AN: This is my first fanfic, so please dont flame me. Any and all constructive criticism will be helpful. I had an idea for this story then came across the books, so in later chapters i will be using people from the books (I'll try to keep them in character) but I will be making most of it up myself.

Disclaimer: I do not own HTTYD. If I did, I would not be doing this...

Darkness. Not blackness, darkness. A cocoon of darkness. I did not know what it was or why it was there, but I knew it was protecting me. Leaving me alone with my memories. No, not alone, I could feel the presence of my best friend stuck with me in this cocoon of darkness.

Memories…

5 years after I killed the Red Death and changed the life of every viking on Berk… 4 years after I defeated Alvin the Treacherous and his Outcasts… 3 years after I married Astrid Hofferson… 2 years after I learned how to speak dragonese… 1 year after I united most tribes with dragons… IT appeared.

I am Hiccup Horrendous Haddock, rider of the Night Fury, heir of the Hairy Hooligan tribe, and I never thought I could feel this afraid again. After a gruelling week sorting out dragon and tribal related affairs (Dad still wants to be chief eventually), IT came in the night.

Hiccups eyes shot open, not knowing what could have made him wake up that suddenly, then heard a roar that no-one of the tribe who had heard it could forget. It was the roar of the Red Death. Eyes snapping to the end of his bed he saw that his loyal dragon was awake and looking at him wide eyed. Scrambling to put his prosthetic on Hiccup could barely stop his fingers from trembling, trying to push back the feeling of fire coming to engulf him. A concerned yowl from beside him snapped him back to reality, causing Hiccup to lunge to the corner where he stored Toothless's saddle and tail fin. Strapping them on his best friend in record speed he vaulted onto the saddle and clicked his prosthetic into position, Toothless launching himself through the window the moment he felt the fake tail fin in position.

Taking a few seconds to gain some altitude to gain some altitude they pulled into a tight bank to scan the air.

"It wasn't just me who heard that, right bud?" Hiccup asked.

"No, I heard it" Toothless snarled, eyes straining in the night "It sounded like the Queen"

Hiccup could only shiver and gulp in fear, still searching for an anomaly in the skies. Shouts of "Hiccup!" startled the pair out of their thoughts. They easily spotted Snotlout, Fishlegs, Ruffnut, Tuffnut and Astrid rising into the air, heading towards them.

"What the heck is going on Hiccup? All the dragons are acting weird" shouted Astrid as she reached him, concern evident in her eyes. Hiccup could see many vikings on their dragons heading his way and more on the ground running in circles in their confusion.

Hiccup was saved from answering by the same roar that woke up the village, followed by a massive cone of flames setting a mile-long line of Berks forest ablaze. The twins watch in awe of the devastation. The light from the fire silhouetted something heading directly for the village, something instantly recognisable. The group headed slowly towards the shape.

Astrid spoke first, barely able to hiss out "Red Death?" through suddenly tight throat.

"I thought we killed that thing! Now we've got to kill it again!?" shouted Snotlout.

"Guys, we did kill it. This, this is a different one" Hiccup intervened fearfully.

"Yeah, this one is shorter and leaner, but it tail looks for flexible than the dragon queen's. Its wings look thicker too." Fishlegs was the only one who wasn't near to panic (except from the twins who were distracted by the blaze), and his words settled any fatalistic thoughts that the others had.

Stoick and Gobber arrived at that moment with most of the tribes dragon riders - about half of the village - and bellowed "Hiccup! What in the name of Odin himself is going on here?!", not even looking at them as the silhouette grew larger.

Hiccup could only point and shout back "Red Death!", which had the unfortunate effect of causing the tribesmen to panic and start shouting among themselves, flying in circles, which Stoick and Gobber ineffectually tried to stop.

Toothless realised that they were almost in range of the approaching dragons fire and shouted to Hiccup "Its almost chose enough to shoot at us Hiccup! Its heading straight for the village! We have to stop that thing!"

Hiccup had to lean closer to Toothless' ear to make himself heard "I know! I have some ideas, can you do something to shut everyone up?"

At that Toothless spun in the air to face the villages dragon riders and let out his loudest battle roar, stunning everyone into silence. Before they could start again Hiccup took charge of the situation.

"Astrid! I want you to take all Nadder riders to make as many holes in its wings as you can! Fishlegs! You take all the Grunckle riders and hover around its head, distract it and when you can, shoot at its eyes but keep away from its mouth! Ruffnut, Tuffnut, you take all those with Zipplebacks and do whatever damage you can to its belly. Snotlout! Take the few Monstrous Nightmares we have and whatever damage you see anyone else do, make it worse. Everyone stay away from its tail! Dad, you and Gobber take all inexperienced riders and try to stop that blaze from spreading to Berk. I think Thornado will be great for that." Hiccup shot a grim look at his father before saying "And prepare to get the villagers to a safe place if anything goes wrong".

As the gathering split up into their assigned groups with shouts of much needed encouragement, and a shout of "Be careful!" from Astrid. Stoick watched his son with pride, thinking that he would make a great chief one day and how easily he took charge of the situation.

As the others were preparing to approach the monster, Hiccup told Toothless what they were going to do "We cant give that thing any chance to burn them down as they approach. We've got to do something that gives them a chance to get close to it.".

Toothless immediately arched up into a clime, Hiccup adjusting the tail fin with an almost instinctual ease, gaining about a hundred meters in seconds before rolling over to dive at the Red Death. Shooting a duo of long ranged blasts at their opponents face they swiftly barrel rolled to the side to evade the flamethrower of a reply, no threat to the rest of the dragon riders. Hiccup guided Toothless in front of its head, avoiding its jaws as it turned to snap at them opportunistically. Flying away from it Hiccup twisted in the saddle to see if they had successfully distracted it from the approaching columns of tense dragon riders, only snap the fin into a different position as he saw it facing them with the telltale hissing of gas being prepared to force them into a dive, avoiding instant incineration by mere moments.

By the time it had fired its second shot at Hiccup and Toothless, Astrid had led her group unseen to the Red Death and was ready to lead them to their first attack run.

"Remember, go for its wings, and make as many holes as you can. And make sure you stay away from its tail!". Astrid made a valiant effort to keep her fear for Hiccup out her voice.

Leading her group of vikings and dragons on their first strike Astrid let out a battle cry, quickly joined in by the others behind her. Astrid directed Stormfly to shoot her fire at the closer of the gigantic flapping wings, scoring a painful looking line down it but not burning through. As the pair got past Stormfly flicked some of the quills on her tail at the other wing, only for them to bounce off of the thick hide. When Astrid saw this she shouted instructions to the rest of her group.

"Listen up! Our Nadders tail spikes wont hurt it, so stick to using their fire. I want everyone to pick a partner and stick with them, aim for the same spots and watch each others back, now MOVE IT!". Astrid pointed to the closest rider to her - a man about ten years older than her - shouted a quick "You're with me!" at him and dove back at the Red Death, careful to remain away from its tail.

Around the same time that Astrid began her first attack, Ruffnut and Tuffnut had led the other Zippleback riders lower to get to its underside easier. Looping around to approach it from the side, they were almost screaming from their joy of being able to inflict pain - even being asked to do it - which was a very rare treat for them. For their first run Ruffnut ordered the other five dragons into a straight line, and to only spray gas at their target for now. Barf and Belch lagged slightly behind to that Tuffnut could have the honours of lighting the plume of gas now hanging underneath the Red Deaths belly. The explosion that it caused nearly knocked them off their dragon but the harnesses that Hiccup had made them kept them secure.

When the ringing in their ears had faded they turned to each other wide eyed and grinning like the maniacs they were. Ruff spoke first.

"How much do you think that hurt?"

"I don't care, that was awesome"

"I know, I could of died!"

"Yeah, should we do it again?"

"Yeah! Woohooo!"

As the first two groups attacked Snotlout gave his small group some very simple instructions, which were about as complex as anything he could come up with. "If you see anything important, shoot at it! Annihilate! Lets kill this thing already!" As Hookfang sprayed some napalm-like fire onto the wing that Astrid's group had just attacked Snotlout started chanting "Snotlout! Snotlout! Oy! Oy! Oy!".

Fishlegs arrived last with the rest of the slow moving Grunckles, giving his larger team advise in his inimitable way. "Ok, a Grunckle has like +10 manoeuvrability but only +2 speed, so stay around its neck and above its head. The Red Death has like +43 firepower so do not get in front of it or it will do like 174 damage.". The other Grunckle riders generally ignored everything Fishlegs said and started bombarding the Red Death's six eyes with lava blasts, circling its neck to stay out of the bigger danger zones.

In the skies far above Hiccup and Toothless watched the vikings attack runs, which caused it to roar out in pain and flail around, shooting short bursts of flames in an attempt to hit one of these sudden nuisances before they could inflict any serious pain. When the invisible duo saw that someone was about to be hit they dove down to launch a set of plasma blasts at the offending limb, saving many from being swatted from the skies.

Unfortunately, they could not save everyone, and as they climbed for another run they saw an unfortunate pair of Nadders get shattered by the Red Death's tail-club, a Zippleback fall victim to one of the spear like claws on the ends of its feet and a lone Grunckle caught out of position by a sudden movement get turned to ash with its rider. Despite this every viking and dragon fought on valiantly, grateful that it was no longer heading to the village, and that the forest fire down below was indeed being skilfully contained.

Several runs later where the surviving vikings were adjusting their tactics so that it was nearly impossible for another to fall victim to a lucky strike, the Red Death screamed, a loud, high pitched shriek that stunned many dragons, nearly deafening their riders, before turning and flapping towards the village once more, setting new sections of the forest ablaze.

"I'LL KILL YOU ALL FOR WHAT YOU DID TO HIM! I'LL KILL EVERYTHING YOU EVER CARED ABOUT! I'LL KILL EVERY MATE YOU EVER HAD!"

The meaning of what he just heard was not lost on Hiccup, but the urgency of keeping the former Red Death's angry mate from reaching berk pushed all thoughts of that from his mind. He saw many of the surviving riders double their efforts to push the gigantic creature off course, but nothing could seem to impede it anymore. Adding their own blasts to the mix didn't seem to have any effects either, apart from the ripples of pain that were obviously failing to reach its fury clouded primal mind.

Thinking desperately for a new plan, Hiccup only noticed the rest of the gangs arrival because of Toothless's acknowledgements. Ideas running rampant through Hiccups mind, many - most even - being eliminated as quickly as they appeared, but there was one crazy idea that stayed. Extremely dangerous and only possible to accomplish by Toothless, but reluctantly it stayed.

"Hiccup, you've got to slow that thing down. I'm going to evacuate the village" Stoick bellowed before dropping to skim the treetops on the way to the village.

Astrid was the first to break Hiccup out of his thoughts. "What can we do? Nothing we've done seems to hurt it!".

"No, we've definitely hurt it, it isn't able to fly very fast now and I can see that you managed to cut through parts if its wings." Toothless cut into Hiccups thoughts.

Things clicked into place in his mind and he started shouting out orders, once again wondering at the events that caused everyone to look to him first for direction instead of ignoring his attempts to help.

"Every dragon apart from the Zipplebacks, do as much damage as you can to those wings!" The twins looked glum that they were missing out on the action as the others swooped down to shout direction to their surviving villagers. "How many Zipplebacks still have gas left?"

Ruffnut replied "Three, including us" holding up two fingers, Tuffnut holding up four.

Before they could start a fight over who had the right number of fingers up Hiccup told them "Get them to hover below its jaws, and as you hear it prepare to breath fire I want you to dump as much gas as you can in front of it and down its throat. After that get everyone away as fast as possible before we ignite it".

Knowing they had just been told to do something important they drifted off to the surviving Zippleback riders. Hiccup directed Toothless to rocket ahead of the straining Red Death to Berk.

A sinking feeling in his stomach, Toothless grumbled out a question "Are we about to do what I think we're going to do?"

"Yep, we're going to force him to choke on a fireball"

"And how are we going to do that?"

Hiccup didn't respond immediately, turning Toothless around about Berks outskirts, the sighed and said "We're going to give him a target".

Toothless's eyes widened, but he realised the desperation of the situation and only let out a half-hearted groan. He knew what he had to do. Building up some speed and positioning themselves to be heading straight at the Red Death, Toothless unleashed a pair of low powered blasts at its face then started gathering everything he had left for one last shot.

Those two blasts had the intended effect of their target, clouding its thoughts with a rage that only allowed one thought to pass… REVENGE. Their positioning had also given this thought a focus, and a target. There was enough light from the dwindling fires to show the approaching Night fury and its rider. Seeing a chance the Red Death narrowed its eyes, focusing on the approaching duo, and opened its mouth wide and started to build up gas for a massive stream of flames to burn down this most annoying and painful nuisance.

Unknown to the Red Death, this is what the Twins and the other surviving Zippleback riders were waiting for. As it opened its huge mouth Barf and the other gas heads emptied their gas reserves directly in front of and down its throat, then dove away as fast as they could shouting for the others to do the same.

Spying the gas cloud Toothless released the biggest plasma ball at the same time the Red Death formed its own fire. The two blasts met right in front of the Red Deaths mouth, igniting the biggest explosion anyone had ever seen. The fleeing dragons were tossed around like leaves in a hurricane, their riders valiantly trying to cling on to their dragons. When they finally regained control they turned to see what had just happened, and were confronted with the sight of a billowing cloud of fire around the Red Death's front half, growing to encompass the rest of its body as it exploded from within. Only a few vikings, Astrid included, noticed that there was a stream of flames extending from one end of the explosion. And no sign of Hiccup and Toothless.

Of course, in every plan you can think of, there is always something that you cannot control. There is always an unexpected response that can catch you out. As the fire was forced down the Red Deaths throat into its stomach and lungs, it put all of its effort into one last breath, pushing a final burst of fire out. Hiccup and Toothless were travelling too fast, were already to close to avoid it. They did not emerge. They were gone.

As the dragons and their riders watched the explosion grow, their joy turned to concern as they heard Astrid's desperate shouts for Hiccup, then confusion as the clouds above suddenly darkened and lightning struck.

The vikings were closer to the truth than they knew when they called Night fury's the 'unholy offspring of lightning and death'. But none of them could have prepared them for what they saw next.

From the clouds came sheets of lightning, blindingly bright, all of them entering the now fading cloud of fire. Thunder constantly striking at their ears in a barrage of sound. A few of the smarter vikings realised that the lightning seemed to be aimed at a spot inside the fire. This went against everything that they knew and frightened many of them, but they were so awed by this spectacle that neither they or the dragons could leave.

As the flames finally fizzled out they could see that the lightning was indeed hitting the same area, a globe of shimmering darkness. None dared to approach. As lightning struck this sphere ripples seemed to spread across it, each ripple causing the sphere to darken as if it was absorbing the light around it. Within moments the unnatural lightning storm dwindled away, until one massive final bolt struck the top as if it was from Thor himself. This lightning bolt did not have the same effect as the others did. Instead of causing it to darken, the sphere was sent hurtling into the ground, flattening a wide swath of forest.

Astrid was they first to fly down to this new clearing, somehow knowing that this had something to do with her husband and his dragon. When she dropped into the clearing there was no sign of the dark globe that had flattened the forest, but there was a crater directly in the centre, hissing and steaming like a forged sword dunked in water. Dismounting an agitated Stormfly she rushed over to the strangely deep crater and peered over the edge.

The edges of this crater was unlike any other one she had seen, the walls were like a smooth as black glass. Right in the centre of this crater there was what seemed to be a small, rounded black stone. Astrid reached down to touch it, not knowing why she felt the need to do so when she should be searching the skies for Hiccup. The moment her fingers grasped it she felt a tingling run up her arm. Gently pulling the surprisingly warm rock from the ground she asked Stormfly for light, who responded by heating up a section of the crater wall.

She could now see that is was not just a simple rock, it was wider around at one end than the other, a rounded teardrop shape. Astrid gasped as it hit her, this was no stone, it was a dragon egg. Unaware of the other vikings landing around her, she examined it closer, but what she saw made her break down into tears, curling around this strange dragon egg.

Wrapped around the base of the egg were two small engravings, one of a young man riding a flying Night fury, the other, two Night fury's flying side by side.

Astrid knew, somehow just knew that Hiccup was dead, but had been given a second chance at life.

Review please, but dont kill me if you dont like it. Anything helpful will be used.