126Hello everybody, welcome to my second story, but my first in the HTTYD fanfic. I am cowriting this story with a personal friend of mine, Narniaqueen1300. I hope you all enjoy it! This starts off just after Hiccup is chosen to kill the Monstrous Nightmare.
Wait a minute, what story doesn't start with a disclaimer? I do not own the How to Train Your Dragon franchise, idea, or characters (however much I wish I do); they belong to Cressida Cowell and DreamWorks. I only own whatever characters I create, and the plot of the story which you are about to read.
Chapter 1
"Leaving. We're leaving! Let's pack it up. Looks like you and me are going on a little vacation, forever." Hiccup said as he dropped the basket full of things he would need to run away to the ground. It was then that Toothless appeared beside the young Viking and looked at the basket in confusion when Hiccup opened it to show clothing and things for Hiccup to survive with instead of the meal he had come to associate with the basket.
"Oh come on Toothless, there's no fish for you in there." Hiccup said with a slight chuckle as he watched his reptile friend burrow his head into the basket trying to find imaginary fish. Toothless suddenly jerked his head out of the basket and looked towards the entrance of the cove and started to growl slightly.
"Toothless, settle down ok. Go hide and I will deal with whoever it is and be back as soon as I can." Hiccup said as he rubbed the dragon's head in a comforting manner before leaving to address whoever was trying to enter the cove. Hiccup soon went to the entrance and looked back to make sure Toothless was hidden, which he was. Hiccup turned the hidden corner to enter the cove to find and axe pointed at his face, looks past the axe head he found the face of whoever was now pointing a weapon at his head.
"Astrid, What are you doing out here?"
"Hiccup? What are you doing out here?" They both said at pretty much the same time. And awkward sort of silence settled over the two as each side wait for the other to answer first.
"I don't know what you're hiding down there Hiccup, but I intend to find out, one way or the other." Astrid said, breaking the silence.
"I'm not hiding anything, this is where I go to think and do a little training during the day." Hiccup replied, trying to sound as confident as possible with his crush holding an axe to his face. "Now could you please remove you axe from my face?"
"I'm sure you were training with somebody down there, considering what you are wearing and that nobody just gets as good as you do." Astrid said, lowering the axe to point at his flight harness.
"There is nobody down there Astrid, I promise. This is just something I am using to try and build leg muscles by clipping weight to it. Now about the axe?" Was the smart reply for the boy.
"Then you wouldn't mind if I take a look inside there would you?" She asked as she slipped the axe back into the sheath on her back.
"No, not at all, but you can do it alone because I'm going back to the village. I have some things to think about." Hiccup said before he started walking back towards Berk, leaving Astrid to stand and decide if she really wanted to look inside. She ended up glancing inside before chasing after the retreating form of the skinny lad and following him the rest of the day to make sure he wasn't lying.
The next day at the Kill Ring
The kill ring had been completely changed for the ritual that Hiccup was about to go through. Gone was the dull grey stone, replaced by banners, flags, and the whole of Berk.
"Well I can show my face in public again." Stoick said to the amassed crowd, earning a laugh from them. "If someone had told me that in a few short weeks that Hiccup would go from being, well...Hiccup, to placing first in dragon training! Well I would've tied him to a mast and shipped him off for fear he'd gone mad! And you know I'd do it too! But here we are, and nobody more surprised, or more proud than I am. Today my boy becomes a Viking. Today, he becomes one of us!" Stoick finished to a cheering crowd.
Hiccup was standing in the entrance to the ring with a slightly downtrodden look on his face. That look would only get worse once Astrid turned the corner, with every intent to talk to the boy.
"What do you want Astrid?" Hiccup asked the girl when she started to walk towards him.
"I just want to wish you good luck. And to inform you that I will find out how you got so good, and when I do I will tell the whole village and they will know how you cheated!" She sneered at him before walking back out of the entrance and into the crowd. As she was exiting, Gobber entered so he could let Hiccup into the ring.
"It's time Hiccup, knock him dead." Gobber said as he let Hiccup enter the kill ring. Everybody is hooting and hollering at him as he entered and locked eyes with his father. Stoick nods with a smile, which is only returned half way by the soon to be Viking. Hiccup walked over to the weapons rack and picked up a shield and out of everything there, a small dagger.
"I would have gone for the hammer." Stoick said to Gobber while Hiccup got ready for the battle.
"I'm ready." Hiccup said with a bit of fake confidence. The log that acted as the lock for the Monstrous Nightmare cage start to lift away with loud clanks. Once the log was far enough out, the Nightmare blasted the door open. It flew out of the cage and circled the stone ring before climbing onto the steel chain that made up the ceiling. As it circled the chain it spat fire out of the ring in a vain attempt to hit the Vikings standing outside the kill ring. After a few second it settled down enough to notice Hiccup in the ring and drop to the floor. As it advanced on Hiccup, the boy started to slowly walk back and drop his dagger and shield. The nightmare made a gesture to the helmet sitting on the boy's head. Hiccup picked it up off his head and looked at it.
"I'm not one of them." Hiccup proclaimed as he tossed the helmet to the ground. The Nightmare seemed a bit confused due to this young Viking sent in to kill him dropping everything and smelling like a night fury, but seemed to understand that Hiccup was no threat and so lost its threatening demeanor.
"Stop the fight." Stoick said as if in a daze.
"No! You need to see this; they aren't what we think they are." Hiccup said as he held his hand out for the Nightmare, as he had done for Toothless. Hiccups hand and the Nightmares snout where almost touching when Stoick got up from his throne chair.
"I said, Stop The Fight!" Stoick shouted as he pounded his war hammer into the steel bars at the base of the kill rings roof, bending them. The resulting vibrations made the dragon in the kill ring with Hiccup go berserk and instead of letting Hiccup's hand rest on his nose, he tried to bite it off instead. Hiccup let out a scream as he ran through the dragon's blind spot and grabbed the shield that he had dropped earlier. As soon as Stoick had seen his son in danger he started to run towards the gate to protect him. Astrid also ran at the gate and because she was much closer to the gate so she made it there first. Her reason for wanting into the ring was to show everybody how much of a cheat Hiccup was; trying to befriend dragons, what a crazy idea.
The gate was shut, yet she used an axe to wedge it open enough for her to slip under it. Hiccup was still running around the ring while being chased by the Monstrous Nightmare. Astrid went to the weapons rack, which the dragon had smashed in its pursuit of Hiccup. She picked up a decent sized hammer for herself and threw it at the nightmare, striking it in the head. This turned its attention to her. Instead of charging right at her, it started to advance slowly, staring at her, looking for any weaknesses or flaws in the stance. Astrid stood in a near perfect position and waited for the nightmare to come to her. She knew that most often the person whom started the attack, lost the attack.
A few seconds before the nightmare would have lunged, Stoick threw open the gate and ordered them out of the cage. Hiccup ran right behind Astrid towards the entrance, only to be separated by a blast of the Nightmares napalm-like fire. The Nightmare was still curious about why this Viking youngling smelled of night fury, had not attacked earlier, and still wasn't attacking. Hiccup held his shield in front of himself to protect himself from anything the Nightmare might do, except for trap him under its razor sharp claws, which it did; but before said dragon could do anything else, a shrill whistle was heard over the wind.
"Night Fury, Get Down!" Somebody shouted as Toothless blasted his way into the kill ring. Toothless immediately went after the nightmare to get him away from Hiccup, and they started to wrestle. People started to murmur as it became clear that Hiccup was being protected from the Nightmare by the Night Fury. The Nightmare eventually gave up as it was clearly a losing fight, and started to work his way back towards his cage. With the dragons no longer fighting, most of the men in the crowds jumped into the ring to be the one to capture the Night Fury.
"Toothless go, get out of here." Hiccup said while trying to push his friend out of the kill ring. Toothless did slowly start to walk towards the entrance, until he spotted Stoick grab a weapon of the wall and charge into the ring. Toothless knew of everything Hiccup had been through as the young man loved to talk. Hiccup tried to stop his dragon, but Toothless just wanted his friend's life to be good one, charged after Stoick and tackled him. Hiccup followed close behind yelling for Toothless to stop his attack. The duo came to a stop with Toothless on top and readying a plasma blast.
"NO!" Hiccup shout at Toothless, cause the dragon to stop and swallow the blast and look at him with huge puppy dog eyes. Before Hiccup could do anything though, Spitelout jumped at Toothless, only to be knocked away by the dragon's tail. Seeing that it was too dangerous to stay there, Toothless tossed Hiccup onto his back and sprinted out of the kill ring and back towards the cove and Hiccups basket of things from the day before.
"You're not one of us, you not my son!" The pair heard Stoick shout at them as they started to fly back towards the cove now that Hiccup had gotten firmly into the saddle. Hiccup hung his head in defeat after hearing that and Toothless could only make reassuring coo's while they were flying but he promised to himself that he would never again leave Hiccup's side.
Well here is chapter on of "Moving On". Yes I know I am still working on "Brothers in Arms", but I am cowriting this and this is number two in my writing list until BIA is over, which it is nearing the end. Back to this story, what do you guys think? The idea of Hiccup leaving during the final match is something I have only seen two or three times. But after this it is going in a direction I have never seen in any other HTTYD story take, so I hope you enjoy!
Semper Fi,
Thearizona