as she looked at the ship in the distance. She had faith that these flight-suits would get them to the ship in time, but if it was as large as it looked… if they couldn't get the dragons out in time…

I fought off an army when I had nothing more than an old escape pod and a bunch of untrained teenagers as back-up; I can do this.

"Let's go!" Hiccup yelled, running to the edge of the cliff.

"Try to keep up!" Astrid said, hurrying after Hiccup as the two leapt off, falling downwards for a few moments with loud yells before the wind below them and the Terrors on their backs picked them up and allowed them to rise once again. The twins led the way, but Clarke was able to assure herself that she was still ahead of Snotlout as she leapt off the cliff after her new friends, feeling a brief jolt in her stomach before she began her new flight out towards their enemy.

Flying with Griffin would always be the most amazing thing Clarke had ever experienced, but she could quickly see why hang-gliding had been a popular activity before the wars decimated Earth. The sensation of wind flying around them… the sheer freedom of it all… the sense that they could enjoy the sheer thrill of this moment…

The moment passed when she heard Hiccup call out up ahead that they were approaching their destination, but Clarke couldn't blame Hiccup for that; the goal here was to get the dragons back above everything else. Looking at the ship that was growing ever larger in front of them, Clarke found herself reflecting that this thing actually looked like it could be a model of the sort of ship she'd been claiming she and her people had lived on for years. The main deck was very wide and there were a couple of side-hulls that probably had some technical name Clarke couldn't remember, and while some of the deck space was taken up by dragon cages it wouldn't be hard to remodel such a ship to allow for crops to be grown instead.

"Hold on, Toothless!" Clarke heard Hiccup call out up ahead, allowing her to see where Grimmel was forcing the still-drugged Toothless into a cage; even at this distance, the man's shock of white hair made him stand out even if he wasn't close to the Night Fury. Clarke could see the other dragons being forced into surrounding cages, but she couldn't fault Hiccup for focusing on his own dragon.

"Let's go!" Ruffnut yelled, as Tuffnut grabbed her leg before his twin kicked him off.

"I could have used some practice!" Snotlout complained as he tried to flap his arms.

"Oh, I should have skipped breakfast!" Fishlegs screamed as he bent his arms and went into an accelerated descent.

"Good luck, everyone!" Clarke yelled, as Hiccup dived down towards Grimmel, kicking the older man in the head before leaping upwards to hit the sail. Body cushioned by the billowing cloth, Hiccup easily 'slid' down the sail to the ground and then turned to face the assembled hunters as Clarke and the others adjusted their own flight pattern. Clarke found herself hitting the ground knees-first and was grateful for the scales taking the brunt of the impact, but held out her arms and managed to clothesline a couple of approaching guards in the knees before she skidded to a stop. Leaping up, Clarke pulled out the short sword she had claimed as a weapon and faced the nearest one of Grimmel's men as the other Riders took up a similar stance around her.

They may not have fought in these numbers before, but in that moment, Clarke had a sense that there was nothing she couldn't accomplish with these new friends of hers…

"Toothless!" Hiccup called out to his dragon. It only took a moment for Clarke to spot Toothless, but she cursed to see the dragon still looking blank-eyed; whatever effect Deathgripper venom had on dragons, it was clear Toothless hadn't shaken it off yet. For a moment Clarke wondered if she should try to help, but then her gaze shifted to where Griffin was huddled in the corner of a cage and understood her priorities.

As though acting on a signal, the Riders charged through the approaching wave of men and practically raced towards the cage holding their respective dragon, methods ranging from Astrid slamming her axe into their sides to Fishlegs just charging through the enemy like a human bowling ball. Clarke was briefly torn between Charlotte and Griffin's cages, but a thought occurred to her as she ran and she shifted her focus to Charlotte.

"Blast them!" she yelled at Griffin, indicating the men coming up behind her as she ran for the thick-barred cage holding her Gronckle. Griffin almost seemed confused for a moment, but then he seemed to understand and fired a blast of hot air at the advancing army when his rider moved out of the way. As Clarke had hoped, the cage couldn't stop the heat that had just been fired out of it- she guessed that Windstrikers were rare enough that Grimmel had forgotten the exact nature of their breath-weapon- which allowing his hot air to knock the men back from sheer force where fire would have been partially contained by the cage bars.

Once Clarke had removed the lock from Charlotte's cage, she threw the door open and Charlotte flew through the men in what Clarke could only consider an aerial imitation of Fishlegs' recent move. She didn't take long to confirm that the other Riders had done the same as her and were all scrambling back onto their dragons, Stormfly already launching spines at the advancing guards as Meatlug fired a couple of fireballs herself. The twins and Snotlout had fortunately taken their own dragons to the further end of the ship, allowing them to damage the vessel without compromising the area where their allies were fighting, but Hiccup was still having trouble fighting his way to the cage where Grimmel had managed to contain Toothless.

Clarke wondered if she should try to help, but that thought ended when she saw Astrid grab a hammer from one of her enemies and throw it at a soldier who was just about to strike Hiccup. Even as Clarke focused on her current enemies, deflecting one man's attack so that he literally ran into one of his associates, she could see Astrid tossing something that seemed to be a kind of early smoke grenade, until the green colour of the smoke released confirmed that it held Zippleback gas. Clarke had just forced back her latest opponent and turned back to break the lock on Griffin's cage when there was an explosion from over by Astrid's side of the battle.

Looking over as she got back to her feet, Clarke saw Astrid once again on Stormfly's back and a blaze around the area where the smoke had been earlier; the dragon must have set off a spark to light the gas. With the soldiers currently surrounding her still off-balance, Clarke took a moment to confirm that Hiccup was still making his way to the cage, and had a moment to send him her hopes for victory before she threw herself back into the current battle.

Get Toothless out of there and show that bastard who really knows the dragons…