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DreamWorks Dragons: Defenders of Berk

Scauldron's Cove

Chapter 1

Toothless bounded endlessly around the room, jumping up to the rafter and back down onto the wooden floor before skipping to his bed rock. Kneading it like a cat for a few seconds, he then hopped off and began stomping on the floor in front of Hiccup while roaring, shaking his head once before sitting down and looking at Hiccup with a crazy stare.

"Would you stay still! I'm trying to draw you." Hiccup complained with a smile. He turned back around to his desk, feather in hand. Dipping the tip in an ink well, he continued with his sketch, eyes focused on his lines. It was the morning hours on Berk, and Hiccup had woken up only an hour ago, by which in that time he and Toothless had breakfast—fish—and yet to take a flight.

Toothless began roaring again, stopping right before he flipped and rolled onto his back, laying there like he were dead; his large eyes staring at Hiccup. Said boy immediately turned around and gaped at the dragon with question, a little concerned for his friend's current state.

"That's it, no more haddock for you! Who knew they'd make you go crazy." Hiccup stated, bringing his attention once again back to his drawing. Toothless rolled over and got up off the floor. He approached his rider, peering over his shoulder as he watched the feather scribble across the page. He moaned and breathed hot air at him, Hiccup's hair blowing into his line of view. He sighed and placed the feather in the ink well. Standing up from his seating position, he turned at looked at Toothless, hands on his hips. Toothless, however, bounded away with joy due to his rider finally listening to him and getting up. It was a different story for Hiccup though.

"Toothless, I don't know what has gotten into ya, but you have never been like this before even when you are excited to go riding." Hiccup announced with all seriousness, but Toothless didn't register the difference in his tone, or at least couldn't in his current state; his eyes remained enlarged while his tongue drooped from his mouth.

"Come on, Toothless, let's go see Gobber."

"Tell me again what happened." Gobber asked while searching Toothless' mouth. Hiccup was standing beside him while he worked, Astrid and Fishlegs stood at the entrance of the forge.

"He was acting crazy, even more so than he would when he wants to go flying."

"Snotlout crazy…?" Astrid asked.

"…Or the twins crazy?" Fishlegs added.

"Both combined…" Hiccup's eyes moved to the upper right as he thought for a moment; "Minus Snotlout's arrogance."

"Ah ha, there we go!" Gobber exclaimed, pulling away from the Night Fury as he began to cough. Toothless puked up a fish, it sliding off his tongue and onto the floor with the rest of his spit. Gobber picked it up with his prosthetic long-handed tweezers.

"Found the answer! It was a sick fish!" Gobber exclaimed happily while holding up the half eaten fish.

"Uh, yeah that's sick, it just came out of Toothless' stomach; gross." Fishlegs commented, jerking back a little to avoid smelling it. He had bad memories of eating rotten fish before and didn't want to throw up.

"What do you mean it's sick?" Hiccup inquired.

Gobber motioned him to come closer, "See these little green spots around its gills? That means it's ill." Gobber pointed out. Hiccup glanced over at Toothless,

"And Toothless ate it, making him act this way." Hiccup concluded.

"Yep;" Gobber stated simply, walking away and throwing the dead fish out the window.

"Will he be okay?" Hiccup asked, concern evident in his tone.

"It should pass, he's had worse I'm sure. Look, he's already getting better as we speak." Gobber reassured him. Glancing over at Toothless, the dragon looked calmer and seemed to have spent all his built up energy, now lying down with sleepy eyes. As soon as Hiccup knelt down beside him, he lifted his head up and smiled, cooing as he did so.

"Hey there bud, good to have you back to your normal self." Hiccup said as he stroked Toothless' head.

Hookfang and Snotlout flew down and landed just outside of the forge, Astrid and Fishlegs turned around. Not seeing the twins, Astrid spoke up with anger.

"Snotlout, where are the twins?" she asked, hands on her hips and eyes glaring.

"You told me to watch them, what do you think happened." Snotlout replied offensively.

"Where are they?" Astrid didn't want to pick up after their mess, and it wouldn't be just her who had to do the cleanup; Hiccup was the one responsible for keeping an eye out on them and he turned that position temporarily over to her since Toothless wasn't himself. She was not going to be made a fool.

"They flew off, where, I don't know; I'm not an idiot's keeper." Snotlout responded. Hiccup walked out to the entrance, unaware of what was going on.

"What's going on?" he asked with a calm tone.

"We have to go find Ruff and Tuff before they do something stupid." Astrid replied, not happy about it at all. She and Fishlegs hopped onto their dragons, Hiccup glanced over at Toothless who was out like a light, snoring on the floor.

"I don't think he'll be up and flying anytime soon." Gobber commented. Hiccup looked down a bit sad before petting Toothless again,

"I'll be back bud." He whispered before running over towards Stormfly and hopping on with the help of Astrid's held out hand.

The group soared over the sea, heading away from Berk's shores. After discussing who would search which regions, they split. Snotlout would check the north side, Fishlegs the east and Hiccup and Astrid would cover the south and west.

The three soared closer to the ocean's surface. Astrid looked left while Hiccup looked right. He looked down at the sea, his eyes moving around the horizon and then lifting up to the sky. They were there for a split second before coming back down to examine the horizon again before jerking back up as something caught his attention. From the corner of his eye he spotted something within the clouds. Looking at it further, he knew what, or who, it was.

"Found them," he announced as he pointed upwards. Astrid followed his finger and narrowed her eyes, leading Stormfly up towards the two dots.

Ruffnut and Tuffnut were hanging upside down on their dragons, arms dangling above—or below—their heads as their feet wrapped tightly around Barf and Belch's necks. Stormfly flew up to hover right below them and Astrid slapped each of their helmets.

"What are you guys doing?" she asked, irritated.

"Uh, what does it look like we're doing? We're testing to see who can last longer while all of the blood rushes to our heads."

"We have to head back to Berk." Hiccup said.

"Why?" Ruffnut asked. Astrid and Hiccup looked at each other. There really wasn't any specific reason. Hiccup thought for a moment before replying.

"Um, because… there's a…" He looked at Astrid again, she looking as well with equal hesitation. "Uh, a storm, there's a storm coming and my dad wants everyone back."

"Ah man," the twins said in unison. Hiccup and Astrid sighed and smiled at each other, happy that they fell for it—not that they wouldn't.

Barf and Belch twirled around and flew at the same level as Stormfly; the two dragons then making a turn towards Berk.

Suddenly, the ocean below them started to stir, multiple shadows just below the surface moving about in frenzy. The commotion caught the eyes of the twins and their curiosity peaked. They dove down to get a closer look, ignoring the shouts of protest of Hiccup and Astrid.

"What are you guys doing?"

"Get back here!" Astrid yelled as she and Stormfly raced down after them.

"We just want to see what this is." Ruff replied.

"Yeah it could be deadly." Tuff added with glee.

Hiccup narrowed his eyes as he focused on the shape on one of the figures underneath the surface. Recognizing it, his eyes widen as he shouted towards the twins.

"Guys, wait! That's a—" Hiccup didn't get to finish his sentence as the figures emerged. Five Scauldron's roared at them, Barf and Belch immediately halted their descend and flew out of the way just as one of the Scauldron's shot out its boiling hot water. Stormfly, who was chasing after the Zippleback and the twins, narrowly avoided the stream as she dodged to the left rather sharply. The quick motion caused Hiccup to become imbalanced, struggling to grab a hold of Astrid before it was too late. She turned around, feeling his struggles, and gasped as she witnessed him fall from her reach just as she was going to grab him.

"Hiccup!" she screamed as he plummeted.

Ruffnut and Tuffnut quickly turned around and raced towards Hiccup, catching him just before he reached the ocean. His arms where securely gripped within Barf and Belch's paws as the twins cheered and high fived each other for their quick thinking and rescue. Their celebration, however, was short lived as a giant, green Scauldron tail came up and smacked them off course; the four of them falling into the ocean, the teens separating from the dragon just before hitting the water.

A.N.

Next chapter will be updated Monday, and so on and so forth. And yes, you all know I love cliffhangers.

I don't know if I said this before, but my Defenders of Berk based stories I'm doing do not intertwine with each other or connect like my Riders of Berk stories. What happened in one story stays in that story; it has no influence or relations what so ever with my other stories. I know it was kind of my thing to do that, but it also limited what I could write as I had to follow up on past events. That and I am trying to follow up on what the show has rather than my own.

With that being said, I wish to inform you guys that I have chapters 2 and 3 done and ready to be posted, but will not be posting them at this moment. Every day, like I have been doing, I will post the next chapter. I know, I'm evil aren't I; I have everything done and yet you guys have to wait an extra 24 hours before reading it. Nah, it won't be much of a difference, for me that is; for you guys, there's no difference at all.