A/N: Surprise! ANOTHER new story for my rabid readers. This is going to be my take on HTTYD2, much in the way As The Skies Open was my take on HTTYD1. I plan on mostly-ish following the plo/general gist t of the second movie, although as always with my own spin and extra scenes and such. Also, theres a good chance this may diverge in several instances from the particulars of HTTYD2, but that's still a ways away.

Now, I don't know when I'll have the next chapter up, as I only recently decided to do this and the first chapter kind of wrote itself without my permission and I'm still finishing up school and thesis and blech. But come late may I should have some free time again, so there's a chance you might see another chapter by early june maybe?

Basically, not sure when, but I do currently plan on making this a full story. You may have to be patient, but I have plans, so I think you'll find it worth it. Review, tell me your thoughts, any suggestions you may have, and I hope to post the next chapter soon.

Now enjoy, and let the storms roll on!

Chapter One: Back to Berk

There's a village, located on the crags of a rather intimidating island, called Berk. And it's the best kept secret this side of...well, anywhere really. It may not look like much, mostly a pile of sticks on a wet heap of rock, but its got more than a few surprises.

Life for the people on Berk is amazing...provided they are not faint of heart. In other places, the locals enjoy hobbies like whittling or needlepoint, but here, the people prefer a little something called...Dragon Racing!

And, unfortunately for a brightly painted huddle of sheep, that was exactly what was going on. Skittish, the cluster drew tightly together, dodging between equally brightly painted buildings. The buildings, massive huts build of strong northern timbers, were painted in beautiful abstract designs that bordered on looking reptillian in a fashion. The roofs even had shingles that were shaped and stacked together in the manner of scales.

One very, very unlucky sheep, however, was painted in a very particular manner. Specifically, it was painted with a bright target. Said sheep was dodging between buildings and looking for cover when it was suddenly left in the open. A shudder of air overhead sent its comrades scrambling, while this sheep was left cowering in the open. It didn't even get a warning before it was snatched up, and all that was left behind was a bleat and a second shudder of air.

This second shudder of air was caused by none other than a very round Gronkle. It had a smug grin on its scaly face as it flew, the target sheep held carefully in its talons. Stripes of green and orange paint covered the Gronkle's face and forearms, in bold enough colors to be seen from a distance. This race was not about stealth. Which was a good thing. The Gronkle's wings made a slightly thunderous buzzing as it flew, and the large girl astride the Gronkle's back made an equally thunderous, if higher pitched, whoop of victory for catching the sheep.

"Whoo-ooo-ooo!" she cheered, lank blonde hair whipped back from her face in the winds. Her Gronkle echoed her shout with a buzzing, belching grunt. The terrified sheep just bleated, hanging utterly helpless in the Gronkle's claws. "Way to go, Meatlug!" Fishlegs said, her voice wobbly from the vibrations Meatlug's fast wingbeats caused.

A bright red and yellow shape swooped, crashing straight into her. Taken by surprise, Meatlug lost her grip on the sheep. The intruder picked it up, in the form of Snotlout and his dragon, the Monsterous Nightmare named Hookfang.

"Sorry Fishlegs, were you holding on to this?" Snotlout jeered as he and his dragon swooped by the other Viking. She narrowed her eyes in response.

"You're going down, Snotlout!" she replied, urging her Gronkle after him. Meatlug doubled her wingspeed to catch up, but Hookfang's huge wingspan took them easily out of reach.

In fact, the Nightmare carried his rider right up to another dragon racing pair: the Thorston twins and their Zippleback Belch and Barf. The dragons' brightly colored green hide clashed terribly with the green and yellow warpaint Ruffnut had chosen to wear, but clashed even worse with the black and yellow paint Tuffnut had chosen to coat his entire face with.

"For you, my lady," Snotlout said, tossing the sheep to Ruffnut with a bow. "By the way, you look amazing today. Did I tell you that? Because you do. The paint is really working for you."

Ruffnut easily caught the sheep, and then rolled her eyes at her friend. "Ugh," she grunted in disgust, lip curling at Snotlout. "Let's go Barf, there's too much Snot around here," she urged her head of the Zippleback forward, clinging greedily to the sheep.

Snotlout's oversized grin faltered as Barf began to pass him by. Belch's head followed closely, along with Tuffnut and his alarmingly painted face. "Nope. Still hates your guts," he chortled as his head of the Zippleback caught up with the other, leaving Snotlout behind without a sheep or a girlfriend. He pouted momentarily, but perked up as soon as he saw Ruffnut whoop with joy.

The main arena zoomed into view, a large open-air stadium with wooden stands. It was set on and around one of the large cliffs on the edge of Berk, and provided one of the best views the island had to offer. In the stands, it was possible to see for miles out to sea, and most of the village was in view as well. In short, it made for the perfect Dragon Racing arena. It looked somewhat precarious in places, with wooden planks and stands nestled along the cliff faces and spanning great gaps between them. However, over the past two years, the arena had been tested by multiple impacts and several fires, and remained entirely intact. Even the orange and blue paint was still bright.

The rickety-looking stands thundered as the four racing dragons came into view, as most of the village turned out to watch the day's race. A long bridge of wood spanned the gap between one cluster of stands and a neighboring cliff face, and all four dragons dived for this plank. The Thorston twins led the group on their Zippleback, and wooshed right past an opening in the wooden bridge. It was marked with green paint and the rough silhouette of a Zippleback's double heads. With a cry of victory, Ruffnut dropped her latest sheep to the opening, and the poor animal landed atop a bleating pile of it's brothers in the net that hung below. There were upwards of eight or nine sheep in the net. By contrast, every other net was empty, excepting the net hanging below an opening marked with the blue painted shape of a deadly Nadder. Three sheep hung in that net, looking mostly content with their lot. It had been a while since one of their brethren dropped rudely atop of them.

The rider of the Deadly Nadder was not nearly as complacent as the sheep he had captured. With an elegant twist, he urged his Nadder upside down and alongside Snotlout's nightmare. He reached out, and smacked the top of the burly dark-haired man's helmet, glaring at his competitor.

"What did you do that for, Snotlout?!" Astren Hofferson shouted, spreading his arms in exasperation. His frown looked all the more dramatic for the vivid blue and orange paint splashed across his face. "They're going to win now!"

"Ruffnut is my princess! She gets whatever she wants, I make sure of that!" Snotlout responded in a defensive but almost dreamy tone, a lopsided grin spreading across his face. He stroked his short stubble-beard thoughtfully as his eyes followed the distant shape of the Zippleback.

"Ruffnut? Ruffnut Thorston?!" Astren shouted incredulously over the wind, brows drawing together in confusion. "Hasn't she hated you since three months ago when you started calling her your lady?"

"Nah, we're past that!" the other viking responded gleefully as the two soared past a watchtower.

"She tried to push you off a cliff two days ago!"

"It was only like a seventy-five foot drop!"

Astren just shook his head in utter astonishment as the group of dragons swooped back towards the main body of the village. You wouldn't know it by looking at the current state of the village, but dragons used to be the number one source of destruction on Berk. Despite the village being seven generations old, houses never got a chance to age and needed to be rebuilt constantly from frequent dragon raids. Now, though, Berk was another place altogether.

On top of Dragon Racing being the most popular pastime (as well as the new best way to gain status in the village), the entire town had been redesigned to allow dragons and Vikings to coexist. Over five years, revolutionary additions to Berk made it a dragon haven. Huge dragon stables were hewn into cliff faces and caves, designed with maximum stone and rubble for recharging fire power, and minimum wood to reduce fire hazards. Then there were the feeding stations; large stone blocks with and endless supply of fish to keep the dragons happily fed without needing to raid human foodstores. In fact, there was a special team of riders and dragons whose entire jobs involved catching fish to keep the feeding stations stocked. With predators as powerful as dragons, the task wasn't hard, despite the thousands of dragons in and around Berk. The village in general was better fed all five of the years since the battle with the Red Death than it had been in any of the last fifty, due to the dragon's assistance in hunting.

Additonally, large rocks carved into rough shapes and mounted on giant logs laid strewn around the periphery of Berk. These posts acted as a scratching and washing station for dragons, who preferred to scrub off excess grime with rock instead of water to avoid loosing fire power.

Most of the human houses on Berk were still made of wood, due to the enormous excess of lumber from the prolific island forests, but an elaborate fire fighting system kept fires from reaching dangerous sizes. Huge pails of water hung scattered throughout the village, about one for every ten to fifteen houses. Easily burnt ropes connected in a complicated network to these buckets, designed so that even a small, mild fire would burn through the rope and tip over the pail of water. Cleverly placed aqueducts routed the water from the source pail to each house, drenching their roofs and letting the water spill over the sides so that any flame was quickly extinguished and all other neighboring roofs were drenched as preventative measures.

The whole system had been designed by one Viking, but the entire village worked together to keep up the maintenance of this fire system. It was remarkably easy: each day, one person from a house in each cluster would check their local pail and make sure it was full, and the whole cluster rotated through. The rotating every-day checks ensured that even if one or two Vikings were absentminded, no bucket would go empty for long.

It was truly a remarkable village. Never had Vikings been so prosperous and happy. The dragons supplied plenty of adrenaline rushes, since occasional mishaps were unavoidable, but the hatred and violence between the two species had long since settled into a happy camaraderie. Even Chief Stoick himself rode a dragon, despite the thirty-odd years he had spent perfecting the art of killing the beasts before Berk's drastic change.

Dragon Racing was the chief's favorite sport to watch, and the massive man leaned forward in his seat as the racing riders circled back around Berk. Despite the size of his intricately carved wooden chair on the highest spectator platform, Stoick still dwarfed the seat. In fact, he dwarfed every other Viking in the village. The Haddocks came from the biggest and sturdiest Viking stock around, and Stoick was no exception. Even though he had tinges of gray cropping up in his red beard and around his temples, the man was strong as an ox and about the same size. In addition, he was incredibly charismatic and made a fantastic leader for his people. They all adored him.

Stroking his beard thoughtfully, Stoick leaned over in his seat, towards the Viking at his side. This man, while smaller than the Chief, was still made of sturdy Viking material. His right foot and left hand were completely gone, replaced by wooden prosthetics. Gobber the Belch, blacksmith to the entirety of Berk, suffered very little from the absence of two limbs. He could keep pace with any of Berk's warriors, including his long-time friend, Stoick.

"It's time, Gobber," Stoick said, tone deadly serious. His favorite part of the Races were the last lap, when anyone had the chance to win and make up for lost time.

"Right-o then," Gobber responded, signaling to one of the younger Vikings posted at a watchtower. The teenager blew into one of the village's massive signaling horns, and a low, massive not came out of the instrument. The sound wave spread over the island, quickly catching up to the Racers.

Astren perked up from his sulk atop his Nadder.

"The black sheep!" he cried, standing and leaning forward in the saddle, scanning the empty streets of Berk for any sign of the aforementioned sheep. When the horn sounded a second time, he settled back into the saddle, crouching low on Stormfly's back as his blue eyes narrowed in determination. "C'mon Stormfly!" he urged the vividly colored Nadder. "We can still win this thing!"

Stormly enjoyed losing as little as Astren, and together the pair dove close to the town, the peaks of many houses inches away from brushing against the Nadder's belly. They were no longer close to any of the other Racers; in fact, the entire group had spread out to search the town for the black sheep. A flash of movement close to the bridge down to the docks drew Astren's attention: one of the younger teens, a youth who was perhaps sixteen or seventeen, was preparing a giant slingshot to be launched. He squinted, and sure enough, a writhing black sheep was strapped in to the slingshot, trembling from horn to hoof.

"Go, Stormfly. GO!" he urged, and the pair swooped down, both utterly focused on the poor sheep.

A shape cut in front of them, several hundred yards away. Astren recognized the bumbling, buzzing flight of Fishleg's Gronkle. And then the sheep was launched, far out of his reach.

"No!" he shouted, but the large blond girl had already scooped up the black sheep from the apex of its trajectory. It bleated in discomfort as Fishlegs hastily dove towards the scoreboards, tucking it under one arm.

Suddenly, a large flame-red dragon knocked straight into Fishlegs. She lost her grip on the sheep, and once again Snotlout caught it, his sabotage successful.

"HAHA!" the brown-haired man crowed, punching his fist into the air in celebration.

"Thor strike you, Snot!" Fishlegs cursed at him, scowling. It was annoying, sure, but his hugely unsuccessful courtship of Ruffnut was amusing to watch. Fishlegs was sure if she wasn't engaged herself, however, she would be much more offended by Snotlout's dirty tricks than she currently was.

Snotlout carelessly zoomed off, swooping close to the Thorston twins and their Zippleback.

"Here you go, darling!" he smiled at Ruffnut, tossing her the black sheep. Ruffnut grabbed it from midair, and then made a gagging face at Snotlout, flying off with her new prize without a second look back at her would-be suitor.

"The black sheep!" she shouted, punching her brother's face in enthusiasm. "Let's win this!"

Astren's eyes narrowed. He was closing in on the twins, and with a smirk he muttered to himself, "not if I have anything to do with it!"

Just as Stormfly dove towards the twins and their Zippleback in a graceful arch, Astren climbed out of the saddle, arranging his feet along its length and his toes pointed out towards Stormfly's wings. With knees bent, the blond man rode his dragon standing up, loose strands of hair whipping around his face and his short braid slapping against the fur hood of his coat.

Stormfly drew up just above Barf and Belch, and Astren took a great flying leap off of the Nadder. As his dragon dropped swiftly below the Zippleback, the man landed on its flank in a crouch without slipping even a little bit on the smooth scales. His boots, designed for fall and winter, had tread that would catch even on slick, iced-over surfaces, as was the norm in the cold months.

"Ha!" Astren shouted, running up the back of the Thorston twins' dragon. While they were still squabbling about Ruffnut's decision to punch Tuffnut in the face, Astren had reached the point at which the Zippleback's heads split from each other. With another powerful jump, he snatched the black sheep right out of Ruff's grip and fell away from the dragon and its two riders.

"NO!" she shouted in dismay, far more concerned for the loss of the black sheep than Astren's safety as he fell to the ground. "YOU SNEAKY LITTLE RAT-EATING..."

But Ruffnut's curses faded to the backround as Astren fell, bleating black sheep in hand. Down, down, down, and then -

Stormfly swooped in, catching the blond man and his victory sheep. Continuing her graceful arc, the Nadder allowed her rider to settle back in to the saddle. Astren whooped with joy as he settled in, sheep held securely to his chest. The scoreboards were in view!

With a celebratory corkscrew, Stormfly took her two passengers directly over the scoreboards. Astren lobbed the black sheep into his net, where it joined three other regular sheep and gave a pitiful bleat.

The villagers, however, were not nearly so meek about this outcome. The came roaring to their feet, applauding and cheering for the most recent winner of the Dragon Races. Astren obliged his people, swooping low over the crowd and extending an arm so that the villagers could clap his hand in appreciation.

"Astren wins!" Stoick exclaimed happily, jumping to his feet with the rest of the crowd. "That's my future son-in-law!" he cheered pounding his fist into his palm in celebration.

Gobber frowned in confusion. "Did he ask Hiccup yet?"

"No he hasn't. But he did bring it up with me a few months ago, said he was waiting for the right timing. The young man's doing quite well for himself," Stoick observed, stroking his beard thoughtfully. The young man in question continued to accept the crowd's adulation, and Stoick thought to himself he would be a fine aid to Hiccup's future as Chief.

"He certainly is, that's the third time this month he's won the races," Gobber remarked, drawing up alongside his friend. They both watched the young man and his Nadder sail just above the crowd, easily accepting the cheers for their most recent victory.

"Yes it is," the chief agreed, bushy brows drawing into a frown. He sat back in his seat, frown developing into something between thunderous and sulky. "And this is the third time this month that Hiccup is no where to be found," Stoick sighed, resting his bearded cheek unhappily on one massive fist.

A/N: Tadaaa! done. Review, and tell me what you thought!