Chapter Text
A low, rumbling vibration of distant thunder woke Hiccup before his alarm could even think about going off. With a tired groan, he forced himself out from under the heavy blankets, immediately regretting the movement.
He was sore in places he didn't even know could be sore. The agonizing extra effort in the training arena, combined with his secret late-night flight sessions with Windwalker, had left his joints feeling as if they were packed with wet cement.
Groaning as he rose from the mattress with what felt like a truly Herculean effort, he slowly began the grueling process of getting ready for school.
Standing in front of the bathroom mirror, he checked his reflection, almost expecting to see scales peeking through. Finding only his usual pale face, he grabbed his go-to armor against the outside world: his favorite oversized green hoodie, a pair of dark jeans, and his worn brown boots.
Outside his bedroom window, a relentless blanket of dark grey clouds dominated the sky, and the glass rattled under the distinct, low whistling of the wind. Hiccup sighed, resting his forehead against the cool pane. If the weather kept up like this, sneaking off to practice manipulating his dragon fire in the hidden cove was going to be completely out of the question.
While the morning air outside was crisp and biting, the atmosphere inside the Haddock residence was completely different. As Hiccup descended the stairs, the rich, comforting scent of fresh-baked bread and melted butter hit him like a physical wave.
The kitchen was already warm and bustling thanks to Börje, affectionately nicknamed Bucket. A tall, burly blond man, Bucket was an honorable veteran of the Tactical Protection Force who had been forced into an early retirement after a severe head wound from a stray spell. He now lived with a metal plate permanently fused to his skull, which he wore like a badge of honor. While the old accident had left him with a few distinct eccentricities, it had also unlocked strange new talents during his long recovery, specifically an absolute mastery over the culinary arts. Stoick had offered him a job as the household chef years ago, and Bucket had been a fiercely loyal family fixture ever since.
"Eat up, Hiccup! A growing lad needs his fuel, especially one dealing with... well, sudden magical growth surges!" Bucket boomed cheerfully, sliding a massive plate of steaming eggs and golden toast in front of him. "We heard from your father this morning! Congratulations on finally triggering your core, lad!"
Hiccup offered a weak, grateful smile, using his fork to pick at the edges of his food. "Thanks, Bucket."
It was a massive stroke of luck that Bucket and his partner, Mulch, hadn't been home the night of Hiccup's actual transformation. They had taken a rare night off to celebrate their anniversary, an evening that was cut short anyway by a spectacular case of food poisoning on Mulch’s part.
Right as if the mere mention of breakfast had summoned him from the hallway, Mons or Mulch, as Bucket called him, entered the kitchen. Mulch was a shorter man with broad shoulders and brown hair; he was the family’s trusted driver and another veteran of the task force logistics division. He had left the force at the same time as Bucket to help him navigate his recovery, acting as the quiet, grounding wire to Bucket’s eccentric energy. Mulch walked up behind the counter, brushing a comforting, affectionate hand against Bucket's shoulder before leaning over to steal a piece of fresh toast straight from the hot oven pan.
"Morning, Hiccup. Big congrats on the powers," Mulch said around a mouthful of toast. He checked his watch, his expression turning practical. "Try to finish up quickly, though. Traffic downtown is an absolute nightmare because of some wild, classified 'animal' incident in the lower sectors the other night. I'm going to head out and get the engine warmed up." He paused, gave his partner a sweet peck on the cheek, and left hurriedly out the side door.
Bucket watched him go with a soft smile before turning his attention back to Hiccup, handing over a neatly packed lunchbox and a heavy, iron-tipped umbrella. He tapped the side of his metal skull with a wooden spoon. "Have a nice day, Hiccup. My bucket says it's going to be a stressful one. The metal never lies!"
"Let's go, kid! The clock is ticking!" Mulch’s voice called out from the driveway as the car engine hummed to life through the rain.
"I'm moving, I'm moving," Hiccup promised, throwing his backpack over his shoulder and rushing out into the damp morning air.
The ride to school passed in a blur of gray scenery, underscored by Mulch grumbling about the city's crumbling infrastructure and the rising political tensions within the underground magical community. When the car finally pulled up to the high school curb, Hiccup slipped out into the downpour with a quiet sigh of relief, trying his absolute best to blend into the sea of regular human teenagers.
Berk High was one of the oldest structural monuments in the city. The original building had been constructed nearly a century ago from rough red brick and weathered gray stone. Despite countless modern renovations, it still retained the rigid charm of an old institution. Thick ivy climbed portions of the outer walls, wide stone archways connected the various wings, and tall, arched windows flooded the main hallways with pale morning light.
To ordinary humans, it was simply a highly reputable public school. To those aware of the hidden world, it was considerably more complicated.
Beneath the heavy foundations ran a massive network of magical dampening fields designed to suppress accidental student manifestations. Low-level cloaking charms were woven into the very mortar of the brickwork, hidden tunnels beneath the floorboards granted access to the underworld, and entire classrooms served dual purposes depending on the hour. What looked like a standard chemistry laboratory during the day seamlessly transitioned into an introductory alchemy workshop after school hours.
The integration was mostly successful because the student body learned very early on not to ask questions; everyone simply chose not to notice. The varsity swim team was suspiciously undefeated thanks to several Selkie students maintaining human glamours. The theater department managed impossible, ethereal lighting effects because half the backstage crew consisted of elves and fairies with minor telekinetic abilities. Even the auto-shop garage was dominated by a handful of teenage Jotunns who could bend engine blocks with their bare hands when they got frustrated with tools. Somehow, it all worked.
As Hiccup walked through the front gates, he immediately noticed a feeling on the back of his neck.
People were staring.
Conversations dropped to a sharp, distinct whisper the second he walked past. Students glanced toward him before quickly looking away, while others weren't nearly as subtle, tracking his movement from when he left his stuff on the locker bays.
Hiccup sighed, tugging the hood of his sweatshirt lower. It hadn't been this bad a few days ago, but it seemed the rumor mill had finally completed its circuit through the magical factions. He should have seen it coming, but his brain had been so utterly consumed by his secret Night Fury identity that he had completely forgotten to brace himself for the high school social hierarchy.
While most of the human students didn't notice the shift, the magical students were another matter entirely. Many of them had grown up hearing whispered stories about Hiccup—the powerless son of the missing Dragon Protector, the mayor's awkward kid, the boy who should have inherited incredible legendary abilities but never did.
Until now.
"That's him," a fae girl whispered near the water fountain.
"He finally manifested," a werewolf legacy was saying to his naga friend.
For most of his school life, he had been tolerated as the weird, powerless outlier. Some of the magical legacy kids had treated him poorly because of it, viewing Hiccup as a massive disappointment to his family's bloodline. But nobody had ever truly crossed the line into physical bullying; they were all too terrified of Stoick's influence and the task force's tactical reach. Now, with the sudden news of his manifestation, the entire school had made a complete 180-degree turn. Suddenly, everyone cared about his potential.
Which was, without a doubt, infinitely worse.
The stares and unwanted attention followed him straight into Advanced Chemistry. Hiccup practically slithered into his usual seat near the back row, trying to blend into the wood grain of the desk.
"Congratulations," a quiet voice said from the lab station directly in front of him.
Jim Lake Jr. turned around, offering an easy, genuine smile. Jim was one of the incredibly rare students who had never treated Hiccup like an anomaly back when he was powerless. Jim adjusted his high collar, a subtle, practiced gesture that kept his own half-troll glamour firmly locked in place against the harsh fluorescent classroom lighting.
"I heard you finally manifested, man," said his friend Toby, who was a human, but he knew about the magical community.
Before Hiccup could formulate a safe reply, or before Jim could ask any probing questions about the transition phase, the teacher, Mrs Yaga, tapped the chalkboard for attention, cutting the conversation short.
By the time lunch hour arrived, the hallway murmurs had devolved into complete chaos. Some random students tried to pat him on the back; others, mostly Snotlout and his usual lackeys, scoffed loudly and threw cold glares as he walked past.
Desperate to escape the suffocating weight of the crowd, Hiccup grabbed his lunchbox and hurried down the corridor. As he passed the student council office, the heavy wooden door suddenly flew open with a violent click.
"Hiccup!"
Poppy, a pink-fey troll perfectly disguised as Berk High's hyperactive student council president, she stepped directly into his path, sporting an enormous, manic grin. She raised both thumbs triumphantly. "Congratulations on the manifestation!"
"Uh, thanks, Poppy," Hiccup mumbled, his eyes darting around the hallway in a panic, terrified that a human student had heard her using the 'M' word. He gave her a quick, incredibly awkward thumbs-up in return before shifting his weight and rapidly increasing his walking speed.
This was entirely too much spotlight for one day.
Seeking a quiet place to breathe, he veered away from the main pavilion and crossed near the athletic fields. Out on the grass, Astrid was deep in conversation with Heather, Merida, and Eep while several younger students watched them from a respectful distance. The four girls had earned a reputation as Berk High's most brutally competitive athletes, leaving the rest of the school entirely unsure whether they were best friends or bitter rivals. Eep was currently leaning casually against a concrete barrier, while Merida argued a tactical point with sharp, aggressive hand gestures. Hiccup took a wide berth, trying hard not to catch Astrid's eye; the lingering guilt from his disastrous performance in the training arena the other day was still eating him alive. She was still looking at him harshly; he almost preferred it when he was invisible to her.
He also made sure to completely avoid the table in the middle of the cafeteria. That was Snotlout’s personal kingdom, where he currently sat atop a lunch table like a warlord holding court. Hiccup had no desire to deal with him today; Snotlout had been noticeably meaner and more aggressive ever since the training started.
Luckily, Snotlout was currently trapped between the Thorston twins, who were acting like chaotic sentries on either side of him. Nearby, Fishlegs was hopelessly trapped in their orbit, unsuccessfully trying to explain the advanced science homework to Ruffnut while absolutely nobody listened.
Taking advantage of the distraction, Hiccup slipped out of the cafeteria into the deepest shadows of the courtyard, heading straight for the isolated corner table.
Hiccup navigated toward the one table where he knew he wouldn't be stared at: a shadow-draped corner of the courtyard where two other outsiders were sitting, Branch Aspen and Jack Frost.
Branch Aspen was a forest troll living under a heavy cloaking spell. The magic gave him the outward appearance of a normal human with deep tan skin and broad shoulders, but he chose to wear muted camouflage clothing and scuffed combat boots. The only physical traits he kept completely intact from his true troll form were his wild black hair and piercing, clear blue eyes. Having relocated to Berk from a small, distant town after a violent, traumatic encounter between ruthless hunters and his local magical community, Branch was trapped in a state of perpetual hyper-vigilance. He was entirely unable to get along with the other trolls at Berk High, finding their tight-knit clique far too extroverted and carefree for his tastes. Branch preferred absolute solitude. He sat with military rigidity, his chair deliberately angled toward the nearest exit while his sharp eyes continuously mapped the courtyard for tactical threats as he worked on the blueprints of his project.
Across from him sat Jack Frost, currently balancing a plastic spoon on the tip of his nose. As if his snow-white hair and frost-pale skin weren't clear enough indicators of his wintry nature, Jack possessed volatile ice powers. Because his magic was tied dangerously to his emotional state, losing his temper meant losing control. He had been forcibly transferred to Berk under strict state protection after accidentally triggering a massive, unseasonal snowstorm in Australia. A legendary, imposing veteran named Mr. North had been appointed as Jack's legal guardian, and the local underground community remained deeply wary of him, viewing the boy as a walking liability to their hidden way of life.
Yet, despite his infamy, dozens of students and faculty streamed past the table without casting a single glance in their direction. As a winter spirit, Jack possessed a passive aura that naturally encouraged people to overlook him. Unless he deliberately made himself noticeable, he was practically invisible. It was precisely why Hiccup and Branch anchored themselves to his space; Jack’s magical camouflage doubled as a perfect shield against the rest of the student body.
The truth was, the three of them had formed an unspoken alliance born of necessity. While the rest of Berk High drifted into elite magical societies, athletic factions, or pristine social circles, they didn't fit. Jack was an imperceptible prankster with a history of causing trouble, currently locked down as a ward of the state; Branch viewed every everyday interaction as a potential ambush, earning him a reputation as an antisocial cynic; and Hiccup was the famously powerless son of the city's most legendary dragon protector. Somehow, their collective broken pieces fit together perfectly.
Hiccup was profoundly grateful he had managed to reach the table without drawing any more unwanted attention. He desperately needed to disappear for a while. Exhausted by the day's compounding events, he dropped heavily onto the metal bench, the hollow rattle of plastic against steel punctuating his fatigue.
Jack’s spoon clattered onto the table as he looked up. "Whoa."
"What?" Hiccup asked, rubbing his tired face.
"You look terrible."
"Good afternoon to you, too."
"No, seriously." Jack pointed at him accusingly with the spoon. "You look like somebody stuffed you into an industrial dryer."
Branch didn't look up from his design plans for a reinforced underground bunker. "You do."
"Thanks," Hiccup muttered.
"You're welcome."
Hiccup groaned, letting his forehead hit the cool surface of the table.
Jack’s eyes widened with delight. "Oh, wow. It must be truly catastrophic if you're voluntarily agreeing with Branch."
"I heard that," Branch murmured, sketching a heavy blast door onto his blueprint.
"I know." Jack grinned, leaning across the table, his voice dropping into a low, energetic whisper. "So... how is sudden popularity treating you?"
Hiccup groaned again, his face still pressed against the metal. He had told Jack and Branch about finally triggering his dragon core a few days prior, but he had carefully omitted the terrifying details of the transformation, shifting the focus every time Jack pressed for answers.
Lifting his head, Hiccup looked at Jack’s expectant smirk, then at Branch, who had finally torn his eyes away from his blueprints to look at him with quiet curiosity.
"Honestly? It’s kind of terrible," Hiccup admitted softly, sinking lower into the seat.
Jack blinked.
"Really?"
Hiccup nodded.
"Suddenly, everybody wants to talk to me. Some people have actually been nice about it. Others keep acting like I just graduated from being a defective human."
His mouth twisted.
"It's all stuff like, 'Congratulations on finally getting powers,' or 'Nobody's going to miss the powerless kid.'"
Jack’s teasing grin softened into a look of genuine surprise, while Branch’s sharp eyes narrowed slightly.
"People actually said that?"
"More or less."
"Well, if it's any consolation, I'm glad you're not ditching us to go hang out with your new admirers," Jack said, his tone turning sincere.
Across the table, Branch finally set down his pencil and nodded in agreement. "You are wise to keep clear of those posers and suck-ups."
"Especially since we've spent years listening to you complain about not getting your powers, or about your inventions blowing up," Jack added with a loud mocking tone.
"Keep your voice down," Hiccup hissed quickly, shooting a panicked glance over his shoulder toward the crowded pavilion. "And I did not complain for years."
Jack scoffed, gesturing to the space around them. "Relax. It's not like anyone is paying attention to this table. And you absolutely did complain."
"Maybe a little bit," Hiccup conceded, unzipping his bag. "But it was occasional. It was a healthy, calculated vent."
"You built a color-coded spreadsheet tracking the exact manifestation ages of every legacy bloodline in the city to calculate precisely when you were supposed to get your powers," Branch noted dryly, returning to his blueprints. Without breaking eye contact from his sketch, he added, "Your calculation was off by two years."
"That was baseline research."
Jack pointed a finger triumphantly. "See? Complained scientifically." his smirk widened.
"But hey, your failed devices are actually helpful. Not the way you intended, sure, but they’re going to make fantastic perimeter weapons for my bunker." Brach said as he added the drawing to his blueprint.
Hiccup just rolled his eyes, unpacking his lunchbox and placing a turkey sandwich on the table.
"So," Jack continued, dropping his voice back to a conspiratorial whisper. "What classification of dragon are you? Strike? Boulder? Sharp?"
Hiccup almost choked on his first bite of the sandwich. He managed to force it down, his stomach twisting into a hard knot as he forced out a lie. "No idea."
"Liar."
"I'm serious, Jack. It’s... highly unstable. I can't even fully transform yet."
"Nobody triggers a manifestation and doesn't eventually figure out their baseline class," Jack countered, leaning closer. “Come on, Hiccup, you must have an inkling. Boulder? Tracker? Strike?"
Hiccup didn't respond. He deliberately took a massive, defensive bite of his sandwich and simply shrugged his shoulders.
Jack narrowed his eyes suspiciously. But before the winter spirit could press any harder, Branch closed his blueprint folio with a soft, decisive thud. "Leave him be."
Jack blinked, surprised. "Wait, you think he's hiding something too?"
"Obviously," Branch said, shifting his posture to monitor a group of passing seniors.
"Then why are you defending him?"
"Because if Hiccup is intentionally withholding information, your juvenile interrogation tactics aren't going to make him break. You tried that already."
Hiccup exhaled slowly, silently thanking the troll's rigid, clinical pragmatism. But his relief evaporated the moment Branch finished his thought.
"Besides," Branch added coldly, "if Hiccup says he is having trouble, it must be because he isn't used to his core yet. If he had already mastered his dragon power and completed a full manifestation, we'd already know. Hiccup is mathematically incapable of keeping a secret."
Jack considered the logic for a beat, tapping the spoon against his chin. "...That's actually a valid point."
Hiccup sighed heavily, his insides churning with the heavy weight of the secret he desperately wished he could share with them. Branch was dangerously close to the truth. "Can we please change the subject?" he asked tiredly.
He didn't see it, but above his slumped shoulders, Jack and Branch exchanged a long, silent look of genuine worry.
Dropping his playful demeanor, Jack gave up the interrogation and decided to throw his friend a lifeline.
"Okay..." Jack leaned in even closer, his tone shifting into something genuinely dark. "I heard some of the older legacy students talking about weird things coming out of the undercity."
Hiccup raised an eyebrow
Because of Jack’s passive, imperceptible aura, he was a natural eavesdropper; he constantly overheard private rumors and secrets from people who thought they were entirely alone.
Seeing that he had caught Hiccup's attention, Jack whispered, "My sources within the underground transit magic rings say something massive tore right through the reinforced concrete foundations at the old bridge at the edge of town. The Tactical Protection Force has been running stealth sweeps all morning, trying to track the magical signature."
Both Hiccup and Branch went entirely rigid, their shared curiosity piqued. They could always count on Jack to gather all kinds of information; they had all heard the mounting rumors circulating through the hallways about mysterious creatures moving through the hidden subterranean tunnels.
But before either of them could press Jack for more details, a heavy, suffocating shadow fell directly across their table.
The ambience around the bench suddenly became heavy, weighed down by a foul, suffocating odor. A sour, rotting draft swept across the table, carrying the heavy stench of damp decay and murky stagnant waters, desperately trying to be concealed by a heavy layer of cheap cologne. The chemical cover-up only made the rot smell worse, causing the occupants of the table to sport a similar look of disgust and lose all appetite.
Professor Mildew had materialized behind them.
The history teacher looked as deeply unpleasant as he always did; his hoary hair and mustache were unkempt, his thin, skeletal frame wrapped in a faded brown wool coat that perpetually radiated the odor of stale cabbage and wet parchment. To the ordinary human eye, he was merely a miserable, aging academic. But the magical students of Berk High knew the ugly truth masked beneath that heavy glamour: Mildew was a high-tier Boggart. The school board kept him on the payroll because his innate ability to smell raw magical signatures made him an effective enforcer for keeping young magical students under wraps. The problem was that Mildew was a particularly malicious, withered spirit of decay who actively thrived on psychological misery, spite, and the curdling of adolescent hope, especially when it came to students he deemed inferior.
Mildew's narrow, rheumy eyes bypassed Jack entirely, completely ignored Branch, and pinned themselves instantly to Hiccup with an unmistakable glint of deep-seated resentment.
"Haddock."
The word felt like a mudball dropping into clean water. Hiccup forced his shoulders to relax, suppressing the urge to shield his face from the old man's suffocating presence. "Professor."
Mildew extended a gnarled, yellowed fingernail toward the vibrant center of the cafeteria, where Snotlout was currently laughing loudly at something Tuffnut was doing to a miserable-looking Fishlegs. "Shouldn't you be convening with your actual peers, boy?"
"I am sitting with my peers, Professor," Hiccup said, keeping his voice carefully level.
Mildew’s thin lips curled into a disdainful, razor-thin sneer. As his Boggart aura flared with quiet malice, the carton of milk sitting on Jack’s lunch tray visibly bloated, the contents curdling into a thick, sour solid within seconds. "I was referring to your *own* kind. The authorized dragon trainees. The elite faction you are suddenly supposed to belong to, assuming the rumors are to be believed."
"I think I'm perfectly fine right here," Hiccup replied. His core tensed at the words, eyes faintly glowing green, his Night Fury instincts bristling uncomfortably at the old spirit's aggressive judgment.
"As you wish," Mildew hissed, stepping back, the words said with non-discrete venom.
He shot Hiccup one last venomous glare before turning sharply on his heel. Mildew's archaic prejudices were an open secret within the school's hidden ecosystem. In his rigid, ancient hierarchy, some magical bloodlines were inherently superior to others. In his mind, dragons were forces of nature, unmatched in strength, highly dangerous, and entirely foolish to cross. Wizards and high-ranking fae were acceptable, while lesser spirits, forest trolls, and gnomes were treated as lesser anomalies cluttering up a pristine magical system.
He hadn't actually minded humans all that much, viewing them as fragile and temporary, until Stoick the Vast established the Tactical Protection Force. For decades, Mildew had deeply despised Stoick for leading the city's magical defense network. The proud Boggart could not stomach the idea of a standard, powerless human being capable of defending and policing superior magical beings.
But Stoick had proven him entirely wrong. Over the years, the magical community had grown to deeply trust, respect, and love the Mayor for being a great warrior and an unbiased protector of their kind. Unable to touch the father, Mildew had spent years taking that bitter resentment out on Hiccup, treating him like a useless, powerless disappointment to a legendary legacy. Now that the rumors of Hiccup's dragon manifestation had leaked, the bitter old spirit was clearly offended, convinced he needed to instruct the boy to leave the outcasts behind and join the "proper" group class.
As the teacher retreated across the courtyard, his coat trailing a faint mist of frost and rot, Hiccup noticed Branch’s jaw clamp shut so tightly that a sharp muscle twitched beneath his tan skin. Branch's sensitive troll hearing was clearly picking up the foul, quiet insults Mildew was still muttering under his breath as he walked away.
Jack rolled his eyes dramatically, waiting until the old man finally crossed the stone threshold back into the main building before slouching back against the metal bench.
Branch slowly opened an engineering manual, his voice dangerously tight. "His magical bias is worsening by the semester. Typical behavior for a Boggart whose dominion is shrinking."
"Yeah," Hiccup agreed quietly, staring down at his ruined, sour-smelling sandwich. "It is."
"I should drop a localized frost charm right into his path during morning arrivals tomorrow, so he slips," Jack mused aloud, a familiar, mischievous spark returning to his bright blue eyes as he twirled the plastic spoon. "Or maybe just pack his coat pockets with compressed, volatile sleet."
Neither Hiccup nor Branch poured any energy into pointing out that Jack had likely already executed both of those exact plans three times this semester alone. The familiar, petty threat was exactly what they needed to break the suffocating tension Mildew had left behind.
City Hall
By late afternoon, the sky over the city had turned an ominous, bruised black. A violent gale bent the perimeter trees nearly to their breaking points, lashing sheets of torrential rain against the heavy glass windows of City Hall.
From his office, Mayor Stoick surveyed the tempest with a tight, grim jaw. This storm was not normal. Late the previous night, the internal sensors at the Tactical Protection Force headquarters had spiked, detecting a massive, volatile magical reading nearby. Stoick had wasted no time, immediately mobilizing the elite task force to its headquarters adjacent to City Hall.
He had a deeply unsettling feeling about this. For months, mysterious disappearances had plagued the city’s underground, but now it was growing bolder, with more magical entities vanishing without a trace. Stoick could practically smell the culprit; they were closing in on whatever was hunting these creatures. He refused to take any more chances.
Using the severe electrical storm as a convenient cover story, the city administration had declared an immediate, sweeping curfew for humans and magical residents alike. While the Protection Force deployed to track the anomalous reading, Stoick decided to secure his own perimeter. He pulled out his phone and dialed a familiar number.
After a few rings, Gobber picked up.
"Gobber, I need a favor," Stoick commanded, his voice competing with the thunder rattling the glass.
"Never a good sign when you start a sentence like that, Chief," Gobber responded without missing a beat.
"The task force is mobilizing," Stoick explained rapidly. "I don't want Hiccup wandering the city streets in this chaos. Pick him up from the high school."
"Got it," Gobber grunted. "But you owe me a pint at the tavern later."
At the gates of Berk High, Hiccup offered a quick goodbye to Jack and Branch before stepping out into the deluge. He let out a long breath, profoundly relieved that the school day was finally over. The sudden onslaught of attention following his rumored manifestation was entirely too much for him to handle, and his social battery was completely spent.
Despite the blinding downpour, excitement thrummed beneath his skin. Earlier, Windwalker had sent an encrypted text warning him to go straight home today, but the raw, electric urge to shift back into his dragon form was too intoxicating to ignore. The storm didn't deter him; if anything, it provided the perfect cover. He planned to sneak over to Raven Point. It was close by, and the secluded rocky cove would be entirely shielded from the worst of the storm.
He took two steps down the concrete stairs before a heavy, metal hook snagged him firmly by the top strap of his backpack.
"What—?"
Hiccup spun around.
"Gobber?!"
The older man stood there with one mechanical hand firmly gripping the strap of Hiccup's bag.
"Where d'you think you're going, lad?"
"Home?" Hiccup offered weakly.
Gobber snorted.
"Nice try."
Groaning, Hiccup asked, “Did the training get canceled because of the storm?”
"It did," Gobber said, steering Hiccup down the steps with ease. "Which means I’ve been officially demoted to babysitting duty. Your father wants an eye kept on yer until the grid clears up."
"I don't need a babysitter."
"That's exactly what someone who needs a babysitter says."
Before Hiccup could come up with another argument, Gobber steered him toward an old pickup truck waiting at the curb.
From the shelter of the school's wide brick archway, Astrid Hofferson stood perfectly still, watching the scene unfold through narrowed eyes. The rain swept past her, but her gaze remained locked on Gobber’s truck as it pulled away from the curb.
Suspicion coiled tightly in her chest. Ever since the catastrophic training simulation, something about Hiccup hadn't added up. His sudden, highly irregular manifestation was strange enough on its own, but his total distraction during the grid exercise.
And now this. The Mayor's personal friend and the head trainer of the task force were personally chauffeuring Hiccup away from school the second a curfew was announced. Astrid clenched her fists, her blue eyes flashing with icy resolve. He’d better not be getting special, private training, she thought bitterly.
The truck ride with Gobber was unusually quiet, the steady slap of the windshield wipers the only sound against the downpour. Hiccup was grateful for the silence. Between school, training, and everything, his brain felt completely overloaded.
When they finally pulled up to the property, Hiccup took a straight beeline for the workshop. Calling it a mere workshop was a massive understatement; it was a sprawling, subterranean hybrid of an industrial forge and an advanced arcanist laboratory inside what looked like a garage. Heavy iron anvils sat alongside glowing stabilization runes, and mounted across the far brick wall was an intimidating rack of Gobber’s exchangeable prosthetic attachments.
The familiar smell of metal, smoke, oil, and enchanted charcoal immediately helped Hiccup relax.
Since he was a child, Hiccup had practically grown up in this metal-smelling room, mastering the precision required to forge magical weapons and calibrate volatile gadgets. He stepped into his own designated corner, looking over the half-finished devices gathering dust. A sudden pang of guilt hit him; he had completely abandoned his inventions ever since the awakening of his powers, and the advanced training had consumed his entire time.
A stack of notebooks waited where he had left them.
Hiccup opened the top one and flipped through pages, staring at the old blueprints: a pneumatic bola-launcher designed to bring down massive airborne entities, an unrefined prototype for a collapsible flaming sword, a complex aerodynamic wing-suit, and chemical formulas for compressed magic fireballs.
Most of these were designed to help me survive as a human, Hiccup realized, a strange detachment washing over him. It felt like an eternity since he had looked at the world through that lens. He traced the lines of the flight suit; it seemed entirely redundant now that he possessed a real pair of wings waiting beneath his skin. But the compressed sword and magic fireballs? Those could be modified into something incredibly useful.
Just because he could turn into a dragon didn't mean every problem would be solved with claws and plasma blasts.
He grabbed a pencil and began making revisions.
Minutes slowly turned into an hour.
He lost himself in the work, the rhythmic clinking of gears and tools grounding his erratic thoughts. An hour slipped by before the heavy reinforced door creaked open. Gobber poked his weathered head into the workspace, clicking a heavily armored, bladed prosthetic into his forearm socket.
"Heading out for a bit, lad," Gobber announced, his gruff voice cutting through the hiss of the forge. He pointed a thick, warning finger toward him. "You... stay right here. Understood?"
"Wouldn't dream of leaving."
Gobber narrowed his eyes. Still, after a moment, Gobber simply grunted and disappeared through the door.
He waited, counting the seconds until the heavy rumble of Gobber’s truck faded into the storm outside. The moment the perimeter wards settled into a dull standby hum, Hiccup moved. This was his one flawless window of opportunity.
"Sorry, Gobber."
If there was anyone in Berk who might have information on Night Furies, it was Gobber.
Or at least his books.
He slipped into Gobber’s private study, a cramped room overflowing with ancient texts, glowing jars, and heavily redacted historical manifests. Hiccup frantically scanned the titles, climbed onto a stool, and began pulling down dusty tomes one by one.
Dragon Biology.
Ancient Dragon Clans.
The Complete Field Guide to Transformative Species.
Nothing.
Most books didn't mention Night Furies at all.
The few that did offered only a sentence or two.
Finally, he dug deeper into the bottom of an iron-banded chest until his fingers brushed against a rotting, water-damaged volume simply titled The Book of Dragons. He flipped the brittle parchment pages, his eyes darting through the pages. Finally, he found an entire section dedicated to Night Furies.
His excitement lasted all of five seconds.
Night Fury.
- Classification: Strike class.
- Status: Rare.
- Threat Level: Dangerous.
- Report sitting immediately
End Entry.
….That's it?
That was it. No illustrations. No ability breakdowns, no recorded names. The subsequent pages had been cleanly sliced out of the binding. It wasn't an incomplete record; someone had intentionally erased the existence of this entire class from the archives.
"Found something interesting, lad?"
Hiccup jumped, spinning around to see Gobber leaning against the doorframe, a massive metal wrench held in his mechanical prosthetic hand. The veteran trainer scanned Hiccup's pale, exhausted face, his sharp eyes lingering on the slight tremor in the boy's hands.
For a long moment, neither of them spoke.
Gobber walked further into the study and picked up the dusty volume from the desk. "The Book of Dragons, eh?" he said casually, running a rough thumb over the cover. "Interesting reading choice."
"I was… just looking through some old records for fun," Hiccup said carefully, trying to maintain his composure.
Gobber snorted. "Aye. And I'm a ballerina." He looked down at the water-damaged tome on the table, letting out a low grunt.
"Funny thing about dragons, lad."
Hiccup hesitated. "What?"
"They never really fit neatly into books." Gobber dragged a heavy wooden stool over, sitting down heavily across from him. “I get it. You’ve had your core active for less than a week, and you think you should have the whole transformation figured out. But you have time, Hiccup. I know you waited years, and now that the magic finally triggered, you want to force it to make sense immediately. But every manifestation is different. You’ll figure yours out eventually, even if you can't fully shift yet.”
Hiccup blinked in confusion, his mind racing. Wait?... does he think I'm just struggling with my shift?
Gobber took a deep breath, his rough tone softening as he looked at the book and its pages. "When I was younger, I thought every dragon could be sorted into tidy little categories. Put 'em in a registry, write down their habits, measure their firepower, and be done with it."
He tapped the heavily redacted page with a thick, calloused finger. "Then I started meeting real dragons."
Hiccup listened, watching his mentor's unreadable expression.
"Turns out most of 'em don't care what the books say," Gobber chuckled, though his eyes remained intensely focused. "I once knew a Gronckle who was supposed to be lazy and slow. Meanest racer I've ever seen. Beat three Speed Stingers on a straight course."
"That doesn't sound possible."
"It wasn't supposed to be," Gobber shrugged. "Didn't stop him. The registries are useful, Hiccup. But they cannot exactly classify the essence inside the dragon.”
Hiccup glanced down at the sliced binding, his voice dropping to a whisper. “Is that why there is so little information about some classifications?”
The study fell quiet, the sudden silence amplified by the rain finally stopping its aggressive drumming on the roof overhead. Gobber didn't answer the question directly. Instead, he slowly stood up, the mechanical joints of his prosthetic whistling softly in the stillness.
He gave Hiccup a long, heavy look that felt entirely too knowing before his lips turned up into a rare, reassuring smile. "Whatever dragon you've become, lad, don't let other people decide what kind of creature you are before you've figured it out yourself."
Hiccup stared at him, stunned into silence. The ambiguity of the words hung in the air, leaving him more confused than before.
Did Gobber just see right through him, or was he just trying to comfort him because he believed he had trouble for being a late-blooming dragon?
Before Hiccup could ask more questions to get a clear idea, a sharp, piercing chirp echoed through the quiet room.
Gobber's warmth vanished instantly. He pulled a glowing task-force communication crystal from his coat pocket. The crystal was flashing a violent, synchronized red.
Emergency priority.
Gobber read the encrypted text overlay once. Then twice. His jaw tightened. "Huh."
"What is it?" Hiccup asked, instantly shifting into alert.
Gobber slipped the flashing crystal back into his pocket and reached for a heavy combat attachment hanging on the wall, locking it onto his forearm with a loud, metallic snap. "Looks like your father found the anomaly."
Earlier that day
High above the churning black clouds, a majestic Thunderbird beat his wings with desperate, agonizing effort.
The assault had been ruthless and entirely unseen; an unknown enemy had blindsided him in the upper atmosphere, leaving a deep, bleeding wound across his chest. He had barely managed to break away into the cover of the clouds. Now, he was fighting a losing battle against gravity, using the energy of the storm to power his failing wings toward the only sanctuary left: Berk.
All magical creatures could instinctively feel the deep, resonant protective aura of high-tier dragons. To the wounded storm-spirit, Berk’s hidden perimeter was a beacon of safety. He knew that if he could just breach the city lines, he could claim sanctuary under the protection of the legendary dragon protector.
He was almost there. He could feel the proximity of the grid humming in his bones. He just needed to cross the jagged mountain peaks surrounding the city to reach his goal.
He had been flying for hours and was so profoundly tired. The freezing rain stung his exposed wounds, and he could feel his vital energy slipping away, bleeding out into the storm in weak, erratic sparks of static electricity. But the dark, rocky shoreline of the beach was finally visible through the downpour. He was so close. The physical agony was blinding, but the safety of the valley was right past the final ridge.
*Crack.*
The sound of a pneumatic arcanist net snapping through the air shattered the roar of the wind.
Before the Thunderbird could dive, the heavy, iron-weighted containment net wrapped violently around his wings, pinning them to his sides. The Thunderbird screamed, a deafening shockwave echoing across the sky as the storm snapped violently in response, lightning flashing across the sky as if trying to scream along with him. His massive body stalled, crashing hard and ungracefully into an open gravel canyon just beyond the city limits.
“Secure the grid! Don't let it break away!” a harsh, guttural voice commanded from the shadows.
Out from the rocky crevices, a dozen goblins clad in armor and heavy leather coats converged on the fallen spirit. They dragged heavy, magic-suppressing chains across his thrashing talons, grounding his electricity into the wet earth.
“Hurry up! Move faster!” the lead scavenger hissed, frantically glancing toward the city horizon. "The storm is bleeding out his magic. The city's Task Force will pick up a signature spike this high within minutes! If we don't mask his energy now, Stoick's hounds will be on top of us before we reach the tunnels!"
Spurred by panic, the goblins worked with frantic speed, snapping the heavy, lead-lined containment plates around the thrashing beast. They knew the risk. The Tactical Protection Force's grid was merciless when it came to tracking rogue spikes.
“Make sure it stays breathing!” another scavenger barked, tightening an iron muzzle around the bird's beak to suppress another thunderous cry. “Our Queen needs this one alive. The core must be intact. Move, move, move!”
Bound and powerless, the Thunderbird was shoved into a massive, iron-reinforced containment vault, silencing his frantic cries. The heavy doors slammed shut, and the caravan moved swiftly into the darkness, deeper into the forbidden caverns beneath the mountains where the city's laws could not reach.
The vault doors groaned open hours later, revealing a vast, subterranean chamber illuminated only by the sickening glow of magic crystals. The containment cage was rolled forward, halting at the base of a massive, shadow-draped throne.
A voice cut through the dark, smooth, chilling, and dripping with absolute malice.
“Well, well... look what the storm dragged in.”
The Thunderbird shivered, his sensitive eyes straining against the dark as a massive, towering shadow descended from the steps. The oppressive weight of her magical signature filled the cavern, suffocating and ancient. The captive spirit could only stare up in absolute horror as a pale hand reached through the iron bars toward his glowing core.
“You will do quite nicely,” she whispered.
Only a short while later, the localized tracking grid did exactly what the goblins feared: it led the authority straight to the impact zone.
Down by the jagged, wind-swept shores of the beach, the headlights of heavy Tactical Protection Force armored vehicles sliced through the blinding rain. A dozen heavily armed agents moved in a tight perimeter sweep, their specialized magical scanning devices clicking erratically.
At the center of the gravel lot, Mayor Stoick stood tall against the gale, his thick coat soaked through as he looked down at the ground.
"Chief! Over here!" an agent called out, pointing a flashlight at a massive depression in the wet gravel.
Stoick strode over, his jaw tight. His vision fell over a scattered handful of giant, iridescent feathers that still crackled with dying electricity. Nearby, the rock walls were scorched black from a lightning discharge, and deep, talon marks tore into the earth, cut short by the ominous tread marks of an iron-wheeled cart.
Stoick picked up one of the glowing feathers, watching the residual sparks die in his palm. His eyes narrowed as he stared toward the dark mountain base.
"They were here. We missed them by minutes. Mobilize the secondary perimeter teams, now!"
It was just moments after that the heavy rain completely stopped…