Hiccup was not having the best time. Fishlegs, Snotlout, Ruffnut and Tuffnut had apparently flown off some time in the morning and left him and Astrid to deal with Shadow.

Said girl was not being very cooperative. They had been trying to learn about her, or at least the dragon that she knew of, but it was no use. She wasn't a big fan of talking. They had given her the grand tour of Berk, although it wasn't really that grand, so now there wasn't that much for them to do with her. She liked being up high they found, and near the edge of cliffs. And she didn't like any other dragon in the village. Terrible terrors wouldn't even go near her, and all the other dragons feared her. Hiccup still didn't know why. She didn't even appear to try and be scary.

The only dragon willing to stand up to her was Toothless, which had lead to quite a few stare downs. She paraded around the Night Fury as if she had won those little 'fights', but the only reason she did was because he broke Toothless' focus.

This girl was such a mystery, and frankly, kind of annoying to deal with. If he were honest, it was easier to convince Snotlout to clean. She didn't like being asked anything and was incredibly closed off.

Astrid suggested that she may have had a tough life, or something had happened to make her like that.

He was just about to attempt to talk to her again when Stoick the Vast ran into the academy looking for him. Instantly, he and Astrid were on alert.

"Hiccup, ships have been spotted heading towards us. They are severely damaged, but its Dagur's fleet." He said.

"What!" they both cried.

"As strange as it sounds, they appear to be waving a white flag at us. I recon they need help. I want you and Astrid to fly over there with your dragons and find out whats going on before I let them anywhere near Berk." He said.

Within moments, the two of them were mounted on their dragons and heading towards the gate. Shadow appeared to have come down from her perch and was heading there with them. Once they were out, Shadow ran towards to docks, while they took to the skies.

The fleet came into view and Hiccup was shocked at what he saw. There were only three ships, and they were badly damaged. So damaged that one big wave would end them. The Berserkers were struggling to sail the boat and keep it afloat at the same time. Dagur was barking orders and trying to get them to the dock. He looked up at the two riders as they came close. No one raised a weapon.

"Hiccup." He sneered. "How nice to see you again." Hiccup could tell it wasn't.

"Dagur, what happened here?" he asked. "We were attacked by a dragon. A single bloody dragon! It first attacked us back home at our village, then again after we assembled the fleet to hunt it down." Toothless and Stormfly weren't happy that he was hunting another dragon.

"As much as I absolutely hate to admit it, we need some help. Our remaining ships won't make it for much longer and we were too far from home. Berk was the closest place to make repairs." He sounded so defeated at asking his enemy for help. After a brief discussion, and Hiccup insisting that once they docked, that they would hand over all of their weapons, they escorted the damaged fleet to Berks docks. Stoick was there waiting.

"Dad, their fleet was attacked by a rogue dragon and they were in desperate need of repairs. We've organised a truce to they can fix their ships. Dagur has sworn that he won't attack anyone." Stoick nodded and went to speak to the Berserker chief himself about the arrangement. Hiccup and Astrid followed, as well as Shadow who had been waiting there for a while, to hear a detailed report of the attacks.

"That beast just came out of nowhere, it swooped overhead of our village and attacked for no reason. It didn't try to take any food or anything. It was hell-bent on our destruction. We assembled the fleet to hunt it down after it started flying off, but after a few hours of sailing after it, it must have realised we were too far away for reinforcements. It dive-bombed our fleet and destroyed almost every one of our ships in minutes. We don't even know what kind of dragon it was. I'll be honest Hiccup, I thought it was you and your Night Fury attacking us, killing our people in cold blood. But we realised that it wasn't a Night Fury at all, it was bigger, much bigger, and it had no rider. It burned down the village with fire, not those weird purple plasma balls." He said to them.

Hiccup's mind was swimming with crazy thoughts. He believed that it was the Black Moon dragon that attacked Dagur. But he wasn't fully sure.

"I think I know of this dragon actually. Its not one of ours but we know of it. Can you give us a good description of it?" he asked.

Dagur looked slightly confused but didn't press. "It was covered in black scales, hence why we thought it was a Night Fury, but it was too big. As I said, it could shoot fire, but it also shot lightning as well. Once it started attacking the fleet we discovered that it could fire lightning like the skrill can. But it didn't redirect it or anything. Oh, it also had silver scales on its wings as well, making it hard to see against the night sky, as well as silver glowing eyes."

Hiccup and Astrid looked at each other, they knew it was the Black Moon dragon.

Astrid saw Shadow out of the corner of her eye, she was scowling and backing away. She had no idea what she was doing, but it seemed that she didn't like hearing about the Black Moon Dragon hunting the people of another village.

Shadow retreated back up to the main part of the village much like a dragon; dangerous even in retreat. Hiccup and Dagur continued speaking, and supprisingly the Berserker chief was being civil, but after a while the two of them left while Dagur went to help with repairs.

After going back to the village, they realised that Shadow had gone missing. She wasn't at the academy, or the blacksmith shop, or the great hall. They had just finished checking the last place on that list when they spotted her. From their vantage point on the foot of the mountain where the entrance to the great hall was, they could see the dark and mysterious girl sitting comfortably on the roof of Hiccups house.

Confused and curious, they walked over to her.

"Uh, Shadow? Are you alright?" asked Hiccup. She looked down at him from her spot on the roof, but made no comment. Hiccup turned to Astrid. "And idea on what to do?"

She thought for a moment. "Why don't you climb on the roof and try to talk to her?" she suggested. He shrugged and attempted to climb up. Astrid gave him a boost. Eventually, he made it right up to the top of his house, perched precariously on the shingles.

"Whats wrong?" he asked her. She turned her gaze to him and sighed quietly. "Its not a killer." She whispered. "It doesn't know what its doing when its in that state." She said. She spoke softly and Hiccup had to lean closer to hear.

"When the new moon approaches, it becomes volatile. Unpredictable. Out of control. Like it has little control over its own mind, and it can go into a frenzy." She looked away from his piercing green eyes. "It takes no pleasure in killing in its normal state. But when its like that, it sees everything as a threat. The end of the lunar cycle causes this."

Hiccup didn't know why she seemed so saddened at this information. She had gone so miserable as she told him of the Black Moon dragons' antics. Almost as if she had seen it happen herself.

He looked up and saw the rest of his friends returning from wherever they had been, and they were calling out to him. "I'm sorry, I need to see whats up with them. Do you want to come down? Maybe a walk in the forest will make you feel better." He suggested. She glared at him, but it was soft and in a way, friendly. She nodded and helped guide him back down to the ground, before jumping the whole distance and landing lightly on her feet.

Hiccup, Astrid and now Shadow walked over to the other teens. They ran over to him with wide eyes.

"Hiccup, you would not believe what we found." Cried Fishlegs. "We found an entire camp set up in the cove. But that's not all. We found these." He held out his hand, showing three of the larger scales he had collected. Hiccups eyes went wide at the sheer size of them. They were roughly five centimetres wide and ten centimetres long and tapered into a sharp point at one end. Not even Toothless's scales were that big when he shed, or Hookfang for that matter.

"What in Thor's name?" he exclaimed. Fishlegs went back to talking. "We found what must have been thousands of these, all different sizes. These were some of the biggest. By my calculations, there must have been enough there to cover an entire dragon, one as large as Hookfang."

Shadow looked horrified at the sight of the scales. Fishlegs continued talking. "There were so many there. But the funny thing is, there could only be a days' worth of activity around this 'camp', definitely not long enough for a dragon to shed that many scales. There is no way that's possible without resulting in huge amounts of injuries. And we found blood too. It was almost as if the dragon was bleeding all over its body."

"But no sign of the dragon, no way to tell where it went, it just disappeared." Finished Snotlout. Everyone looked confused at the mystery, all except for Shadow who looked very uncomfortable. Very carefully, she began to back away. Hiccup noticed her movements, but gave no indication that he did. He wanted to see what she would do, where she would go.

Everyone continued talking, learning all this new information - about the camp, and about Dagur – while the shady girl snuck away into the forest.

hey, thankyou all for reading my fanfic this far. Ive been wanting to do a story like this for a while, but had a few things that were a greater priority. I'd love it if you would leave a review, it helps with my motivation and makes me feel good. the more reviews, the faster I update. I'd like to hear what you think of it so far, and any little ideas that might be a help.

I'll update again soon. :)