Chapter 6

Raid

There's a moment in the silent night

When silence is what you fear

Hidden in the shadowed air

The danger drawing near.

Prepare your sword

Prepare your bow

The fight looms just ahead

Battle scars they matter not

When returning past you dread

Early June, one of my favorite times of year, normally. Holly was finally out of school so there was one less chore to take care off, I had everything set up at home, and work had been steady. Hiccup had continued feverishly experimenting on the Mysteel/dragon scale mixture, but thus far he'd only been able to compose a working suit for himself, thanks to the difficulties of the material. Due to the properties of both the metal and the scales, the substance cooled rapidly, and while pliable once it was solidified it could only bend, not be molded further.

We had kept the new discovery a secret up to that point, letting Gobber and Ember continue working on the standard Mysteel armor and weapons as well (shields, swords and helmets/breast plates etc. of the pure metal were still better for their purposes, after all). And, though working together we'd all managed to nearly restock the entire armory, thanks to the multitude of mechanical monstrosities we'd taken down in the battle months before we still had half the scrap shed filled with the lustrous metal. Oh well, plenty to mess with later.

At the present moment, though, we were in the cove –Hiccup, Toothless and I- and we were testing out Hiccup's new armor. Not on him of course, mind you, in case something went wrong (and we did not want a repeat of the arrowhead incident), but we had produced a spare sheet of material sourced from Night Fury scales and had strung it up between a pair of boulders.

Hiccup strung an arrow on the bow we had brought along, raised it up, taking aim and firing. The arrow flew straight on target, hit the sheet….and dropped to the ground. The sheet itself barely moved from the impact.

I walked over and picked up the arrow, examining it. Or, at least what was left of it. The wooden shaft was shattered and splayed out in the middle, and the normally perfectly straight steel head was warped and caved in on itself.

"Anything?" Hiccup called out, stretching his neck as he tried to see. I shook my head as I turned to examine the sheet. "Not even a scratch, and the whole thing barely moved," I replied. "Oh, and you owe Gobber a new arrow, shaft included."

Hiccup snorted in response. "Eh, with the Mysteel arrows we're making, we won't need regular iron ones anymore. Speaking of which," he drawled, pulling out a familiar looking arrow with a shiny glint, "we know Mysteel arrows can cut the stuff, but it takes a lot of force. I'm kind of curious as to how much is actually required."

As he strung the arrow, I sighed and shook my head pityingly. "You know Ember will literally roast you alive when she finds out you took one of her new arrows, right?" Hiccup waved it off, unconcerned. "Come on, it's not like we're keeping it," he deadpanned. "You did at least grab one of the arrows without the venom load, right?" I shot right back. "Yes, yes, I'm not stupid." "No, just a klutz."

Hiccup groaned in annoyance and aimed the arrow, before releasing another shot at the sheet. This one also hit the target dead center, but this time the head did in fact manage to pierce the material, embedding about halfway through. I nodded, whistling. "Well, this stuff is pretty sturdy isn't it?" Hiccup nodded in agreement.

By comparison, Mysteel to the new material was like regular steel to a hard oak trunk, but a regular arrow to the new substance still acted like a corroded aluminum blade against a vibranium boulder; there was no matching this level of sturdy.

"Toothless also mentioned you came up with a name for this stuff," I commented. "Care to share your thoughts?" Hiccup smirked. "Well, it's not particularly creative, but it's catchy. Myscale, just combining Mysteel and dragon scales together."

I pondered it for a moment, before nodding. "Actually, it is rather catchy. Anyway, I have one more test to put it through before we finish this round." I glanced around searching for Toothless, wherever he'd wandered to. My eyes landed on the Night Fury, dozing off by the pond.

"Hey Toothless, might want to cover your ears for this!" I called out. Toothless opened one eye, groaned dramatically, and clamped his paws down over his ears. Hiccup did the same, and I got rid of my ears completely before I went over and picked up the shotgun I'd borrowed from my father. Carefully making sure the bullet was loaded properly, I lined up the barrel toward my target, flipped off the safety, and fired.

Had I been fully human the recoil would have bene painful, but with a dragon's strength I could actually hold on to the gun without being knocked onto my backside. But when I took my shot, the reaction from the sheet of Myscale made me drop the gun anyway.

There was no reaction. The wind from the bullet made the ropes sway slightly, but no hole appeared in the sheet, no ripples went out from the impact site, nothing.

I walked up to the sheet again, and from on the ground underneath I picked up the splayed, copper-tipped slug that would have ripped through any living thing. I turned to Hiccup, the expression on my face telling everything.

"That gun could crack granite," I elaborated. "It didn't do zilch."

Silence followed, before Hiccup replied, "We definitely need to keep this contained on the island."

It was one o' clock in the morning. Hiccup was sound asleep in his bed, Toothless curled up on his rock slab nearby dozing lightly as the normally nocturnal dragon usually did. Throughout the entire village the only sounds were the occasional bleating of a sheep, or a resident dragon or Viking shaking the walls of their houses with their snoring.

Suddenly, Toothless' ears perked up, swiveling toward the open window of Hiccup's room. His head followed soon after as a new sound, well off in the distance, rattled him from his sleep. Quietly, he stood up and padded over quickly to the window, peering out into the dark. The moon was blocked by clouds on this night, the only light coming from the flickering fires of the watch tower, but the Night Fury's keen nocturnal eyes almost immediately picked up the faint outline of shapes coming up from the southeast: dragons, hundreds of them, each and every one moving with dangerous intent.

Toothless' eyes widened in alarm and he spun around, leaping over to Hiccup's bed and nudging the sleeping form within the covers, hard. ::Come on Hiccup, wake up! We've got a problem!:: he hissed, Hiccup groaned. "Toothless, it's still dark out, go to bed," he muttered groggily.

::Did you not hear me?!:: Toothless growled, louder this time. ::We have a serious problem heading our way!::

Finally Hiccup turned and sleepily blinked up at the dragon. "What…what kind of problem?" he asked slowly. ::There's a very large flock of dragons heading toward the village,:: Toothless explained, gesturing to the window, ::and I don't think that they're just stopping by to visit either.::

As if perfectly timed, a feral roar echoed across the sea and over the village, followed the frightened bleating of the sheep nearest to the docks. Hiccup jolted up, the last vestiges of deep sleep rolling off him as he ran to the window, peering out.

Off near the edge of the village, he soon spotted the dark forms beginning to swoop low over the houses, gliding down as if surveying the terrain before rising up into the dark sky again. Then, off by one of the sheep pens, a column of flames erupted.

"Raid," Hiccup whispered, whirling around toward his new armor, donning it as quickly as he could and grabbing Framherja. "Toothless, we need to move," he said. ::No duh.:: "Not the time!" Hiccup snapped, yanking open his door and rushing downstairs. "Dad!" he yelled, "get up! There's a raid!"

A groan sounded from Stoick's room followed by a THUMP! as what was presumably the chief rolled out of his bed and on to the floor, hard.

"Ahh! What? Hiccup, what're ye doing up at this time o' night?" came the irritated voice from the other side of the doorway. It swung open shortly after, revealing a less-than-pleased Stoick clad in only a night tunic and short pants.

"There's a raid!" Hiccup iterated again. "We've got dragons coming in from the southeast, and they're going after the sheep!"

Silence for a moment, then Stoick turned back into his room. A minute later he reappeared, fully armed and with an axe at the ready. "Send someone te get Hawken," Stoick ordered as he pushed past and exited the house. "The sooner we get this under control and figured out, the better. And you and Toothless, get into the air already!"

Hiccup complied, him and Toothless racing out after Stoick and rising into the air together with practiced ease, Hiccup swinging onto the saddle as Toothless took off. They soared toward Fishlegs' house first, waking up the teen to go and alert their ally, before the duo raced to Astrid's house.

"Astrid! Wake the others; we're going to be in the middle of a major fight soon!" Hiccup yelled through the warrioress' window. Astrid appeared shortly after, immediately noting not only that Hiccup and Toothless were in full armor but that Thorn was squawking loudly below. "What's going on?" she asked urgently. "Raid," Hiccup replied.

Astrid's eyes widened, and she nodded, jumping straight out her window with axe in hand and vaulting up onto Thorn's saddle.

The horn at the southern watchtower sounded, and suddenly the village was ablaze. Screaming roars split the night as feral dragons dove down into and through the village, lighting houses on fire and setting their sights on the livestock pens. The village had been caught unprepared, as such a thing hadn't happened in nearly four years, and as such even the bonded dragons guarding the pens became temporarily overwhelmed by the sudden attack.

Hiccup glanced down at Toothless, a silent question passing between the two of them. Toothless nodded, and Hiccup raised Framherja, aiming for the Nightmare racing toward the nearest henhouse.

A bolt of crackling electricity, a scream of pain and anger, and it had begun.

Fishlegs, meanwhile, raced over the tops of the forest trees of Meatlug, his mind mirroring their actions as he tried to puzzle out why dragons were beginning their attacks again. This was not good, especially as the villagers who still held grudges against the reptiles would use this as fuel for their fire, but none of the dragons in the village, the ones truly attached to a rider or companion, were taking part in this. No, this was all dragons where were still "wild" or at least not tied to someone.

Fishlegs had already figured this was connected to the previous disappearances of said dragons recently, but the only conclusion he could come up with…well, it was bad, to say the least.

Moments later the burly Viking and his dragon reached the portal, and after telling Meatlug to stay put Fishlegs ran through and up to the house on the other side. Oh, how he really hoped Hawken wasn't a heavy sleeper….

I woke up to the dual alarms of someone banging against the back door and the dogs going nuts as they raced out to confront the intruder. A moment later the whining of Panda replaced the barking, meaning it was someone they recognized, and I groaned.

"Come on, at this time of night?" I grumbled, sitting up and, after noticing it was not late anymore but very early morning, slid out of bed and pulled on my robe.

"What on earth is going on?" came the irritated yell of my father from the next room over. "I'm going to find out, don't worry about it," I groused right back, shuffling out my door and out to the kitchen, shooing the dogs away and opening the curtains.

I was more than surprised to see who it was. "Fishlegs? What on earth are you doing here at this time of night?" I queried, yanking the door open. Fishlegs, for his part, seemed rather out of breath. "There's…there's a…a…" he stammered, breathless.

I held up my hands. :Okay, alright, hold on a minute. Calm down Fishlegs, take a breath, and start again."

"Hawken, there's a raid," he blurted after a moment of heavy breathing. "Dragons came in, the wild dragons, and they're stealing livestock, and they're lighting the whole village on fire! We need your help or it's going to end up being four years ago all over again!"

I nodded and held up a finger. "Stay right there," I ordered, "and I'll be right back." Dashing to my room, I got dressed and grabbed a couple of swords, putting them away in a new storage location I had yet to disclose to the rest of the team, and then met Fishlegs out on the porch again. We raced through the portal, Fishlegs mounting on Meatlug as I morphed Night Fury, and we both took off.

"Any more details I need to know?" I yelled over the wind. "None of the dragons are the bonded ones in the village," Fishlegs called back. "And the attack came from the southeast, in the direction of Dragon Island." "Dragon Island?" "Yeah. And that gives me a really, really bad feeling."

I couldn't argue with him there either. When we reached Berk, the village was ablaze. It appeared just like the first scene of the movie all over again, except this time, there were dragons fighting from both sides. I dove immediately into the fray and fired at a Nadder that had streaked by, knocking it out cold and watching the dragon as it plowed into the sheep pen it had been aiming for. Spinning around, I spotted Ember and Orha up in the air, surrounded by a mob of Nightmares. A burst of electricity later, and the flame-colored dragons were fleeing the scene as Orha swung around so he and his rider could face me.

"About time you got here!" Ember yelled out as I flew up alongside them, the young woman stringing another arrow as she took aim below her. "You're not killing them are you?" I asked worriedly. Ember only shook her head, holding up the arrow so that I could see it. The shaft supported a hard, blunt tip, not a cutting blade.

"These are stun arrows," she explained quickly. "Hit them right in the forehead, or back of the neck, they're down for at least ten minutes or so, sometimes longer. It's a secret I've held for a long time, but I think I can trust telling you."

I nodded. "Got it. I have to find Hiccup, keep driving the dragons off of the pens. We keep them at bay long enough and eventually they should up and leave." "Got it!"

I backflipped and spun around, taking off across the village, Ember's info running through my head as I analyzed how to use it. For those reading, for safety purposes I've changed the actual target spots slightly, just in case the wrong individual gets ahold of this, but the concept was the same.

By the dock storehouses, I spotted a sudden flurry of exploding lightning bolts, and a flash of indigo plasma that rocked the air with the resulting explosion. Smirking, I leaned down and headed that way. Sure enough, I found Hiccup on the roof of one of the storehouses, aiming at the Nadders and Zipplebacks that had closed in. Toothless was circling a nearby storehouse, doing the same. Neither saw the Timberjack shadow coming in low over the sea, however.

I shot between the pair and flared in front of the wide-winged creature. Normally any dragon seeing a Night Fury glowing with streams of electricity flaring up in front of it would recognize a viable threat, and turn the other direction. This dragon, however, kept coming straight toward me, without any sign of slowing down.

That's when I saw it: with my nocturnal eyes everything was bright as day, and I could see every detail on the Timberjack's face. What I did not see was the telltale flicker in the eyes that any intelligent being has: that spark of self-awareness, the look that tells you it was a thinking, feeling individual.

I didn't see that. The Timberjack wasn't acting out of a self-aware state, not its own decision. It was enough to make me drop my guard, and the dragon slammed into me, throwing both of us to the ground below. The air fled from my lungs, and the sudden pain that flared through my back and wings finally woke me up. I healed the sprain the landing had caused and pushed myself upward, spinning my tail and wrapping it around the Timberjack's neck, throwing it to the side and pulling myself on top, pinning it hard. Though I was the smaller dragon, Night Furies are incredibly strong, and the legless dragon couldn't move to throw me off. I peered once more at those disturbing eyes, confirming what I had observed, before landing a blow that knocked it out.

::About time you showed up!:: Toothless yelled down, shooting a nearby Nightmare out of the air.

::I was asleep, what do you expect?:: I threw back, leaping onto the roof where Hiccup was. ::And this hasn't happened in, what, four years? Give me a break!::

"Would you two quit bickering and focus?!" Hiccup yelled, firing Framherja again and warding off another Nadder that was coming in toward him. "Hawken, I haven't heard a single word from any of them either. These dragons are not attacking just because they want to."

I leapt up and snagged the tail of a passing Zippleback, stunning it with a shock and dragging it to the ground. "I know!" I yelled back. "They're not aware of what they're doing at all either!" "You mean something else is forcing them to attack?" "How many dragons have you run into that raid a village for no reason? Or do so while they're not conscious of the rest of the world?"

Silence. "Good point," Hiccup replied moments later, ducking as another Nadder swiped at him.

Seconds later, something splattered across my tail, and immediately a sharp burning sensation raced across my skin. I hissed in pain and hardened my scales in response, stopping the burn and spinning around to see what had attacked me.

A faint shadow slid across the rocks nearby, revealing itself for only a split second as it fired another stream of burning acid, this time at Toothless. I flared my tailfins, intercepting the spray, and fired back as I threw the acid to the ground instead. The shot missed, exploding against the rocks, but the light of the fire revealed the dragon as it leapt to a new location.

"Changewing!" I yelled, garnering the attention of my companions. Hiccup ran to the edge of the storehouse, aiming at the shadow as it scuttled around to line up for its own attack. Another spray of acid, and Hiccup fired, the bolt exploding and knocking the dragon senseless for a moment.

That's when we all noticed: a regular sized Changewing would have been knocked out or suffered a major wound by the direct blow of Framherja. This one instead was nearly twice the size of normal, and perfectly clear in the light of the fading bolt were the old, jagged scars of iron chains that once wrapped its legs.

Hiccup shot me a look. "It's Spitfire," he stated plainly, and with great concern. I nodded, and jumped down in front of the dragon. He was regaining his senses, and when he glanced toward me, Spitfire faded from view once more and took off.

There was no way I was losing him that easily, not after just finding Spitfire again. Switching to infrared vision, I yelled up to Hiccup, "Keep them at bay as long as you can!" before I took off as well, following the Changewing who was now visible plain as day to me.

Problem was, with all the other warm-bodied dragons flying or running by and mixing in with hot, sweaty Vikings and roaring fires, it was almost too easy to lose sight of the bright, glowing object that was now Spitfire to me, especially when he ducked between a pair of houses and under a connecting bridge, forcing me to take a different route and losing my chance to catch up to him.

In the midst of the chase Astrid swept up next to me on Thorn. "What are you doing?" she yelled. "We just lost a henhouse over by Sven's; we need your help, not you running around the"- "It's Spitfire!" I snapped, cutting her off as I tried to keep my focus on the speeding red blob. "If we lose him we lose a chance to get answers to all of this!"

Astrid imitated a fish for a moment as she tried to form a response, before nodding and turning Thorn away. "You're right, agreed!" she called. "I'm going back to help with the hens, call if something urgent comes up!" "You mean more urgent than a dragon raid?" "Shut up!"

I chuckled and sped forward again. At one point I nearly managed to catch Spitfire's tail, before I ran almost straight into Fireworm, and lost him again.

"Watch it!" Snotlout yelled as Fireworm voiced a similar opinion. "I'm trying to help here!" "So am I!" I snapped, bolting off again before either of them could start an argument.

"Get the lower defense set up! We lose any of the yaks we'll have to double up fish stocks!" Stoick spun his hammer and swung it hard, nailing a Gronckle that had come in to take the smoked meats stored in the warehouse behind him before yelling upward. "Ember! Head off the Zipplebacks to the east; those sheep pens stay untouched!" Confirmation echoed from the woman above him as she and Orha soared off, the Shadowracer's near-white fire lighting up the night as he dragged down the closest opponent with a blast.

Stoick turned and charged down the path into the plaza, running up a stack of beams and leaping into the air, snagging a Nightmare by the horns and bringing it to the ground. "Not in my village you don't!" he exclaimed, turning the dragon's head and forcing it to the ground, before utilizing the pressure point Hiccup had taught him. The dragon collapsed unawares, to be out for several minutes more, while Stoick turned his attention toward the forge. "Gobber! You see Hiccup or Hawken?" "Nae for a couple o' minutes," the reply came, the smith hobbling out of the forge with a mace attached to his arm. "Astrid flew by an' said Hawken had spotted Spitfire in the fray, and not on our side. I think Hiccup an' Toothless are by the docks, the warehouses there!"

Stoick grunted affirmation. If Spitfire had been seen then this battle would be all the more hazardous, and it didn't bode well that there was something out there making dragons he knew strike them. "Pass the message to the others," he ordered. "These dragons were friends, minimal harm should be done. If they're under some outside influence perhaps we can break them out, but"-

He was cut off as a collective deadening of noise went up throughout the village, and the raiders suddenly dispersed as one unit, vanishing into the night sky.

I had lost Spitfire in the fray to the east of the forge, and not moments later, it was all over. No audible signal was given, but the scene suddenly quieted as all the dragons who'd been involved in the raid suddenly took to the air, those who had been knocked out or wounded limping their way after the main flock as they awoke again, and they vanished along with what few supplies they had managed to steal. Behind them, they left us to figure out what had just occurred, and why, and clean up the mess that had been made.

I glided back down into the village commons, meeting up with the other teens as they gathered from the fight as well as the other villagers and their dragons. I glanced at Hiccup, who had more than a handful of questions written on his face, but one in particular stood out. I shook my head, and he visibly deflated. We had lost Spitfire again, and along with it a possibly major clue.

"What's just happened?!" someone yelled as the rest of the village came together. "Years without incident and suddenly they're all burning down houses again!" As if to emphasize the point, a nearby house creaked and suddenly caved in, sending a shower of sparks into the sky as the still-crackling beams gave way. Immediately every eye turned to the team.

"What?!" Hiccup protested. "None of our dragons were involved in this! It's not like it's our fault; we were helping keep them at bay, and so were our dragons!"

"Then why did they attack us?" Mildew groused, appearing at the edge of the crowd as he marched toward us. "Shut it Mildew," Hoark quipped nearby. "I saw the village dragons fightin' off the wild ones same as any o' the Vikings here." Mildew only scoffed. "Sure, this time around it wasn't your dragons, but for all we know it will only be a matter of time before they turn too, and Berk will have a Night Fury, a Shadowracer, and maybe even Hawken to deal with then! We would all be ruined in seconds!"

He would have continued on his ranting if he hadn't suddenly found the blades at the end of my tail pressing up against his chin. "I dare you to say anything of that sort again," I hissed. "If we were going to have issues with the bonded dragons, I'm certain that something would have already occurred with them. And if you intend to keep your ability to speak at all you would find it wise to shut your mouth!"

Mildew backed up away from my threat, his expression continuing to stay plastered with irritation but on his part he did not venture to say anything further.

"Hawken's right," Stoick said loudly, shouldering his way to the center of the crowd and looking around. "I do not believe we have anything to worry about from any of the dragons who are still here. They have been loyal thus far, I will have faith they will be loyal to the end of this. I saw them as we were fighting and as Hoark said they were defending the village as well as any of us Vikings were." He glanced pointedly at Mildew. "Better, perhaps even, than some." Mildew only rolled his eyes in reply and turned away, muttering under his breath. Stoick ignored this, naturally, and continued to address the crowd.

"Right now, we have a far more important concern to deal with than fighting each other over who did what damage. New lumber needs to be brought in from the forest, and we need te get to work rebuilding, immediately. Everyone here has experience; you know your jobs. Now get to work!"

Stoick stood watching as most of the village began to move off, then turned and looked pointedly at the teens. "The council must convene immediately in the Great Hall. All of you will need to attend this," he ordered, turning and starting off through the dispersing throng of people.

I glanced at Hiccup who only shrugged. "Eh, we might as well head up there now, and try to figure out what caused this fiasco sooner rather than later," he suggested. I nodded in agreement, and spread my wings to take off.

Unsurprisingly, we and the other teens were the first to reach the hall, and all of us (dragons included) squeezed inside and took up positions around the fire pit. Not long after, Stoick slammed the doors open and marched in, looking like he had just aged another ten years, followed by members of the village council: Spitelout, Gothi, Phlegma, Gobber, Sigrid, and a few others. Each came to stand around the fire pit as well, a few (those who had no bonded dragons of their own) notably taking up positions as far as they could from the teens' dragons.

Stoick clapped his hands together and garnered the attention of the gathered. "We all know something's wrong, that much is obvious," he announced. "What we do not know yet is what exactly has happened or why. This meeting has been called so that we may be able to focus on solving this dilemma, not whether our dragons in the village will be next or not."

"Ye have to admit though, it should be of concern if yer son's Night Fury goes feral," Spitelout interjected, "or Ember's Shadowracer. Toothless is able te fly on his own again now, and we all know what it was like years ago when he actively attacked the village."

"An occurrence that will not happen again, that I can swear to you," said Night Fury quipped in reply. Spitelout, one of the handful of Vikings who had as yet not encountered Toothless' newest gift, gave a double take at the direct addressment.

"What-when did he start speakin' like that?" he spluttered. "About a month ago," Stoick replied tiredly. "But, that is not important at the moment. What is, is that we attempt to figure out our current situation."

The chief turned to Fishlegs. "You're the one who is good with dragon facts and details; what information do we know about this?" Fishlegs fidgeted a bit, never one to be used to rapt attention aimed at him, before pulling out a stack of books and notes he always seemed to have in Meatlug's saddle.

"I, uh, found these while we were waiting for the meeting to begin," he explained, spreading out a number of papers across the stone. "According to what Toothless told us earlier, the dragons came in from the southeast, the same direction as the original dragon's nest." There was a murmur of voices, before Fishlegs held up his hands to regain attention.

"I'm not finished yet," he quipped. "The dragons who attacked included not only fully wild and roaming dragons, but also those dragons around the village who had no specific rider or partner." He pointed at Toothless, and then at the other dragons in the hall sequentially. "No dragon with a rider or permanent companion appears to have been affected by whatever drew the others away. Also, unlike with raids in the past none of the dragons that attacked showed any signs of acting under their own coordination even after sustaining injuries like Toothless did years ago. This was information both Hawken and Hiccup witnessed firsthand tonight."

Fishlegs looked up at Stoick. "I've had a theory for a couple years now, that dragons that bond with a partner undergo a chemical change, rendering them unresponsive or immune to the call of higher, or alpha dragons, and this would explain why none of the fully incorporated village dragons have been drawn away. But any wild dragon is still affected by alphas such as the Red Death from years ago.

"This raid has a lot of similarities with those we once had too, too many for it to be coincidence, and I can't believe that we forgot to check the old nest for something like this, but at this point it doesn't matter now." Fishlegs pulled out another folded parchment, undoing it and laying the sheet out across the others. The image drawn on it sent chills through every person in the room. It had massive, tattered wings, a club tail, and a thick head with three beady sets of eyes.

"This is what I am fearing is behind the raids, again," Fishlegs spoke quietly. "There are simply far too many things that line up; the targeting of livestock, the uncoordinated pattern of the attack, and the direction of travel the flock took."

"But we killed that beast, an' we all saw it crumble to nothing in that explosion," Phlegma spoke up. "It no longer exists te sway the dragons."

"You really think there couldn't be more than one of any large species?" Hiccup retorted. "We know that we battled one, and Ember brought with her a story about issues her people had with a second near the far Mediterranean. It appears we are going to be facing a third of that same race."

Fishlegs nodded in agreement. "Yes, but there's another complicating factor: there were more dragons present in this raid than we have ever had before. Had it been the same number our damages and casualties would have been nowhere near the rate it was tonight. A dozen houses are needing to be rebuilt, and we lost ten sheep and two henhouses. Even a fully mature Red Death like the last one is going to have limits on how many dragons it can control. Plus, much like how Toothless and the other dragons were able to be knocked out of influence, either via time or a jarring event, these dragons should have too. The ones that were knocked unconscious and put in the arena are showing no such signs."

Fishlegs now glanced at me. "There is something else at work here too, and I can't figure it out. Either we're not just up against a normal Red Death, if that is in fact what we'll find, or there may be two, or something we've overlooked. Neither Hiccup or Toothless came out unscathed from the battle last time either, and while we're all a lot more experienced than back then, they also got lucky as well." He fixed me with a pointed stare, before giving Stoick one as well. "We have been put back into the position that we have absolutely no clue what we're really up against."

Silence. This revelation had stripped us of just about all our ideas. Finally though, Stoick spoke. "Well, for once I can't say I know what to do either," he admitted. "Hiccup, Fishlegs, you and the other riders need te look into this situation, but we can't afford to send anyone out there te investigate until we're done rebuilding, at least, and even that will take a couple more days. In the meantime, if anyone any ideas, come straight to me with them."

Snotlout immediately raised his hand to speak, before Stoick interrupted. "Let me rephrase that so that we are all perfectly clear: any ideas that do not involve barging in to blow the mountain up like we tried to last time." Unsurprisingly, Snotlout visibly deflated, and slouched back into the seat he'd grabbed, pouting.

Soon after, the meeting adjourned, and I walked out next to Hiccup and Toothless. "The next few days are going to be a lot of work," I commented. "Yeah, no kidding," Hiccup responded. "I'm going to need both your and Ember's help in the forge whenever you have spare time to get everything reshaped or remade that we'll need."

"Well, I do have at least one idea that may help cheer all of us up," I suggested, halting in my steps and turning to look straight at Hiccup. "See, the sequel to your original movie comes out in two days. You want to go see it?"

Hiccup mulled it over for a moment, before shrugging. "Eh, sure, why not? We can take Cami along if she shows up at all too, and go stare at DreamWorks' version of me on a big screen." He snorted. "At least we'll be able to laugh a little."

If only we'd known…

A/N-Alright, hope you all enjoyed a longer chapter this time! What did you think? Please review and let me know.

Also, a couple notices on next chapter: I have barely gotten two paragraphs written so far, so it may be a couple weeks before we see the next one up. I hope that's not the case, and that I can finish it by week's end, but no promises. Secondly, this will be it: the point where we get to see the reactions of Hiccup, Astrid, and a few others to How to Train Your Dragon Two. It's not all good either...

Thoughts? Comments? Predictions on what you think is to come? Let me know! Things will move quickly from this point, so be ready...