Author's Note: I'm not dead. DC and Marvel just own me… But I have fallen back off the How to Train Your Dragon cliff so here we go. I still own nothing.

15. Caught

The teens had a hard time holding in their laughter as Stormfly landed on top of a very put upon Eret. He grumbled as they dismounted and he glared at Aster.

"I got you here, now get this thing off me!" Aster shook his head.

"Never take a toy from a Dragon. That's lesson number three." Fishlegs giggled nervously as the five of them snuck over to the snowy outcropping that overlooked the armada in the bay beneath them. At the center of the circles of ships something was bubbling and breathing under the water. Aster frowned and spoke quietly.

"Fishlegs any idea what's down there?" The bigger boy shook his head.

"Gotta be a class six at least. But nothing Heather's told me matches that size, it's gotta be massive for the size of those bubbles. It's definitely not in the book of dragons." Fishlegs had spent most of the last five days in deep conversation with Heather and when he could Hiccup about the different types of Dragons they had encountered and what they were capable of. He'd been adding everything he could to the Book of Dragons but Heather claimed they had their own version back home. When Fishlegs had volunteered to fly back to Dragon Island to retrieve the book Heather had shaken her head. She wouldn't explain why, she only said not there.

They were all distracted by Stormfly warbling a warning and taking to the sky. Their dragons were dropped nearly simultaneously by darts fired by men wearing white bear skins. Only Stormfly escaped as the teens circled up drawing weapons. The fight was short, they were outnumbered ten to one. Disarmed their hands were tied, except for Eret, and they were dragged aboard one of the largest ships, the one closest to the flume of bubbles.

Aster watched in shock as Drago screamed at Hookfang, the dragon looked shocked too. More so when the man pulled a cloak of what looked disturbingly like night fury skin around himself and survived the fire the Monstrous Nightmare blasted his way. The still mostly imobile dragon balked and bowed its head whimpering at the spear thrust deep into the deck of the ship too near his head. Drago didn't stop there though as Hookfang lowered his head all the way down. Instead he stepped down on the dragons snout. Aster's mind was running a mile an hour. If that was night fury skin then were they really far too late? He had no doubt that if Toothless was dead someone had stepped over Hiccup's corpse to make that happen. Or vice versa. He couldn't be sure. But anger boiled in his veins as Eret babbled to Drago about dragon riders. Then Drago snarled and snatched the man up one handed by the throat.

"How many!" Aster almost breathed a sigh of relief. Drago hadn't encountered dragon riders before. Eret didn't know how many they had either. That he'd 'captured' the majority of them. He had to get Drago scared.

"Hundreds!" The others were silent around him, trusting him to have a plan. "Whole Islands full!" Eret choked slightly as Drago swung him around so he could see both men at the same time.

"I wouldn't worry about them! My men are hunting them as we speak. They'll have no way of finding you Drago." What if Hiccup and the others had been caught by Eret's men. Aster couldn't think like that right now so he grasped at something Hiccup had told him a few days before.

"Yes they will! They have tracking dragons! They know we're missing by now. If you so much as touch us the Dragon Valkyrie will tear you apart!" Aster was smart enough not to bring up Hiccup's name here. She had gone to great lengths to make sure no one knew who she was after all. He wasn't about to take that from her. Dagur dropped Eret who choked and coughed. The large man clad in dragon skin stepped forwards and tapped the symbol on Aster's armor.

"I know this symbol." He laughed. "The so called Dragon Valkyrie is going to fools like Stoick. She must be truly desperate." Eret coughed again.

"She's not a problem. Really, I swear." Drago glared and Eret fell silent. Aster didn't though.

"She's only tamed Islands full of dragons, and brought down a mountain sized dragon singlehanded. She is the greatest Dragon Master this world has ever seen!" Aster was shorter than Drago but he didn't care. He was staring the man in the face, glaring daggers at the man who had been a thorn in Hiccups side.

"Dragon Master?" Drago shook his head. "I alone control the dragons!" The other teens broke their silence at that. Giggles broke out among them.

"Nope."

"Not really."

"Not even close!"

"And unless you let us and our dragons go she will blast through here on her night fury and blow your whole fleet to splinters!" He was bluffing, but he was good at bluffing. He had always been good at bluffing. The teens were babbling agreements behind him but he kept his focus on Drago. Drago ignored them. He snatched Eret back up by his throat.

"First there was one rider! Now whole Islands! All of Berk! You led them to me!" He threw Eret across the deck. One of the guards stepped forward and grabbed hold of Eret before he could rise to defend himself. Drago stepped up on one of the large structures on his ship and shouted.

"Stop all preparations! We attack the dragon rider's nest now! We will kill their Alpha! Then we will take Berk!" There were cheers and a rattle of noise as the message was spread around to the other ships. Aster had gone cold. If ever there had been a worse time for someone to call his bluff it had to be now. Drago nodded to Eret who'd struggled his way free.

"Get rid of him." The guards advanced weapons drawn. One of them threw a dagger his way and he recoiled only to be saved at the last second by Stormfly diving in front of him and knocking down the guards who had been advancing. Aster called out a warning as a dart flew at his dragon, who went down like a rock. Eret was staring at the downed nadder as he was hauled to his feet and tied like the others. Aster hurled verbal abuse at guards, the others joining him as they were all dragged away from the dragons, to where they had no idea. But with everything that had just happened it couldn't be good.