The King of Dragons (a httyd fanfiction)

Chapter 10-Watery Depths

Hiccup quickly took action as he moved over in front of Fishlegs and meatlug. And looked back at him.
"Get back to berk with the food, we'll preoccupy it!" He yelled, getting the rider to have his gronkle turn and run for it.
The other riders backed off, dodging the blasts the best they could. Once Fishlegs was a good range away, hiccup looked to the rest of them, and made a quick plan.
"Come on bud, we got this," hiccup reassured toothless, and they started to soar around the water dragon.
"Snotlout get hookfang to light up! Scauldrons are tidal-type dragons, they don't like fire!" Hiccup instructed as he and toothless flew behind the monstrous nightmare.
"And light myself on fire in the process!?" Snotlout was defiant, but once a boiling blast of water flew past him and his dragon he changed his mind. "Ok! Ok! Hookfang flame! Now! Before you get us all killed!"
Hookfang lit on fire and swerved out of the way of oncoming water.
"Incoming!" Ruffnut hollered, as she, her brother, and the zippleback came flying past. The one head letting out the explosive gas, and the other igniting it. It blew the big dragon back and it screeched in pain.
"Wait!" Hiccup grabbed all their attention, "we aren't trying to hurt it we just want to keep it distracted so it doesn't try and get to fishlegs and take everything we just caught."
"But how are we supposed to do that if we aren't firing at it?" Astrid asked as she dodged a shot from the scauldrons.
"We fire at it but don't hit it, ruff tuff, get barf and belch to make a gas wall between it and Fishlegs, heard it the other way," hiccup directed, and they went off. Then he turned to the other two, "Snotlout, Astrid, help me fly around it, make it confused and be harder to shoot at us."
Astrid nodded and started to fly around, the scauldron followed the deadly nadder. It tried to fire at stormfly until a black blur disturbed its shot and it missed. It started to follow the night fury until the monstrous Nightmare grabbed its attention. It started to get angry and it dove back under the water, swimming towards Fishlegs, and berk.
"Not so fast!" Hiccup went to go follow it.
The twins looked and saw the scauldron go down into the water and in their brains, they thought the fire would do something from above it.
"Light it up!" Ruffnut yelled and barf and belch lit the gas and it exploded, right when hiccup was going to pass through.
Toothless reared up, hiccup was barely able to hold on. As toothless went back and growled hiccup looked up at the twins livid.
"It's underwater you can't hit it you-you-gh!" Hiccup continued after the scauldron.
"Come on snotlout-follow him stormfly!" Astrid zipped after hiccup. stormfly having a little trouble trying to catch the quick night fury.
"Give it a warning shot bud," hiccup urged toothless, and he did. It went flying right into the water and passed the large tidal dragon's head. It slowed down, a relief to the king and his dragon.
"Hiccup!" Astrid yelled, making him look back. Which was a fatal mistake as the scauldron reared its head out of the water and shot a boiling hot water blast at toothless and hiccup. Toothless moved to try and dodge, it missed the night fury, but it wasn't so good for its rider. Hiccup was directly hit with the blast and was shot right off of toothless. He fell and sunk into the water with a big splash.
"No!" Astrid yelled. She looked at the splash hoping to see a head bob up, but all she saw was toothless falling. She and stormfly went to go grab toothless, but snotlout got there first.
"Go get hiccup!" Snotlout yelled, "unless you want that thing to eat him!"
Astrid looked at snotlout for a moment and to toothless, seeing he was ok. And then, she and stormfly dove.
Hiccup was sinking quickly, having been knocked out from the initial impact of the blast, but awoke not long after. He tried to breathe but inhaled a bunch of saltwater, he looked around and up to see the dim light of the surface and began to swim up. But was battered around by the scauldrons tail, Which only knocked more are out of him. He kept trying to swim but it only got more difficult as it felt he was sinking further into the depths of the ocean. He almost gave up until he saw another splash, he looked and the darkness and water made it hard to tell. He worried it was toothless until he saw it swimming with a rider. It came over and quickly scooped him up and swam up and flew out of the ocean.
Sputtering and breathing burned as the air pushed out the saltwater. The sound of blasts and a few roars of the scauldron and a splash. While coughing out the liquid, hiccup looked and saw it was Astrid who was carrying him. He was relieved for a moment before looking around for toothless. Spotting him being carried by hookfang and snotlout. He was struggling and growling, trying to get over to hiccup.
With what little air he had, and at this energy, he spoke to Astrid, "bring me over to toothless, hookfang will drop him at this point."
Astrid looked at him and was going to refuse until she looked to toothless, seeing how much he was fighting. She got stormfly to hover next to hookfang, and swinging hiccup over onto toothless.
Hiccup grabbed hold of the handle of toothless' saddle, which made toothless calm down a little. when Astrid knew he was on, she nodded at snotlout to drop them. After a moment of contemplating if he should listen, snotlout finally did.
Hiccup changed positions of the tail wing and they caught the air and soared forward and up. Once he knew they'd make it back to Berk, he flopped onto toothless. He was still coughing out water and groaned at the burning feeling of salt in his mouth, throat, and lungs.
Toothless trilled, worried for hiccup. His rider gave him a weak pat with one hand, and spoke in a gravelly voice, "I'll be fine bud. Just get us back to the dragon arena."
Toothless let out a small roar as they continued to fly back.
~
Astrid landed, dismounted stormfly, and immediately ran over to hiccup once he and toothless landed. It was a bit of a rough landing but toothless was alright. Astrid went to help him, but toothless growled when she reached for hiccup.
"Hey toothless it's ok, she's only trying to help," hiccup spoke weakly as he sat up and looking, "He's trying to protect me, just wait a moment."
Astrid did as she was asked and took a step back. when hiccup got off she got a little more worried, but he used toothless to help stand. Though It wasn't long before his legs began to give out, and toothless laid down to help him get to the ground without injury.
Astrid got closer again but toothless growled and she went to back off, but hiccup stopped her.
"No, it's fine," hiccup started to cough out more water. Once it stopped he took a painful breath before he spoke again, "toothless I'm ok she isn't going to hurt me."
Toothless looked at hiccup and lifted his arm and nuzzled into his side with a weak purr. He looked up to his rider with worried eyes before he licked his hand slightly. Hiccup gave him some pets before looking at Astrid, nodding.
She took it as the ok to get closer, and she sat just across from hiccup.
"Are you sure you're alright? We can take you to gothi," Astrid asked, truly worried about him.
Hiccup let out a weak chuckle, "I'll be fine. I've been through much worse close to death situations."
"Like...what happened to your leg?"