Eret's POV
The rider they had called 'Tuff' had reminded the blonde girl, and the lead rider, that they were meant to be taking me to their Chief, but they hadn't done that at all. Instead, they had flown on their dragons to an arena-like place, which had metal bars criss-crossing the top of it.
As they approached the entrance, I could see a sign above the entrance- it looked like a dragon. The dragon was black, and curled up. This must have been the symbol of this place. Below that, there were letters, which I couldn't read, although I recognized them to be runes, which read: Berk 'Dragon Training Academy'.
They flew through the entrance, which was sloped, and had a metal gate for a door. I was dropped roughly onto the floor- but Drago's done that to me a few times, too. Drago's dragons stayed at the entrance, growling menacingly.
The lead rider got off his dragon, which was growling too.
'Hey, it's okay, bud.' he said to it, so quietly it was practically a whisper. I wondered if there was perhaps some threat in there- another thing I've gotten used to with Drago- but no, it seemed as if he was genuinely trying to be kind. And he'd called it 'bud', too- which is not normally something you'd say if you were angry.
Then, even more amazingly, he actually put his hand on the beast's nose. Not his foot, but his hand. And it didn't bite it off.
The rider must have noticed my astonishment, because he grabbed my arm, in one small, skinny, hand, and helped me up, smiling.
'It's amazing, isn't it?' he asked, probably not expecting me to respond in the way I did.
I yanked my arm away from his hand.
'No! It's not amazing! You're doing it all wrong! You're meant to put your foot on its nose, not your hand! Dragons aren't equals! They're below humans! And what're you doing talking to it?! You're meant to yell, and scream at it. They won't listen to you, otherwise!'
The rider didn't say anything, all through my outburst- just blinked a few times, as if he couldn't understand what I was saying.
'But that's...cruel...' he said quietly, in shock.
'Cruel?! Who cares if it's cruel?!'
'I do...' he squeaked.
'I don't care about what a little runt like you thinks!'
His dragon growled, and terror made me stop. The only reaction the rider made to my comment, was going over to the beast, and trying to soothe it again.
'I wouldn't call Hiccup a runt, if I were you.' she said dangerously.
'Hiccup?! He's called Hiccup?! Awwwww, is it to keep all the little trolls and gnomes away- OWWWWW!' I howled, as the blonde girl twisted my wrist, and made me fall sideways to the ground.
'Astrid...' Hiccup said warningly. 'Don't make me tell you again.'
'Fine. But I'm not helping him up.' she decided.
'Point taken. You don't like him.'
'The feeling's mutual.' I muttered.
She lunged towards me, as if she was going to hurt me again, but this time, I cowered away- yet another thing I had learnt from working for Drago.
Hiccup walked over to me, and started talking to me soothingly, like he'd done to his dragon.
'Hey, it's okay. Come with me, and I'll show you something.'
He grabbed my arm, once again, and this time, I didn't pull away, like a naughty child. But even if I had, it wouldn't have worked- the boy was stronger that he looked.
Once I was upright again, he walked towards the other riders, who were assembled in front of him, like he was the teacher, and they were the pupils.
'Okay, guys. There's some dragons at the entrance of the academy-'
'Yeah, thanks for stating the obvious, Hiccup.' The rider they had called 'Tuff' said sarcastically.
'So, anyway, before I was so rudely interrupted-' he glared at Tuff- '-could someone open the gate to the Academy?' Hiccup asked.
'I'll do it.' the stocky rider volunteered. He jogged over to the gate, and flexed his muscles, before opening the gate, grunting- but afterwards, acting like it was no effort at all- and running back to where Hiccup and the other riders were, before he was killed by crazy dragons.
Hiccup walked towards the dragons, calmly, not yelling, or growling at them. The dragons looked slightly confused, but also relived, at his lack of this.
All except one dragon- a Monstrous Nightmare. It came scuttling towards him, intent on killing Hiccup, but still he did not scream at it. He placed a hand on its neck, just before it leapt on him, and it, too, looked confused that he was not screaming at it, before closing its eyes, and growling in pleasure.
Hiccup was scratching the Nightmare's neck, moving his hands over to a particular part of it, and he scratched this part.
The Nightmare made a noise of surprise, and the dragon's pupils, now full, not slitted from the Bewilderbeast's control, rolled over in its eyes, and its body, too, rolled over, onto the ground.
I gasped.
'Did you kill it...?'
Hiccup turned around.
'No, it's sleeping.'
'But...why didn't you use a dart?'
'Because we don't have them here, although you probably do, where you come from. Besides, even if we did, we wouldn't use them- there's much better ways to pacify a dragon, and the way I just demonstrated is just one of them.'
'Oh,' I replied.
Hiccup knelt down next to the Nightmare, and started to examine it. He gasped in horror, suddenly.
'Scars... and they look like they're claw-marks...'
Fishlegs came and knelt down next to Hiccup.
'Hiccup, they're probably just from dragon-fights.' he reasoned.
'But these scars are all in a specific place around his body. If he'd got in a dragon-fight, his opponent would just slash its claws randomly. So it can't be a dragon... it has to have been a human.'
'But what human would have claws, instead of fingers?' the blonde rider asked. She went over to me, and glanced at my hands, as if checking that I didn't have claws hidden behind my fingernails.
'Well, he certainly doesn't.' Tuff pointed out.
'Thanks for stating the obvious.' I mimicked what he'd said to Hiccup earlier.
'Wait... are you trying to make fun of me...? No, you couldn't be. That voice doesn't even sound like me.'
I ignored him, and focused on what Hiccup was saying.
'I- I don't know. Maybe Gobber's got a new prosthetic...? But he wouldn't be that cruel, to deliberately scar a dragon. Nobody on Berk would. Except-'
'Mildew.' the blonde rider finished for him.
'But he threw the Zippleback feet into the ocean!'
'Good point.'
'I think the best thing to do would be to ask my dad.' Hiccup decided, and went back to examining the dragon. He opened one of its eyelids, and gasped again.
The Nightmare's pupils had gone back to slits.
'Astrid, do you remember when we went to the Dragons' Nest?' Hiccup asked.
'Yes.'
'Well, when Toothless was in there, his pupils had turned to slits, too... And we could hear that strange humming sound.'
'Yes.' she repeated.
'So, I think that humming sound might have been the Red Death's 'song'. It... it was controlling Toothless.'
His dragon snarled, at the mention of this dragon, that sounded a lot like a Bewilderbeast.
'So... what are you saying?'
'I'm saying that I think this dragon might be controlled, too... But the Red Death is dead. So what could be controlling it?'
He turned to me, as if expecting me to give the answer, which I didn't.
'Okay, so he's giving us the silent treatment. Great. Luckily, I have more important things to deal with...'
Hiccup turned away, and approached the other dragons, who bowed their heads, expecting a foot to be placed onto them.
'Um...I think you broke them, Hiccup...' Tuff remarked.
'Yeah. I think I did... or someone else did. They've been tamed before. Wild dragons wouldn't do that...'
'But who tamed them?' The blonde rider was asking me, rather than Hiccup. She walked up to me threateningly.
'We'll just put you in jail until you tell us.'
'Whoa, whoa, Astrid. I'm sorry, but you're not the Chief. My dad is. He'll decide what'll happen to him. But before we do that, we need to-'
Before Hiccup had even finished talking, the dragons went into the open cages around the 'Academy', as if they knew what he was going to say.
'-get the dragons into their cages.' he finished. 'Well, I guess we don't need to do that anymore. Come on, guys, we're going to see my dad.'
The blonde rider climbed onto her dragon, and got it to take off- but it wasn't moving. I was just wondering why, when suddenly, I felt myself being lifted off the ground, and I felt the dragon's claws cutting into my arms.
'Just in case you refuse to come with us.' she told me, and then the dragon flew off, following behind the other riders.

I heard dragons landing outside the Great Hall, so I got up from the bench I was sitting on, and walked over to the double doors.
They were opened, and Hiccup and the other kids walked in... but Astrid was pushing in a stranger, pressing the blade of her axe to his throat as she did so.
'Leave him, Astrid.'
'Sorry, Chief.' she apologized, and released both her axe and her arms from him.
'It's alright. Now, Hiccup, what did you come to see me for?'
'Well, first of all, this guy here-' he pointed to the stranger. 'Toothless and I, and the other riders, captured him, and brought him to the Academy. He had some dragons following behind him in the sky, when me and Toothless abducted him from his dragon- a Nadder.'
I stroked my beard suspiciously.
'We let the dragons into the Academy, and when I started walking up to them, they looked confused, but they didn't attack- all except a Nightmare, which I pacified. I examined it, and opened one of its eyelids. The pupils were slits. Me and Astrid think that something might be controlling it, because Toothless's pupils looked similar when he was being controlled by the Red Death in the Dragons' Nest.'
'The big dragon?'
'Yes. But that can't be possible, because it's dead! So there has to be some other dragon controlling it... but what could it be? We asked the stranger this, but he gave us the silent treatment.'
'What else did you find?'
'Well, this was the last thing I was going to talk to you about.'
'Go on.'
'We found scars on the Nightmare. But they couldn't have been from a dragonfight, because if it did get them in a dragonfight, the opponent would just slash its claws randomly, not in a specific spot. So, I think the only explaination is that it got those scars from human claws... because the human was being cruel to them. But what human would have claws for fingers? I don't know anybody on the island who does, though.'
I was silent.
'Oh, and one more thing.'
I didn't reply.
'When I walked up to the other dragons again, this time, they bowed their heads. Wild dragons don't do that. It's almost as if they've been tamed before...'
'Broken.' Tuffnut interrupted.
Hiccup sighed.
'Yes, Tuffnut; broken. And when I said that we needed to get the dragons in their cages, they went into them before I'd even finished what I said.'
Hiccup had been so busy talking, that he didn't even notice my silence until he finished.
'Dad...?' he asked worriedly, waving a hand in front of my face.
'I'm fine, Hiccup!'
'Okay. So, what do you think?'
Claws instead of fingers...the dragons had bowed their heads... These pieces of evidence added up to something I didn't, couldn't think about...
'Hiccup. Put the Academy on lockdown- Arvendil's Fire- style.'
'With the super-cool secret bunker?' Tuffnut interrupted again.
'No.'
His face fell.
'Anyway, lock up all the dragons, and the stranger too. I'll question him personally later.'
'Dad?' Hiccup asked. 'Will Toothless be locked up, too?'
'No, son. He's too important.'
'So our dragons aren't?' Astrid demanded angrily.
'No, Astrid. You don't need to worry about them. They'll be safe. Besides, I don't think Toothless'd like being locked up again, after his- and Hiccup's- experience with the Outcasts.'
'Okay, sir. Is that all your orders?'
'Yes.'
Astrid nodded, and proceeded to press the blade of her axe to the stranger's throat again, and push him out of the Hall.
With the kids gone, I sat down heavily on the bench, and digested this latest terrifying piece of information...
...The only man I knew who had claws instead of fingers, at least on one of his hands, and claimed he could control dragons, just like Hiccup could, was...
Drago Bludvist. Those dragons, that were following behind the stranger when Hiccup and Toothless abducted him from his dragon, might have been his.
In which case, he was the kind of man I knew who would not take kindly to us 'stealing' his dragons.

'Okay, guys. I'd say we're just about done locking up the Academy- and the dragons.'
The other riders looked sadly at their dragons inside their cages, and the dragons did the same.
'Don't worry, guys. It's for the best. And anyway, my dad said that as soon as we're done locking up the Academy, we should go back to our houses, and lock them up too. So, come on.' I climbed onto Toothless.
'Hey! Don't leave me!' the stranger called from inside his prison.
I ignored him, and I flew back to my house, while the others walked.

I awoke suddenly, much later, very late at night.
Maybe my brain had woken me up because it knew I would be in danger.
As it turned out, it was right.
Drago's dragons, as well as the riders' ones, sniffed the air anxiously.
The dragons that belonged to Drago, as I had witnessed him telling many of them, whimpered, and put their heads down onto the floor. But the riders' dragons roared, and growled, sensing danger, like I did.
Two huge shapes walked into the Academy, noses to the ground.
Rumblehorns. He had used them to track us.
The dragons stopped at each cage, sniffing around. When they caught the scent of the other dragons, inside, they grunted in delight.
The owner of the claw, which was used to unlock the doors, did much the same.
Quickly, silently, every single dragon was released, except the riders' ones, and a foot was placed onto their snout.
'You may have been stolen from me, but you are still mine.' he reminded the dragons.
I could see his boots, made with the fur of a black bear, walking towards my prison.
Suddenly, out of the darkness, there came a claw, which ripped my furs, and found its way to my throat.
Drago made a sound between a growl and a chuckle, at my terror.
'You have been selling my dragons to them...' he snarled.
'N-no, Drago, of course not, it wasn't like that...' I choked.
'Are you calling me a liar...?'
'No...'
'Good. But if you are not calling me a liar...WHY ARE MY DRAGONS IN THOSE CAGES?!' he roared.
'They... they... captured... me... and... they... locked... them up...here...' I gasped, struggling to breathe.
'And... that's... not... the only... thing... they... have... locked up...here...'
Drago released his claw from my throat.
The Rumblehorns hadn't sniffed the riders' dragons out, because they didn't know their scent. And it was impossible to tell if anything was in the cages, because it was too dark in there.
Pulling a lantern containing Fireworms out of his cape, and hanging it onto his staff, Drago shined the light into each of the cages, until he found the riders' dragons.
He smiled, and motioned for the disguised soldiers to shoot.
The now sleeping dragons were dragged out of their cages.
'Take them to the ship.' Drago growled.
Once the soldiers had gone, he put his claw to my throat again.
'For showing me where the thieves' dragons were, boy, I will let you live. They will be valuable to me, and so will you... for now. But that doesn't mean that your attempt at running away, and trying to sell my dragons to them, will go unpunished. I just haven't decided how I will make you pay yet.'
He smiled menacingly, as he had an idea.
'For now, until I decide, you will be in prison with the thieves' dragons, looking after them.'
I nodded, as much as I could, and there was little else I could do.
'Good to know you agree with me. I hate it when people don't, as the Viking Chieftains learned.'
He growled, in gruesome happiness of that memory, and released me again.
With the claw that he had held my furs with, he unlocked my prison door, and grabbed me again, flinging me onto the cold, stone floor of the Academy.
I was winded by this, so I didn't get up immediately, as he'd expected me to.
He grabbed me by the back of my furs with his metal arm, and lifted me onto my feet.
Then he whacked me around the head, with the same arm, to get me walking.
So, with my head bleeding, and the blood dripping down onto the floor of the Academy, I followed Drago to his ship.

I was awoken by the sound of Toothless whining, and pawing at my bedroom door as if he was a dog.
'What is it, bud?' I asked tiredly.
He bounded over to me urgently, and gently took my good foot in his mouth, pulling on it slightly, as if he was trying to get me out of bed.
In good-natured bewilderment, I did what he wanted, and opened the door for him too.
Running out of it immediately, he stopped at the stairs, and made a noise, as if he wanted me to follow.
'Do you want to go out flying, bud, is that it? You must be really bored; we've been cooped up all night, like chickens. But it's only because Dad's paranoid-'
I stopped talking, as the thought came to me that perhaps Dad wasn't so paranoid after all. Toothless had been trying to warn me, and it wasn't the first time he'd done something like this.
The time before, I hadn't listened. But now I would. I had to.
'Come on, bud.' I said, climbing onto his back, and clicking my foot into the stirrup, with as much urgency as the speed Toothless was flying.
We stopped at each of the riders' houses, each of them annoyed to be woken up, but their faces turned pale with fear for their dragons when I told them what I thought Toothless had sensed.
I gave Astrid a taxi ride on Toothless's back to the Academy, because if something had happened, she was the best person to come with me.
As I'd feared, something had happened.
The dragons, every single one, had gone.
And there was some blood on the ground, next to the stranger's prison.
Astrid yelled in rage, and started swinging her axe wildly around her head, somewhat frighteningly resembling the person who I would later find out to be the one who had taken the dragons, shouting:
'He took Stormfly! I swear to Odin, when I find him, I am going to MURDER him, like he murdered the dragons!'
'Whoa, whoa, whoa, Astrid,' I said calmly, quelling her rage slightly. 'Let's just calm down. Okay?'
'Okay.' She certainly didn't look like she was planning to calm down, but, nonetheless, I continued.
'He hasn't murdered the dragons; that's human blood, not dragon blood. And I've seen enough of mine to know the difference.'
'It's true! Hiccup, remember that time when we were five, and we were playing boar-in-the-middle with rocks-'
'Yes, Tuffnut, and I don't really want, or need, to be reminded of that- wait; Tuff, you're a genius!' I exclaimed.
'I know. We knew that already, but you probably discovered it when we had the Eel Effect.'
'Yeah, whatever... Anyway...' I sighed, more exsasperated with Tuff now than happy with him.
'When Ruff and Tuff hit me in the head with those rocks, there was a lot of blood- like there is on the ground. And a rock is a heavy object. So, it looks like the stranger- I'm guessing it's the stranger, because the blood's the closest to his prison- was hit with a heavy object. And one of the rocks that hit me was sharp, and it cut slashes in my head. I think that the stranger must have been hit with something sharp, too... but what?'
'Claws...?' Astrid suggested nervously.
'Yeah, maybe. But we know that the stranger doesn't have claws- at least, I don't think he does- he wouldn't hit and claw himself in the head. So it had to be someone else that did it... someone who was angry at him... and now that we know that those scars on the Nightmare were made by someone who had claws instead of fingers on one of their hands, I'm guessing that that hand is also metal. It would have to be, to draw that much blood from the stranger's head.
'But why would the person be angry at the stranger...?' I asked, more to myself than Astrid.
'Because... you saw the way he scarred the Nightmare, Hiccup. He must think that he can treat dragons how he wants... because they belong to him- that's why they bowed their heads when you walked up to them... they've been tamed before, like you said; you were right...'
'And the dragons that were following behind the stranger in the sky when we found him... must belong to the person, too.' I realised.
'And we brought his dragons to the Academy, and we locked them up- well, actually, they locked themselves up- and then we went to Dad, and he told us to lock our dragons up... and now, they're gone. So, the person must have broken into the Academy some time last night, and taken his dragons... our dragons... and the stranger.'
'Wow, how did you get all that from a pool of blood?!' Tuff asked; he'd clearly not been listening.
'Never mind...' I sighed, muttering, 'It's probably too complicated for your brain to follow anyway...'
Tuff didn't hear, luckily.
'Look, all we need to do right now, is go down to the docks and steal a ship. Hopefully, if we hurry, we can steal it before my dad gets up for Chiefing.'
'So, where are we going, Hiccup?' Tuff asked again.
'We're going to save our dragons.'