28I am so sorry it's taken so long to update, but I hope you enjoy this latest chapter. I also hope everyone is staying safe with the COVID-19 virus running rampant.
I don't own How to Train Your Dragon. Please let me know what you think.
The Dragon Conqueror.
At the end of the week, Hiccup had a break from training the soldiers; whether or not that was because the General and his Warlord wanted to give them a break, Hiccup neither knew nor did he care.
In any case, Hiccup had the time to himself to clean out the dragon pens while the dragons themselves were out flying around the compound, which gave him the opportunity to get to work without the dragons blocking the space. The work was filthy and it took him hours to clean up the mess with a shovel and a broom to clean up the hay from one pen alone before he moved onto another.
Hiccup gasped in exertion as he hauled another full sack of used hay to the exit, and he paused for a moment to lean against the wall of the pen. From where he was standing, Hiccup could see the underside of the dome, and he smiled at the dragons as they cawed and roared in the air. He closed his eye and rubbed his forehead with the back of his wrist.
He was tired. He had gotten up early to get this work done since he was the only one who'd do it; all the peasants who worked in the compound were happy to keep the fishes coming and that was as far as it went. They refused to come anywhere near the compounds, and since Hiccup was the only one who was willing to come to the pens to clean them up, the job was down to him.
But Hiccup guessed he couldn't blame them. When the peasants had first been handed the job, they had gone into the pens expecting to get the job done - Hiccup didn't really know of the finer details, but he knew that a number of the peasant workers had been killed, and more than a few were injured - and they had refused to go back.
And so the job had been handed to him. All he needed to do was wait for a month to pass so he could let the pens get really dirty and then he would arrange for a few days where he could really concentrate on the work so the dragons' living conditions were much nicer for them. Hiccup went to the water bottles he had prepared for himself. As the cold liquid trickled down his throat, Hiccup gasped with pleasure and took another sip to enjoy this break since it gave him time to think.
The training had been fairly chaotic, no thanks to the idiots who caused problems. Hiccup wondered if the General was determined to cause problems, but he was sure the General was actually making his troops take note of everything they were taught in order to stage their own power grab. He had overheard a few of the soldiers, laughing under their breaths as they had trained to ride on the dragons that they would show the warlord "true strength."
Yeah, there were a few soldiers like that idiot who'd whipped his dragons who caused problems for Hiccup since they constantly slowed things down, but overall they were getting better at flying the dragons and Hiccup had no doubt when the time came, the Warlord would be suddenly facing an enemy without any allies to protect himself or sacrifice for his own skin.
Hiccup's brow crinkled a little bit while he stood underneath the dragons, thinking about those soldiers who were slowing things down. He had noticed it from time to time, but he had dismissed it at first before he had picked up on it a few times since, and then he had heard the whispers. Hiccup didn't know for sure whether or not what the General was going to do, and while it had occurred to Hiccup to cause problems when he had realised what the General and his soldiers were planning to do by alerting the Conqueror, he had decided not to bother. He had his own plans for dealing with the Warlord and his city, and even if the revelation would likely give him a position of authority in the Warlord's ranks he didn't know for certain if it would cause problems further down the line. In any case, Hiccup had no idea for certain if the General's plans to move forward against his master would take place on the scheduled day where the Warlord would begin his conquest, or even if it would happen earlier.
Hiccup would have liked to say he didn't care, but he knew he did need to care. He didn't like the General, in fact, he hated him. The man was a fool, pompous and blustering…but he knew the General was dangerous. He was a professional soldier, and even if the man was arrogant, Hiccup knew he was politically ambitious and thanks to his military background he would see the benefits to dragons much like his boss.
But Hiccup feared what kind of things that would happen if the Warlord suddenly disappeared; the Warlord may have imprisoned and enslaved him and the dragons, but the man had given him (Hiccup) a lot of leeway. The General was a military man who was as inflexible as the Vikings Hiccup had left behind, and he demanded instantaneous results. The leeway Hiccup had received would just disappear as if it had never been there if the General took charge.
Thinking about the Vikings made Hiccup sigh, and he wondered what it said about his life in general that he would leave Berk, become a pirate flying on the back of a dragon, and travelling across much of the world only to find himself back to square one, which included another Kill Ring and a man whose inability to look beyond the point of his own nose rivalled that of Stoick the Vast himself.
In any case, Hiccup knew that the General wouldn't let him live for long, although he had little doubt the long term plan was to watch how he interacted with dragons so then they could copy him and his moves, and when they were sure he had given them what they wanted… well, Hiccup knew his life, his short life, would be ended.
The General and the Warlord may not have been on the same page, and it was so bad the General had his own ambitions which meant he would, one day, overthrow the Dragon Conqueror, but they both agreed on one thing. They didn't want Hiccup to be around for long, so whoever was in power it would make little difference since he would likely be killed before he could even put his plans into motion to find Toothless again and leave.
After a few more minutes of thought, Hiccup shrugged his shoulders. He wasn't in any real position to fight back against the two men, and in any case, since he planned to move against them and their city anyway, Hiccup didn't seen the point. But for now, he would need to just keep his head down and train the dragons and the idiot soldiers, and yet he wondered again what the point was behind the stubbornness of some of the soldiers. If the General had his own plans to take over and it required the dragons, why were they deliberately causing problems? Was it so then they could show him (Hiccup) up?
Hiccup rolled his eyes and he got back to work, wrinkling his nose in disgust as he did. He had never really been burdened with the mess the dragons had left behind in the Kill Ring on Berk even if he had, as Gobber's apprentice, ventured with the old blacksmith down into the compound of the Kill Ring (he would not think of Gobber; some of the memories were too good and too painful, and in any case, Hiccup dreaded to think about how the old Viking blacksmith viewed him now), but it had been so long since he had smelt the stink of the pens.
He also cursed the Chinese for their collective cowardice in just doing something like this today since the dragons were flying outside and they weren't going to bother the peasants.
It took Hiccup three hours to clean the larger pens, and he was grateful that he had managed to do so much in just one day. When he went home, his entire body would be stinking of BO, and he would be aching all over. But unfortunately, he had to wheel the whole out in a large wheelbarrow. Hiccup grunted as he heaved the messy hay out of the Training Ring, and he had to repeat the same journey again and again. When he had finished up with his tasks for the day, Hiccup rubbed the sweat out of his eyes and leaned against a wall to recover his strength.
While he leaned against the wall, feeling just how tired he was, Hiccup was tempted just to slide bonelessly to the ground and just sleep off his exhaustion although he knew he would need to keep going until he'd fed the dragons, and made sure they were comfortable for the night. Still, there was plenty of time for that.
As he was recovering, Hiccup looked around the training ring for inspiration for something to do in the meantime before it was time for him to tend to the dragons once more, and as he did so he looked up and he realised he was being watched by dozens of children.
Children?
Hiccup hadn't really had a great deal of contact with the children around here, so he didn't know why they were here. While a small part of him, admittedly a very small part, was curious if they wanted to do away with their people's traditions just like he himself had when he had stopped himself killing Toothless in the forest outside the village, before giving him the prosthetic tail-fin and then riding on him.
Unfortunately, Hiccup wasn't going to find out today.
As soon as they realised his attention was on them, the children disappeared.
Hiccup frowned for a moment, wondering what all that was about, and then he just shrugged his shoulders and got back to work.
XXX
The next day, Hiccup was once more up early. Once he'd had something quick but filling for breakfast, he was back to cleaning out the dragon pens and making sure the dragons themselves were let out into the open air of the dome. After ensuring they didn't kill each other since they were understandably frustrated by their imprisonment as he himself was, Hiccup got to work. He was eternally grateful to Thor and Odin he'd had the common sense to deal with the larger pens to get it out of the way.
While he worked, he had time to think. He was mentally counting down the days before he could finally get revenge on the Warlord who'd imprisoned him and the dragons, but he knew he would need to be careful. He planned for tonight and tomorrow to be so he could persuade the dragons to be a little bit more cooperative since he knew the more cooperative the dragons were to the Chinese, the sooner they could all escape. But he knew he would need to be careful since there was still a chance of discovery, but if he could make the dragons more cooperative by the time the training reached a higher phase, the easier it would be for him to fight back.
He wished he had Toothless with him, and for a moment he paused as he thought of his dragon. Toothless had hated being trapped in the cove on Berk for long periods, especially when he was still trying to escape following the loss of his tail-fin, but when his flight was restored, bit by bit, the Night Fury had accepted the cove as a makeshift home. Granted, although Toothless still loathed being trapped, Hiccup hadn't had any real trouble.
But here…
It was only the plan and the dragons which were the reasons Hiccup was still sane. Thor only knew how dragons who'd been imprisoned in Kill Rings for months on end, knowing they could not escape, waiting for the Vikings to kill them off in those training or practice sessions. Hiccup would not be surprised if many of them had gone mad in that time. Hiccup had once spared a thought of how Toothless would have coped in here, but he had quickly stopped; the Chinese may have tried to kill him in order to stop him from escaping himself, and there would have been little he could have done to stop it happening.
Hiccup pushed those depressing thoughts aside. He had enough on his mind as it was, enough work to do to keep him busy, and yet his mind never strayed too far from the idea.
He wondered what had happened to Toothless, and he had begun to ask himself seriously if he would ever see his Night Fury again. Hiccup guessed that was a fear that made sense, especially since he had been held prisoner by that bastard Warlord who called himself the Dragon Conqueror, but he still held out hope he would find Toothless at some point.
In any case, it wasn't as if Toothless was defenceless. He was more than a match against humans and dragons, even if the dragon breeds around here were far different, and came with other body weapons Hiccup had never seen or expected before. But one of Toothless's greatest strengths was his intelligence. He wouldn't land somewhere without being a hundred per cent certain he would be safe, but Hiccup was worried about the prosthetic he had built for the dragon.
Was it still working?
Had Toothless run into some kind of accident where the tail-fin had been damaged, or worse?
What if he had been grounded, and he hadn't been able to escape?
All of those depressing thoughts filled his mind, making it impossible for him to concentrate, and so Hiccup took a moment to stop and get his act back together so he could move on, but as he did he found another reason to stop. Those children were back, and they were watching him and the dragons as they flew underneath the reinforced dome.
Hiccup dropped what he was doing, and stood up, holding a hand over his eyes to block the sunlight so he could see them all better.
There were dozens of them, from what he could see, but he wondered why they were there.
He had his answer when suddenly the children started hurling stones and bits of rotten food at the dragons, shouting obscenities at them. Many of the dragons were in the air, and some of them were out of range of the offending projectiles but there were quite a few of them on the ground who were taking advantage of the hot sun to bathe themselves in the rich heat of the sun, and they were taken by surprise when they were hit.
"STOP THAT!" Hiccup yelled at them, watching with his good eye as the dragons, roused by the attack, looked around themselves for the source. Hiccup, who was more than aware of what an angry dragon could do, wondered if these children were incredibly stupid or just desperate to get themselves killed. He was about to usher the dragons back into the safety of their pens when the inevitable happened.
One of the more aggressive dragons in the ring was looking around furiously, his head moving so he could tell where the sounds of shouting were coming from, when he was hit in the face, making him roar with pain and rage.
The sound of the roar made Hiccup cringe, knowing what was happening and the children to stop. The dragon shot up into the air so fast he was a blur, but Hiccup and the children saw the fire.
"STOP IT!" Hiccup screamed as the children shrieked en-masse in their panic, and he rushed over to one of the other dragons, and after a few moments of persuasion, he was flown over to the dragon, who had now latched onto the scaffolding of the dome, and was trying to claw its way to the children frantically so it could burn them to death. It was roaring in frustration as it's struggling to get through the scaffolding were met with failure.
Hiccup pulled on the horns of the dragon he was riding so he could survey the scene for a moment before he acted. As he did so, he realised that the dragon was actually a female, and he closed his eyes in annoyance, cursing this particular breed for having a very nasty temper and that the females were much more vicious with their anger. This was not going to be easy, but he knew he needed to stop it. Through the gaps in the dome, he could see that the children, panicked about the dragon, had already run off, but Hiccup wondered if the dragon had burnt a few of them already. Personally he wasn't that bothered - years and years of seeing dragons abused and mistreated had hardened him and made him apathetic to a degree towards those who did them harm - but at the same time, in this case, he only knew this would cause him more and more problems further down the line, but his plan was the best one he had so far.
Hiccup was snapped out of his thoughts when he heard the calls of very angry Chinese voices. He looked around, and he groaned when he saw the group of soldiers, they were moving closer and closer to the dome.
"Stay back!" he shouted, hoping that whoever was in charge had the common sense to listen to him; their weapons were good, but the dragon was in the air, hopefully out of range, but if they harmed her then they would regret it quickly. "Let me handle this!"
But they hadn't heard him. The soldiers quickly stuck their arrows into their bows, and they unleashed a volley against the dragon. Hiccup closed his eye when he heard her roar which went through him, but he quickly reopened his eye…and he shouted in anger when he saw the dragon breathe fire down at the men.
"Come on," Hiccup cried at the dragon he was riding and flew closer. When they were close enough, Hiccup stood upon the dragon's back and after a few moments of waiting for the right moment, Hiccup jumped off of the dragon and onto the other. The dragon shrieked in surprise, but Hiccup quickly got to work soothing her.
"Calm down! This isn't doing any good!" Hiccup told her, feeling all of the hard work he had put into the training, all the planning was being washed away. He cursed the children for stoking the flames of the dragons' anger, he cursed the Chinese for imprisoning him and all the dragons in here, but he cursed himself for not bothering to properly investigate what the children wanted and guessing what they were planning to do.
The dragon roared.
Hiccup sighed, and he leapt back in reflex while he held onto the dragon's back scales to keep himself steady when an arrow smashed into one of the wing bones, but the strengthened but very tough bone did not suffer any damage.
"Idiot," he whispered before he got back to work. "Calm down," he said while he stroked the dragon's neck soothingly, hoping that he was getting through to the dragon, but with all the arrows flying everywhere and their real threat, he knew it would take a miracle to properly calm her down.
"STOP YOU FOOLS! DON'T HARM THE DRAGONS OR THE TRAINER!"
Hiccup looked down in surprise, and he sighed with relief when he saw someone….someone he had never expected to be happy to see coming in quickly. The General was running over to the soldiers, and he was shouting at them and even smacking them all to stop them. The presence of their military commander did a lot of good in stopping them, and the arrows stopped flying. Hiccup sighed, wondering at the irony of being happy to see the General intervene, but he knew he was still in for it, and he returned to stroking the dragons' neck.
"It's okay," he whispered, knowing only himself and the dragon could hear what he was saying, "calm down. It's okay. Now, we're going to be flying down to the pens together. It's over. The children are gone. They have stopped. The soldiers have stopped attacking, it's over. Come on, we can go back and when it comes to your freedom, you can go wherever you want once we've made them pay for what they've done, and their city is nothing more than a burning pile of rubble."
Hiccup directed the dragon to fly back to the ground when he was certain she was calm down again, and she wasn't going to lash out anymore, but as they flew closer to the ground, Hiccup wondered what the Chinese were going to do next….
There was no doubt in his mind they would probably try to kill the dragon; there were so many dragons in the ring held prisoner, the General wouldn't bat an eyelid at the loss of one when there were so many left. As Hiccup flew the dragon back to the ground, he hit upon an idea he hoped would work. He bent over and he whispered to the dragon his idea, keeping an eye out on the rest of the dragons in the meantime. His idea might just work…
XXX
"TRAINER!" the General shouted in anger as he marched angrily into the arena…only to pause when some of the dragons, already up in wings over the attack of the children, hissed and spat with malice.
Hiccup walked over, muttering a few calming words to each of the dragons, came to a stop in front of the General. His face was stormy with anger. "I am grateful for your help in stopping your soldiers, but don't come in here when the dragons are pissed off."
"H-How dare you speak to me like that! I shall have you-!"
"Shut your face! I am trying to stop the dragons from going mad, which you are doing by marching in here. You are in their territory now, and do you really think they really care about your soldiers being in here?" Hiccup added, looking over the General's shoulder to take in the group of soldiers who'd followed their glorious leader inside the arena.
The presence of the soldiers had roused the already angry and agitated dragons, but despite their weapons and their armour, and their natural arrogance in their own abilities, they were watching the dragons with fear, especially when the dragons collectively surrounded them and created a large natural wall all around, smoke rising from their nostrils while other dragons were preparing to use their other body weapons. Hiccup could guess what they were thinking. A sword was sharp. A spear was long and depending on the skill a dangerous weapon, and an arrow was capable of covering a large distance, but they were no match for the dragons, and they knew it, if their terrified faces were anything to go by.
The General seemed to sense the danger now, and he turned back to Hiccup, and despite his best efforts, he was completely unable to mask the fear in his expression. Hiccup was impressed; this blustering fool had never come into the arena before after the dragons had been pissed off out of their minds, so it was an experience he was enjoying.
"Well, General, what is it you want?" Hiccup asked.
The General pulled himself up to try to regain some of his control and authority, but after he'd let his fear bleed out it was unsurprising that Hiccup wasn't fooled. "Where is the dragon that attacked those children?" he demanded.
"You mean the same children who'd thrown rotten fruit and rocks on the dragons?" Hiccup countered, unwilling to back down. "And as for the dragon, what are going to do with it?"
His suspicions were confirmed when the General's face had what looked like a cross between a grimace and a smirk. It was a hideous expression that made Hiccup instantly want to grab a sword and slash off of the General's face.
"We are going to kill it. And you are going to tell us where the dragon is, right now, Trainer!"
Hiccup had to use every ounce of his self-control to stop himself from telling the dragons to attack the soldiers while allowing him to kill the General slowly. He had been able to allow the dragons out anytime he had chosen, but he wanted the entire city to be destroyed, on the very same day the Dragon Conqueror prepared for his conquest of the world.
It was the best time to defeat the Warlord. But Hiccup had been tempted, more than once over the last few months, to simply dismiss his plan, and just wipe out the city. He had thought he could handle it, playing the role of the slave, but the more time that passed he was having problems sticking to the plan as he should while he had to put up with the bigots in the city, the General and the Dragon Conqueror himself.
But Hiccup knew the best plan was the one where no-one knew what was going on until it was too late. But nonetheless, he had not been stupid enough to just depend on the one plan, and hope for the best. He had used the last few months smuggling barrels of gunpowder and bringing them here on the off chance something might happen. And he had mixed the powder with wood pulp, and a few other ingredients he had experimented with in order to make gunpowder more powerful, so he was hoping their escape would be simple. Hiccup had started doing this once he'd realised that the General had plans for the Dragon Conqueror, and he'd wondered if the General who was as power-mad as his boss would stage a coup. The powder was just insurance, placed in one of the empty pens where no-one went inside, and he had a map of the city concealed in his clothes, so when they did attack the city then he would know precisely where to hurt it the most.
"I don't know," Hiccup knew he was playing a very dangerous game; he could see just behind some of the dragons a number of soldiers bringing in what looked like cannons. No, they couldn't be serious-!
"Trainer-!"
"I seriously don't know," Hiccup said desperately, hoping the General wasn't stupid enough to go behind his master's back like this. "I saw several other dragons who were furious over what your….children did, and by the time I had finished, she had blended in with the others. I don't know which dragon she is," he argued, hoping his bluff worked.
Unfortunately, the General was in no mood for excuses. He turned around and yelled a command.
"No!" Hiccup yelled, but it was too late.
There was an almighty explosion as the cannons exploded.
"NO!" Hiccup screamed again, looking on in horror as six of the dragons, startled by the explosion, roared in pain as the projectiles of the cannons struck them all hard, killing them instantly.
"Don't do anything!" Hiccup yelled to the others, holding up his hand in the signal he had pre-arranged with the dragons to not do anything until I say which warred with their own desire to rip, tear, burn and melt the soldiers for what they had done. It was a testament of their bond to Hiccup they did as they were told.
But Hiccup wasn't bothered while he rushed over to the bodies of the dragons, uncaring of the soldiers, uncaring of the General in the arena. One of the dragons was still alive, and Hiccup went over to it, gently pressing a hand on its head while the life bled away from its eyes.
Hiccup exhaled slowly in horror while he felt a rising rage starting to burn within him. He had felt this anger before when Alvin's men had tortured him and mutilated him until he had only one eye. He had lashed out against every single Viking in the archipelago, with his raids on their ships and islands, combining human intelligence with dragon intelligence and power.
As he stared down at the body, unable to take his eyes off the corpse, Hiccup knew he had made a fatal mistake. He cursed his stupid plan to destroy the warlord and his army until there was nothing left but burnt-out cinders. He should have just pretended to go along with the bastards and focus on training the dragons like he was on their side before he unleashed them all when they'd been lulled into a false sense of security.
What had he done instead?
He had tried to be clever, too clever. And it had cost the lives of six dragons, wasting so much valuable time, kept him away from Toothless!
No more.
He had had enough.
"You will get back to training the dragons, Trainer," the General said, pure arrogance in his voice, filled with a mix of pleasure over what they'd done. "And you will succeed-."
"Kill all of them, but bring down the General. I want to kill him personally!" Hiccup screamed, his command echoing around the arena. "Bring me a sword!"
The dragons instantly exploded into action, their speed and power taking the soldiers by surprise. The soldiers with the cannons didn't bother to reload their weapons, they ran out, but they were brought down easily by the poisonous barbs of one dragon, who grabbed the gleaming sword he had been carrying at the time and flew it back to the waiting hands of Hiccup who had ordered one of the swords to be brought to him, and they screamed in agony as the poison burnt through their veins. The armoured soldiers who had come in with the General were attacked by the others, their screams blending with the sounds of the dragon's fire.
The General was left stumped in surprise and horror over what was happening, and he just stood there while he watched the carnage while several of the dragons flew to the dome and they breathed their fire or shot their gas at the poor devils they could find before he realised where he was, and he fumbled with his sword….but he was stunned when he felt the sharp edge of a sword at his throat. The General stiffened when he felt the razor edge, knowing he moved an inch, he would be killed instantly.
"Stop this!" the General whispered.
"You are in no position to give me commands," Hiccup was enjoying this. He pulled the sword back, making the General think he was backing down, but Hiccup slashed his throat, making the General choke in surprise as his throat started spewing arterial blood. "I had planned on destroying the entire city, but only when the Dragon Conqueror believed he had me in his power," Hiccup sneered at the title, making it clear what he truly thought about it while he heard the General choke to death on his blood, "but now…you've given me the perfect excuse to destroy his world, only you won't be around long to see it."
With that, the General died, and as he did he conjured an image of his long-held dreams of glory, where he was the ruler of a mighty empire forged by dragons, only now the image was black. With that, the General died.
XXX
Hiccup looked down at the corpse of the General and he cast his eyes around the arena at all the bodies of the other soldiers, wanting to tear his hair out in frustration with his own shortsightedness.
He knew this was his fault. He could have escaped ages ago, but instead, he had needed to be clever, and use the Conqueror's own schedule against him, but he could have gotten the dragons to escape long ago. And now six of them were now dead.
Giving one last frustrated shake of his head, Hiccup turned to the other dragons, his mind already working out how they could escape. He discounted the gate instantly; while it was large, it wasn't large enough for all the dragons to escape, and they would be close to the ground, and if there were any more soldiers out there, they would be waiting and they'd have an easy time killing off the dragons.
He decided to destroy the dome. It harked back to his days where the Kill Rings were destroyed on Berk, and other islands, only this time they were all going to escape.
"We have work to do," he said to them, striding over to the pens where he'd hidden the gunpowder. Some of the dragons followed, knowing what he had stored in there. Hiccup opened the gates and he strode in, and he walked over to the hay covered beds that were prepared in case more dragons were captured. In short, they were the perfect place to hide gunpowder. Hiccup threw off the hay, revealing the barrels and the lengths of coiled, strong rope lying nearby. Hiccup grabbed some of the barrels and some rope before he turned to the dragons.
"Pick up some of the barrels between you," he ordered them, "and don't forget to take up the rope. I will tie them to the dome, but you will need to take them all up. But be wary, and whatever you all do, do not breathe fire on them. No matter what. Your freedom depends on it," he said, making sure the dragons knew what was at stake.
Hiccup and the dragons worked quickly while they fixed the barrels to the frame of the dome. Hiccup used the rope to securely tie the barrels he had with him to the dome to see how difficult it was. It took him four attempts before he was able to secure the gunpowder to the dome, but when he was finished he knew precisely what to do.
Once that was done, Hiccup got the dragon he was riding to fly to the others so he could fix the dragons' burdens to the dome while they held it. As he tied the rope to the scaffolding, Hiccup found the whole act of tying the Chineses' own weapon to the dome they had built to imprison the dragons and force him to train them to conquer and destroy very symbolic, since this was their freedom he was winning.
When the final barrel was tied to the last part of the dome, Hiccup guided the dragons back and he surveyed his work while he craned his neck upwards. The gunpowder barrels were concentrated along one large section of the dome, right at the top where the scaffolding came together. Hiccup placed as many of the barrels as he could to the joints of the bars, where they were weakest although he needed to be careful with the spikes sticking out, and some of the smaller barrels had been wedged into the gaps and secured with the others. Hiccup closed his eyes, and he hoped this worked; he had another supply of gunpowder in the pens, but he didn't want to use it unless he had no choice. He held up his hand when he was sure the dragons were out of the way, but thanks to the dome it was hard for them to move since the debris - if there was any - would rain down on the ground.
"Fire!"
The dragons fired dozens of plasma bursts at the barrels. Please work, Hiccup pleaded, please….!
A loud explosion rang out through the air, making Hiccup and the dragons flinch in reflex over the volume, and it threw up a huge amount of dust from the pulverised materials used to build the dome as they collapsed to the ground now they weren't fixed. Hiccup winced, hearing the sound of wrenching metal before he winced again as he heard the impact.
Ignoring the dust although it bothered his only eye, Hiccup looked at the dragons. They were all looking at him expectantly, wondering what their next move is.
Hiccup smiled at them grimly. "Let's get out of here. We're going to destroy the city tonight!"
