Hey guys, just want to apologize in advance for any spelling mistakes I've missed. I've been wanting to get this story out of my head for a while and just wrote it down kinda quickly. hope you like it.

Please leave a review and let me know what you think. :)

Hiccup was woken by his Night Fury nudging his face. He groaned and cracked open his eyes to see Toothless looking down at him worriedly.

"What's the matter bud?" he said to the dragon. Toothless warbled like he was worried. Toothless crooned at him and made a shrieking sound right next to his ear.

"Oww, Toothless. That hurts my ears. But seriously, what's the matter?" he said while rubbing his newly sore ears. Toothless shrieked again and looked out the window of his room, peering out towards the forest.

Hiccup's eyes went wide. Toothless must have meant the horrible noise he heard, but he was sure he only dreamt it. "You heard that weird noise too?" he asked. The dragon nodded.

He jumped up out of bed and quickly got dressed. "If you and I heard it, even if I thought I was dreaming, maybe the others heard it too. Let's go out and check."

The two of them went down the stairs and out the door, not before Hiccup grabbed a fish and some toast for himself and Toothless. A quick walk later and the two of them had made it to the Academy, where he found Fishlegs and Meatlug waiting for him already.

"Hiccup, there you are. Did you hear that strange noise last night?" he asked with wide eyes. "I thought I was dreaming when I heard it, but I ran into some people this morning on my way here, and they all said they heard it too. Everyone's saying it was a dragon."

"Hey Hiccup!" someone called from behind him. It was Ruffnut and Tuffnut, who were strangely early for once. "Please tell me you heard it too. That loud scream! It gave us nightmares last night! It was awesome."

Before anyone else could speak, in came Snotlout with Hookfang. "I am never sleeping again. Not after that." He panted. "Ok, before anyone else speaks, are you guys all taking about that shriek in the night? Or did we all just have the same nightmare?" Hiccup said over everyone.

"First of all, if we did all have the same nightmare, that would be awesome. And second, I'm pretty sure we all heard the sound last night, but we were just all sleeping." Said Tuffnut.

"well if we did all hear it, then what caused it?" asked his twin sister. At that same moment, Astrid flew in on Stormfly with a slightly worried look on her face. "Hiccup, I have a message from your father. Apparently the whole village heard this horrible nightmarish scream last night, Stoick is currently calming everyone down in the Great Hall, but he wants all of us to investigate into whatever caused that noise."

Hiccup nodded and instructed everyone to saddle their dragons. Not long after that, they all flew out of the Academy to search for whatever creature made that horrible sound. They flew over the island, stopping in the clearings they found and looked about. They found nothing.

"ugh, we've been searching for hours and we haven't found anything but a few Terrible Terrors and a couple of boars." Complained Snotlout. "He's right Hiccup. There isn't anything here." Came Fishlegs' reply.

Hiccup sighed. The memory of that shriek still terrified him, and he didn't know if he really wanted to find out what had caused it. "I think we should take a break guys. We've been flying all day so far and we need lunch. Let's head to the Cove for half an hour."

Everyone agreed and took off to their new destination. They came to the tops of the trees surrounding the cove before Astrid called out. "What's that down there?"

Everyone looked to where she was pointing and saw something crumpled in the dirt by a cave, and it was covered in blood.

"Be careful guys." Hiccup warned. He directed Toothless down to the ground some way away from the thing, and the others followed suit. They dismounted form their dragons and carefully walked over to get a look at whatever it was that Astrid spotted form the air.

They stopped in shock and gasped at what they saw. It was a person, beaten and bloodied and covered in dirt. Covered in some sort of black cloak and leggings, with black short hair and pale skin. Hiccup knelt down next to the body, they were still breathing. Probably just knocked out, but badly injured. The others came closer to look at the poor unfortunate person who looked like they had been hit by a catapult and mauled by a wild dragon.

"Guys, get me some water. And someone grab a medical pack." Said Hiccup.

Fishlegs got him a flask of clean water and Astrid ran back from her saddlebags with a medical kit under her arm. Hiccup carefully cleaned and bandaged the wounds.

"What the hell happened to him?" asked Snotlout. "Uh. Its not a he… it's a she." Said Hiccup who sounded nervous. They all looked at him and then to the passed out person on the ground. Hiccup looked uncomfortable at his discovery and they all noticed why. The girls black cloak had been pulled back – so Hiccup could clean the cut on her collarbone – and they could all see her low cut undershirt. She wasn't showing very much skin, but they could definitely tell she was female.

Hiccup coughed awkwardly and moved away. Astrid stepped forward to deal with her wounds.

"I don't know what happened. But she looks like she was half eaten." Said Fishlegs.

The stranger's eyes snapped open in an instant and she jumped to her feet, knocking Astrid away and backing herself up against the stone behind her. They all looked at her in shock as she stood in a fighting stance, raised her hands to show sharp nails like claws, and bared her teeth in a hiss.

They all froze at her hostile behavior and backed away. The girl continued to snarl defiantly despite her wounds, like she wound attack and kill if they came too close.

The dragons ran forward to protect their riders, with Toothless pushing everyone back so he stood at the front. The Night Fury growled at the girl, who growled back in challenge. To the Viking teens, it looked like the dragons would attack the bloodied girl, but she lunged forward and snarled at the Night Fury, who backed away in fright.

The two appeared to have a stare down for a few seconds, before Toothless stepped back in submission. But he never took his eyes off her. She looked up at the teenagers watching and opened her mouth to speak.

"Who are you?!" she demanded.

Everyone tensed at her hostility. Hiccup swallowed and took a careful step forward to introduce himself. "I'm Hiccup. This is Astrid, Fishlegs, Snotlout, Ruffnut and Tuffnut. We found you lying on the ground covered in blood and were trying to help." Something flashed in her silver grey eyes, but it disappeared before they could figure out what it was.

Astrid stepped forward, her hands up to show she meant no harm. "We are only trying to help you. We aren't going to hurt you." She seemed to calm slightly at her words. The dragons looked uneasy. No one knew what she was doing to them.

Fishlegs stepped forward slowly and did the same thing as Astrid, trying to make himself not look like a threat. "What's your name?" he asked the strange girl.

She only hissed in reply. Apparently she didn't want to give them her name. "Ok. That's ok. You don't want to tell us your name, that's alright." He stammered in fear. Those eyes were unnerving them. Even the Night Fury was affected by her presence.

"Where am I?" she demanded again.

Hiccup answered her. "You are on Berk. In the Barbaric Archipelago. How did you get here?" he asked.

She looked at him and replied sarcastically, "I flew here of course."
Ruffnut sniggered in the background. The dragons looked at her warily.

"Okay then. How about where you are from?" Hiccup tried again. "Nowhere, and everywhere." Came her reply.

"Uh, guys. Hate to interrupt, but weren't we supposed to be looking for the creature that made that ungodly sound last night?" asked Snotlout from near the back of the group. They all turned to look at him, and in doing so, they missed the look of shock on the girl's face.

"Weren't you the one who wanted to take a break from searching Snotlout?" asked Tuff.

"We can't just leave her here, especially since she's injured. We should take her back to the village, then we can go back out and look for it." Said Astrid.

Eventually they all agreed to go back to the village with the girl and tell Stock what they found. She protested at first, but after the promise of food she agreed to come – she hadn't eaten properly in over a week. But the girl requested that she walk there instead of riding with one of the teens. The dragons didn't want to let her on their backs anyway.

An hour later, they all made it back to the village which seemed to have calmed down after the horrible shrieking the night before.

The group of teens plus one walked towards the academy to have a small meeting about the creature and the girl. When they made it there however, they found Stoick and Gobber waiting for them.

"Hiccup, there you are son. Did you find anything while you were out?" asked Stoick.

"Uh, yea we did, but not what you're thinking." Replied Hiccup. The Chief looked over his shoulder to the strange new addition to their group. Her eyes were darting around everywhere, looking for possible ways to escape, when she looked at him. Stoick could tell that she was uncomfortable in this situation, and didn't exactly feel comfortable with him and Gobber in the arena.

"Who's this?" asked Gobber who came up beside his chief.

"She hasn't given us a name yet. We brought her back here to get her wounds looked at properly. She was in pretty bad shape." The two adults looked back at her and noticed that she was indeed covered in wounds, all of which were covered in bandages with her black cloak wrapped over top.

"Gobber, can you go and get Gothi for us, please. Those wounds need to be looked at." Said Stoick. "Right you are Chief."

When Gobber walked out to get the healer, Stoick walked up to their new guest intending to ask some questions.

"What's your name young lady?" he asked politely. She looked into his eyes, and at the sword at his waist. She took a few steps backwards and away from the teens, realising that they also carried weapons which she didn't see before.

Hiccup gave everyone a gesture to back away and carefully approached her. She bared her unusually sharp teeth at him and he froze.

"No weapons. Get rid of it." She commanded. Cautiously, Hiccup drew the dagger that he kept at his hip, and dropped it before kicking it away. She seemed to calm slightly and he let out a small breath.

"What's your name?" he asked quietly.

She stared at him like an animal stares at its prey, sizing him up. Eventually she calmed down enough and made herself look less threatening.

"I go by the name Shadow."