Dragons Against Drago Chapter 1

A/N

Hiccup and the other Night Furies must join forces with the Alpha Bewilderbeast to fight off an attack on the freedom of all dragons everywhere. Warning: character deaths, in the same vein as the 2nd movie. The story is rated T for some adult themes; the language is all K, as usual.

Welcome to the next expansion to the LightningVerse! This will be a rather short expansion, and the title pretty well tells you what the story is about, but I'll throw a few surprises at you before we're done.

o

The Night Fury community managed to make it through the next two years without any serious upheavals. That wasn't to say that nothing happened at all.

Night-fury-full-of-surprises had told her parents that she meant to fly with Toothless and Guana's son, Night-fury-young-teacher, as soon as she could. She meant it. It took a little effort on her part, though, because he wasn't willing at first. She tried to entice him into a mating flight three times, and he flew away and hid the first two times. His father had to take him aside and give him a rather strongly-worded talking-to, reminding him that Night Furies would still be on the endangered-species list if that list had existed in Viking times, and he had an obligation to his kind to make more Night Furies, no matter what his personal feelings might be. Young-teacher had no problem understanding concepts like duty and obligation. The next time Full-of-surprises began weaving through the sky toward him, he gave himself over to the aerial dance, and the results were inevitable.

Toothless and Guana sat on the rim of the crater that formed the main entrance to the Dragon Island nest, and watched the odd-shaped black ball tumble out of the clouds and separate into two Night Furies just before it hit the water. "Well, it's about time," Toothless said with satisfaction. "Now my family and Hiccup's family are joined. And we didn't have to resort to Toothcup to do it."

"It still seems wrong for us to be just sitting here, watching our son... you know... with his new mate," Guana fussed.

"If he was the son of a Viking chief, instead of a dragon Alpha, that event would be watched by half the human village," Toothless replied. "At least, that's what Hiccup tells me. Astrid once thanked me for helping her escape that fate by turning her into a dragon first. In any event, you've certainly noticed that dragons have no concept of privacy. You think that way because you used to be human, but neither our son nor our new daughter-in-law has any idea what the word means. Besides, they're totally oblivious to us anyway; they're completely focused on each other."

Guana recalled her own mating flights. "Well, I'm sure you're right about that part."

Another set of Night Furies had paired off that year, and like Young-teacher and Full-of-surprises, it almost didn't happen. Everyone knew that Night-fury-six-shooter, Hiccup's oldest daughter, was going to fly with Night-fury-faithful-brother, whom they all still thought of as Agmundr, as soon as he was physically able to try a mating flight. The problem wasn't a lack of desire on his part, but a lack of experience – he was still a brand-new Night Fury, and there was a lot about flying that he still didn't know. He was reluctant to try a maneuver that would result in him and the dragon he loved tumbling out of control from two miles up; he wasn't sure he would be able to pull out in time. He resisted her attempts to entice him into a mating flight because he thought it might be the death of him. She understood his reasons, but she thought he was exaggerating the risks, and she kept encouraging him.

They'd finally tried it anyway, and the results were nearly disastrous. The mating part went fine, but as he'd feared, he couldn't pull out of his uncontrolled tumble quickly enough. Six watched in horror as her new mate splashed into the sea. Night Furies can't take off from water; with nothing to push off against, they either drown or get eaten by sharks. After a moment, she exclaimed, "I'll get help!" She turned on a wingtip and sped back to Berk. Three minutes later (the longest three minutes of Agmundr's life), she returned with Astrid, Cloudjumper, and a Monstrous Nightmare, and the two big dragons teamed up to pluck a badly shaken Agmundr out of the ocean. They carried him half a mile up and let him go, so he could return to Berk on his own wings and salvage a little bit of Night Fury dignity.

Six caught up with him as they crossed the coast. "I'm so sorry," she burst out. "You were right after all. I should have believed you."

He shook the last of the water off himself. "I've got another year to practice before we'll try it again," he said resignedly. "I guess I'll take some remedial flying lessons from Uncle Toothless. Next year, I'll give you a real mating flight."

"This was real," she said softly. "You did what you had to do. We're a couple now." They glided home with wingtips touching.

Another pair of Night Furies also formed that year, but it wasn't the pair that everyone had anticipated. Astrid had seen signs that her oldest son, Night-fury-makes-one-heck-of-a-bang, was pairing off with Night-fury-bi-xi, one of the Eastern dragons who had accepted a Night Fury transformation to escape a lifetime of being grounded. Bi-xi was, indeed, considering Bang as a partner, until Night-fury-pu-lao returned from his first stint as acting head of the mountain-lake nest. The experience had taught him a lot and changed him considerably; he was now nearly as mature as Bang, who was a year older. He made no secret of the fact that he liked Bi-xi. She found herself in a position that very few female Night Furies had ever been in: she had to choose from among multiple males. She finally chose her childhood friend. Bang took it hard, and spent a lot of time flying alone – he didn't even want his long-time human friend Agnarr around for a while. He finally returned to an even keel and wished the new couple the best. His attention was now fixed on Night-fury-first-girl, Toothless and Guana's daughter. She was still far too young to consider mating, but her parents approved of the match and encouraged her, in subtle and not-so-subtle ways, to think of Bang as a wonderful dragon. Chi-wen, the third Eastern dragon, was keeping his eye on Thing Two, Hiccup and Astrid's youngest, for similar reasons. Thing One, the tomboy of the pair, had no envy issues with this. She was more interested in wild aerial maneuvers and firebolt practice anyway.

Another couple formed that year, but they weren't dragons. Varinn and Fluffernut finally got married, as they'd reluctantly arranged. Their wedding night was every bit as awkward as they'd feared; they liked each other and cared about each other as friends, but not in a man-to-woman way. Still, they understood their duty to their tribe, and they managed to do what they had to do. It soon became apparent that they'd done a good job of it, too. Varinn's parents followed the pregnancy with great interest, but the one who was most curious about her condition was Scrubby.

To dragons, the idea of a live birth was an alien concept. When he noticed the slight bulge in her tummy, and Fluff explained to him in Forge that she was carrying a tiny human inside her, Scrubby wondered, "You lay big egg?"

"Humans not lay eggs," Fluff explained. "Baby come out in nine months. Is five months away now."

"I watch?" the blue Nadder asked eagerly.

"I don't think so!" Fluff blurted out. Then she said in Forge, "Is private human thing. No one watch." Scrubby seemed disappointed; he, too, had no sense of privacy. He rarely missed a chance to lay his head against Fluff's belly to feel the baby move.

Scrubby was changing as well. He had nearly reached his adult size, which meant he was big enough for a human to ride. He decided that Fluff would be his first rider. This disappointed Varinn, but didn't surprise him; Scrubby had been attached to Fluff ever since he was a lost hatchling in a cave and she'd helped save his life. As for Fluff, the idea of sitting astride his neck like the other dragon-riders was a non-starter, not with her belly beginning to show. She knelt on his back instead. Varinn watched from the ground as his wife and his dragon-friend hesitantly took their first flight together.

A few yards away, Scrubby's mother, Nadder-blue-flies-in-the-storm, also watched. She had never taken a rider; Varinn was the only human in the village she trusted. She understood that her son liked Fluff, but would have preferred that he fly with Varinn the first time. At least, that was the impression he got from their limited interactions; her knowledge of Forge was rudimentary and he wasn't completely sure he understood her.

Suddenly Varinn turned to her. "I fly with you?" he asked in Forge. The big Nadder cocked her head to look at him; even with a dragon's limited range of facial expressions, he was pretty sure she was thinking, "Did I hear that right?" He asked her again, and added a hand gesture to make sure she got the message. After a few seconds, she bent down and allowed him to climb onto her neck. He'd ridden Night Furies a few times, but this was probably going to be –

ZOOM! She sprang powerfully into the air. He fought the urge to cling to her horns; he figured she wouldn't like it. He was pretty sure what she meant to do, so he made no attempt to guide her, and he guessed right. She overtook her son in the air. It took some flapping; Varinn, like Scrubby, had reached his full adult height, and was beginning to bulk up and look like a typical Berk Viking, so he was a rather hefty burden for a dragon who had never flown with a rider before. When Nadder-blue had caught up with her son, they exchanged a few squawks that startled Fluff. She glanced over her shoulder and saw her new husband catching up with her in the sky.

"I wasn't expecting this," she called to him. "Are we the first husband-and-wife flying team ever?"

"I think Hiccup and Astrid won that honor," Varinn called back, "but we're probably the first human husband-and-wife flying team."

"I can live with that," she smiled. They translated their conversation into Forge so their dragon friends could understand. Those dragons treated them to a thrilling half-hour-long flight before Scrubby decided it was time for a bite to eat. He returned his rider to terra firma before flapping out to sea; Varinn slid off Nadder-blue's neck and gave his wife a heartfelt hug as the dragon watched curiously.

"Is Nadder-blue going to be your dragon from now on?" Fluff asked him.

"She's always been very independent," he answered. "I don't think she wants a full-time human rider. But it's good to know I can fly with her now and then if I have to."

Hiccup and Astrid, who had watched the dragons fly while lounging in the Nest, came to the same conclusion. "She's slowly warming up to humans," Astrid thought out loud. "It sure took her a while."

"Leave it to a smith's apprentice to train the toughest dragons," Hiccup answered with a smile.

Berk's senior Night-Fury couple had not produced an egg this year, although they'd certainly tried. "Sometimes these things just don't happen," Toothless had said with a dragon shrug. "You'll probably be back to normal next year." When the great egg-laying flight arrived over Berk that winter, New-night-fury and Night-fury-mother-of-twins stayed behind, watching their daughters Six and Full-of-surprises flapping away with their mates. Hiccup decided to take Bang's place supporting the frozen nest for a week, and flew away with Agnarr. Astrid considered going with him, but decided to remain in Berk.

That turned out to be a good thing for Berk. It was a fairly mild winter; the ocean never did completely ice up. Several bands of pirates seized the opportunity to do some raiding in northern waters, and Berk's fishing fleet soon realized they were in danger. Stoick spoke to Astrid about it.

WE HAVE ABOUT THREE DOZEN YEARLINGS WHO
DID NOT MATE THIS YEAR, 3 ADULTS WHO COULD
NOT FIND A MATE, PLUS BANG AND CLOUDJUMPER.
I CAN MAKE AN ANTI-PIRATE FORCE OUT OF THEM.

"Please do," the chief nodded. "We've lost two fishing boats already; if those pirates take many more, we won't have enough fish to eat."

THAT WOULD BE BAD. WE LIKE FISH TOO.

"Can I help?" Valka asked eagerly.

IT WOULD BE SAFER IF WE KEPT THIS A
DRAGONS-ONLY PROJECT. IT'S EASIER
TO DODGE A SPEAR WHEN YOU DON'T
HAVE A RIDER.

"I'd like her to ride with me," Cloudjumper cut in. "She does not weigh much; she won't inconvenience me in the air. We do everything together. An extra pair of eyes in the sky can only help."

"I suppose you're right," Astrid said. She rounded up the dragons who hadn't flown away to lay eggs, divided them into four teams with at least one adult in each team, and taught them how to tell a pirate ship from a fishing boat. The yearlings had never lived in a world where Viking ships were fair game, so Astrid also had to teach them how to attack a longship safely and effectively. In a bizarre parody of the way Dragon Training used to be done on the island, Stoick provided an old, rotten fishing boat that could barely stay afloat, and the yearling who learned his lessons best got the privilege of flaming that target ship and setting it ablaze. (The prize went to one of Meatlug's daughters.) Then Astrid assigned patrol routes to the teams, split them up into day and night forces, and led one of the teams herself. She made sure Thing One and Thing Two were in her team as well – she didn't want them following their noses into trouble, which was something they were both gifted at. When Hiccup returned a week later, he joined Cloudjumper's team and left Astrid in charge. After all, she clearly had things under control.

Within a week and a half, most of the pirate ships had been wiped out, and the lone survivor had headed south, never to return. The fishing fleet could come and go in perfect safety again. Stoick thanked the dragons with an "all you can eat" day, which the growing, hungry yearlings accepted like a blessing fallen from the heavens. Berk had never seen such epic gluttony. By the time the other dragons returned with their new hatchlings (Six and Full-of-surprises had both produced little girl Night Furies, Guana had added another little boy to her nest, and Bi-xi's first egg had hatched into a boy), life on Berk had returned to normal, if you could ever call a tribe of Vikings sharing their village with dragons "normal."

The following year saw a handful of marriage contracts among the young Vikings of Berk. When Spitelout sat down with his daughter and began the conversation by saying, "Congratulations, you're engaged," Spamlout cringed. He's betrothed me to Henny! she thought. Not that there was anything wrong with Hensteeth; he was a really nice guy. But as a husband… ewww! That would be almost as awkward as Fluff and Varinn together. Of course, those two had built a pretty good marriage based on respect, rather than passion, so maybe that couple wasn't the best example of what she was afraid of. In the end, it didn't matter; her father had found her (and her brother) a spouse from among the Bog-Burglar tribe. Snotlout's bride, a pretty girl named Sukiaqui, was their chief's second daughter and promised to be a fine wife, once he learned to put her in her place. Spamlout's future husband, Beanzinger, was the third son of a successful livestock merchant, a handsome boy who was overjoyed at the chance to live in a place where men were encouraged to be men. Spamlout had her own ideas about that, but those would have to wait until after the wedding ceremony.

The other teens on the island – Fishlegs, Ruffnut, Tuffnut, and Hensteeth – had also made engagements with Vikings from other tribes. With the two Ingerman boys, that was due to preference; their parents wanted to get into Stoick's good graces, so they arranged alliances with families on other islands, so those islands would consider Berk friendly territory. With the twins, it was due to necessity; everyone on Berk knew them too well, and had put them on the bottom of their lists of potential marriage partners. With them, it was "elsewhere or nowhere." Fishlegs and Hensteeth both found brides among the girls of the Peaceable Country, while Ruffnut and Tuffnut found their spouses among the Visithug tribe. There were going to be a bunch of weddings on Berk in the fall, which was the traditional time for Viking weddings.

In the meantime, Varinn and Fluff had welcomed little Dagnut into the world. When Gothi (in her role as midwife) chased everyone out of the house except the mother-to-be, a small gathering remained outside the front door – the nervous father-to-be, his parents, and a very concerned blue dragon. Fluff's cries from inside upset Scrubby badly; Varinn tried to explain that everything was normal, but he wasn't very convincing, mostly because those cries upset him, too. At last, they heard a different kind of cry, and all of them except the dragon rushed into the house to greet the new arrival. They'd agreed in advance to name it after one of Fluff's deceased parents; it was just a question of boy or girl, and they got a boy. Varinn held him nervously for a minute, then passed him off to his mother while he sat next to Fluff on the bed, stroked her hair, and told her she'd done good work. She laid her head on his shoulder and sighed happily.

Once the baby's grandparents had spent some time with him, Varinn took him outside to meet the dragon... and discovered two dragons. Scrubby could barely contain his curiosity, and Astrid wanted to greet her first nephew. Varinn made the introductions and let the dragons sniff him until their curiosity was sated.

"When he walk?" Scrubby wanted to know.

"Maybe in year," Varinn replied.

"When he talk?" Dragon babies could do both from the moment they hatched.

"After he walk."

"He not good for much," Scrubby decided. Astrid had a quick conversation with him in dragon language; Varinn assumed that she was explaining what human babies were like. Personally, he couldn't care less if his new son could walk or talk yet. He was in love with this baby, and he knew it. He sensed that this tiny person would help bond him closer to his wife as well.

Scrubby considered these strange facts for a few seconds. Then his face brightened. "I bring him fish?"

Varinn shook his head with a smile. "He not eat fish yet. Fluffernut feed him in special way."

That left the dragon even more confused. He made one last attempt to contribute something. "I bring fish for Fluffernut?"

"Yes, that is good," Varinn smiled. The Nadder was so eager to help! He took off toward the sea, and returned about 40 minutes later, carrying a four-foot-long tuna with his back claws.

"Oh, my," Edda remarked when she saw it. "It would take weeks for Fluff to eat all that, even if it didn't spoil first."

"Then we'll all eat it together," Varinn decided. "We'll make a birthday celebration out of this." Edda had planned to do the cooking for her son and his family for the next few days anyway; now she had some interesting raw material to work with. She sliced up the fish and pan-fried some of it for the humans, and just deboned the rest for the dragons. The humans and dragons sat in a circle outside Varinn's house; Varinn alternated between taking bites of his tuna and tossing chunks of fish down a waiting dragon's hungry gullet. Those dragons' numbers had swollen to four before they were done – Six's little daughter and Bi-xi's son decided they liked the smell of tuna and invited themselves to the party. No one had the heart to refuse a cute little baby Night Fury, and there was plenty of fish to go around, so there were no complaints.

Varinn and Scrubby didn't realize it, but they'd started a brand-new tradition. From that day forward, whenever a Viking woman who was friends with a dragon had a baby, her dragon friend would bring back a large fish to share with the family. The Night Furies fully approved; it was just one more way to bond the two species together, and that could only be a good thing.

Fluff's leg had never completely healed after stepping in the dragon trap; she would walk with a limp until the day she died; but that didn't stop her from being a loving, devoted mother. Varinn worked hard to provide for his family, and to protect them as well. One day, just outside the Mead Hall, Tuffnut made one last attempt to ridicule his distant cousin without realizing that her husband was listening. Varinn was strong from years of smithwork, he loved his wife, and he'd run out of patience with Tuff's insults. There was a brief but decisive confrontation between the two, which Tuff lost dramatically (he also lost two of the horns off his helmet, and he nearly lost a tooth). From that day forward, both of the twins left Fluffernut strictly alone.

Fluff and Varinn weren't the only human dragon-friends in Berk. The dragons' staunchest ally was still Valka. She had nervously reestablished her marriage to Stoick, and they were certainly getting along well enough, but her heart was with the dragons. Her relationship with Hiccup was even closer than her relationship with her husband, and she also formed a close bond with Astrid, her dragon daughter-in-law. After she'd been in Berk for a few months, she had a special backpack made for herself; it was made of leather and was waterproof on the inside. She used it to carry fish around, in case she bumped into a dragon who was hungry. Young dragons are always hungry. The new hatchlings followed her around wherever she went, clowning and doing tricks to get her attention so she'd toss them a fish. She always saved a few good fish for her grandchildren and great-grandchildren, the little Night Furies.

In that second year, the Night Fury population continued to grow. Five mated pairs flew away to the egg-laying island this time – Hiccup and Astrid, Toothless and Guana, Agmundr and Six, Young-teacher and Full-of-surprises, and Pu-lao and Bi-xi. The only real question was, "Will Astrid make twins again this year?" All the dragons hoped she would, and they were all disappointed... until the moment when Full-of-surprises astonished them all by laying a second egg.

"You'll do anything to be the center of attention, won't you?" her mate asked with half a smile.

"Yup, you're definitely your mother's daughter," Hiccup said with an admiring glance at her eggs. "Maybe your sisters will eventually lay twins, too."

Full-of-surprises was as dumbfounded as all the others at this development. "What is everyone going to call me now? Night-fury-other-mother-of-twins?"

"Stick with 'Full-of-surprises'," Astrid suggested. "It still fits you. Now more than ever."

Guana had a question. "Mother-of-twins, does it make you feel strange, you and your daughter having babies at the same time?"

"If I was human, it would be weird beyond words," Astrid nodded, "but as a dragon, I guess it's normal. I suppose I've been a dragon long enough that it doesn't bother me. In three or four years, though, when my children's children start having children with us... that's going to be weird!"

Six brand-new Night Furies flew home with the adults that year – Astrid and Guana laid boys, Six and Bi-xi brought home little girls, and Full-of-surprises produced one of each. Their total population was up to 25. Toothless watched the six little hatchlings playing among the sea-stacks off the coast of Berk, and fought back a tear.

"I can remember so many years when I was the only one here," he sniffed. "I thought I was the last of my kind. Now, look at us!"

"It's all your fault, you know," Guana reminded him gently.

"I'll take the blame," he nodded. "But when I transformed Hiccup and Astrid, I had no idea what I was starting!"

"Would you have changed your mind if you'd known?" Astrid called from just above him.

"Never!" he burst out. The other Night Fury parents had to laugh.

That was the state of things when Valka and Cloudjumper left Berk for their week with the Alpha Bewilderbeast's nest. Stoick was always reluctant to say goodbye to his wife for a week, and Hiccup always missed his mother while she was away. But a deal was a deal, and Valka really did miss her dragon friends in the frozen nest. The rotation of dragons and human helpers had been going uneventfully for two years now. When the chief's wife and her big dragon companion returned in a week, it would be Bang and Agnarr's turn.

It was pretty soft work. The dragon trappers had disappeared from off their island without a trace a few months ago; apparently a ship from some other source had taken them away during the night. That was the end of the new dragon traps. There were still plenty left over, but as the dragon/human pairs found them and disarmed them, the land surrounding the Bewilderbeast's nest became progressively safer. No one was ready to say the traps were all gone, but three months had come and gone without a single emergency. The visitors from Berk spent all their time teaching Forge to any dragon who wanted to learn it, which eventually included nearly every dragon in the nest. Most of them just wanted to be conversational with Valka and the other humans, but a handful wanted to learn every word, just because it gave them something new to do. The teachers polished their teaching skills through much practice; some dragons, like the Alpha himself, challenged them by wanting to constantly learn more, while others, like the Gronckles and Hotburples, challenged them by being reluctant to stay awake through an entire lesson.

Hiccup watched the big Stormcutter flapping away into the distance until he could no longer see him. Then he turned back to his own nest and his own growing family. The current exchange team of Varinn, Fluffernut, Agmundr, and Scrubby (who refused to be parted from Fluff, now that they could fly together) would return from the frozen nest in about three days. They'd have a quick meeting with him and Astrid to describe anything unusual that had happened while they were away. Hiccup didn't expect anything unusual, except maybe that Varinn's little son had grown a new tooth or something like that. The human baby was always the center of attention when it was his parents' turn to mind the frozen nest – the dragons were fascinated by everything about him. "Dagnut might be the best goodwill ambassador Berk ever had," Varinn had told Stoick last month, and it was true. The dragons in the Alpha's nest still mistrusted most humans, but even they couldn't resist the charms of a ten-month-old baby.

Three days later, the dragons announced that someone was approaching from the east. But it wasn't Varinn and his family. It was Valka and Cloudjumper, and they were flying fast. Hiccup, Astrid, Agmundr, and Six flew out to meet them.

"We need a quick meeting, and then we need every dragon in the air," Valka exclaimed. "Something terrible is happening out there."