Watching Race To The Edge

by Eikntt

A witch arrives on Berk, wanting to show the village what their Dragon Riders have been up to at the Edge. Takes place a few days after RTTE, months before HTTYD2. None of the episodes will be in order to make things easier and more fun for me, requests as to what episodes to show them are welcome! (Sorry for the slow chapters, I'm a very slow writer.)

4. Reign of Fireworms

Yeah... this is long overdue, lol. I originally intended to upload this around the middle of May but life and basically everything in it got in the way. Like I said, FFN isn't really my main thing, haha.

Khor Evik Vlakhavlakh: TYSM for the review! "Watching Future Mistakes" is actually one of my main inspirations for this, as you may be able to tell, so again, thank you! Oooh, "Not Lout" is a really good one. Adding that to the list of episodes to do in the future!

OrangeCat64: Eh, I dunno, I'd say the other Riders have the potential to become better singers. With a lot of practice, that is. Ruffnut's fine albeit a little, well, rough. Hiccup needs more control over his voice, and Tuffnut needs to be less dramatic. Which, knowing Tuffnut, is impossible. As for Astrid... well... Astrid's kinda hopeless. Sorry Astrid, love you as a character, but just.. no.

Without further ado, enjoy this chapter!

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Original episode was written by Art Brown and Douglas Sloan, and directed by T.J. Sullivan

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The screen fades from black to showcase some beautiful scenery above a forest, Fishlegs' voice can be heard in the background as he and Meatlug fly into view.

"Okay," Fishlegs is seen holding a piece of parchment and looking over the forest, "That's 542,"

The Vikings wondered for a brief second what the Rider was counting before understanding as the next few moments played out.

"43-" He counts before spotting something and pointing, "Oh, there's one hiding under that tree trunk!"

The camera cuts to reveal Night Terrors nesting in the trees as Fishlegs squeals, "I see you, little guy."

The perspective changes to behind the trees as Fishlegs counts another Night Terror, "You're 544."

The Night Terror screeches as the camera switches to him talking to Meatlug, "Isn't this exciting, girl?" He holds up the parchment, "The first annual Dragon's Edge census."

"Oh, I remember this!" Fishlegs said, "This was a really long time ago!"

"Uh, what's a 'census', again?" Gustav asked from somewhere in the crowd, speaking what was on many of the Vikings' minds.

"Oh!" Fishlegs started as Snotlout prepared to roll his eyes for another one of his lectures, "Glad you asked! A 'census' is-"

"A census," Tuffnut explained interrupting and cutting off Fishlegs' incoming lecture, "is the procedure of systematically acquiring-"

Ruffnut continued, "-and recording information about the members of a given population."

"Which means-?" Snotlout asked as many of the Vikings blinked in either surprise or confusion at the Twins' complex vocabulary.

"It's a checklist of how many of each dragon species we had on the Edge," Hiccup dumbed it down as the Vikings 'Ooh'ed.

"Hm," Stoick approved with a nod, having created and used multiple censuses in his life, to keep track of the Village's livestock and population, being the Chief and all, "Smart."

"Only Fishface can get excited about something as lame as a checklist," Snotlout snarked, smirking at the clearly unamused and scowling Fishlegs.

"Once we get all these Night Terrors counted," Fishlegs continued as his dragon gave a smile, "We move on to the Gronckles."

"Ah, so they're called Night Terrors, then?" Stoick asked. The tiny, black dragons could be seen nearly everywhere on the Edge by every visitor, so they weren't all that surprised whenever they appeared on screen, but none of them had ever caught their species' name.

"Yep," Astrid confirmed as Ruffnut continued, "Ironically, having Night Terrors around to protect us kept us from having, well, actual night terrors."

"Always did love those little guys," Fishlegs sighed happily before turning to his dragon, "Not as much as you, though, girl."

The two laughed as Fishlegs gave Meatlug a comforting rub on the head, "Maybe you'll make some new friends!"

They landed in a clearing, optimistic and happy, "Okay," Fishlegs looked around almost too enthusiastically, "There's a big flock."

The entire Hall smirked silently and fondly at the boy's enthusiasm.

The camera cut to show a couple of Night Terrors sleeping on the rocks while he counted, "575, 576.."

Suddenly, a Fireworm dropped from the sky, landing on Fishlegs' parchment. Fishlegs gasped in surprise as the camera switches perspective, the parchment having been revealed to be a map, while the Fireworm crawled along.

"Oh, hello," Fishlegs greeted before screaming and falling to the ground as the map lit on fire, "Ahh!"

Meatlug crooned in concern as Fishlegs got up, the lone Fireworm flying in the air while the map continued to burn.

The Riders, all realising what day this was, all groaned while the Twins grinned sheepishly. Try as they might to deny it or play it off, the Twins both knew that their reign was less than glorious. Far from it, in fact. Destruction and chaos was great and all, but it was way greater when it didn't backfire on them.

Meanwhile, the Vikings raised their eyebrows, at both the Riders' groans and the appearance of the Fireworm, and silently asked the same question;

"What is a Fireworm doing this far out?" Fishlegs wondered, "They aren't supposed to be anywhere near our island. Eh, could've lost its way."

"If only." Hiccup grimaced.

He grabbed a new map from Meatlug's saddlebag and studied it, "Now, where were we, Meatlug? Was it 576," He continued in his attempt at a cool voice while another Fireworm landed on a bush in the background, "Or was it 675?"

"Seriously?" Snotlout snarked. The Ingermans turned to Fishlegs, amused. Fishlegs wasn't the type to forget, so they, the Riders and many of the other Vikings knew that he only wanted an excuse to spend more time counting.

"What?" Fishlegs shrugged in an attempt at defending himself, "It's fun!"

The bush was set alight as Fishlegs paused before sniffing the air and turning around, "Woah!" He hurried to put out the bushfire, "Woah, woah!"

He blowed and grunted, basically slapping the fire with his map in an attempt to extinguish the flames.

"Whew," He sighed in relief as the fires were put out.

The map burst into flame.

The reaction to that was a melting pot of various expressions. Some gave Fishlegs sympathetic looks, others gave him looks of pity, a few grimaced, some winced, and others either chuckled or laughed.

"Woah!" Fishlegs screamed, throwing the map away. The screen faded to show the Gang flying over the now burning forest, Fishlegs and Meatlug closest to the camera.

"It began with one Fireworm," Fishlegs explained, "and as we were flying back, we kept seeing more and more."

Astrid narrowed her eyes, "Do you think they're migrating?"

"If they were migrating," Hiccup piped in, "The whole island would be on fire."

"Not necessarily," Fishlegs pointed out as Snotlout rolled his eyes, "Here we go!"

"Oh, here we go!" Snotlout complained, mirroring his past self's actions as Fishlegs huffed.

"When Fireworms migrate," Fishlegs elaborated, "they send out scouts to see if their migration route is safe. If this is a stop along that route-"

"-An entire flock of Fireworms could be coming through here," Astrid realised and the Twins and their dragon caught up from behind.

"Well, I say bring 'em on!" Tuffnut pumped up his fist before resting his head on one of Belch's horns, "I love those little scorchers."

"I rescind that statement!" Tuffnut shouted out loud to the shocked gasps of pretty much the entire Hall.

"Yeah," Ruffnut grumpily agreed, adding even more to the Vikings' surprise. Some even pinched themselves, or got their own dragons to bite them, to see if they weren't dreaming. They would've thought, of all the Vikings in the world, that those two would've simply loved the destruction and chaos that the Fireworms could cause.

"Eh," Snotlout shrugged, they were still pretty cute in his very manly opinion, "Speak for yourselves."

"Are-are they possessed?" Gobber asked the Thorston Parents, completely ignoring Snotlout's comment, who could only stare dumbly at their children. They knew that no matter what, the Twins would never grow to dislike destructive mayhem, so the problem lay within the Fireworms, or something else. Surely, if even the Twins grew to dislike whatever the Fireworms did, something truly terrible must've happened.

"S-should I get Gothi?" He continued as the entire Hall, as one, turned to stare at the Riders, who stifled their laughs at the Village's expressions. The Riders only gestured towards the screen when the Vikings cocked an eyebrow in unison.

"Are you still gonna love them when they all land here and burn our entire island to the ground?" Hiccup deadpanned.

"...No.." Tuffnut drawled under his breath.

"Yes! Wait, no," Tuffnut turned to look at Hiccup, "Wait, is that a trick question? Because it's pretty tricky."

"Fishlegs," Astrid called ignoring the male twin, "How much time do we have?"

"Uh, it's hard to say. If it's a full migration, the rest of them could be here.." Fishlegs paused, doing a bit of mental maths, "..As soon as next week."

"Hah!" Snotlout remarked with faux nonchalance, "Good to know."

Hookfang roared, rearing back as Snotlout continued, "It's been nice knowing you, island. Snotlout is outlout!"

"Uh, yeah," Ruffnut snickered, "I think Snotlout went 'outlout' waayyy before that."

"Oh-hoh!" Astrid made an 'O' shape with her mouth, "He definitely did."

"Oh, shut up," Snotlout scowled. Fishlegs, Spitelout, and many of the other Vikings, obviously confused, turned to face them with raised eyebrows, which only made them chuckle even harder. No disrespect to Snotlout, of course. It was just hilarious how much of an obvious disaster he was and how somehow nobody else knew.

"We're not abandoning the island, Snotlout," Hiccup sighed as he and Toothless dived down.

"Uh," Snotlout snarked, "Yeah, we are. Watch."

Hookfang screeched as he and Snotlout reared back, Hiccup and Toothless flying in front of them.

"Guys," Hiccup spoke, "We put too much hard work into this place to just leave! Snotlout is not 'outlout'."

"Pretty sure he is," Astrid smirked amusedly, adding to the Vikings' confusion.

"Not my fault that Thor was amazing," Snotlout grumbled and muttered under his breath, too quietly for anyone but himself to hear, "And strong, brave and-" His mutters soon became unintelligible.

"We're staying. Now let's get to work."

"Fine!" Snotlout gave in, "But I still like my plan better."

He and Hookfang flew off as the scene cuts to show Astrid and Stormfly flying towards the Clubhouse, Hiccup's voice coming from offscreen, "Okay, Astrid, you and Fishlegs filled the watering troughs, right?"

"Yep!" Astrid confirmed as the camera cut to revealed the gang, minus the Twins, sitting in the clubhouse, "Topped off all the barrels, too."

Astrid has her back turned towards the camera, Snotlout is leaning in a chair with his feet crossed on the table, Hiccup is sitting ON the table with his legs spread out like a gangster, and Fishlegs is pretty much the only one sitting like a normal person. Meanwhile, Toothless is seen running around in the background.

Hiccup let out a chuckle at seeing Toothless's antics.

"Ooh," Fishlegs raised a hand, "I found a perfect cave for the Night Terrors!"

The camera switches to focus on him, "High enough and desolate enough so the flame won't get near them."

"Perfect," Hiccup smiled, "Good job, guys."

He lifted a piece of paper in his hand, "Now, if the Twins would finally get back, we could find out what they've done."

"Oh!" Snotlout smirked in his seat, "I can tell you what they've done:" He waved his hand around, "Zero, zip, zilch,"

Once again, the Zippleback known as Zip and Zilch looked around for whoever called their names, earning quite a few chuckles from the crowd around them.

"I'm forgetting something.. Oh yeah, goose egg!"

Snotlout tried and failed at flirting again as he turned to Ruffnut, "You know I didn't mean it, babe."

The Twins both glared at him.

"Oh, contrary, my fine fellow," Tuffnut interrupted, causing Snotlout to jump in surprise. The camera panned around to reveal the Twins standing at the entrance of the Clubhouse, Ruffnut leaning against the wall as her brother spoke, "We have done quite a lot, actually."

The Vikings raised their eyebrows.

"Did you clear the brush?" Hiccup asked.

"Uh.." Tuffnut pondered for a moment, "No."

"Build a fire break?"

"Nope," Ruffnut answered, "Not that."

"How about water?" Astrid asked, "Did you bring any back?"

"Couldn't," Tuffnut shrugged, "Too busy."

"Busy with what?" Hiccup asked incredulously.

"Finding something... awesome!" Ruffnut leaned forwards, her arms still crossed.

The already-raised-eyebrows of the Vikings went up even further.

The camera cuts to reveal a rather large rock, with runes inscribed on it, sitting on the grass.

Stoick and Gobber, having recognised the stone and remembering what had happened, smirked. Now they were going to see what else had ensued. This was going to be good. With the Twins running the island, there were bound to be headaches and hilarity approaching. In fact, they were both quite surprised that the Edge hadn't been blown up yet.

"Behold!" Ruffnut called, "We call it... the Namey Rock!"

"And why is that?" Astrid approached from behind, gesturing incredulously.

"Duh," Tuffnut smirked, looking as high as a kite before gesturing towards the rock, "'Cause it has our name all over it."

Tuffnut punched his palm, "Cool, huh?"

"Oh, sweet, naive little past me," Tuffnut sighed, "If only you knew."

"Oh, yeah!" Snotlout sarcastically replied, "I mean, NO."

He facepalmed, "Man, you two are completely ridiculous."

"You only realised it then?" Hiccup asked as Astrid chuckled.

"Ridiculous? Perhaps," Ruffnut shrugged before gesturing smugly, "But, answer me this- Where's your namey rock?"

She put her hand to her ear, flitting her eyes around as she awaited an answer. Snotlout groaned, pinching the bridge of his nose.

The Twins laughed and banged their helmets together, grunting and snickering.

"Uh, Hiccup?" Fishlegs called with a hint of fear in his voice, "You might want to come take a closer look at this."

Hiccup walked forwards, as Fishlegs continued, "I think it's a claim stone."

The Hall went silent. Any murmurs, discussions and gossip immediately ceased as they heard those six terrible words.

"'I, Magmar Thorston," Hiccup read, "hereby claim this island in my name and the name of all my family present and future, forever and ever.'"

"And? What else?" Tuffnut smirked as he stood beside Hiccup, who continued reading, "'And ever,' apparently."

The entire Hall gasped, and stared at the screen in abject horror. No. No, no, no, no, no! Surely not? It could've been fake, it had to be! The Thorstons running the Edge? This was madness! They held their tongues and tried not to faint or scream as they spotted the rest of the Thorston family looking at the screen greedily. Hungrily, even. The Edge, an entire island, was rightfully theirs for the taking.

"Hah!" Tuffnut laughed, "Long-lost great Uncle Magmar!"

"Wasn't he the one who could pass an entire cod through one nostril?" Lars, one of the Twins' many cousins, who, as it turned out, did not have his head severed, much to Fishlegs' relief, asked.

"Oh, my Thor!" Tuffnut grabbed the side of his own head, "Wasn't he the one who could pass an entire cod through one nostril?"

"Eww!" The Vikings gagged in disgust while Lars blinked. They did NOT need that mental image in their heads.

"Welp," Gobber deadpanned, "Looks like none of us are gettin' any sleep tonight."

"And debone it at the same time?" Ruffnut added, "It's really a lost art."

The Vikings all turned to look at the Thorstons incredulously as the family nodded in agreement, much to everyone's utmost disgust.

Tuffnut shook his head, "People just don't appreciate the craftsmanship."

"Oh, come on!" Snotlout shouted in disbelief, "That stone is a fake! It's so obvious that these two made it up."

"I don't think so!" Fishlegs retorted, "For one thing, everything is spelled correctly."

Snotlout paused, "Okay, you may have a point."

Now, that, got a few faints from the crowd.

"Let me get this straight," Astrid uncrossed her arms and pointed at the Twins, "These two, own this island?"

"It would appear that way," Fishlegs confirmed.

"Da-da-da," Hiccup couldn't stop himself from using his sarcasm despite already knowing what had happened, "We're dead."

"Yeah!" Ruffnut pumped up her fist as Tuffnut cheered, "In your face!"

"We are so in charge of this place!" Ruffnut grinned as Tuffnut whooped, "Oh! Preach, sister!"

"Well," Ruffnut sang, "According to this stone-"

"That was a rhetorical preach," Tuffnut slammed his hand against Ruffnut's mouth.

"Hey!" Tuffnut pushed her aside to walk forwards, "Where are you going, subject?"

"Hah!" Snotlout is shown already mounting Hookfang, "You may be in charge of this island, but you're not in charge of me."

"Hah!" Stoick and Spitelout scoffed in unison, both for very similar and yet very different reasons.

"He's a Jorgenson," Spitelout cheered, puffing his chest out, "We don't take orders from anyone!"

"That much is true," Stoick huffed dryly in mock defeat, Spitelout giving him an equally mocking glare. Just like Valka, Stoick smiled as he thought amusedly to himself. Hiccup, too. Vikings were never really the 'listening' type, but anyone with the slightest hint of Jorgenson blood made that especially true.

"Ah, ah!" Tuffnut pointed towards his helmet, "Respect the crown. Don't make us get ugly."

"That ship sailed a long time ago."

A collective cry of "OHH!" spread throughout the Hall. Snotlout, as smug and dramatic as ever, took off his helmet and bowed to the laughing crowd, posing as if he were a gentleman tipping a hat, "Thank you, thank you," he smirked before putting his helmet back on with another, smaller, tip, "I try."

The Twins grumbled unhappily, as did the rest of the Thorstons. Since all the Thorstons shared an almost eerily striking family resemblance, as was evident to any Viking that even took a moment to look at them, to call the Twins ugly was to call pretty much the entire family ugly.

Ruffnut punched her brother on the arm, Tuffnut for once looking seriously mad as she pointed finger-guns at him, "Ugly!"

Ruffnut, now far wiser than her past self, believe it or not, grumbled as she realised that the insult was meant for the both of them and not just her muttonheaded brother.

"Clearly, we'll need a dungeon." Tuffnut brooded, rubbing his arm before Hiccup stood between them.

"Okay," Hiccup started, "Let's all just take a breath and-" He pressed onto Tuffnut's shoulder and glared at him, "-calm down!"

"The first thing we need to do," Hiccup turned away, "is get this claim stone authenticated."

The Vikings sucked in their breaths. Please, they all quietly begged, please be a fake. They didn't even want to think of the horrors that the Twins, let alone the whole Thorston family, would come up with and get up to if they ever claimed ownership of an entire island filled with a large population of wild dragons.

The scene cuts to reveal Gobber's blue eye peering through a glass, "Hmm," he hummed before the eye was replaced by his mouth, "I see."

"Well, Gobber?" Stoick asks as the camera cuts to show he and Hiccup standing behind Gobber, who is seen studying the stone with a small telescope.

"Give me a minute," The blacksmith gestured, knocking his hammer-hand-prosthetic-thing on the rock and sniffing a pebble, before proceeding to eat it, "Mm-hmm!" He crunched, licking his lips, "Very interesting."

He swallowed, "Tastes right to me, Stoick."

"Uh," Snotlout looked utterly weirded out as Fishlegs stammered, narrowing his eyes incredulously, "Did..did he just swallow a rock?"

"Awesome!" The Twins cheered, "We gotta try that out sometime!"

"What in the-" Astrid was just as weirded out as most of the other Vikings.

"Think that's weird?" Hiccup smirked at their expressions, "I once saw him eat a dagger!" It was a surprisingly slow day at the forge, so very long ago, but still so vivid in his memory. Hiccup had been experiencing a rare case of a creative block that day and didn't have any ideas for drawing or inventing, and neither he nor Gobber were tired enough to take a nap. Needless to say, both of them had been really, really bored that day, and, well, what better way to pass the time than to try out one of those knife-eating stunts they'd heard about from one of traitor Johann's tales?

"Hah!" Stoick laughed, "That's nothin- I once saw him eat a hammer!" That hammer, he conveniently failed to mention, was his own father's, and the whole ordeal was part of a dare. He, Alvin and Gobber got grounded for nearly a year that day. He chuckled at the memory, Gobber was a lunatic at times, but that was a part of his Gobber-ry charm.

Gobber smirked as he remembered those two days while the rest of the entire Hall, with the exception of Dagur and the Twins, who thought it was awesome and wanted to try it out some time, stared at him, completely speechless. Hey, if he could survive eating Valka's cooking, he could survive swallowing anything.

"No," Mala finally found her voice when she noticed her husband's eager expression, "You are not swallowing a hammer."

Dagur pouted, "But-"

"No." Heather and Mala said in unison, Sleuther and Windshear looking at him with the same sternness.

He turned around, the scene switching to reveal the Twins standing behind him as well, "This claim stone is 100% authentic."

Oh no.

"Aw, yeah!" Ruffnut cheered, spreading her arms out as if to hug the sky, while Tuffnut whooped, "Authentic!"

Oh no.

They both dropped to their knees as Ruffnut pumped her fists, "100%! No more percents to be had, folks!"

No. No, no, no, no, no! A thousand 'No's. No, a MILLION 'No's. The Vikings were absolutely mortified. No, beyond mortified. They paled. They panicked. They hyperventilated. They fainted. Some of them even screamed. The Thorstons? In charge of an entire island? Hah, they might as well burn the entire archipelago to the ground! Heck, some of the Vikings in the crowd were already planning their own funerals. The Thorstons would probably declare war on the entire world, and actually win, and not even realise it, all because of their sheer chaotic stupidity and brilliance! It was an entire island full of wild dragons, and an entire family full of, well, Thorstons! Who knows what could happen?

No, they could already picture it. The entire world, burned to a crisp. They were almost as afraid as they were when they first laid eyes on the Red Death. In fact, they were shocked beyond relief that the Edge hadn't been burnt down. True, the volcano had long erupted, and it was a bit trampled due to all the battles that had taken place there, but it was only a matter of time before the land and wildlife recovered. But with the Thorstons? They were so predictably unpredictable, and it was horrifying.

"That's good, right?" Tuffnut asked as Gobber and Stoick looked quite underreacting to the fact that the Twins were given authority over an entire island.

"Uh-uh," Astrid protested while Hiccup stood, wide-eyed, as if trying to process what he'd just heard, "No!"

"No!" Snotlout screamed.

"What?!" Fishlegs screeched, "No! No way."

The Vikings joined in on the protests, "This can't be happening." "I knew it! The end of all things good!" "Ragnarok is here!"

The other Riders continued their protests as Stoick pinched the bridge of his nose, "All right, that's enough!" He turned, "It looks like this island officially belongs.. to the Twins."

"Yes!" The rest of the Thorston family shrieked rather greedily. Meanwhile, to the confuddlement of basically the entire Great Hall, the Twins looked uncharacteristically gloomy. Depressed, even. They really hadn't meant to get the entire Edge nearly burned down, but they did it anyway. The one thing they didn't want to destroy, other than their friends and family, and they nearly did it anyway. It was why they'd hired Astrid to clear the brush, wasn't it? It wasn't even fun to watch. They wanted their reign to be glorious, but really, it was more like.. the Reign of Fireworms.

The Vikings all stared at the Riders as if they were ghosts. "H-how are you still alive?" One asked. Another turned to the Chief and Gobber, "How were you so calm?!" The Riders shrugged, only gesturing to the screen in reply as the Twins sulked. Stoick only crossed his arms and scoffed, "It was only the Twins. It's not like I was about to tell the rest of the Thorston family back here on Berk," He received a glare from the Thorstons at that, to which he returned with thrice the ferocity, "I'm not an idiot."

Spitelout and Gobber snorted.

"Besides," Stoick continued, "I believe the issue was resolved at the end, wasn't it, Hiccup?"

"Yep," Hiccup confirmed, popping the 'P'.

The Vikings calmed down quite drastically, but still remained wary as they once again noticed the Twins, strangely enough, sulking against their dragon, though not for the reasons they'd imagined.

"Hey," Astrid asked in concern, "..You guys okay?"

"Yeah," They responded.

The other Riders exchanged worried glances, but didn't press on. They knew that the Twins still felt guilty over the whole ordeal, seeing as the two mentioned it often, but had never seen them act so depressed over it. In fact, they'd never seen them so quiet about it.

"It's our island now!" Tuffnut sang as he and his sister danced, "We got the island!"

"We got an island!" They continued, dancing and twirling around each other, "And you can't have it! The island is ours!"

Tuffnut continued singing while Hiccup and Astrid turned to look at each other, uncertain, "We don't have to do anything or take any showers!"

"Uh, Yeah." Astrid deadpanned, trying to lighten the unnecessarily and over-dramatically tense mood, "You guys don't even take showers that much anyway."

It didn't work.

"Y-yeah!" Hiccup added, catching on to what Astrid was trying to do, "The only one who takes less showers than you guys is Gobber."

Still didn't work. In fact, the mocking glare that Gobber sent them only added to unneeded tension.

"Wow," Dagur whispered to no-one in particular, raising one of his daggers from seemingly nowhere, "The atmosphere's so thick, you could cut it with this dagger!"

Despite the so-called already aforementioned unnecessarily thick atmosphere, the Vikings and their dragons who'd heard what he said rolled their eyes at his joke.

The screen cuts to black, and then switches immediately to reveal the cliff from a higher perspective. The Twins are shown down on one knee, helmets off, as the Chief approaches them. Gobber and the other Riders are standing in behind him, with Toothless, Barf and Belch behind them.

"Ahem," Stoick called, "As Chief of Berk," He drew out his sword and walked forwards, "I hereby declare that under Viking law, the living heirs to Magmar Thorston are indeed entitled to full ownership of this island."

He lightly pressed the tip of his sword on each of their shoulders before raising his sword back up and rolling his eyes, "with all the benefits that comes with it."

"Now, what?" Tuffnut asked quizzically.

"Don't ask me," Stoick sheathed his sword and shrugged, "It's your island."

"Well," Mala commented, "This is certainly going to be.. interesting."

"You can say that again." Heather replied, amusedly.

He and Gobber moved to walk off, Gobber giving a smug chuckle as they went by.

"Oh!" Ruffnut chirped as the Twins put their helmets back on and danced while they sang,

"Yes! This is our island!

It's not your island!

You cannot have it!

No, no, no. Ugly!

Because it's ours!"

"Now, Dad, Dad, Dad," Hiccup paced towards the two leaving adults as they turned around and stopped, "You can't be serious."

He gestured to the still dancing and singing Twins, "You're not leaving me with this?"

"It's our island!" Tuffnut shouted as Stoick grabbed Hiccup by the shoulders, "Uh, yes, I am."

"Welcome to my world," He stated with a hint of smugness as if trying not to laugh. He turned to leave, "Only now, it's your world!"

"Ho, ho!" Gobber laughed, "It's your world!"

"Oh, ho!" Dagur smirked, turning towards the two adults, "You guys are just cruel."

"Hah," Hiccup smirked back, "You don't even know the half of it."

"Oi!" Gobber shrieked as Stoick glared sternly, hands on his hips, "Now, what's that supposed to mean?"

After all, Stoick thought, this would be a good learning experience for his son. He had to deal with Spitelout, the Thorstons, and a few others competing to replace him ever since the day he became Chief, and seeing as Hiccup was bound to become Chief one day, he saw no problem with giving Hiccup a tiny taste of what it was like, to gain some field experience. Come to think of it, he was getting a bit old, and had been planning his retirement for quite a while now, and since Hiccup was nearly twenty...

Hiccup stood there for a second as Toothless, Snotlout, and Fishlegs approached from behind, "Great, what do we do now? Any ideas?"

"Oh," Snotlout suggested, "We could always.." He sliced a finger around his neck and hissed, "You know."

Snotlout backed away and into Hookfang's protection as the entire Thorston family turned around to glare at him.

"Hey, don't hold me accountable!" He tried defending himself to no avail, "This was like, a year ago!"

"We're not killing the Twins, Snotlout."

Astrid approached as Snotlout looked downcasted, "Please tell me we're not giving them the island."

"Actually," Hiccup turned around to look at the Twins, "We are."

He smiled confidently, "We are giving them the island."

Snotlout laughed sarcastically before pausing and looking at him incredulously, "What?"

"Huh," Gobber mused to himself, sharing the same thoughts as his friend, "Quick turnaround." He and Stoick hadn't really expected him to take to the Twins' rulership that easily, unless there was some sort of ulterior plan or motive. Which, knowing Hiccup, was probably true.

"Yeah, hate to agree with Snotpocket here," Dagur narrowed his eyes while Snotlout silently fumed at the nickname, snickering a little as he saw him do so, "I really do, but... what?"

"First of all," Hiccup pointed out, "We don't really have a choice."

"And second," Hiccup crossed his arms, "Once they find out being in charge isn't everything it's cracked up to be, and they have to deal with the Fireworm problem on their own," He turned his head and gestured, "They will beg us to take the island back."

The Riders gave Hiccup a glare. Said one-legged Viking sighed, "Why do I always have to jinx it and eat my own words?"

"Bad idea," Gobber mused, nudging Stoick in the shoulders, "Remember when you and Val had to leave for a visit to the Bog Burglars' and you left Spitelout in charge?"

"Wait, he did?" Hiccup asked curiously as Stoick and many of the older villagers nodded and groaned, each earning a glare from Spitelout.

"Aye. By the time we got back," Stoick had his face in one of his large hands, as if getting an immense headache from the memory, "He'd built two and a half life-sized statues of himself, drove the village mad, and spent nearly half of Berk's gold on mead."

And that was the reason why Stoick usually left the Council in charge if he ever needed to leave Berk.

"Of course he did," Snotlout sighed to himself, taking extra care not to be heard, "He's Dad."

Unknowing, of course, of the fact that he would've done the exact same thing if he were in that very same situation. Sober, too.

"Bah, it wasn't my fault!" Spitelout protested, "Someone spiked all my drinks, I swear it!"

"Sure, Spitelout," Gobber deadpanned, "And Gothi has good drawing skills."

"Ow!" He got hit in the head by said old lady.

The Riders couldn't help but giggle at the tale, and at Gobber's pain. Oh, their own experiences with the Twins' reign was far, far worse. It was perhaps a petty thought, but they -or at least, a small part of them- couldn't wait for the two to witness the suffering they'd gone through in 'Thorstonton'.

The others looked unsure as Astrid spoke, "And if they don't?"

The camera cuts to the Twins still celebrating, "It's our island! Man, how great is this?"

Astrid rolled her eyes, "We get it, it's your island."

The Twins didn't respond with anything more than a sheepish shrug. Needless to say, the Riders were very, very worried. The Twins were never this quiet.

They banged their helmets together and stepped back with a grunt.

"I'm fine," Tuffnut said as the two collapsed on the floor, the other Riders staring in disbelief and worry. Toothless growled with widened eyes and walked off, while Snotlout pinched the bridge of his nose.

"Woah, woah, woah, woah, woah," Hiccup jokingly scolded in an echo of the past, "Where did you think you were going?"

Toothless snorted, and, not so humbly suppressed a gurgle of laughter at his past self's actions. He was only pretending to head out to prove a point; no way was he going to spend any amount of time under the Twins' rule.

The scene changes to reveal a lone fireworm flying into the woods. Then two more, setting fire to their surroundings as they land, and more, and more, and you get the idea. A forest fire is started, pretty small and containable, but a forest fire nonetheless. The camera pans upwards to show the Riders' huts looming in the distance.

"Well," Tuffnut spoke for the first time in quite a while, "that's not ominous at all."

"Okay," Tuffnut is heard speaking offscreen while Hiccup is shown reading a book while lying on Toothless' back, "A little bit higher."

Hiccup lowers the book, which is revealed to be the Book of Dragons, with a neutral pout while Tuffnut continues, "No, no, no, to the left. Yes! No."

Astrid smiled shyly to herself. She hadn't told him yet, but Hiccup's tendency to pout was pretty adorable. She was also quite amused, as was most of the hall, at how Hiccup had positioned himself atop of Toothless.

Stoick smirked. He'd often seen those two asleep or relaxing while checking in on them in Hiccup's room, and they always would twist every which way in order to be comfortable. He could see that even now, things had not changed.

Curious as to what the Twins were up to now, Hiccup got down from Toothless' back and closed the book. He and Toothless stood up as Tuffnut continued speaking, "Little to the right."

They shared a look before walking towards the sound, as Ruffnut complained from offscreen, "Would you come on already? My entire body is going numb."

"Feels kinda cool," She admitted as Hiccup walked out of the clubhouse. "Hey, let's ask Hiccup," Tuffnut suggested. What convenient timing.

Hiccup turned around to face the Twins, which he somehow knew were on the roof, "Let's ask Hiccup what?"

The Twins are shown standing on each of their dragon's heads and holding up a wooden sign, with horribly misspelled runes, as Tuffnut replied, "Our new Thorstonton sign, does it need to be a little higher?"

"They renamed the place to 'Thorstonton'?" Heather asked, crossing her arms with a curious look.

"Yeah," Hiccup replied, "The Twins are really inconsistent with their naming quality."

Meanwhile, however, the Thorstons were staring at the screen with hunger, mulling over the Twins' choice of a name. 'Thorstonton'. Call themselves conceited, which they probably were to some degree, but they liked it. The Thorston Parents, meanwhile, sighed at the Twins' misspelled sign. They'd long since given up on teaching those two how to spell. Well, at least the handwriting was somewhat intelligible.

"Thorstonton?" Hiccup asked.

"Yeah," Ruffnut replied, "The name of our island."

Tuffnut squinted, "It came to us in a dream."

He dropped the sign to gesture with his fingers while Ruffnut yelled in the background, "That's right- Same dream. It's a twin thing."

Ruffnut struggles with the sign while Tuffnut waves his hand down, "You wouldn't understand. Anyway, thoughts on the sign?"

Ruff dropped it, breaking the wood of the floor.

The entire Hall winced, Twins included. That wasn't fun to fix.

"You know what? Never mind."

Toothless is shown walking behind Hiccup as Tuffnut continued, "We got more important things on our agenda today."

"I agree," Hiccup said as Barf and Belch walked off, the Twins still standing perfectly balanced on their heads, "We need to keep fireproofing the island."

"Dude," Snotlout sighed, "You put way too much faith in them."

"No, no, no, that's not it."

They stopped, "We need to give out job assignments."

All the other Riders, with the exception of Snotlout, who loved being the Sergeant at Arms, groaned.

The Vikings, seeing the Riders' reactions, looked at one another, a little scared to go on.

"Job assignments?" Hiccup grimaced as he and Toothless shared a look.

"Oh," Tuffnut turned around as Ruffnut smirked, "We got some good ones. Come along, lad. Don't be late."

Hiccup mounted Toothless as the group flew off, the scene fading the show all the Riders gathered in the Arena.

"All right, Fishlegs," Tuffnut called, reading from a piece of parchment, "Says here; you are now the official poet laureate of Thorstonton."

"Do you even know what that means?" Fishlegs asked as Ruffnut gestured, "We were hoping you would! It's your job, after all!"

"What does laureate mean, anyway?" Tuffnut asked, stroking his chin in concentration while even the smartest Vikings of Berk, which was generally, with the exception of the Riders, not that smart, furrowed their brows in confusion. Despite being a self-proclaimed language and vocabulary connoisseur, he was still, well, Tuffnut, and he and his sister often got words confused.

"I'm actually not too sure myself," Hiccup blinked in realisation as Fishlegs nodded, "All the dictionaries are really vague and divided on this."

"I think it means 'Worthy of the greatest honour or distinction'?" Heather piped in as Astrid added, "I thought it was just some random adjective used in positive contexts?"

"I think it's actually a noun, but yeah," Hiccup shrugged, "It's really confusing."

"Really boring's more like it," Snotlout interrupted, "Can we get on with this?! I wanna see more of my handsomeness."

He turned towards Ruffnut for another attempt at flirting, "And I'm sure my babe wants that, too."

The other Riders either rolled their eyes or gave him a scowl, but let the subject drop. He did have a point, after all. They wanted to continue watching, as did most of the other Vikings.

Fishlegs stared blankly, as if allowing any emotion to show on his face would cause him to erupt.

"Astrid," Tuffnut called as Fishlegs blinked, the camera switching to Astrid, her face clearly annoyed but still somehow managing to keep calm, "You are the official royal brush-clearer."

Brush clearing? The Hofferson Parents gave a small chuckle at that, growing louder at the sight of Astrid's amused glare. Astrid was always pretty independent when it came to doing daily tasks, and she wasn't the type of child to do chores that others had assigned her to, especially not after Finn the Fearless died. She'd always rather be spending her time flinging axes at trees. She preferred to do tasks and whatever needed to be done of her own accord, and they always needed to be functional.

If she was to say, clean a shield, it would be because a shield would be much more effective in battle when clean, and not because of the aesthetic purposes of making the shield look nice. Even the clothes she wore would have a functional purpose, as the fabric was easy to move around in while the pauldrons and the other metal parts would be able to protect her. Looking nice was just an added bonus. Not that she didn't appreciate beauty and all, but it was never really her main reason for doing things.

Even after the whole fiasco with the Red Death and the end of the 300 Year War, as her obsession with becoming a shieldmaiden and restoring the family's honour had calmed down quite a bit, she would still be much more likely be seen flinging axes into trees, now with Stormfly joining her, flinging her tail-spikes at trees, than doing simple chores assigned by others solely for the purpose of "Prettying things up".

All in all, she would be less than enthused at the idea of clearing brush as a job. Especially since clearing brush was, in her eyes, just over-glorified gardening.

The rest of the Vikings had reached pretty much the same conclusion. Fishlegs would've been a better option for brush-clearing, they thought. After all, the boy did show great interest in botany and gardening.

"Man," Fishlegs whined a little, as Astrid turned around in her seat to look at him, "We should've traded jobs."

"Well," Astrid supposed, "Better than being a poet."

She nodded her head towards Hiccup, the latter having turned around to join the conversation, "Well, at least you guys weren't the 'Table Boy'," He rolled his eyes at their chuckles, he was never going to live that down, "Honestly, I think I'd prefer being the poet. We all should've traded jobs."

"Really?" Astrid smirked, "I didn't know you liked poetry."

"Hey, poetry's writing, and writing's like drawing with words, and I like drawing." Hiccup shrugged, "It could work... probably."

"Eh, too late, I guess," Fishlegs shrugged, "This was so long ago, and here we are talking about what we should've done."

"Yeah," Tuffnut suddenly joined the discussion, "Didn't we do this, like, two weeks ago?"

His query was met with silent grimaces. They preferred not thinking about that first night when they discovered that Stoick had been rendered unconscious. Hiccup visibly winced, and Astrid gave the twin a glare.

"He does make a point, you know," Fishlegs broke the silence, earning looks from the others, "Why's the Witch showing us all this? I guess I can get showing our parents what we've been doing, but that doesn't seem like a really convincing answer to me."

"Uh.. self-reflection?" Hiccup supplied, "But we've done plenty of that."

"Well, these moving-picture-things show what happened from different perspectives," Astrid theorised, "Maybe there's still a few things we need to learn?"

"Learn about what, though?" Tuffnut asked, "We know pretty much everything about the Dragon Eye and the Dragon Hunters."

"Maybe we need to learn more about each other?" Hiccup suggested, "But we've lived together for an entire year, I don't really think there's much more to learn."

"To be fair, that's what we said about each other before we all decided to move into the Edge, since we all worked in the Academy together," Astrid pointed out, "And we still learned a lot."

"Yeah," Tuffnut added with a smirking glance towards Snotlout, who was sitting at a different table picking his nose and trying to flirt with Ruffnut, "Like how old 'S' over there's obsessed with his own name."

"Says the one who literally renamed Dragon's Edge after your surname," Astrid snarked, "But, yeah."

"Guess we'll find out soon enough," Fishlegs shrugged again while the four turned to look back at the screen, which had continued quite a bit during their little moment of table-whispering.

Astrid's almost-scowl turns into a look of blank shock as Tuffnut continued, "We don't want Thorstonton burning down, after all."

"Wait, you don't?" One of the vikings asked as the others looked on with faces of equally blank shock. The Twins.. the two who had dedicated themselves to Loki and all things destructive, last time they checked... were taking measures to prevent destruction? The clearing brush wasn't just to pretty things up, but actually had a functional, constructive purpose?

What was going on?

The camera switches once again to the Twins, still standing on Barf and Belch's heads. Barf's head goes slightly upwards as Ruffnut smirked, "Or do we?"

"Hmm," Tuffnut contemplated this for a moment, squinting before giving his sister a smile that said, 'Fair point'.

Most of the hall, dragons included, gulped at that while the Riders just rolled their eyes.

"I'm not clearing brush for you two!" Astrid said, smiling as if to say, 'You're joking, right?' and pointing at the ground to prove her point, "I'm not clearing anything for you two!"

"Better than clearing dragon dung," Gobber remarked, "Don't ya think?"

"Yeah," Gustav agreed, having had experience in that field for two years straight, "That could've been way worse."

"Come on, Astrid," Hiccup consoled as he approached the angry Astrid from behind. Astrid's face turns to a look of not-exactly-enthusiastic defeat.

"Oh, you'll do it," Tuffnut pointed from atop Belch's head, "And you'll like it, little missy."

"'Little Missy'?" Heather chuckled a little as Snotlout snickered, "What is he, your mom?"

"Oh, hah, hah, guys." Astrid smirked back while the Hofferson Parents gave an amused look.

"Snotlout," Tuffnut called, twisting his body around to face him as Toothless walked over, positioning himself behind Hiccup and Astrid to watch the drama, "You, my friend, have an excellent job."

The camera switches to Snotlout, who crosses his arms with a doubtful look.

"You, sir," Tuffnut announced, "Are our new Sergeant at Arms."

"'Sergeant at Arms'?" Stoick asked incredulously. That was a bit overkill, wasn't it? He could maybe understand if the overall population on the Edge was as high as Berk's, but it was just the Riders, their dragons, and a few wild dragons here and there. It's not like they were expecting the human population to grow, unless, well, Hiccup and Astrid... you know. But that was unlikely... right? And appointing Snotlout? Then again, it was the Twins. Why would they do anything that made some sort of sense?

"Mm." Snotlout stroked his chin, "I like the sound of that- 'Arms'."

"Knew you would!" Tuffnut pointed before looking at his parchment again, "All right, Hiccup."

Toothless and the other Riders snickered as they all remembered the job that their dear leader had been assigned. Hiccup himself only rolled his eyes with a smirk, "Oh, hardy, har."

Judging from the Riders' reactions, the rest of the Vikings who'd seen them could tell that whatever job it was, it had to be embarrassing. Stoick and Gobber gave each other a look before directing their eyes towards the screen once more.

"Oh, Hiccup," Tuffnut smiled, "You are our new stable boy!"

A pause. If this was a skit, you'd probably be able to hear a record-scratch. In fact, some of the Vikings even swore that they could hear a scratching sound of some kind, likely due to the Witch's magic.

Stable boy. A stable boy. Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the Third, the famous "Dragon Conquerer", the slayer of the Red Death and the Pride of Berk, reduced to a stable boy.

There was a snort from somewhere in the crowd. Then a few snickers. Then came giggles from all around, quickly evolving into chuckles, and then within seconds, the entire Hall had burst into a cacophony of booming laughter.

Stoick didn't know whether to laugh at the sheer hilarity of the situation, or to be angry that his son had been treated with such disrespect and demand the silence of the Hall, but his decision had been made when he saw that even Hiccup himself couldn't help but join in the chaos, and Stoick's merry roar of laughter thundered over all the rest.

"Oh," Snotlout wiped a fake tear from his eye, "How the mighty have fallen."

Toothless was the only one in the hall who was not amused, being the overprotective reptile that he was, and whacked the Twins with his tail. He'd forgotten about the whole incident, and, well, did not need to remember.

Tuffnut lowers the scroll to reveal the camera zooming in on Hiccup's shocked face, Astrid snickering into her hand while Hiccup straightens up, at first, angry, but then his face turns into one of utmost incredulity, "STABLE BOY!?"

Toothless growled angrily and began to pace around while Astrid laughed into her palm. Astrid then moves to nudge Hiccup in the shoulder, "Come on, Hiccup."

Hiccup just looks on in disbelief before sighing heavily.

Any laughter that might have died down only reemerged as they all took in the sights of Hiccup's face, Toothless' growls and Astrid's cheek.

Hiccup chuckled seeing Toothless' behaviour and rubbed his head soothingly to calm the angry dragon down. Toothless, despite this happening months and months ago, was still not having it. No matter how much time had passed, nothing would change the fact that letting the Twins take charge of the island was a terrible idea. No, beyond terrible, and seeing Hiccup willingly resign himself into playing along was even worse.

Meanwhile, ignoring Toothless' snorts of protest, Hiccup gave Astrid a smirk, "You enjoyed parroting me way too much."

Astrid smirked in return, "Come on, you know I had too." With Hiccup's tendency to repeat others' words in mockery, intentional or not, how could she pass up any opportunity to do the same to him?

"So, uh," Snotlout approached, "Here's a question: What's a 'Sergeant at Arms' do, anyway?"

Tuffnut pointed at him as Ruffnut smirked with her arms crossed in the background, "You enforce the rules. If someone doesn't follow them, you make sure they do. And if things get really nasty.."

The camera zooms in on his face, "..You show them to the fancy new dungeon... and give them some yak dung tea. Got it?"

"Dungeon?" Stoick asked with a hint of surprise.

"Since when did you guys have a dungeon?" Heather asked. Though her time living on the Edge was a bit short, she'd never come across any kind of dungeon area before.

"We didn't," Hiccup replied, the bridge of his nose in his fingers, "But the Twins were pretty creative in that aspect, I'll give them that."

"Dungeon!" Snotlout pointed finger-guns despite not knowing what guns are, "I like it. Better than 'Stable Boy'."

Hiccup was not amused.

There was a tiny snort from somewhere in the audience.

"Okay," Tuffnut tossed the scroll aside, "and speaking of new rules," he took another scroll from a pocket in his vest, "Without further adieu,"

"Yeah," Ruffnut took the unrolled parchment from his hand, "no more further adieus."

"Anyway," She opened up the scroll. "Rule number one: Everyone must bow to your rulers.."

Hiccup shook his head slightly before he and Astrid exchanged glances, "..When they enter the room."

Gobber snickered, nudging Stoick lightly in the shoulders, "They look like tired parents, don'tcha think?"

Stoick could hardly contain his excited squeal at the mere thought of the two being parents and him having grandchildren, which was quite an amusing sight coming from the mighty Stoick the Vast.

"Rule number two:" Tuffnut had snatched the scroll back, "Everyone must also bow to your rulers when they exit the room."

Bow when they exit? Now that was a bit strange. How would they even tell if their so-called 'subjects' were bowing if they'd most likely have their backs turned towards them when exiting a room? They wouldn't be able to see it happening in the first place!

Then again, it was the Twins.

"Everyone must bow to your rulers," Ruffnut had reclaimed the scroll, "When they are in the room!"

"How does that even make any sense?" Dagur asked, "Like, would you have to bow repeatedly in their presence, or would you have to bow once and hold your position until they leave?"

"I mean, not even Throkie over here bows that much."

Throk rolled his eyes at that last comment and that accursed nickname, earning a chuckle from the former, but nodded in agreement nonetheless. Being the Queen's second-in-command and taking the job very seriously, acting formally even in times of casual relaxation had become a bit of a habit for him. He just simply couldn't help it, though having the Berserkers around did.. what was the phrase.. 'loosen things up' a little.

In spite of their guilt over the whole ordeal, the Twins were still, well, the Twins, and looked oblivious as to what Dagur's point exactly was. They thought they'd been quite clear back then; Bow when they were in the room.

"So..." Hiccup approached, "Basically we just bow all the time?"

"Ooh, Stable Boy," Tuffnut replied as his sister read the scroll, "Coming in for the big win!"

"That deserves a bow. From you. I'm not doing any bowing."

"Seriously?" Gobber asked.

Hiccup rolled his eyes and begrudgingly bowed from the waist, putting one of his hands behind him in a formal manner.

Silent snickers spread throughout the Hall, though none of them were meant in disrespect. In fact, their respect for the Pride of Berk grew as they saw how Hiccup had bowed so cordially despite his clear distaste for the Twins' ridiculousness. Besides, many of them knew better than to mock an angry Hiccup.

Toothless, however, growled lowly. He really didn't want to see Hiccup resign himself to playing along a second time.

Hiccup himself, however, had taken it in stride and was watching the screen mostly with amusement. He had to admit, it was rather fun watching the past experiences that he and his friends had gone through, and it was even more fun watching the rest of Berk's reactions.

"Next," Ruffnut read, "There will be a small fee for landing your dragons on the island."

Tuffnut continued, "And another small fee for taking off."

"There will be a fee for sleeping."

So far so good, if a bit unorthodox. A fee for landing and departing? The Vikings could understand that if there was to be high air traffic. They could even understand if there was to be a fee for sleeping, since that was how taverns and inns worked. These fees seemed surprisingly reasonable for an area with a higher population, though a bit unnecessary for a place as small as Dragon's Edge.

"A fee for waking up."

..And there it was. Why were they not surprised..?

"A fee for eating."

"And a small fee for drinking."

"How about breathing?" Astrid drawled, her arms crossed.

"Good idea!" Tuffnut pointed at her before whispering to Ruffnut, "Mark that down."

"Way ahead of you."

A round of snorts and "Seriously?"s ran through the Hall. How could the Twins be so smart, and yet so stupid?

"And finally," Tuffnut addressed his supposed subjects, "the letter 'S' has been officially removed from the alphabet,"

"Err... what?" Was the general reply of the audience. That was a completely random law, even from the Twins. Didn't the name 'Thorstonton' have an 'S' in it, anyway?

Cheekily, Hiccup called out to Gobber, "Hey, take a swig everytime they break one of their own rules!"

"Oh no, yeh don't! I'm not gonna fall prey to yer schemes," Now, Gobber normally wasn't one to back down from a challenge and mead, but he also didn't want to completely destroy his own handsome body. Besides, he was well over fifty. He wasn't even sure if his body could handle it.

"..so you're going to want to avoid words like sword.."

"..Severed leg," Ruffnut continued.

"Severed head,"

"Cyclone!"

"That's actually a 'C'," Fishlegs corrected.

Seriously. Even the dumbest Vikings knew that.

"Uh-uh-uh-uh-uh!" Tuffnut ordered, "Notlout, quiet him!"

"Notlout?" Snotlout asked, genuinely wondering who Tuffnut was referring too before walking off, "Who's Notlout?"

"Oh, here we go," Spitelout groaned as Snotlout's uncles, Griplout, Scablout, Wartlout, and Burplout, all scratched their heads -or in Griplout's case, seeing as he'd lost both of his arms, got his dragon to scratch his head- as if asking the same question. Another relative?

The camera pans towards Hiccup and Astrid with Toothless standing behind them Astrid has her arms crossed as she asked, "Do you two realise that there is an 'S' in the name of your island?"

"Ilence, ubject!" Tuffnut pointed towards her, "How dare you ay such thing?"

By now, the Hall was echoing with the Vikings' laughs and chuckles at Tuffnut's slip-up. Oh, this was going to be hilarious.

"Oops," was all that Tuffnut said as he realised his mistake.

"..And strike one!" Astrid smirked. She'd decided that she was going to keep track of how many times the Twins broke their own laws, just to give a bit of a scale to their absurdities.

Heather snickered, "Don't you mean, 'Trike one'?"

"A-any other rules?" Hiccup asked.

To answer that question, Tuffnut pulled out another scroll from his pocket and unrolled it.

The Twins' look of triumphancy was quickly cut short as a single Fireworm flew through the parchment, tearing a burning hole into it. The Twins both pressed their faces together as the camera zooms in on them looking through the smoldering hole.

Meanwhile, Toothless, Hiccup and Astrid all recoil cautiously as the Fireworm lands, crawling towards them.

"Oh, yeah!" Dagur realised as well as the other Vikings, "The Fireworm thing!"

"Oh-ho-ho," Heather smirked, "No way."

"Wait a moment," Stoick asked as he turned to look at the Riders disbelievingly, "You mean to tell me that the Fireworm migration was happening at the same time period during which the Twins were left in charge?"

The Riders winced as Hiccup answered, "...Yeah?"

"Wow," Stoick chuckled, "Just, wow."

Though he'd known about the Twins having ended their rule because of the Terror-mail that Hiccup had sent him back then, the young heir had never really specified why or how. Now, considering the Fireworm Migration that was taking place at the time, he was getting quite curious as to how exactly the whole situation unfolded. Nonetheless, it was still quite impressive that the situation had been handled at all.

"Well then." Gobber remarked without continuing as the other Vikings either chuckled or gave the Riders sympathetic looks.

"Table Boy," Tuffnut called as the scroll's fire died down, "clean that up!"

"Okay, while I'm doing this," Hiccup warned as he picked up the Fireworm with a stick, "You guys need to stay on top of this Fireworm thing."

The stick immediately catches on fire as Hiccup lobbed the Fireworm towards Toothless, who bats it away with his tail.

"It's starting to get pretty real," Hiccup said as the flaming stick died down, the camera panning to reveal large pillars of smoke coming from a distant forest fire.

"Yeah," Snotlout commented dryly, "No kidding."

A sense of curiosity filled the air. True, there was a bit of unease and worry, but the Vikings all knew that these events had long since unfolded and they had been through worse. Well, most of them, anyway. There were quite a few forgetful folks within the crowd. How exactly did the Riders manage to tackle the Fireworm migration with the Twins in charge?

The camera cuts towards Toothless carrying a pail in his mouth and approaching Hiccup, who is seen giving Barf a neck scrub. The Zippleback lies on the floor, completely relaxed.

"Uh," Tuffnut asked as he and his sister approached, "Aren't you forgetting something?"

"What?" Hiccup asked as he scrubbed Barf's neck, before getting up and rolling his eyes with a bow, "Oh, right. Sorry."

"That's better." Ruffnut pointed with a smirk.

"Now, let's have a look at your work, Table Boy," Tuffnut said as he walked around, Hiccup giving him a deathly stare.

Toothless grumbled. True, the Twins had since grown emotionally quite a bit, but at the time? His silly human had put far too much faith in the Twins. Though he couldn't fault him, the dragon supposed. After all, it was his sworn brother's immense trust and faith in him that had made them friends in the first place. Well, that and stubbornness, that is.

Toothless put down his bucket and snarled lowly.

"Geez, bud." Hiccup asked, "Why are you still so mad about this?"

"Because you're supposed to be treated with respect!" Toothless had wanted to shout, but alas, he couldn't speak Norse. His human had been through and was going through enough in his life, especially in the emotional aspects of his childhood, and he most certainly didn't need more of that added to the pile! Honestly, couldn't this boy just see his own worth?

"Hmm," Tuffnut commented as he examined the Zippleback's right wing, "Good! That's nice attention to detail."

"Uh," Ruffnut pointed out, "We have a problem."

"What?" Hiccup asked with an incredulous sigh, "What's the problem?"

Tuffnut dipped a single finger into the water bucket and lifted it out with disgust, "Pathetic."

"Disgraceful." Ruffnut agreed.

"Unacceptable!" Tuffnut shook his head.

The Vikings exchanged looks and only shrugged. The water looked clean enough, by viking standards. Was there a bug in there, or something?

"What is it?!" Hiccup asked, gesturing his arms wide in incredulousness.

"This water is lukewarm!" Tuffnut shouted, stomping his feet as he pointed at the pail, "We pecifically asked for scalding-" He kicked the bucket and corrected himself, "Sorry, calding, if I'm not miskaken."

A few of the Vikings just held their heads in their hands with giggles and chuckles, while the others groaned. Oh, the Twins.

"Yeah," Gobber drawled, "I'm not gonna take on that challenge of yours, Hiccup, unless I wanna end up burnin' on a boat!"

Hiccup only chuckled in response. Yeah, he figured as much.

Tuffnut crossed his arms as his twin continued, "Oh, you are not mitaken, brother."

"Fine," Hiccup replied, "scalding-" he winced, "calding it is."

"Toothless," He called, pointing at the pail, probably regretting his life decisions, "Tooth-le...Plama blat!"

Toothless shot at the bucket, engulfing the Twins with smoke from the blast. The Twins coughed and yelled, but the water in the bucket was, indeed, boiling. They were not amused. The dragon growled happily at his work of having successfully smoked the Twins, but the feeling wasn't mutual.

"I'm keeping an eye on you," Tuffnut said as he approached, "Mr. Night Fury."

The camera zooms in as Tuffnut pointed to his left eye for emphasis, "My good eye."

"Wait, you have a bad eye?" Fishlegs asked curiously.

"Yeah," Tuffnut responded as his sister continued, "He's short-sighted in his right eye, and it got worse when we were kids."

"Well, why don't you go see Gothi?" Fishlegs suggested, "Or just.. wear eyeglasses?"

"Puh-lease!" drawled Tuffnut, looking positively affronted at the very idea, "Eyeglasses are way too much of a hassle to get, and besides, they wouldn't fit with.." he gestured at himself, "..All this."

"You just gestured to all of yourself," Hiccup deadpanned, "Besides, it would only take a few days. Remember when we flew way out South and got Snotlout that monocle?"

"You mean the monocle that Snotlout always keeps in his pocket in case he needs to be dramatic?" Astrid said with a smirk before turning to face the Twins, "But, yeah, Tuff. Eyeglasses wouldn't be that hard to get."

"Eh," Tuffnut shrugged before smiling, "Nah, I think it's cool!"

"What, not being able to clearly see what's in front of you?" Snotlout snarked. He knew the Twins couldn't be that stupid, could they? What was that about parasites and symbio-something? Besides, the little monocle did come in handy when he wrote his book about how great he was and wanted to see his words more clearly.

"Yeah!" Ruffnut replied for her brother, who nodded way too enthusiastically as she spoke, "It gets him into more danger, it's fun!"

Fishlegs looked over to Gothi, but the elder simply just shrugged. The Twins always got into so much danger, and she'd practically given up on healing all of their minor wounds. Their numerous injuries did allow their bodies to heal faster and stronger, after all.

"Wait," Hiccup asked as Tuffnut walked off, sounding genuinely concerned, "Are you telling me you have a bad eye?"

"Wait," Ruffnut mocked, "Are you telling me you have a bad leg?"

"Thought so," she said before giving Hiccup a chance to respond.

"Well," Astrid remarked, suppressing a chuckle, "I guess you could say that you three..."

"Astrid," Hiccup warned, fighting back a chuckle himself, "Don't-"

"...Got off on the wrong foot?"

"Ohhh," Hiccup snarked dryly as he heard the others giggle, "Real funny, a-always with the leg jokes!"

To be completely honest, though, despite whatever words came out of his mouth, Hiccup did mind those quite a tiny bit. He knew the Gang's many jests about his leg were all in good fun, especially when it came from Astrid, and he'd even cracked a few jokes about it himself. It just got oh, so annoying. He didn't particularly enjoy, no- he hated having petty -or what he considered petty, at least- thoughts, but they weren't the ones dealing with phantom pain nearly every other week and having to maintain his prosthetic so he wouldn't get cut by it or infected.

He had sometimes wondered how Gobber managed to remain relativity sane after nearly a decade of the arm and leg jokes that Hiccup himself had made over the years of being his apprentice. Then again, maybe Gobber wasn't exactly the best example for sanity.

"...And the weirdness continues," Hiccup commented as he and Toothless watched the Twins walk inside.

The scene fades to show Astrid and Stormfly landing on a platform with a shriek. Conveniently, or rather, inconveniently, Ruffnut is there to witness.

"That's a two-mackerel landing charge, little lady."

Astrid sighs, rightfully irritated, before she hops her dragon in another direction.

"Two more mackerel." Ruffnut stated, holding up her fingers to count before giving her brother a nudge, "Are you keeping track or should I?"

The Vikings chuckled, albeit it was a little scattered. A few of the Vikings actually felt their irritation grow along with the onscreen Astrid's.

Gobber coughed into his prosthetic arm, before nudging Stoick in the shoulder warily, "Looks like you've got some new ideas for re-earning Berk's gold."

Stoick laughed, and pretended to consider it, much to the horror of the rest of the tribe who actually thought he was being serious. Stoick himself didn't really find the idea too entertaining, though. It just didn't seem very honourable to charge a landing fee. No, Berk's gold would be re-earned slowly, steadily, and graciously.

"No," Tuffnut said in response, "I got it."

"Look," Astrid started, "I don't have any more mackerel, and if I did, I wouldn't give it to you for you dumb take-off and landing charge."

"Excue me," Tuffnut stumbled forward, "Are you calling the laws of this land dumb?"

"Yes, exactly," Astrid whisper-grumbled to herself, much to Hiccup's amusement.

"You don't like 'dumb'?" Astrid mocked, "How about.." She twirled her hand in thought, "dopey?"

"Brainless, Dimwitted, Moronic," She gestured with her hands for emphasis, "Shall I go on?"

"Huh, wow," Dagur commented to the agreement of the other Vikings, "You really have heard a lot of words for 'stupid'."

Tuffnut wasn't very amused.

"Notlout!" He demanded.

"Coming in hot!" Snotlout shouted as he and Hookfang flew over, "Ergeant at arm Notlout reporting!"

Spitelout groaned loudly. While he was proud that his son had been given a higher rank in the system, the boy was far too eager to serve under such incompetent rulers. Dare he think it, they were more moronic than Stoick.

Snotlout himself pretended not to notice his father's groan and pointed at himself onscreen, acting with his usual arrogant gusto, "Look at me up there! All Ergeant- I mean, Sergeant-at-Arm-sy. I look awesome, right?"

He was met with annoyed silence, before he switched gears to try his hand at another attempt at flirting with Ruffnut, "I'm awesome, right?"

Ruffnut groaned in reply and sat further away, before being annoyingly met with flowers from Fishlegs and then climbing onto Barf's neck to sulk there.

Tuffnut turned around while Astrid steamed, "Take this mutineer to the new dungeon, and her little dragon, too."

The camera zooms in on a furiously incredulous Astrid while Tuffnut continued, "Give her some time to think about her attitude."

"Wait," Fishlegs held a hand up in question, "How come Snotlout didn't have to pay the fee?"

"Oh, yeah." Tuffnut realised as a smirk crept up his face, "Snotlout, you owe us four mackerel."

"Fishface!" Snotlout hissed. Fishlegs turned around and whistled, pretending not to have heard him. Oh, that was diabolical. He was so going to take notes and use it later.

"Ah-hah," Snotlout snarked at the Twins, "Yeah, no. You're not the rulers anymore, and we're not living there anymore, anyway!"

"Dungeon?" Astrid raised her voice and an eyebrow, "Are you serious?"

"Do we look serious?" Tuffnut asked as he turned around, his sister with her hands on her hips in agreement.

"No," The Vikings silently thought as they watched, either chuckling or face-palming.

"Ughh!" Astrid groaned.

"You know," Tuffnut pondered as Astrid and Stormfly hobbled off, "That's a good question. Do we?"

"I don't know," Ruffnut said, "Here, give me your best serious face."

Tuffnut complied as the camera switches to a close-up of him.

"Woah," Ruffnut commented, "Pretty serious. Okay, what about me?"

Ruffnut pulls of a face that looks more ridiculous than serious as Tuffnut replied, "Oh, yeah."

"Okay," Ruffnut stared blankly, "Yeah, we look pretty serious."

The Vikings raised their eyebrows and turned towards the Twins, who only shrugged in response.

The scene fades to show the Twins feasting with Chicken by their side as Fishlegs is heard reading a poem off-screen.

"There was once an island named Thorstonton," Fishlegs read as the camera switched to reveal him.

"Where everybody wanted to have fun, fun, fun," He looked more and more uncertain as he went on, "We sang and we danced, and we all peed our pants when the ruler came up with a great pun.. pun, pun."

"Oh, s'il te plaît," Tuffnut sighed as Fishlegs let out an embarrassed huff. The nostalgia of looking back did not improve the poem at all. In fact, it seemed to have aged it even worse. The Vikings failed at masking their cringe out of respect for the Rider, which only served to dampen Fishlegs' mood.

"Fish," Snotlout put a hand on his friend's shoulder in faux solemness, "You suck at writing poems."

The Twins only looked bored and annoyed.

Chicken squawked as Tuffnut leaned towards her, "The chicken is not amused."

"Notlout!" He called as the Ergeant at Arm came flying in, "Ir, ye, ir, right here!"

Amidst the noise of Spitelout's groan, Snotlout's mother found herself amused at her little viking's enthusiasm and gave a quiet laugh. It had been a good while since she'd since her son so happy and carefree.

Tuffnut pointed, "To the dungeon with him!"

"No, no!" Fishlegs shrieked as the Monstrous Nightmare dragged him away by the collar, "The Chicken is wrong, the Chicken is wrong!"

"How dare you?" Tuffnut demanded, "The Chicken is never wrong!"

Chicken squawked as Tuffnut lowered his voice to console her, "Shh, I'm sorry you had to hear that." He rubbed her feathers, "That's it, quiet. There we go."

The scene fades to show to camera panning upwards from the Edge to the sky, revealing a cloud of Fireworms steadily approaching. The Night Terrors are shown squealing and flying away as they prepared to enact a plan of their own while the Fireworms flew over.

The Vikings' laughter faded as they grew increasingly worried. The Riders had not prepared for it at all, so just how did the Island manage to survive?

The scene quickly cuts to the stables as Snotlout's voice is heard echoing from inside, "All right, giddy up!"

"They used the stables as a dungeon?" Stoick asked incredulously. Though it was clever, seeing how the stables could be locked and did, admittedly, look like cages, they weren't exactly secure, and if it was to stick, it would mean the dragons would have to sleep elsewhere.

"I think we've used the stables as cages more than once, actually," Hiccup pointed out. Hey, the idea was clever for a temporary holding area, and he had to to give credit where credit was due.

Snotlout is shown pushing Fishlegs and Astrid into one of the stables as Hiccup watches in silence, "Get back in line!"

"Snotlout," Hiccup asks, holding a broom, "What are you doing?"

"Never you mind, Table Boy!" Snotlout yelled as he unlocked a 'cage', he himself looking unsure, "This is official Thortonton..ston.. business."

He quickly opened the door to one of the stables and directed the 'criminals' inside, "Welcome to your new home, jailbirds."

Snotlout laughed as they went inside. Fishlegs looked his usual worried self while Astrid looked thoroughly peeved while the door was locked shut and Snotlout and Hookfang flew off.

"What are you in for?" Hiccup smirked, leaning back to see the prisoners.

"Funny," Astrid drawled dryly, "Exactly how long are you going to let this go on? Have you seen all those Fireworms?"

"Yeah, Hiccup," Fishlegs pointed out, "The migration is picking up steam!"

In a hilarious twist of convenient timing, Meatlug lets out a fart.

The children and Tuffnut laughed at the coincidental timing and, well, the fart joke, while the older Vikings all groaned.

"Haha," Tuffnut smirked, sounding somewhat delirious, possibly from drinking mead, "He said steam, and she uh- eh, you know."

Ruffnut rolled her eyes at her twin's lame attempt at comedy as Astrid took the words right out of her mouth, "We get it, Tuff."

"Ho, ho, ho!" Fishlegs waved his hand as he tried to ward off the smell, "She does not deal well with prison food."

"But.." Heather paused, "She didn't even eat anything yet."

"Yeah," Fishlegs admitted, "But the idea made Meatlug nervous."

Astrid retched, walking offscreen as Hiccup held out his hand in consolement before walking off as well, "Alright, alright. I-I-I'll talk to them."

The Vikings sighed in relief. Oh, finally.

"I'm.." He stuttered as the camera switches to reveal Toothless standing off to the side as well, "I'm sure I can get this all straightened out."

"Yeah," Hiccup crossed his arms, "T-t-that didn't happen."

Hiccup walked away as the Night Fury hopped alongside him. The scene then changes to night, as another Night Terror flew off while the Twins and their Zippleback flew overhead the burning forest.

"So," Hiccup asked as he and Toothless came flying nearby, "You guys surveying the damage?"

"No," Tuffnut responded, "We're looking for a place to build our summer palace."

The entire Hall sighed in exasperation, of course they weren't surveying the damage. It seemed their earlier panic about the Twins was completely unjustified... or was it?

Ruffnut pointed towards a particularly flaming part of the forest, "That might be a nice area once the fires burn the vegetation away!"

"Any thoughts, Table Boy?" Tuffnut asked as the camera switches to Hiccup, who is revealed to be carrying his Gronckle-Iron shield, squinting to look before replying, "Yeah, j-just one. Have you considered the fact that if you throw everyone in jail, there's no one left to actually build your summer palace?"

The Twins looked at each other in consideration, as if they'd just realised this, "We're listening."

"And... what about the Fireworm Migration?" Hiccup asked, blocking off two approaching Fireworms with his shield.

"Hm," Fishlegs leaned forward as he observed the small stripes and patches of grey on Toothless' scales.

"Wha-what is it?" Hiccup asked.

Fishlegs pointed at the Toothless onscreen, "Hiccup, take a look at the patches and stripes on Toothless' scales."

"Huh," Hiccup tilted his head to the side, a habit he picked up from spending so much time with the Night Fury in question, "They're more.. bright, I guess?"

He'd definitely seen those markings before. How could he have not after spending so much time with Toothless? Though they always looked more gradient and blended in more. Curiously, he took a look at the real Toothless, who happily obliged and lifted his wings to allow the human to see them better.

"They look a lot more faded, now." Hiccup observed, and it was true. There were far less markings and those that remained took quite of bit of squinting to see, "Maybe they're like deer spots, going away as he gets older?"

And for another moment out of many, Hiccup wondered just how old his best friend was. Was this a sign of maturity, or old age? Toothless was still pretty spry, more so than ever, in fact, so it couldn't be age. Was he sick? Well, that would be one heck of a long time to be sick, then.

"Woah," breathed Fishlegs, snapping Hiccup out of his thoughts. The larger boy stood alongside him to see the faint stripes for himself, "Maybe we should add this to the Dragon Manual?"

"Urghh," Snotlout uninterestedly groaned, attracting the ire of the three and any observers, "Nerd out about this later! I wanna watch the thing!"

"Don't you think it might be a good idea to have everyone working so that we can stop.." He paused, "Thorstonton from burning down?"

"I see your point," Tuffnut noted, he and his sister looking unusually solemn, "But.. I also see something else."

"Oh, yeah!" Ruffnut agreed.

"What?" Hiccup asked, "What's that?"

"Toothless is flying as fast as Barf and Belch!" Ruffnut pointed out as Tuffnut continued, "And by Thorstonton law,"

"That," Ruffnut continued, "is illegal!"

And so, our dear Hiccup found himself locked in the stables with the others.

"So," Astrid smirked cheekily, "What you in for?"

"Astrid, please."

"What?" Astrid asked with a hint of laughter in her voice, "Just trying to be funny."

The Vikings laughed at the two's interactions as Hiccup and Astrid smirked at each other. Meanwhile, Gobber faked an annoyed groan, "You two were made for each other, I swear."

Viking youngsters and their sarcasm, it was practically spreading like a plague! He let out a small sigh with a sad smile. Oh, how Hiccup had grown. The sarcasm wasn't something all that unique to the banter that he and his little apprentice used to share alone in the Forge anymore. The little apprentice was no longer so little, nor was he his apprentice anymore, either. Gobber, very much like Stoick, was just so proud of Hiccup and how he'd grown that it hurt.

Meanwhile, Snotlout is seen grunting and pulling himself in as Hookfang followed sadly.

"Snotlout?" Hiccup asked in concern as his cousin threw himself onto the ground.

"Hey!" Astrid grunted as Hookfang squeezed in, knocking her and Stormfly to the side. Snotlout closes the door to the surprisingly big stable and looked forlorn, "I was framed."

Spitelout sighed and put a hand to his face, pinching the bridge of his nose as the rest of the Hall gave scattered snickers. What a drama king.

"Alright, that's it," Astrid pushed Hookfang's wing to the side, "We're breaking out of here!"

"Great!" Snotlout switched gears completely, "Then we go back to my plan." He slid his fist across his neck and hissed.

"Guys, guys," Hiccup stepped between them, "We're fine. There's nothing to worry about!"

Snotlout didn't look too convinced.

"I mean," Hiccup continued, "The Twins can't be that oblivious!"

The Vikings gave Hiccup a blank stare. Meanwhile, the Twins were feeling pretty surprised. Did Hiccup really have that much faith in them even way back then? The feeling of guilt grew further over what had transpired inside them. Yes, they were that oblivious. They let the Edge nearly burn to the ground and didn't do anything about it until the rest of the Gang stepped in.

The rest of the gang, meanwhile, grew more and more concerned about the Twins' silent expressions. The Twins knew that the other Riders didn't hate them for their mistakes, especially when this was all so long ago, right?

Apparently, that wasn't what the Twins thought.

The Twins are then seen spending their time kicking a sheep around like a ball, the stuffed Yak looking horrified as usual while the Twins drop the sheep and laugh.

The Vikings groaned and facepalmed, although a few exasperated snorts and chuckles were heard scattered around.

Tuffnut gives chase as the sheep runs away, bleating, before he stops and spots something in the sky.

"What?" Tuffnut paused the chase, spotting a Fireworm heading his way.

"Woah, check it out!" Tuffnut points at the approaching dragon as Ruffnut appears from behind.

The Fireworm lands and the Twins smile in mischievous awe, "Fireworm!"

"Uh oh," Dagur whispered to nobody in particular. The rest of the Hall echoed with similar thoughts.

"Burns with the heat of a thousand suns!" Ruffnut continued.

"Ah, those little guys," Tuffnut cooed as he stomped on the flames trailing behind the dragon.

"Oh look," Ruffnut gestured as another Fireworm landed on the platform, spinning around to look as it moved behind, "It has a little buddy!"

Another of those 'little buddies' came crashing down, practically lighting the wooden platform on fire.

"Ow!" Tuffnut grouched in pain as a Fireworm knocked off his helmet, putting a hand on his head.

The Vikings winced. Ooh, that had to hurt. Even with the Twins' penchant for pain, the Vikings knew they had some sort of limit, and so that hit almost certainly must've felt unpleasant. Having a hard, metal helmet quickly scrape and knock over and off your head -possibly leaving cuts and infected scars- wasn't exactly the best feeling on Earth.

"Woah!" Ruffnut gasped as a Fireworm lit up a pot full of charcoal way too close to her for her liking. Amidst the chaos, the sheep that they'd been tossing around had its wool lit on fire. Barf and Belch turned their heads towards each other and seemed to be panicking, as more and more Fireworms invaded the Edge.

"No!" Tuffnut screamed as he stomped on the ground, attempting to snuff out the flames, "Stop, stop!"

"As the ruler of Thorstonton," Tuffnut began as he turned around, his back facing the Fireworms burning everything down, "I'm ordering the ruler's sister-" He pointed at Ruffnut as the latter crossed her arms, "-to do something about this Fireworm problem!"

"Yeah, uh, a little too late for that, don't'cha think?"

The Twins and the other Riders gave Snotlout a glare, effectively shutting him up. Of course they knew they were too late! Maybe not back then, but they most certainly knew now.

"What do you want me to do?" Ruffnut asked incredulously, "I'm not the boss of them."

"Well," Tuffnut replied, pacing back and forth, "If we don't do something, they're going to burn Thorstonton to the ground!"

Ruffnut stomped her foot moodily, as she realised, "Just like Hiccup said!"

"What did you think was going to happen?" Hiccup asked breathlessly while the Twins only shrugged in response. Oh, the Twins. It was like they were incredibly smart and yet incredibly dumb at the same time.

As if fate itself was dealing some sort of critical blow, the Thorstonton sign caught on fire.

"This is all your fault!" The Twins accused of each other.

"Uh, didn't you say that you wanted the Edge burnin' to the ground?" Dogsbreath asked from somewhere within the crowd. The tall boy was about two years older than the Dragon Riders, and so never spent enough time with them to be their friend apart from Snotlout, who wasn't even his friend anymore, anyway. Needless to say, the young brute was in an even worse mood that usual, and seemed to be practically itching for a fight.

He seemed oblivious to the glares from practically the entire Village as he continued, "You got what you asked for! And who cares if ya stupid sign's burnin' down, anyway?"

"We didn't mean it literally!" Ruffnut growled, standing up from her seat as Tuffnut held on to Chicken, Barf, and Belch for comfort, "The Edge was our home, we didn't want it completely destroyed! Why else do you think we haven't even tried completely burning the entirety of Berk to the ground?"

Individual houses, barrels, farms, and broken walls could all easily be rebuilt and repaired. Berk was a big island, and the trees were almost as tough as the Berkians themselves! There would always be plenty of wood to use. Just because they liked destruction didn't mean they wanted everything destroyed! They just wanted to have fun, and what good was having fun if there was nobody else around to share it with?

The Vikings obviously couldn't read the Twins' thoughts, but they did get the general message from Ruffnut's outburst. The Riders and their dragons gave defensive glares, as if daring anyone to speak otherwise. No matter how annoying, weird, insensitive and stupid they were, and no matter how many times the Riders themselves jokingly insulted them, the Twins were still two of their best friends. The group just wouldn't be complete without them. Now if only the silent tension that followed wasn't so awkward..

The scene then cut to reveal more of the Edge on fire, cutting away again to a shot on Astrid in the stables.

"That smoke is getting close, and where there's smoke-"

"-There's Fireworms," Fishlegs sighed as Meatlug and Stormfly shook rapidly, eager to get out.

"Alright, you know what?" Hiccup called, as the camera panned towards him, "Experiment over!"

The vikings and dragons of the Hall sighed quietly in relief, still not daring to speak a word under the watchful glares of the Riders. That could only mean that the Edge would no longer be in the possession of the Thorstons, and those words were reassurance enough.

"We are getting out there and stopping them before there's nothing left of this island."

"Finally!" Astrid sighed. If the bags under her eyes were any indication, she had been waiting for this moment the whole day.

"Toothless," Hiccup called as the Night Fury shifted his stance, "Plasma blast!"

Just as Toothless readied his blast with a growl, the Twins arrived just in time.

"Hey, guys?" Tuffnut asked as Toothless swallowed back his blast. His nostrils smoked as he panted for air.

The dragons gave their unofficial Alpha a look of sympathy. Swallowing back a blast was never a good feeling, especially after a long night of antics.

"Now's our chance!" Snotlout said as he called his dragon to attention, "Hookfang, destroy!"

"Oh, hey, rulers!" Hiccup smiled, blocking Hookfang's way as the Nightmare snarled from behind. Once he was sure the Twins weren't about to be turned into a roasted buffet, he fell back on his good old sarcasm.

"How's stuff in the old kingdom?"

Astrid crossed her arms and added to the snark, "Having lots of fun with all the smoke and fire?"

"Yes," Tuffnut responded, almost instinctively before correcting himself, "No. Okay, fine."

"As it turns out," Tuffnut admitted, genuinely sorry, "We can't save Thorstonton by ourselves."

He continued as Hiccup as Astrid gave each other small and sly smiles, "So we talked about it, and we hereby decree that you can all come and help us put out the fires."

"Ah," Hiccup sighed, the sarcastic smile still on his features, "That's a shame, 'cause, from where I sit, you guys are on your own. I mean," he pretended to check his fingers, "Rules are rules, right?"

The Vikings snickered at Hiccup's cheek. Trust Hiccup to still be so sarcastic while the entire Edge was in the middle of burning down, it did well to ease the tension. Stoick only smirked, realising just what Hiccup was getting at. As if Hiccup was ever one to follow the rules, he befriended a Night Fury while living in a dragon-killing society!

Hiccup turned his head towards Toothless, who crooned in agreement.

"You have to help us save our island!" Ruffnut pleaded, "It's all we've got!"

"I don't know," Hiccup teased, "Guys?"

"I think you've got to stick to your guns," Astrid pointed out, "You make a rule, you follow it through! Otherwise, it's.. you know,"

"-Anarchy." Fishlegs added, "I'm with them!"

"Come on," Tuffnut begged, "You guys? Please! Is there anything we can do?"

"Name it, we'll do anything!"

"Well," Hiccup replied, "Now that you mention it, I suppose we could consider one possibility."

Stoick and Gobber chuckled as the vikings began to realise his plan. Same old sly and smart Hiccup.

The Twins stopped, turning their gazes to an enormous mass of Fireworms heading closer and closer.

"Anything!" They both yelled, now desperate as the Fireworms began to enter the stables.

"I'll make you assistant ruler," Tuffnut offered, as Hiccup kept silent.

"Ruler's best pal? Second string ruler?"

"No, I have a better idea actually," Hiccup cut him off, gesturing to everyone else in the one stable, "We divide the island up amongst all of us. We all own it, there's no ruler. No Sister Of The Ruler."

Ruffnut gasped as if it was blasphemy as Hiccup continued, "We're all rulers."

"What?" Tuffnut jumped back, echoing his sister's thoughts, "That's blasphemous! You can't do that to the ruler."

Tuffnut crossed his arms as another Fireworm zoomed in, igniting a flame on his hair. As he sniffed the smoke and saw the ashes of his own hair, he screamed and ran off, "Okay! You guys can have whatever you want!"

"The island's all of ours," Tuffnut could be seen scooting across the floor, trying to put out his glorious dreadlocks, "J-just get these things out of here!"

Tuffnut continued screeching in pain as Hiccup smiled, satisfied with his answer.

"Dictator," Tuffnut mumbled under his breath while the rest of the Gang snickered at his misfortune.

The Thorstons sighed in disappointment while the rest of the Great Hall sighed in relief. So it was official, then. The Edge belonged exclusively to all the Dragon Riders. Their relief then turned to excitement and curiosity as they awaited to see how the Riders managed to tackle the Fireworm migration.

The scene fades to the Riders flying towards the cloud of Fireworms; they were back in business.

"Okay, Fishlegs," Hiccup called, "Gather up all the Night Terrors and take them to the cave."

"On it!" Fishlegs saluted and flew off.

"Okay, guys," Hiccup addressed the rest, "We need to redirect the Fireworms around our island and on to the next one in the chain."

Astrid seemed doubtful, "You really think it's gonna make a dent? I mean, look at them all."

Astrid had a point. The Vikings still couldn't fathom how the Riders fended off the migration.

"Do you have a better idea? We don't really have a choice!"

As the group ascended further towards the Fireworms, Astrid shouted, "Stormfly, fire!"

The Nadder did as she was told, willing to defend her home, but the blast barely made a dent in the Fireworms' formation.

"Come on, Barf, Belch," Tuffnut encouraged, "Do it for Thorstonton!"

The Zippleback let out their gas and sparked, but the explosion did little as the Fireworms flew out of the way and regrouped.

"Fall back!" Hiccup called, "Maybe we can at least protect our base."

The Gang retreated, following his lead, "Let's get started on building a fire break!"

The Vikings exchanged worried glances. Though that was technically the best option, it didn't sound like it was enough to ward off the Fireworms. Did the Riders manage to clone the Edge, or something?

As the scene cut to daylight, Barf and Belch are seen digging a line of dirt.

"Just keep digging, guys," Hiccup called from atop of Toothless, "The fire can't get past it if there's only dirt."

Snotlout, Hookfang, Astrid and Stormfly are then shown using their dragons' blasts in a controlled manner in order to dig lines through the grass quickly. Toothless fires a few blasts of his own in order to put out the resulting flames, sending ashes and embers flying through the air.

"Oh, I can barely see, bud," Hiccup coughs, "If this gets much worse, we're gonna have to bail out."

The gang regrouped, landing their dragons on the ground.

"What do we do now?!" Astrid asked, "It's getting really dangerous!"

"The caves!" Hiccup lands with a cough, "We'll go there and wait it out with the Night Terrors."

"Uh, Hiccup," Fishlegs called, "You may want to come up with another plan."

"Why?"

"I couldn't find the Night Terrors." Fishlegs explained, "I called them until my lips almost fell off, they're gone!"

The dragons looked alarmed, which didn't exactly do well to ease the Vikings' worries. If the Night Terrors had fled the Edge, then it might truly have been a lost cause.

"I told you we should've bailed on this place!" Snotlout grumbled from atop of Hookfang.

"No," Tuffnut stood up, on Belch's neck, "We're not bailing. This island is ours!"

"Tuff?" Hiccup and Toothless narrowed their eyes.

"It's all of ours," Tuffnut consoled, "And no one burns our equally-shared island to the ground but us."

"Well, I.. I may have to disagree with you there," Hiccup said as the flames grew more intense. The camera swivelled around to reveal the silhouette of the Fireworm Queen, flying out of the sunset.

The dragons exchanged confused looks, which the Vikings misinterpreted as worry. Why would the Fireworm Queen leave the nest? Though very few of them had known the Fireworm Queen personally, they knew it wasn't like her to just leave. Even during a migration, the Queen would wait for more than a few weeks to find a suitable route. That just couldn't be her.

"What the-" Astrid squinted, "Is that-"

"Fireworm Queen!" Fishlegs confirmed, "If she's here, then the entire flock can't be far behind it."

"Well that settles it." Hiccup said, "Grab what you can. We're out of here."

"Uh, Hiccup," Snotlout observed, "That's not the Fireworm Queen."

The camera zooms in towards the supposed 'Fireworm Queen,' and low and behold..

"The Night Terrors!" Hiccup smiled, "They're protecting the island by forming a Fireworm Queen."

The Vikings cheered and the Dragons sighed in understanding. Of course it wasn't the real Fireworm Queen. A few of the Night Terrors were present in the Hall, actually, having migrated to Berk after the Riders left the Edge. Many of the dragons nodded their heads in respect for the small dragons, who screeched courtly in return.

Astrid wasn't far behind, "There's not gonna be anything left to protect if all of those Fireworms land here!"

"Well, we just won't let them," Hiccup said.

"Okay," Astrid picked up on his tone, "I sense a plan."

"I'm gonna lead the Night Terrors out to sea," Hiccup turned towards the massive flock, "Hopefully the Fireworms will follow. You guys stay behind and put out these fires!"

Stoick felt something squirm inside of him. Of course his son was about to put himself in danger, again.

Hiccup and Toothless took off towards and then through the flock, "Come on, bud!"

"Alright, bud," Hiccup spoke as he and Toothless flew to the Night Terrors' level, "We need to get the Terrors' attention and turn them out the sea."

Toothless growled in determination as they flew forwards, meeting the Night Terrors.

"Alright, gang, let's take a little trip, shall we?"

Hiccup began trying to coral the flock of Night Terrors, before stopping and facing the sea.

"Toothless, now!"

Toothless fired a single, bright blast, gaining the Night Terrors' attention. Smidvarg called the Night Terror flock and soon enough, the fake Fireworm Queen was on their trail.

"Yes!" Hiccup looked behind, "Nice job, bud."

The Fireworms caught notice of their 'Queen' flying out to sea, and soon followed suit.

"It's working!" Astrid smiled as Stormfly shifted her feet.

"There we go, bud," Hiccup directed as he spotted another island, "That island's all rock. Perfect stopover for these guys!"

He then tilted his head towards the flock, "Going down, gang!"

As he and Toothless swivelled and maneuvered through the rocks, Hiccup snuck a glance back at the following flock. The Fireworms successfully land on the barren island while the Night Terrors dispersed. Now it was Toothless' turn to look back at the island of Fireworms, giving his familiar gummy smile.

The Vikings cheered and clapped their hands, leaving Hiccup to blush at all the praise. He didn't think he'd ever get used to an entire crowd of Vikings cheering for him, even after so many times of it happening.

"Now that," Hiccup commented, "Is something to write about. And Fishlegs thought the Book of Dragons was finished."

"Oh, hah, hah, Hiccup," Fishlegs had his hand on his hips and Hiccup smirked in return.

Hiccup and Toothless dived towards the horizon as the scene faded, revealing the Gang gathered around the claim stone.

"Ruff, Tuff," Hiccup approached as the aforementioned Twins stood in front of the stone, "You guys did the right thing."

He put his hands on their shoulders as the Twins looked forlorn, Tuffnut's helmet in his hands.

"I just hope you learned something in all this."

"Yeah," Tuffnut agreed, "We sure did. Leading blow. Oh, we don't have to do the 'S' thing anymore."

The Vikings snickered.

He put his helmet on his head, "Leading blows!"

"Seriously blows," Ruffnut muttered.

Hiccup found himself nodding subconsciously in agreement. Leading the Riders was tiring, despite it apparently being his 'element'. He didn't even want to think about what it would have to be be like when he became Chief. No, he'd delay that for as long as possible.

"You know what, though?" Tuffnut sauntered towards the rock, "At least we have our cool claim stone.." He put his hands on his hip, "to remember our glorious reign!"

...And the Claim Stone was gobbled up by Meatlug.

Tuffnut crossed his arms, "No respect."

The Gronckle licked her lips in satisfaction before barfing out its contents at Ruffnut's feet, "No respect at all."

Snotlout laughed as he and Hiccup danced, "It's everyone's island!"

Snotlout shrieked and hid behind Hookfang. He didn't want his dad to see him dancing like this! It was totally unmanly and would be seen as weak. Well, there was also the rest of the entirety of Berk, too, but it was mostly his Dad.

Spitelout himself was about to give Snotlout a long lecture about seeming soft in front of others, but then swallowed back his words and took a step back as he saw his little boy hide behind the Monstrous Nightmare. Did.. did Snotty fear his own father?

"This is our island," The camera zoomed out, revealing the Riders, including the Twins, dancing and singing.

Apart from Snotlout, the other Riders cringed as their parents looked at them amusedly.

"It's everyone's island!

Ours. It's our island!"

And the screen cut to black.

The Vikings stood up and yawned. It'd been what, nearly two hours? It was already night when they started watching, and even if time didn't continue outside, it was getting a bit late according to their own body clocks. The Witch herself, appearing out of seemingly nowhere, seemed tired as well.

"I believe that is it time that you all took a few hours of rest," The Witch proclaimed, her own magic and the spell of tiredness spreading through the Hall as she replaced the tables of the Great Hall with mattresses. Try as the Vikings might to fight the spell, everyone in the Hall felt their eyelids drooping, lulling them to sleep.

"I know you were all already tired. It would better if we continued in the morning."

And as the Vikings and Dragons succumbed to the land of dreams, the Witch winked, despite nobody else being awake enough to see or hear.

"Goodnight. I'll see you soon."

---

Sorry if this chapter was way too long, I think I got carried away in a few areas xD

Regarding that one "Outlout" moment; Come on, Bilout is totally canon. You know it, I know it, we all know it. Don't even try to deny it, lol. Also, sorry if I seemed biphobic or something when writing their reactions. I'm not, I swear. Bi folks, y'all are 100% valid! Don't let anyone try to tell you otherwise!

And yes! Snotlout has more relatives! Griplout is mentioned in one of the episodes while Scablout, Wartlout, and Burplout are all mentioned in the School Of Dragons game! Granted, SOD might not be canon, but whatever.

Also! Some of the lines and details regarding napping positions and other things were partially inspired by the fic "Midnight Madness" by who is sabrina, so go check that out, please!

Anyways, I hope y'all are safe and self-isolating in this whole virus situation. Remember to wash your hands! Stay safe, everybody!