Chapter 1: This is Berk.

This is Installation 83-RK "Berk". It's 12 clicks north of hopeless and a few degrees south of death from dehydration, and located solidly in the middle of the Afghan desert. My base camp. In a word, sturdy. It's been here for 20 years, yet every building is brand new. We have shooting, hunting and a charming view of desert sunsets.

The only problems are the pests.

While other camps have desert rats or cobras, we have…

Dragons.

Most people would leave. Not us. We're Mercenaries. We have… stubbornness issues. I'm Lance Corporal Jack Haddock, age 18, callsign 'Hiccup'. Not the best callsign a guy could have though.

Tonight's another regular night, with the dragon raid siren blaring loudly. They come for our food supplies, blasting away at our defenses with flames of various kinds. I grab my helmet and load-bearing vest from my locker after clumsily putting on my boots, rushing towards the armskote as fast as I can. Around me, anti-air guns fire away at the airborne reptiles, tracer rounds forming streaks of light in the night sky. A blast from a Gronckle narrowly misses me, hitting one of the bunks nearby and causing it to explode into flames.

See, new buildings all the time.

I run faster, almost falling into the magnesium flare of an incoming Nadder. I feel the heat singe my uniform as I am grabbed from behind by a burly arm before I am scorched.

"What is he doing here… what are you… Get back inside!"

That's General Stoick. He's the commanding officer and CEO of our Private Military Company (PMC). It's said that when he was 12 he blew the head off a dragon with a Desert Eagle pistol using only one hand and one bullet. Do I believe it?

Grabbing an RPG, General Stoick blows a Monstrous Nightmare out of the sky without even blinking.

Yes I do.

He turns to a reporting officer for an update on the situation, "What've we got?"

"Sir, scanners and spotters have identified at least ten groups of Gronckles and Nadders, as well as an entire squadron of Monstrous Nightmares."

"Any Night Furies?"

"Our sentries report none so far."

"Good."

Mobile flak guns, autoturrets and surface-to-air missiles are rolled out one after another from storage, amidst magnesium flares lighting up the sky to allow for easier target acquisition.

I finally reach my destination, meeting up with Staff Sergeant Gobber, a stout, yet experienced man with the battle scars to prove it. His left arm and right leg were lost in fights with dragons, each replaced with a bionic prosthetic. The one on his arm had interchangeable hands, allowing him to change tools to best suit his current job. I have been working under him ever since I was a little (well, littler) boy in this camp that I called home.

"Nice of you to join the party. I thought you would have been carried off," joked the Sgt. as he grabbed rifles, machine guns and launchers off the racks and distributed them to soldiers waiting across the counter.

"Who, me? Nah, come on, I'm waaaay to muscular for their tastes. They wouldn't know what to do with all… this…" I reply, gesturing to my… not so big… muscles… at least I think they are.

"Well, they need toothpicks, don't they?" I roll my eyes at the statement as I take out ammunition boxes, getting ready to hand out ammo belts and magazines.

Outside, the situation was getting a little too hot. The dragons had destroyed a number of our sentry towers and guns, breaking through our outer perimeter of defense. Unfazed, the General initiates the backup plans, "We move to the inner perimeter, then we counter with our Apache choppers and heavy Vulcan guns."

Meanwhile, a Nightmare has somehow managed to set fire to one of the fuel tanks across from where I am. Amongst panicked yells of "Fire!", soldiers quickly take cover behind available debris.

"Come on guys, let's go!" The emergency duty team rushes to the scene in the armoured firefighting vehicle and begins desperately hosing down the fire. Due to the lack of manpower, this non-combat section is composed mainly of younger recruits around my age who lack combat experience and skills. There's Private Fishlegs, a large-sized, overweight boy of 19, an innocent personality that's a little lacking in the courage factor; Corporal Snotlout, your typical 20-year-old jock character, arrogant without the skills to prove it, but muscular and a hit with the ladies; Lance Corporals Ruffnut and Tuffnut, fraternal twins with the most intense sibling rivalry I've ever seen; and finally…

The fuel tank blows up anyway despite their efforts, aptly casting a stunning glow and silhouette upon the section leader of the team. She had a slim figure with nicely defined muscles, silky blonde hair tied back in a single braid, and the most beautiful face I had ever seen.

3rd Sergeant Astrid Hofferson, 18, top cadet in her class, and the first to pass the dragon combat specialist's course amongst her, and my, batch of recruits.

I stand there with a dazed look in my eyes and a lopsided grin, thinking about how their job is so much cooler than mine, before I am brought back into reality by a waiting soldier, "Oy, where's my ammo?" Hurriedly, I grab the last magazine of rounds in the case and hand it to him, after which I attempt to sneak out of the armskote, SCAR-L assault rifle slung across my back, and an experimental device I intend to test out in tow. Alas, before I am able to successfully Splinter Cell my way out the door, Sgt. Gobber grabs me by the collar with his bionic arm (now equipped with a robotic claw to assist in distributing arms, though I don't know how).

"Aw, come on, let me out, sir. I need to make my mark!" I plead with him for what seems to be the thousandth time.

"No, son, you've made plenty of marks," he retorts, "All in the wrong places!"

"Please, just five mikes will be enough; I kill a dragon, my life gets infinitely better! I might even get promoted!"

Sgt. Gobber looks at me like I'm crazy. "You can't shoot straight with your rifle, you can't man an anti-air gun, you can't even handle one of these!" He gestures towards one of our self-developed dragon snare cannons, tripod-mounted automatic grenade launchers that were retrofitted to fire special chain-link nets in order to take down and capture airborne dragons without killing them. Each would be manned by a single gunner, and supposedly much skill wasn't needed to use it effectively when the sky was filled with dragons, as it is tonight.

"It's not my fault the stupid thing malfunctioned and trapped me instead! Anyway, this gadget here will fire it for me," I indicate the device I was taking along with me, and attach it to the cannon. Modified from a sentry minigun turret targeting system, this would trace dragon heat signatures via an infrared beam and fire the cannon automatically, taking into account distance, gravity, the target's trajectory and even wind velocity. It can't go wrong.

The cannon prematurely goes off and snares an unwitting bystander.

"See?! This here is what I mean!" He doesn't even give me a chance to explain, "Corporal, listen, if you ever want to get out there and fight dragons, you have to stop being all… this."

"You just gestured to all of me." At this point, I am already frustrated and highly irritated at the momentary failure of my device, and I didn't need any more annoyances.

"Yes. Stop being all of you. Now get back in there, soldier. There are men waiting for their ammo. Magazines, loaded, NOW." The Sgt. hands me a crate of 5.56 mm bullets and points at the box of empty magazines. I sigh and return to my original post.

One day, just you wait. One day, I'll get out there, because taking down a dragon means everything around here. Governments and private defense agencies aren't going to want to employ a contractor that can't even defend its base from flying reptiles. Even if the flying reptiles pack firepower rivaling a F-15 Strike Eagle. On a more direct front, we need to keep our food and fuel supplies secure; It's the middle of the desert, for crying out loud. It's hard enough trying to grow our own crops and livestock already, despite the use of advanced aeroponics and agrotechnology.

"Ugh, they need me out there. It's getting a little too hot out there." Sgt. Gobber detaches the claw and attaches a submachine gun modified for his bionic arm. Slinging a spare rifle over his back and grabbing a few extra magazines, he instructs me to stay put.

Yeah, like that's going to happen. Immediately after he is out of sight, I roll out my cannon again, taking my SCAR-L just in case. Weaving through an irritated group of soldiers, I yell out 'excuse me's and 'sorry's, while ignoring the calls for me to "Get back inside!"

I reach an elevated platform some distance away from the action, and activate my device. The laser beam casts a bright red line into the sky, scanning for bogies. I silently pray for something to shoot at, myself searching the darkness through the thermal scope of my rifle. Suddenly, I hear a distinct, piercing, high-pitched whistle, something like a cross between the highest note of a flute and the sound made by the afterburners of a fighter.

"NIGHT FURY!"

I duck as a sentry tower explodes in a brilliant blue explosion, distinctive of the powerful blasts made by this dragon. The shockwave is enough to knock surrounding soldiers off their feet, while others rush to find cover. This dragon has never been seen, only heard. It never misses. And has never been killed. That's why I'm going to be the first.

Another sentry tower blows up as another blast of plasma hits it. I realign my cannon, which was shaken from the blasts.

A beep emerges from the targeting device as it locks on to a heat signature. I hold my breath and pray that it works. After what seems like eternity, a single round is fired into the dark night sky. I hear the sound of metal chains hitting something hard, and an agonized roar. There is movement as my prey drops from the sky like a falling star.

"Yes! I hit it! Did anybody see that… aw come on…"

My joy instantly turns into a feeling of 'WHY ME?!' as I turn around to face a Monstrous Nightmare staring down at me.