Chapter 9

How to Annoy your Nightmare

CLANG! Astrid's curse rang out as she once again missed her target and instead accidentally intercepted Eydis's arrow on its way to the Nadder's side. Eydis went on a spiel of colorful language and Astrid shot it right back at her as they dodged away from the dragon. Hiccup, as usual, played the noodle and hung back as Flies-Through-Storms blasted at Snotlout, who had been running at her from behind. He had taken the shield lesson to heart and had luckily been carrying one, and thus did not die.

Camacazi suddenly appeared on Flies-Through-Storm's head, twirling a knife. Startled, the blue nadder whipped her head back and forth and Camacazi landed gracefully on the ground a ways away. "CAMACAZI!" Gobber bellowed from the outside of the arena. "IF YA CAN GET THAT CLOSE TO IT, DO SOME DAMAGE, WILL YA?"

"Yeah yeah. In a minute." Camacazi replied.

Dogsbreath ran at Flies-Through-Storms head-on. She gave him a deadpan look and bit him in the back of the shirt to throw him at the twins, who were more busy fighting themselves than fighting her. Magnus made a few strikes just to look convincing every now and then, but ultimately Hiccup subdued her with a small clump of dragon-nip and an apology and a promise for more later.

As the gates swung closed, Gobber descended into the ring. "Alright. Some o' ya are improvin'. I've gotta say, Eydis 'ere's been makin' leaps an' bounds…"

And she had. Eydis had gone, over the course of the past few days, from being the pyromaniac archer that sniped enemies from afar… to an even bigger pyromaniac who was much more daring. She'd been practicing her aim daily on everything that moved; Snotlout, sheep, Snotlout, birds, Snotlout, yaks, Snotlout, chickens, Snotlout, shields that were tossed into the air for target practice, Snotlout, Dogsbreath… you get my point. Her skills at making incendiaries had also improved, and she had gotten a recipe from Trader Johan for something called Napalm. None of them were very eager to see what exactly it did, but they knew it had something to do with fire. She was training almost obsessively, which was strange because it had seemingly never mattered to her before. She must've really wanted to fight that nightmare.

Astrid had been improving as well. She'd also been practicing obsessively, but not as well as Eydis had. She just threw her axe at trees a ton, oh, and she also threw it at Snotlout.

Then there was Hiccup. In the eyes of the village, he'd actually gotten better. He hadn't, though. He'd already been much, much better than he was currently letting on even before that point in time. He had no intention to show what he could really do in a dragon fight.

Snotlout had improved as well, having learned that maybe charging in blindly every time wasn't going to work, and was trying different approaches to varying levels of success.

Of course, there were also Magnus and Camacazi, who, with a better understanding of dragons, were able to fight them better. Fishlegs was also steadily improving, especially after having partnered up with Meatlug. So far, her absence had not been noticed by Gobber, who hadn't tried to take her out lately.

Oh, right, Gobber was still speaking. "...along with the majority of ye. And others seem to be goin' backwards."

Indeed, it seems that the twins were making even less progress every day. As the novelty of fighting dragons wore off, they turned straight back to their favorite pastime; fighting each other. Almost every single wound they'd come home with was one that they had given themselves, and they hardly ever focused on the dragons even when they got annoyed and tried to roast them.

Dogsbreath hadn't changed a bit. He went with the same exact approach every single day, and managed to find other stupid things to do. He left his club at home and instead brought his pet grub, which Gobber had smashed in his fury one day, for instance. He would wear his mother's skirt instead of his pants and have to be sent home to change, and then would come back with a crown of sheep's wool instead of his helmet. Gobber's level of ire was rather high.

"I'm proud o' those who improved, an' I'm a little disappointed in the others. I'm going ta be holdin' a special little course right now for those who are fallin' behind. Dogsbreath, Ruffnut, Tuffnut, tha' means you. The rest o' ya are dismissed."

Astrid stalked out, swinging her axe, and Eydis collected her arrows and went to repair those she could. The one that had an encounter with Astrid's axe couldn't be saved though, by the looks of it. Snotlout started following Astrid, and Hiccup, Camacazi, Fishlegs, and Magnus exchanged looks.

"The cove?" Camacazi asked.

"I'll meet you there. Let me get my armor." Hiccup replied.

Magnus nodded. "See ya."

Fishlegs looked over at him imploringly. "Can I examine your armor?"

"Later." Hiccup replied. "Go say hi to Lugs-Much-Meat."

"You mean Meatlug."

"Actually, her real name is Lugs-Much-Meat, but whatever floats your boat." Hiccup shrugged and jogged off towards his house. Once he was inside, he closed the door and chucked Axe at the far wall, where it stuck. He hissed at it, and dropped the noodle disguise. As he walked up the stairs, Hiccup found himself deep in thought.

Fishlegs and Lugs-Much-Meat were getting along nicely, and so were Camacazi and Steals-A-Lot, as well as Magnus and Fire-Spot-Curious. If he really wanted to keep changing the minds of Vikings, then now would be a good time to pick another dragon rider.

Astrid was out of the question. She hated dragons with a burning passion and would sell them all out in an instant. Eydis was similarly a bad choice. While she really didn't mind the raids, even enjoyed them, her newfound love of killing everything dragony and setting them on fire was not to be trusted near him and his friends. The twins would just blurt out everything, so they were a no-go. Dogsbreath the Duhbrain… Absolutely not.

That, however, only left Snotlout in his age group, and Snotlout was not an appealing choice.

Well, maybe the others would be able to think of something.

He finished strapping on his armor, then shot out his backdoor and into the woods, taking flight.

It felt good to fly after a day of being on the ground. He hated dragon training, he decided.

Well, he'd hated it before, but he hated it even more now that it was eating his free time.

He soared through the woods, making sure to avoid the areas where he knew Astrid and Eydis usually practiced, and then swooped over the cove.

Fishlegs was socializing with Lugs-Much-Meat, and the other four were practicing aerial stunts.

Upon spotting him, a distinctive black dragon shot into the air. "STEALTHY!"

"Hey, Toothless. How're they doing?"

"They're doing pretty well." Toothless replied, rolling his shoulders. "In any case, I haven't seen you all day. Race you to the cod!" He took off towards the ocean at full speed, tongue lolling out.

"HEY!" Small-Dragon-Soul-Stealthy cried. "You KNOW I'm not as fast as you!"

"HAHAHAHAHA! THE CODS ARE ALL MINE!"

"YOU MEAN THE COD IS ALL YOURS!" Small-Dragon-Soul-Stealthy cried at his back, flying as hard and fast as he could to keep up with Toothless. "AND FINE! I LIKE SALMON BETTER ANYWAYS!"

"BLASPHEMY!" Toothless roared at him.

Small-Dragon-Soul-Stealthy finally caught up to him as Toothless blasted the fish from the water, and he scooped up several that Toothless missed when they floated to the surface in order to stick them in his pouch. "Finally, I can eat real food!"

"What have they been feeding you?" Toothless asked warily.

"They expect me to eat their burned meats breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I only like the burned chicken! The rest can go die."

"It's already dead."

"Shut up." They descended towards the cove once more, and Fishlegs watched with interest.

"You went fishing?" He asked.

Hiccup nodded. "Yeah. I haven't eaten anything since breakfast."

"Oh. I'll get Meatlug to start a fi…" Hiccup proceeded to eat a salmon raw. Fishlegs turned green. "It's still raw. You ate it raw."

Hiccup raised an eyebrow and turned to him curiously. "What?"

Magnus walked over and placed a hand on Fishleg's shoulder. "I forgot you haven't seen him eat yet. He was practically raised by dragons, so he's used to raw food. Apparently cooked food tastes almost intolerable to him."

"With the exception of chicken. You can't eat that unless you've burned it or you get sick." Hiccup informed them. "I'll eat the burnt chicken. Everything else I'd like raw."

"That is so gross." Fishlegs said, turning greener by the second.

"You okay there Fish?" Camacazi asked. "You're turning the color of Hiccup's armor."

Hiccup passed them each a fish. "I can only eat one of those. The rest are for you." Fishlegs turned and puked in a bush. "COOKED! I meant cooked! You can eat it however you want!"

"What's wrong with him?" Steals-A-Lot asked.

"He thinks raw fish is disgusting." Toothless replied, having been able to follow the conversation.

"What a backwards point of view." Lugs-Much-Meat commented. "Must humans burn everything before they eat it? Food is a lot more healthy before you burn it, you know."

"Yeah. It's so weird. I mean, I have a human body, but I like raw fish." Stealthy replied. "I guess it's just a matter of how you were raised. If you were brainwashed by your parents to think something was bad for you and disgusting your whole life, wouldn't you start believing it?"

"True." Lugs-Much-Meat conceded the point.

"YOU STARTED EATING WITHOUT ME!?" Melts-Rocks-For-Fun landed and deposited a pile of assorted fish in front of him. "Geez. Anyways, what's up?"

Stealthy decided to voice his thoughts then. "Well, I was thinking… We'll probably want to start making more dragon-rider duos, won't we? I mean, we kinda just stopped at Fishlegs, but I'm not sure who to pick."

"There's that Gustav kid." Melts-Rocks-For-Fun stated. "I know a young Nightmare he'd get along with."

"Too young." Stealthy replied. "And how do you know about him anyways?"

"I've seen him during raids." He supplied. "Once or twice, anyways. I burned his house down once."

"Moving on!" Toothless stated. "Sneaky, what do you think?"

Fishlegs yelped, his conversation with the other two interrupted as Stealthy appeared on his head. "Not the blond girl."

"The blond female is out of the question." Stealthy nodded. "So are the twins. They'll just blurt out everything first chance they get, whether they mean to give us away or not."

Camacazi blinked. "If you're looking to pick someone, don't pick the guy with Dog breath."

"That leaves us with snot face though." Stealthy argued.

"What are you talking about?" Magnus asked.

"I feel so left out." Fishlegs said, depressed.

"We're trying to pick the next dragon rider. The option is Snotlout or someone from another age group." Camacazi stated.

"Oh. Snotlout." Fishlegs grumbled.

"Why him?" Magnus asked.

As she explained, the conversation continued as the terrors entered it. "Small-Biter-Fetches-Random-Objects was thinking about it too." Small-Biter-Shoots-Sharp spoke up, cuing the orange terror into the discussion.

"I was considering our options as well, and I came to the conclusion that the one with the curly horns was the best option. So I started thinking about what dragon he could be paired with… Arrogant-Flame-Brain would fit his personality perfectly, and it also gives us a motive to rescue him other than 'so he doesn't die'."

They thought about it and nodded. "They're very similar." Lugs-Much-Meat commented.

Small-Biter-Very-Painful puffed up. "Can I bite him? I'm fine if I can bite him."

"You'll bite him anyways." Stealthy drawled. "So, all in favor of Snotty?"

It was unanimous amongst the dragons and, when Camacazi translated, it was for the humans as well.

"Our only problem will be getting Arrogant-Flame-Brain to agree with this." Toothless stated.

"It shouldn't be too hard." Stealthy shrugged. "I'll just go talk to him tonight. He'll probably do anything to get out of that cell, right?"

The rest of the day was spent preparing and just playing and relaxing. As soon as the sun set, Small-Dragon-Soul-Stealthy winged his way to the arena, Friendly-Retractable-Teeth following behind him as backup.

As soon as the guards passed, he descended into the arena and knocked on Arrogant-Flame-Brain's door.

"What do you want?" The red dragon barked harshly.

"Actually," Stealthy stated, "I have a proposition for you."

"Go die. Leave me alone."

The forest phantom ignored this and continued. "Recently, I've been working on making dragon-human partnerships to try and end the war between humans and dragons. It is possible. We even got Lugs-Much-Meat out of here with her own partner! I know a human that would be great working for you, if you want to try it. You could get out of here too, which would be a plu…"

"Shut up and leave me alone, noodle-boy. I don't want your help. I can defeat any brat they throw at me, thank you very much! I'm not going to lower myself to working with these wingless pieces of shit!"

Stealthy twitched. "Huh?"

"You heard me! Go away! I'll slaughter every last one of these ugly vikings and get out unscathed!" He hissed. "I don't need your help, wingless."

Stealthy, pride wounded, puffed up. "Excuse me? I am a Dragon-Souled!" He spat at the Nightmare's cage.

"Then prove it, you piece of shit! I'll fight you right now!"

Stealthy snarled and moved to unlock the cage until Toothless jumped down. "No! Stealthy, don't do it. Let's go cool off. Come on, this way… out the gate."

~o0o~

The next night, Stealthy returned to the cage. He sat in front of the gate. "Please?"

"No."

"Please?"

"No."

"Please?"

"GIVE UP!"

"Please?"

"AAAAAARGH!"

~o0o~

The next night again, he returned. At this point, Gobber had gotten ill from eating spoiled pork, and classes had been being skipped. Therefore Hiccup and the other dragons had free reign to torment Arrogant-Flame-Brain all day long.

"Please?"

"Will you shut up if I say yes?"

"Yep."

"Then fine."

"YEEEEEEEES!" His roar attracted the guards, and he quickly hid behind the weapon rack as torchlight spilled in.

"Quiet down, will ya? You'll wake up the whole village, ya damned beasts!"

Hiccup bristled, but stayed quiet as the guard left.

"Small-Dragon-Soul-Stealthy, that was not very stealthy. Change your name." Flies-Through-Storms grunted. "You're lucky you sound like a Nadder or they would have been all over you."

"Did you have" "to wake us up" "this early?"

"Sorry!" He called quietly, and then he raced out of the arena happily.

Arrogant-Flame-Brain had finally agreed!

Toothless grinned and licked him as they made their way to Magnus's house. It would be up to him to bring Snotlout to the arena.

Magnus himself, however, wasn't so sure about this.

He thought back to his conversation with Hiccup. "Are you sure this is safe? You had to annoy him into submission. How do we know he won't just eat us the second he's out?"

"He's a better person than that, don't worry! It'll be fine!"

He sighed and knocked on Snotlout's door.

It was Spitelout who threw the door open. "Who tha 'ell is out 'ere at this ungodly hou… Oh, 'ello Magnus. Come to see Snotlout?"

The teen decided to ignore the very sudden mood swing. All vikings were like that. "Yeah. Could you please send him down, Mr. Jorgenson?"

"O' course." He turned and screamed upstairs: "SNOTLOUT! YOUR FRIEND IS HERE?!"

The boy, clearly not having gone to sleep yet, stumbled down the stairs. "Huh? Oh, hey Magnus! What's up, buddy?" He walked outside and Spitelout shut the door. "I knew you'd come around eventually! You can't avoid befriending the great Snotlout forever!"

"Yeah, that's not what this is about." Magnus deadpanned. He was starting to see why Eydis and Astrid used him as a practice dummy so much and once again he questioned their plan. "Actually, I have something to show you, so if you could follow me… Oh, and be quiet, don't call out to anybody. We're not supposed to be doing this."

"Will it impress Astrid?" He asked.

"Uh…" No. "Maybe." But he had to at least try or he'd never get Snotlout to go along with it. "Just shut up and follow me."

Snotlout was surprisingly good at sneaking around, Magnus realized. It must be something that ran in the family, as Snotlout was Hiccup's maternal cousin and Stoic clearly didn't have it.

"Why are we going to the arena?" Snotlout whispered as they avoided more guards. "And why are we sneaking around about it?"

Magnus signalled for him to be quiet. "When I give the word, we're sprinting across the bridge and hiding from the guard in the bleachers. Try and be quiet about it."

Snotlout nodded, seeming suspicious, but still going along with it.

"Ready… and… now!"

The two boys lunged from their hiding place and across the bridge, managing to get back into cover.

The guard circled around their hiding place and crossed the bridge, leaving them alone.

"Alright, now…" They slipped into the arena.

"Are we late-night dragon training?" Snotlout asked. "Uh, not to burst your bubble, but isn't that loud?"

"Dragon training… Kinda." He sighed. "Promise me you won't run back to the village, and that you'll hear me out."

"We're already this far, aren't we?" Snotlout huffed. "If the guard catches us, we're dead."

"So," Magnus stated, "Why do the dragons raid us?"

"Huh?" He asked.

"Why do you think the dragons raid us?"

"Well, they're hungry."

"Then why do they come back so much?" Magnus asked. "They come back even when we have little food to feed ourselves, and they always look hungry even though they supposedly eat so much."

"That is a bit weird… wait, supposedly?"

He nodded. "If they're not eating the fish, then what do you think is?"

"Haha. Don't be ridiculous. ONly a dragon could be that hungry." Snotlout replied. "Probably a big one, though…"

"It is a big one. Bigger than the village." Snotlout replied. "It's currently inside of Helheim's Gate. It's the Queen of the Nest."

"Wait wait wait, how do you know this?"

"Because I flew there on the back of a dragon." Magnus replied.

There was silence.

"You're serious."

"I am."

"You actually rode a dragon?"

Magnus grinned slightly. "They're not the mindless monsters we make them out to be. They're controlled by the Queen. I've seen it happen a few times now. It's possible to reason with them, and to befriend them."

"Then why haven't we yet?" Snotlout asked.

"Vikings are very stubborn, and dragons can be just as much. When the Queen arrived and took control of the local dragons, they and the vikings began to attack and have been at war ever since, while only the dragons knew what was actually going on."

"So basically," He swung his mace, "If we kill the big guy, the war ends?"

"You're getting a bit ahead of yourself." Magnus chuckled.

Hiccup, in his noodle disguise, dropped down with Toothless. Camacazi followed with Moonshadow, and Fishlegs with Meatlug. Firespot landed and walked over to Magnus, and Hiccup took over. "The plan is to slowly reveal the truth to all the Vikings."

"Why not just tell everyone?" Snotlout asked.

"We're Vikings. What do you think we would do?"

"Uh… go kill the big dragon." Snotlout replied.

"Precisely." Hiccup replied. "And they would fail, because that thing is practically indestructible without humans and dragons working together. We have to take it slowly and convince everyone else one at a time, and we have to keep it a secret while we do it."

"So, why the arena?" He asked after a pause.

Hiccup grinned. "Well, when we decided to tell you, we figured you'd need a dragon partner to work with, so…"

He opened The cage for the monstrous nightmare.

Snotlout paled as it snarled at Hiccup. "You'll pay for annoying me, noodles!"

Hiccup gave a quiet snarl of: "I'll take you down a notch later." Then he turned to Snotlout, who was staring stunned at the Nightmare.

"Wow…"

"Let's get a few things straight from the get-go." Camacazi stated. "We're partners. Our dragons don't live to please us, and we don't live to please our dragons. We're friends, and they're not animals. Most of them can understand every word you say, so watch your mouth."

He gulped. Arrogant-Flame-Brain puffed up, and looked him over slowly. "Yeah, you're the loud one from the fights. I can work with you. Maybe this won't be so bad. Prove you're brave enough to be my rider."

He stuck his nose in Snotlout's face, and the boy reached out a hesitant hand to pet the scales. "Wow. This is…"

The gang grinned, and Hiccup quietly closed the cage. "He's not going back in there anymore."

"Wait," Snotlout paused, "Isn't that the Gronkle from over there?" He pointed at Meatlug's cage.

They nodded. "So far, nobody's noticed she's gone." Fishlegs replied. "It'll take longer to figure out about him."

Snotlout nodded. "You probably have a name already, but since I can't speak dragon… How about Hookfang?"

Arrogant-Fire-Brain grinned. "What do you know, he's better at giving names than my own parents! I do have very sharp fangs. Human, you and I will go places."

"Now we should probably leave before the guard makes his rounds again." Camacazi stated.

"Right." Hiccup nodded. "Cami, if you please…"

She slipped through the bars and opened up the arena, and the humans and dragons exited.

"Hop on, then." Hiccup said as they all got on their respective dragons' backs.

"Wait, we get to fly?"

"I get to fly. You get a piggyback ride." Arrogant-Fire-Brain replied.

Snotlout climbed on, and after Camacazi closed back up the arena, they took off.

"To the cove!" Toothless called as soon as they were out of hearing range.

Somehow, in some way… They'd managed to recruit Snotlout and break out the Nightmare, and nobody was the wiser.

Snotlout: YES! Hahaha! Look at me! I beat As-trid! I beat As-trid!

Astrid: In what exactly?

Snotlout: I got a dragon before you did! Hahahahahaha!

Hiccup: Snotlout, would you please cut it out?

Hookfang: Yeah… Please. You're hurting my ears. Hey, *Looks at script* is it just me or is this completely different from the original plot of this story?

The Black Cat 666: Yes, it is. I lost everything I had on this story except for what I already had posted, so I rewrote the plot starting from Chapter 9 and went from there. I don't remember what the original plot was.

Ruffnut: What a loser.

Tuffnut: Yeah. How do you lose your own script?

The Black Cat 666: You know, I was going to make you the next dragon riders, but now…

Twins: Wait, what?

Ruffnut: I take it back!

Tuffnut: Yeah, I totally take it back!

The Black Cat 666: What you say on the internet has an impact on real life. It stays forever. No takebacks.

Melts-Rocks-For-Fun: Are you being a guidance counselor now?

The Black Cat 666: Nope. Guess again.

Fishlegs: I think these people are bored of watching us bicker now. Can we get on with this?

The Black Cat 666: *Ahem*, of course, Fishlegs. Thanks for reminding me. Stay tuned for the next chapter and make sure to review! I hope you all enjoyed reading!

Hookfang: Why do you have to say this every time?

The Black Cat 666: CUUUUUUUUUUT!