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zakrinosaurus3: It's called "Hiccup's Journey To Japan" with a sequel entitled, "The Viking Samurai."

DJ Rodriguez: You may be a little correct.

Gojira's reaction was actually a bit of a reference to the Godzilla Battle Royale. Hehehe. Minus One Gojira here he's getting flashbacks of the goddamn Godzilla fight arena where Zilla junior was beating his ass. Remember?

LORD DESTRYUK: Attempting to leave will happen later. But again, no spoilers.

Now, on with the story.

Chapter 4: The Dragons' Nest

The torches are burning low, and no light shines from a single house at night. The gates of a sheep pen creak in the wind, which then whistles through the metal instruments of the forge, empty. Late in the night, all of Berk sleeps– all but one.

Hiccup lies in bed, his eyes shut, but it is clear the boy has found no sleep, try as he might, when he suddenly tosses, turning on his side. He turns again, adjusting his pillow, and then again, before he finally sits up, tossing away his blanket.

The door to Hiccup's bedroom draws slowly open, and he pears out into the darkness of his house but finds no movement. Quietly, he takes the stairs. At the bottom, he turns, glancing at the door to Stoick's own chambers, but his father does not wake.

Hiccup moves about, but he was not on the hunt for a drink.

Hiccup dons a cloak, draws open the front door, and quietly slips out.

Hiccup did not turn to the forest. Instead, the young Viking stuck to the roads of Berk.

Hiccup passed the forge, the Great Hall and the wood. He walked in silence, and only the wind followed him. Finally, his destination was revealed. The Kill Ring.

Hiccup cranked the winch outside the Ring just barely, enough that the gate only raised perhaps a foot or two from the ground. There was a clinking of chains and a groan of wood, but it was soft enough to draw no notice from the village across the bridge.

Hiccup walked down through the stone walls, and laid on his back, sliding beneath the opening. Then, standing, faced the dragon pens and took a deep breath.

There Hiccup stood, alone in the dark of night, the rest of the world asleep as he grappled with his thoughts. Stoick was included in that world, dead to Hiccup's nighttime treks, to the war in his head.

"Everything we know about you guys. . .is wrong."

Hiccup walks to the one pen that Gobber never opened, and stands before the doors, his cloak whispering at his ankles. Hiccup's face is unreadable, an endlessly searching look in his eyes. He looks impossibly small, but almost strong, too, standing tall in the shadow. The boy carries not even a torch, after all, and is seeing only by the light of the moon.

He turns away then, from the Monstrous Nightmare's cage.

He goes to another, identical pen, but it does not house the Nightmare. Rather, there is a tiny gate installed at the bottom, and when Hiccup pulls the lever by the wall, the tree trunk rises just enough for the Terrible Terror to crawl out into the night.

The little green dragon scrambles free, turning all around as it takes in its surroundings…but it is not day, and the dragon is not surrounded by Viking teens and a training session. Rather, the Terror turns to find Hiccup, kneeled down.

Hiccup waved his hand, a small smile. "Hi."

The Terror leaps back, wings flaring out, as if to make itself larger, but Hiccup does not advance. He stays where he is. "I need to know. . .if you're good. If we're really wrong. I need you to show me."

And Hiccup holds out his hand, palm up.

The Terror blinks owlishly at Hiccup. Still kneeling and offering a gentle hand, sitting in the light of the moon.

Slowly, the Terror creeps forward, though Hiccup has brought no fish with which to bribe. The dragon's nose works all the while, scenting the air, but there will be no smell of iron clinging to Hiccup, only that of another dragon. The Terror crosses the distance between them, almost agonizingly slow, but Hiccup remains patient and does not move, though holding his lowered position must have begun to ache.

Finally, the Terror closes the distance, hovering inches from Hiccup's hand, and the boy leans in, gently scratching under the dragon's chin. The Terror chirps suddenly, echoing through the silent arena, and pushes into the hand. Hiccup grins, obliging the dragon, and just as the Terror from his fishmeal with Toothless had, this Terror begins to purr.

Hiccup whispers. "Oh, gods."

His second hand comes around, scooping up the terror, and he falls back to sit on the stone, the Terror in his lap. The dragon curls up, purring like mad in the warmth of Hiccup's cloak and the bliss of his scratching fingers. Hiccup stares down, his smile gone, shaking his head. "I don't know what to do."

So there is Hiccup, sitting alone in the Arena, admitting to a little dragon that he knows not what to do with the burdens in his head. While Berk sleeps on, Hiccup is balancing centuries of hatred and fear, his friendship with a Night Fury and what he has seen of that dragon in the woods. . . all while knowing that come day, Astrid Hofferson will kill the Nightmare locked in a pen to his left.

Hiccup looks down at the little dragon. "You don't have any ideas, do you?" The Terror only purrs on, rolling around in Hiccup's lap like a happy puppy receiving belly rubs, until– the Terror jerks, freezing. Hiccup blinks, lifting his hand, and the Terror's pupils turn to slits, eyes opening wide. The purring cuts off in an instant. Concern colors Hiccup's face, and he lowers his hand, trying again to pet the Terror, but it shoots away from him.

The dragon leaps out of Hiccup's lap, flying fast, straight for the just-barely opened gate to the arena.

Hiccup scrambles up from his seat, whisper-yelling after the Terror. "Wait! No! Come back!"

He runs, but before he can grab the dragon, the Terror scrambles under the gate. Hiccup slides to the ground, pushing himself through the gap. The Terror is already flying again, up and out of the stone walls. "Come back! You can't be out there! If they find out you're gone–"

But the Terror hits open sky just as Hiccup races up the stone slope, and beats its wings out of his reach, not once looking back. The dragon moves with singular purpose, pupils still thin, eyes still wide, flying oddly on. Back on the ground, Hiccup watches it go, and drops his head into his hands, groaning. "Oh, no."

Then, Hiccup jerks his head up and races back towards the village.

Hiccup sits Toothless' back as they fly along the ocean's surface, below them, Gojira's spines break through the surface, the fur-lined hood of his cloak drawn up. "Come on, Toothless." He says to the Night Fury. "He can't have gotten far. Oh, my dad's gonna kill me."

Hiccup flex his boot in the pedal, the tailfin tilts, and Toothless shoots suddenly faster. At their backs, Berk grows smaller by the minute. Hiccup sits anxiously in the saddle. "Come on. Come on, little guy. Where are you?" he says to himself more than anything.

Beneath him, Toothless and Gojira growl lowly.

After a while of flying, the dragon and boy begin to pass banks and columns of fog.

Both Gojira and Toothless growls again, the Fury's pupils going to slits, just like the Terror. Hiccup reaches down absent-mindedly to pat his neck.

Hiccup speaks, "How fast can a Terror– woah!" and then Toothless suddenly turns and dives. "Toothless, what's happening?"

But Toothless gives no answer, instead flying shakily through thick fog. Gojira lifts his head up from the water and sees the duo dive into the fog bank. Gojira lets out a short roar as if saying "Wait up!" before he swims after them.

Hiccup looks down to Toothless, "Woah, what is it?"

A dragon roars, and Toothless dodges a Monstrous Nightmare, flying suddenly beside him.

Hiccup gasps, pressing himself to Toothless' back. Toothless is forced to dodge again, this time from a Nadder, then the Nightmare again. Slowly, the fog fills with other dragons, all clutching dead animals in their claws. Tens of tens of dragons.

Hiccup whispers to his Night Fury companion, "Toothless? You've got to get us out of here, bud." But Toothless throws off Hiccup's calming hand, tossing his head.

Hiccup looks around, and Gojira is doing the same. The dragons seem to be dragging in their meals, and Hiccup is the only living prey in the mass.

But dragging their meals where?

Hiccup looks over and notices a Hideous Zippleback, all four eyes trained on him. Luckily–or not–the dragons soon all together take a sudden dive. The beasts dart down, and Toothless is left navigating sea stacks close to the water– familiar sea stacks to the Vikings of Berk. Helheim's Gate.

Hiccup's eyes narrow. As the fly under a rock, an island is revealed, topped with a dark volcano, cracks glowing with lava in the fog.

Toothless flies through a tunnel of rock, and Hiccup shouts at their sudden speed. As Toothless glides through a tunnel. Gojira climbs onto shore and watches them fly into a tunnel that is high off the ground. Gojira growls as he jumps up, digs his claws into the rocky surface and climbs.

Meanwhile for Hiccup and Toothless, crimson light is splashed suddenly on the walls. Toothless flies out into the middle of the volcano, all washed with red and filled with fog.

Gods almighty, it's the nest, Hiccup realized and looks around. "What my dad wouldn't give to find this." he said to himself.

Dragons fly over the volcano's red pit of fog, dropping their food into the abyss. As they do, Toothless banks, stopping on a rock overhang and sheltering behind a stone. From on his back, Hiccup watches the dragons.

Hiccup noticed what the dragons were all doing with their caught prey. "Well, it's satisfying to know that all of our food has been dumped down a hole." he remarked drily.

Hiccup's head shoots up as a Gronckle flies, slow and lazy, over the pit. The dragon hovers, regurgitating a single, tiny fish. The creature happily scratches its ear, making to fly off– when jaws arise from the red pit and swallow the Gronckle whole.

"What," whispers Hiccup as he leans back in growing horror and shock, "is that?"

Dragons slink back in fear, hiding under stones. The gargantuan dragon slinks back into the fog, and Hiccup watches it go, staring down in horror. Suddenly, the head re-emerges, eyes on the Night Fury–and the human on his back.

Hiccup noticed the six eyes looking at their direction. "Alright, buddy, we gotta get out of here." The dragon rises more, towards the Fury– "Now!"

Toothless takes off, and the great dragon's jaws close over the space where he and Hiccup had been, seconds prior.

The dragons of the Nest all begin fleeing in a swarm, and Toothless joins them as the massive dragon's legs and upper body emerge from the pit. The beast pulls itself up after the duo. The jaws open–and snap closed on an unlucky Zippleback, dragging the dragon down into the depths. Hiccup and Toothless escape into the masses.

Gojira had just reached the tunnel entrance when he saw the dragons flying out of the mountain in a panic. He sees Hiccup and Toothless flying among them. He gave a Saurian sigh before he jumped off the mountain wall and dove headfirst into the water before swimming after the Dragon-Rider duo.

Hiccup and the Night Fury set down outside the Arena, and Hiccup leads the dragon quickly inside. The sky has begun to light, just barely, and already Vikings are waking, but there is no other time. It must be done now. Hiccup strides to the Nightmare's pen, all of his prior hesitation gone, and pulls the lever.

The tree trunk rises, chain creaking– and the Nightmare bursts out, large, fanged, and covered in flames.

Hiccup cringes, not at the fire, but at the noise, and looks frantically around, but no one seems to have screamed for hearing the dragon snarl. Toothless growls, snapping his teeth. His tail sweeps around Hiccup's legs.

Hiccup pats him on the snout, eyes back on the Nightmare. "I know about Her." He declared. Then he shrugs his shoulders. "At least, I think she's a She. The great dragon who dwells in the volcano."

The Nightmare stalks forward on its claws. Toothless tenses further, but Hiccup only gives one hand to his snout and another in the direction of the Nightmare. Hiccup keeps speaking to the red and black dragon, "She's like your Chief, right? Your…queen. She commands you with fear. You either fetch her meals or become them."

The fires of the Nightmare's skin burn a little lower, and he tilts his head, still advancing. He doesn't even growl back at the ever-hostile Night Fury. The little human has captivated him.

"I'm sorry," Hiccup says to the Nightmare. The Nightmare finally shakes its flame, coming to rest before Hiccup. His claws rake the stone, and Toothless watches him with narrowed eyes, but Hiccup only stares up into the face of the dragon. He shakes his head sadly. "We didn't know. Humans didn't know. All this fighting, and all this death. . . we just didn't know. " he admitted. "But I know, now. That dragon is not what a chief is meant to be. I would know."

Hiccup whispers, "And, I'm sorry."

And Hiccup's hand fell on the snout of the Nightmare, who closed his eyes.

300 years of war, and all the while, the dragons had been forced fighters. Forced by that…queen, as Hiccup put it, to fetch food in return for their lives. With Berk so near to Helheim's Gate, it was no wonder that they were attacked as often as they were by those starving dragons. Perhaps, all of them were capable of the same soul Hiccup had brought out in Toothless.

Perhaps, his mother Valka's life ended in that pit of crimson fog.

So, it was this moment though that Hiccup realized something and agreed with whole heartedly as he looked from the Nightmare to Toothless whose tail curled around his legs protectively and Gojira who stood outside looking like a guard or Praetorian ready for anything.

They were wrong.

Stoick was wrong about the dragons, Berk was wrong, as was the world.

Hiccup looks back to the Nightmare and smiled. "Hello."

High in a watchtower, a Viking warrior rests with his hands on the handle of his axe, and his chin on his hands. He blinks sleepily at the sea, yawning widely as the sun comes up.

The Viking scratched his head, and suddenly, hears a great clamor of explosions. He shoots up, losing his grip on his axe in his haste to look eastward. Smoke billows from the arena, and four dragons are flying from the direction of the Kill Ring, up into the sky. A Monstrous Nightmare, a Nadder, a Gronckle, and a Hideous Zippleback.

The Viking stares before shouting, "Dragons! Dragons to the east!"

But the four dragons escape into the clouds.

Ten minutes later

Stoick stands in the center of the Ring. It is an absolute mess. The chains that raise and lower the tree trunks have been snapped clean in two above the five pens, and burn marks cover the walls. The weapons rack lies in one corner of the arena, and all of the weapons litter the floor. The shields broken as if a giant had stepped on them. The chain roof wasn't even spared from the damage. The whole thing pulled off its hinges and torn apart.

A sheep runs past Stoick, whose eyes follow it. Its tail is singed and smoking, and it bleats like mad.

"Fungus!" Mildew cries from out of view.

The Viking from the watchtower peeks out from Stoick's vast frame. Hiccup begins to pace back and forth, the Viking watching him in fear.

"What happened here?" the Chief demanded.

The Watchmen stammers, "I– I don't know, sir." he said. "I just heard the explosions, and then the dragons were flying off into the dawn."

Stoick looks to the gates. "Who left the gates raised?"

Viking shrugs. "I don't know, Chief. They were shut tight last night."

Stoick's anger vanishes as a thought dawns on him. "Dragons, launching a coordinated attack to free their kin. This is very, very bad."

The smaller Viking nods his head in agreement. "Yes, Chief, very bad."

Stoick begins pacing in the Arena. "They're getting smarter."

The same Viking nods again. "Smarter, yes."

Stoick looked to the sky in fear. "More calculating."

"Absolutely."

Stopping in his tracks, Stoick then sighs. "Gods, Hofferson was meant to kill the Nightmare today." he muttered. "Odin only knows when we'll snare another. The lass won't be pleased with waitin' till spring…"

And the Viking shook his head. "Not at all, sir."

Stoick sighed before tugging on his belt. "We'll have to break the news to Astrid."

"Yes, Chief, we–" the Viking paused while nodding his head. "Wait, what?"

Stoick nodded his head. "Come on, then. We'll have to wake Gobber, first." he said as he walks out of the Arena. "He has quite a lot of new chain to make."

Back in the cove, Hiccup stands with crossed arms, watching something out of sight. "Maybe this wasn't my best idea."

Toothless picks his head up off the ground to look, and then settles back into his nap, uninterested. Gojira opened one eye, the Terror on his head before closing his eye. The Terror shuffled until he was facing away from what Hiccup was looking at.

And what was he looking at, you may ask?

In front of them, the Nightmare roars, flaming up to incinerate spikes from the Nadder. The fire sets a cloud of Zippleback gas on fire, filling the cove with a blast that knocks the Gronckle out of the air. The dragon slams into a small tree, splitting it in two, and rises, snapping its jaws.

Chaos. Absolute chaos.

The pile of fish they are fighting over lies forgotten in all the snarling.