Chapter Ten: Downed Dragon

"Toothless!" Hiccup's voiced was raspy from his constant calling. He ran both his hands through his hair, frustrated at the current predicament. The leaves of the bushes behind him were rustled. Hiccup tensed up. On this island he didn't know where the Changewing or Speed Stinger territories were, and he knew the probability of stumbling upon one and making it out unscathed was very low. Especially now that he was dragon-less. "Toothless?" Hiccup whispered, hopefully.

A black figure bounded past him. "Toothless! Aw, bud, you scared me!" As Hiccup approached, Toothless cowered away and bore his teeth. Hiccup stopped mid-step: Toothless hadn't done that to him in over two years. "Toothless, bud, it's me." When Hiccup took another step closer, Toothless fired a warning blast at Hiccup's feet. Toothless backed away and flared his wings out.

Inhaling sharply, Hiccup extended his hand slowly with his palm open. "It's gonna be okay, bud. Let me help." Toothless growled and tried to take off. He fluttered for a few feet before crash landing again. Toothless recovered and tried two more times to fly before giving up and running further into the forest. Desperately, Hiccup chased after him.

Hiccup pushed back the shrubbery to reveal the Visitor's Center. It was overgrown and it looked like most of the glass on the windows had been broken. Toothless stood in front of the overgrown Visitor's Center, growling at Hiccup.

As Hiccup approached, Toothless' eyes turned to slits and he flapped his wings, trying to get airborn. He extended his claws and grasped onto the wall of the building and climbed up it. Toothless sat perched on the highest part of the roof. Hiccup rolled his eyes. You useless reptile, you can't fly but somehow you still managed to get on top of the roof. He cupped his hands around his mouth and called out, "Toothless, c'mon bud. I know you're hurt. Let me help you. Come down from there." Again Toothless growled.

Sighing, Hiccup began to scale the wall, using the vines that had taken over the Visitor Center to help. Toothless whined and backed away from Hiccup as he climbed closer. Now Toothless began to make himself as small as possible. He couldn't fire at Hiccup now since Hiccup might fall. He didn't want to hurt Hiccup, but he didn't want Hiccup to hurt him either. Slowly, but surely, Hiccup reached the top of the roof and swung his good leg onto the ledge. As he reached for another vine to help hoist himself all the way on top of the roof, the vine snapped and Hiccup fell. Toothless' eyes widened and he leapt from the rooftop as well to save his friend.

Toothless grabbed Hiccup with his front paws and pulled him close against his chest. He then wrapped his wings around the two of them, keeping them safe as they hit the ground. Toothless grunted from the impact. Slowly, the Night Fury unraveled himself from around Hiccup. Hiccup placed a palm on his throbbing forehead and looked down at his feet.

"Well, at least I didn't lose another one. Thanks for the save, bud." Slowly the Viking and his dragon stood up. Hiccup again reached out his arm with his palm open. "Please, Toothless. Let me help you, bud." Toothless hesitated twice before pressing his nose again Hiccup's hand. Hiccup smiled and breathed a sigh of relief. "Let me see, bud." Toothless glanced at his tail and back at Hiccup. He nodded and Hiccup walked slowly around the Night Fury to inspect the tail fin. Hiccup winced at the sight.

"All right bud, let's go inside the Visitor's Center and see if there's anything in there to clean up the wound. Then we'll see about making you a new tail fin."

Several hours later, and several prototypes later Hiccup presented Toothless with another makeshift tailfin, "Ta-da!" Toothless wrinkled his nose, "W-what? Aw, c'mon, Toothless. I know this one will work. I worked out all of the kinks from the last few prototypes. See? Now it will attach directly to your other tail rudder and as you maneuver the right one, this prosthetic will mimic the movement. And I put some WD40 on it to help the gears move better."

Hiccup placed the tail rudder against Toothless' real tail and attached the mechanisms. Toothless jumped away when the last mechanism sputtered shut and knocked over several canisters, computer keyboards and monitors in the process. Hiccup laughed to himself for the startled Night Fury looked like a cat with something taped to its tail. After a moment, Toothless calmed down and sniffed the new prosthetic. It was heavier than the previous ones.

Toothless opened and closed his good tail fin and was shocked when the prosthetic one did in fact mimic the movement. "There ya go. See? Good as new. No more downed dragon." Before the two of them could test it out properly they heard one of the doors creak open and the sound of a gun being loaded. "Toothless, get outta sight. I'll stall whoever it is and meet you on the roof, okay bud?" At first, the Night Fury shook his head, not liking the idea of leaving his friend alone with another human who had a gun. Hiccup insisted though. Toothless nodded and hurried out of the Visitor's Center.

"Oh Mr. Night Fury! Come out, come out wherever you are! Dagur the Deranged has something…oh hello. Who the hell are you, my muscularly challenged friend?"

"Uh, Hiccup."

"Hic-cup? That's a sorry name."

"It grows on you."

Dagur hummed in mock-agreement. "I'm Dagur. Listen, Hiccup. I'm looking for a Night Fury. I've tracked him here by his trail of blood. You haven't seen a Night Fury have you?"

"Uh, a-actually I…" Hiccup paused for a moment, a plan formulating in his head. "I did see a Night Fury in here. He attacked me, see the blood?" Hiccup showed his blood-stained hands from helping Toothless.

"Excellent! Where did he go?"

"He is in here somewhere I think. I followed him here too. Why don't we split up?" Dagur pointed the gun directly at Hiccup's head. Even though Hiccup knew that Dagur had no more ammo, he couldn't let Dagur know that. "O-or, we could totally stay together. Strength in numbers and all that jazz."

"I won't have you killing that Night Fury. The only person who gets that privilege is me."

"Uh…but…I…I saw him first!" It was a weak attempt to dissuade Dagur from trying to kill Toothless, but Hiccup was running out of ideas.

"But you don't have anything to kill it with." Dagur glanced around the facility. "So this is how you make dragons, eh?"

"Yeah. This, this is how you make dragons."

"Kinda like playing god, huh, Hiccup?" Dagur nudged him with his elbow. Which god? Hiccup wondered to himself before realizing that Dagur probably wasn't of Viking decent like himself. The pair heard a rustling outside of the Visitor' Center. "The Night Fury! C'mon!" He grabbed Hiccup by his shirt collar and practically dragged him outside.

Toothless hadn't flown onto the roof to wait like Hiccup had instructed. He was afraid of not being able to fly still despite having a new prosthetic. Toothless held onto the side of the building with his claws and climbed up it as quickly as possible. Dagur placed his gun back in his hostler and began to scale the wall. "Come, Hiccup! We must hunt the Night Fury down!"

Hiccup sighed and followed Dagur. Toothless backed away from the pair. Hiccup was a few steps behind Dagur and signaled to Toothless that it was going to be okay. As the pair approached, Toothless continued to back away slowly, trying to make himself as small as possible. "I don't get it, why doesn't it fly away?"

Because Toothless is afraid the new prosthetic won't work. Hiccup thought to himself and wished that he had perfected it a few prototypes earlier so they could have tested it. But Hiccup didn't mention it to Dagur. Instead he said, "Maybe he wants us to follow."

"You mean like a trap?"

"Exactly. Maybe we should go back to your base camp and regroup," Hiccup said hopefully.

"Oh, brother, don't you know that the trappers' trap can trap the trapper?"

"Uh, what does that even mean?"

Dagur laughed maniacally. "I don't know!" Dagur turned to face the Night Fury again and aimed his gun at it. He fired twice but was shooting blanks. Hiccup closed his eyes and breathed a sigh of relief. "Some asshole removed my ammo."

"Probably the Terrible Terrors. They like shiny things," Hiccup half-lied.

Dagur shrugged. "No matter. I always have extra in my boot." Dagur reloaded his pistol.

"Isn't that uncomfortable?"

"Extremely. Say good night, Mr. Night Fury."

"What the hell is the matter with you, Dagur? This creature exists on the planet for the first time in thousands of years and the only way you can express yourself is to kill it?"

Dagur turned to face Hiccup, "You remember that guy about twenty years ago who climbed Mount Everest without any oxygen and came down almost dead? People asked him, 'Why did you go up there to die?' and he said, 'I didn't. I went up there to live'."

Hiccup scowled. "Yeah but the difference is the mountain didn't have to die."

Dagur shrugged. "Can't have the same story as him, can I?" He cocked the pistol again.

"No, Dagur, I can't let you do this."

Dagur rolled his eyes and lowered the gun. "Fine, you saw him first, you can take home a wing or something."

"Actually I'm pretty much going to take the whole dragon. Toothless!" As Hiccup called out his dragon's name and Toothless fluttered over to him, Dagur mouthed the name in confusion. "I'm not a poacher like you, Dagur. I'm a scientist and a conservationist. You won't be killing this dragon." Once Hiccup had climbed onto Toothless' back the Night Fury shot the pistol out of Dagur's hand. Hiccup whispered a few words of encouragement to Toothless and the pair flew off.

"I could ride a dragon," Dagur the Deranged said to himself. A Terrible Terror had crept up and tried to steal the pistol on the ground. "NOT YOU LITTLE DRAGON! YOU ARE TOO TINY!" His shouts startled the poor Terrible Terror who flew off into the bushes and out of sight. Dagur picked up his gun and holstered it once again. His phone rang, "WHAT IS IT?"

On the other line Ludlow silrntly counted backwards from five, for Dagur really was off his rocker sometimes. "We have the Bewilderbeast. Meet us at the rendezvous point in fifteen."

[a/n] Yeah, Toothless' prosthetic is based off of the one he receives in the holiday short: Gift of the Night Fury. And yeah, Dagur is a deranged crazy ass. I know. Sorry.