Freya leans on her dragon's back, staring at the sea, deep in thought. "Shouldn't Stoick have been back by now?" She questions aloud, notifying everybody else sitting on an iceberg with her.
"I don't like this." Astrid adds.
"I don't like it either." Ruffnut agrees. "Eret, Son of Eret was the man of my dreams! My everything!"
"But baby, I grew facial hair for you." Snotlout whines, touching his barely growing mustache.
"Me too..." Fishlegs mumbles.
"We need to find them." Freya states, ignoring the others. "They could've been captured by Drago or killed by some random dragon or randomly struck by lightning!!!"
"That last part is a bit much..." Astrid says as everybody looks at the oldest in concern. "Are you okay?"
"No, I'm worried! We need to try and find them."
"What? But Stoick said—" Fishlegs starts.
"It doesn't matter what he said if they've all been captured! Now come on! We're going after Eret's ship!" Freya orders, taking off with Sapphire.
The others groan and hop onto their dragons, following behind the woman.
"Wait, Eret's ship?" Astrid repeats. "Why?"
"He's going to tell us where to find Drago and then when he does, we'll throw him into the sea or something."
"You can give him to me!" Ruffnut excitedly shouts, making Freya turn to her. "I promise I'll take care of him."
"Or we can give him a worse punishment, I guess." Freya shrugs, turning back to Astrid who looked at Ruffnut in disgust. "You wanna start?"
"Yes!" Astrid replies, smiling at the woman as they get closer and closer to Eret's ship.
The poor man held a bag of ice to the side of his head, "we've got nowhere to go, nothing to sell and no heads to call our own!" He shouts, not noticing Stormfly fly towards him. "If we don't find dragons and fast—"
Stormfly snatched him off the boat, making him drop the ice bag.
"Careful what you wish for!" Astrid teases, swiftly dodging the needs flying towards them.
"What is this!?" Eret shouts.
"A kidnapping."
"Can he ride with me?" Ruffnut asks, pulling Eret's arm towards her. "Can he? Can he?"
"Ruff, not yet." Freya says, pushing Ruffnut's face away so she can look at Eret. "So, Mr. Son of Eret, we kidnapped you so you could take us to the Drago."
"And help dragon riders sneak into Drago's camp?" Eret questions. "Just kill me now."
"Sure." Freya shrugs, ignoring Eret's shocked look and looking up at Astrid who smirked down at her.
"Stormfly, drop it." Astrid orders, patting her dragon's side. Stormfly squawks and lets go of Eret, causing him to fall towards the ice and water below them. "Good girl!"
"Sapphire." Freya calls, gaining her Hobblegrunt's attention. "Fetch him!"
Sapphire looks down at Eret with a tilted head before diving down to the man.
"Okay! I'll take you to Drago!" He shouts, grunting as Sapphire catches him with her claws.
"You switched sides quickly." Freya comments, smiling down at her prisoner.
—————
Valka leads Hero and Hiccup outside of the nest, riding on top of Cloudjumper.
Hiccup looks back at the hundreds of dragons following them, in confusion before turning back to his mother questioning, "Hey, I thought we were going to eat?"
"Oh, but we are!" Valka says and sticks her hand out, stopping Toothless and Koi. She then looks down at the ocean below, causing everybody else to look down as well.
Below them, the Bewilderbeast burst out of the water and glanced at them before suddenly spitting out hundreds to thousands of fish in the air.
"It's raining fish..." Hero mutters before yelping when Koi suddenly dives downwards, trying to gather as much fish in her mouth as possible.
They then notice Toothless at some point diving down as well and Brightlight, who was standing on top of a large dragon, being handed some fish.
—————
Hero, Hiccup and Valka all landed on a nearby island with their dragons so Hiccup could show off the map he and Hero worked on.
"Then from Dragon Island, we found this archipelago—" Hiccup pauses when he looks up and sees Valka gone. He then looks in front of him, noticing his mother was actually drawing the whole map with her hooked staff.
"So that's where the artistic skills come from." Hero comments, sitting next to Hiccup. Valka hears this and smiles at Hero as she finishes her drawing.
"Ah! Toothless, no! No!" Hiccup shouts when he notices his dragon picking up an icicle and drawing all over Valka's drawing.
Hiccup sighs and shrugs at his mother while Hero starts laughing.
—————
"The water is said to be connected to my family." Hero says as they ride next to Hiccup and his mom. "Here, I'll show you."
They stand up on Koi, carefully balancing on top of her and taking their cloak off. "Hiccup, catch." They throw the cloak towards Hiccup who swiftly catches it.
"You sure you wanna do it now? The water's most likely freezing." Hiccup warns.
"It is freezing. Most of our tidal dragons don't usually stay because of that." Valka informs.
"Me and Koi have had to dive in frozen water hundreds of times. Mainly to save Hiccup or Toothless, I'll be fine." Hero reassures. They then ready themselves before jumping off of Koi and diving into the water. Koi quickly dives in after them. And the two spin around each other as they go deeper and deeper into the water.
Valka watches in both curiosity and concern as all she can see are bubbles coming to the surface.
Suddenly Koi burst out of the water, upside down with Hero standing on her stomach. She looks up at Hero with a goofy grin and they smile back before jumping off of Koi and doing a twisting dive back into the water with Koi quickly following behind. The two then started to do multiple small performances, jumping out of the water and doing dives and flips back into it.
But out of nowhere, Brightlight lifted Hero out of the water on her back.
"Woah!" Hero yelps, quickly holding onto the dragon's horn so they don't fall. "Where did you come from?"
"She followed us here?" Hiccup guessed, turning to Valka who was smiling brightly.
"She must like them." She says, watching Hero look up at the two with a mischievous smile. "Oh."
"Oh?"
"Hey, Brightlight." Hero calls, dragging out the first word. "You wanna prove to me and Koi that you can swim just as well, right?"
Brightlight smiles up at them.
"Great! Then let's go!"
Hero pats Brightlight's horn and the two of them go back under the water. Koi, who was still on the surface, watched them with her head tilted to the side in confusion.
Hiccup also looks down into the water, trying to search for this significant other when suddenly Hero bursts out of the water and crashes into him, sending them both back down into the ocean.
"Hiccup!" Valka gasps as Toothless roars in a panic, startled at how fast Hero jumped out of the water.
"I'm okay, Toothless!" Hiccup quickly reassures once he gets back to the surface of the water. "I'm okay!"
Hero also gets to the surface and starts laughing at their boyfriend who was soaking wet.
"And now we're both wet..." Hiccup grumbles, glaring at Hero who continues to laugh.
Brightlight's head slowly comes out of the water looking at Koi with big eyes. Koi looks back at her and swims towards the other dragon before digging her head underneath Brightlight's chin and softly purring.
"Sorry! I'm sorry!" Hero apologizes in between laughs. "But you look adorable. Like the wet chickens back on Berk." They cup Hiccup's cheeks and softly kiss him on the lips before ducking back into the water before he has a chance to reciprocate the gesture.
Cloudjumper quietly mumbles and flies down towards Hiccup who was still sulking in the water. Valka chuckles at him and leans over her dragon to softly ruffle her son's hair.
"You two truly love each other, huh?" Valka assumes.
"Sometimes." Hiccup mutters.
"Heard that!" Hero shouts from a few feet away, sticking their head out of the water to glare at Hiccup.
"I'm joking, lovely!"
"You better be!"
Valka once again chuckles and turns to Toothless who also dove into the water. "Well, if you wanna get dry quickly, I know just the place."
—————
She took the two to a nearby updraft where they could gently float in the air and let it quickly dry them.
Hiccup was holding onto Toothless' saddle, letting the updraft lift him into the air. Next to them was Koi and Hero who were gently floating, eyes closed and relaxed. Across from them was Valka and Cloudjumper. Brightlight was on a small island a few feet below them, resting and waiting for them to come to her.
Valka smiles at them all and walks off of Cloudjumper's wing, landing on the Deadly Nadder below. She then uses the Nadder's spikes to gently land on Koi who smiled at her. Valka walks across the StormStriker, quickly patting Hero's shoulder and jumping onto Toothless' wing.
Toothless and Hiccup look up at her as she walks across the dragon as well and playfully rubbing Hiccup's hair as she passes him. She then slides off Toothless' wing and onto Cloudjumper's back.
The six of them then start to fly away from the others and towards the small island Brightlight was waiting on.
"Ah, when I'm up here..." Valka starts. "I don't even feel a cold, I just feel..."
"Free." Hiccup finishes, turning to his mother and smiling at her.
Hero learns on their dragon's head and watches the two of them with a tiny smirk.
Valka breathlessly chuckles before turning to the wind blowing in front of her and stretching her arms out of the sides. "This is what it is to be a dragon, you two!" She says.
"It's all well and good to call yourself a dragon but..." Hiccup starts, unhooking his safety rope and setting Toothless tail fin in place. "But can you fly!?" He jumps off of Toothless' back, scaring Valka before activating his wings and flying through the sky.
Valka turns to Hero who looks both stressed out and proud, making her worry start to turn into wonder as she and Cloudjumper move to get closer.
Koi and Toothless also dive down to move closer, kind of acting like his safety net if he does something stupid, but it starts to worry Hiccup when he turns around to see nobody behind him before realizing that they all moved to be either next to him or right behind him.
He turns back around, cheering loudly but the joy quickly turns to fear when he sees a mountain with three holes right in front of him.
"Oh no!" He shouts as Toothless quickly starts to make his way towards Hiccup, finally reaching him and using his body to protect him as they fly through one of the holes in the mountain and onto the snow, right next to Brightlight who yelped and quickly backed away from them.
Toothless lifts his wing in shock when he can't see or feel Hiccup next to him. He frantically looks around before jumping when Hiccup suddenly burst out of the snow with a loud cheer.
"Man! Almost!" He says as Toothless lets out a sneeze due to the snow and shakes his head, letting any snow on top of him fall off. "We just about had it that time!"
Toothless glares at him and uses his tail to knock Hiccup off his feet and directly into the snow.
Brightlight tilts her head at the interaction and starts sniffing Hiccup's suit as he laughs and starts to stand up. Cloudjumper and Koi land on the small island with Valka immediately jumping off of her dragon and running towards Hiccup who just started putting his flying gear away. She inspects the gear, looking at it in wonder and curiosity.
Well now Hero understands where he gets it from.
Brightlight notices Hero and Koi standing a few feet away from and runs towards them with her ears perked up and eyes dilated. Hero gets off of Koi, letting the two StormStrikers play fight as they watch with a small smile.
Valka, at some point, walks over to Koi, making the two dragons stop play fighting and look up at her in curiosity. Valka then presses a spot on the back of Koi's ear and causes her to instinctively jerk away.
"Was something wrong with her?" Hero asks.
Valka shakes her head and turns to Brightlight. "Show Koi how to use her ability."
"Ability?"
"Every dragon has one."
Toothless then runs up to Hero and shows off his split back fins, earning a laugh from them. "Oh, that's yours, huh?"
As they talk, Brightlight moves Koi right in front of a rock far away from everybody else. Koi turns to her in confusion but the dragon just opens her mouth and makes a small noise, trying to tell Koi what to do.
"Cover your ears." Valka tells Hiccup and Hero who immediately obliged.
Koi then opens her mouth and lets out a high pitched roar. The roar then starts to get louder and louder and the rocks starts to crack before completely shattering into small pieces, shocking Koi and making her turn to Brightlight with wide eyes.
Brightlight just nods like she's seen this thousands of times before.
Hero and Hiccup look at each other in shock and Valka laughs at their reaction.
"And it's stronger in the water." Valka tells Hero.
"So my dragon's now a full on siren." Hero whispers, walking over to their dragon.
"Or the closest we'll ever get to one." Hiccup adds.
"I can show you two all the secrets I've learned over the past 20 years I've been here." Valka says, walking towards Hiccup as Toothless burrows in the snow. "We'll all unlock every mystery, find every species together!"
Toothless then jumps out of the snow, making some of it go onto Cloudjumper's head. Cloudjumper grumbles and leans his head to the side, letting the snow fall off onto Toothless' head. The Night Fury quickly shakes it off and starts showing off his split fins to Cloudjumper who genuinely looked interested.
"This gift we share." Valka continues. "It bonds us. This is who we are, who you two are! We will change the world for all dragons, we will make it a better, safer place!"
"Yeah! I mean, that sounds...amazing!" Hiccup agrees.
Valka lets out a sigh of relief and pulls Hiccup into a gentle embrace. Hiccup's eyes widened and he looked up at Hero who was mouthing, "hug her back!" Which he does.
After a while, Hiccup pulls away and lets out a cheerful laugh. "Ah, this is so great! Now we all can go talk to Drago together!"
"What?" Valka laughs in disbelief. "There's no talking to Drago."
"But we have to—"
"No. We must protect our own."
Hiccup lets out a sigh in frustration as Toothless walks over to him proudly and cheerfully presenting his fins once again.
"Come on, we should be getting back." Valka calls.
—————
Sapphire drops Eret onto the snow below and immediately sits on top of him, pushing face first into the snow as Freya jumps off her dragon.
"Okay, I got you here! Now get this thing off me." Eret demands, struggling against the dragon.
"Never take a toy from a dragon." Astrid says, walking to Freya. "Don't you know anything?"
"And she likes you." Freya comments, noticing Sapphire turn yellow. "Be happy."
"Why does this keep happening to me?" Eret complains as Sapphire looks down at him with a tilted head and the rest of the dragon riders leave to look over the edge.
Hundreds of boats are below them, all lit up with one or two torches. In the middle of them all is a big circle of bubbling water.
"What's down there?" Astrid questions, looking at the water with squinted eyes.
Fishlegs stands up to take a stack of cards out of his pouch, he looks through them, quickly trying to guess the dragon. "Large diameter bubbles, massive lungs, cold water deep dweller...I'm thinking class five Leviathan, maybe six."
Freya then suddenly feels something poke her in the back of the neck, making the rest of the group gasp. She rips the object from her neck and examines it, noticing it's a blow dart right before falling face first into the snow.
"Freya!" Astrid shouts, trying to reach towards her.
"Don't move!" One of the dragon trappers shout, now aiming their blow darts at the entire group (including Eret).
—————
The trappers tied the group's hands up with rope and dragged them onto the boat closest to the bubbling water. Freya was still unconscious and thrown over one of the trapper's shoulders.
"Drago!" Eret calls. He was the only one not tied up and standing in front of everybody. He told the trappers that this was all a part of his plan and that he captured the dragons and trappers on his own. (Which is clearly a lie.)
Drago, who was looking down at the bubbling water, grunts and turns to the group, looking directly at Eret.
"Get off me!" Eret demands, pulling his arm away from one of the trappers before watching Drago walk towards him. Eret puts on a confident smile and continues to talk. "Always great to see you, my friend! Keeping warm up here?"
A trapper swiftly takes Eret's swords out of their holsters, confusing and irritating the man.
"As you can see, I'm right on time with the new batch of dragons, just like I promised."
"He's waking up!" One of the trappers suddenly shouted as Hookfang woke up and started thrashing against the trappers and their ropes. "Give me some backup!"
"Drop the ropes." Drago orders, smirking at Hookfang.
The Dragon Trappers quickly drop the ropes and back away before Hookfang, who turned his attention to Drago, to bite them.
Hookfang glares at Drago before spewing fire at the man who snarls and holds his cloak up, blocking the fire as he walks closer.
"How is he doing that?" Astrid questions.
Hookfang lets out a roar as one of the dragon trappers hand Drago his spear. Drago then shouts back at the Monstrous Nightmare before swinging his staff around, scaring the dragon.
He then stabs it into the ground and walks closer to Hookfang who reluctantly bows down to him. Drago then plants his foot onto Hokfang's snout and steps down on it, releasing any smoke from out of his nose.
"What are you doing!?" Astrid shouts.
"You belong to me now." Drago states, staring down at the dragon before glancing at the saddle on his back.
"And as an extra bonus–" Eret nervously continues. "I've also brought you their dragon riders, no extra charge!"
"What!? Are you serious!?" Astrid exclaims.
"But you were so perfect!" Ruffnut complained.
"Turns out, there is a whole bunch of them out there." Eret says. "They attack–"
Drago suddenly grabs Eret by the throat and says, "How many? How many!?"
"Hundreds." Astrid confidently answers. "A whole island full."
"Put me the fuck down!" Someone suddenly shouts, causing a ruckus from behind everybody.
Freya kicks the trapper who was carrying them on the stomach and swiftly takes the knife from their pouch, using it to cut their ropes. They then throw the knife at the trapper holding their weapon, making the man shriek and drop the bow as the knife stabs the wood right next to him.
"Freya!" The dragon riders cheer as Freya grabs their bow and arrow and shoots one of the trappers in the arm before they can shoot a blow dart at them
"Stop attacking!" Drago orders dropping Eret. "I'll handle this."
"Holy shit, was he choking you?" Freya suddenly questions, turning to Eret who was holding his throat.
"Probably..." Eret mutters, coughing loudly.
"Then stop breathing so rapidly. Take deep breaths to make it easier." Freya says before pressing a button on the middle of her bow, turning it into two swords and dashing towards Drago, slashing at him repeatedly.
Hey! This is what the bow looks like! (It's an older drawing.)
Drago uses his fishhook to swiftly block the strikes and swipe underneath Freya's feet, knocking her to the ground.
Before he can truly do anything though, Freay grabs an arrow from her stash and stabs Drago in the left shoulder, making him cry out in pain and back away.
Freya rises to her feet and lets out a deep breath while watching Drago pull the arrow out of his shoulder.
"You're fast, I'll give you that." Drago says.
"You should see my younger sibling then, They're faster than me." Freya replies with a small smile. "So, are we continuing or having a chat with tea and extremely bland crackers? What's happening right now?"
Drago deeply frowns and grips onto his fish hook tighter, sprinting towards Freya who's eyes widen and they quickly duck under a sudden strike.
Drago then pulls Freya back to the ground by using their fish hook to hook them backwards.
"God damn it." Freya curses as Drago holds her down with her hand, gripping it around their throat.
"Your family is full of annoying pests." Drago growls, placing his foot on Freya' chest and raising his fish hook to strike.
"God damn it!"
"STOP!"
Astrid shouts, snatching her hands out of one of the trapper's grip. "If you kill her, there will be consequences."
"Like what?" Drago questions.
"She is incedibly important. She's the sister to Hero–"
"Hero?"
"The child of Saga the Brave, one out of the two of our dragon masters. They and HIccup, who's the son to Stoick the vast and heir to the throne will find your fort with their StormStriker and Night Fury and blow it to smithereens. So if you lay another hand on Freya, it will be your last."
"Dragon masters? I alone control the dragons!"
"PFFTTT!" Freya laughs, covering their mouth.
"Nope." Tuffnut admits, shaking his head.
"Sorry!" Fishlegs laughs.
Drago then grabs Eret, once again by his neck, and accidentally stomps on Freya who lets out a loud cough.
"Watch where you're stepping!" Astrid warns.
"First, there was one rider, and now, all of Berk?" Drago questions. "And you led them to me!" He throws Eret to the side and kicks Freya back to the rest of the dragon riders, making the trappers immediately hold her down and tie her hands up once again.
"Drago!" Eret cries.
"Stop all preparations!" Drago orders. "We must attack the dragon riders' nest at once! We will take down their alpha! Then we will take Berk!"
The dragon trappers cheer as the others look around in shock.
"Wait...where's Sapphire?" Freya whispers to herself.
"Drago!" Eret once again shouts.
"Get rid of him." Drago demands, glaring at Eret.
All the dragon trappers turn to Eret, weapon in hand.
"Oh, Drago, please, I–"
One of the trappers throws a hooked weapon at Eret but Sapphire suddenly jumps down and shields him with her wings. She then spews fire at the trappers, making them dodge out the way and hit the boat.
The trapper next to Drago takes out a blow dart and shoots it at Sapphire, hitting her in the neck, and making her pass out immediately.
"Sapphire!" Freya shouts, trying to break out of the dragon trapper's grasp. "NO!"
Drago grins before turning to the burning part of the boat and orders the trappers to clean it up.
Eret looks down at Sapphire in bewilderment, eyes wide open.