Chapter 17:

AN: Longest chapter I have uploaded yet! Depending on preference that's either a good thing or a bad thing, but I had a lot of fun writing it so I hope you have a lot of fun reading it, too. Onwards!

There was a period of stunned silence before Hiccup finally spoke. "How can you be sure?"

Arkyn rubbed a hand over the back of his neck. "There's one way to find out. We need to get to the next island…see if it's still there."

"And if it's not?" Fishlegs questioned.

"Then we have a way bigger problem than just some spooked dragons." Arkyn replied. "And I mean waybigger…" His voice was a mere whisper. The boy was the only one who'd ever laid eyes on this dragon, and the last time he'd seen it the beast had killed both his parents and decimated his entire village. The fear in his eyes became ever more evident as the possibility of the dragon's return became ever more real.

Astrid tentatively joined the conversation next. "It's probably still on the move, if a Screaming Death really is in the area at all. We're running out of time. We need to check the next island right away."

Arkyn gave a slight nod of approval and before too long the group was bolting through the sky eastward, leaving behind Sunstone island almost as soon as they'd gotten there.

The flight was not a long one. Hiccup was leading the riders at a considerable pace as he traced their position on his map. They were moving so fast, in fact, that when he gave the abrupt command to stop several of his friends overshot and had to loop back around to meet him. "We're here." He informed them.

"Well there's the big problem…" Tuffnut muttered.

The pristine water of the expansive open sea stretched on for an endless distance, not an island or even a sea stack in sight. It was a chilling discovery.

"So it's gone then?" Astrid spoke up in a tone that was the mixture of a question and a statement. There was indeed nothing there.

"I guess so…" Hiccup said, sounding defeated.

Arkyn wore an impossibly grim expression at this new information. "That means the rest of the chain is already gone."

"What?! That's 2 more islands!" Hiccup exclaimed.

"Well it's definitely moving west if it got to this one and then hit Sunstone. Follow the path, Hiccup. Look at your map. There's 6 intact islands all in a row and they're all due west. And what's beyond them?" Arkyn asked.

"…Berk." Hiccup answered his question in a small voice.

"Exactly, and the dragons we passed earlier couldn't have all come from just 1 island. There were hundreds. We don't even need to bother checking them. You can go ahead and cross them out right now."

The severity of the situation was beginning to set in. The air was heavy with worry as the teens and their dragons flapped in place, not a place to rest anywhere close.

It was eventually Astrid that asked the question everyone was thinking. "So, what do we do now? What can we do now?"

To Arkyn's surprise, everyone again turned to face him. Hiccup spoke. "Arkyn, you're the only one who knows what this thing even looks like. Clearly it's capable of all…this. You must know something that might help us?"

He thought for a moment. "Well…that depends. How prepared is everyone to get messy?"

"It's either messy or Berk is gone forever. I'll take messy." Astrid confirmed, much to the boy's relief. "I'm with you…if you want to chase it. That is what you're suggesting, isn't it?"

Arkyn nodded but said nothing.

"You had me at messy." Snotlout proclaimed, putting a fist against his opposite hand. "Let's go have some fun."

"It's settled then." Hiccup announced. "It's time to find us a Screaming Death. We need to get back to the island with all the Triplestrykes before it's too late."

The group needed no further prompting and they immediately accelerated their dragons back westward, unknowing of what they'd find once they arrived.

Whatever it was though, they were ready to face it together.

As the group came upon the 6th island once more they breathed a collective sigh of relief finding it to still be above the water. After getting a closer look, however, things may not have been as peachy as they at first seemed.

"Uh, where are all the Triplestrykes?" Hiccup asked, not able to spot a single one as he approached.

It was a question with no obvious answer. The place that was once swarming with dragons now lay silent and desolate. There was not a reptile on the ground nor in the sky. The only sounds to be heard were those of the crashing waves and rustling leaves as the winds blew over the land.

"We need to regroup." Arkyn suggested, leading the teens to land on the eastern beach. They touched down in the soft sand just outside the forest, dismounting one by one.

"So, the Screaming Death isn't here yet?" Snotlout asked, confused at the uninhabited island they now rested on.

"Evidently not." Arkyn confirmed. "There's no burrows or debris anywhere. It looks like we beat it here…somehow."

Startling everyone, Stormfly suddenly broke out in a fit of squawks, spinning in circles and stomping the ground roughly.

"H- hey! Calm down! What is it, girl?" Astrid questioned in an alarmed tone. The Nadder persisted, ignoring her companions' commands. It took several tries for Astrid to finally get her under control.

This made something click in Fishlegs' mind, however. "I think I know why all the dragons left."

"Care to share?" Tuffnut prodded impatiently.

"I think they can sense danger. I bet they have something that lets them know the Screaming Death is coming before we can figure it out. They flew away before it got here." The large Viking explained.

"So what does that mean for us?" Arkyn asked.

Hiccup fielded his question. "It means the Screaming Death is still on its way, and probably close. What did you say it looked like aga-"

"Shhh." Arkyn silenced him. "Did you feel that?"

"Feel what?" Hiccup was confused.

"The ground…it. Jumped?" Arkyn searched for the right word to describe it, but before anyone else could ask him more about it another tremor, this one much more noticeable, radiated in waves across the island. Some leaves fell from the trees and rocks shifted as the shock reverberated through the landform. "It did that." Arkyn reiterated. "I don't think we have much time left. And as for the Screaming Death…trust me. You'll know it when you see it. It's kind of hard to miss."

Hiccup looked slightly annoyed, but his face as well as those of the other teens were crossed with worry at the feeling of the quakes. "Wow. Thanks, Arkyn. That's very helpf-"

He never got a chance to finish his sentence. There was a deafening crack as an impossibly large blank white dragon sprang up from beneath the rocks at the center of the island. Roaring with rage it looped around once before hovering and locking its gaze on the group of riders situated on the beach.

Arkyn was practically frozen with fear as he laid eyes on the beast that took his world away from him for the first time since the incident. "It looks like that. EVERYBODY IN THE AIR!" The boy screamed at the absolute top of his lungs, mounting his dragon and pointing a finger at the menacing creature.

Hiccup was too stunned to speak. He vaguely processed Arkyn's command but the words the boy had spoken just sounded like noise at that point. His hands were like lightning as he grabbed Toothless' harness and hauled himself into the saddle, taking off before he could figure anything else that was going on. The Screaming Death was like nothing he'd ever seen before. Not quite the mountainous figure of the Red Death, but almost as big. This dragon was far more lanky, however, and the spikes on its long, loopy tail seemed to stretch on endlessly. They had to be 6 feet long or more.

The aggressor roared a deep, ear splitting sound. Its teeth were easily big enough to engulf any one of their dragons in one swing of the jaw, and the piercing red eyes bore deeper into Hiccup's soul than his father's disappointed stare ever had. Whatever Hiccup had expected, this had topped it. The Screaming Death truly was a menace of the skies.

Astrid's eyes flashed as she quickly made sure everyone was off of the ground and out of a position of vulnerability, relieved to count 5 other dragons and 6 riders, respectively. Her mind raced as the Screaming Death eyed their group, not yet making a move. She shot a look to Arkyn before shouting for his attention. "You wouldn't happen to have a plan for that thing, would you? The hole in that island is 40 feet wide!"

"It won't take many more to destroy, either." Hiccup added.

Arkyn looked like a ghost. His mind had been elsewhere but the voices of his friends, the friends that were now looking to him for answers, snapped him out of his trance. They were relying on him. It had just become a question of survival. "Ok! Uh- It needs to be distracted. Toothless is probably the only dragon that can outrun it, so Hiccup, you need to lead it away."

Hiccup nodded and as he did, the Screaming Death started its approach. The boy delivered a warning shot to get its attention and then dove for the sea, leading it away from the island.

Arkyn delivered his next instructions. "Ok quick! We need to chase it! Follow me, and make sure to use fire attacks only. Stormfly's tail spikes and my stingers are useless against its scales." The boy was relieved at how readily willing Hiccup was at being used as bait. A moment longer and the teens might have ended up as a distant memory, but now they held the upper hand. Arkyn did suppose, however, that Hiccup had already been in this situation before, though he had not seen the Red Death fight to know exactly how the whole thing had played out.

The riders were hot on the tail of Hiccup and the Screaming Death, but much to their chagrin, the pair was extending the distance between themselves and their aid- everyone excluding Arkyn, that is. The Viking and his Triplestryke were the only ones able to maintain speed with the two dragons, but they still weren't getting any closer. Arkyn recognized Hiccup needed help sooner rather than later and called out to him from his aft position. "Hiccup! You need to make tighter turns! Slow it down or we won't be able to do anything!"

Too focused to do anything other than listen, Hiccup did not verbally respond, but he did as he was told and increased the bank angle he was using to catch more air, letting the beast to his rear catch up ever so slightly. However, to stay on the boy's tail the Screaming Death also had to adjust its own trajectories, allowing Hiccup's friends to close the gap behind him. The turns he was making pointed his direction of flight back towards the island, and the shape slowly loomed larger in the distance as he approached.

Just as the predator in white got a little too close for Hiccup's comfort, a large explosion was heard as Stinger delivered his first attack against the winged nightmare. This startled Hiccup, causing him to falter as he was changing the position of Toothless' tail fin, and before he knew it the Screaming Death had nearly caught up to him. Alarmed, Hiccup pointed himself towards the island and prepared for a maneuver.

Several things then happened at once.

Just before the Screaming Death could clamp its jaw down on the Night Fury's tail, Hiccup pulled up as hard as he could into a loop. The creature behind him attempted to follow but as it did a barrage of blasts from Barf, Belch, Stormfly, and Stinger pelted its head and parts of its tail, causing it to roar in annoyance and break its pursuit of the Haddock. Hiccup was clear. The Screaming Death instead dove for the sea just off the beach of the island and buried itself below the surface, creating yet another tunnel into the earth and disappearing from sight without a way of being followed.

Catching his breath, an exasperated Hiccup rejoined his friends, noticing the lagging of Meatlug and Hookfang, who evidently were still not fast enough to chase the aggressor.

Arkyn was about to congratulate Hiccup on his expert flying, but the other boy spoke first, and the words that came out of his mouth stunned the new Viking.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" Hiccup demanded.

Arkyn looked shocked. He'd just saved Hiccup from an almost certain demise. What could he possibly be so mad about? "What do you mean?! We just saved your hide!"

"We weren't meant to hurt this dragon. We were just supposed to scare it away…make sure it doesn't come back." Hiccup explained, much to the astonishment of most of the riders facing him.

"Hiccup, are you insane?! That dragon has to die. I thought you knew that! That's what we came here to do!" Arkyn was extremely puzzled at Hiccup's motivations, yet the spat between the two males continued in full view of their friends. The Screaming Death had yet to resurface.

"We're not supposed to hurt dragons. We help them. The dragons that lived here on this island…we need to help them by driving off this threat, not putting it in the ground."

Arkyn was livid at these words. His face contorted in a fit of rage as he looked upon Hiccup with contempt. He thought back to everything that damned dragon had done to him. All it had taken away. It was unbearable. To let it live was an unimaginable outcome.

"Hiccup?! I wish you could hear yourself right now! Did you forget where I came from already?! That beast took EVERYTHING from me! I go to sleep in an empty house every night because it was the reason I had to say goodbye to my parents for the last time. I watched as my home of 15 years was brought to its knees in less than an hour. Haven't you realized yet that the Screaming Death only has an appetite for destruction? If we just send it away, what is it going to do? How many more dragons will be forced to relocate? How many people will it murder? It. Has. To. End. Today. No exceptions. No excuses."

"There has to be another way!" Hiccup shot back, reacting very little to Arkyn's speech. "What if it's tamable?"

Arkyn's enraged expression now added a hint of annoyance. "Hiccup, I hope you know you're one of my best friends here, but that thing nearly swallowed you whole and now you want to be all friendly with it?! It is impossible to tame."

"That's what we thought about the Triplestryke before you showed up!" Hiccup reasoned.

"When's the last you heard of a Triplestryke collapsing a FUCKING ISLAND?! What do you think is going to happen when the Screaming Death gets to Berk? It will be unstoppable if we don't take advantage of this opportunity. Do you want to see your father again?"

Wha..of course I do, but-"

"So. Did. I." Arkyn shut him down before he could finish his sentence. "It's going to die, and you're going to help me kill it. It is the only way to ensure the continued safety of this archipelago. You're either with me, or you can fly home right now."

Hiccup realized Arkyn was dead serious and looked to his long time friends for support. "Guys? Are we going to let this happen?"

They blankly stared back at him, not speaking a single word. It was Astrid who first made her position apparent as she silently flew behind Arkyn's tail to face Hiccup, clearly choosing a side. "Sorry, Hiccup." She started. "Arkyn's right about this one. It's just like the Red Death. It's too dangerous to keep alive." The other riders slowly followed suit, and Hiccup's face fell as he hovered alone, looking back at the faces of all 6 of his riders.

"Fine." He eyed Arkyn with a glare. "I'll help, just because I don't want anyone to die out here, but we'll talk about this later."

"No we won't." Arkyn informed him, forcefully. "I won't be discussing this any further. Not with you, not with anyone." It could not have been easy for him to have to recount his most tragic experience simply for the sake of an argument.

There was a brief moment of silence before Astrid spoke again. "So…how do we kill it, anyway?"

"Not with fire…" Arkyn thought for a moment. "It has to be forceful. Like a punch in the face, but 100 times more powerful."

"How do we do that?" Snotlout asked.

Arkyn noted the small number of sea stacks surrounding the island. "We need to get it to run into those sea stacks…somehow. That means we need someone to be bait again." He turned to Hiccup.

"Nuh-uh, no way. I will not lead a dragon to its death. Not again."

Arkyn rolled his eyes and muttered to himself. "I just have to do everything around here, don't I?"

"Can you even outrun it?" Ruffnut asked, hearing the boy's comment.

"I can try. I was able to keep up with it before, so hopefully Stinger is still fast enough not to get caught."

Astrid gritted her teeth hearing this. She wasn't a huge fan of this strategy, no matter who was flying in front of the Screaming Death, but she still had a duty to be a warrior, and a warrior she would be. "What do you need from the rest of us?"

"I need you guys to keep it busy so it's not entirely focused on me. If it notices I'm leading it towards a sea stack it might simply move out of the way. The less attention it has on me, the better, but it still has to be on my tail." Arkyn tried to explain, understanding how difficult that sounded in words.

The group nodded tentatively, hoping they could come through with what he had requested. It would be no easy task, however.

It was at this moment a loud shift was heard in the island as it shook, but so far it did not appear to be unstable…yet. There was a renewed notion of fear as the Screaming Death re-emerged from the ocean near the spot it had disappeared from before, looking mad as ever and ready for a fight. Arkyn frantically pointed at the closest sea stack to his right, motioning to his friends. "Time to go! Make sure it follows me there." And with that it was off to the races with Arkyn making sure the beast followed him before he banked for the tower of stone.

Hiccup and Astrid led the other teens in hot pursuit of the scaly terrorizer as it approached the first sea stack. Once she was close enough Astrid ordered Stormfly to fire a magnesium blast, but the Screaming Death's tail was spinning so erratically that the shot unfortunately missed, hissing loudly as it made contact with the water below. Most of her friends followed this move, some with more success than others, but a full barrage was not able to make it to the targeted dragon. Hiccup, however, had still yet to take action.

Arkyn's face was locked in concentration as the sea stack neared. Stinger's wings were flapping hard as he tried to maintain pace ahead of the Screaming Death, heading straight for the obstacle ahead. The dragon to his back was still staying on his every move, and Arkyn wasn't sure his support was doing enough to distract it for the intended result. Sure enough, just before Arkyn collided with the sea stack he dove left and the Screaming Death followed, snarling a sickening growl as it realized what the boy was trying to do. That made it mad.

Arkyn glanced back from his saddle to see the receding tower of rock still intact. More alarming than that, though, was the Screaming Death's open mouth. It was preparing fire of its own. The Viking's eyes grew wide as he figured out what was about to happen and frantically whipped his neck around to focus on flying forward, leaning into Stinger's ear. "STINGER! UP! NOW!" he screamed, pulling on the harness as hard as he possibly could. Time slowed as a multi-blast of 6 massive fireballs whizzed below Arkyn and disappeared into the sea, causing smoke trails as they boiled the surface of the water. "Fuck me!" The boy shouted to himself, seeing how close he had just come to an infernal demise.

Astrid clutched Stormfly's saddle and held her breath until she knew Arkyn was ok, certainly not having planned on seeing one of her friends blown up when she woke up that morning. She'd fired 3 blasts so far, but only one had landed home. Getting ready to fire again, she waited for the Screaming Death to settle perfectly on the nose of Stormfly's snout before giving the order. This time Astrid had more success, and the heat from her dragon hit just below the target's wings, but it wasn't enough to distract it from its focus on Arkyn.

Frustrated, the girl turned to Hiccup, who'd still yet to attack a single time. "Hiccup?! I've only got 2 shots left! You'd better start pulling your weight or I'll make sure you never have the chance again!"

Hiccup looked defeated, but if he was going to listen to anyone, it was Astrid. Especially Astrid when she was mad. He had no choice but to give in to himself and fire a plasma blast, but just as he was going to Arkyn began to turn around, taking the Screaming Death with him. Hiccup had missed his opportunity to take action.

Arkyn made a wide turn and pointed himself back at the sea stack he'd missed before, hoping to have better results on the second pass. The curvature of the maneuver was still too tight, however, and it allowed the monster behind him to gain some ground. Just as he was about to abort there was a flash of purple behind him and a shockwave the magnitude of which he'd never experienced before.

A livid Screaming Death roared in agony and writhed violently as waves of pane radiated through its spine. It immediately yet briefly removed its focus from Arkyn to spin around towards the source of its attacker in preparation to retaliate with its own force. Hiccup heard the sound of the dragon's inhale as gas filled its mouth, ready for launch. He remembered it all too well and prepared Toothless again for a second shot that would hopefully have a similar disarming effect as the one he'd used on the Red Death. "Toothless now!" He commanded, and the Night Fury delivered a shot of deadly precision directly in between the open jaws of the white beast.

The gas immediately ignited, but to Hiccup and his friends' dismay the dragon was prepared for this and simply angrily dove for the sea to extinguish the flames before learning its lesson and turning around to redirect its attention to Arkyn once more- but by this time it was too late. Arkyn was too close to the sea stack for the Screaming Death to regain control of its flight before impact, and as the Viking veered to avoid the stone, the beast could do nothing but wait for imminent collision as it barreled through the air.

There was an indescribably loud thud as the two objects met and the tower collapsed almost instantly, exploding into hundreds of fragments which made oddly satisfying patterns of splashes in the waves below. Unfortunately for the others involved, the sea stack was rather thin and did not provide much of a deterrent to the out of control boulder class dragon. It shook its head violently and brushed off the incident as though it were nothing. The rider's mouths hung open at what they'd just witnessed, but there was no time to gape. Something had to be done.

"Thor damn it! What is it going to take to kill this thing?" Snotlout screamed in frustration from his spot in the formation. The group was certainly running out of ideas.

Arkyn sighed as he was forced to power on, not able to grant Stinger any rest from the strenuous flying he was being put through. The boy had no choice but to turn back towards the island, hoping that giving the Screaming Death what it wanted would buy him some valuable time. It was not an ideal solution, but it was what he had at the moment. Luckily, the dip in the water had provided at least some benefit to the group. The Screaming Death's head was now wet, meaning it couldn't use its fire to attack them any longer, which was a relief.

Arkyn surveyed the landscape of the island directly in front of him. There was a small strip of beach that gave way into a fairly flat pasture of grass, and beyond that closer to the center of the island was a lake with sheer cliff faces overlooking it to the far side. Bingo. If the sea stack was too small, perhaps he could get the Screaming Death to ram that instead. The Viking immediately headed for the lake and the towering landform behind it.

Astrid led the riders close behind. By this time she was out of shots, and the rest of theirs weren't doing much more than annoying the beast, so she decided she needed a different approach. She turned to Hiccup to let him know. "Hey, Hiccup? I'm going to try and catch up to Arkyn. I think Stormfly's tail spikes might be able to take the Screaming Death's eye out. I can try but I have to speed up."

"What? No way! That's way too dangerous!" Hiccup sounded alarmed.

"You were up there, and Arkyn is now too. Are you saying I can't handle it?" She asked, pressing for an answer.

Hiccup got defensive. "No no no! It's just…I don't want anything to happen to you that I could have prevented."

"Hiccup, nothing could have prevented this, and last I checked Toothless doesn't have tail spikes. I have to go up there." And with that she accelerated away from the boy and the rest of her friends towards the Screaming Death's head.

Stormfly's wings were pumping faster than they'd ever gone before, and Astrid pressed herself against her dragon to avoid as much air resistance as possible. Her efforts began to show progress, and she approached her target at a steady pace. As she got close to the head itself, however, disaster struck, and several things happened at once. The low-flying trio of dragons in the lead now found itself over the grassy field of the island. Just as Astrid was preparing for Stormfly's first spine shot, the sun went behind a cloud, and without warning the Screaming Death broke its focus on Arkyn and turned its head to find Astrid flying right next to it. The beast immediately let out a high pitched scream, different from any of the other sounds it had made so far, causing Stormfly to buck violently and lose control, sending Astrid off of her saddle before she even knew what was happening.

After a very brief moment in the air she tumbled into the grass, hard. Her body ached with soreness as her dragon crashed down next to her. There were tears in her shirt and leggings as well as a nasty brush burn on her left arm. The girl screamed in pain, clutching her wound and trying her best to crawl her way to Stormfly. Even with all this going on though, Astrid was still both annoyed and angry when a concerned Hiccup landed next to her.

"Astrid, are you ok?" He called out, rushing to help her.

"Hiccup, I'm fine! Go help Arkyn for Thor's sake!"

"But you're hurt."

"But he has a Screaming Death chasing after him still, so leave me here. I'm not in danger anymore." She pleaded.

Hiccup's face grimaced with worry as he stepped back towards his dragon, looking up at the chase in the sky. The sun burst out from behind the cloud and a glint of light shown off of Arkyn, returning the Screaming Death's attention to his person. Catching this, Hiccup mounted Toothless once more and took off, muttering to himself. "The gods damned belt buckle…that thing is attracted to the light." He shot into the sky to rejoin the ongoing pursuit. He looked to see where Arkyn was flying and noticed the cliffs beyond, immediately understanding that as the new goal.

Arkyn bobbed and weaved in the air moving at breakneck speeds towards the wall of rock, trying desperately to stay ahead of the Screaming Death. Stinger was getting tired, and it showed. The pair had been ever so gradually slowing down since they'd hit the island, and Arkyn wasn't sure his poor dragon could hold on much longer. Their movement enough, however, wouldn't be enough to get the Screaming Death into the cliff. They needed something more- an extra push, perhaps. The boy quickly turned his head to spot his friends still tailing the beast…minus Astrid? What had happened to her? He didn't yet know, but maybe the remaining riders would be the key to the necessary distraction, and although it was quickly running out, only time would tell.

Astrid wheezed as she grabbed a hold of Stormfly's saddle once again, using her upper body strength to haul her damaged figure back atop her dragon's back. Her friends were long gone now and the girl was behind the action, but determined to get airborne as soon as possible and continue the fight. Setting her feet in the stirrups, Astrid patted Stormfly on the neck and ordered her skyward, powering in the direction the rest of the group had been going. She hoped she wasn't too late.

The cliff was approaching at a blazing pace. Arkyn squinted his eyes, finding the perfect time to take his escape route before he was flying past the point of no return. It was now or never. He thought to himself, breaking left and beginning a sharp climb to try and crest the peak of the rocks. He didn't make it very far before he heard 3 loud explosions ring out in quick succession, each from a different source. The last thing his mind registered was the feeling of falling, his feet pointing towards the sky and his eyes lingering on the lake that was now above him.

And then everything went black.

"Ok get ready, bud. Arkyn needs us." Hiccup called out to his dragon, preparing for a final attack before the intended impact. "Now!" He yelled, and Toothless let out a purple orb directed at the back of the Screaming Death's head. To Hiccup's dismay, just before the shot made contact was when Arkyn broke, and his fire ended up missing as the chasing dragon followed its target and moved out of the path of the projectile. Hiccup fired a second shot that corrected for this movement, striking the white snake right in the center of its wings. However, the initial shot, which had missed, landed first against the cliff face itself, sending chunks of rock in all directions. Several bounced back and hit the Screaming Death in the face, and try as it might to open its jaws and simply tunnel through the island like before, it wasn't enough.

The full weight of the impact with the immovable structure fell on the creature's closed teeth and unprotected skull, killing the beast instantly. Unfortunately for Arkyn, who was still trying to get clear of the monster to his back, the force of the connection splintered the stone and sent boulder sized objects careening through the air. One struck him directly in the chest, knocking him not only off of his dragon, but also evidently unconscious. Hiccup's heart dropped as he realized he was far too high to catch the other Viking, who was dropping at an alarming rate with no dragon to protect him as Stinger had simply continued flying on his own.

The Haddock ordered his Night Fury into a dive- but he'd never make it. Just as the boy was going to drop into the lake below amongst other instances of falling debris, a cobalt flash streaked across Hiccup's line of sight, taking the darkly dressed figure with it before shooting into the sky to avoid smacking into the cliff on its own accord.

"Did you get him?" Astrid asked Stormfly, who promptly tilted her head down to spot the limp figure in her talons. Depositing Arkyn's still scarily unmoving body on top of the now tarnished cliffs, the girl hopped off of her dragon and rushed over to him, standing over the spot where he lay face down, hands strewn to his sides. She bit her nails waiting for signs of life, hoping they would come soon. He couldn't be dead…could he?

AN: Aaaaand we're done! I worked really hard on this chapter so I would extra appreciate it if you left a review or feedback for me to read. It helps to know what others think so I can keep improving. More interesting stuff coming down the road…so stay tuned! Hopefully the next chapter will be out sooner rather than later. Might make it shorter on purpose to compensate for this monster haha. Take care everyone.