Disclaimer: I own nothing you recognise; if you're on this site, you know the drill. Also, thanks are owed to athingofvikings, who gave me a much-appreciated sounding-board for a few aspects of my planned world-building for this particular crossover; hope you like it.

Feedback: Appreciated as always.

The Dragon of Wanheda

Considering how easily this guy had managed to attack them on the Edge, Hiccup would be lying if he didn't admit to a sense of satisfaction at the way they were so easily kicking the ass of Grimmel's forces right now. He could see that the rest of Grimmel's group was putting up a good fight, but as the dragons were released and their riders got on their backs, it became obvious that they weren't used to fighting people like this. Fighting dragons might be a challenge, but Hiccup had learnt from experience that fighting people required a different kind of skill-set, and the Riders had been training for some time to fight both kinds of enemies.

For right now, however, Hiccup's goal was getting Toothless out of his cage. He'd made it past most of the guards already, and it looked as though the venom Grimmel had used on Toothless earlier had worn off, but that still left him with the challenge of actually opening the damn cage. For a moment he was worried as he looked over the thick metal bars, but relaxed when he found the simple bolt that was the only thing keeping this cage locked.

"Hang on, bud," he said, quickly working the bolt loose; he was slightly amazed that nobody had done a more secure job on this thing, but he wasn't going to complain about things being easy. "Just a moment-"

A warning roar from Toothless was all the notice Hiccup had, but it was enough for him to manoeuvre to the side as a Deathgripper fired that same strange venom right where he'd just been standing.

"You still think he cares about you?" Grimmel yelled, now perched on the back of one of his trapped dragons. "See what happens when you catch up with me now!"

Hiccup wasn't sure what Grimmel was even planning at this point, but he knew that he couldn't let this hunter get away. The man had been able to basically walk straight into the Edge and steal all their dragons in minutes; if he was allowed to come back, there was no telling what he'd try and pull off next time. Desperately pulling the bolt out of its slot, he ran inside the cage and leapt on to Toothless's back, his leg sliding into place in the controlling spur he'd created as the dragon took to the sky.

Maybe chasing this guy was a risky move, but it just felt right to deal with Grimmel on dragonback after he seemed convinced Hiccup's bond with Toothless was meaningless…

As Clarke continued the fight, she was surprised to find just how much she'd improved since she first came to the ground. She'd been so focused on staying alive and making plans at first, or learning how to ride Griffin and brushing up on her medical skills that she hadn't really focused on hand-to-hand, but now that she was working on it she was surprised to see how easy it was. Compared to the grounders she'd faced in the past, these hunters weren't really up to much when they were actively fighting other people, even if she was willing to concede they had been caught off-guard. She could see Snotlout and Tuffnut exchanging weapons in another part of the ship, or Ruffnut intercepting an enemy's staff with her own swords, but Clarke continued to rely on more bare-handed methods, striking her opponents so that they would drop everything they were holding and then delivering a more decisive blow while the hunters were trying to get their weapons back.

She'd fought the grounders in self-defence after a series of bad misunderstandings, and she'd never stop regretting that she couldn't find a better way to end the conflict with Mount Weather, but right now, when the stakes were saving the dragons, she had no problem delivering some punishment to these people. It might seem petty, but Clarke was just relieved to be in a situation where she could kick a man between his legs, steal his weapons and then stab another man, and know that her enemies deserved what she was doing to them, as opposed to everyone being the victim of bad circumstances.

As Fishlegs swung down on a line to knock down a couple of soldiers who'd been going after Ruffnut, Clarke smiled as she kicked another man in the knee and threw him into a cage that had held Hookfang just a few moments ago, smiling in satisfaction as the man yelled in pain; evidently the Monstrous Nightmare had heated the bars of the cage even if he couldn't break out. Grabbing a sword that her last enemy had dropped, Clarke took a moment to appreciate the feel of the weapon in her hand before she turned to charge at the next wave of enemies coming towards them. She wasn't expecting to accomplish more than a temporary distraction, but her efforts were justified when Meatlug flew overhead, spewing out a new wave of lava that struck the deck behind the soldiers. Clarke only had to engage a couple of her current enemies before she heard Griffin's distinctive roar behind her, ducking down just in time for a wave of heat to pass over her head, knocking the assembled soldiers back onto the molten rock behind them. Most were able to get away, but even the survivors were left screaming from their burning feet as they ran for the edge of the ship and jumped into the sea.

"We've got them on the run!" Astrid's voice called out, prompting Clarke to look up to where Astrid was already sitting on Stormfly's back. "And Hiccup is after Grimmel!"

Following the direction that Astrid seemed to be pointing in, Clarke turned around and looked into the sky, where she could just about see the dark form of Toothless flying through the air, Hiccup once again on his back. The two were chasing another dragon that seemed to be carrying Grimmel (even at this distance his white hair was very distinctive), but both were too far away for her to do anything about that right now.

Besides, she and the others were doing a good job dealing with Grimmel's henchmen, but once the immediate threats had been dealt with there was the question of what had sent Grimmel after them in the first place…

As he pursued Grimmel through the clouds, Hiccup wondered just how much 'initiative' these Deathgrippers actually had. From what Fishlegs had described, it sounded as though the Deathgripper venom should render them suggestible, but there must be a degree of independence or there would be no way for Grimmel to coordinate this many dragons at such a distance. If he could just avoid getting 'boxed in' by these dragons, he might be able to turn the tables and get up close to Grimmel…

When Hiccup saw the remaining Deathgrippers charge towards him, firing their strange liquid weapon, Hiccup barely had time to ponder the irony of failing in the one goal he hadn't had time to define before the other dragons were all around him and Toothless. The Night Fury was able to evade the worst of their attempted attacks, but the Deathgrippers were getting closer. Toothless managed to stop one of them by diving down to a nearby island and triggering a small avalanche at the moment the other dragon was going by, but even a Night Fury couldn't stay ahead of these numbers for long-

Hiccup's thoughts were proven almost prophetic when a Deathgripper grabbed on to Toothless from above, pinning Hiccup between the two dragons. The monster stabbed down with its pointed tail, Toothless only just managing to avoid the attack, but it would only be a matter of time before even the Night Fury's speed couldn't keep up with that kind of attack.

"We need a better plan!" Hiccup said, as another of the enemy dragons came in from the right. "And quick!"

As a third Deathgripper grabbed Toothless on the left, Hiccup was forced to lock the tail-fin into a fixed position and hope for the best. Toothless would only be able to go straight until he reset the fin, but at least Hiccup wouldn't have to worry about them getting knocked off-course if one of the dragons got to him while trying to get to his dragon…

"Uh… wh-what are you doing?" he asked, looking down to see the lines of fins on Toothless's back splitting in half as the dragon seemed to glow. As they flew up towards a thick cloud that had gathered above them, Hiccup didn't know what to expect, but he was suddenly grateful that he was still wearing his dragon-scale wings; judging by the way the scales on his own side were glowing, Toothless was about to do something really freaky even by dragon standards.

"OK…" Hiccup said, pressing himself down on his dragon's back, holding out his arms so that the wings covered his head as he hoped he'd understood what was about to happen. As though Toothless had been waiting for a cue, he let out a ferocious roar and suddenly Hiccup heard something that sounded like lightning surrounding him, reminding him of the time that statue had been attracting lightning back on Berk. He heard a series of startled yelps as the Deathgrippers fell away from him and his friend, but he couldn't worry about brainwashed dragons when he still had to deal with Grimmel.

"GO!" he yelled at his friend, shifting his foot back into the stirrup and setting Toothless to accelerate up towards the last remaining Deathgripper. The other dragon was putting up a good pace, but Toothless was still the fastest dragon in the game, which meant that catching up to Grimmel wasn't a problem.

It was only when he got up close and Girmmel literally jumped from the Deathgripper on to Toothless's back that Hiccup realised he didn't have a clear plan for what to do with this particular enemy once he actually caught up with the older hunter. He barely had time to shift Toothless's tailfin back to its fixed position before Grimmel had forced him out of the saddle and onto his back, hands wrapped around Hiccup's neck.

"This is a joke!" Grimmel spat at Hiccup as he shifted his grip, one hand still around Hiccup's throat as the other drew a short blade. "You really think he cares about you? You think any of these beasts care about us? You're a pet to your pet-!"

"We're friends," Hiccup countered, taking a final glance around the sky before he made his decision and tipped himself and Grimmel off Toothless's back. He heard Toothless let out a desperate roar as he dragged the dragon hunter away from the Night Fury, but Hiccup trusted that his dragon would realise that he had to just keep going to find somewhere suitable to land; right now only Hiccup was in trouble, but with the tail-fin locked, any attempt to turn back now would be dangerous for Toothless as well.

"You idiot!" Grimmel yelled as they fell, his grip on Hiccup's neck lost even as the blade in his hands damaged one of Hiccup's wings. "You're killing us both for a dragon? This is your plan?"

"Says the guy whose ship is falling apart?" Hiccup said, indicating the burning vessel now visible off in the distance. He could just about glimpse lifeboats making a getaway, but he wasn't concerned about that. Even at this distance, he could see that none of those boats were going towards the Edge, and he doubted anyone would want to come after his team again after they lost on this kind of scale-

"NO!" Grimmel yelled, forcing Hiccup's thoughts back on the fight at hand as they fell. With one wing torn, Hiccup couldn't fly away, but he at least had more experience at being mid-air than Grimmel did. As his enemy lashed out with his knife again, Hiccup grabbed the wrist and gave it a brief twist, forcing him to let go of the weapon before Hiccup launched a punch to Grimmel's face. Grimmel tried to kick out at Hiccup in turn, but Hiccup managed to intercept the blow with his metal leg, countering by placing his metal leg behind Grimmel's own and forcing it forward so that his enemy was sent falling away from him-

Any need for a further fight was interrupted when he felt something grab his shoulders and pull him away from Grimmel. For a moment he wondered if it was Toothless, but soon realised that this flight was too slow to be his old friend, even if it was certainly a dragon breed he was familiar with. It was only when he looked up and saw the purple skin that he realised which dragon he owed his life to.

"Charlotte?" he said in surprise, before he smiled as he realised the implications of this. For all of Grimmel's talk about how the dragons couldn't see their human riders as anything but a weird kind of pet, Hiccup's life had just been saved by a dragon who didn't have any personal obligation to him.

In other words, Charlotte saved me just because she wanted to save me.

Looking back over his shoulder, Hiccup wondered if Grimmel had seen exactly who had rescued him, but he abandoned that thought when he realised that the only sign anyone had been there was a large splash impact on the water below where he had been. At that distance from land, and based on the speed at which Grimmel must have been falling…

Hiccup wasn't going to get upset about the death of someone who'd come that close to abducting Toothless and the other dragons, but at the same time he didn't want to be the kind of guy who gloated about someone's death. With Toothless flying towards the nearest safe island and Charlotte already close behind him, right now Hiccup was just going to appreciate being alive after this extremely close call and reunite with his dragon before going back to help his friends clean things up.

Grimmel might have been an unpleasant surprise, but after this kind of triumph, Hiccup once again felt hopeful about their chances of dealing with the dragon hunters on a more permanent basis.