The Outcast Lands (COMPLETED)

[Toothless11]

Yeah Srry for not reading I at all too . I'm too destracted by my vacations! XD

Oh noes why??? lol I remember you said you would at least make 3 HTTYD fics XD. Well I really enjoyed your stories. Do you plan on MAYBE writing mor in the future? Also, does that mean you'll leave the forums as well? Or do you plan on posting non-HTTYD stories as well? XD

[mrjop2]

I'm probably done with Fan Fiction all together. I've developed an idea for a professional novel, and it's that time for me move on and take the next step in my writting. And Besides, If I did do another HTTYD fic, I don't think it would be a continuation of this series. I would probably start over, and come up with a story that takes place after Gift of the Night Fury.

[mrjop2]

...And Besides, I do plan on finishing this fan fiction, and my Superman trilogy Fan Fiction series, and my Star Wars Trilogy Fan Fiction series. When all of those are completed, then I think I'll move on to trying to start a career out of writting.

Chapter 17: The Woman in the Woods

It was painful to watch the friendly humans search for her, and not be able to respond; they didn’t know The Evil One in the way she did. Stormfly knew that they were being used against her, and there was no way of warning them without revealing herself. The witch was keeping a close eye on them, making it impossible for her to talk to them.

She had herself to blame for her current predicament. She had wanted to bring them to the old woman in the forest; that female was the only one, on this island, who could help them now. The problem was how to direct them there without being spotted by the old witch.

The memories of all the horrible things that Alvin had done to her had caused her to gain a paralyzing fear of humans for a long time. The Evil One was her first ever encounter with them right from the moment she hatched from her egg. At first, he seemed very friendly and compassionate; she wished she had only heeded the warnings of the other dragons on this island. The witch had given her the ability to speak and fully comprehend the Norse language. Stormfly thought that the gift of speech, she gave her, would only confirm her trust in the humans.

As it turned out, it was the other dragon’s fears that ended up being confirmed. The Evil One had the witch give her this gift to rise up all the dragons on the Island to go to war against another group of his own kind. She abhorred unnecessary violence, and the thought to be used as the human’s weapon was something she did not like to dwell on. When she refused, the Evil One had his followers torture her. She had managed to escape before he had the chance to carry out his threat to kill her, and she had never been back to the village since.

That was the beginning of her distrust of the humans, but when she came across the old human female in the woods, she quickly learned that, like dragons, there were many types of humans and even more different types of personalities. She then told her that one day, a new group of Vikings will come to the island, and one of those Vikings would be a brave, young girl. This young girl would be in need of her help, for she would have suffered a great lost, and would become reckless with her own life. That was why she called the young blond-haired girl ‘Camicazi’. As the old woman foretold, she could see the turmoil in Camicazi. Stormfly had no idea why, but despite the tough, aggressive appearance on the outside, she was grieving. Her grief was what prompted her to separate herself from her friends when they were attacked by the Skullions. She was the one that the old woman told her to befriend, and that’s what she did when rescuing her from certain death at the jaws of those mindless land dragons.

There was no doubt that she had to do something to save Camicazi and her friends; she was also certain that this would be her last opportunity to do so. The volcano was coming alive, and the monstrosity that lived inside of it was awakening. As much as the witch wanted to believe that she controlled that monster, he was a monster that could not be controlled or reasoned with. She had encountered Furious once before and barely survived. There was no questioning his intelligence, but he was still a mindless creature whose sole instinct was to devour any and all prey. The dragon had showed no signs of understanding her attempt to communicate with him; either that, or he did not care what she had to say.

With time running out, she may have to risk exposing herself to get the young humans to the old woman in the woods. There was no longer any way around it. As long as the whole group stayed together, there was always a chance that she would be successful in helping them escape.

* * * *

All of the young Vikings were more than willing to work together to find the dragon, despite the threat of the volcano. Hiccup had to wonder if his friends really understood the danger they were in. The only one that seemed to understand was his father. Stoick made it clear that he thought searching for the Mood dragon was reckless. Despite his objection, he respected Hiccup enough to go along and help in this search.

“We’ve been out here for nearly an hour, without one sign of that stupid dragon,” Ruffnut complained.

“Yeah, you can’t find something that doesn’t want to be found,” Tuffnut grunted, quickly growing agitated by their lack of progress. He was not one for exploring strange lands; he was happiest at home, in his familiar environment. The longer he stayed on this island, the fouler his mood became.

“Perhaps if we use fish as bait, we can lure her out. That always works with Horrorcow,” Fishlegs suggested.

“Not all of us jump at the first sight of food,” Snotlot replied dryly.

“Not to mention that this dragon is smarter than that,” Bitwolf replied. “She found us easily enough before; she’s probably watching us now, as we speak.”

Stoick walked up to Hiccup and Astrid, who had almost tuned out all the chatter of their friends. “Your friends are right, you know. If Stormfly wanted to be found, she would have come to us by now. It was foolish of Alvin the Treacherous to send you out on this mission, when we should be more focused evacuating his people .”

“Actually, we’re no longer doing it for him,” Hiccup said.

“What? Why then?”

He and Astrid started conversing with their eyes. They had talked about having this conversation with him before setting out from the village. They supposed now was as good as a time to fill him in. Since it was Astrid’s intuition, she decided to be the one to fill him in. “We don’t trust him. There’s just so many unanswered questions swirling around him, and we think that Stormfly might have the answers.”

Hiccup was not surprised by his father’s reaction. Alvin had been nothing but friendly since they first met. Even He had bought into his good intentions until Astrid and Bitwolf pointed out some interesting facts that he couldn’t explain. He could no longer look at the Outcast Tribe’s chief without being suspicious of ulterior motives.

Stoick had also been kept very busy by Alvin since arriving to the village. Perhaps it was to keep him too distracted to cause any problems for him. While he may have attributed it to two Viking chiefs brainstorming, Hiccup was, now, not so sure. “Now, what could Alvin possibly have done to make you suspicious?”

“I’m glad I’m not the only one,” Gobber said before the young Vikings could respond. Everyone was shocked to hear him say that. Yes, he went a little loopy with his fear of unnatural forces working against them, but that kind of talk had ended the moment they found this tribe of Vikings. Everyone just assumed that he had realized that he had allowed his imagination to get away from him.

“You too?”

“Aye, even I can see the mixed feelings among the Vikings here. There are more Vikings in this village which seem afraid for their lives; not to mention that creepy old woman I spotted sneaking around the village.”
“What creepy old women?” Hiccup’s mind immediately envisioned the old woman in his dream. He could not explain why; there could be plenty of creepy, elderly Viking-women in the village. Odin knows, Berk had more than its fair share of them. Yet, he had a gut feeling that Gobber was talking about the same old woman from his dreams.

“I’ve only seen her once, but she was the ugliest old woman I’ve ever seen in my life. She’s not even a real Viking. She had—dark skin.”

Hiccup fought to hide his reaction by slightly turning away from everyone. He only hoped that no one saw his reaction. His mind was reeling with the coincidence; he was not ready to talk about this until things made a little more sense to him, or everyone would begin to think that he, too, was crazy.

“This is crazy,” Stoick said, shaking his head while pinching the bridge of his nose. “I’m sorry about the Mood Dragon, Astrid, but I have to think of the safety of all of you, and those we left at the shore. We’re heading back to the village.”

“It’s about time,” Snotlout muttered.

In agreement to that assessment, everyone began to follow Stoick except Hiccup and Astrid. Hiccup was so mentally busy, that he failed to hear his father; Astrid noticed his strange reaction, and decided to stay with him. “We’ll catch up with you all.”

Stoick led the way as Hiccup and Astrid watched him and their friends head back to the village. When they were gone, she gave Hiccup a slight jab on the arm to break him out of his trance. “Hiccup, what’s wrong with you?”

Hiccup never flinched, but he showed that he did feel the jab by rubbing his upper arm. “That woman that Gobber described is the same woman in all of my dreams. I’m sure of it.”

“Are you sure? How is that even possible?”

Hiccup had no idea how if it was possible or not, but it only confirmed to him that they were right to suspect Alvin. Could the dream be from the gods to warn him of Alvin and this old woman?

A small breeze streamed through the forest, bringing with it a soft feminine voice that flowed right towards their ears. “Camicazi.”

“Stormfly? That was Stormfly!” Astrid’s hope was rekindled as she tried to determine what direction the voice came from.

“This way, Camicazi!”

“She’s coming from that direction,” Hiccup pointed to the left—the opposite direction of the village. Astrid was already running in that direction before he concluded the sentence. Throwing caution to the wind, she followed after the voice. “Astrid... wait!”

He ran after her, worried that they were being lured into trouble. She did not stop and wait for him; she ran towards the voice that continued to sound just out of their reach, no matter how far they ran. Hiccup knew that the dragon was not revealing herself to them; she was leading them somewhere.

Astrid ran through the forest, brushing branches aside which Hiccup had to dodge. He failed a few times, and ended up getting a stinging slap in his face, nevertheless. “Ow! Astrid!”

There was no telling how far they had run, and the farther they got from the village, the more concerned Hiccup became about running into another pack of unfriendly dragons. Then again, Stormfly was nearby, and she had not steered them wrong—yet. Hiccup had almost lost sight of Astrid when she came to an abrupt halt, almost causing him to crash into her. “Astrid, why’d you...”

He didn’t have to finish the question; he knew why she came to a sudden stop. Standing in front of them was an elderly European woman, dressed in a strange ragged, animal-skin cloth. Her hair was pure white, but her face still had some youth left to display. Next to Hiccup, she was probably the skinniest person they had ever seen, which only proved that she wasn’t a Viking. From the expression on her gentle face, she was nowhere near as surprised to see them as they were to see her. “Ah, I’ve been expecting you,” she said in a soft, heavily accented voice.

[Toothless11]

Oh. Another fic that takes place after gift would be great! XD

And that's it. I'm reading this fic once it's done . It's kinda dumb how things in life get in my way whenever I want to read everything I've missed -__-

[mrjop2]

Chapter 18: Captured

The people of the Outcast tribe were acting very strangely when they returned to the village. At first, Stoick was thinking that he was allowing Astrid and his son’s suspicion cloud his judgment. It quickly became apparent that was not imagining it. The Vikings were intentionally avoiding them. He wasn’t the only that noticed it either.

“Why is everyone avoiding us? Do I smell or something?” Snotlout asked.

The village was usually bustling with Viking children running around in play, but there was not one kid in sight. The adults looked at them and immediately became skittish and went out of their way to keep away. The very people who had once lavished them with awe and attention were now showering them with distrust and disdain.

Tuffnut chucked. “Ha, perhaps it’s your look that’s scaring them away.”

Ruffnut was in no mood for his teasing; unleashing her quick temper, she plowed her fist into his nose, perhaps harder than she had ever done in the past. “Ow! You didn’t have to hit me so hard, I was only joking!”

“You didn’t have to be so stupid.”

Gobber walked up to his friend’s side. “What’d ya think crawled up their trousers?”

Stoick didn’t know what was happening, but there was an increasing pressure in his mind, warning him that they were in grave danger. His instincts were telling them that they needed to leave, and quick. The trick was going to be how to leave without raising suspicion.

“Hey, what’s that noise?” Bitwolf said, alerting them to a strange thumping noise in the distance.

Everyone looked around the village; it was Fishlegs who pinpointed where the noise was coming from. “Over there!”

At the far end of the village, a group of twenty Vikings were fighting to shut a door to a hut that looked like a stable for livestock. Instead of livestock being pushed into the enclosed stable, it was Toothless. The dragon already had a leather strap around his short, rounded snout, preventing him from opening his mouth to breath fire. They could see the Night Fury through a barred window; he was franticly trying to prevent himself from being encaged, but the twenty Vikings were too much for the likes of an angry Night Fury. The Vikings overpowered the dragon, and were able to shut the door and lock the dragon inside.

Stoick had never been so angry in his life. Seeing Toothless treated like this brought out an anger that he rarely showed in public. Toothless was his son’s dragon, who displayed almost human-like qualities. That made the dragon a part of his family, and he did not take any threats, to his family, lightly. “Hey, what’s the meaning of this!”

Coming, seemingly, out of nowhere, a large group of Outcast Viking warriors surrounded them. Each one was wearing battle armor, and had their axes in front of them. There was no mistaking the threatening tone to their demeanors. “What’s this? I demand to know what’s going on!”

“I thought it’d be more clear, Stoick the Vast, of the Isle of Berk,” Alvin said as he walked out of his personal hut. With him was an elderly Ethiopian woman, who wore a one piece dress made out of hide of some sort of furry animal. She was wildly unkempt; making Stoick wonder if she was some sort of witch doctor. “You have something we want, and I need you and your people out of my way until I get it.”

“What could we possibly have that you would want?” Bitwolf asked.

“Your dragons, or course.”

* * * *

Hiccup and Astrid followed the old woman to her hut. She was strangely unafraid of walking through the jungle. With all the dangerous dragons on this island, she walked through her jungle as if none of the threats were real. They were surprised, even more, when they arrived to her humble abode. It was simply a small hut made from the natural growing trees. There were no walls to this hut. In fact, there was no physical work done on this hut at all. It was as if she found this spot in the forest, and made it her home. The trees were perfectly placed to protect her from the elements. It was hardly a hut at all.

“I’ve been expecting both of you, but much sooner than now.” The old woman said, slowly lowering herself to sit down on a tree stub.

“I think you’ve got us mixed up with someone else. We’re not from this island,” Astrid said, trying to be as polite as possible. To live in this kind of shack, she was convinced the old woman was mentally ‘out-of-it’.

“I know exactly who you are and why you’re here, but I highly doubt that you know the actual reason why you’re here.”

Hiccup and Astrid gave each other a quick glance as if to suggest that they might be in trouble. There was no doubt in their minds that she was a crazy old woman, and perhaps coming with her to this ‘hut’ was not the brightest idea.

The old woman could tell what they were thinking. “You two come from an Island where Vikings and dragons live together in harmony, thanks to your brave actions,” she said, pointing at Hiccup with her eyes. “The relationship you formed with the Night Fury is impacting the Viking way of life all over this territory.”

Okay, so this crazy lady did know who they were and where they had come from. That did not explain how she knew that they were going to be on this Island. As if she could read their thoughts, the old woman answered their inquisition. “You visit to this island was, by no mean, an accident. I saw this day in my visions.”

“Wait a minute,” Astrid said. “You’re a witch, aren’t you?” The old woman was clearly not of Viking descent. She had heard stories of people who claimed to be servants of evil gods, or worse, one of the many types of giants. They threaten to use their ‘powers’, that their gods grant them, to manipulate people . Only children really believed that there could be truths to these myths. She believed there were logical explanation to any ‘trick’ that were able to do.

The old woman remained pleasant as she laughed. “I may dabble in a little soothsaying, but nowhere near the extent of my sister. I think you know who I am referring to, young Viking-chief.” Her eyes again pointed towards Hiccup.

Now, Hiccup was getting uncomfortable. He had no doubt that she was referring to the old woman in his nightmares. How did she know about his dreams? “But... How?”

“Yes, I know about your dreams. Sad to say, that she’s my sister.”

“Your sister is responsible for Hiccup’s bad dreams?” Astrid couldn’t decide whether she was angered by this ridiculous notion that someone can implant dreams in a person’s head, or that this woman’s sister was attacking Hiccup’s mind. She knew, more than anyone, what those dreams were doing to him.

“I regret it, but yes,” she said, with a sigh. “I’m sorry, I’m being rude, can I offer you two a piece of fruit?”

Both the young Vikings shook their heads, to politely decline the offer. Neither of them could think of food at a time like this. What they were more interested in were answers; however, some of these answers this woman were providing were really hard to swallow. Hiccup seemed more open to what the elderly woman had to say, but Astrid was trying to put holes in these answers. So far, she was not having much luck. “I don’t mean to sound rude, but why would your sister be planting these nightmares into Hiccup’s mind?”

The old woman let out a soft sigh. “So many questions and so little time to answer them. There’s not even time to show you around my home.”

Astrid looked around, and saw nothing but open forest. She couldn’t imagine how she lived in the open wild like this, with none of the comforts of a real hut among other people. This woman has lived all alone, with nothing but what grows in the wild. There’s no wonder why this woman was a little—off.

“I was hoping that Stormfly would be able to bring you and your friends to me first, but my sister and her son are very powerful together.”

“Her son?”

“Alvin the Treacherous,” the old woman replied. “He did not earn his name by chance, you know.”

“His mother is the witch in Hiccup’s dream?”

“Yes. Alvin’s father traveled across the globe and met my sister. Well, they fell madly in love, and were married soon afterwards. He brought my sister and I back to his tribe, but the tribe rejected us immediately on sight. They had a very strict code about marriage outside the culture, so they banished the three of us. We became outcasts among all the Vikings tribes.”

“The Outcast tribe?” Hiccup guessed.

The old woman unsteadily waved her crooked finger at him. “I’m getting to that, young Viking-Chief. Don’t be in such a rush,” she gently scolded.

A minute ago, she said that there wasn’t much time to tell her story, but now she was telling him not to rush. He decided to let her go at her own pace from now on; trying to figure her out would just get himself more confused and frustrated.

“They came to this island and made it their home. Alvin’s father would create his own tribe of Vikings, the Outcast tribe as they are now known. Soon, other Vikings would come and join this tribe, though I’m not sure where they came from or why they even came to this island. As the tribe expanded, my sister would give birth to Alvin.

The old woman continued her story as she shook her head. “Alvin resented his parents for all his life; his father received most of his anger. When his father passed away, and he took up the mantle of tribal chief, he banished me from the tribe. At first, I didn’t understand why he focused his wrath on just me, but it quickly became obvious that he was willing to put up with his mother, to get what he wants.”

“And what does he want?” Astrid asked.

“At first, I though he acquired his father’s hate for the Roman Empire. I thought he wanted to renew the war between the Vikings and the Romans, but I believe there’s more to it, deep down inside. I think he wants to renew the war to exact his revenge on all Vikings. I worry for his sanity; he will stop at nothing to get what he wants. He even stole three dragon eggs during his travels to rise up as his pets. On the first dragon that hatched, he tried to have his mother cast a spell on the hatchling, to give her the ability to speak Norse.”

“Stormfly!” Astrid’s eyes widen. She had always wondered how the Mood dragon got her ability to speak. Without realizing her, her disbelief in her story had dissipated. She was hanging on to every word she was saying, especially now that they were getting onto Stormfly’s story.

“Correct. He was hoping that having pets that he could communicate with, he could control all dragons and force them to do his will. When Stormfly refused, he tortured the poor dragon, with intent to kill her. She was very fortunate to run away when she did. It took me a long while to get her to trust me enough to allow her to help her.”

“That does explain why Stormfly disappeared on us and why she refuses to step foot in the village,” Hiccup replied calmly. “She’s scared to death of Alvin.”

“That dirty, low down, no good...” Astrid’s face turned red as an uncontrollable rage came over her. Holding on to her ax until her knuckles were white, Hiccup quickly worked to calm her down before she started to swing that ax. “I’m gonna PULVERISE HIM!”

“Be wary, child,” the old woman responded. “Alvin the Treacherous is very dangerous. After his experiment failed with Stormfly, he decided that obedience was more important than getting them to talk. So the other two dragons he hatched, he had his mother put a spell on them that would make them completely loyal to him. The other two dragons were Timberjacks, I believe.”

“Wait, did you say two Timerjacks!”

This was news Hiccup was not expecting. He did not want to jump to conclusions, but it was hard to put aside the coincidence that it was also two timberjacks that attacked Berk. He turned to Astrid to see if she was coming to the same conclusion as he was. “You don’t suppose...”

Her face was going from red to purple. He had never seen her this angry before. There was no doubt that she was coming to the same conclusion. “He sent those dragons to destroy our homes!” Reading her face, Hiccup knew that she was thinking about more than just their homes. She was blaming Alvin for what happened to her Deadly Nadder.

[mrjop2]

Chapter 19: Imprisonment

Hiccup found the rope, which was tied around his wrist, to be very itchy; it was almost torture in of itself. Based on the way Astrid’s wrists were fidgeting, he guessed that she found it just as uncomfortable. The old woman that they found was receiving the same treatment, which only confirmed to him that there was a lot of truth behind what she said. He could not believe that he had been so wrong about the Viking chief of the Outcast tribe..

“Wh—why are you doing this? Why do you want to restart the war with the Romans?” The old woman already told her what she suspected, but he wanted to hear it from his own ears.”

“She told you about that, huh?” Alvin grinned. “Well, I’ll let you keep on pondering on that with what little time you have left.”

Hiccup’s eyes widen as well as Astrid’s. Both of them realized what he intended for them, and it did not bode well with them. “What did we ever do to you?” Astrid protested.

Alvin tempter took a startling turn that even made Astrid flinch. There was a tone in his voice that suggested that this was a very personal matter to him, as if they had gone out of the way to hurt him. His anger was focused directly at Hiccup. His eyes were shooting daggers at him with extreme hatred. “What haven’t you pesky kids done? I’ve been hard at work trying to mass an army of dragons, but your continual interference has driven me to these drastic measures.”

Astrid noticed all of his hate was going towards Hiccup. It didn’t take a genius to figure out why. “What could Hiccup possible have done to warrant this madness?”

“At first, I was in search for a single dragon powerful enough to wipe out all of Rome. I then heard rumors that a Seadragonus Giganticus Maximus was discovered living in a dormant volcano on Dragon Island.”

“The dragon queen?” Hiccup couldn’t imagine that even Alvin the Treacherous would be able to tame such a monster. It was a highly intelligent beast that cared nothing but itself. It ate everything and anything that crossed her path. Even if Alvin did have a witch at his whim, Hiccup doubted that it would have made any difference at all.

“Yes, but you killed the beast days before I arrived to the Island. I was willing to let this little indiscretion slide, but you interfered, yet again! I learned that Ivar the Fearsome had discovered a Shadow Dragon.” Ivar spoke with a facial gesture as if he was talking with a bad taste in his mouth. The thought of everything Hiccup had ‘done’ to him was filling him with vile hatred. “I was determined to find this dragon before he could slay the beast, but you had to go and kill that dragon as well, now didn’t you?”

Alvin’s anger took over as he stopped their parade back to the village. He rabidly reached out and grabbed him by his shirt. Defenseless to defend himself, he could do nothing but take the blow as the Viking chief delivered a massive shot to gut with his giant fists. The wind was knocked out of him, as he fell to the ground crouching with his arms covering his stomach. He almost started to see a bright light as he struggled to find away to get air back into his lungs before he suffocated.

“SON OF A... HALF-TROLL...” without any care of possible repercussions, she charged at the Viking chief, escaping the clutches of the nearest Viking who had tried to stop her attack.

Alvin swung the back of his hand, slapping her across the face with such force that she fell onto her rear end. It took her several seconds to overcome the dizziness she felt as the aftermath of his slap. Seeing the look on her face, he bellowed out a hardy chuckle. “There’s nothing any of you can do now. Since your ‘boyfriend’ took away my dragons, I will take away all of Berk’s dragons... after I burn your village down to the ground, that is.”

“Y—you wouldn’t!” She gasped, rubbing the side of her face which felt like a hundred needles pricking at the same time.

Alvin stomped towards and leaned down over her as means of intimidation. He had more on his mind, but Lanell, the old woman, stepped up to his side in a challenging manor. “You leave these kids alone!”

Alvin stood up straight and looked at his aunt with utter disdain. “You should worry about your own skin, old woman. These kids are about to be supper for the Furious. You should pray that you don’t follow suit.”

* * * *

The three of them were shoved into a wide, one story hut, where Hiccup’s father and all of his friends were. It was a single story hut, with nothing on the inside except empty space. It looked like it was specifically designed to hold at least a dozen Viking-sized people as prisoners. He had to wonder why any village needed a prison in the first place; Vikings pretty much were very loyal to their people. Was it possible that he was ruling over his tribe using fear? That would suggest that not everyone in this village was happy with Alvin the Treacherous.

Looking around at his friends, he saw that all of their wrists were tied in the same manner as the three of them. Gobber and his father looked relieved to see that he was still alive; his friends, however, did not seem so surprised. Perhaps they’ve already come to suspect that he had something to do with the mess they were now in.

“Thank Odin, you two are alright!” He approached the two of them until he saw the old woman being shoved into the hut with them as well. “Who’s this?”

“She looks just like that ol’ witch of Alvin’s!” Gobber said, eyeing her suspiciously as he walk up to Stoick’s side.

“It’s... a long story, but... she’s on our side,” He assured him. He looked around to see that all the windows in the hut were boarded up, not allowing anyone to be able to see what was going on outside. “Did anyone see what they did with Toothless?”

The look on his father’s face told him that he was not going to like the answer. If Alvin wanted to steal their dragons, then he feared that Toothless would be one of them. He prayed to the gods that the witch had not put a spell on his Night Fury yet. “We saw them putting him some kind of boarded-up, reinforced stable.

A sense of relief swept over him. At least they hadn’t tried to brainwash Toothless yet. He didn’t care what kind of magic the witch was capable of doing; he refused to believe that Toothless would allow himself to be bewitched into helping Alvin. He had all the confidence in the world that his dragon would give Alvin a fight that he would not be ready for.

“Will someone explain to me what’s going on?” Snotlout asked. “We were treated like royalty, and now look at us? What’s up with the chief, anyway?”

Hiccup let out a soft sigh; he could imagine what his father’s reaction was going to be. “To put it simply, he wants to burn down our village and steal our dragons.”

Snotlout jumped to his feet. He had a strong connection with his dragon, Fireworm. To hear that someone wanted to steal his dragon made him just as furious as everyone else; he just was not that good at concealing it as others. “Steal our dragons? I’ll give a him a punch in the lip if he thinks he can have Fireworm!”

“Yeah,” Tuffnut agreed. “He’s not getting my dragon, either!”

One word in that sentence, ruffled Ruffnut’s feathers, and she was in no mood to let her brother get away with being a jerk, even now. “What do you mean, ‘your dragon’?” Ruffnut growled, shoving him with her shoulder. “That dragon’s half mine, as well.”

“But mine’s the better half; he breaths fire.”

His arrogance knew no bounds. Even Hiccup could sense Ruffnut’s wrath, and it caused him to flinch. “He? Our dragon’s a she, NIMROD, and SHE can’t make fire without my half!”

“What could he possibly want with our dragons?”

“He—He wants to use them to start a war with the Roman.”

His father grimaced in disgust. He was expecting it to be bad, but evidently, not this bad. “The Viking’s insane! War will ravage our people, almost to the brink of extinction!”

His father was right. In the last war, many brave Vikings died. Yes, they were a resilient group of people, but for all their might, they could not compete with the growing powers of the Roman Empire. Of course, if Lanell was right with her suspicions, Alvin was fully aware of that. He wanted to awaken the Roman Empire, so they can exact his revenge on the very ones who betrayed him.

“Alvin’s one sheep shy of a herd,” Bitwolf mumbled. His father, Wolfbane, had his faults, but even he would not stoop so low as to send his people off to war to die. If his father had not been so hungry for power, Vikings like Alvin would vanish without the trace. Either they would go into hiding, or his father would make them ‘disappear’. On the other hand, Hiccup was not sorry for what happened to Bitwolf’s father; that Shadow Lord dragon was too dangerous to allow it to live, and Wolfbane had learned that the hard way.

“So he wants us out of the way so he can destroy our homes and steal our dragons?”

“It’s worse,” Astrid replied. “I think he means to feed us to something called the Furious.”

“Furious? As in the pet dragon belonging to Surtur the Fire Giant?” His father believed in the gods, and perhaps a little of the legends of their wars against the giants, but at the same time, he was very skeptical when it came to actually manifestations. Hiccup guessed that his father believed that they only existed in another realm. As it was, trying to convince him, the witch could use magic, was something Hiccup wasn’t even willing to try. It would take away from other more important things... as in trying to get off this island alive.

“Whether or not the dragon is that very dragon, I can’t tell you for certain, but be assured that the beast he’s talking about is very much real. It lives in that volcano, and my sister foolishly believes that she can control it.” Lanell commented.

“b—b—b—b—but I don’t want to be dragon chow!” Fishlegs whined.

“Pssst!” a soft whispery voice came from one of the boarded-up windows. He could only see a shadow through the tiny cracks; not nearly enough to be able to see clearly who it was.

Stoick looked over at Hiccup, using his eyes to suggest that he was the town’s ‘hero’ and that he should go see who was calling to them. Getting the message, he walked over to the window. “Hello?”

“You gotta help us!” The whispering voice belonged to a young boy.

“Uh, hello? Our hands are tied!” Snotlout said, waving his wrists in the air towards the window. He just happened to be sitting near the window, and decided to take the liberty to try to tell the kid off. The current predicament was making him bitter, and unable to comprehend that this could be an opportunity for them.

Astrid stepped forward and threatened him with a raised fist, causing him to flinch. She did not have to say anything to get the message across to him to keep quiet. The last thing they needed was Snotlout’s foul mood to interfere and make things more difficult for them.

“Please!” The boy whispered. “Not all of us are like Alvin. Some of us are against him.”

Hiccup was right; Alvin was using fear to rule over the people of the tribe. When returning to the village, he definitely noticed the drop in the number of Vikings around the village. All the kids were among the missing. “Why won’t your people revolt?”

“They’re not enough of us, not to mention that we’re afraid of the witch. She has scary evil powers!”

Stoick huffed, still refusing to buy into the ‘witch’s’ capability. “Your people really need to stop buying into those lies. Alvin wants you to believe them to keep you inline.”

“No sir, her powers are real; we’ve all seen it. She can control weather and dragons. I’ve seen her cast illusions, but she didn’t know I was watching.”

There was no point letting this line of conversation continue. There was nothing the boy could say that would convince Hiccup’s father. “If we’re gonna’ help, we’re gonna’ need your help. We can’t do this alone.”

“I—” From the way the shadow moved, it looked like the boy heard a noise and was looking elsewhere. “I have to go.”

The shadow disappeared from the window with the sound of tiny pitter patter feet running from the hut, while the sound of an army of heavy pressed footsteps approached the door. The door swooshed open and Alvin stepped into the hut. “It’s time.”

[mrjop2]

Chapter 20: The Fury of The Furious

Alvin and his Vikings brought Hiccup and the others to edge of village, near the foot of the volcano. With all the axes and swords pointing at them, there was very little opportunity for them to try to fight themselves free. They came to the edge of a cliff. It was not a very deep drop; they even had a rope ladder that could be used to climb down into the pit. Hiccup had troubles believing that it was natural made cavity; the walls circled around and ended at the steep incline of the volcano. The Outcast tribe must have worked many years on this pit. There appeared to be a large cave entranced on the side of the mountain.

Alvin pushed him towards the ladder as the rest of the Vikings kept his friends back. “Okay, Hiccup the Horrendous, you’re the dragon whisperer. Let’s see you work your magic.” Alvin untied his wrists. The rope had been tied so tightly, that his they were slightly discolored. He rubbed his sore wrists as he looked back at his friends. Alvin was taking no chances; all of his friends were being bound by ropes to assure that did not try anything. If Alvin was anything, he was thorough.

Behind them, off in the distance, he could see the stall where Toothless was doing everything he could to break out of his prison. Letting out a series of furious growls and grunts, Toothless used his body as a battering ram. The Night Fury sensed that Hiccup was in danger, and was desperate to get out and help.

Alvin pointed the head of his ax at his chest, bringing Hiccup’s attention back to his own situation. “Down you go!”

If the ax at his chest was not motivation enough, the weapons surrounding his friends and family was. Toothless was giving everything he had in escaping; Hiccup had to buy time until the Night Fury succeeded. Grudgingly, he obeyed, but he also did so at snail’s pace. Whether Alvin was growing impatient with his delay tactics, Hiccup couldn’t tell it by his posture. As he climbed down, he looked up and saw the very same witch from his dreams standing at the edge of the cliff. No doubt she was going to use her magic to control the dragon, or at least, fool herself into thinking that she’s controlling it. Lanell, her sister, had her doubts that she could keep the dragon under her control for very long. Perhaps if he could survive long enough, the dragon would wake from the spell.

The moment his feet touched the bottom of the pit, one of the Vikings at the top pulled the ladder up, taking away his only means of escape. Being at the bottom of the pit had a much different feel to it than being at the top. Down there, he felt submerged in the thick, oily slime of evil; he could almost swim through it. He had no idea what kind of dragon to expect, but something told him that there would be no reasoning with this dragon. If, by its mere presence, it could emanate this kind cloud of malevolence, then chances were that it followed only after its lust for blood. Yet, he held onto hope that what he was feeling was the witch’s doing.

From up above, the old witch began to spew one of her nerve fraying chants. She spoke in a strange tongue, one that was clearly not Norse. Her voice echoed in the air, somehow being amplified in the process. At first, he still could not get beyond his doubt that perhaps this old woman was nothing more than a fraud, but as she spoke, the sound of thunder bellowed from the sky. Storm clouds evolved over a large area; Hiccup would guess that shadowed over the volcano and the entire village. Startling him further was red lightning bolts shooting up out of the mouth of the volcano and into the dark cloud.

He first feared that he was led down here only to have the Volcano erupt and the pit to fill with lave with him in it. That situation faded as the terrifying sound of a monstrous roar shouted from within the cave. The roar came from a gigantic dragon, there was no mistaking it. Yet, the type of roar sounded vaguely familiar. Within the pitch black inside the cave entrance, two small blue eyes glowed at the very top of the cave. It was enough to confirm that the dragon was as big as the cave, which was wide and tall enough to hold an entire legion of dragons. The pair of blue eyes was joined by two more, with each in-line and behind the first pair.

The Dragon had six eyes, and it was then Hiccup received the horrifying revelation of what kind of dragon the Furious was. He had indeed seen this breed of dragon before. His confirmation was quickly acknowledged, as the monster stepped out of the shadow and into plain sight. The Furious was another member of Seadragonus Giganticus Maxiums breed of dragons, just like the dragon queen on Dragon Island, only this one was even larger. Upon closer inspection, there was another thing that stood out: the dragon had no wings! In their place were the skeletal remains, which suggested that it probably lost them sometime during its lifetime.

* * * *

“Beard of Thor!” Gobber gasped, unable to believe what he was seeing. “They brought that beast back to life!”

The looks on everyone’s face, when they saw that beast come out of the cave, exposed that they all were thinking the same think. “No, the Furious is not the same beast that you encountered over two seasons ago, though it IS of the same breed. If rumors are to be believed, the Furious lost his wings in battle with that dragon. Since losing that battle, this dragon has had somewhat of an ill temper.”

“Are these Vikings nuts!” Astrid shouted. “That dragon doesn’t even need his wings to get out of that pit. It could just as easily jump out!”

Lanell looked out and saw the dragon look around. The dragon’s eyes seemed to peer right at them, but they did not seem to recognize their presence. The dragon let out another roar before turning his gaze towards Hiccup. “I believe my sister may not be controlling the dragon, as I first thought. I believe she may be casting an illusion to make the pit look deeper to it than it actually is.”

* * * *

As the Dragon gazed its six eyes down at him, Hiccup could feel an icy chill run down his spine. The last time he faced one of these dragons, he had Toothless there by his side; that wasn’t the case here. He was stuck in this pit, alone with this monster, with nothing to defend himself with and nowhere to run.

The dragon tilted his giant head, as to figure out what he wanted to do with his prey. While the dragon figured that out, Hiccup took a few seconds to find some way out of pit. He had less time than he hoped searching for an exit. The dragon decided to play with his prey first, when he opened his mouth and began to form the flammable gas at the back of his throat.

“Whoa!” Hiccup took to running as fast as possible with only one good leg. The dragon unleashed a large, billowy, cloud of flames. Hiccup narrowly escaped the flames, tripping in the process. The Furious let out a deep gurgled in an almost mock-like chuckle. Scrambling back up onto his feet, he ran in the opposite direction, as the dragon prepared and to attack with another round of flames.

This time, the Furious took steps forward, pressing in and giving Hiccup even less time to escape the flames. After he avoided the flames from its second attack, the dragon stopped in order to catch a quick breath. Hiccup tried to take advantage of it, but the dragon stepped to the side and then took a leaping step forward. Hiccup found himself unable to change direction on time, and he found himself pinned up against the side of the pit, with nowhere to go.

The dragon almost smiled at his futile attempt to escape, but the time for fun had passed. It raised his head, ready to snap up his pint size snack when a small ball of flames came shooting out of the storm cloud, hitting it in the back of the head. The dragon roared in anger as he looked up to the sky. Swooping out of the black clouds, Stormfly zoomed towards the Furious. Her golden scales faded into a dark, war-like, blue, as she breathed out another puff of flames, which hit the dragon just above her back two eyes.

“Stormfly!”

* * * *

“Stormfly!” Astrid could not be any happier to see Stormfly at that moment.

The presence of the dragon almost instantly brought chaos to the village. All the Outcast tribe Vikings became anxious as they saw their chief’s plans start to crumble. Alvin probably saw this, or at least sensed the change, and it enraged him.

Stormfly flew across The Furious’ face, distracting the dragon long enough for Hiccup to make his escape and run to the other side of the pit. Angered by the distraction, the Furious lunged his neck forward and snapped his jaws, in an attempt to catch the dragon in its mouth. With a swift maneuver, she escaped his jaws with relative ease.

The giant dragon was quick to counteract, breathing fire at the allusive Mood dragon. Stormfly pushed herself as fast as her wings would take her... right towards Alvin. The Viking chief panicked, leaping to the right as Stormfly flew upward, past the edge of the cliff where he had been standing. The flames followed in pursuit, and scorched the earth in its wake.

Astrid and her friends watched as Stormfly took flight over the village. “Where’s she going?”

After flying in a circle over the village, she dived to the ground with such ferocity, Astrid was afraid she was going to kill herself by crashing into the ground. Instead, with great elegance, she pulled up at the very last second to land on her feet with such force, that it through dust in the air. She landed directly in front of the Night Fury’s stall.

Using her snout, she nudged the wooden beam across the door which prevented the door from opening. “Stop that dragon!” Alvin ordered.

All the Vikings that had surrounded Astrid and her friends were now running back into the village towards the stall. Stormfly saw the Vikings coming and let out a soft growl. With one final nudge, she again used her snout to push up on the wooden beam. It slid free and fell to the ground. The mood drank jumped back to allow Toothless to slam the door open.

The Night Fury leaped out of the stall like a ravaging Monstrous Nightmare. Bearing his teeth and spreading his wings, he let out an angry growl. There was a lot of rage built-up inside the Night Fury, and now there was going to be hell to pay.

[mrjop2]

Chapter 21: Fighting the Furious

Toothless was a dragon gone wild! Weapon or no, there was no stopping an angry, charging Night Fury. He and Stormfly plowed through the Vikings easily by swinging their heads and tails, and swatting others with their wings. Vikings were flying left and right until they broke through the first wave of Vikings. Once he had a clear path, Toothless sped up towards the pit. While he focused on saving Hiccup, Stormfly carefully gnawed at the ropes the bound Astrid.

Having backed Hiccup up against the side of the pit, the Furious was more than confident that he had finally trapped his prey. He could not explain his overwhelming desire to devour this bite size morsel. It was an urge that had taken over ever instinct he had, and controlled him like a puppet. About to react on this mysterious urge, he was interrupted by a dragon’s high-pitch howl. It rolled all three of his left eyes upward to find a black dragon lunging forward. It unleashed its blue fiery puff with surprising force, that when it hit him in the side of the head, the gigantic dragon stumbled sideway.

Toothless landed in front of Hiccup, who was beyond thrilled to see him at that very moment. “Toothless! Am I glad to see you, boy!”

The Night Fury hummed an agreement, his way of saying the feeling’s mutual. With the Furious starting to wake up from his shock, Hiccup wasted no time mounting onto the saddle on Toothless’ back. “Let’s get into the sky.”

Feeling the vibration of Hiccup artificial foot clicking into the clamp, Toothless prepared to leap into the sky. The dragon grown accustomed to Hiccup’s movements on his back. He could feel his artificial fin opening when Hiccup pressed down on the pedal. Those little vibrations and motions were not so little when the young Viking had first fitted him with the new tail-fin. Now, he had grown to depend on them a little. Other than he just enjoyed Hiccup ridding on his back, it was the reason he rejected the self-reliant tail-fin after retrieving Hiccup’s helmet during the holidays. Those movements were like an unspoken communication between them.

When he felt the left tail-fin expand, he was in the air faster than you could say ‘Night Fury’. Regaining his senses, the Furious rushed to try to catch them in mid air, before they could get too far up into the sky, out of his reach. Still too low to maneuver away from the snapping jaws, Toothless knew that their only chance was to fly as fast as he could.

Hiccup came to the same conclusion. He leaned forward until his chest and chin rested on Toothless extended neck. Grinding his teeth, Toothless pushed himself to his limits to beat the clamping of the jaws before they were caught inside. The giant rows of teeth towered over and around them and began to shut. The giant dragon made one error, and Toothless knew it the moment he saw it. The monstrous dragon had come at them from too far at an angle instead up right in the center of the pit. That mistake gave Toothless the ability to angle himself as he narrowly escaped the jagged rows of teeth. Instead of hitting the side of the pit, which would have happen if not for the mistake, the Night Fury peeled around the Furious and flew behind his neck.

At that point, they enough momentum to fly out of the pit before the Furious realize where they had went. The swooped up over the ledge and that gave Hiccup his first look as to the situation at hand. All the Vikings that had surrounded his friends were laid out. His friends had finished freeing themselves, but a second wave of Alvin’s Vikings had finished arming themselves and racing towards his friends. Stormfly was buying them time to free themselves, but something inside of Hiccup’s gut warned him that things were about to take a turn for the worse.

* * * *

Alvin was losing control fast. With the young Hiccup and his Night Fury reunited, they had the momentum to run everything. There was only one thing he could do to assure that Hiccup and his friends were killed, but at the same time, his own people would end up dying at the same time. It was a sacrifice he was more than willing to make. Those that were loyal to him would know to leave this condemned village, and those that he had imprisoned for their defiance... well, they’d get what was coming to them. They’d burn along with this village. “Witch, release the Furious!”

* * * *

The Furious was angry at himself for allowing the small black dragon, and the human get away. Having his prey escape from the pit, he was ready to return back to him home, inside the mountain of fire. Before he did, however, he saw the giant walls of the pit vanish before his eyes. Instead, the walls were nothing more than a step up. He was now looking out an entire village full of Vikings and two dragons, including the one that had escaped him just seconds ago.

At first, he blinked all six of his eyes, not sure what to make of the sudden change of scenery. A sudden urge poked at him like a giant prodding rod. An anger was being stirred up inside of him, for no apparent reason; all the dragon knew was he had to attack that village. And attack it, he did.

* * * *

Astrid finished untying Ruffnut when she noticed the Furious. There was something about his movements that gave her pause. Lanell said that the witch was imprisoning the dragon by making it see an imaginary wall. Something about the way he was looking in their direction gave her great concern. Her distress was verified when the giant beast took a step towards the side of the pit. “I think now would be a very good time to run!”

Lanell, rubbing her rope-burned wrists, studied the beast’s behavior. The dragon was cautiously challenging the boundary of the pit. It was sniffing at the air which was probably where the dragon had originally though the wall of the pit was, but was now finding that there was nothing there at all. “I think you’re right.” She had no doubt that her sister was temporarily unleashing the dragon to finish the job. Alvin was insane enough to tell her to do it.

Astrid looked up to the sky to see Toothless flying over their heads. She could see Hiccup looking back towards the Furious to see if the dragon was going to step out of the pit. Based on the look on his face, he also knew that the dragon was about to attack the village. She looked around the village only to find that the Outcast Vikings were already running for their lives.

“Get on my back,” Stormfly told her as she bowed down low enough for her to be able to climb up on. “They’re gonna need our help up there!”

She turned to Stoick, almost as if to ask for permission. As much as she wanted to, she also knew that her friends down here were going to need help as well. She had no idea where she could be the most useful.

As if sensing the conflict, Stoick took charge and took away any doubt that she might have had. “Astrid, you and Stormfly help Hiccup and distract the beast. We’ll try to find and free any Vikings that Alvin might have imprisoned.”
“Right.” Feeling the release from her internal conflict, she leaped onto the Mood Dragon’s back.

Stoick and the others ran back into the village as Stormfly leaped to the sky. The Furious had finally become comfortable with the new scenery to finally step out of pit. It bellowed out a threatening roar as to state his intention to destroy everything in his path.

Stormfly had found her way up to the sky and was now flying beside Hiccup and Toothless. “We need to distract the Furious before he burns this village to the down.”

For the first time in a long time, Hiccup looked lost and almost afraid. “I—I don’t know if this monster can be stopped. The last one was able to fly, and Toothless and I were able to get him to crash into the ground. This dragon can’t fly and has all of the same lack of weaknesses.”

Astrid remembered that day very well. That was the day Hiccup almost sacrificed himself for his tribe. The dragon queen was as frightening as this dragon was. She didn’t know how he was going defeat a dragon of that size, yet somehow, Hiccup had found a weakness. Whether he knew it or not, he was very good at discovering weaknesses in dragons. For all of his social inhibitions, he was the smartest Viking she knew. “Let’s just worry about buying your father time so he can find and free any prisoners Alvin may have; perhaps you’ll find another weakness in the process.”

Hiccup nodded in agreement; his moment of panic subsided, and sanity and logic returned. He could not afford to worry about defeating the dragon right now; this task was much more doable taking it one step at a time. “Okay. If this dragon is anything like the other, then it should be easy to keep his attention on us long enough for Dad to do what he need to.”

“Got it,” she said. She would be lying if she didn’t admit that she was very apprehensive about facing the Furious. The dragon queen had nearly sucked her and her Deadly Nader down its throat. The thought of how easy it was for a dragon of this size to swallow them whole brought shivers down her spine. She had prayed to the gods that she would never see a dragon that size again. Apparently, her prayers went to the ears of Loki, instead of Odin.

Hiccup looked down to see the Furious fully out of the pit, and with no further hindrances between him and the village. There was no more to waste. “Here we go! Come on Toothless, let’s give him a little Night Fury magic!”

Toothless grunted and commenced a dive-bomb towards the Furious. Building the flammable gas in the back of his throat, he let out a powerful explosion of blue flames into the face of the Furious.

*** *

The attack enraged the already angry dragon and tried to catch them in his jaws. Instead, another fire attack hit him in the back of the head. He looked up to see a second dragon flying behind his neck, and out of his reach. So, there were two dragons working together. That’s okay, two dragons were easily taken care of.

*** *

The Furious unleashed a mountainous wall of flames towards Hiccup and Toothless. The dragon already assumed that they were the brains behind the attack. Either that, or the witch had more control over the dragon than anyone had realized. The witch! How could he not have thought of that sooner? If she was controlling the dragon, perhaps cutting the link between them will turn the dragon away. There’s only one way to find out. “Toothless, we have to find the witch.”

He didn’t have to explain why; Toothless already knew what was in his mind. The Night Fury was the smartest dragon Hiccup had ever encountered. He had no idea if all Night Furies were as smart as Toothless; he had never encountered another. For all he knew, Toothless could be the last of his kind. He had always wondered about his history. Perhaps when time allowed, he could have Stormfly ask him and find out if there are any other dragon like him.

Hiccup looked around for Astrid and Stormfly only to find them flying slightly elevated from them off to the right. “Astrid, we’ve got to attack the witch. Break the link between her and the Furious.”

She gave him a concerned look; she was having the same concerns about the plan as he was. If they did break the spell the witch had over the Furious, who’s to say that the dragon would not go crazy and destroy everything anyway? The spell maybe the only thing keeping it rational. An irrational dragon could complicate matters even more. He could only hope that he was not making a bad decision.

[mrjop2]

Chapter 22: Outcast Chaos

The witch was well hidden from the action. That had to change. Toothless knew what their target was, and he was pushing himself, as hard as he could, towards the witch. Unfortunately, they failed to achieve the surprise Hiccup was looking for. Seeing them come after her, the witch changed her chant. The Furious responded by putting himself between them and the witch. If there had been any doubt of the old woman’s control over the massive dragon; it had all just been laid to rest.

“Whoa!” Hiccup yelped as Toothless had to make a quick swerve to avoid flying into the mouth of the roaring, giant dragon. With his attack aborted, his mission was now to keep the giant dragon’s attention on him; perhaps Astrid will have better luck getting through than he did.

He tried to fly Toothless in small pattern, staying in the line of sight of the Furious. The dragon was easy to distract, but the problem was that the witch wasn’t. Coming in at different angle, Astrid and Stormfly made their attempt on the witch. The furious swung his head in their direction and attacked back with a missive cloud of flames. They had to cease their attack or risk being incinerated.

So much for ‘going after the puppet master’. The witch knew that a weakness had been spotted and that he and Astrid were figuring out a way to exploit it. Like a turtle, she had sucked herself into an impenetrable ‘shell’, and now getting to her was going to be much harder. What in Odin’s name were they going to do now?

Odin had to have been listening, for the moment that mental prayer entered Hiccup’s mind, he noticed something overhead severely blocking the light of the sun. He looked up to see a heard of dragons on approach. All the familiar dragon species were there present including Monstrous Nightmares, Terrible Terrors, Gronkles, and, Deadly Naders, both one-headed and two-headed Zipplebacks. There was no mistaking it: these were Berk’s dragons! He had no idea how, or why, but they had come all the way from back home to come to their rescue. The herd of dragons went right to work, harassing the Furious and flying circles around its massive head.

* * * *

“What in Thor’s name?” As first, Stoick feared that Alvin had summoned more dragons to fight back with. There was no other explanation. However, that fear quickly subsided when a handful of dragons departed from the heard, carrying Spitelout and other Berk Vikings, including the ones that were left behind on the Island’s shore.

As soon as his dragon touched ground, Spitelout jumped off to meet with his older brother and Gobber. Stoick was still getting over his shock. “What... how...?”

“You sent a ship to find Ivar? Well, somehow, a storm got them all turned around and they found their way back to Berk. After hearing their stories, and fearing the worse, I came here with our dragons. It appears that it was a good thing we came we did.”

“Aye,” Stoick replied. Beside him, Hiccup’s friends were ecstatic to be reunited with their dragons.

“Heeeeey, Fireworm!” Snotlout greeted his dragon with a stern scratching of the neck. The Monstrous Nightmare had an affinity for having his neck scratched. That was the first thing the dragon wanted as the two of them were reunited.

Fishlegs was just as excited to see his Gronkle, Horrorcow. The moment the dragon spotted him, he flew almost like an arrow shot from a bow. Unfortunately, the dragon had always had a hard time stopping, and this time was no different. Horrorcow collided, face first, into Fishlegs. “Horrorc—Umph!”

“Awesome!” Tuffnut cheered as he and his sister were greeted by their Hideous Zippleback. The dragon’s two necks weaved and swerved in joyous celebration to see their masters again.

* * * *

This was the witches fault! Her incompetence was costing Alvin everything. With all of Berk’s dragons coming to village, all of his plans were falling apart. He couldn’t comprehend how this could have happened. He heard all the stories, and made doubly sure he did not underestimate Hiccup and his friends. Yet here he was, amidst another rally, but this time at his expense.

No! Defeat was not an option. He was not going to let the little runt get away this easily. No matter what the result of all this was, that boy was going to die, even if he had to do the act himself.

* * * *

Bitwolf had no dragon to fly. While the others took to the air to help Hiccup and Astrid with the Furious, he was left alone. With the reinforcement of adult Vikings, he was kind of lost in the shuffle. This was good, because he was about to attempt something he knew everyone would have objected to. He decided to go after the old woman.

With all the commotion going on, he ran towards then around the closest hut. After making sure that no one saw him, he followed the back walls of the last two huts in the village. That was where the witch had anchored herself down. As he was coming to the end the second to last hut, he could see back of the old woman facing him. Her attention was up in the sky with all the dragons flying around.

All he had to do was walk beside one more hut for she was in striking distance. With a hammer in hand, which he taken from one of disarmed Outcast Vikings, he quietly stepped towards the old witch. Just a few more steps and he would have a clear shot at taking her out of the equation. If all went right with his plans, the Furious would no longer be a threat to them.

He raised the hammer over his shoulder, ready to strike the first opportunity he got. He only got two steps when an unseen hand grabbed hold of his hammer and pulled it out of his. Bitwolf spun around to see Viggor standing there with a grin on his face. “Now, what were you thinking in that dense little brain of yours?”

* * * *

There were too many dragons in the air for the Furious to handle. Now that Snotlout, Fishlegs, and the twins were in the air with their dragons, they were able to coordinate the dragons better. Hiccup could see the strain that the number of dragons were putting on the witch’s magic. It wouldn’t take much more to, completely, sever the connection between her and the Furious. All he and his friends had to do was step up the effort just a little more.

“Hiccup, look out!” Astrid’s voice called. In all the confusion of the moment, he was unable to identify where she was or where the danger was coming from.

He had no idea if Toothless was responding to Astrid’s vocal warning, or his dragon instincts were on full alert, but the dragon reacted with a slight dive to his right to narrowly avoid the talons of a Timberjack. Everything was a blur for a few seconds after that initial attack, but once Toothless leveled out and after Hiccup could spend a few seconds to refocus, he turned to see Alvin the Treacherous riding on the attacking Timberjack. There was no mistaking it; that was one of the two dragons that had attacked Berk.

Behind the Alvin and his TImberjack, Astrid and Stormfly were racing to catch up to try to help Hiccup. Unfortunately, the second Timberjack came flying out of the forest an immediately went after them with a fierce vengeance. The attack forced them to pull away and lead the new Timberjack away from Hiccup and Toothless.

Now that he only had to worry about Alvin and his Timberjack, it was time to test the Outcast chief in how versatile of a dragon rider he was. Hiccup remembered reading about this breed in the Book of Dragons. Their wings were so sharp, that they could cut through tree trunks when it glides. Under most circumstances, it was wiser to confront this dragon up in the air rather than through the forest, but Hiccup was more than confident that Toothless can out run the dragon while dodging tree trunks. If he was wrong, though, they would be in danger of being crushed by falling tree tops. “Toothless, let’s see how fast that Timberjack can go through the Forest.”

* * * *

Astrid and Stormfly were successful in getting the second Timberjack to chase after them. Now the issue was to find a way to take the dragon out of the fight. Clearly, Alvin deemed the two Timberjacks as his personal dragons; taking one of them out of the fight could deliver a crippling blow to the Viking chief.

“We got the dragon to follow us, now what?” Stormfly asked. Astrid picked up on slight sound of hesitation in her voice. Her whole body was dark blue during this whole battle, but the moment the Timberjack started to follow her, the dark blue started to fade into a light green. Stormfly was nervous. Perhaps she was uncertain in her abilities to take on a Timberjack, or maybe it was the fact that the persuing dragon belonged to Alvin, himself. She could be fighting her inner fear of Alvin, in a desperate move to save Astrid and her friends.

“I think I’ve got an idea. Swing around and head back.”

* * * *

As quickly as Viggor had taken it away, he had the ax poised underneath Bitwolf’s chin. His smirk was glowing brightly as if to brag of his premature victory. “You think I’m dumb, boy? I know who you are, and more importantly, I know who your father was. Wolfbane was a good friend of mine. What I don’t understand is why you disgrace the memory of your father like this.”

Bitwolf knew what Viggor was trying to do. Viggor was going to try to talk reason him into joining Alvin’s cause. Bitwolf was no dummy; he long suspected his father might have been hiding something like this from him. Back then, he cared less about any secrets his father was keeping.

Having spent the past months with Berk, it was like having blinders taken of him when he never knew he was in the dark. His first few months were not easy on him or Hiccup and his father. Bitwolf was far from responsive to what they were trying to do for him, and even less appreciative of it. He had intentionally came to close to insubordination a handful of times, in hopes of being kicked out of Berk. He had no such luck. His father, Stoick, was easily enough provoked to anger, but Hiccup was completely the opposite. Every time his father was ready to kick him off the island, Hiccup would stop him. There was no getting that young Viking angry. It was that long-suffering personality that really broke through Bitwolf’s hard exterior.

So now Viggor was probably sent by Alvin to try to undo all the ‘damage’ that’s been done to him. They’re going to be sourly disappointed with his answer. “So, my father did have ties with Alvin the Treacherous. I can’t say I’m surprised. I suppose there was some filth that my father was too embarrassed to tell me about.”

“It’s a shame, really,” Viggor grunted. “You had great potential, but now you’re gonna have to be disposed of just like your friends.”

[mrjop2]

Chapter 23: Freedom for Furious

Bitwolf barely dodged the blade of the ax. Viggor proved to be surprisingly fast for someone of his weight. He wasn’t being direct with his attacks either, which meant this was not necessarily about killing him; it was about attracting attention. It worked like a charm; the witch was now keeping a cautious on them; she was now fully aware of his intentions. He had lost the only advantage he had in trying to free Furious from her control. Now, he was in a fight for his lift with everyone too busy to lend him a hand.

He dodged another swing of the ax, but as he did, his foot got caught-up on a tree root sticking out of the ground. Had that tree root always been there or was this more magic of the witch? It didn’t really matter to him at that moment, as he staggered towards the back wall of one of the wooden huts. Fighting the weight of his body and gravity, he struggled to stay on his feet, and hoped to reach the hut to balance himself before he fell flat on his face.

He was successful, and he placed the palm of his left hand onto the wall to steady himself, but a flash of instant regret hit him as if Thor, himself, shot a lightning bolt at his brain. It dawned on him that he just made a deadly mistake; he allowed himself to get pushed up against the wall, giving the Outcast Viking the chance to finish himself off. There was no room to escape; only the gods could save him now. Realizing victory was at hand, Viggor pressed in, blocking all possible escapes routs. Pinned, with his back to the wall, Bitwolf he could lift up a prayer to Odin as the hefty Outcast Viking raised his ax over his head.

A loud crash echoed through the forest behind Viggor. The noise was close enough to draw his attention behind him. It sounded like several giant trees falling to the earth, with the loud ripple of braches and leaves. The trees were shakings as if in fear.

“What in...” Viggor had no time to access what was happening or what was coming their way. A fireball shot out of the blackness towards them.

* * * *

Viggor and Bitwolf barely had enough time to run and escape the flames, as it collided into the hut, catching the whole structure on fire. The witch’s attention was nearly complete towards this new development, sensing that this was not going to go in her favor. Her feelings proved to be correct, as Astrid and Stormfly came out of the forest, and made a sharp turn towards her.

The Mood dragon prepared to launch an attack on her, so she had no choice but to refocus Furious’ attention. The giant beast swung his head around towards the attacking dragon and lunged forward to try to catch her and her rider in his jaws.

* * * *

“Alright, Stormfly, let’s do it... NOW!” Astrid said loudly. She was inexperienced in flight maneuvers compared to Hiccup, so she prayed to Odin and the gods that this worked or she would be dragon food.

Stormfly peeled off, sharply, heading back into the forest. Zipping out of the Forrest in hot persute of them was the Timberjack. The dragon failed to see them reenter the forest, and even more devastating for the dragon, it failed to see the trap that had been set until it was far too late. The jaws of Furious clamped down, and instead of catching Astrid and Stormfly, he caught the left wing of the Timberjack, who wailed in terror, flapping its right wing franticly. Annoyed by the turn of events, Furious angrily swung his neck, and threw the Timberjack into the side of the mountain. He bellowed out an ear-deafening roar as he turned to look back into the woods.

Furious knew that the Mood dragon went to hide in the thick forest. He was deciding whether he should wait it out or continue his reign of destruction. His decision was made for him as a ball of red flames shot out from the darkness of the woods, and hit him in his giant nostrils. His shook his head and snorted, as the flames tickled his nostrils. Another fire ball came at him, this time hitting him in the forehead between his right set of eyes and his left. Now, he was angry. Annoyed by these cowardly attacks, the giant monster raise his head and pulled back his neck, as he took a deep breath. All six of his eyes widened as a large mass of dark, flammable gas gathered at the back of his throat.

* * * *

“No, no, no!” The witch screamed. The dragon had allowed his anger to get the best of him, and now he was about to launch a massive fiery assault. The problem was that she was directly in the line of fire. There was nothing she could do to stop it; once a dragon had gathered that much flammable gas in their mouths, they had to expel it or risk serious injury to itself.

If she tried to keep control of the dragon, she would perish in flames. She had no choice but to surrender her power over the beast and run for her life, and that’s exactly what she did.

Furious unleashed his massive river of flames, and all the trees and huts, near and in it, caught ablaze. It was an attack of apocalyptic proportions. The billowy flames went almost as tall as the dragon, himself, and it left death and destruction in its wake. The flames would only be the beginning, as the forest surrounding the village began to catch fire.

* * * *

The fire gave Astrid and Stormfly no choice but to abandon their hiding place. However, they had another option than flying towards the giant beast. They raced against the flames towards the tree tops. They plowed through the branches and leaves and punctured their way out and into the sky. A fresh sensation of relief swept over Astrid as they left the intense heat of the burning forest to be greeted by the cool, crisp, breeze of the sky.

Far from the reaches of Furious, she looked down to see if their little worked. It was hard to see through the flames that were starting to spread, but the witch was nowhere to be seen. Turning her to Furious, she noticed that the dragon was moving erratically, as if he had just woken up to found himself in the middle of sleep walking. He looked around, dazed and confused.

“Hold on to my neck, tightly!” Stormfly said as her scales changed colors from dark-blue to her normal golden-yellow.

“What are you gonna Dooooo!” The Mood dragon flew down steeply towards Furious. Astrid leaned forwards as far she could and help tightly to her neck. She anticipated that Stormfly was about to go on the attack again, but instead, the Mood dragon growled loudly followed by a series of grunts and groans. Was she TRYING to reveal their location to Furious? Wouldn’t it wiser to keep the element of surprise on their side?

The giant monster tilted his head to peer up to them with his right three eyes, and then replied with a series of roars and grunts of his own. That’s what Stormfly was doing... she was talking to him. “What ‘s going on? What did he say?”

“He’s a little disconcerted, not quite sure what’s going on,” Stormfly responded. “He’s also angry with the dark-skinned old woman who was able to force him to do her will. He is grateful for our assistance in freeing him.”

Furious turned his back towards the village and stepped back down into the small pit as he made his way back into the cave on the foot of the giant volcano. Stormfly was right; the monster was nothing like the dragon queen at Dragon Island. He had no interest in the destruction that the witched forced him to cause. All he wanted was to be left alone.

* * * *

Bitwolf was astonished to watch the giant monster depart from the village. The gods have indeed answered their prayers; the spell was broken, and the dragon turned out not to be as violent as the one on Dragon Island. The tide had finally turned, and it was only a matter of time before Alvin, and those faithful to him, would be apprehended.

Three times now, have Hiccup and the Vikings of Berks overcome impossible odds to not only just to survive, but thrive. One time, it could have been just luck, two... it could have been a coincidence, but three times? It was almost as if Hiccup had been anointed by the gods, themselves, and destined to greatness. Up to this point, the gods had been nothing more than just stories to him, but it was near impossible to say that now. Perhaps they were not as fictional as he had assumed.

“Arrgh!” an angry cry came from his left.

Bitwolf turned to see Viggor charging at him with the rage of an angry bull. The ax, which he stole from Bitwolf, was raised over his head and ready to take to be used to snuff out the young viking’s life. An angry grunt came from his right. Landing there was Stormfly with Astrid on her back. He knew exactly what to do.

He dropped to the ground, landing on his chest, as the Mood dragon spun around and whipped her tail. Viggor was slapped across his chest, sending him stumbling, backwards. He ended up tripping over his own feet, and fell onto his back.

“Bitwolf, I need another pair of eyes with me in the sky to find Hiccup and Toothless. We have to help Them!”

He was honored beyond words that she had come to him for help over everyone else. Even though there was a peace between them, trust had not been established as of yet. While working with his father against the Vikings of Berk, he had tried to woo her away from Hiccup. When she found out what he and his father were trying to do, she knocked him out cold. He was afraid that she would never forgive him after that. This was the first time she had actually addressed him directly, or let alone ask him for help, in the one or two seasons he’s been stuck on Berk.

He smiled up at her as he accepted her hand and help up onto the mood dragon’s back. “Are you strong enough for two of us on your back?” He asked the mood dragon. Stormfly was not a large dragon, by far, and she did not appear to be as strong as Toothless.

“You just watch me” Stormfly said with a grin on her face.

She leaped up, showing more strength than a dragon of her stature should have. With her wings working hard, she began to ascend to the sky. Viggor, was back on his feet and was now charging at them with his ax. Out of desperation, he swung his weapon in hopes of getting them before they made it to the sky, but the blade of his ax narrowly missed the dragon’s abdomen. The dragon had just barely gained enough height to avoid the attack.

“No!” he growled bitterly.

He had failed to even dispose of a single, young Viking, and he could only imagine the fury Alvin would have towards him. He had to find some way to make up for his failure; he could not let things stand the way they were. He turned to head back to the heart of the village. If he could not dispose of that young, traitorous Viking, he could at least dispose of this Gobber. It would be great to be the one to kill him after putting up with him for the past day or two.

Before he knew what was coming, a small stone hammer, came pounding on his helmet with such force, his eyes rolled upward and he collapsed forward into unconsciousness. Standing triumphantly over him was Gobber, with the blacksmith hammer attachment connected to his prosthesis. “Hehehe, I’ve been waiting to do that for a long time!”

As much as he wanted to, he could not spend any time enjoying the moment and gloat, there were other Vikings had to be taken care of, and huts to evacuate. “Hiya!” He bellowed out his war cry as he ran into the heart of battle.

[mrjop2]

Chapter 24: Alvin’s Demise

Dodging another flame attack from Alvin’s Timberjack, Toothless managed to twist in such a way to allow Hiccup to notice the forest catching on fire. It was spreading rapidly, threatening to wrap around the entire village. Having flown near the volcano, the stench of sulfur was becoming stronger; the mountain was on the verge of eruption. If the flames were allowed to surround the village, there would be no escaping the mountain’s wrath.

“We’ve got to stop those flames from spreading,” Hiccup said to Toothless. He had no idea what the Night Fury could understand and what he couldn’t. It really didn’t matter all that much; he thought of Toothless more as a friend than a dragon. Somehow, communication between them had never been much of a problem. “You know what to do.”

Toothless grunted. If there was anything dragons were experts in, it’s fire. Every fire breathing dragon knew how to start fire, but only the most intelligent knew how to extinguish them, and Toothless was one of those super intelligent dragons.

Toothless pushed himself to fly faster, racing against not just Alvin and his Timberjack, but against the flames that were trying to surround the village. Taking a deep breath inward, the Night Fury built up as much ignitable gas as his throat could handle. When his lungs could not withstand the pressure any longer, he unleashed a flurry of blue, fiery puffs. The series of puffs ripped through the forest, leaving a large patch of scorched earth and burnt trees.

When the fire reaches the scorched earth, the fire would have nothing new to feed on, forcing it to find another path. It would slow the wild fire down, but not much time unless he could feed it where it has already feasted. Hiccup looked back to see if Alvin and his dragon were still following. When he saw that he was, he pressed softly on the pedal, and he and Toothless made a sharp U-turn and flew towards the flames. The Timberjack followed pursuit.

Whether Alvin the Treacherous knew what he was doing, or he if he was acting on an uncontrollable impulse to destroy him, Hiccup could not tell. It really didn’t matter either. Enduring the extreme heat of the flames all around them, Hiccup looked back to see the Alvin and his dragon still hot on their trail. The wings of the Timberjack sliced through the burning trunks, severing the tree tops, and dropping them into the flames. That should give the fire something to consume to slow the fire down.

Hiccup gave another look behind, to confirm Alvin was still cooperating, but he found himself surprised when he saw that they had cut off the chase and were nowhere to be seen. Had the fire been too much for them, or did Alvin have something more sinister in mind? He had no idea what to expect from him now. The only thing for certain, now, was that fire had to be the last of his concerns. It provided too much advantage for Alvin to sneak up on him. With the searing heat starting to become suffocating, Hiccup knew that they had to get out of the burning forest.

“We’ve lost them. Let’s head back to the village and get further up to give us a better view around us.”

Toothless understood and grunted. Feeling Hiccups prodding, he took that as a sign that said that he was ready to break through the flames. The Night Fury cut through the walls of flames as quickly as he could and dodged through a few rows of trees before reaching the openness of the village.

Hiccup felt the wall of cool air hit him with fervor intensity. The sudden change of temperature was very disorienting; it took a few seconds to gather his wits.

When the cobwebs cleared in his mind, he noticed all the chaos that had taken the village hostage. There were Vikings running all over the place. Some were Vikings who were fleeing the village after being rescued by Berk’s Vikings. Others were Outcast Tribe Vikings running away from a pursuing Dragon. There was Ruffnut and Tuffnut, chasing and Outcast Viking on their Zippleback. The twin Vikings were busy heckling the Viking while chasing him down. “Hey, come back here! I want you to meet our dragon!”

Elsewhere in the village, there was Snotlout on his Monstrous Nightmare also chasing down an enemy Viking. Like the twins, he found great pleasure in the way things have turned to their favor. Hiccup still wished that they would cool it with the bragging just a bit. “Hehe! Now who’s the bad Viking around here?”

Fishlegs did not have one mean bone in his body, so he wasn’t surprised to see that he wasn’t gloating about the turn of events, nor was he surprised to see His Gronkle running amuck and flying so crazily, that the young Viking was barely able to hold on. There was so much going on, that dragon had no idea what to do or who to chase. “Wa—wa—wa-whoa!

Looking around, he had no idea where Astrid and Stormfly were. As they put more distance between them and the ground, he still could not find them. Even more worrisome was the disappearance of Furious. Where had that monster gone? A fear began to swell up inside of him; something told him that they had taken on the beast, themselves.

Before his brain could formulate on his next course of action, he felt the rays of the sun, shinning down on the nap of his neck, being blocked. The coolness of a large shadow took the place of the warm sun. He had no time to turn to see what was blocking the sun; a large claw grasped his right shoulder and most of his chest and upper body. A sudden pull and the iron foot-clamp was ripped out of his wooden, artificial limb.

“No—no—no—no!” He screamed as the Timberjack hoisted him away towards the volcano.

With no pilot to control his artificial tail-fin, Toothless squealed out of shier freight as he spiraled down towards the ground. The Night Fury tried everything to fly on his own power, but with only half a tail-fin, it was impossible to regain flight. He fell all the way down before crashing through the roof of an abandoned hut. The impact was painful, to say the least, and it knocked the wind out of Toothless. He laid there, in the wreckage, for a minute, and shook his head to clear away the stars dancing around his eyes. He couldn’t be sure what had just happened.

Being carted off by the Timberjack towards the volcano, falling down to his death was the last thing on Hiccup’s mind as he futilely struggled to break free. He could only imagine what Alvin was planning, and he knew he had to find a way to escape this mess quickly. As the Timberjack weaved through a sea of dragons to get to the mountain, his instincts were to grab hold of something to hold himself steady, but he could not access his arms while in the dragon’s grip.

As they approached the mountain, the smell of sulfur became almost overwhelming. As they approached the lip of the mountain, fear began to take hold of him. Was Alvin just going to drop into the burning lava that was building up in the volcano? Had Alvin finished playing games and going to end this right here and right now?

His heart raced in terror as the Timberjack released him. Expecting to see the gods at any second, he was surprised when he landed on the edge of the mountain. His body was shaking, still not convinced that he was still alive. Still sensing that his life was in great danger, he managed to climb onto his hands and knees where he dared to take a brief glimpse down the throat of the volcano. The bubbling magma was high up the mountain’s walls; he could almost feel the gurgling of the mountain’s stomach; a sure sign that it was getting ready to erupt.

The Timberjack hovered above the edge of the mountain long enough for Alvin to dismount; in his hand, he wielded a giant double-edged ax. “Now, young Viking, we finish this!”

He charged at him with fierce Viking ferocity, with his ax poised over his head. Hiccup struggled to climb to his feet, but his broken prosthesis made it near impossible. He was barely able to stumble out of the ax’s reach. Alvin swung his weapon a couple more times, but Hiccup stumbled under and around those swings as well. After the last swing, his stumble led into a trip, and before he knew it, he was tipping stumbling over the edge. How he did it, he had no idea, but his instincts to survive allowed him to reach up and grab the ledge, temporarily saving himself from death.

Alvin laughed at the turn of events. With victory at hand, he stood over him gloatingly. He intentionally placed the toes of his feet inches from Hiccup’s finger tips, the only things that kept him falling into his oblivion. “Isn’t this ironic? Just like you, everything you’ve accomplished is about to go up in flames. The Vikings will go to war with Roman Empire and will be wiped out. They will pay for everything they’ve done to me, and the only one who could’ve stopped me is about to be dropped into a volcano. Prepare to spend eternity in Helheim!”

The heat was excruciating, and was quickly eating away at his strength. The lava below him was inviting him to a quick, painless death instead of an agonizing one at the hands of Alvin’s ax. Neither choice appealed to him, but it was an impossible choice that he was now being forced to make. The time to make that choice was now over; Alvin raised his ax over his head.

An unusual breeze tickled the back of his neck, distracting the Viking chief from claiming his victory. A repeating whooshing sound put his senses on alert, as he slowly turned around. Right there, in his face, was Stormfly. Not giving him the chance to use his already elevated ax, she unleashed a stream of fire.

The moment of desperation would be his downfall. The fire coming for his face made him forget where he was. Instincts took control, and he stepped backwards to avoid the flames, only to slip over the ledge. “No!” he screamed, waving his arms as he fell past Hiccup and down towards the lava.

Piercing through the liquid fire, Furious shot his head out and opened his jaws. There was nothing he could do; he fell right into his mouth and the massive jaw slammed shut with violent SNAP. As quickly as he appeared, the dragon pulled his head back down underneath the lava.

Hiccup couldn’t be sure what just happened. The dragon apparently swallowed Alvin, but why didn’t it come after him as well? With six eyes, how could the dragon not have seen him? All it would have taken was a hardy jump. Whatever the reason, he was glad that to be ignored, for once in his life.

He looked up to see Stormfly hovering overhead. After some dangerous maneuvers and rescue preparations, Bitwolf was now dangling upside-down and underneath Stormfly; the dragon was using her claws to grab him by his feet. If he wasn’t busy fighting his own weight and holding on to the ledge with every ounce of strength he had, he would have been more amazed by the maneuver.

Stormfly carefully hovered downward, lowering Bitwolf closer to the ledge of the mountain. “Grab my hand!”

“I can’t!” Hiccup protested. He was barley capable of hanging on with two hands, let alone one. He could feet the dirt weakening underneath his hands. The dirt was about to give way and dump him to his fiery grave.

“Get me lower!” Bitwolf shouted up towards Astrid, forgetting that Stormfly could speak and understand Norse. It was the dragon that was doing the flying. The dragon didn’t notice the unintentional lack of respect and commenced lowering herself ever further.

The dirt ledge crumbled, no longer capable of sustaining the weight that Hiccup was applying on top of the increasing heat that the rising lava was producing. Hiccup didn’t have the chance to fall very far, for as soon as the dirt gave way, he felt Bitwolf’s hand grab hold of his wrist. “I got him! Let’s go!”

Astrid, watching the whole thing while sitting on Stormfly’s back, felt her heart almost shatter when the dirt began to give way. It was only by the blessing of the gods that Bitwolf had luckily grabbed hold of Hiccups wrist when he did. A wave of relief came over her the moment she heard Bitwolf say those words. “Back to the village, Stormfly!”

The dragon was more than happy to get away from this mountain. The stench of Sulfur was nauseating and her head was starting to swim. She flapped her wings harder now to ascend higher to pull Bitwolf and Hiccup out of the raging mountain. Dangling uncomfortably by one arm, Hiccup looked down, and felt a surge of relief to see the mouth of the volcano getting farther away.

[mrjop2]

Chapter 25: Escape from Outcast Island

Hiccup could not be any more relieved to be on the ground than he was right then. Has he was softly lowered to the ground, he stumbled onto his one good knee, as the clamp part of his prosthesis was missing. As he struggled to find the balance he needed to stand on one good foot and his wooden peg-leg, Stormfly gently lowered Bitwolf to the ground. As soon his hands were on the ground, the young Viking rolled himself backwards onto his back before climbing to his feet.

By this time, Stoick, and all of Berk’s and the friendly outcast Vikings were gathering around them, leaving just enough room for the Mood dragon to land so Astrid could dismount. Hiccup had just managed to find the perfect amount of his body weight to distribute to allow him to stay standing when Toothless plowed through the crowd of Vikings, and hopped his way towards him. The sight of his dragon hopping towards him was enough for him to lose his concentration on standing up, and he nearly toppled forward.

“Whoa!” Toothless arrived just in time to lower his head to prevent him from falling to the ground and to give him the support he needed to stand. “Thanks, buddy!”

“You’re alright, son?” Stoick asked, relieved to his son safe and sound.

“Yeah,” Hiccup replied, looking down at his damaged prosthesis. “But I’ll have to find a way to build a stronger leg.”

Gobber chuckled in his usual quirky manner. “Well, with our reinforcements arriving, we pretty much have everything under control. Victory is ours!”

Alvin’s Vikings were the last thing they needed to worry about. “Uh, the danger is not over! We have to evacuate the village immediately! The mountain’s about to...”

The ground began to rumble and shake. Fighting the Earth to stay on their feet, all the Vikings looked up at the volcano to see black dust shooting up into the air. The mountain had blown its stack as a large black mushroom cloud quickly expanded in the sky, blocking the sun and not only pouring darkness over the village, but releasing a light drizzle of ash onto the island.

“...blow,” Hiccup finished his sentence with a sarcastic tone.

“Stoick, our boats are docks to the south; they’re just a half day’s journey from here,” Spitelout announced.

A large piece of ash danced its way down only to land on Stoick’s nose. He wiped it off, only to have it leave a gray streak across the bridge of his nose. He looked up at the top of the mountain to see lava starting to drool down the mountain. “Evacuate everyone in the city; get as many Vikings onto the backs of dragons as we possibly can. There’s no telling how long we have before the full eruption. We have to fit everyone on the boats and get as far away from the Island as fast as possible.”

Chaos immediately ensued. There was a mass rush out of the village, in the direction of the ships. At the same time, any dragons that did not have a rider on them were coming to the grown to get one. In all the rush, Astrid lost Hiccup for a brief moment. When she found him, he was helping several young Viking children on top of Toothless. “Hiccup, what are you doing?”

“Toothless and I are grounded with my broken prosthesis, besides, we need to get the children to safety pronto.”

“But what about you? You can’t possibly outrun the lava with only one good leg!”

Toothless moaned, as to agree with Astrid. The dragon was not thrilled about the idea of leaving Hiccup behind like this. They may not be able to fly, but he was lightning quick running on the ground as he was flying in the air.

“Don’t worry about me; I’ll be fine. I’m more worried about the children. In all the confusion, we can’t afford to accidently leave any of them behind,” Hiccup replied helping a young Viking girl up onto the saddle, along with the other two children that had already been mounted. “Toothless, you have to get these children to safety. You can always come back for me after you get them to the ships.”

Astrid let out a frustrated moan before she commenced helping the last two remaining children in the group loaded onto Stormfly’s back. “Stormfly, you do the same!”

“I will, Camicazi!” The dragon replied.

Hiccup gave her a puzzled look, as if to say, ‘What are you doing?’ He didn’t have to say anything for her to know that he wanted to protest her decision, but he knew better than to try and stop her. “I’m not leaving you behind.”

* * * *

There was a large exodus of Vikings pushing their way towards the shore. They were not racing against the lava, lava was always easy to outrun. They were up against a full eruption which may or may not occur. If the eruption happened, a large, black mass of searing, hot smoke would quickly engulf half of the island at the speed of a blink-of-an-eye. They had to be well away from the island before the eruption; there was no outrunning a volcanic eruption.

Everyone, who went by foot, was keeping a fast, steady pace. The falling ash was already starting to affect everyone’s breathing, causing occasional coughs and grunts. The ash could be just as deadly as the eruption itself. Breathe too much of it in, and you would suffocate.

To the sky, some Vikings were on the backs of Berk’s dragons as they sped past them, on their way to the boats. Even the wild dragons on the Island were fleeing in the same direction, to escape the pending doom. Bitwolf wish he had a dragon he could ride right now. Since joining the Berk tribe, he had not really clicked with any one dragon on the Island. Perhaps they were all disgruntled by his actions several months earlier. The dragons were not willing to forget very quickly. Right now, though, having a dragon to ride would make this trek a whole lot easier.

This journey to the shore was proving to be more treacherous than they had hopes. Trees tops were slowly catching on fire from the increasing heat, and a lot of fallen tree tops on the ground was forcing them to do some strenuous climbing. Bitwolf had just finished climbing a large tree trunk when he noticed movement to a small distance off the trail.

Curiosity got the better of him, as he cautiously weaved through the trees to see what the movement was. He didn’t have to go very far off the trail to see that the movement was from a dragon. One of Alvin’s Timberjack’s had somehow gotten itself in a bind. Perhaps the chaos of the volcanic eruption had caused the dragon to get confused and get himself in this strange predicament. The chopped off tree tops had made that spot in the forest so thick, and somehow the dragon had gotten himself entangled in that small area, unable to extend his wings to escape.

“That must be one of Alvin’s beasts,” Gobber said as he walked up to join Bitwolf.

“We can’t leave it here to die; we have to help it.”

Bitwolf was surprised when Gobber hesitated. “That beast is too wild; there’s no telling what Alvin did to the beast. If that dragon gets his wings free, he could just as well use them to cut you in half.”

It was true, he didn’t know if the dragon was under the same kind of spell as the Furious was, and would return his act of kindness with a quick and violent death. A few months ago, he wouldn’t have considered helping and would have allowed the mountain to have the dragon. Somewhere down the line, he had become a new Viking. Given the chance again, he would not go along with his father’s plan to rule over all the tribes.

The past was the past, and who he was and what he did no longer mattered; what mattered was who he was, now. He was not the type of person to let a helpless dragon burn to death; he didn’t wish that kind of ending on anyone. “I’m helping him.”

Before Gobber had the chance to stop him, he raced towards the closest tree trunk. If he studied the pile up correctly, this one trunk was the sole culprit of this dragon’s predicament. If he could move this one trunk far enough, it may give the beast enough space to be able to break itself free. He first tried to push it with his two hands out in front, but it wouldn’t budge.

Gobber watched the young Viking struggle for a minute before he sighed and shook his head. “Oy, you’re doing it all wrong, lad! You gotta’ put your back into it!”He stumbled to the trunk, placing his back up against it, besides Bitwolf. The young Viking did the same. “Now push!”

Together, they used their legs to push their backs into the trunk. Gobber, having a peg leg, stumbled slightly, but he managed to put enough weight on his peg to dig it into the ground a bit; it was just enough to give him the strength he needed. With their combined strength, the tree trunk started to budge.

It didn’t have to move much; the slight movement was enough for the dragon to wiggle itself free from his trap. The Timberjack swung his neck throwing all the trunks behind him. Now free, the dragon spread out his razor sharp wings. Two Vikings had duck to avoid being sliced in half by the dragon’s wings. After enjoying the sensation of stretching every muscle it had in his wings, he swung his neck towards the Vikings.

The dragon growled, baring its teeth, as it fixed its moon-slit eyes on the two Viking. Neither of them made any sudden movements; at t his close range, there was no fending off an angry dragon. This was the moment of truth; was the dragon intelligent enough to recognize what they did for him and return their gesture by not killing them? Gobber was already formulating a plan to get Bitwolf out of the way if the Timberjack decided to attack. He had full intention of distracting the dragon long enough to keep the young Viking safe.

The dragon stared at them with murder in his eyes. It let out a few snorts, before whipping its neck away from them. With a solid flap of its wings, it hoisted itself upward and punctured through the flaming tree tops to the open sky above. As the dragon broke through the tree tops, it sent large, burning branches falling to the ground.

“Whoops! Time to go!”

* * * *

Astid used herself to help Hiccup walk. With his arm wrapped around her neck, they had synchronized their walking to be able to keep a steady pace ahead of the lava, which has already engulfed the village. The heat from the fire around them was suffocating. The sweat, from their brows, were irritating their eyes and causing them to turn red.

They had no idea how far behind everyone else they were or how close to the shore they were. For all they knew, the chaos could have had them turned around and heading in the wrong direction. Neither of them would listen to their doubts and continued to press forward, anyway.

Almost as soon as they put those feelings aside, they came across a large blockade of stacked tree trunks in their path. With the lava fresh on their heels, there was no walking around this mess. They had no choice but to climb.

The look on Astrid’s face told Hiccup that she was thinking the same thing. There was no way was going to be able to help him climb this mess; he was on his own. “So what now?”

Hiccup shrugged, as if there was nothing to be concerned about. He could sense that she was thinking about his ability to climb this pile with his damaged prosthesis. Truth be told, he had his doubt that he could climb it, but he wasn’t about to tell her that. “We climb.”

Astrid prepared to climb when she gave him one last look. “I’ll be fine, go!”

She started her climb without any further hesitation. She made quick work over the first two three trunks before checking up on him again. He was not able to make climbing those trunks look as easy as she did, but he was still making progress, even with only one good leg. Seeing his progress, she commenced climbing.

Even he had to be happy with the progress he was making. Having a pegged leg, mountaineering over these thick, tree trunks was not easy at all; there was nothing for his pegged leg to grab hold of for him to put his weight on and push himself up. He was relying mostly on his sub-par upper body strength. He never had very much arm strength in his life; it was only after he lost his leg when he started depending on his arm strength more. It had done wonders in increasing his physical strength, but it was still a far cry in comparison to your typical Viking. He was still the scrawny weakling of the tribe.

Astrid had raced all the way to the top of the pile as if this had been a race to the top. Hiccup had only managed to make it half-way when she stood up on the top of the pile, looking down towards him. That only added more pressure to him to make it all the way up on his own strength.

His muscles began to ach, protesting under great strain. His good knee was beginning to buckle, fatigued from overuse and abuse. A cold sweat began to drench his face as he realized that he was probably not going to be able to reach the top. His muscles were tightening up, getting ready to give up on him.

Astrid could see it in his eyes... he was in trouble. Sensing the situation, she knelt down onto her knees and reached down. “Grab my hand!”

He pleaded with his body to cooperate just a little longer. A few more steps and he would be close enough for her to grab his wrist. He gave everything he had in getting just a bit further up that pile. Finally, he was one step up away, but the step had to be taken with his pegged leg. As he took that final step, all of his strength in that leg gave out and his wooden stump slipped.

“Whoa!” Hiccup yelped as all the progress he had made had suddenly vanished. He found himself back down at the bottom, without the strength or time to try again. The lava flow was pushing its way towards him, as if it could smell blood for the taking. His muscles were spent; there was no way he could make another go at climbing the large pile. The time to find another rout around the pile had already expired; he now found himself trapped with no way of escape.

“Hiccup!” Astrid called down to him from on top of the pile. “Hurry up and climb!”

He looked up at her, and prayed that she was not going to be stubborn enough to listen to him. “Go on without me, I’ll find another way around.”

She didn’t believe him, and she was THAT stubborn, to top it off. Before he could protest, she was already racing back down the pile and leaping down to the ground when she was about the half-way mark. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Hiccup looked over to see the lava-flow inching its way towards them; it had both of them trapped with no way of escape. “Uh, maybe you might want to rethink that.”

A deafening roar startled both young Vikings. The ground shook, and Hiccup first feared that the mountain was already about to erupt. When the series of shaking kept to a steady rhythm, he realized that it wasn’t the mountain causing the ground to shake... it was something alive and very, big.

Furious came plowing through the burning forest, unaffected by the intense heat of the flames around him. Hiccup and Astrid stumbled away from the pile of tree trunks as the gigantic dragon pushed his way between them and their roadblock.

As if their circumstances had not been bad enough, now they had a giant dragon to deal with. With the lava closing in, they had very little hope of getting away if the dragon chose to attack. Perhaps that was what it was thinking, as well. He and Astrid were easy prey; the dragon was never going to get another opportunity like this again.

Furious looked down with his tiny eyes. As he swung his head, Hiccup and Astrid flinched, expecting the attack, but instead, the dragon used his head as a battering ram towards the stack. With one swing of its head, most of the fallen tree trunks had been thrown aside. The dragon roard as he departed as quickly as he came. However, as he left, he used his one of his hind legs to stomp upon the last remaining fallen tree on the path, completely crushing it into splinters.

The two young Vikings were left there, watching as the gigantic dragon stomped off. “Did he just help us?”

* * * *

Stoick was directing all the Vikings onto the boats, taking charge like any good Viking chief would. However, the main reason that he was still not on one of those boats was his concern for Hiccup. No one has seen him, and yet his dragon was already here at the shore. The fact that Hiccup was not with his dragon concerned him greatly. The fact that nearly everyone was now present and accounted for was only concerning him more.

When the flow of panicked Vikings ceased, that was his confirmation that something was wrong. He turned around and grabbed his brother, Spitelout, by the shoulder. “See if you and a few other Vikings can get Toothless onto the boat. I’m gonna look for my son.

“Right,” he replied.

Stoick didn’t have to move at all; the moment he took his first steps towards the forest, Hiccup and Astrid came stumbling out. “Thank Odin!” Stoick muttered under his breath.

Astrid helped Hiccup hobble along as fast as they could towards the boats. An eerie red glow swallowed the shadows of the forest as the lava flow and the flames were approaching the shore. Stoick waved his arm, urgently encouraging his son and Astrid to speed it up. “Let’s move it! Let’s get off this forsaken island!”