Who writes super short chapters? I write super short chapters! Who bakes super crumbly cookies? I bake super crumbly cookies! And this is one of my best. Cookies, not chapters. To bad I'm the only one here to eat it. OM NOM NOM NOM!

And, of course, the storm chose exactly that moment to clear up.

In Hiccup's experience, storms were like that. If it inconvenienced you, it made sure to be there, and often raged on for as long as it needed. But the moment it had done its job properly, like, say, when you lost a girlfriend in the wind, it vanished. Things like that happened to him so often, he was almost sure that Thor had some sort of grudge against him.

The night sky was devoid of stars, and the moon was dark. In the ten minutes the storm had hit us, the night had become black. With dread, Hiccup suddenly realized that there was barely any improvement in visibility. Still, he had to look.

"Astrid!" he shouted out, as loudly as he could. When there was no response he repeated the call. "Astrid!"

Nothing. There wasn't just no reply, but no anything. No sound of wind, no flapping of wings, nothing. Toothless was gliding, which meant there had to be some sort of wind, but he didn't hear it or feel it. Something about this whole scenario felt very wrong.

Toothless began to groan, reacting to Hiccup's approaching panic. He quickly scratched behind his ears, calming the dragon down. The two flew around in a circle nearly a dozen times, Hiccup calling her name and Toothless firing sonar bursts, looking for something out of the ordinary. Like a log. Or a dragon. Or a girlfriend. After a little over a minute, Hiccup told Toothless to stop. Gazing up into the starless void above him, Hiccup was struck with a sudden idea.

"Let's see how high you can take me, buddy."

Toothless let out a small roar, and skyrocketed up. Right before they hit the cloud barrier, he stopped, and Hiccup commanded Toothless to fire sonar bursts all over. Toothless could cover a lot more ground from this height, which translated to a higher chance of finding Astrid. He fired in all directions, but found nothing. I urged him to move back the way we came a few meters, then try again. Again, nothing.

They continued this pattern for over ten minutes before he found anything. Hiccup was about to give up when Toothless' ears suddenly perked up, and he made a guttural sound that indicated he'd found something strange.

"Good boy!" Hiccup praised him, extremely happy and relieved. Sure, he didn't know it was Astrid, but out here, in the dead of a starless night, what else could it be?

They put on a burst of speed and dove their way to the object. As they grew closer, Hiccup heard a distinctive wing-flapping sound. It was either a dragon or an extremely large bird, and Hiccup was leaning toward the former, which just excited him further. When Toothless finally stopped, it'd been a full thirty seconds. Hiccup pulled out his Dragon Blade, lighting it on fire to get a better view at the risk of scaring off the dragon. To his relief, Stormfly's unmistakable maw was directly next to him, and the Deadly Nadder spun around to face him, a huge grin spreading across her face. She dipped her head happily, and, in doing so, showed Hiccup something that made his heart stop.

Astrid wasn't on Stormfly.

Hiccup drew in a long breath. If Astrid was out here and not on her dragon, then there was only one place she could be.

Hiccup nudged Toothless. "Okay, bud. I need you to sweep over the water, and try to shoot as many sonars as you can. We might still find her."

Toothless grunted in reply, and flew down toward the water, gliding over it and firing bursts of sound waves, often accidentally splashing Hiccup in the process.

An hour later, Toothless and Hiccup had covered nearly a mile in diameter and determined that Astrid was nowhere to be found. Hiccup was exhausted, wet, chilled to the bone, and very, very depressed. His voice was hoarse from calling out so much, and his legs ached from the lack of movement. Finally, he caved in.

"Buddy, we're not going to find her. Let's go home."

Truth be told, Hiccup really wanted to stay and keep looking, but he knew he was right. They'd already looked through several miles of air and sea. Astrid was a fairly good swimmer. If she was here, they would have found her. Either she had drowned or had fallen off Stormfly in the storm, and with all the chaos going on, Stormfly just hadn't noticed.

Hiccup suddenly realized something. At full speed, he and Toothless had taken thirty seconds to get to Stormfly from where they ended up after the storm. That meant that Stormfly had been thrown off several miles away. There was no physical way the storm, as bad as it was, could have done that. It just wasn't possible.

So, what did it mean? Hiccup didn't know, and, frankly, was too tired to try to find out. He absentmindedly took the map out of his pack as he started to wonder if something like this was what Gobber had been trying to warn him about. Why he'd told him to forget the shield and poem ever existed. Was this the fate of everyone who followed the map? Was this what happened to his uncle?

He noticed the map and glared at it. Suddenly, he could care less about his uncle, the poem, or the map. No matter what treasure awaited him at the X, it wasn't worth what he'd lost. Disgusted, he threw the map to the wind, or lack thereof, and watched as it fell to the sea. He knew he was probably making a mistake, and would regret it later, but it didn't matter to him. He urged Toothless to turn around.

"Let's go home, Toothless. Tomorrow, when there's some light, we'll take a team of dragon riders out here to look."

Toothless moaned and shook. They way he was acting, even while searching was…strange. It was almost like he blamed himself for Astrid's disappearance. It occurred to Hiccup that, despite not being nearly as tightly strapped to the saddle as he should have been, he hadn't even had experienced the risk of falling off during the storm. Yet Astrid, who was adamant about such things, had. Why? Did it have something to do with Astrid and Stormfly, or Hiccup and Toothless? Was it because Toothless was a Night Fury? Questions for later.

Hiccup swiveled around to face Stormfly and gestured for her to follow Toothless, to which she happily complied.

The two dragons and lone dragon rider flew off, determined to get home and find a way to find their friend.

…

Astrid woke up for only a few seconds, but a few seconds can tell you an awful lot about a place.

This place was hot, nearly burning, and smelled of sulfur. The air, the temperature, and vibe of the place felt unnatural. When she opened her eyes, she found herself in a place not unlike a mountainside without grass, with dozens of geysers surrounding the area and three volcanoes less than fifty miles away. Active or not, she couldn't tell, but was willing to bet on the former. She was inside of a wooden cage made up of sturdy logs, and her axe and knives were missing.

She heard voices, but they were quiet, and she barely registered what they were saying.

"…come around…Stoickfest…dragons…forget…bomb…Hiccup…"

Quite suddenly, someone in traditional Viking garb turned from behind a rock and shouted "She's awake!"

There was a sudden sting, and then the world began to disintegrate, and darkness returned.

…

Ug was angry, disappointed, upset, annoyed and pretty much every other negative emotion he could think of. As was the rest of the crew; as well the should have been. They were dragon trappers with no dragons, no remaining traps, and nobody to guide them. They might technically be sailors, but none of them knew the stars, or the maps. They had no idea where to go for land, except to Drago's hideout, and there was no way they'd be going there.

Eret had been the main man of the group. Not only the captain, but the navigator, the watchman, and, most of the time, the tiller as well. After he'd been kidnapped by the cursed new dragon riders, Ug and the rest of the crew had been left alone in the middle of nowhere in very poor condition. They'd survived thus far only by catching and eating fish and drinking water rations, constantly moving in a single direction, with the hope of somehow finding land. Ug constantly cursed the riders and their Night Fury for stealing away their captain, who was no doubt locked up somewhere horrible and being tortured at this moment. He had no way of knowing that Eret had made several trips on Skullcrusher across the sea, trying to locate his old crew, but failing. As a result, the dragon trappers had been having rotten luck.

Today, that would change.

Ug was, of course, the first to see it. A large piece of paper, marked all over, making up a fully detailed map, washed up on some rocks barely ten meters away from the ship. After sharing the news with the rest of the crew, there were joyous proclamations all around and nominations as to who they would trust to retrieve it.

It was a surprisingly difficult process. They were a relatively new crew, and had recently been making death threats to each other, usually referring to cannibalism if somebody didn't do something right now. Besides Eret, the only one everyone trusted was the mild-mannered No-Name, but he was incapable of retrieving the map, since he was worse at swimming than a Monstrous Nightmare who'd lost its wings.

Eventually Gills was elected. Nobody really knew anything about him, since he really never did anything. That meant nobody trusted him, but they didn't trust him to destroy the amp out of spite either. He turned out to be a good choice, leaving the boat and returning with the map forty-five seconds later.

It was an incredibly detailed map, made by somebody of some skill, Ug noticed. With pleasure, he realized that he knew exactly where they were on this map, and with its help, they'd be able to get just about anywhere. Being the most observant of the group, he also was the first to notice the X.

"Hey," he announced, "look 'ere. There's an X. Y'all know what that means, dontcha?"

One of the other trappers, Teeny, grinned. "X marks the spot. Boys, there's treasure ahead of us."

There were cheers from everyone, and after a quick vote, it was unanimously determined that the boat would sail on, heading off to riches beyond their wildest dreams.

Of course, if they knew what the X really marked, they never would have even considered going toward it. But they didn't, so they left joyfully singing old pirate sea shanties they'd heard when they were kids.

Things wouldn't go well for them.

I know what you're thinking: An awful lot of OCs to bring into this story, right? Actually, no. The only OC here is Gills, and he barely does anything. I just needed another guy. Everyone else on the crew I mentioned has their canonical name, and officially appeared in HTTYD2. It always bothered me how Eret's crew watched their captain get kidnapped and was never seen again. I mean, what happened? What did they do? So I gave an answer. Or an opening to an answer, anyway. I wish to thee good luck, next author!

Dawnbreaker's notes:

Thank you LittleZbot for the chapter!

Astrid caged, a crew of dragon trappers after a "treasure" and planning a bomb of some sort. I wonder if Hiccup will be able to find Astrid... So, now we basically have 3 good POVs for you guys. Hiccup, Astrid and the trapper crew, which will you choose?
This chap once again was full of great material for you guys but do remember to seek for some in the previous chapters as well!

And also, a note to make: If you haven't noticed already, I have moved everyone forward one chapter. This is because the original author of this chapter did not respond to my messages and has now been moved last. That is also why this chapter is late a few days. Make sure to check the new order on my profile.

Also, REVIEW the work of these brilliant authors! If it weren't for them, this story wouldn't exist!