Chapter 1: Dragon Raid

Nearly 20 years had passed since the strange woman was found in the woods, and she was so confused and out of it for days - there were even stories she had been glowing gold, expelling puffs of golden….glittery….stuff. It was because of those rumours that many in the village called the woman who would later give her name as Valka, and would then become the chieftess, wife of Stoick the Vast, a witch. A bad omen from the Gods.

But anyway, before that happened, she was out of it and needed time to get herself together, and when she did, she was later wooed by Stoick, who ignored all the bad things said about her, and then they got married, and eventually she became pregnant with their child.

Stoick had been delighted, although there were dark times; one of the worst moments in his life was when Stoick and the other chiefs got together, to discuss ways of stopping the dragon threat, as the raids were getting worse and worse and many had died before a mysterious stranger known as Drago Bludvist approached the chiefs, and told them he alone controlled the dragons, and demanded their fealty to him and to his power.

The chiefs laughed.

The chiefs were slaughtered by Drago's dragons, but Stoick had survived, and spread word throughout the Barbaric Archipelago about the threat.

But many would see much of the bad luck had started when Valka appeared; while she was a brilliant leader, blessed with high intelligence and inner strength, Valka had never wanted dragons to be harmed. More than once she was laughed at, scorned when she claimed the dragons were screaming at the Vikings not to attack them, but her statements made her so ridiculed that eventually she stopped.

When Hanna, their daughter was born, everyone believed Valka truly was bad luck, as Hanna was tiny, sickly, and weak by the standards of the Vikings.

But then she was snatched by a dragon that broke into their home, and she was carried away, and believed dead, leaving behind her daughter and her father…

And they had a very tempestuous relationship.

-8-

Hanna's keen hearing picked up the sounds of the dragons before they launched their latest raid.

It had been a regular day on Berk, home of the Hairy Hooligan tribe; with the villagers going about their daily business, and Hanna working her day job at the forge with Gobber while avoiding the worst of the teens.

Quickly shoving the journals she had been writing and sketching in aside, Hanna rushed downstairs while taking quick looks out of the open windows, trying to pinpoint the dragons; already the Hairy Hooligans were fighting.

Hanna had only just managed to open the door of her home, desperate to reach the forge as anything could happen to the house she was in as it was made from wood and could be burnt down and reduced to a pile of ash and she had no intention of staying in here despite her father's standing orders for her to stay put here so she wouldn't make some stupid mistake, only to snap back to reality the moment she heard a sound that stopped her cold.

There was an angry Monstrous Nightmare outside.

It had spotted Hanna.

It shot a huge blast of fire straight at me, but thinking quickly, she managed to close the door at the last second. Hanna flinched when she heard and felt the heat and power of the blast against the door before she opened the door once more, got out and made her way straight to the forge, only to see the dragon raid in full swing with the dragons swooping down and keeping the Vikings busy while others cornered lost sheep, or broke into the fish storage huts and stole whatever they found.

The raids were frequent, and they were always the same and followed the same patterns; the dragons would raid once every couple of weeks, although sometimes Berk would be lucky enough to avoid one for a month or so, which gave the Hairy Hooligans and any other tribe nearby the time to rebuild quicker and replenish their food supplies before the next raids.

Most people would leave under the circumstances. Not Vikings, who have stubbornness issues.

Hanna, known and born Hanna, Hanna Horrendous Haddock III, which she sarcastically believed was not a great name, but at the same time, she knew it could be a lot worse. Viking parents believed that a hideous name would frighten gnomes and trolls, although the typical, charming Viking demeanour wouldn't do that just fine by itself.

Suddenly, something large, hairy and heavy fell on top of Hanna, making her gasp and wheeze in surprise. She couldn't believe it once she got her act together and realised what happened; in all the chaos that the village was in, a random Viking managed to trip on something and fall on her, barely stopping from crushing her, and seemingly in a state of cheery madness. "ARGGGHHHHH! Morning!"

Hanna turned her face away in disgust, smelling his rancid breath; he'd been drinking and quite heavily, too.

Ignoring his insane happiness, Hanna crawled out from underneath and quickly got up and started running through the mess, doing her best to avoid running into people. Yet she was getting shouted at, as always when they noticed her presence.

Hoark the Haggard snapped, "What are you doing here?!"

Hanna ignored him as she raced to the Forge. But then she encountered another neighbour.

It was Burnthair the Broad, and she snarled, "Get inside!"

Phlegma the Fierce was next, and she glared at Hanna, "Get back inside!"

And Ack, the silent ox of a Viking I am passing now, but she simply ignored what they were saying and kept running, trying her best to get to the forge without any incident.

Hanna ground her teeth at the things they were saying. In some ways, she could understand why her father had left those orders for her to stay inside her house, but at the same time she wished he would just stop patronising her and treating her like a piece of fragile pottery he was afraid would smash if it fell to the ground.

She had always been frightened if she stayed in their house, a house made out of wood, it would burn to the ground with her inside it. The Hooligans, like all Vikings, were good at rebuilding, but those were houses, halls, Kill Rings, and ships. They couldn't do the same thing with people.

Hanna, once more thanking whatever traits she'd inherited from her mother for her short stature, managed to evade all dragons and Vikings alike until she heard somebody yell. "HANNA!"

At that moment before she had the chance to even think, Hanna felt a large, beefy hand slam down on her shoulder and pick her up by the collar and lifted her off the ground before she could even gasp in shock, and she came face to face with a fierce, bearded, Viking man with a horned helmet, and he was far from happy to see her.

"What is she doing out agai-?!" He shouted at the crowd before giving up and turning to her, still angry. "What are you doing out? Get inside!"

Hanna was roughly tossed forward, landing on the ground on her legs, she shook a little at the harsh landing, and she continued running, wishing she had spat at him.

Oh yeah, she was going to stay in a house, a sitting duck, and wait to be burnt to death in a fire?

So much for staying put!

Yeah, right. But there was no point arguing against the man.

That was Stoick the Vast, chief of the tribe. They said that when he was a baby he popped a dragon's head clean off of its shoulders. Did Hanna believe it?

...Yes she does.

As Hanna was running, she faintly heard him speaking/yelling at some Vikings. "What have we got?" Stoick lived up to his name as he demanded a report.

Hanna was still nearby to hear the report. "Gronckles. Nadders. Zipplebacks. Oh, and Hoark saw a Monstrous Nightmare."

Hanna wasn't totally surprised by the list of dragons; it looked like the nest was determined to really crack open the defences of Berk this time around, and plunder what they had. The nest regularly despatched large numbers of some of the bigger and fiercer breeds against the Viking settlements of the Barbaric Archipelago, sometimes the attacks came weekly to further weaken the tribes' until they became exhausted and the food stocks were plundered.

But Hanna had always wondered to herself why the dragons even bothered.

They had so many body weapons and could fly, so logically they should be able to feed themselves, why bother Vikings?

All her life, she had heard dragons were evil, soulless, and emotionless demons who always went for the kill, but Hanna, who remembered some of the night her mother was snatched, knew there was more to it than that, because of her desire to finally find a place amongst the tribe, she had suppressed those thoughts.

But they were still there in her mind.

"Any Night Furies?" Stoick asked, and Hanna could pick up his worry, fear, and concern.

"None so far."

"Good."

Night Furies….

Hanna was familiar with the more common species of dragons; the Deadly Nadders and Monstrous Nightmares were some of the more powerful common varieties which made up the full force of the raids, with the Hideous Zipplebacks and the Gronckles providing extra muscle, or gasses to ignite, the Night Fury was something else.

As far as Hanna knew and what she had learnt in her life, nobody had ever caught a Night Fury, they were so mysterious and feared by the Vikings for their power, that nobody would want to tangle with one.

Deciding to just keep going, Hanna continued running, getting to the forge in no time at all. When she arrived, Hanna took off my bear fur vest and put on her apron. The blacksmith noticed her arrival and smiled at her cheerfully. As she had expected, she was greeted with kindness, for the first time since this raid started, by the blacksmith who owns the forge, who was hammering away with the large hammer he used as an arm replacement. In fact, he only had two of his original limbs left, a testament to how long he had been fighting in this damn war.

"Oh, nice of you to join the party. I thought you'd been carried off," the old triple amputee said cheerily.

Hanna snorted and got straight to work. "Who me? Nah, I'm way to muscular for their tastes. They wouldn't know what to do with all this." As she said that sarcastically, Hanna struck a bodybuilder pose, exposing the nonexistent muscles in her arms.

The blacksmith rolled his eyes, still grinning. "They need toothpicks don't they?"

Truth be told, he wasn't surprised she was here; not only was she stubborn, she also possessed a lot of desire to prove herself.

That, and of course, Hanna didn't want to be burnt to a crisp.

Hanna dropped the pose, and she started muttering something along the lines of "meathead", which caused him to mutter something about "two-heart". Hanna stuck my tongue out to him, playfully despite the snark; it was something they just did, while she ignored the snarky comment about being two-hearted.

She had two hearts. It was something she had inherited from her mysterious mother, and it only cemented the differences between herself and the rest of the tribe, while others like Gobber and Elder Gothi didn't care that much. Several Vikings came to the forge as Hanna quickly got into her stride, coming with broken or blunt weapons, urging the duo to fix them.

As they took the weapons and began working them, Hanna focused on her work while the meathead with the attitude and the interchangeable hands worked on his.

Gobber the Belch, the blacksmith of the Hairy Hooligan tribe, was one of the few people Hanna actually liked, loved, and respected with both her hearts. She had been his apprentice ever since she was tiny to build her muscle mass up, but it hadn't really worked as well as her father wanted.

As Hanna continued to work on the various weapons and working through the time constraints, she managed to take a peek outside. The raid was still chaos, all around the village. She also saw several buildings either blowing up or set on fire by the dragons as they tried to open up new fronts from the air to get to the food stores.

Hanna had been alive for nearly 20 years. In that time she had seen dozens of buildings destroyed, only for them to be rebuilt quickly, only with new additions added on. Hanna had often asked Gobber why they didn't just rebuild the village with stone and keep them fireproof, but the old blacksmith didn't have a good excuse for her.

For Hanna, the solution was easy enough; just use the rocks to build new buildings and remove as many of the flammable elements as possible, making the village stronger. That way you could devote more time and energy to fighting the dragons and protecting the food. But nobody had bothered listening to her.

It still made her grind her teeth in frustration and annoyance; oh, just because she had two hearts, and was more intelligent than everyone in the village combined with enough room for more, didn't mean she couldn't come up with good ideas.

Hell, she had even come up with more ideas for dealing with fires.

"FIRE!"

Oh, speaking of which, in response to the latest buildings to be set alight, the fire brigade charges through the plaza, consisting out of several figures, all carrying buckets of water. They were the other teens of the village, Fishlegs, Hanna's cousin Snotlout, the twins, Ruffnut and Tuffnut, and...Austen.

Hanna stared at him as something exploded behind him, surrounding him in an almost sexy glow. But, unlike most girls, Hanna wasn't interested in him.

Okay, she admitted, Hanna used to have a crush on him but after his parents pushed him into training as a warrior, he had begun acting more like he used to have friendly conversations before that though, resulting in a crush she had for him. But now that he started acting like a jerk it's pretty safe to say that Hanna's crush had been, for a lack of better word, crushed. Nowadays all he did was stare at her with cold glares, and he never spoke to her, up for her, or seemed interested in their past friendship.

Whereas everyone had mocked her for having two-hearts, Austen and Fishlegs had been more open-minded. But not anymore. Hanna had been truly hurt by that, and she had come to believe their families had put pressure on them both to stop being friends with her. The fact they would do that only made her feel more isolated, and alone.

And Hanna hated it. She only wanted to be accepted, how hard was that?

Still, their job is so much cooler than hers.

Hanna soon realised she had spent too long watching instead of working because something hooked on her collar and pulled her back inside.

Hanna sighed when she realised what it was "Ah, come on Gobber. Let me out, please. I need to make my mark."

"Oh, you've made plenty of marks," Gobber said, poking Hanna in the stomach with his hook. "All in the wrong places!"

Hanna ground her teeth again as she glared at him.

She had always been mocked for her height, her stature and she was tired of it.

"Please, just give me two minutes." She begged. "I'll kill a dragon, my life will get infinitely better, I might even get asked out on a date."

She only added the last part a little sarcastically.

She knew deep down nobody would look twice at her, especially if they found out about her second heart, but she was tired of having nobody in her own age range to talk to.

It was not Hanna's fault she had been born with two hearts, and she possessed higher intelligence than the other Vikings; she had endured ridicule all her life from not only her own tribe, but also from her so-called peers on the other islands.

It was so bad she had started openly despising not just Thuggory, Camicazi, Daggur, and the others.

Gobber sighed and looked at her sympathetically. Out of everyone, he knew her well enough to know how she felt. "Look Hanna, I'm sorry to say this but you won't even last a minute out there," he said, despite knowing she hated having to hear reality. "You can't lift a hammer, you can't swing an axe, you can't even throw one of these!" As he said that last sentence he grabbed a bola, just for it to be snatched out of his hands by another Viking who took down a Gronckle with it.

Ignoring Gobber even though she knew he had a good argument, Hanna simply gestured to a new invention of hers. She had been working on it for days now, and she had spent so long tweaking the design, adding on bits and now it was ready.

"Okay, but this will throw it for me." As Hanna said that, she petted her newest invention, only for it to fire. Hanna groaned in annoyance and embarrassment as Gobber barely dodged the bola, which flew out of the window, hitting a Viking in the face. As he fell backwards with a thud, Hanna, flinching, called out. "Sorry!" She called, embarrassed and hoping the Viking didn't have a long memory.

"See, now this right here is what I'm talking about!" Gobber said sternly.

Hanna shook her head. "Mild calibration issue…," she waved a hand irritably.

"Hanna. If you ever want to go out there you need to stop all…this." As he said that he gestured in my general direction.

"But you just pointed to all of me."

It might have been said…in jest - more or less - but Hanna was getting deeply frustrated by the Viking's narrow-mindedness, and their refusal to let her just be herself.

"Yes! That's it! Stop being all of you."

Hanna ground her teeth together again, not liking the sound of that, but she still sarcastically went, "Oohh…"

"Oohh, yes" He mimicked.

"You sir, are playing a very dangerous game." As Hanna said that she attempted to make her voice sound threatening. "Keeping this much, raw…Vikingness contained. There will be consequences!"

Gobber did not look impressed, not even close.

"I'll take my chances." He replied bluntly, tossing a sword in her arms. "Sword. Sharpen. Now."

Hanna sighed and took the sword. It was heavy, but she was used to lifting them, and so she lifted the sword in her arms and put it on the grinding wheel, and she began to sharpen it, considering what to do next.

One day….

One day…

She promised herself that one day, she would get out there. She would get out there, and she would finally kill a dragon because killing a dragon was everything around here. A Nadder head was positively certain to get Hanna noticed. Gronckles were extremely tough, and taking down one of those will definitely get her a boyfriend.

No, she had to be realistic; she knew many wouldn't care for her, but she just wanted to win some kind of respect. At this point, she would prefer anything to being nicknamed 'useless.'

It made her furious in a way that terrified her.

A Zippleback? Exotic, two heads, twice the status. And then there was the Monstrous Nightmare. Only the best Vikings got to go after those. They had the nasty habit of setting themselves on fire. But the ultimate prize is the dragon no one has ever seen. And it was called the -.

"NIGHT FURY!"

"GET DOWN!"

KABOOM! The sound of a catapult tower being destroyed by the infamous Night Fury was heard everywhere in the village. Hanna looked around excitedly, and she craned her head out of the forge, hoping to spot it, but all she could see was the darkness of the skies. The dragons always raided at night to hide their numbers, so it made sense for them to use it as cover, and it made her wonder more about the Night Furies themselves.

How large were they?

What were they coloured? Okay, granted until they came into sight when they wanted to be seen, the other dragon breeds only had to avoid the light of the moon to fly unseen, the raids could happen only when the first blast took the Vikings by surprise.

But something told Hanna the Night Fury took it to a new level.

This thing never stole food, never showed itself, and never missed, which was why no-one had ever killed a Night Fury.

That was why Hanna was going to be the first.

When Hanna finished sharpening the sword, she waited; she had been Gobber's apprentice long enough to know from experience that the blacksmith would leave the Forge at some point as he wasn't the type to just stand and watch his village being destroyed, and besides he was the type always itching for action.

She smirked inwardly when she saw Gobber replace the hammer on his arm for a large axe. "Man the fort Hanna, they need me out there!" He headed outside but stopped and looked at her sternly when he remembered her own stubbornness. "Stay… Put… There… You know what I mean!" With that he charged out with a war cry… Well as much as one could charge with a peg leg that is.

No, that was cruel; while she didn't like some of his ill thought out words, Gobber was more of a friend and parent than her own father did.

Hanna smirked when he left, did he honestly think she was going to stay here? Tonight could change her life for good, and she quickly grabbed the bola launcher she had worked so long and so hard to work on, and took it outside, manoeuvring through the clusters of Vikings.

At once she was spotted.

"Hanna, where are you going?!"

"Come back here!"

"I know, be right back!" Hanna yelled in response.

Hanna kept running until she stopped at the top of a large cliff, and she looked around. This cliff was the perfect spot to fire the bola; it was high up, it gave her a clear view of the sky and the moon was just above her.

Quickly, Hanna started to unfold the mechanism, and she put a bola into the firing. chamber and aimed at the sky.

She took a deep breath, feeling her hearts thudding in her chest like two massive war drums beating fiercely over the horizon, and she just waited there, ready to shoot something if it arrived.

"C'mon." Hanna muttered. "Give me something to shoot at. Please! Just tonight!"

In later life, Hanna would tell anyone who would listen to her recount this part of her story; she had been waiting on the cliff for just five minutes when she suddenly heard a sound, a whistling sound that sent shivers down her spine.

She had heard this before and Gobber had told her it was the sound a Night Fury made just before it was about to attack.

Gobber had told her the dragon made the sound to unnerve before an attack, and since it was so loud nobody knew where and how the dragon would strike.

She was interested in seeing what it would do. Hanna watched the village, her eyes trying to pick out any sign of the dragon while relying on her keen hearing to track it, but the sound was quite loud, and made it hard to find.

And then she saw something.

Hanna thought she saw a black shape in the night sky. Then another tower exploded when it was hit by a blast, but this time she got lucky from her vantage point when she saw the shape of the Night Fury illuminated for a split second.

That was enough for her.

Hanna took a deep breath, and she focused on that moment.

Over the years, Hanna had learnt she had some extremely strange….traits. One of them was being - somehow - able to slow down or accelerate time. She used that power now.

Closing her eyes for a moment, Hanna concentrated as she focused on the flow of the moment, and she rewound time back a little bit just before the point of the tower explosion before she stopped, and then Hanna took careful aim and pulled the trigger, and shot the bola in the air. For a long moment, Hanna held her breath, and she heard a loud screech and saw what must have been the dragon crash somewhere in the woods.

Hanna…gasped.

She'd…. She'd done it.

She'd actually done it!

She had hit a dragon, downing it. Okay, she would have to find the beast, and see if it was alive, but she had managed to bring it down.

"I…I hit it?" Hanna turned around and jumped in triumph "Yes, I hit it! Did anybody see that?!" Then there was a loud crashing sound mixed with splintering wood behind me. Hanna's jubilation froze, and she slowly turned around and saw a Monstrous Nightmare behind me, it's foot on top of what was left of her bola launcher. "Except for you." She said bluntly.

Without hesitation, she turned around and ran away from it - she had used the only weapon she had, and besides she couldn't take on the Monstrous Nightmare by herself. Unfortunately, it started to chase her around, and so Hanna was forced to run back into the village, dodging several fire blasts as she did so. Hanna ran behind a brazier pole, thinking she could hide behind it, but the dragon was smarter than that. A blast of fire hit it, surrounding the whole thing and barely missing her.

Hanna yelped in shock and terror, and she looked behind the brazier pole, avoiding the flames, to see if the Nightmare was still there. Unfortunately, that was when she heard the growling behind her.

Suddenly the chief jumped out of nowhere and tackled the dragon, startling Hanna. They had a small stare-off for a moment, the dragon tried to blast more of its fire, but only a small spark came out.

The chief smirked. "You're all out."

Then he attacked the Nightmare with nothing but his fists, in response the Nightmare backed off and fled. Suddenly the pole Hanna was standing behind broke because the base was damaged badly due to the fire of the Nightmare. It fell to the side, exposing her. The iron basket that was on top bounced down the hill, destroying everything in its path, and she winced at the destruction it wrought on the village. That was not going to help improve her standing in the village anymore than it was. It was then that she looked at the chief.

"Sorry dad," Hanna said.