Sorry for the delay, been a little busy lately so I haven't had a lot of time to spend writing. Anyway, I hope you enjoy!


Chapter 5: That Won't Fly

"Let's not panic, okay?"

"Not panic?" Fishlegs asked, in a decidedly panicked, though still hushed, tone.

"I told you already, he's not dangerous. He won't us hurt."

"Why don't you tell that to his razor sharp teeth?"

Hiccup looked up at Toothless, and indeed, he now sported and nice shiny set of sharp white teeth. "Toothless...you have teeth?" Toothless bent his head down to sniff at the two of them as they sat sprawled out on the living room floor, much to Fishlegs' dismay, and then proceeded to lick Hiccup with his enormous tongue. "Argh! Toothless, stop!" Toothless moved his head back and tipped it to the side, an innocent look on his face. "Oh, don't give me that. You know what you did." Hiccup said, dripping with saliva. "This stuff better wash out."

"Why are you talking to it?"

"I told you, he's intelligent, he's not just any life form."

"...You can say that again."

Hiccup looked over to what was left of the puddle on the ground. "Whatever was in that vial changed him to be huge, what exactly was in there?"

"The molecule, that's it." Fishlegs said. "...Maybe we're thinking about this the wrong way, the molecule in there came from his world, it's in the air, it's everywhere."

"...So you're saying…?"

"So it's mostly likely not that the molecule made it bigger, it's whatever is or isn't in our world that made it smaller." He explained. "That must be why they found such a large footprint even though it was so small. It probably came through large, and after being exposed to our atmosphere shrunk somehow."

"Shrunk? How is that even possible?"

"You work at a lab that just created a machine that makes portals and you're asking how this is possible?"

"Alright...fair enough." Hiccup said holding his hands up in defeat. "But how do we get him back to normal size? Er...abnormal size...how do we make him small again?"

"Presumably we just wait until the molecule's effect wears off, I don't know how long that would take, probably a while, it may not have looked like much but the contents of that vile was pretty concentrated." Fishlegs looked over at Hiccup optimistically. "Are you finally going to return it to the lab?"

Hiccup scowled and got up from off of the floor. "Fishlegs, no."

"I know you have an emotional connection to it, but it isn't a dog, and this isn't it's natural habitat, we can see that now. Clearly there's something lacking in our atmosphere that it needs."

"Because Finn would return it to it's natural habitat, right?" Hiccup scoffed moving over to where Toothless was. "I'm not trying to bag on you, or the lab, or Finn, but I just can't do it Fishlegs. Toothless is intelligent, he's loyal, he's kind, and he's amazing. I just need to prove it to the others at the lab."

Fishlegs sighed and stood up. "That's all great Hiccup, but what you really need to prove is that he's not a threat and that he's trainable. If you can prove that, then you might have case here."

"You think Finn would understand?"

"Oh no, no, definitely not." Fishlegs replied shaking his head. "Finn is a man of science, that won't fly with him. He's going to want to study and dissect Toothless no matter what you prove."

Hiccup scowled. "Then-"

"It's the press you want to prove it to." He explained. "If we can convince the press that Toothless is a peaceful, trainable creature that is possibly in danger, they'll jump on that so fast we'll have ourselves a public outcry in less than a week."

Hiccup smirked. "You said 'we' just there." Fishlegs sighed again. "You're the best, the best friend that there has ever been."

He nodded. "Yeah yeah, just keep him out of trouble okay? I won't tell anyone as long as you keep this contained."

"Of course."

"And let me take a few samples of saliva or dead skin. I'll try and sneak it in with the other samples from the room and hopefully we can get a little more information about him." Fishlegs said peering up nervously at Toothless. "I want to make sure he isn't carrying any viruses or bacteria. Though if you've had him this long, you most likely would've contracted something if there was anything to contract."

Hiccup nodded. "Okay I'll get a swab. Oh, and, do you think you could sneak any more of that molecule out of the lab?"

"Don't you think it's in our best interest to keep him at a manageable size?"

"I do, but if he's being deprived of something important by being exposed to our atmosphere, I'm worried it could be harming him." Hiccup explained.

"I'll look into it." Fishlegs replied. "In the meantime, you should keep an eye on him to see if you notice anything different about him other than size. Before today he had been without any exposure to the molecule for weeks did you notice any weakness or fatigue?"

"Not really." He replied swabbing the inside of Toothless' mouth.

"Hmmm, interesting." He said scrunching up his face in thought. "Maybe his smaller form is almost like a hibernation and that can keep him going for extended periods of time. I'll have to do some studying back at the lab."

Hiccup nodded and handed Fishlegs the swab. "Okay, sounds good."
Fishlegs took it and walked over to the door, opening it. "If he's still this size by tomorrow morning, call in sick, you can't leave him alone like that." Hiccup nodded again. "Alright, see you later." Fishlegs exited the apartment and shut the door behind him.

Hiccup turned to look over at Toothless, who was sniffing around the living room, knocking down various items with his tail as he did. He sighed. "What am I going to do with you?" Toothless kept looking around until his eyes set onto the living room window. He stopped moving and just stared out at the sky. Hiccup moved to stand beside him and put a hand on one of his wings. "What are you thinking about bud?"


Hiccup walked into the chem lab, shuffling past a few other people as they exited the room, leaving Fishlegs as the last person inside. He was busy as usual, tapping away at his computer with a look of complete concentration on his face.

"Did you hear?" Hiccup asked, pulling a small stool towards Fishlegs and taking a seat down beside him. "About the, uh, mission?"

Fishlegs looked up from his computer. "Mission?"

"I'm not sure what else to call it."

"What is it?"
"They're going in." Hiccup replied. "Not the room this time, they're going to try turning the machine on again, and if it works...they're going in."

Fishlegs looked up suddenly, shocked. "In? Really?"

"In. Really."

"That's...fast." He replied. "I mean, it's only been two weeks since they even entered the room. We barely even started doing drone trials. It was Finn's decision wasn't it."

"Of course it was Finn." Hiccup chuckled. "Who else would be crazy enough to try going in so soon after getting the machine to work? They're sending my drone in and then they're going in right after. The more evidence they get that there's some form of life on the other side the more ancy they get about going in to see for themselves."

"Do you think they'll find… you know? One of them?"

Hiccup shrugged. "I have no idea, maybe Toothless was a fluke, or maybe whatever is on the other side is crawling with creatures like him." He sighed. "Honestly I'm a bit concerned about it, about their safety."

"Who? The people going in or the creatures on the other side?"

"Both."

"They know what they're getting themselves into, especially after only preparing for two weeks. And as for the creatures...well the creatures, we will have to try and deal with that aspect. The sooner we get this public the sooner we can get them legal protection."

Hiccup nodded. "Right, and speaking of two weeks, that's how long it's been since...you know what happened to you know who, have you managed to find anything out?"

Fishlegs shook his head. "Not much, I've been swamped with work so I haven't had a great deal of time to devote to it. Plus I'm trying my best to hide this from the others which isn't exactly easy when you share a lab."

"Yeah, I hear you. I've been pretty busy too."

"But, I did manage to finish working on this." Fishlegs said handing Hiccup a small plastic baggie with several small white balls inside, about the size of tic tacs.

Hiccup took the baggie from Fishlegs and inspected it. "You didn't start doing drugs did you?"

"No! It's the molecule." Fishlegs exclaimed. "You said you wanted some for Toothless. Based on how long you said it lasted the last time he ingested the molecule I made a dry version that should turn him large for about a hour or so, maybe a little longer. I figure that's a pretty manageable amount of time, right?"

"Yeah that's great, thanks Fish." Hiccup said smiling and looking down at the small baggie in his hands. "So I just feed him one?"

Fishlegs nodded. "Yes, if you think that he's getting weak or ill just feed him one of those and it should rejuvenate him. I'm still not quite sure how this all works, so if you notice anything out of the ordinary let me know."

"Of course."

"Anyway, I have to get back work, but I'll let you know if I find anything of note." Fishlegs said looking back towards his computer.

"Right, I should probably get back too, I'll talk to you later, bye." Hiccup replied turning to exit the room. As he walked out into the hallway he looked down at the small molecule pills in his hands. He hadn't told Fishlegs what he was planning to do with them, he knew that he would have fifty fits if he found out. Hiccup felt a little nervous about it, but at the same time he felt extremely excited. He just couldn't stop thinking about it, and he kept staring down at the baggie and grinning like an idiot. This of course meant he wasn't looking were he was going and it didn't take long until he crashed into someone standing in the hall as he turned a corner. They both tumbled to the ground along with a large pile of papers that flew into the air at impact.

"Argh! Hiccup!"

Hiccup's head immediately snapped upwards and came face to face with a set of oh-so-familiar blue eyes. "Astrid!" He then looked down at the ground to where various fallen papers lay strewn across the floor, the papers weren't his, so that could only mean one thing. "I am so sorry, I'll get those." He said quickly moving to gather them up.

"Were you on your phone? Watch where you're going!" She growled in annoyance.

Hiccup started piling the papers back up into a stack. "I'm really sorry, I wasn't looking, I should've been, I'm an idiot."

She sighed heavily. "They're going to be all out of order now. Ugh, I should've stapled them."

"I'm really, really, sorry. It's for Finn right? You can tell him it was my fault." Hiccup said handing her the stack of papers.

"Don't worry about it, I can deal with it." She said taking them from him and standing back up.

"I can-" Hiccup noticed the baggie on the floor and quickly grabbed it and stuffed it into his pocket. "I can help you reorganize them if you want." He stood up and faced her.

Astrid smirked. "You think my uncle would let me do that?"

Hiccup nodded and chuckled. "Yeah, you're probably right, sorry."

"You don't have to apologize so much." Astrid said. "Well, I should get going."

"Yeah, me too, everyone's been really busy preparing for the…" He noticed that Astrid's face dropped a little. Hiccup cleared his throat awkwardly. "Well, I'm sure he'll be okay, Finn is a tough guy."

"I'm surprised you of all people are so optimistic about it." Immediately after the words left her mouth she winced and looked away slightly. "Sorry, I shouldn't have-"

"It's fine." Hiccup said waving his hand slightly. "I know better than anyone what could happen. But still, it's been over ten years since then, and they've got everything under control." In reality Hiccup wasn't certain at all, but he wanted to make Astrid feel better, and this was the only way he knew how. "I'm sure your uncle will be fine."

Astrid smiled at him. "Thanks."

"No problem."

"I'll see you around I guess." She said waving goodbye as she turned and walked down the hall towards the elevators.


"Alright, I think this spot looks good." Hiccup said looking around as he used his hand to shield the sun from his eyes. "What do you think bud?" He asked turning to Toothless, who was perched on his right shoulder. Toothless looked around at the vast empty field that they stood in and cooed happily. "Good, because we're already two hours from the city, I'm not going any further than this."

Hiccup then squatted down and extended his arm to the ground like a ramp for Toothless to walk down. Toothless made his way to the ground and Hiccup yanked out the small baggie from his pocket and took out one of the small white balls. "Let's hope Fishlegs did this right" He said before dropping the ball in front of Toothless. Toothless wasted no time, and quickly gobbled it up with delight, licking his lips once finished.

It didn't take long for the molecule to begin taking effect on Toothless, and only ten seconds later he was already at his full, enormous size. The excitement on Toothless' face was clear to see and he spread his wings out wide and leapt into the air only to plummet to the ground a few seconds later.

"Toothless what's wrong?" Hiccup asked rushing over to the large creature's side. Toothless just tried leaping into the air again, but he just fell to the ground again with a screech and a loud thud. "What's wrong buddy?"

Toothless looked up at Hiccup with a saddened expression before glancing down at his tail. Hiccup took the cue and rushed over to inspect Toothless' tail, and once he took a good look, his stomach dropped. Toothless was missing his left tail fin, and the instant he saw that, he knew it was his fault. When Toothless had gotten caught in the mousetrap, it had been clamped down onto his tail. The overwhelming feeling of guilt hit him like a sack of bricks. Hiccup stared down at Toothless' injured tail. "...That won't fly."

Toothless looked back at Hiccup and make a cooing sound before turning his head up to look at the sky. He looked over to Toothless and stood up. "I'm not giving up bud, we'll get you back in the air, one way or another." Hiccup said, a glint of determination in his eye, he then stormed off towards his car which he had parked off in the ditch by the dirt road they had driven up on. Toothless followed after him as he trudged through the tall grass and Hiccup jumped into the driver's seat and called out. "Come on Toothless." Toothless just sat outside the car staring at him, and Hiccup looked over to his friend. "Right...I guess you won't really fit into the car now that you're big…" Hiccup looked around awkwardly at the empty fields surrounding them. "I guess we have to wait then…"

Hiccup sighed heavily and looked over at the time on the car radio. According to Fishlegs the molecule was supposed to last about an hour, so they would be stuck there for a while. He glanced to the back seat of the car where he had left his work bag and reached back to grab it. From the bag he pulled out his laptop and opened it up. Hiccup checked his email, there were several unread messages, a couple from work, some spam, and a few about news. He clicked on the first email, it was a link to a science news website he had notifications for. The email listed a few of the top stories of the week and a link to the website to read more, the head line at the very top of the page read; Bio-inspired transformable robotic fin in development at Berk U! Click to read more! Hiccup clicked on the link to the article and scanned over it, reading only key words. After getting about halfway through something caught his eye, the words; "...says research associate professor Gobber."

Hiccup looked over to Toothless, who was now curled up and resting a few meters from the car in the tall grass, and a smile crept up onto his face. "I'll get you in the air, bud."


Thanks for reading! I'm sorry there hasn't been a lot of Hiccup/Astrid interaction so far, I swear she will be a primary character later on, but right now I really want to develop Hiccup as a superhero before moving on to the primary plot.

Don't forget to leave a review on your way out, thanks again!