Author's Note: ...Well. Look who's back. ='D

HEY, HI, HELLO AND WELCOME BACK! IT IS I, MOON, AND I'M BACK WITH A ONE-SHOT AFTER A RIDICULOUSLY LONG ONE-MONTH HIATUS.

My GOODNESS, this has to be the longest month-long hiatus I have ever taken. And that's probably due to all the schoolwork and crap that I've been trying to keep up with, but BACK TO THE POINT-I have RETURNED and I have some semblance of a buffer that I'm hoping to keep up with these next few weeks.

...if life doesn't decide to do another 180 on me, anyways. ='D

*AHEM* ANYWHO-down below is a one-shot that I wrote about a month ago. It takes place during the episode Cast Out, Part 1, when Hiccup grounds Snotlout from the Academy after he almost kills Astrid during their training exercise. ='D

I thought this was a particularly intereseting scene since throughout majority of the HTTYD series, Hiccup hardly ever gets downright furious (and the cases he does are usually really shocking-*cough cough*, Enemy of my Enemy, *COUGH-*) so I decided to add a little bit of *spice* to this scene with some internal monologue and a bit of extra dialogue.

Okay, I'm done yapping now. I hope you guys enjoy this one-shot! ^u^

Unbottled Fury

"Catapult, FIRE!"

Today was a training exercise; it should have been simple.

But of course, things never went my way.

Down below, Gobber, Mulch, and Bucket had catapults set up with boulders. They were playing the part of Dagur's armada, pretending to ambush us so we could practice our defense and evasive maneuvers.

I had planned this out the night prior. Gobber, Mulch, and Bucket would launch boulders our way and we'd apply the skills and knowledge we'd acquired from previous run-ins with Dagur and the Outcasts. They were still a huge threat to us, so we needed to keep our abilities fresh.

"Ambush!" Fishlegs cried out. He sounded like we were in an actual attack. Great; it helped set the mood.

I placed my head upon Toothless' head. "Alright, Bud," I muttered. "Let's show 'em what we've got."

Toothless grunted in reply, and I leaned forward in the saddle. "Plasma blast, bud!"

Toothless was on it. He charged a few blasts at the targets below, taking careful aim not to hit the targets below. More boulders were thrown our way; a little more than I intended Gobber to release.

Well, I did tell him not to go easy on us… I thought.

A boulder whizzed past my ear. I caught a quick glance from behind me. The stone just narrowly missed the twins. Barf and Belch barrel rolled out of the way. The twins screamed—Ruffnut especially.

"HEY!" she shrieked, glaring down at the catapults below. "That thing almost took my head off!"

"It did?" Tuffnut asked, a little too enthusiastically for comfort. He looked down, a sadistic grin stitched on his face. "GOBBER!" he shouted. "DO IT AGAIN!"

As if he heard him, a tsunami of boulders were hurled our way. I gulped. No level of evasive maneuvering would allow us to make it through this one.

"Fall back, everyone!" I hollered. "There's too many of them!"

"You fall back!" My hair whipped against my cheek as Snotlout suddenly whizzed past me. "I'm going in to finish this!"

Irritation sparked within my chest. "Snotlout, that is not the exercise! Retreat!"

Snotlout ignored me and continued to fly toward the catapults below. I gripped the saddle, burning with fury.

If I had a coin for every time Snotlout actually did what I asked…I'd be broke.

Snotlout had always been one to do his own thing. To be frank, I couldn't believe we were even related. Normally, I'd be extra patient with him (since he wasn't very bright anyway) but this was serious.

If he were to do this while in battle, he would get himself—or someone else—killed. I needed him to understand that, but he never took me seriously. And it was either the former or the later that made me angry.

Finally, Snotlout turned around.

"I got your retreat…"he said.

I let out a sigh of relief.

Okay, maybe I won't be so broke after all—

"...RIGHT HERE!"

Nope. I was bankrupt.

Snotlout flipped Hookfang around, the Monstrous Nightmare threw a blast of fire at the wooden catapults on the ground. I heard a sickening SNAP! as the wooden contraption malfunctioned, and—in a blink—a huge boulder was barreling in our direction.

And my cousin dared to lounge on his dragon, completely ignoring the imminent danger he just put us in.

Toothless and I only had a second to act before the boulder hit us. We barely escaped it by rolling out of the way.

But behind us…wasn't so fortunate.

"AHHHHHHHHHH!"

Shocked, I whirled around just in time to see Astrid slip off of Stormfly, the boulder sailing past the two. My eyes widened in horror.

It hit her.

"ASTRID!"

Without wasting a second, I urged Toothless to go after her. She was plummeting at a ridiculous speed, the wind racing past us as we sped down to reach her.

"Come on, come on, Bud…!"

Astrid cried out as she hit two tree branches on her way down. I wasn't the one getting hit, but I twitched as if I had.

The ground was coming up fast. My hair slapped against my face. Tears formed and slipped from my eyes as I leaned forward. Toothless reached out with his paws.

"Get her, Bud!" I cried, panic decorating the edges of my voice.

Just as she was about to slam against the ground, Toothless caught her.

The relief I felt after was indescribable.

…

When we returned to the training station, Toothless laid Astrid on the ground and I quickly dismounted and held her up.

She was unconscious; the hits she took had done it. My heart drummed against my chest as I shook her gently. I heard the other Riders gather behind me.

"Astrid…?" I called softly. "Astrid?"

"Is she…dead?" whispered Ruffnut.

"She looks dead. So probably," Tuffnut quipped.

"Not the time, guys…" Fishlegs whimpered.

Suddenly, Astrid groaned, and I felt my heart lift. She slowly opened her eyes, agony in her eyes. I didn't need to ask to know she was in a lot of pain.

"What? What happened?" she murmured, disoriented.

I opened my mouth to reply when a certain someone's whooping rang in the air.

An ineffable fury overwhelmed me.

Hookfang landed a few feet away, and Snotlout lept off his back with a triumphant grin. I gently set Astrid down and stood up, my gaze so hard it could penetrate.

"Yeah! That's right!" Snotlout bellowed, spreading out his arms and making motions with his hands. "That's how Snotlout retreats: he doesn't! Click-click-BOOM!"

Silence. Dead silence. I could feel the harsh, angry gazes of the others behind me. Even the twins, who were more prone to joking around, were whist.

Snotlout stared at us, confused. "What? Why are you all looking at me?" When there was no reply, he grinned slowly. "I mean, listen, I know why you all are looking at me."

He flexed his biceps, a smug smirk on his face, and a painful realization came amidst my rage.

He didn't even realize what he had just done.

His ignorance and pride could kill all of us.

And he didn't even know it.

When Snotlout didn't get a reaction from us, he—hillariously—got upset. "What? It's Hiccup's stupid exercise!"

Snotlout had almost killed Astrid, and he dared to blame me.

Me.

I tried being patient. I tried to be nice. I let him get away with things, and yet he never changed.

He was still my selfish younger cousin.

Something inside of me snapped.

And like a pressured bottle, I burst.

"You have…no idea what you did, do you?!" I exploded.

Snotlout looked at me like I was stupid. "Yeah. Hookfang and I made the coolest trick shot ever. BOOM!"

I twitched—my face on fire. "You almost got Astrid killed!" I roared.

Snotlout scoffed. "Come on, she's fine. Look at her."

I turned around. Fishlegs and the twins were helping Astrid up. She could hardly stand.

And that was fine?

Astrid clutched her stomach, leaning on Fishlegs for support. She looked at Snotlout, her gaze harsher than ice.

"No thanks to you," she growled. Suddenly, she sprung forward. "ARRRRGHH!"

She ran over to Snotlout, furious and ready to deal as much damage as she thought deserving toward him. Even without a weapon, I knew Astrid would kill him if she got the chance.

I stepped in and quickly grabbed her. Astrid kicked and struggled against my grip, hands outstretched like a lion pouncing on its prey. Snotlout flinched and backed away.

"Whoa-kay, alright! Easy there, Astrid!" I exclaimed.

"I'm gonna kill you!" Astrid screeched.

Then, just as quickly as she had lashed out, she calmed down. She pulled herself out of my hold and stumbled back to the others, muttering under her breath.

"I'm gonna take his helmet and shove it up his dirty, little, rotten—"

She was out of hearing range before I could hear the rest of her sentence, but I didn't need her to. Personally, I wanted to do the same.

I turned around to Snotlout, exasperated.

"That's it. I'm tired of this," I snapped.

"I'm tired of this!" Snotlout lashed out. "What are you tired of?"

I almost laughed. "Are you kidding me?! You never listen to orders, you're always constantly going against my word…You always have to do things your way!"

"Well, guess what? I look out for number one," Snotlout shot back.

A blast of fire came from behind him, nearly knocking Snotlout to his feet.

"And one 'A'" he added. Hookfang snorted, satisfied.

I scowled. "Exactly. How can we rely on you if you don't do what we ask?"

Snotlout crossed his arms. "So, what are you saying, Hic-cup?" he said mockingly.

"I'm saying, until further notice, you're suspended from the Academy."

Behind me, the others gasped. Snotlout's expression quickly turned into shock.

That was it; the ultimatum.

I couldn't believe the words had left my mouth, but I knew it had to be done.

If Snotlout couldn't look out for anyone but himself, we'd be in far more danger than going against Dagur alone. He'd get us killed, and I wasn't putting us at risk because of his ignorance.

Snotlout blinked. "What?!" he spluttered.

I crossed my arms. "You heard me. You're grounded."

Snotlout turned red with fury. "You can't ground me!" he snarled, poking my chest angrily. "You're not my dad!"

I poked him right back, firmly.

"Yes, I can!" I shot back.

Snotlout leaned over me, trying to stare me down. "Oh, really?!" he challenged.

He had done this to me multiple times before. He was taller than me, stronger than me (physically, at least) and overall fit the depiction of a "viking" more than I ever could.

But that was the problem. He was so full of himself that he couldn't consider other people.

His weakness was my strength, and I wouldn't let him mistake it for a weakness.

I shot him down, forcing all my unkept feelings and emotions into my stare. I saw a flicker of intimidation flash across Snotlout's face, but he quickly hid it as he backed down.

My cousin scoffed at me and ran over to Hookfang.

"You can't stop me, Hiccup!" He mounted his dragon and jabbed a finger at me. "Watch!"

With that, he and Hookfang took off.

"Ground this, Dragon Boy!" Snotlout hollered. Then, he was gone. And so was my rage.

"...Am I wrong in thinking that 'grounding' means staying on the ground?" Tuffnut spoke up. "Because that looks an awful lot like, uh, 'skying.'"

"You didn't have to do that for me, Hiccup," Astrid said, standing behind me. I turned around to face her. She still looked shaken up, which upset me all over again.

"If we can't count on him during practice…how can we possibly count on him the next time we run into Dagur?"

Astrid pursed her lips and nodded.

"We can't," she answered. "...But we need him."

I looked at the sky where Snotlout had flown off. Despite her statement, I knew she understood, but she was still right.

We were down one rider. The threat of Dagur and his men were on the horizon.

A hint of regret seeped into my soul.

Did I make the right choice?

Author's Note: Totally off topic but serious question: has anyone else been having trouble copy pasting their fanfictions into FFN? I write in Google Docs and usually copy paste my stories from their directly into FFN with no trouble, but now I lose my formatting every time I do so and it's driving me nuts. OuO I had to go back and manually add in all my bolded, underlined, and italicized words. QwQ

I've tried pasting directly into the copy paste box within the editor and even uploading a PDF of my doc, but the formatting is still messed up. =/ If there's anyway to upload fanfics into FFN without losing formatting other than copy paste, please let me know! (I can't do this manual thing forever QwQ).

Onto the topic of the story itself; I had a lot of fun exploring a deeper narrative with this. =) One of my favorite things to do in writing is to expand character emotions, so I tried to apply that as I went along with this one-shot. It's not perfect, but I don't think it's too bad, personally. ='3

As for my next multi-chapter fic after (holy cow) a year, that will be coming out next week Saturday (hopefully QwQ). It's a classic HTTYD fanfic with lots of shenanigans, action, and a dash of Hiccstrid. =3

And for those of you wondering about the title...yes. It's the typical "getting-trapped-in-a-cave-with-the-person-I-like-but-won't-say-I-like-yet" fic. ='3 (look, I need to settle back into writing somehow, okay? Fight me).

Also, I've been rereading the HTTYD book series, and getting trapped and kidnapped is an occupational hazard in there, so I decided to take a whack at it myself (especially since I haven't written one of these kind of stories since I was, like, thirteen QwQ).

Anyway, I'll see you guys next week for my next post, and I hope you all have a wonderful weekend! =D

Until the next story!

~BeyondTheMoon1203