~Ouroboros~

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1st – 12. Mindless Beasts

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Hiccup awoke to the sound of yelling and hammering outside. From the light within his room he could tell that it was several hours since the sun rose, and from the noise outside it was obvious that the village was already well in the midst of repairing the damage done during the dragon attack the night before last. Sitting up from his bed he idly wondered why he was still wearing his outdoor clothing and had not even covered himself with some furs before falling asleep. That was of course before the dull pain from his chest registered in his still muddled mind.

Glancing down at himself Hiccup stared for a few moments uncomprehendingly at the dark brown spots upon his shirt before the memory of yesterday's events slammed into him. Apparently he had been too drained last night to even bandage up his wounds and would now have to pay for that decision. At the very least what little blood stained the furs he slept on was not quite noticeable, but the shirt had once again glued itself to his chest and was going to be difficult to remove without breaking open his wounds – again.

Well the day obviously started out much better than the previous one. Hiccup snorted at that thought – It spoke volumes about how horrible yesterday was for him if even sitting in bed with blood staining the front of his shirt from whatever wounds his stupidity resulted in, the day was turning out to be better than before. Then again, he had an entire day before him to break yesterday's record, and what with the upcoming dragon training that his dad just had to throw at him on top of everything else, he highly doubted that there would not be chances for things to take a turn for the worse.

With his luck they probably would as well.

At least Gobber was likely already at the kill-ring preparing for training instead of around the house ready to pop in at the most awkward moment – such as right now, when he looked like he should not even be alive from blood-loss, not to mention loafing around in bed.

Hiccup paused and waited. When Gobber failed to materialize before him, Hiccup released a melancholy smile and with a groan got off the bed. Guess even my luck is not that bad…

Gathering some sheets he could use to bandage up his chest without resorting to going to the village elder – which would have the same result as yelling out about his wounds to the entire village, and possibly only slightly better than having Gobber come in uninvited; Hiccup grabbed a bucket of water, and throwing his sleeveless vest on the floor to be soaked later on so as to remove the now dried blood on it, turned his attention to his shirt.

Removing it, he could not supress a wince – no matter how hard he had tried to be careful, fresh blood started to seep from some of the wounds. Gingerly wiping away at the mess of dried blood with a wet cloth, Hiccup was finally able to see the extent of the damage accrued from his mind-bogglingly stupid stunt of freeing a captive – and as he unfortunately realized not moments later, very much angry – dragon. While the five puncture wounds arranged roughly in the shape of the Nightfury's claw were not as grievous as he had thought last night, now that he could clearly see them he once again started to clearly feel the dull pain emanating from them.

Three of them were little more than scratches – not even reaching deep enough to touch his ribs; the last two from the middle claws were slightly deeper than that as he could almost see the whiteness of bone within. Now that he thought about it he was quite lucky not to have suffered any broken ribs from the weight the Nightfury had placed on him – heck, the relatively shallow scars he was sporting were definitely not the type of wounds one expected to come out of a meeting with just about any dragon with, to say nothing of the legendary Nightfury.

Thank gods none of them look like they require stitching up! – Or at least he really hoped they didn't, otherwise he would have been left with no choice but to either go to the Elder or try his hand at doing it himself; neither option being something he would want to have to do. Besides the ruckus that would bring about – with Gobber first followed by his father when he returned; Hiccup really did not want to experience the unique feeling of getting your flesh sewn up again.

Better still, the wounds did not seem infected, which was nothing short of a miracle considering that he highly doubled that the Nightfury had bothered to clean out and wash its talons before using them to hold him down. They obviously weren't poisonous either, seeing as he was still alive.

Still, from the amount of blood on my shirt I would have expected something much worse. Hiccup mused as he selected a single long white sheet roughly the length and width he required from the pile and wrapped it around his chest. The others would have to be put back. Glancing at his shirt he could not prevent another wince. It was far beyond salvageable, but what with the dragon training – don't think about it! – he would have a perfectly fine excuse to 'retire' it.

It was most definitely in need of being stealthily retired before people started asking questions about the gashes along the front, and all the dried blood on it. Where could all of that blood have come from? – If even half of the blood along the front was his, he doubted that he would have survived. Besides, the scratches he had received were way too small to result in… That.

Shaking his head Hiccup tried to focus on more important matters – namely finding himself another shirt, hiding this one, and trudging along to the Kill-ring where the dragon training would occur. Picking up his vest from the floor and throwing it into the water bucket, Hiccup pushed it away into a corner where he hoped Gobber would not find it, and went about putting all the sheets back where he grabbed them from.

Finding a shirt after that was exceptionally easy considering that he always kept several spares – you just never knew when you would wreck the one you were in when you were working in the forge, or hunting… or fishing – or any other typical Viking profession really. The old one was chucked behind the bucket with his vest to be retrieved and thrown into the forge's fires when Gobber was not looking.

It was only a few minutes later that Hiccup was on his way to the Kill-ring, finishing off the quickly thrown together sandwich of bread and smoked fish; the only signs of his adventures the previous day being hidden behind the wrappings around his chest which were nigh invisible underneath the heavy dark green shirt he got to replace his destroyed light green one. It was fortunately warm enough that he would not be remarked upon for not wearing a vest over it, considering that except for the one currently soaking in the corner of his room the rest have been destroyed along with his father's house.

The only other difference from his normal attire was the inclusion of the axe his father had so easily thrust at him the day before. It was almost ironic that out of all the weapons littering the forge, his father had selected this exact axe – the same one that had been his project for himself, back when he so wanted to join in during dragon raids. The same axe that his father had torn out of his hands whenever he spotted Hiccup doing practice swings with it – though whether that was from his father's insistence at keeping him away from dragon training or because the halfway wild swings have several times come close to hacking his own leg off he did not know.

During all those times he wanted nothing more than to grab the axe back, but now that his father had willingly thrust it at him Hiccup wanted nothing more than to drop it and forget its existence. Ironic wasn't it? – What could he say? That was the way his life seemed to always turn out.

So while he was loath to carry the axe currently weighing him down from his shoulder he hooked it across, Hiccup had decided to take it along with him to at the very least prevent further questions about his appearance in dragon training. Even if his swings with it were likely to pose more danger to himself than to the dragon he was aiming at, he could always drop it so as to run faster at any sign of trouble. Besides, hours of working in the forge may not have gotten him up to Snotlout's level of strength, but it did make carrying a small axe like this easy.

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The Kill-ring was a giant round monolithic construction that had been carved directly into the stone outcropping at the edge of the village. While no one could remember what it was originally constructed for (or really cared enough to remember), it was quickly retrofitted for training young Vikings to fight against dragons once the raids started when one of the Vikings remarked how the storage rooms along its perimeter that have been carved out of solid rock would do wonders to contain dragons. The first dragons were captured and thrown in even before the metal walls and dome-like net were finished along the upper perimeter of the ring so as to prevent dragons from just flying away. Overall the ring was indented 15 feet down into the ground, with a 20 feet high metallic fence providing even more room for dragons to maneuver.

The inside of the kill-ring was roughly 40 paces from the center to the walls, incidentally making getting the dragons back into their cages after training not too difficult of a task even for someone like Gobber who was missing a leg and an arm. Then again, Gobber was one of the few Vikings that could take on a monstrous Nightmare by himself, even with his 'handicaps', so taking care of a few captive dragons that were almost tame in comparison to the ones you could expect during raids was well within his abilities.

While originally the Kill-ring was more of a final training grounds for already seasoned younglings, it wasn't even a single generation into the raids that someone noticed that the captive dragons were much less ferocious than those encountered during raids – as such Gobber, as the latest dragon handler, continued the long standing tradition of using the kill-ring right from the beginning of dragon training. Perhaps it was that same disposition of most of the captive dragons that led to few trainees sustaining crippling injuries or downright dying during training, even with the expected but still unfortunate general inexperience of the trainees.

At the moment Gobber was feeding the captive dragons while simultaneously checking on the gates to make sure none of them were worn out enough to warrant replacement. Although it had never happened before, if any of the dragons escaped while training was going on, even he might be hard pressed to fight against two or more dragons while simultaneously defending the younglings that would more likely than not be running like chickens with their heads cut off.

Out of the eight cages along the perimeter of the ring, six were currently in use – housing a Gronckle, deadly Nadder, hideous Zippleback, terrible Terror, the recently captured monstrous Nightmare... and the other Nadder. Of the six cages only one was equipped with doubly reinforced doors and was specially made to handle a Nightmare's flames. For a cage as sturdy as that it may come as a surprise that it was empty throughout most of the year, and has gained a tenant only just the other day.

The reason why the cage was usually empty was simple – the captive monstrous Nightmare was reserved for the end of dragon training when it would be pitted against the best trainee as selected by the elder – a rite of passage if you will, considering that the Nightmares were considered the most difficult dragons to fight (of the common dragons at least). Due to the general decrease in the dragons' ferociousness the longer they were kept, the Nightmare was captured just before the training began. This was done to guarantee the battle was as close to a real raid as possible for the trainee selected by the Elder as the best in his (or her) group, along with guaranteeing there would be a Nightmare for the champion to fight. As to after the rite of passage… the cage would empty no matter who was victorious.

The last two cages anticlimactically, were simply used to house supplies and store food and was thus never mentioned in front of the trainees – which led to some surprisingly interesting theories on what types of dragons were locked away there and how dangerous they must be since none of the Vikings ever spoke of them to the younglings – the theories just getting wilder and wilder amongst the current batch of trainees as training progressed without them being 'allowed' to fight the dragons inside.

Really though, it was the second Nadder that was considered as the most dangerous – it had been captured before Gobber's time, and from what stories he had been told it was just like the other dragons until one of the trainees accidentally smashed apart its wing. That of course was unfortunate because it meant that another one would have to be captured, but hardly surprising as it had happened before. The capture of another Nadder was placed upon the list of things to do during the next raid, and Gobber's predecessor Turk started waiting for the Nadder to inevitably waste away as all flightless dragons did – after all, what few knew was that the high fence around the ring was placed there not only to provide more room to maneuver, but to allow the captured dragons to stretch their wings and thus prevent them from dying within months of capture. The first captured dragons clearly showed the need for this when they killed themselves upon waking up in captivity to find their wings had been cut off to prevent them from escaping through at the time dome-less training ring.

The first month passed and as expected the Nadder started eating less while simultaneously becoming twitchier, snapping at any Viking that tried to approach, one having come mighty close to losing an arm when a group of them attempted to clean out the festering wound that was quite honestly beginning to smell. Naturally no one tried to check on its wound after that, and things were relatively quiet for a time.

It was several days into the second month when Turk let it out into the ring to stretch itself that it happened. Turk's son Hork had followed his father and was outside the fence looking in; and had been the one to pass on the story of what happened next, since Turk wasn't in any condition to.

From Hork's words, the moment the Nadder's door was opened up it rushed out and attempted to fly, even though its damaged wing was obviously uncontrollable as it was halfway spread open and dragging behind the dragon along the sand of the ring, the nauseating smell of decomposing flesh clearly emanating from it. Mindless of its obvious disability the Nadder jumped up into the air and as expected went into a spin as his working wing beat downwards. Letting out an angry roar that sent shivers along both the Vikings nearby, it stood back up and turned around to glare at its broken wing. Another screech later it darted down and biting down on it, heedless of both the horrible pain that action must have sent through its body – clearly visible from the nigh-uncontrollable twitching of its tail – and the pungent taste of rotting flesh that was now in its mouth. All of that paled in comparison to what it did next – straining its muscles to their fullest it proceeded to rip its wing completely off its body.

At that point both Turk and Hork were completely paralyzed in horror of what they were witnessing, and could do nothing but stare at the now one winged Nadder who, heedless of the blood pouring down its scales, flung its torn off wing to the side before releasing a torrent of flame to cauterize its wound, it's still twitching tail being the only sign of the pain it must have been in during the procedure.

Turning around towards Turk who was still gazing open mouthed at it, the Nadder let off just about every quill along the side of its tail towards him in a single shot. From Hork's words, Turk managed to snap out of it and attempted to save himself, but the veritable wall of quills that flew at him made escape impossible – three quills pierced his arms and five quills speared him through his chest, carrying him backwards and burying themselves several inches into the wall of the ring, effectively nailing him to the solid stone wall. Although he had not been shot through either the heart or the head, unconsciousness was nearly instantaneous from shock, and death followed not long after.

The Nadder on the other hand had dismissed Turk even before the quills reached him, and shifted its focus to the only other living being around it that it could reach. Not giving any chance for Hork to escape the Nadder released another wave of quills from its tail's other side which the young Viking managed to dodge by dropping bodily down to the ground and crawling off while the quills that did not hit the metal fence flew over him. As Hork ran off to get every able bodied Viking to help put the demon back into its cage – or perhaps to kill it, the hairs on the back of his neck stood up as the Nadder released a howl of frustration for the escape of its prey.

The following batch of trainees was taught by Gobber, and they faced off against the newly caught Nadder while the old one that was given the title 'one-winged Devil' was kept behind bars. While many Vikings wanted nothing more than to kill it, it was eventually decided to let it live since it was the only captive dragon that could consistently put out the same ferociousness at the trainees as they would meet during an actual raid. Thus the following batches of trainees were all pitted against the Devil during the last few days of training.

While unspoken amongst the Vikings, it was quite possible to lose one or two of the trainees during these mock battles – for unlike the other captive dragons, the one-winged devil always aimed for a kill; it wasn't dangerous as the others were, it was deadly. Still, that was the price they had to pay to decrease their losses once the newly trained Vikings were thrust into battle during an actual raid. That of course did not prevent the Vikings from hoping that the current batch of trainees would somehow manage to kill the beast.

Gobber really did not know what he would do if Hiccup failed to shape up during the first few months of training. Hiccup may have survived during dragon raids against dragons, but unless he was properly prepared for it, Gobber doubted that his strange brand of luck would hold out against the Devil – more than likely Hiccup would become the first casualty the moment the Devil was let out of its cage – probably the biggest reason why Stoick was so vehemently opposed to having Hiccup go through dragon training in the first place.

Shaking his head to get rid of such thoughts Gobber turned back towards checking the cages. He had the next few months to gauge Hiccup's process, and if his apprentice did not shape up it was always possible to take him out of training before he faced the Devil. It had never been done before, but he highly doubted Stoick would be unable to beat down the opposition if it came to a choice between his son's life and tradition.

He just wasn't sure how Hiccup would take it if it became necessary to remove him from training prematurely…

Still, there would be more time to think about it later – he wouldn't pit the younglings against the Demon until at least a few months of normal training.

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It wasn't half an hour after Gobber had finished his inspections that the younglings arrived. Turning around it was all he could manage not to do to not shake his head in exasperation at this new batch of would-be Viking warriors.

Ruffnut and Tuffnut Thorston were as always ribbing each other both verbally and physically with Fishlegs Ingerman trudging behind them in a vain attempt to appear like he was a part of their group. Snotlout Jorgenson was – as expected – attempting to talk up Astrid Hofferson who was ignoring him while attempting to hide just how close she was to snapping back (whether verbally or physically he didn't know), if that twitching eyebrow was anything to go by.

At the very least they had all brought their weapons with them – out of the last batch of twenty (sixteen now) that he had to train the year before, fourteen showed up with nothing but the clothing on their backs - probably expecting to be handed weapons upon arrival. It always brought a smile to Gobber's face to remember all the screaming and yelling as they scattered around upon the release of the Gronckle upon them. Being the least ferocious of all the captive dragons, Gobber did not even need to step in to save them until it had run out of shots – and even that was just to preserve the vision of dragons as dangerous beasts, since it had looked like it was about to fly back into its cage by itself in any case.

Heck, it looked to him that the dragon itself looked disgruntled at the quality of trainees pitted against it that time!

Of course the double ended fish spears that the Thorston twins were carrying were not exactly the primary weapons of choice against dragons, no matter how deadly they looked, but the two of them would learn that soon enough – hopefully during the first few lessons. Snotlout, Fishlegs, and Astrid had however arrived with two hammers and an axe respectively – proper weapons to take on dragons with.

At least none of them brought swords. He could never understand the strange Viking fascination with swords, considering how easy they were to damage during a dragon raid and how useless they were in comparison to a good axe or a hammer – it took a lot of force to break through just about any dragon's chain mail like hide, more than most swords can handle more than once, if that.

Still, even that last batch had become proper Viking warriors by the end, and considering that even the dragons seemed disgruntled at their quality the first time he pitted the trainees against them, Gobber knew that the group before him would have no choice but to follow in their footsteps.

"Welcome to dragon training!" Letting his voice boom across the entire ring, Gobber threw open the gates and allowed the younglings to come inside and gape at the ring. They had all seen it at least once before during the fight between the monstrous Nightmare and the last champion – Benison was it? – In any case, there was just something about actually being down inside it that always led to a moment of stunned silence as they drank in the sheer aura of the place – that or perhaps it was just the realization that there was no longer a sturdy metal fence between them and the dragons.

"…Finally here!"

"Can't wait to finally take on the beasts!"

"This is going to be great!"

Of course the silence could not continue for too long. Well, it was always interesting to see how long it took them to gain at least some fear of the dragons and drop that top-of-the-hill attitude.

"… Some burns – you know, along the side and maybe some on my back as well…"

"… A nice scar along the arm wouldn't be out of place either…"

"… Same here – After all, it's only fun if you get a scar out of it…"

Ah – how innocent they all were. It almost brought a smile to Gobber's face to see how little they knew of the world they were about to enter (or thrust face first into, considering his preferred training plans). No matter what the Vikings and visiting traders told each other across the tables when ale flowed along, scars and burns were really nothing more than proof that you were just not good enough to prevent yourself from getting them.

Well, they would lose all that soon enough – either that or die, and he would try his damn hardest to make sure it was the former.

"Yes, pain – love it! Never does a day pass without me wanting some and more often than not getting it!"

"Oh great. What is he doing here?"

"Hiccup? What are you doing here – you can barely lift that axe you are carrying!"

Strangely enough Hiccup did not seem nearly as excited to be here as Gobber had expected – what with him having to listen to his apprentice exclaim about his future exploits in the ring, Gobber would have thought he would be bouncing around with joy at his father's decision. Making a mental note to himself to talk to Hiccup after training, Gobber hobbled over to the gathered younglings to take control of the situation.

"QUIET! … Now all of ya; line up here and be quick about it." He bellowed and watched with satisfaction as Hiccup and the others all jumped and scrambled to form something resembling a line in front of Gobber, most only noticing what their legs were doing when they were already in place.

"Let's get started then. I hope that I do not need to explain to you why ye'r all here, but just to make sure y'all understand how serious this is I will go over it again." Pausing for a moment to make sure everyone was listening, Gobber nodded before continuing.

"For over three generations our village has been raided by dragons leaving us with no choice but to fight back. Y'all make up the fifty sixth group of younglings to enter into training, and will be the fifty sixth group of Vikings to join us in defending our homes. Now, let me impact upon you the most valuable lesson you will take out of dragon training." Stopping here, Gobber took in the expectant looks – even Hiccup seemed to be a lot less gloomy than he had been when he had first arrived.

Good.

Taking a deep breath he bellowed out "THIS HERE AINT A GAME!" and watched in amusement as they staggered backwards from him, Hiccup managing to even stumble and sprawl down on his back onto the rough gravel of the ring. Normally this would have caused another round of embarrassment for him, but it appeared that none of the others were in a state of mind to even snort at it.

Very good.

"All of ya think that killing a dragon is fun and exciting don't you? That it is some great honor that you should all be rushing headlong towards so as to be the one to kill a monstrous Nightmare – right? And I won't even get started on scars and burns – already heard more than enough from ye all on that topic." By the end his voice was laced with so much venom that even the Thorston twins were trying their hardest not to draw attention to themselves.

Taking a deep breath Gobber continued in a slightly more subdued voice, punctuating his speech with waves of the thick metal hook tied to the stump of his lost hand.

"Any time you go out during a dragon raid, you put yer live on the line – there is a fine line between greatness and stupidity, and while singlehandedly killing a monstrous Nightmare is a sure way of getting recognised and remembered, dying from one because you foolishly rushed in instead of attacking in a group is stupid beyond compare! You are all far from being able to take on any dragon by yourself, so do everyone a favour and don't die trying.

"One of the better Vikings may trip over your corpse." He added darkly and noticed the gathered younglings flinch at that.

"Remember this – while being selected as the one to kill a monstrous Nightmare before the entire village is an honor that ye may all want, there is never a guarantee that you will come out victorious. Even some veteran Vikings know better than to take on one by themselves. The champion's trial is exactly that – a trial to see if they can rise above others; do what many Vikings in the village aint able to."

Here Gobber grasped the metal hook replacing his arm with his remaining hand behind his back and lowering the volume of his voice continued while staring directly at Snotlout, who he considered to be the most likely to not take in the seriousness of the situation otherwise.

"Remember – there is always a very much real chance that the selected champion will fail and be killed instead."

The silence stretched after he finished, and he took the time to gauge their reactions. Astrid still looked as determined as ever, not that he had expected otherwise. Ruffnut and Tuffnut were shooting looks at each other, but seemed much less confident than when they strode in as if expecting the dragons to just bow down and beg for the honor of being killed by them. Snotlout had also lost some of his better-than-thou attitude, though not nearly enough to satisfy Gobber.

Which really only left Fishlegs and Hiccup.

Fishlegs was at the moment standing stone rigid with his battle hammer held tightly in his hands, looking as if he was attempting to hide behind it. Overall a rather amusing sight considering that by weight Fishlegs was heavier than all the other younglings put together. Well, perhaps not Snotlout, but the other four definitely.

Hiccup's expression however was not what he had expected. Having given a slightly abridged version of this speech to Hiccup several times – twice after he started constructing his latest invention, and quite a few before – Gobber completely expected the same response as before. That is, a general disregard of everything said with a slightly impatient attitude. This time however, Hiccup looked more subdued - his entire posture crying out 'just get it over with already'.

Gobber reaffirmed his decision to have a nice long talk with Hiccup after training. For now though, there was just one more thing left to do. Hobbling over to the doubly reinforced doors of one of the cages he continued his lecture.

"Out of the five common types of dragons that we almost always see during raids, Gronckles are placed quite low on the danger scale. Lacking spikes, quills, sword-like wings, poisons and acids that are unfortunately all too common on most of the other types, Gronckles are limited to either bludgeoning into ya with their armoured bodies or shooting fireballs. As such they are the perfect type of dragon to ease you into training with."

At this point he was positioned right to the side of the doors and was casually leaning on the lever that would open them. He could honestly say that ever since seeing his own trainer do this to him and the other younglings of his year, he had always taken perverse amusement at seeing his own trainees sporting the same horrified looks as he had back then.

"Wait wait wait – aren't you going to teach us first!?" Snotlout's voice cracked near the end – a much better attitude than what it had been mere moments ago. Smiling, Gobber allowed his weight to fall down on the lever.

"I believe in learning on the job."

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What part of this represents 'easing' us into training!?

If he survived this, Hiccup feverishly promised himself, he would stop tempting fate with his sarcastic comments. Oh, he knew that there would be dragons in dragon training – there was simply no question about that. He also knew that even simply showing up would cause Ruffnut and Tuffnut to question his appearance, leading to a moment of humiliation that he was well prepared to weather.

All of that was no problem for him – it was Gobber's decision to sic one of the caged dragons on them in a sort of baptismal ceremony to welcome them all into dragon training. Obviously today was trying very hard to battle its way into first place of his 'worst-day-of-my-life' list; the position currently reserved for yesterday's events. Dodging away from the Gronckle as it zeroed in to some of the larger rocks along the edge of the ring, Hiccup mentally crossed off 'not having to run away from a frenzied dragon that would like nothing more than to kill me' from his list of things that made today better than yesterday.

"Quick – what is the one thing you have to have before rushing into battle against a dragon?"

Perfect – and now Gobber decided to actually teach something. Not the best timing, but Hiccup would take whatever help he could get, since his original plan of just staying in the background as everyone else trained was shredded and the resulting mess incinerated by a fire-pillar only for the ashes to be scattered to the winds with the realization that the first day – and likely most of training – will be more of a trial-by-fire than training up one's muscles and practicing axe swings.

"A good weapon?" Snotlout's idea could be heard as he smashed his axe into the side of the Gronckle as it flew by and did not even manage to catch its attention.

"Better speed?" Fishlegs haphazarded a guess as he tried to keep himself to the side of the dragon so as to prevent it from focusing its attention on him.

"Definitely a lot of help – quite possibly divine in nature. Thor or just about anyone wielding Mjolnir would be a godsend right around now." Muttered Hiccup so as to not be heard. Having worked under Gobber for what felt like forever made it easy to guess just what Gobber was looking for, but at the moment some help (divine or otherwise) would have made his life a lot better – either that or not being inside the ring in the first place.

"A shield" It was naturally Astrid that came up with the correct answer as she had started to sprint towards the wooden equipment stands the second the Gronckle was out of the cage.

"Good! Always remember – yer shield is indispensable in combat! If ye have to choose between a sword and a shield, take the shield!" If the situation wasn't this serious Hiccup would have rolled his eyes – being Gobber's apprentice he was intimately aware of his mentor's hate of swords. If it was Gobber's choice, he would choose bare hands (or hand, as the case may be) to a sword; and many times during dragon raids Hiccup himself felt like taking the hopelessly bent swords that Vikings threw at him for quick replacements and shoving them into quite an uncomfortable area of said Vikings for their stupidity at using swords in the first place.

Hearing the sound of an explosion brought him back to the situation at hand and caused him to franticly search for the Gronckle which he found not even a second later on the opposite side of the ring.

Trying to keep the dragon in his sights, Hiccup ran over to the ruined equipment stands and picked up one of the shield lying nearby. In the general commotion of everyone running for the shields the stand was destroyed after Ruffnut and Tuffnut decided to focus more on their sibling rivalry instead of the dragon and flew off in two beautifully coordinated side spins followed by a terrible landing into the equipment stands when the shield they were fighting over was targeted by one of Gronckle's shots. Fortunately for both them and him the dragon seemed to have lost interest in that part of the ring and started chasing Snotlout instead, allowing Hiccup to put on the shield unimpeded.

"Thompsons – ye'r both out! The rest of you, focus on that dragon! 'All of you' includes you Hiccup; get in there!"

The twins groaned and skittered away towards Gobber's position where he was leaning against the side of the wall not far from where he released the dragon.

If there wasn't a rule against the trainer standing by with a smug grin as the trainees were chased by a frenzied dragon, then by Thor almighty there should be. Hiccup thought as he ran off.

"Now, every dragon has specific weak-points you can use – if nothing else helps remember that most species are sensitive to noise – and luckily for you yer shields can be used to make some!"

Although his mind was screaming at him to take the moment when the dragon wasn't focused on him to run, Hiccup disregarded it and rushed to take his place along with the three other trainees around the dragon so as to disorient it by bashing the metal center of their shields with their assorted weapons. If he had still been interested in killing dragons, Hiccup would have definitely taken this moment to rush in and at least attempt to swing at it – as it was, he instead hung back and watched as Astrid noticed the same chance he had and jumped in with a yell to land a solid hit with her axe against the Gronckle's side.

The hit must have done some damage as it caused the Gronckle to release a pain filled roar as it crashed into the ground and skid slightly along it before firing off another of its fireballs – which fortunately missed everyone, flying clear across the ring to form yet another blackened indent in the kill-ring's stone wall. The Gronckle then proceeded to turn around and fly towards Astrid in an attempt to bludgeon into her, passing her by to slam into the wall itself due to the remains of its disorientation combined with some dexterous dodging performed by Astrid.

"Perfect timing – now before it gets back up, how many shots does each Gronckle have?"

"Five?" Hiccup ventured a guess while keeping his eyes on the crumpled body of the dragon whose scrambles to right itself told him that it would not be long before he would be dodging death yet again.

"Oh I know! Its six right?!" Fishlegs exclaimed right after, waving his shield in the air – not a very good idea considering that it proved to be a clear target for the no longer disoriented dragon.

"Right! And with three shots gone, that leaves one for the each of ya! Oh, and Fishlegs – get over here!"

The next few moments all Hiccup could think of was avoiding the Gronckle that seemed to have decided to focus on him. Two close shaves and a near miss later he chanced a glance at Snotlout and Astrid – the only two besides him that were still remaining – and wasn't too surprised to notice that they were taking the dragon's single minded focus as a perfect time to take a break. Heck, Snotlout wasn't even bothering to keep track of the dragon and was instead chatting up Astrid! Couldn't they –

He had to stop his thoughts there and quickly dodge to the side followed by several rolls on the ground as the stupid dragon tried to slam into him again.

Come on! Stop focusing on me already!

Miraculously, the dragon seemed to follow his thoughts and flew off to launch another fireball at Snotlout instead of finishing him off – probably because lying sprawled on the ground under the weight of his shield made Hiccup look at least partially dead, and most definitely no longer a threat.

There was yet another sound of an explosion followed by Gobber's bellow announcing that Snotlout was out as well. With his sight taken up by the spinning image of the sky crisscrossed by the heavy chains closing off the top of the kill ring, Hiccup was left to simply assume that Snotlout's lack of attention had led to some undesirable – but expected – results.

Heaving himself back up to his feet Hiccup cursed his own lack of attention as the very next fireball hit the shield he was trying to lift from the ground and sent it flying off across the ring. Panicking at the loss of the only object he could conceivably use to guard against the rampaging dragon, Hiccup let his axe fall back to the ground and ran off towards his shield.

As Gobber's for the first time since releasing the dragon panicked voice yelled out his name, Hiccup chanced a glance behind him and realized the full extent of the predicament he was in – namely the Gronckle that was even now flying straight towards him.

Oh shi-

The rest of his thoughts escaped from him along with his breath as the dragon slammed into him, propelling them both several paces more into the wall, prompting his heart to attempt to follow his thoughts up his throat. From his position of being pinned down by the bulk of the dragon, Hiccup could just spot Gobber rushing towards them before the Gronkle's open mouth caught all of his attention.

As he futilely attempted to scramble out of the way of the next – and last, not that it made any difference to him – fireball, Hiccup could not help but think of how this crossed out 'pinned down by a ravaging dragon' from the list of experiences he would need to trump yesterday's fiasco, as well as adding 'getting killed by one' to today's list. And so, it is with great exasperation at my life that I announce the ascension of today to the top of the 'worst-day-ever' list as the official worst day of my remarkably short life.

The ear-deafening explosion led to a strange moment of relief that puzzled him until he realized that the simple fact that he had heard the explosion and could still think about it meant that his brains were not quite as splattered across the wall as he had expected them to be. When the weight of the Gronkle was removed from his chest, Hiccup finally allowed himself to open up his eyes that he did not remember shutting and stare with disbelief at Gobber who was even now dragging the dragon back into its cage with his metal hook while the dragon quite unsuccessfully attempted to bite its way through it.

Still in shock, Hiccup glanced around him to take in the frightened faces of the others – for even Astrid seemed to have gotten over her child-like belief in the 'greatness' of fighting dragons. Perhaps if he had not just seen his life flashing before his eyes Hiccup would have been happier to have seen her actually seem to care for his well-being, but as it was he could feel nothing but relief at getting out of such a situation unharmed.

Heck – from his rough glance-over of his body he had actually managed to get away with fewer wounds than from a similar situation yesterday!

"Well, that should give you a first taste of what fighting dragons is really like instead of whatever child-like fantasies ye have thought it was before."

Gobber had taken the moment of everyone's lapse in attention to lock the Gronkle back in its cage and lazily hobble back to the group.

"Remember this: A dragon will always go for the kill – so you cannot let yourself be distracted during battle. Every mistake that ye make may very well be yer last! I've known Vikings much better than you lot fall because they disregarded that." Looking over all of them with the same hard gaze that had been on his face when he had first lectured them at the beginning of training, Gobber nodded before finishing.

"That's enough for the day – get some rest and meet back up at the Meade hall at sunset."

.

.

Having seen the slightly gazed expression on Hiccup's face and watched him stumble away along with the rest of the younglings, Gobber decided to postpone the planned conversation with his apprentice to sometime after the gathering at the hall. It was highly doubtful that he would be able to get anything out of Hiccup after the scare the lad had just experienced. Even with all the near-miss situations that he had seen his apprentice get into during the dragon raids, this was by far the closest Hiccup had come to actual death – if he had been just a second later… well, it was better not to think about what Stoick would have done to him if Stoick came back to find his son had died mere moments into the first day of training.

Besides which, he himself had to get something strong to drink – the Gronckle was usually the least aggressive of the four caged dragons! It was for that reason that he had not been worried when it started shooting fireballs at the trainees since he could see how it always aimed its shots at the shields which at most would result in a dislocated shoulder if the shot landed incorrectly, but nothing truly damaging.

Hel, he had been more worried when the Gronckle was in a state of disorientation from all the noise than any other point because it could have accidentally done some actual damage! It was for this reason above any other that Gobber had started using it as a wakeup call for the young trainees ever since they had captured it – the Gronckle was sufficient to get the trainees to understand the dangers of facing an actual dragon while at the same time keeping any real danger away from them until later!

Sure he expected to have to intervene to prevent Hiccup's untimely death, but not until much later into training! If this was how each day was going to be, he may have bitten off more than he could chew when he convinced Stoick to send his son off to training…

With a shake of his head to get rid of his thoughts he walked over to the sixth door and opening it grabbed a partially filled basket of fish. Closing the door and going over to one of the few still standing armoury stands he picked up a decently sized axe and hooked it to his belt before hobbling over to the Gronckle's cage.

Opening the cage and making sure again that the axe was within easy reach even with the bundle of fish over his shoulder Gobber carefully walked to the entryway and glanced inside. His tensed up shoulders relaxed when he saw the Gronckle calmly lying on the straw along the side, extruding an almost visible desire to remain exactly where it was.

Coming over and throwing the fish towards the dragon Gobber could not help but release an exasperated sigh. The Gronckle was completely back to its relaxed self, and if he had not personally witnessed it attempting to kill Hiccup only moments before he would not have believed it to have happened.

"Now why would ye do that eh? I promised the lad's father I'd take care of him, and the first chance you got ye go and try to fry the kid…"

For a moment Gobber just watched it lazily gobbling up the fish before scratching his beard and continuing despite his knowledge that the beast in front of him could not understand him no matter what he said.

"It's like the moment I think I understand the behaviour of you dragons ye simply can't help but prove me wrong…"

Perhaps it was just him, but when the Gronckle lifted up its snout to stare back at him, he would have sworn that it was smiling at him.

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A/N

And that completes the longest chapter I have written for this story, measuring in at 8k words. Please do not expect all the next chapters to be that size, if I could I would have broken this one down into two chapters, but I just couldn't do that while still keeping the flow of the story the way I wanted. There may be other chapters of this length, but just as with the 2-3k word chapters they would be few and far between.

Also, that marks the appearance of the first OC of this story. I will try and limit the number of OCs as I find they detract from the overall feel of the story, but this one (and any other ones) was (and will be) necessary.

In case you did not recognise it as such, the 'one winged devil' is a OC dragon that I added in that will have quite a large effect on the story (not in a deus ex machine way), and it has absolutely nothing (both character and backstory wise) to do with Sephiroth (at least not intentionally, my knowledge of Sephiroth from FF is limited to 'badass dude with bigass sword who has something to do with Cloud from FF and whose theme music is 'one winged angel'. Quite sad for someone who owns four FF games, but still…).

As you can hopefully tell, the name came from the fact that it has one wing. I actually got the idea from Hellsing with its 'devoured his own wings', and the character just went on from there.

Thank you all who reviewed, hope you (and everyone else as well) continues to follow the story and perchance review (for the first time or again). It really stimulates writers to see their work appreciated.

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Saienai