Gobber and the recruits are seated at the top of an abandoned catapult tower, toasting campfire food around a roaring bonfire.

"...and with one twist he took my hand and swallowed it whole. And I saw the look on his face. I was delicious. He must have passed the word, because it wasn't a month before another one of them took my leg."

"Isn't it weird to think that your hand was inside a dragon. Like if your mind was still in control of it you could have killed the dragon from the inside by crushing his heart or something."

"I swear I'm so angry right now. I'll avenge your beautiful hand and your beautiful foot. I'll chop off the legs of every dragon I fight, with my face."

"Un-unh. It's the wings and the tails you really want. If it can't fly, it can't get away. A downed dragon is a dead dragon."

Hiccup hides his horrified look form the others. Gobber stands and stretches.

"Alright. I'm off to bed. You should be too. Tomorrow we get into the big boys. Slowly but surely making our way up to the Monstrous Nightmare. But who'll win the honor of killing it?"

"It's gonna be me. It's my destiny. See?"

Tuffnut rolls up his sleeve to reveal a red dragon on his arm.

"Your mom let you get a tattoo?"

"It's not a tattoo. It's a birthmark."

"Okay, I've been stuck with you since birth, and that was never there before."

"Yes it was. You've just never seen me from the left side until now."

"It wasn't there yesterday. Is it a birthmark or a today-mark?"

Hiccup gets up and walks away from the group. Astrid watches him as he leaves the bonfire. He enters a small room at the back of the stall. It's covered in drawings of weaponry and scale models. He lights a candle and lays his sketchbook out on the desk, opening it to the drawing of Toothless. With a look of determination. Hiccup picks up a charcoal stick and re-draws the missing tail.

Later, a creaking leather bellows. The stone forge glows with every pump. Tongs pull intricate iron pieces from the coals. They're dropped onto the anvil, twisted, lightly hammered, and dunked in a barrel. The pieces are carried to Hiccup's workbench and laid out in place on a one-to-one schematic. It's a sketch of a mechanical fin.

Hiccup arrives at the cove, winded, straining under the weight of a full basket. He clicks the scale he found (like a jar top). Toothless approaches, sniffing him.

"Hey Toothless. I brought breakfast. I hope you're hungry."

Hiccup drops the basket and kicks it over. Fish spill out.

"Okay, that's disgusting."

Toothless approaches, settling in to devour the feast.

"Uh..we've got some salmon..."

Toothless swallows it.

"... some nice Icelandic cod..."

Swallows those too.

"... and a whole smoked eel."

Toothless nabs it, chews a few times, then spits it out. He shakes his head violently, snorts and scrubs his massive tongue on the sand. Hiccup takes note.

"No, no, no! It's okay. Yeah, I don't like eel much either."

Toothless focuses on the remainder. With the dragon distracted, Hiccup unwraps his prosthetic fin and opens it like a fan.

"Okay. That's it. That's it, just stick with good stuff. And don't you mind me. I'll just be back...here. Minding my own business."

Hiccup cautiously approaches the injured tail, but every time he gets near it, Toothless sweeps it away like a cat.

"It's okay."

Hiccup drops a knee on top of the tail. Toothless' head juts up, slows its chewing to a halt.

"Okay...okay.."

The dragon tenses, slowly spreading his wings. Hiccup straps the prosthetic fin in place. He cinches the straps.

"There. Not too bad. It works."

Toothless bolts! He snaps his massive wings and takes to the air, carrying Hiccup with him.

"Woah! No! No! No!"

Hiccup struggles to hold on to the tail. As the ground speeds away, Toothless immediately TIPS into a uncontrolled bank and dive. Hiccup sees the folded fin rattling uselessly in opposition to its flared counterpart. Flap as he may, Toothless can't correct his trajectory. Hiccup swallows his fear and crawls toward the folded prosthetic. He reaches it and yanks it open. The flared, fan-like appendage catches the air, stabilizing the twisting tail.

"It's working!"

Toothless arcs just short of the water and climbs... high into the air.

"Yes! Yes, I did it."

He glances back at Hiccup, busily holding the tail open while trying to hold on. They're going to crash. Whoomp! Hiccup is suddenly thrown from the tail in the intense force of a turn.

"AAAAAGGGGHHHHH!"

He bounces across the water's surface and takes a dive. Without Hiccup to operate the tail, Toothless does the same, plunging in a massive cannonball. Hiccup resurfaces, roughed up, but beaming. Toothless appears seconds later.

"Yeah!"

The next day, inside the training grounds.

"Today is about teamwork. Work together and you might survive."

Gas seeps through the cracks of a double-wide door. It blasts open. A cloud of smoke engulfs the ring, swirling around the paired-up teens. Astrid with Ruffnut. Snotlout with Tuffnut. Fishlegs with Hiccup. All carry buckets of water, poised to throw them.

"Now, a wet dragon head can't light its fire. The Hideous Zippleback is extra tricky. One head breathes gas, the other head lights it. Your job is to know which is which."

The smoke encircles them, cutting them off from each other. The teens listen and watch for any sign of the dragon.

"Razor sharp, serrated teeth that inject venom for pre-digestion. Prefers ambush attack, crushing its victims in its..."

"Will you please stop that?"

Snotlout and Tuffnut are moving nervously through the fog, back to back. Snotlout is singing to himself to calm his nerves.

"If that dragon shows either of his faces, I'm gonna- There!"

Snotlout and Tuffnut hurl their water into the fog.

"Hey!"

"It's us, idiots."

"Your butts are getting bigger. We thought you were a dragon."

"Not that there's anything wrong with a dragon-esque figure."

Astrid elbows Snotlout in the face. Ruffnut drops Tuffnut with a punch to the throat.

"Wait."

They freeze. A tail sweeps out of the fog, taking them down. Their buckets spill.

"Oh, I'm hurt. I am very much hurt."

"Chances of survival are dwindling into single digits now..."

"Look out!"

A Zippleback head emerges out of the smoke. Fishlegs hurls his water at it, completely dousing the head. It leers and opens its mouth, spewing gas into the area.

"Oh. Wrong head."

Gas flows around their legs. Fishlegs flees in a panic.

"Fishlegs!"

A clicking sound comes from behind them. Sparks flash in the smoke.

"Now, Hiccup!"

The other head sweeps out of the smoke. Hiccup hurls his water with all his might. It arcs and drops short of the dragon's sparking mouth. The dragon grins, savoring the kill.

"Oh, come on!"

"Run, Hiccup!"

The Zippleback hesitates, sniffs, then retreats. The teens get to their feet, watching transfixed. Gobber peeks through his fingers to see the dragon backing away from Hiccup. He stands and holds his hands out, as if controlling it.

"BACK! BACK! BACK! Now don't you make me tell you again!"

The Zippleback retreats through its door and into its cave, hissing.

"Yes, that's right. Back into your cage."

Hiccup slyly opens his vest, revealing the spotted smoked eel from earlier. He tosses it inside the door, then slams it shut.

"Now think about what you've done."

Hiccup turns to the teens and Gobber. They stare, slack-jawed.

"Okay! So are we done? Because I've got some things I need to..."

Hiccup jogs out of the ring, past the speechless group.

"Yep...see you tomorrow."

Hiccup cuts and stitches leather, draws and shapes steel. He works by candlelight. An overhead shot reveals what he's building: a harness, complete with handles and foot pedals.

Hiccup appears before Toothless, holding the new prosthetic. Toothless runs off as Hiccup chases him down.

"Hey!"

Toothless and Hiccup are zooming over the ocean. The tail breaks free sending Hiccup flying.

"Yeah! Whoa!"

Hiccup adjusts the harness and uses a metal clamp to affix himself to Toothless' saddle.

Hiccup and Toothless zip through the air - his rudimentary harness and tail controls are working, barely. They crash-land in an open field. Hiccup recovers to find Toothless still rolling around in the tall grass. Hiccup discovers that it's a patch of dragon-nip. Toothless writhes on his back, tongue wagging, in complete bliss.

Hiccup grabs the head as instructed, then discreetly pulls a fistful of dragon-nip and presses it up to the Gronkle's nose. It immediately stops struggling and goes weak in the knees. Hiccup drops the handful of dragon-nip to the ground. The Gronkle goes down with it, whimpering and blissful. From Gobber and the recruits' point of view, Hiccup is controlling the Gronkle with no more than a limp arm.

"Hey Hiccup, I've never seen a Gronkle do that before."

"How'd you do that?"

"It was really cool."

He squirms and invents an excuse.

"I left my axe back in the ring."

He turns and hurries back.

"You guys go on ahead and I'll catch up with you."

An angry Deadly Nadder approaches Hiccup. Just as Astrid moves in to strike, Hiccup performs his special rubbing technique, which sends the Nadder down. Astrid and the other kids look on from the sideline in amazement.

Hiccup sits down at a table to eat. The other recruits notice him and move over to his table to talk to him - leaving Astrid alone.

"Hey Hiccup!"

"What was that? Some kind of trick? What did you do?"

"Hiccup, you're totally going to come in first, there's no question."

Hiccup is using a mirror-like object to create a patch of light on the ground. Toothless claws and chases the light patch like a cat chasing a laser pointer.

A beam lifts from the door of another dragon pen.

"Meet the Terrible Terror."

A tiny, pint-sized dragon steps out and moves toward the recruits.

"Ha. It's like the size of my-"

Tuffnut is taken down in a blur.

"Get it off! Get it off! Oh! I'm hurt, I am very much hurt!"

Hiccup stops the Terrible Terror with the same light-patch trick he used earlier with Toothless. The tiny dragon retreats back to it's cage. The teens approach him yet again as Astrid looks on with suspicion.

"Wow, he's better than you ever were."

Astrid furiously hurls her axe at a nearby tree. She notices Hiccup walking by in the distance, carrying one of his trademark harnesses. She quickly tries to follow, but he loses her in the woods. She huffs, frustrated.

Hiccup straps a newly designed harness onto Toothless. With Toothless tied to a nearby post with a rope. Hiccup rides him in the air - while stationary. Toothless looks like a giant kite tied to a tree stump. This harness seems to work.

The rope breaks and the pair crashes into a tree.

"Oh, great."

The streets are empty save for a lone Viking who crosses Hiccup's path.

"Hiccup."

Hiccup nods, trying to look casual. Once the coast is clear, he covertly steers Toothless into the Blacksmith's stall. Toothless presses himself inside, rooting through stuff and making a racket. Astrid, walking nearby, is alerted.

"Hiccup?"

H

Hiccup freezes. Then frantically tries to pry the ring off the saddle hook. It won't budge.

"Are you in there?"

Too late - she's right outside. Astrid walks along the outside of the Blacksmith's. Hiccup jumps out the window and closesthe shutters behind him. Hiccup's harness line is stretched through the window, still attached to Toothless' saddle.

"Astrid. Hey! Hi Astrid. Hi Astrid. Hi Astrid."

"I normally don't care what people do, but you're acting weird. Well, weirder."

Toothless spots a nearby sheep and makes a move toward it. As a result, Hiccup is suddenly pulled tight against the window shutters. He strikes a pose to compensate... then gets pulled through the shutters. They snap back in Astrid's face. Astrid reopens them and finds nothing but an empty stall. In the distance, Toothless and Hiccup slip off unseen.

A lone, battered ship is pulled into a slip, overloaded with equally battered-looking men. They disembark to a crowd of onlookers, looking like a team of hometown heroes who just had their butts kicked. Gobber hobbles through the mumbling crowd to find Stoick - last to disembark and glowering with battered pride.

"Where are the other ships?"

"You don't want to know."

Stoick lumbers past Gobber, leaving him staring at the trashed ship.

"Well, I trust you found the nest at least?"

"Not even close."

"Ah, excellent."

Gobber follows Stoick up the ramp and snags his duffle bag with his hook appendage, sharing the burden.

"I hope you had a little more success than me."

"Well, if by success, you mean that your parenting troubles are over with, then... yes."

Stoick stops. What does that mean? A group of merry villagers rush past.

"Congratulations Stoick! Everyone is so relieved."

"Out with the old and in with the new, right?!"

"No one will miss that old nuisance!"

"The village is throwing a party to celebrate!"

Stoick is stunned, overwhelmed by the insensitivity. He turns to Gobber.

"He's... gone?"

"Yeah...most afternoons. But who can blame him? I mean the life of a celebrity is very rough. He can barely walk through the village without being swarmed by his new fans."

Stoick is doubly confused.

"Hiccup?"

"Who would've thought, eh? He has this...way with the beasts."