How to train your vessel - Book one

Traitor

Waters continued to churn beneath the many fighting warships. The land formerly belonging to Berk was up for grabs like the many dragons that moved in when the inhabitants vanished. Factions left and right charged onto the island with axes and shields and swords and spears. Nets launched from catapults at escaping dragons as a storm brewed, unpredictable by the elders of all five fighting sides. Dragons fought for what they thought would be their last day to protect the flightless children being scooped up by the dragons the original parents trusted to raise the scared and confused hatch-lings.

Many nets were launched at a big fleeing group of large dragons, very much wanted by each warring clan. A bolt of lightning chained through each net and finished the miraculous strike in the hull of a ship. Rain now fell but the hail that followed cracked only the skulls of the human attackers while the hysterical dragons seized their only chance at salvation. Many more lightning strikes impossibly weaved around every fleeing dragon, threading the needle into more ships. Massive whirlpools engulfed even more vessels and forced the overboard men to the beaches, those who weren't were dragged into the abyss they thought their expensive and well-crafted wood boats had conquered.

A multicolored figure used its trident as a pick to hoist itself over one of the islands many ledges. Its mantle, very torn, billowed as it rushed around the battlefield to some injured dragons. A few tiny-tooth's nipped at the parts of his mantle repaired with various kinds and colors of coral as it wrapped draconic limbs in dried seaweed bandages much like the ones holding more coral in place around its cracked head and severed horns on its face's left side. Impossibly pure water was called forth from its palms to clean the deep cuts and scrapes caused by the greedy and inconsiderate humans the black creature knew all to well.

One of the warrior's attempt to strike it down were met with a block and stab in the gut from the three-pronged weapon of choice. Soon more and more similar attackers followed where their comrades had disappeared to, knowing something was causing the screams and blood-stained rivers of water and sediment flowing outside the battlefield as the rain water pooled crimson in the main skirmishes. 

The aquatic animal decided the dragons time was all but nigh as it spiraled the trident in the air, the small holes in the two side blades and spear tip at the other end of the magical teal, seaweed and barnacle covered item whistled just as designed. Many of the smaller men were cut down after the whistling was silenced in favor of guarding the weakened dragons, but only being one against many, one of the larger fighters managed to over power it. Though refusing to be beaten with out getting a large stab into the vikings side, more warriors grabbed his arms as the big raider bled out. 

The two men quickly were quickly dropped with a headbutt and punch while they were distracted by a loud whistling sound mimicking the tridents call, just as designed. A large circle of water began to glow bright blue and molded into a draconic being, entirely formed from the pure crystalline blue water it strengthened the storm above while standing tall over the fighters below, trying in vain to catch and kill it with non-magical weapons that phased through the dragons aquatic body.

Its horns, making it resemble a hammerhead shark, stayed firm over its darker blue eyes. Contrasting against the rippling over the scale-less form as the lower half swirled like a water spout and scattered droplets in all directions while the elemental's mouth glowed a bright white and blasted a forceful fog of frost and fear forward into the mass of barbaric humans. When all cleared a multiple layers of ice held vikings in the moment they were tossed back by the power that collided with them before their life ended in a snowy grave over the frozen red lake they had made. 

Taking one foreleg, the beast conjured a tidal wave into the right side long-ships and rubble, sending countless men into the suddenly freezing ocean to be fried by the lightning strikes that were later called down upon them by the same godly being who summoned glaciers to shatter the retreating fleets to the left. The dying fighters could only look on at the triumphant, roaring colossus of a dragon as they were slaughtered by the trident wielding demon.

A fitting punishment for attacking the dragons indeed.

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Riding a Night Fury was a new experience (being kidnapped by him and Hiccup when they met didn't count, that was years ago and she was just pulled along), but not an unwelcome one. Astrid was hardly surprised by Hiccups attempts to stop her attack and altogether unfazed, if she ignored his hurt expression when Toothless allowed her to fly him to the largest push they'd amassed yet. Stoick reluctantly agreed to stay with Valka and Hiccup for the fight at the Valkyrie's request while Apidae made a clear and firm statement to the Light Fury and her orange-eyed friend that this was far to dangerous for them, their obedience was a welcome change from the twins chaos and Snotlout's repulsive attempts at flirting. 

Stormfly had been pleasantly accepting of her decision to ride Toothless, who they both could tell needed a good win after nearly being attacked and rejected by the mantis tribe, but she refused to move from behind her rider and the dragon she often treated as a hatch-ling while at the side of the pink, blue, and yellow-eyed Night Furies. Roars and yelling echoed from beyond the gates of the Queen's Gardens, which were fiercely protected by the most hideously mutated Exiles  the mantis tribe, Hive, or Berk had ever seen before now. Toothless quickly took control of all flying, flawlessly dodging arrows and catapults, also guiding those behind him on how to do the same, riding him rather than Stormfly was clearly a better idea then Astrid originally thought. 

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Oddly enough, the absence of the infection revived as many bugs as it had killed, the Exiled king stared in disgust at the three extra pairs of scythes he'd grown due to the event, reminding him of the spiders and centipedes he had once sworn to protect Hallownest from, along his much missed sisters and beloved daughter. From his back sprouted useless wings and four limbs that had melded together to make a mass of cancerous chitin and bone and muscle he'd used as a shield for his body, which was over 5 times the size of a titan-wing crimson Gore Gutter alone, and his fractured head. 

He used his front most scythes, 3 times the length of the Gore Gutters that would tremble before him if the Exiles cared about hunting them, to painfully drag himself to the distant deafening war zone. The underside of which was littered with tumors and other agonizing growths that scraped against the rough ground and thorns. Two of the four arms within those many growths held the dragon tooth-club of the warrior maiden that had struck him down in the past life he wanted to leave behind, the other two's talons grew far too big to ever grasp any object, but still they helped prop the suffering lord's body ever so slightly off the ground.

The mantis tribe had always believed you must become very powerful because you had to bare the pain of those you wronged when you died. Maybe if he told them the he didn't want to embrace the infection for power like they thought he did, they might be more merciful? If only his daughter and sisters could know he and his followers were willing to use their own bodies as test subjects and labs to find a cure to the disease, then they would at least leave him with his name, or if they ever checked the archives to see where he sent his result-less findings on the spread and resilience of the light plague they might leave him his good will. Whatever would come of this fight, he felt the ancient king weigh his soul on the judging scale as it condemned several hundreds of good men and women to death.

With good fortune the awe-striking Pale Wanderer, or even the human Zephyr who killed his toughest elite, would grant him one last good fight before he could leave the world for good. His time was over long ago anyway.