MDM's Version of How to Train Your Dragon

A/N: Hey, fellow Dragon Riders! This week has been a busy week. I'm just glad to get this chapter out of the way finally! If I'm lucky, which I'm not a lot of the time, I could post a new chapter every Friday or Saturday. So, keep a lookout. If not, just hang tight.

And now, here's Chapter 17 of my version for HTTYD!

Chapter 17

The Secret's Out

The next day, Hiccup was in the ring again, facing the Gronckle one last time and wearing his new helmet. The Arena had little walls stationed around, acting as shields to hide behind. By now, a whole crowd of Vikings, or rather pretty much the entire village, had gathered around to watch the final competing round between the last two recruits.

Hiccup turned over to the side and saw that Astrid had chosen to hide behind his wall. He nervously tried to move away from her, but Astrid roughly pushed his axe down.

"Stay out of my way!" She threatened, leaning in close to his face. "I'm winning this thing."

Hiccup knew that from the sidelines somewhere, Juno was trying to burn Astrid into ashes with her eyes. "Good. Please, by all means." He said to Astrid, who was already sprinting away.

He stood up from his hiding place and soon spotted his father watching on the sidelines with Ragnar and Juno standing on either side of him. Hiccup gave them a nervous smile. While Stoick's was genuine, his friends' own grins were just as fake as his was.

Hiccup then dropped the act and turned away from them, knowing that even if he got the Gronckle sedated, he really hoped that he wouldn't be chosen to fight the Monstrous Nightmare. But all in all, Hiccup would do what it took to make sure that he was still alive in the end.

Over at the other side of the arena, Astrid was behind the Gronckle, hiding behind a new wall every time she got closer to it, trying to make sure that she would get a clear shot. "This time." She said to herself. "This time, for sure."

With that, she jumped over the wall, yelling out a battle cry, her axe high in the air, ready to strike… only to freeze when she saw that the Gronckle was lying on its side in front of Hiccup, who had dropped his axe and had his helmet knocked off his head. He nervously showed the Gronckle to Astrid, who was really lying down to expect a scratch from him, recognizing him as the little Viking who showed kindness to it multiple times before. The crowd began cheering at Hiccup's supposed victory.

But Astrid finally exploded in a rage. "NO!" She yelled. "No, son of a half-troll, rat-eating, munge-bucket!" She cursed, swinging her axe around.

From the sidelines, Ragnar looked over at Juno. "I have never seen her this mad before." He said, lightly flinching from Astrid's coarse language.

"That's saying something." Juno added, glaring at the raging Astrid.

"Wait. Wait." Stoick said, quickly calming down the cheering crowd.

Hiccup decided to risk an attempt to try and get away from the Arena. He didn't want to stick around for the results.

"So, later." He said, and started to leave. But Gobber hooked the back of his vest and brought him back where he was.

"Not so fast." He said.

Hiccup tried to come up with an excuse. "I-I'm late f-for-"

"What?!" An axe had suddenly caught his throat around the middle. He carefully backed away from a furious Astrid, venom spitting from her words.

"Late for what exactly?"

An arrow suddenly whizzed through the air, and then knocked Astrid's axe away from Hiccup's neck, the head of it embedded in the handle. Astrid glared up at Juno, who returned it even more spitefully, a hand still holding onto her trusty bow. She just plucked the empty string with her free hand as a nonverbal warning. Astrid pulled the arrow out of the axe's handle and snapped it in half with her bare hands.

"Okay, quiet down!" Stoick said, easing the tension. "The elder has decided."

The shaman of the village was a little, old mute woman named Gothi, who was also the village healer. Her gray hair was in two thick braids, and she was clothed in thick furs, holding her staff.

Gobber lifted his hook hand over Astrid, who was puffing out her chest proudly and standing tall. But Gothi just shook her head. The crowd all made sounds of disappointment.

Gobber then pointed down at Hiccup, almost a little unsure about it. Gothi smiled and nodded. The crowd began cheering again as Hiccup's, and his friends', worst fear became true.

"Oh, you've done it! You've done it, Hiccup!" Gobber said excitedly. "You get to kill the dragon!"

Snotlout and the twins were cheering, and Fishlegs placed Hiccup up on his shoulder. But Astrid looked ready to chop off someone's head with no hesitation. Hiccup pretended to be proud of himself, smiling and chuckling nervously. Juno and Ragnar were putting on their best false smiles as they listened to the crowd's cheers.

"That's my boy!" A proud Stoick exclaimed.

"Yes, I can't wait." Hiccup fake-cheered, holding up his fist in false excitement. "I'm so-"

"Leaving! We're leaving."

Several hours later, after they finally got away from the celebration, the Misfit Trio were back in the cove, each of them carrying a basket of supplies on their backs. "Let's pack up." Hiccup said, looking around for Toothless. "Looks like you and me are taking a little vacation. Forever."

"Don't forget about us." Ragnar piped up.

Hiccup turned over to his friends with a sigh. "Look, I told you guys already. You can't come with me." He had been fighting with them about it ever since they saw him packing back at the house.

"Yes, we can." Juno answered back. "Do I need to remind you of our motto?"

Hiccup rolled his eyes. "'Misfits we may be, but we stick together.'"

"Exactly." Ragnar said. "And we're not going to break that promise. Besides, now that we have two more friends, who's going to stop us from following you if you do leave without us?" He asked him with his trademark snarky smile.

Hiccup rolled his eyes again, this time playfully. "No one." He said.

"Yep." Juno said. "We're with you 'til the end. And we'll be fine as long as we're together."

Hiccup let out a small annoyed sigh, but he had a small smile on his face. "Fine. You two can come." He relented.

Ragnar and Juno beamed at him. The three of them shared a fist bump, and then set down their baskets.

They began checking their supplies when they heard a sound, like a stone smoothly sliding over metal. They looked up and jumped back when they saw Astrid sitting coolly on a boulder, using a stone to sharpen her axe.

"Aah! What the-?" Hiccup panicked, as he, Juno, and Ragnar quickly scanned the cove and found no sign of a certain Night Fury, Boneknapper, and/or Grapple Grounder, much to their relief. "Uh-uh, what are you doing here?" He stammered.

Astrid put down her grinding stone as she checked over her axe. "I wanna know what's going on." She hopped down and began getting closer to Hiccup as he backed away from her, spinning her axe.

"No one just gets as good as you do. Especially you. Start talking." Astrid ordered. She kept on her interrogation while Hiccup just stuttered nervously, and the other two were trying to look around for their dragons, being as subtle as they can.

"Are you training with someone? Maybe with Iverson and Solheim?"

"Uh, training?" He questioned.

"It better not involve this!" She said, grabbing Hiccup's harness.

Juno quickly pulled her away from him. "Hands off of him, Hofferson." She said.

"And you!" Astrid turned her bubbling anger towards Juno. "This concerns you and Ragnar as well. You three have been hiding something."

Ragnar then stepped in. "I think your jealousy is clouding your judgment, Astrid."

"I am not jealous of this fishbone!" Astrid yelled.

Juno tried to charge at her, but Ragnar held her back with a firm hand on her shoulder. "Don't call him that!" She yelled back, teeth seething.

Astrid held her axe at her side, ready to attack her as well. But Hiccup quickly leaped in between her and Juno.

"Ok, let's just all take a breath and calm down!" He ordered, surprising Astrid with his authoritative tone.

Hiccup had to come up with something to get Astrid to leave. He turned his head to Ragnar and Juno and mouthed out, "Follow my lead." They nodded, but they knew that this wasn't going to be one of Hiccup's best plans.

He turned back to Astrid. "You're right. You're right. We're through with the lies. Rag and Juno have been training me. You got us. It's time everyone knew."

He placed Astrid's hand on his harness to get her to start dragging him, but she instead painfully twisted his arm. Ragnar slightly squeezed harder on Juno's shoulder to keep her still.

"Why would you do that?" Hiccup asked, about to clutch his probably sprained shoulder. But Astrid just knocked him to the ground.

"That's for the lies." she said. "And that's-" She hit the butt of her axe into Hiccup's stomach. "-for everything else."

That drew the line. Juno finally pulled herself away from Ragnar's grip. Before he could stop her again, she went over to Astrid and punched her hard in the face, sending her a few feet away from Hiccup, who was regaining his breath.

"Again with the punching?!" Astrid shouted, regaining her balance. Her cheek had a red mark on her face that was slowly fading.

"I've had it with you, Hofferson!" Juno screamed, the anger and betrayal from all those years ago seeping through her voice. But she managed to keep herself from letting out tears of hurt.

She then got in a fighting stance, and channeled her anger into a low, menacing snarl. "You're finally going to get what's coming to you for so long."

Astrid glared at Juno with so much rage and fury. "Bring it on, Solheim." She growled.

Just as she was about to drop her axe, three growls were heard. The Misfit Trio all froze.

"Oh man." said Hiccup.

"Not good." Ragnar commented in a deadpan. Of course their infamous dose of bad luck had to make an appearance here and now.

Astrid turned around, peered ahead of her, and saw a black figure curled up on the other side of the cove. From a nearby cave, she saw two bigger figures coming out of it. She gasped when she realized what they were.

"Get down!" She shouted, pushing Hiccup back to the ground a little too roughly.

Toothless roared loudly and started to charge at her with Fossil and Coccinelle behind him. "Run! Run!" She yelled, her axe ready to attack.

"No!" Hiccup cried out as he wrenched away Astrid's axe and tossed it away.

Ragnar and Juno sprinted to their dragons, trying to calm them down. "Whoa, whoa! Calm down." Juno said to Coccinelle.

"Easy. Easy, boy." Ragnar soothed to Fossil.

"It's okay. It's okay." Hiccup said to Toothless. "She's a friend."

"Well, a friend to some of us." Juno commented. Despite that little side note, the dragons all relaxed, but still remained wary of the newcomer.

"You just scared them." Hiccup said to Astrid, holding Toothless behind him.

"I scared them?!" Astrid said before she paused after she heard what she said. "Who are 'them'?" She asked cautiously.

The Misfit Trio shared a quick glance to each other. It was too late to back out now. Hiccup took a swift but deep breath.

"Astrid, meet Toothless, Fossil, and Coccinelle." He said, gesturing to each dragon. "Guys, this is Astrid."

The dragons growled at her. Toothless and Coccinelle were snarling more fiercely than Fossil did, because she had hurt Toothless' rider and best friend, while Coccinelle could sense her own rider's hatred towards her.

Astrid gave the Misfit Trio a look of disbelief before it turned into a glare and she started heading out of the cove. "Duh-da-duh, we're dead." The Trio deadpanned in sync. Their dragons just grunted with indifference and began walking away.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa! Where do you think you're going?" Hiccup called after them. "We gotta stop her."

"As much as I really want to disagree with you, I know that you're right." Juno said with a frown on her face, trying to deny that she actually agreed on this so fast.

Ragnar nodded. "Even if they didn't believe her, they'd still be suspicious and then eventually find out for themselves."

"Well, the vote is unanimous." Hiccup said, and turned to Toothless, Fossil, and Coccinelle. "Come on, guys."

The dragons just groaned. And they had thought normal Vikings were stubborn. These three take the whole school of fish.

A/N: Well, this is it. Their secret is revealed. But, now, onto everyone's favorite romantic flight next chapter. Hopefully, it will be done by next week.

Don't forget to leave a review. I love to know what you guys think.

See you guys then! Got to fly! ;)