Chapter 6: Once Bitten, Twice Shy

This chapter title kinda has more than one interpretation - Team Go-Getters' previous encounter with the Red Death and their previous encounter with Dagur.


A couple of hours had passed since Adhesive had first come to the cave. After a night filled with reading one of his favorite stories, with some disappointments, then singing a childish campfire song, it just had to be topped off with the prevolves getting into his supply of Rare Candies and evolving into their second forms. In his defense, it was difficult to look after a whole group of dragons and Pokémon for so long, even though Adhesive was a Pokémon himself.

And that went double for the now-no-longer-prevolves.

Chomper the Gible was now a Gabite who was thinking of making this cave his own.

Mawnan the Rowlet had become a Dartrix, while still retaining his nearsightedness as he ended up flying into walls all over the cavern.

Cross the Torracat had resumed fighting Flare over Kerosene, who was now a characteristically flirtatious Salazzle.

Marina was now a Brionne instead of a Popplio.

Komodo the Jangmo-o was now a Hakamo-o.

Blaze and Kickin' Hawk's second eldest, Blister, had also evolved, she was now a Combusken.

The prevolved Pokémon that had stayed the same were Buddy the Type: Null, Verne and Wavern's children, Launch the Dreepy, Aria the Shiny Swablu, Crackers the Sobble, Trommel the Grookey, Flare the Scorbunny, and the two remaining Torchic, Basan and Aster.

All the other Pokémon were either fully-evolved, in the middle of their evolutionary chain, or unable to evolve at all.

Adhesive's eyes then landed on a pair of tiny, translucent, dark blue orbs with starscape patterns set in solid golden shell structures. Realizing that Ra and Camazotz had also evolved, into Cosmoem, Adhesive fell to the cave floor, lying on his back and staring wide-eyed at the ceiling. "Can this night get any worse?"

As if on cue, a scream suddenly pierced the air. The unmistakable sound came from somewhere in the distance, but it was still loud enough to rouse the dragons. They alertly gathered at the cave entrance, being careful not to step on Adhesive.

That hadn't been a dragon or Pokémon type of scream. It had been a human screaming. Which meant the trainers were in danger.

Everyone except Adhesive booked it out of the cave, immediately bounding away on foot, or gliding and hovering through the air. It wasn't until several minutes after the dragons and Pokémon had flown the coop when Adhesive finally sat up, only to find the cave empty. The only ones still there, besides him, were the immobile Cosmoem duo.

"Hurray. I'm dead!"


The scream, incidentally, had come from Astrid. She had been running down a small path through the foliage, eager to get in on some action, when she was jumped by a large dragon without any warning. It had leapt out of the bushes with wings fully spread, so suddenly that she had yelled out loud with shock and readied her double-bladed axe.

At the sight of the weapon, the dragonet bailed out of there, heading right back the way it had come.

It all happened so fast, but Astrid was able to see what kind of dragon it was.

A baby Red Death.

Now, let it be known that it was not the dragonet itself that had scared the otherwise fearless Hofferson-turned-Haddock. It was the idea that there was another of the monstrous creature that had nearly gotten Hiccup killed.

It didn't help that she still had nightmares of the Red Death, in the form of its own fiery explosion, swallowing Hiccup and Toothless in one bite.

She had to either find the dragonet before it got away, or find Hiccup before the dragonet did.


"Listen!" gasped Dagur, in response to a rustling in the nearby bushes. "Smaller this time! It could be him!"

Hiccup sighed as the older teen dragged him into hiding behind a boulder. He just wished that Dagur's obsession with hunting down a Night Fury would settle down just a little. Of course, that was wishful thinking. Hiccup was simply going to have to wait for an excuse to leave.

Yeah, like when my supplies run out, he thought grimly. Because knowing Dagur, we're going to spending a few days out here.

The bushes continued to rustle, and Dagur primed his crossbow to fire at a moment's notice. Deathblade also stood at the ready, grinding the blades on his arms in anticipation, like he had done earlier in the canyon.

"That sounds more like a wild yak..." muttered Hiccup, only for the Berserker Chief to shush him.

Another second of rustling, however, and who should come stumbling out but Brandyn?

Brandyn saw Hiccup before he saw Dagur and Deathblade, and rushed over. "Hiccup!" he exclaimed. "Boy, am I glad to see you. You would not believe what I've been through. I've never gone this long without Ra and Camazotz, never!"

Shrugging, Hiccup replied, "Think of it as a character-building exercise."

"You sound like my dad," Brandyn joked. It was then he finally noticed that Dagur was there. And Hiccup could truthfully say that he looked like a Pokémon afflicted with the confusion status.

"Is that Dagur?" the Aetherson boy asked. "How did he get out of prison?"

Dagur definitely didn't seem interested in answering that question. Unenthusiastically, he asked, "And you are?"

"Brandyn," the trainer stated, albeit reluctantly. "Brandyn Aetherson."

"Mm, whatever." Dagur turned to Hiccup and said out from the side of his mouth, "I thought you said you were here alone."

Hiccup, being the resourceful Go-Getter he was, rapidly decided to improvise.

"I-I was," he bluffed. Turning to his friend, he scolded, "You were supposed to stay at base camp!"

"What?" Brandyn asked, clear confusion etched on his face.

"While I'm hunting wild dragons here in the forest?" Hiccup continued, placing definite emphasis on those key words.

It didn't take long for Brandyn to pick up on it. "Oh, right, sorry."

Rolling his eyes, Dagur picked up his crossbow and continued down the path, asking, "Bit of an odd one, isn't he?"

"You're one to talk," Brandyn said to his retreating back.


There was no sign of the dragons so far, to Adhesive's frustration. He had been looking for almost half an hour, and he hadn't yet seen a single scale of Toothless, or Ebony, or Stormfly...or any of them, for that matter.

But as the Poipole continued down his chosen path, his duffel bag slung over his shoulder, he heard something that just about changed everything. There was someone calling for help nearby, his voice echoing up a tunnel.

"Hey, can someone give me a hand? Hello? Hiccup? Astrid? Blaze? Anyone?"

Adhesive quickly found the tunnel and called down, "Snivels? Is that you?" When the Servine shouted a confirmation, Adhesive dove down into the tunnel, reappearing a minute later carrying Snivels out, albeit with a manner of difficulty.

"What were you doing down there?" he asked, regaining his breath after setting the Servine on the ground. "Or, more importantly, how did you get down there?"

"Long story," Snivels answered. Then he looked up at the Poipole suspiciously. "Why aren't you in the cave with the others?"

Adhesive's expression changed to one of pure anxiety, and his complexion paled to that of a ghost. "I, uh...I may have accidentally fed some Rare Candies to the prevolves, and the dragons all went running out for some reason I don't know," he stated nervously.

Before Snivels could say anything regarding Adhesive's revelation, they both heard a dragonet's cry from the direction of the beach. The place where the Red Death's remains were laying half-buried in the sand.

As much as Snivels wanted to go and see if the dragonet was what he thought it was, there were far more pressing concerns. So long as Dagur and Deathblade were still on the island, every living creature was endangered.

"We'll look for them together," Snivels said. "And we need to move fast."


Hiccup, Dagur, Deathblade, and their newest companion, Brandyn, hadn't been on the hunt for a Night Fury for long when they ran into another Go-Getter. The Aetherson boy had gone down a side path at Dagur's request, and was pretty apprehensive about it thanks to how dark at was.

Silently, he crept through the undergrowth, when something bumped him in the back. Both Brandyn and the thing he'd bumped into both cried out in surprise.

It was all for naught, though. The froggy form that had accidentally hit Bran was not anything to be concerned about. It was, of course, Ninjark, whose scream caught the attention of not only Heather, but Hiccup as well.

"Ninjark! Heather!" exclaimed Hiccup with false joy, knowing that it was imperative to bring his friends up to speed right this second. "Would you look who it is? It's Dagur and Deathblade, hunting dragons on Dragon Island, just like us."

Ninjark blinked in surprise, some of his fear fading away. He didn't say a word, such was his bewilderment.

"Yes!" Brandyn helpfully agreed, albeit a little too eagerly. "We are dragon hunters, out hunting dragons!"

An eyebrow raised, Dagur commented, "Hiccup, you and I have very different definitions of 'alone'. But maybe...these guys can help us."

"Hunt dragons?" Heather asked out loud before whispering to Brandyn, "We don't have time for this."

"Do we have a choice?" asked Brandyn grimly.

Satisfied now, Hiccup held his draconium shield aloft as he marched down the path, shouting, "Right then, onward!"

When Ninjark and Heather joined the small posse, they found themselves next to Dagur and Deathblade. The Greninja instinctively cringed at the sound of the Bisharp's grinding blades, which seemed to have become a habit of Deathblade.

Heather walked a little closer to Brandyn, gripping his hand in her own as a way of comforting them both.


"You know, Hiccup," Dagur spoke up again sometime later, "You and I are a lot alike."

More hours had gone past as the party of four humans and two Pokémon continued making their way through the wilds of Dragon Island. Although Dagur, the self-proclaimed leader of the expedition, kept insisting that they were getting close, it was past midnight and there still was no sign of anything remotely close to a Night Fury. And as long as Toothless and his family stayed hidden in the cave with Adhesive, there wouldn't be.

For now, at least. Hiccup didn't know how persistent Dagur was, but from what he could tell, the son of Oswald the Agreeable was quite the committed hunter.

Casually, Hiccup batted a stray branch away. "Really?" he questioned. "H-How's that?"

"Well, you know," added Dagur, chuckling. "We're both born leaders..."

"Can't argue with that," Brandyn muttered.

"...both sons of Chiefs..." he continued.

"Very true," agreed Hiccup.

"...that had to be eliminated so we could gain control!" Dagur finished with a maniacal grin.

Hiccup stopped himself cold when he realized what the dragon hunter had just suggested. The conversation had gone from idle to deadly far too quickly for his liking. Stammering, he protested, "N-No no, no, you're wrong. My dad hasn't been eliminated from anything!"

"But he could!" Dagur corrected, the smirk never leaving his face as he heaved his crossbow into attack position. "Just say the word and I'll be like YAAH!"

A shot was launched from his ranged weapon at a mere flick of his finger over the trigger. There was a *BANG* and the splintering of wood. Near the back of the hunting party, Ninjark glanced at the damaged tree only a centimeter from his head.

"Y-Yeah..." Hiccup whispered into the silence that followed. "That's...something to think about..."

His heart was racing. Every moment he spent with Dagur was a moment he wished harder for everything to be over. Every moment was one in which the lives of both himself and his friends were in grave danger - not to mention their dragons.

This lunatic was truly deranged. Hiccup doubted that even the young man's allies were totally safe from him, with his unpredictable mood swings and love of killing anything that moved. He needed a way to escape from Dagur and get off the island, while not jeopardizing the safety of his friends and family...

Suddenly, there was movement in the bushes somewhere up ahead. Dagur picked up on it immediately and whooped, rushing off toward the sound of rustling leaves and aiming his crossbow at whatever might pop out.

And that was precisely when Astrid stalked out from behind a tree and exposed her presence to the group, sans Dagur.

Hiccup's heart leapt. Now that she was here, he felt that maybe things would turn out okay. Before anyone could say anything, however, Astrid shushed them before ducking back into the shadows.

Dagur came back not even a moment later, looking the teeniest, tiniest bit embarrassed as one could get. "Musta been a rabbit," the Berserker chief complained. "Ran off as soon as it heard me coming. It seemed very big, though... But man, this is getting so annoying! There's no sign of a stinking Night Fury anywhere!"

Backing away from Dagur as his voice started rising to worryingly high levels, Hiccup thanked his lucky stars Snivels wasn't around to hear that insult. If he had been, Hiccup was sure he would have said something like, "Night Furies don't stink!"

That was when yet another bush started rustling, and Dagur immediately went on high alert. Ducking down, he motioned for the small amount of Go-Getters to do the same, which they did with caution.

"Which one of your friends is it going to be this time?" he muttered to Hiccup.

"Hard to say," the Go-Getter leader replied with a casual shrug. Then, deciding it couldn't hurt, he added, "We're all pretty serious dragon hunters, you know."

Inside, though, he was wondering about something. Everyone on this island seems to be pretty fond of coming out of a rustling bush, he noticed. Honestly, it's getting a little old.

Ever so slightly, the foliage parted, and something could be seen moving. It was so dark that it could barely be seen, but it was sniffing around, its head near the ground, like it was looking for something.

Dagur caught the glimpse of dark-colored scales and instantly jumped to the only possible conclusion. He jumped up with a joyous shout, "It's the Night Fury!"

A realization struck Hiccup at that moment, making him freeze. Night Furies were dark in color, yes, but they didn't grow to be as big as the dragon in front of them, and they most certainly didn't have so many spikes on their backs.

He cautioned, "No wait, that's a..."

The creature rose up and spread its wings, its six eyes landing on the group as it tilted its head in curiosity.

Hiccup internally screamed with fright as he recognized the dragon. Red Death!

Everyone dropped their respective weapons and literally dove for cover. They all hit the ground, but none of them could hear their own grunts of pain - the dragonet was letting out a cry that reminded Hiccup of how Stormfly's offspring used to call their mother for help. Whatever the baby Red Death was thinking, it seemed to be as afraid of them as they were of it.

Little did anyone know that a group of dragons elsewhere on the island all raised their heads in the direction of the dragonet's cry.

When Dagur got up, he actually started gushing. "So cool!" he exclaimed, picking Hiccup up and enthusiastically shaking him by the shoulders. "Hiccup, my brother, you've done it! You've led me right to something legendary!"

"Wait!" protested Brandyn. "I thought we were after the Night Fury?"

Retrieving his crossbow from where he dropped it, Dagur replied, "Are you kidding me? I'm not about to let this opportunity go to waste! I mean, would you just walk away from one of the most feared dragons in the archipelago?"

No one had the heart to object to that as the Berserker Chief unfolded the heavy projectile launcher and held it in his arms, pulling back the trigger as he readied his shot. The confused and frightened dragonet sat frozen in front of Dagur and Deathblade, unaware of their intentions.

"Arrow, meet dragon!" he sang delightedly. "Dragon, meet -"

Hiccup didn't know what came over him. All of a sudden, the idea of a dragonet meeting its end so soon and unexpectedly took over his mind full force, and that's part of how he came to the conclusion that this dragon had to be given a chance. While it was true Hiccup had come close to death at the claws and teeth of the dragonet's mother, there was something different about the baby - it certainly didn't have the malicious ferocity of its parent. He certainly hadn't been planning on letting Dagur kill him anyway, but this realization only reinforced his belief that this dragon didn't deserve to be killed in cold blood.

"No, no, no, no, no, wait, I'd like to do it," he spoke up, trying to keep his voice calm.

Having been about to shoot, Dagur thankfully put down his crossbow and whined, "But I saw it first!"

"But I led you to it," Hiccup pointed out.

"But I have the crossbow!" Dagur continued to complain. "All you have is that useless ornate shield!" He gestured pointedly to his companion's draconium shield.

A new voice accompanied the sight of Blaze walking down a darkened side path and joining the group. It looked like she had located them just from the volume at which they were shouting. Her wrists were ignited with flames.

"Real mature, boys," she drawled sarcastically.

"Oh, stand aside, Blitz," Dagur said dismissively.

"My name is Blaze," she corrected, giving him a scowl that suggested he'd be getting a flaming punch right in the face.

As the Blaziken argued with him, the Red Death dragonet turned tail and ran into the undergrowth. Hiccup found himself staring after the dragonet until he could no longer see it.

Dagur, though, was none too pleased to see that his prey had escaped while he was distracted. He was about to chase after it - apparently not realizing in his anger that he had no idea where the dragonet had run off to - when Astrid came running out of her hiding place with a look of frustration.

"What is wrong with you guys?!" she fumed at the group. "You almost had that dragon! Do you have any idea what it is?!"

"Who cares?" Dagur dismissed irritably. "We're hunting a Night Fury here! The unholy offspring of lightning and death itself! Hiccup, did you leave anyone back on Berk?" he added, muttering to himself as he stomped away in the direction the Red Death dragonet had run off in.

"Ha, ha...real funny, Dagur..." Hiccup laughed weakly. As soon as the older teenager was gone, he turned to his wife and asked, "Astrid, do you really want us to kill that dragonet?"

"You nearly got killed fighting one of those," she reminded him. "I would have taken care of it myself if you hadn't been in...questionable company."

Overhearing this, Ninjark blinked in surprise as he remembered he and Heather saw a similar dragon earlier that night. He realized, "That thing must have been sneaking around and following us the whole time!"

As if their conversation had summoned it, the Red Death dragonet emerged from the trees in a different spot than where he had run away, looking at each member of the group curiously. A couple of people - namely, Astrid and Blaze - jumped in surprise when the dragonet appeared, but that didn't let Astrid miss a beat in her talk with Hiccup.

"There's no way I'm letting that thing anywhere near you," she continued. "Do you have any idea how many times I...?" She stopped when she realized that the others were listening in. Ignoring the heat rising in her cheeks, Astrid gestured for Hiccup to come closer so she could whisper, "How many times I had nightmares about that fight?"

"I can only guess," Hiccup replied, hoping to provide some form of comfort.

Astrid glanced back at where the Red Death dragonet was - or had been, as she realized, to her frustration, that it had disappeared again.

"Didn't Dagur say he and Deathblade are here to hunt a Night Fury?" Blaze asked, sounding shocked.

"Precisely," he confirmed.

"Then Toothless is..." she began.

"Loose," he finished for her. "In fact, if that dragonet hadn't shown up when it did, Dagur would've tracked Toothless down, and he wouldn't have had a chance."

"That means the other dragons are loose, too!" the Hofferson-turned-Haddock hissed out - not just to Hiccup, but to the others as well. "We need to find Adhesive and get on our dragons."

Blaze pointed to their leader and asked, "What about Hiccup?"

"Don't worry, Dagur won't hurt me," he assured them, with a sarcastic roll of the eyes. "I'm his 'brother', apparently."

Dead silence was his only reply.

To drive the point home, Dagur popped up from out of nowhere to put an arm around his 'brother' and steer him after their quarry. "Come, Hiccup!" he declared. "While the trail is still fresh!"

Quick to keep up the illusion, Hiccup called back to his friends in a mock-annoyed tone, "I can't hunt with an entourage. Go back to Berk, leave us to our business!"

And just like that, they were gone.

"Well that's just great," Blaze muttered, kicking at the dirt. "How're we supposed to find the dragons?"

An answering rustle from nearby bushes caused her, and the rest of the group, to turn around. Right there in front of them were Snivels and a very nervous-looking Adhesive.

"Am I glad we finally found you guys!" exclaimed the Servine. "Or, at least some of you. There's so many scents out here, I could hardly focus on which ones belonged to the other Go-Getters."

"And what is he doing here?" asked a very suspicious-sounding Astrid, pointing at Adhesive.

The Poipole chuckled nervously. "Oh, uh...funny story. The prevolves all ate my Rare Candies and some of them evolved, which I take full responsibility for, and uh...the dragons, uh...kinda...sorta...ran off. But that wasn't my fault!"

Even if it hadn't been, he could tell he was still in trouble.


Toothless hadn't been too far away when the group had their first official encounter with the baby Red Death. Whenever Hiccup and Dagur ran ahead, he would glance bound after then, desperate to get to his friend, even though the area was becoming less forested and much rockier. Without much effort, Dagur and Deathblade both clambered over the ledges and gullies in search of a black dragon.

By no means had Hiccup failed to notice how the Night Fury kept following him. There was very little doubt that the dragon was Toothless. But why was he here? And why did he insist on following his rider when there was a chance Dagur would see him?

"I don't get it!" the Berserker yelled at one point from the top of a ledge, finding nothing for the umpteenth time. "Where are all the Night Furies?!"

"Maybe there aren't any on this island," Hiccup suggested, hoping that Dagur would soon give up.

"You mean they're all somewhere else?" Dagur asked, his voice wild with exhilaration.

Momentarily struck speechless by the notion, Hiccup decided to improvise again. "E-Exactly!" he agreed. "We should turn back."

"Oh, brother," the older of the two chuckled condescendingly. "Don't you know that a hunter never stops hunting the thing a hunter hunts?"

"What does that even mean?" Hiccup asked, confused at the amount of words that had 'hunt' in them.

"I don't know!" Dagur giggled madly, jumping down from his perch with Deathblade following.

Moments after Dagur had charged out of the area with a frantic Hiccup tagging along, a particular dragon bounded after them.


"You had one job," said a very agitated Astrid. "Keep an eye on our dragons and the other Pokémon, and make sure they didn't get into any trouble!"

"I was!" Adhesive protested, rubbing his cheek that was throbbing with pain after Astrid had characteristically punched him in her anger. "I don't see what the big deal is, trainers feed Rare Candies to their Pokémon all the time!"

"Why do you even have Rare Candies?" Heather asked.

Adhesive stammered nervously, "Well...I'm at a relatively low level, and...I like to snack on them sometimes." He quickly added, "But I only take a little bit, when I use them, I mean, those guys each had, like, five, six, seven, maybe eight."

Astrid's eyes flashed dangerously.

"But look on the bright side," Adhesive squeaked out, "Some of the Pokémon have evolved, so..."

Looking intrigued, Brandyn quickly asked, "What about Ra and Camazotz?"

"Uh..." the Poipole hesitated, unsure of what kind of answer Brandyn was hoping for. "They ate some of the Rare Candies, and...they're both Cosmoem now. And they're still in the cave, so you might want to think about getting them."

Brandyn turned around and headed in the direction of the cave to do just that. He hadn't looked the teeniest bit mad at Adhesive, which the Poipole was very thankful for.

Snivels cautiously reached into Adhesive's bag, finding a Rare Candy, which he then pulled out to examine. "Hard to believe someone can have so many Rare Candies at once," he muttered to himself.

"If I had a dollar for every time I heard that," Adhesive mumbled.

Snivels gave his Poipole friend a skeptical look. "How many of these do you have, exactly?"

Adhesive shifted nervously. "Well, it's hard to say, I mean, I've been collecting them for quite a while, and..." He trailed off as he noticed Snivels raising the Rare Candy he was holding dangerously close to his mouth. When the Servine popped the Rare Candy into his mouth, Adhesive fearfully cried out, "No, WAIT!"

He was too late, though, as Snivels had already swallowed it. Adhesive squeezed his eyes shut, waiting for the bright light that accompanied a Pokémon's evolution.

But nothing happened.

Adhesive cautiously opened an eye to see Snivels standing there, still a Servine. The taste of the Rare Candy lingering in his mouth, Snivels muttered to himself, "Not bad."

Any further conversation was forgotten when the group heard something crash through the underbrush. They already had a good idea what it was, but that didn't stop them from jumping in surprise when the Red Death dragonet nosed his way through the bushes.

Astrid's hand itched for her double-bladed axe, but Snivels caught the movement and stopped her.

"Wait! Let me try something, first."

Momentarily stunned, Astrid gave him a curt nod.

Being the ever-so-kind and dragon-loving Servine that he was, Snivels grabbed the nearest bit of food he could find - some kind of berry - and held it out to the dragonet. "Come on, little dragonet," he softly crooned in Dragonese. "We're not gonna hurt you."

The baby Red Death caught the scent of the berry. He didn't know what it was, but he could tell it was something he could eat. He inched his way out of the bushes, nostrils flaring as he followed the scent of the food.

"That's a good boy," Snivels praised. "See? You're gonna be just..."

At that very moment, several of the team's Pokémon burst out into the open from different directions. The sudden movement startled the dragonet, he let out a cry of fright before turning tail and disappearing into the forest.

Ignoring the questioning coo from a glasses-lacking Mawnan the Dartrix, Snivels groaned, "We're not out of the woods yet." Then he remembered exactly what kind of environment they were in and quickly added, "No pun intended."


A shot from a crossbow whistled through the air, about a foot over the shrubs that the Night Fury's tail had vanished in. Even with Toothless having finally been found out, Hiccup couldn't help but notice that Dagur seemed strangely calm - no, confident - as they continued to give chase to the rare and feared dragon.

"You're not going to hit anything like that," said Hiccup.

"I know, I just want to keep him running in that direction," Dagur informed him.

"Huh?" the Go-Getter leader asked.

"To be honest, I didn't actually come alone either," his 'brother' explained.

Loading a different kind of shot into his crossbow, Dagur aimed it skyward and fired. About two seconds later, there was a loud blast and a burst of fire as the shot exploded midair. Soon, a couple of flaming arrows soared high in answer to Dagur's obvious signal, bright points of light against the midnight black sky.

"Dagur, I don't know everything about dragons, but Night Furies are pretty dangerous," Hiccup warned, hoping to discourage Dagur from continuing the hunt. "A few extra men won't make a difference."

He was kidding himself, of course. He should have known that Dagur could never be discouraged.

"Really?" he smirked. "Well then, good thing I brought Deathblade, the armada, and like a bazillion armed Berserkers! And Dark-types, can't forget those. They really know how to get around at night!"

The stars in the night sky were suddenly blotted out by a rain of flaming arrows so thick that they could have burned half of Berk to the ground.

Oh, Arceus almighty, Hiccup cursed inwardly.

Dagur pointed toward the coastline, which could be faintly seen from between a pair of rock formations - not to mention several Berserker ships floating there in the water below the cliff. And Hiccup highly doubted that the few he could see was the whole fleet.

"We're gonna drive the dragon to that beach over there, and they can finish him off for us!" Dagur crowed triumphantly.

"Not very sporting," Hiccup remarked, trying not to sound too nervous.

"I don't care about sport," Dagur told him. "I just want to kill that dragon and wear its skull as a helmet!"

Of course you do, he mentally sighed.

With that, the mad Berserker Chief reloaded his crossbow and began to advance with a menacing grin on the nearest rock formation, behind which he could see the barest tip of a black tail. The boulder was so near the cliff that there could have only been a small piece of solid ground to stand on behind it. The ocean was the Night Fury's only escape route - but if it took that route, it'd put itself in even worse danger than it already was. All it would take was a shout from Dagur for the Berserker armada to start firing their arrows at the fleeing dragon.

But Toothless wasn't about to flee. When Dagur took another step closer, he jumped into the air with an explosion of movement and landed on a nearby boulder, mouth glowing purple as he prepared the blast that would undoubtedly leave Dagur as nothing more than ash in the wind.

Suddenly, a terrible screech rang out into the night, and the poor Night Fury wailed in pain. Both Toothless and Hiccup turned to look at Deathblade, who was grinding the blades on his arms once again. But this time, the noise was much louder, a high-pitched ringing that made the rider and dragon's ears hurt.

Metal Sound! Hiccup realized. I should have known - that's how they weaken the dragons!

The blade-grinding Hiccup had mistaken for a habit of Deathblade's was actually one of the Bisharp's attacks. Metal Sound was most often used to lower the opponent Pokémon's Special Defense, but because sound-based moves also worked on humans and dragons, Dagur and Deathblade had figured out how to use it to immobilize the dragons they were hunting.

Doing his best to ignore the pain throbbing in his ears, Toothless rose higher and unleashed a plasma blast, which collided with the sound waves from Deathblade's Metal Sound and caused an immense explosion that threw the two nearby humans to the edge of the clearing.

Painfully, Dagur got up and grabbed his crossbow, stalking toward the black dragon whose screeches and roars could surely be heard across the entire island. Hiccup managed to wipe the dirt from his face in time to see the Berserker Chief take aim.

Precisely at that moment, something moving caught Hiccup's eye. He stared up at one of the nearby cliffs, and saw a certain Servine (who had cleverly followed the noise from Deathblade's Metal Sound) watching from above. For the first time in a while, he genuinely smiled, and felt a surge of determination that brought him to his feet.

"Alright, that's it," he declared, more to himself than to Dagur. Gripping the handle of his shield and holding it in a battle-ready position, he announced, "I'm not letting you kill the Night Fury."

"This again...?" Dagur sighed, not bothering to turn around and see how Hiccup had his weapon drawn. Resignedly, he put down his own weapon and replied, "Fine, you saw it first. You can take home a wing or something."

"No, I'll pretty much be taking the whole thing," answered Hiccup.

He took his other hand out from behind his back, revealing a dragon whistle shaped like a Night Fury. "AOOOOOOOOOOHHHH!"

With a cry identical to that which came from the whistle, Toothless bounded down from the rock to land beside his rider. Dagur almost fell onto his rear end, his face held in an expression of awe as he took in the Night Fury's sleek, black scales. And then he noticed something else, something that he hadn't expected to be there.

"Wait, is that a..." he muttered.

"Saddle?" Hiccup finished for him, walking confidently to Toothless's side and stroking said object. "Yes."

Barely able to speak, Dagur stammered, "S-So I was..."

"Right all along," Hiccup agreed.

Toothless spread his wings and bared his teeth threateningly. Hiccup jumped onto his dragon's back, feeling a second surge of determination flow through him as he got comfortable in the familiar position.

So distracted by the appearance of the Night Fury, Dagur failed to notice the certain Servine arriving to aide his trainer in the anticipated fight that was going to unfold.

"We no longer fight dragons on Berk," Hiccup announced. "We ride them."

There was silence as Dagur processed his words. His expression was completely priceless, even in this dire situation.

"Your father lied to - YOU lied to me!" he finally managed to spit out in a sudden rage.

"We were trying to keep the peace between our tribes," Hiccup replied calmly.

"By making a FOOL out of me?!" Dagur screeched.

"You don't really need us to help you with that," Snivels drawled, the sarcastic comment coming out of a habit he had picked up from his trainer. "Your move, Dagur."

"You could've been my brother, Hiccup!" the enraged Berserker yelled.

"I wouldn't be where I am now if it wasn't for Toothless and Snivels," Hiccup shot back, not afraid in the least. He probably should have been, but he had his friends by his side. "They're my real brothers."

Mentally, Snivels was doing a sort of happy dance that would have been ridiculous to physically perform under such circumstances.

Gritting his teeth, Dagur raised his crossbow. "Poor choice of family, Hiccup!"

A very reasonably offended Snivels challenged, "Want to be enemies? Have it your way. But remember, we have dragons on our side, and we're not afraid to use them."

Before anyone could even blink, a pair of bolas snagged Toothless's wings, preventing him from flying. Another bola twirled through the air, catching Toothless on the chin and tying his mouth shut so he couldn't launch his plasma blasts. There was a bright flash of light on metal as Dagur unclipped his axe from his back and brought it over his head, ready to chop open Toothless's skull with the edge of the blade.

Snivels went to stop the Berserker, but found Deathblade blocking his path. The Servine darted to the side, barely avoiding a Night Slash from his new rival.

Rolling out of the saddle in a move that would have impressed even Astrid, Hiccup used his shield to block Dagur's strike. They exchanged blows, then Dagur managed to use the curve of his axe to tear the shield from Hiccup's hands and throw it away.

Fortunately, Dagur failed to account for the topography on which their battle took place, for the draconium shield struck a nearby boulder and bounced off, twirling right into Hiccup's outstretched hand. When Dagur next approached, Hiccup swung the shield, knocking the axe right out of his opponent's hands.

By no means weaponless, Dagur unsheathed a pair of daggers (no pun intended) and held them aloft, laughing maniacally as he charged back into battle. Hiccup held his shield up, ready to retaliate - and then Toothless's tail lashed out and whipped Dagur in the rear end, sending him skidding into the dirt.

Unfortunately, he landed right next to his crossbow.

The Berserker Chief snatched up the projectile weapon and immediately let fly with a hail of shots. Hiccup ducked, then rolled behind a tree. He spotted Snivels and Deathblade exchanging attacks, though most of Snivels's moves were easily deflected by Deathblade. Anything that wasn't made of fire, or fighting or ground-based, had a hard time getting past the strong defenses of a Steel-type. The Servine soon joined his trainer in hiding behind the tree. Another hail of arrows whistled past the tree, some of them striking the tree with loud cracks of fracturing bark.

"Your move, Hiccup," chuckled Dagur, clearly congratulating himself on how he turned Snivels's words against them.

Cautiously peeking out from behind his hiding place, Hiccup was immediately met with another barrage. He was lucky his reflexes were so good from so many months of training, or else he wouldn't have been able to duck back behind the tree before the shots made a mess of his face.

"You can't hide forever!" Dagur crowed.

That was when Hiccup and Snivels saw where the Berserker chief was standing, and they exchanged a knowing grin. They didn't need to hide forever - or at all, in fact.

"We don't plan to!" Hiccup declared, grabbing one of the arrows embedded in the tree. He then leapt out and held up his shield, which started changing. The center hub swung out and the shield split open down the middle, swinging open to reveal a hidden crossbow mode. Hiccup then loaded the arrow he'd been holding and fired it back at Dagur, who rolled away and avoided it.

"Nice try, brother," Dagur mocked.

Not so easily deterred, Hiccup reverted the crossbow back to a shield and pressed the hidden trigger, launching the grappling rope which wrapped around a thick, half-dead branch in the tree above Dagur's head.

Dagur laughed and taunted, "Missed!"

"Oh, did I?" Hiccup grinned.

He gave the shield a strong tug. There was a cracking sound, and the heavy tree limb smashed Dagur into the ground.

"I have got to get me one of those ornate shields!" was what he said when he was able to think straight again.

Without any effort at all, he leapt to his feet despite the weight of the branch pinning him to the ground. Hiccup was at Toothless's side in little more than an instant, frantically sawing through the ropes that bound him with a small knife. But he wasn't fast enough to finish before Dagur tackled him to the ground.

Manic laughter filled Hiccup's ears as he tried to use his shield to push Dagur away. But the older boy was using his weight to push the other way, and Hiccup's arms were starting to shake as the strength left him. He grimaced, hoping to throw his enemy off with only one more push...

Then he spotted Snivels standing face-to-face with Deathblade. The Servine was doing something with his tail, but it wasn't a Leaf Tornado. There were several green, glowing leaves spinning around Snivels's tail, which all suddenly went flying towards Deathblade. The Bisharp held up his arms to defend himself, but the move proved to be too much, and he was blown backwards, right into his master, who toppled off of Hiccup.

Hiccup didn't need a book or flashcards to know what move Snivels had just used.

Leaf Storm.

While Dagur and Deathblade were stunned, Hiccup and Snivels ran back to Toothless's side and sliced through the remaining ropes, freeing the Night Fury. "You didn't tell me you could use that move," Hiccup said to his Pokémon partner, amazement etched on his facial features.

Snivels shrugged nonchalantly. "I never could before. Maybe it has something to do with that Rare Candy I ate..."

The three friends looked up when they heard an audible *sh-shing* - it was Dagur, picking up his axe and Deathblade readying his blades. After pausing for only a moment, the trainer and his Servine mounted Toothless as Dagur and Deathblade charged at them.

"Come on, bud!" yelled Hiccup, pulling on the saddle.

It didn't look like they were going to make it...

"Leave our friends alone!" came another cry, followed by the sight of eight different Pokémon charging toward the fight.

Dagur was so distracted by the sudden appearance of the Pokémon that he almost forgot about Hiccup, Snivels and Toothless. That sealed his fate, as another plasma blast shot toward him as soon as he looked away. He hit a tree, then slid over the cliff with limbs flailing in a futile attempt to catch the edge.

Fortunately for the Berserker Chief, there was a smaller cliff just below, so he ended up landing painfully instead of fatally. Hiccup ran to the edge and saw him already climbing back up with a snarl on his face. "Let's see how you like a bit of this," the Berserker chief muttered, before yelling out, "Deathblade, Guillotine, now!"

Hiccup half-expected Dagur to erroneously pronounce the "l's" in the word, as most Vikings did, but the older teen pronounced the word exactly as it was supposed to be.

Deathblade didn't miss a beat. The blades on the Bisharp's elbows turned light blue and extended greatly as he got ready to slash the other Pokémon with Guillotine.

Luckily for Hiccup and his team, Guillotine was a hard move to land, like all attacks that resulted in one-hit knockouts. While easily evading Deathblade's Guillotine, the Pokémon all launched attacks of their own. Amber with Flamethrower, Crackers with Water Gun, Verne with Dragon Pulse, Spike with a recently-learned Power-Up Punch, Chomper with Dig, Mawnan with Razor Leaf, Buddy with Flame Charge, and Kickin' Hawk did the honors of landing the final blow with Flying Press.

Dagur managed to pull himself up over the cliff in time to see Deathblade faint, unable to continue fighting. Angry, the Berserker chief lunged at Hiccup, only to be blocked by Amber, who defensively swung her claws at Dagur, nailing him right around his left eye. With a howl of pain, Dagur clutched his face as he tumbled all the way down to the bottom of the cliff. Now on the beach off which his armada was docked, he frantically wiped his eyes - to no avail, as a dark liquid was now gluing his lids together - and ran blindly toward the beach, screaming about the pain in his eye and the dragon and Pokémon attacks.

Hiccup and Amber glanced at the claws on her right hand, which were covered with the same dark liquid. Even in the poor light of the breaking dawn, Hiccup could tell it was not blood. He was stumped at first as to what it could be, until he remembered that Dagur had claw mark tattoos near and on his left eye, where Amber had slashed him.

It was ink.

Which meant that Dagur now had real claw marks on his face, not tattoos.

The other trainers, as well as their dragons and the rest of the Pokémon, gathered around Hiccup. Mounting Toothless and putting away his shield, Hiccup breathlessly told them, "Dagur and his men will be coming for us any moment now."

"What about the dragonet?" Snivels asked, frowning.

"We'll come back for him," Hiccup promised. "Right now, we need to get off this island. Dagur will be back...and when he is, we're going to be ready for him."

"No argument there," Adhesive said, a little eager at what he expected to come. "Next time, I'm getting a piece of the action!"

Astrid glared at him. "Don't poke the Ursaring, mister, you're in enough trouble as it is."

Adhesive winced at the idea of what was going to be coming his way when they all got back to the Ice Caves.

All of Team Go-Getters then took off as Hiccup led the way back to the Resistance. It wouldn't be a long journey - but it would definitely be a quiet one, as Team Go-Getters took the time to realize exactly the kind of trouble they were only just getting into.

They had a lot to tell Fjord when they got back. Much more than they had anticipated, after their scouting mission had turned out far from what they had each expected.

And then there was that Red Death dragonet...where had it gone, and would they ever see it again?

It was simply too much uncertainty to take in only one night.


With every new day, there's a new enemy. That's just how it is for us. Now that Dagur knows we're allied with the dragons, he's our new enemy.

But even though he's dangerous, so are we.


I wanted to do something that would sort of symbolize Dagur now being a more official enemy to Team Go-Getters, and I sorta thought replacing one of his claw mark tattoos with real claw marks would get that job done. Since this series is supposed to be meant for readers of different ages, I didn't want to make the scene with Amber slashing Dagur to protect Hiccup too graphic. But I guess ink from a tattoo oozing out of someone's body is just as disturbing as blood, if you look at it a certain way.

On a side note, not a fan of tattoos. I see no purpose in having one.

And for those of you who are wondering if the Rare Candy is what made Snivels learn Leaf Storm, I will tell you that it MAY HAVE had something to do with it, but I like to think Snivels figured out how to use the move all on his own.

The next episode is another I look forward to writing, so be sure to leave some reviews!