Hiccup gay romance

Checkmate

The enemy ships were in sight. Most of them were loaded with heavy artillery, enough of it to zone our dragons away. We had inspected the ships from afar with our spy glasses, only a few ships had artillery that could hit from more than five hundred meters away. If we could take all of them, then me and Toothless were unlocked. It wouldn't be a free win, but it would increase our chances significantly. We would be like a queen on a chessboard with no enemy pieces being able to attack us. Would that advantage be enough before they could reach our king?
     Me and the gang were standing behind the statues in front of Berk. Emil would only accompany us for the first hour. After that he would help Isabelle with the wounded.
    'Alright everyone, you know what to do. Stay strong and good luck.' Astrid said.
     'Good luck everyone and remember, if one of us goes down, our priority shifts to saving him or her. After that we will regroup. Let's take them down!' I yelled.
     'Yeah!' the others yelled and we took off.
     Astrid, Snotlout and Emil each went to another side of the fleet, forcing them to spread their fire. The enemy fleet immediately started firing the long range artillery, the nine heavy ballistas. Enormous arrows shot through the air. I held my breath, did I estimate their range correctly?
     The arrows barely didn't reach them. Fishlegs was high in the air, threatening to let lava rain down on the fleet. All of them were flying back and forward, baiting enemy fire and distracting them. Fishlegs and Meatlug were especially threatening. They had to close the least distance to be in range for an attack.
    They probably already knew that we were distracting them, but each of them could turn into a serious attack the moment they shifted their attention elsewhere.
    Me and the twins immediately took off when all four of them were in position. We raced towards the front of the fleet. My hands were shaking, my heart bouncing, complete concentration to spot any artillery that was coming our way.
     'Now!' I yelled. The ballista turned towards us. Barf released a cloud of gas, but Betch didn't explode it yet. Fishlegs and Meatlug had started engaging because all the ballistas were focussed at us.
     'Retreat!' I yelled. We flew out of range of the ballista with the gas cloud still hanging in the air in front of the ships. It wouldn't hit the ships but that wasn't the point of the gas.
     Meatlug engaged the enemy during the window we had created and was threatening to destroy a ballista. The ballistas were forced to focus their attention on him, but some of them were still directed at me and the twins because of the gas still hanging in the air. It wouldn't stay there for long.
     Astrid, Emil and Snotlout flew towards the fleet as well. The ballistas turned around, creating a window for the twins to detonate the gas. Toothless made a turn to build up speed before shooting through the air and turning the ballista closest to Fishlegs to splinters while using the cover of the thick smoke. Zippleback gas itself wasn't dense enough and lasted shorter.
     Three arrows pierced the smoke in front of us. We dived, gaining speed and turned around. The others retreated before the ballistas could point the arrows towards them.
    The ballistas repositioned. Two targeting a side each. This wasn't going to work again. Toothless shot a plasma blast up in the air. The signal to regroup behind the statue.
     'Yeah, one arrow shooting thingy gone, eight to go!' Ruffnut said when we landed.
     'Our explosion was huge, obviously they didn't stand a chance.' Tuffnut said.
     Astrid and others landed now as well. 'Good job everyone, she said. What's the plan now?'
     'We won't be able to stop them from hitting the coast. They can't bring their ballistas on the land so we have to fight it out there using the terrain. Me and toothless will take down one more ship from here. Which one should I take out?'
     'Well you can only hit the first three ships so the others fall off.' Snotlout said.
    'The important people are in the back. Let's just take down the one with the ballista.' Fishlegs said. 'Oh and Meatlug was able to damage the right one so definitely don't shoot that one.'
     I looked at Astrid and she nodded. My eyes went to Emil. He was shaking a bit. I walked towards him. 'Hey, are you ok?'
     'Yeah, I'm fine. Don't worry about it.' I looked him in the eyes a bit longer, trying to read his mind but it seemed like he meant it. He was obviously afraid, but he could handle it.
     'Alright, you guys can head back and find a position for when the fleet arrives. I'll join you soon.'
     'Hiccup, are you sure you will be fine?' Astrid asked.
     'Don't worry, I'll be back soon. They won't be able to hit me with the cover of the rocks if I stay low.'
     'Alright everyone, let's go!' Astrid yelled and they took off.
     'Alright bud, we're going to take this nice and slow.' The ships were almost in fire range. 'Take your time, it's the right ship that you need to take down.' Toothless knew his range just a bit better than me so I didn't bother to instruct him when to fire. Night Furies almost never miss.
    Three quick purple blasts splitted the air followed by three explosions and a ship that was total loss. The sinking ship slowed down the others and the men had to be taken up by the other ships. It bought us some time and they lost a lot of material.
     'Great work! Let's join the others.'

The enemy had reached the shore. The ballistas had to be brought onto land by wagons. They were the only things able to apply pressure on Toothless. The enemy had to switch strategies. The ballistas were far less effective on land because of all the terrain. They could only slow me and Toothless down. They had to rush right into us, overwhelm us with numbers. The only advantage we had were our dragons. We had to enable them. Two conditions needed to be met. Firstly, the artillery couldn't hit us. If that was accomplished by whipping them out or using the terrain didn't matter. Secondly, we needed a place where we could keep our distance from the engagement. We had to be able to retreat while attacking.
     A forest was the perfect place to fight this war. Only one problem. There was no forest between Berk and the coast, but we had something else that did both things at the same time, just a little worse. The high ground.
     This is where Meatlug and fishlegs should shine. Their attack didn't start fading away if it traveled a longer distance. Fishlegs had realized that. He stood behind a single tree and a few rocks. They gave him cover for the ballistas. Meatlug set one step past the rocks and unloaded his lava. A rain of molten rocks fell down upon the enemy. The men screamed out in pain. The others put their shields above their heads and started running past to choke point. Instead of letting the lava fall downwards, meatlug now shot the lava ball straight down. The attack became stronger the further it fell down and destroyed the shields with the men under them. The leaders of the groups of men yelled and the warriors ran without thinking through the rain of lava. Most of them were able to pass the path unharmed but some of them were blasted into the sea.
     After passing Meatlug the path split up in five directions, all leading to a different place in our village. We could cover a path each but that was really hard. Their artillery could easily hit us. We had to work together and create chaos.
     A war cry sounded in the distance. A hundred raging vikings ran towards us. Good for us that it were our own men. We could fight this war front to back or back to front. Their artillery was the only thing stopping us and their frontline was facing our dragons. They were pincered. Our village was completely undefended, but the children and elderly were evacuated. If they felt like destroying our buildings instead of protecting the only thing that stopped us from releasing an inferno, they could go right ahead.
     The entire gang shot out of their hiding spots and flew with a bow around the frontline towards the artillery. 'Alright, it's time to show them what a night fury can do.'
    Toothless shot through the air, drawing the attention of the ballitas. He had almost reached his topspeed, making it very hard for the ballistas to hit us. Our men had reached the backline and started to smash them while threatening to reach the ballistas in no time. All the ballistas fired at once, all pointed at me and Toothless. We dived to avoid the first arrow, turned left, immediately right afterwards, up, down. An arrow flew a meter above me before Toothless started another dive. Three more arrows would reach us in a few seconds, we couldn't go up so we speeded up towards the forest. On our left I could see the others destroying the ballistas but in front of me with a sea of fire. The forest came closer way too fast.
     'Slow down! We're going to crash!' Toothless screamed and tried to break the dive, but we were too fast. The trees were getting dangerously close. Right before impact Toothless turned around and flapped his wings around me.