It is no simple task to lead troops. The same can be said for making sure that they are ready for battles. Soldiers must be strong against foes, smart enough to solve problems they encounter, and brave in the face of danger. It was one of the reasons why Astrid was still thinking about how the A Team should be trained. Although they had proven themselves, there was always more that could be done to improve. The blonde was on the Edge as she ran through various ideas with Stormfly. She tested out the challenges first. If she knew they were possible, then Hiccup could not say that she was being too tough on the group. Well, he still might, but she would be able to defend her actions better than the last time. Astrid kept trying different tricks from Stormfly's saddle until she spotted a flash of red hair zipping in and out of huts. The Dragon Rider lifted an eyebrow.

"Dagur?" she asked.

This got the zipping to stop. The Berserker glanced up, spotting her and waved.

"Hey, Blondie."

Astrid and Stormfly landed so that the Viking could dismount. "What were you doing?"

"Oh, that." Dagur let out a sheepish chuckle. "Just returning a few things."

"You were stealing from us?"

"Not recently!" the other Viking insisted. "It was from before. Sometimes, you'd all drop stuff, so I kept it."

"I do remember Fishlegs saying that you just gave him back his sword."

"Yeah, it was really cool," Dagur said, sighing unhappily. "I'm going to miss that sword."

"Maybe he'd be willing to make one for you."

The Berserker's eyes lit up excitedly. "He might! I'll have to ask."

Astrid looked at the huts, seeing which ones he had already gone into. "So, I know you returned stuff for Snotlout and the twins. Do you have anything that's mine?"

The young man offered a small smile, then held out his right hand. "Yeah, you dropped a couple knives some months ago. Hope you didn't miss them too much."

Squinting at him, Astrid took back the blades. "How'd we never get anything from you?"

"I don't leave anything behind that I still want. Besides, I've got fast hands. That's how I got the journal from Heather without her noticing." Suddenly, his smile turned hopeful. "If it'll make up for taking your stuff, I could show you how to do that too."

"No, I'm okay. Ruffnut's our resident thief. It's how she got the keys…and a sandwich somehow…from a Dragon Hunter when we were all caught."

"I was wondering how that happened." Dagur looked at Stormfly who seemed ready to keep flying. "What were you up to before I got your attention?"

"I've been thinking of ways to train the A Team. I need to make sure that they're ready to protect Berk if the rest of us can't. Especially while we're still out here, the island needs to be safe. That's their job and it's my job to make sure they're ready. Everyone thinks I'm too hard on them, but if I coddle them, then Vikings are going to die."

"Makes sense to me."

Astrid hesitated momentarily. It was odd to hear someone actually agree with her about this.

"It does?"

"Yeah, I know about training soldiers too. It's not an easy task."

"Right, I guess that you would. I always forget you're a chief," Astrid admitted.

"Who's all on the A Team?"

"It's just everyone you saw that one day when we were fighting. Spitelout, Bucket and Mulch, Gothi, and Gustav."

Dagur began cringing. "Gushat's on your team?"

"He's not bad on a dragon."

"Better than nothing I guess." He stroked his beard thoughtfully, adding, "Do you ever have them train without the dragons?"

"I have them do push-ups until their arms go limp."

"Anything else?"

"I guess that's normally it. What do you do?"

"Well, since we don't have any dragons yet for the others, I have them work on their accuracy, operating weapons on the ships, and sparring."

"We probably don't need to use weapons that would be on ships like the chains or nets."

"Probably not, but sparring could help."

Astrid had a doubtful look on her face. "If I have Gustav and Spitelout spar, we're going to be down one annoying sixteen-year-old."

"And that's a bad thing?"

The blonde smirked. "Maybe not."

"Seriously, though, Gustav's in worse shape than I thought," Dagur informed her. "I figured he'd at least be able to carry his weight in a fight, but Snotlout and I had to take care of all the rebels alone. He doesn't have to go up against that guy first or anything, but if he doesn't learn how to defend himself without his dragon, that's a big liability."

"I hadn't thought about that before," Astrid divulged, expression turning pensive. "Maybe I'll have him go against Mulch first."

"What about the little old lady?"

"She's tougher than you'd think."

"Think she'd do well in a fight?"

"Maybe. She can nearly take Gobber out with that staff of hers."

"Isn't she Berk's healer?" Dagur asked, brow raising.

"Everyone on Berk has a bit of a rough edge to them."

"Huh, good to know."

Abruptly, an excited laugh escaped the Berserker. Astrid noticed that she was starting to get used to these sudden bouts of cackling.

"I've got an idea!" he informed her happily. "I need to come up with some new exercises for my Berserkers. What if we help each other out with this? I can go with you to Berk to see what's going on with the A Team and you can go to Berserker Island with me to help whip the armada into shape."

This intrigued the warrior. "I've never trained a group that large before."

"Are you up for it?"

"You won't try to be too nice with my team, will you?"

A devilish grin spread over Dagur's face. "Now, Astrid, when have I ever been accused of being too nice?"

"Fair enough. Let's give this a try."

Dagur whistled for Sleuther, then hopped onto the dragon's back. Ready, the duo began heading for Berk. When they arrived, Astrid flew in front, getting the attention of the group.

"A Team," she called, "training is about to be in session! Be in the Academy within five minutes."

Mulch and Bucket were the closest, so they began hurrying over to their Hideous Zippleback. Even though no explicit threat was given, they knew there would be consequences for not arriving within the designated time. Gustav was the next to start flying there, then Gothi. Spitelout was the last, arriving just before the five minutes had ended. The group stood at attention as Astrid walked in front of them with her arms behind her back.

"It's been a while since I've trained you all personally," she commented.

The blonde could practically smell the fear in the air.

"But that's not what I'm going to do, not alone anyway."

This caused the group to look at her in surprise.

"Who's going to help?" Mulch asked.

Astrid gestured to the entrance of the Academy. "Meet your co-commander for the day."

At the cue, Dagur and Sleuther entered the area. Immediately, Gustav started to smile.

"This'll be easy!" he made the mistake of saying.

Dagur shot him a look that told him that he might have been wrong.

"The last thing this is going to be is easy, Gushat," he said, eyes narrowing. "Astrid wants to make sure that none of you get rusty while she's away, so we'll be doing some new training." He began to smile, eyes twinkling with derangement. "Berserker style."

Spitelout turned to Astrid, eyebrow raised. "You're not really having him be part of this."

"You heard me correctly," she answered, arms crossed. "Do you have a problem with that?"

The man clearly did, but he did not say anything. He knew he would be doing pushups until the next Snoggletog otherwise.

"Good," Astrid said. "In that case, let's get started."

Dagur nodded, then pointed at Gustav and Mulch. "You two, you're going to be fighting without your dragons."

"Without?!" Gustav asked, horrified. "But we're Dragon Riders."

"Yeah, I know what you're called. Doesn't change anything. Get into fighting stances."

"But–"

"Now!"

Nervously, Gustav got into a fighting stance. It was mediocre at best. Mulch also got into one and they began to spar. The fight seemed to end before it began, concluding when the side of Mulch's hook made contact with Gustav's helmet. Loudly, the younger Berkian hit the ground. Dagur nudged him with his boot.

"It's a three round fight, Gushat. Get up."

"Is this because I didn't really memorize the Berserker songs?"

Gustav received a frown in response and sheepishly stood back up. When the fights were over, Dagur turned to Gothi.

"What did they both do right and wrong?"

The healer began scribbling on the ground with her stick. Dagur stared at the message for a few moments before giving up and turning to Astrid.

"She's saying that Mulch was able to use his strength to his advantage, but he wasn't very fast," the blonde explained. "For Gustav, it all seemed bad to her. She can't find a specific part."

Spitelout chuckled, but this stopped when Dagur went over to him.

"What's funny?" he asked. "Someone on your team dying?"

"He didn't die."

"If they don't both improve, they could. That's the point of training, right? To make sure nobody dies, but you're laughing. I get laughing at random. This just didn't seem random. Was it?"

Spitelout shook his head.

"Then it was in response to the training."

Reluctantly, the Jorgenson nodded. Dagur started to look like an idea was being formulated in his mind.

"New training method," he said. "We'll be moving onto defensive training now. Dragons are more dangerous than other Vikings. So, you'll all switch dragons and have to fend them off."

The team looked startled by the suggestion.

"But we have a Zippleback," Mulch said. "If two Vikings are defending themselves from one dragon, they'll do better than the others."

"I agree, which is why Strykie is going to participate." Dagur grinned widely and turned to Spitelout again, patting him on the back. "You get to spar with him, Spitehat."

Astrid contained her own laughter as she saw the man's face turn ashen. Sleuther walked up, peering down at him. The others started to switch dragons. Gothi moved to the Deadly Nadder, Fanghook went to Bucket, Mulch was near the Gronckle, and Gustav was going to take on the Hideous Zippleback. Before Dagur could give the signal to begin, Spitelout spoke up.

"Wait," he said, anxious. "I heard that this dragon was used in fights."

"He was."

"Then wouldn't it be dangero–"

"And begin!"

Instantly, the dragons started to shoot at the Vikings. Dagur went to stand beside Astrid. She watched, fascinated.

"I wouldn't have thought of this," she admitted. "I like it. They'll improve their coordination and speed along with strength since they'll have to block the fire or other attacks."

"Sometimes, you just need a touch of something deranged," Dagur said, cackling.

Astrid nodded in agreement. "You just might be right."

They let the training continue, then switched Vikings and dragons. By the third rotation, the group was slowly getting the hang of it. Their movements were becoming faster and Astrid thought she saw Gustav actually look like he would be able to hold his own in a fight. She was also glad to see the arrogance leave Spitelout's face during the training. It would return, but at least for the moment, he had accepted that he was learning like the rest of them and Sleuther was not making it easy for him. When they were done, the group was exhausted and barely standing.

"We can end there for today, but we'll do this again," Astrid assured them. "In fact, we'll be doing a lot more training with and without dragons from now on."

There might have been a sigh from the team if they had not been struggling to breathe so much. Instead, they just continued to pant as Astrid and Dagur got back on their dragons, taking off.

"Ready for me to deal with the Berserkers now?" the blonde asked.

"Sure! I didn't think you'd be up for doing it today."

"It just seems fair to. I'm also a little curious what they normally do if that's what you had the A Team get into today."

They kept flying until the dragons began acting strange. The Vikings still could not make sense of why they struggled to fly near the island, but the problem was resolved when they flew up higher. They landed at the stables, saying a quick goodbye to the reptiles.

"The training grounds are right over here," Dagur said, leading the way.

Astrid followed him to a large area. It seemed capable of fitting the entire population of Berk. Some soldiers were already present, sparring with one another. Dagur walked in front of the group, but it was not easy to get their attention. Almost immediately, he lost his patience.

"Shut up!" he yelled.

The Berserkers stopped their sparring, turning to their chief. This satisfied him and he smiled again.

"Everybody, Astrid is here to help you train. We figured it would be helpful to try out new ideas. So, listen to what she says."

There were sounds of agreement through the group. Astrid stepped forward, looking at them skeptically.

"Berserkers have an advantage in numbers. Everybody in the Archipelago knows that, but individually, a lot of you aren't as strong as Vikings in other tribes."

The group looked a bit offended, but they could not disagree. They had fought against Berk long enough to know that it took a dozen of their soldiers to handle some of the individual warriors.

"Drop and give me two hundred," Astrid ordered. "The training I have you do today is going to have you build muscle."

Dropping to the ground, the soldiers began doing pushups. Astrid watched their form, frowning at someone.

"Keep your back straight," she scolded.

The soldiers fixed his technique. Astrid had to correct a few more of the soldiers, but their main issue was how long they had to keep doing this. When they were done, Astrid pointed to some shields.

"Now, pair up. One Viking will hold the shield while the other keeps kicking to force the partner back. This will get you both stronger. You'll switch after you've kicked three hundred times."

Hearing the number made the soldiers' eyes go wide, but they did not argue much. A few of them grumbled quietly.

"What was that, soldier?" Astrid asked, looking one in the eye.

"Nothing," he quickly said.

"Then pick up the shield."

She tossed the shield at him and he got into the necessary stance for his comrade to begin. They kept doing this as Dagur observed.

"Neat idea," he commented. "I guess we get a little overly reliant on strength in numbers sometimes. Strength on the individual level's going to help a lot too."

Astrid nodded. "Exactly. They're good, but this will make them even better."

By the time the second group got to three hundred, it was starting to get late.

"Remember these exercises," Dagur suggested. "We'll be doing them again and more like them."

The soldiers saluted, then collapsed in fatigue when the trainers left. Both of them were aware of what they had done and laughed.

"This was fun," Dagur said. "We should train each other's Vikings more often."

"I'd be up for that," Astrid admitted. "Soon, the A Team will be as afraid of you as they are of me."

"It'll be a goal of mine!"

They began sharing more ideas for training until they landed. When they arrived at the Edge, Hiccup greeted them.

"There you are. We were wondering where you went off to."

"We were training our Vikings," Astrid informed him, giving him a kiss on the cheek.

The trainer's eyes widened. "That's a thing you two are doing together now?"

"Oh yeah, Brother! Those Vikings didn't know what hit them."

"I hope they survived."

"This time anyway!"

Hiccup tried to not feel too concerned by the matching grins on the Vikings' faces. There was really nothing he could do to stop that. They loved being in charge of soldiers. He was certain that those soldiers deserved his pity. Thor only knew what would happen when the friends saw them next.