Everybody has a past, even dragons. And sometimes, that past can come back to haunt them. And when it does, you're gonna need to be there for them.

A few of us stood around one of the many strange holes that had popped up overnight all over Berk. Toothless made his way over to it and sniffed the deep tunnel, then began to roar and rear wildly.

"Whoa, hey!" I stretched my arms out to calm my dragon. "It's just a hole, bud."

"It's not just a hole! It's like an underground village!" I looked down in alarm at the sound of Bucket's voice coming from the bottom of the hole. How did he get down there?

"Bucket! There you are," Mulch sighed. "I've been looking for you all night!"

"Sorry, Mulch. But I think I finally found it: my happy place!" The ground rumbled beneath us, and Bucket was shot out of the hole in a cloud of dust.

"Are you all right, Bucket?" my dad asked.

"Not so happy anymore."

"What happened?"

"Something pushed me out! Something's down there! Something big!" Toothless growled again before jumping down into the hole, and soon enough, the ground started trembling, and a sound almost like thousands of whispers began to seep through the cracks.

"What is that sound?" Reign muttered, staring at the ground as though the answer would spell itself out for her.

"Eh, whatever it is, it's giving me the willies!" Everyone backed up as the tremors got more violent, and suddenly, a creature with blank eyes and thousands of teeth shot up in front of us.

"Whoa! Look at the size of that thing!" Snotlout marveled.

"Do I have to?" Fishlegs quivered.

"Dragons, everyone!" Astrid ordered. The group got onto their dragons and prepared to fire, while I stared at it carefully, trying to figure out what it was.

"Uh, I don't like the way it's eyeballing me."

"Don't worry, it's not just you."

"Thanks, big relief."

After taking the time to look around at everything, it dove back into the ground, tail flicking and cracking like a whip as it struggled to fit its large body back down below.

"What... was... that?"

"Whatever it was, I want one!" Reign shot Tuff a glare.

"If I had to guess, I'd say that was a Whispering Death."

"Whoa, great name. So much better than Zippleback."

"W-Where'd it go?" Bucket looked around nervously. "Why's it here? What's it gonna do to us? Why aren't you slapping me to snap me out of this?"

"Because I'm scared too, Bucket," Mulch answered honestly. The Whispering Death burst from the ground again, creating a fresh hole in the ground.

"Ah, it looks angry. Why don't you do that thing where you touch its nose and feed it grass?" There was no way I would be able to get close enough to this thing to gain its trust. And that whole 'feed it grass' bit was a little demeaning.

"Okay! Uh, Fishlegs, what do we know about the Whispering Death?"

"Boulder class; razor-sharp teeth, incredibly strong, hunts from underground," he shouted.

"Now I really want one."

"So, how do we deal with this thing?"

"Stand back, everyone!" We all looked up to see my dad diving down on Thornado, clearly thinking this was the way to try and deal with this dragon. "Thornado's got something to say to this beast!" The large Thunderdrum shot out a sonic boom, but it didn't faze the Whispering Death for more than a split second.

"I don't think it's got its listening ears on!"

"All right, let's run this thing out of here." Those with dragons flew up to stand at my dad's side and help him at least get the rogue dragon back into the ground. Toothless suddenly emerged from the hole and started roaring and growling at the Dragon Riders. They pulled themselves back from the line of fire just as the Whispering Death dove at Toothless.

"Toothless!" I watched as it tackled my Night Fury, then as he fired back with several plasma blasts that missed. Toothless tried to fly and get up to the Whispering Death, but because he couldn't control his fake tail fin on his own, he was only able to get himself a few inches off the ground. As much as I hated the idea of entering a fight that could endanger my dragon, he was more likely to get hurt, or worse, by not being able to fly away.

"Toothless can't fly without me! He's a sitting duck!"

"Gobber, man the catapults," my dad ordered as he landed, "and when that thing is clear of Toothless, fire!"

"Dad, wait!" I ran over to Toothless. "Just let me help you, bud." As soon as I tried to mount him, he tossed his head to throw me away. "What? Toothless, wha-what's wrong?" I asked in complete disbelief. He looked back at me a couple of times before roaring loudly and bounding away.

"What was that all about?" Reign asked, appearing at my side.

"I have no idea." The Whispering Death suddenly shot out a couple of spines, and one got lodged in Toothless' leg. He growled in agony as he tried his best to stay as far in the air as he could go.

"Gobber!" Following the command, Gobber launched a couple of boulders right at the dragon, sending it back down into the ground. Once we were sure it was gone, I ran to Toothless and looked closely at his leg.

"Oh, no, you're hurt!" I hesitated to pull it out, but Toothless looked back at me with those big, affectionate eyes, telling me it was okay to get the spine out of his leg. He sniffed where the hole of the spine was, then took off out of nowhere, bounding up toward my hut to look out over the edge we lived on. "Toothless, wait!"

"Where's he going?"

"Probably running away to lick his wounds," Snotlout snorted.

"It's not funny," I snapped back. "He could've been killed. He can't fly, remember?"

"And whose fault is that?"

"Seriously, did you just go there?" Reign snapped, coming to my defense as usual.

"Hey, I call it like I see it."

"Um, does anybody want to talk about what in the name of Thor just happened?" Fishlegs diverted.

"A dragon fight. Just another day on Berk."

"Uh, not really. It seemed like there was way more to it than that."

"He's right. The Whispering Death singled Toothless out."

"And Toothless wanted that dragon all to himself."

"Yeah, he certainly did." I looked over at my dragon again, intently watching the ground, waiting for the Whispering Death to spring up. "But why?"

"Uh, are we going to be tested on this? Because I'm completely confused."

"Well, don't look at me." I couldn't take my eyes off of Toothless. What could possibly be causing him to act like this? Normally, he only got like this with another dragon after we had discovered it was hostile, but he had dived into this one's home to seek it out.

"Come on, let's try to get him inside." Reign touched my arm to get my attention, then offered a smile.

I applied a salve to Toothless' wound when Reign went down to grab the dinner my dad had made for us. She had been here all day, trying to help me figure out what was going on. But the sun had now long set, and we were no closer to finding our answers than we were when we started.

"I-I really wish you could just tell me what was going on out there today," I sighed. I finished dressing the wound, and Toothless began growling at the footsteps that came up the stairs.

"Whoa, whoa, easy, bud. It's just Reign... and my dad." She flashed a smile and set the plates down on my desk.

"How's our wounded warrior?"

"He's still a little on edge," I sighed. My dad got closer to Toothless and gently pet the top of his head.

"Don't worry, Toothless. I think we showed that dragon a thing or two about uninvited guests on Berk. I don't think he'll be coming back anytime soon." My dad hesitated. "At least, I hope not."

"Yeah, me too," Reign sighed. My dad turned and left the room, giving Reign and I time to eat.

"Okay, that should do it, bud. You just need to take it easy."

"Then that means you have time to eat." Reign placed one of the plates in my hands, then sat down on the floor. After letting out a sigh, I joined her and began to shovel the fish into my mouth. "Whoa! Slow down, Hiccup. You're gonna choke." She reached out to move the fork from my mouth.

"What? You said I had time to eat, but never how much time." She looked at me, then laughed and set down her food. "What now?"

"You- you've got a little something, right..." She gestured to the corner of her mouth, and I sheepishly brushed away the bits of food. "Don't be so embarrassed. It was cute."

"How was that cute?" She shrugged and took a few more bites. "No, tell me." I sneakily picked off a piece of fish and chucked it at her.

"Wha-hey!"

"You wouldn't tell me."

"You're mean." She picked up the piece and threw it back at me. "You deserved it." While she finished the rest of her food, I stared at Toothless, who was pacing and staring at the window. "Hey, we'll figure out what's going on." I looked at her and shook my head.

"I just hope it's before he gets hurt any further." She squeezed my arm.

"I'll make sure of it." Reign sighed and got herself up from the floor. "I'll see you two tomorrow." Once I was finished, I took my dish downstairs and came up to get in bed, checking to make sure Toothless had settled down before allowing myself to fall asleep

The next morning, I woke up to find Toothless gone, likely having run after the Whispering Death. In a panic, I had gathered up everyone else and had them meet in the Academy, hoping to come up with some sort of solution.

"Maybe Toothless just went for a morning flight? Oh, that's right, he can't," Snotlout taunted.

"Really?" Reign snapped. "You're going there again? Now-" She started to lunge at Snotlout, but before she could do anything, I stuck out my arm to stop her.

"Toothless must be looking for the Whispering Death. We find it, we find Toothless."

"What do we do if we find the Whispering Death first?" Fishlegs trembled.

"Well, we train him." As dangerous as it could be, it was the only logical idea we had left.

"You know he's got 'death' in his name, right?"

"Tuffnut kind of has a point..."

"Fishlegs, is there anything about the Whispering Death in the Book of Dragons that can help us?" Fishlegs opened the book and flipped through until he found the chapter on the Whispering Death.

"It can shoot razor-sharp spines from any part of its body."

"And how is that gonna help us?" Astrid sighed.

"Well, it would help if we stayed away from those."

"Or, we could get near them, and use Ruffnut as a human shield." She kicked her twin in the knee cap, causing him to recoil in pain. "Ow! My knee cap!" His attitude quickly shifted, as usual. "That's new... I like it."

"This dragon must have a weakness," I cut in, drawing the attention back to the issue at hand.

"Actually... no. Yeah, it says right here: 'no known weaknesses.'"

"Ha! I really love this thing." I had officially passed impatient at this point. I couldn't just sit here, knowing Toothless was alone and in danger with no way of quickly escaping.

"Okay, great. Can we go, please?" I jumped up onto Shriek. "We don't know how much time we have." Reign extended out her hand, allowing me to help her up onto her dragon so that we could get out of here and start the search for Toothless.

"Don't worry, Hiccup. We'll find him."

Shriek took off, and we flew several laps around Berk, each time focusing on something different in hopes of finding Toothless. We were well into the afternoon, and clouds had rolled in to cover the sun, when I noticed a set of those giant holes in the ground, right next to each other.

"There, down below!" She nodded and directed her dragon down to the ground to further investigate. "Toothless?" I yelled into the holes. "Toothless!"

"How do we even know the Whispering Death made these holes?"

"So you think it might be the other twenty-five hundred pound, rock-eating dragon we're following?"

"I know what you're- don't try to confuse me." I noticed something strange on the ground and reached down to pick it up.

"Look at this... He must have lost a tooth."

"Is it sharp? If it is, I want it. I like sharp."

"Yeah," Ruffnut agreed. "Sharp is good."

"Think about this: hundreds of those spinning together, ripping through dirt and tree root. Discarding rock like it's not even there." Though Fishlegs sounded excited at the idea, that was more concerning for me. That thing could easily do the same to Toothless.

Reign diverted her attention from the hole to Stormfly, who was growling at the dirt beneath her feet and picking them up. She nudged Astrid, who followed Reign's gaze to her distressed dragon.

"Stormfly, what's wrong?"

"What's wrong with you, dragon?" Tuff asked his Zippleback, who had begun to freak out as well.

"Barf, settle down."

The thousands of whispers returned, just barely audible underneath the surface.

"Stop!" I ordered. "Listen." Everyone silenced their concerns and strained their ears to hear the whispers I was hearing.

"Listen for what?"

"I don't hear anything. What are we listening for?"

"Be quiet!"

"How are we supposed to hear anything over her yelling?" The whispers grew louder as they got closer, and the ground began shaking with intensity.

"The whisper..."

"Looks like we beat Toothless..."

"Yeah. We win," Astrid deadpanned.

The Whispering Death burst from the ground, roaring bloody murder and clearly agitated that we had disturbed the ground above its nesting area.

"I'm not feeling like a winner..." It stopped inches in front of Fishlegs' face, inspecting him up and down several times, as though trying to assess what he was. "Hi, um... like the teeth."

After roaring at the other dragons, the Whispering Death burrowed itself into the ground.

"I hate when he does that. Can you at least tell me why he does that?"

"Maybe to hunt? Maybe because it's cooler?" We all stared at Fishlegs as he ran through the possibilities out loud. "Maybe to look for water? Or maybe because he can't handle the pressure of everyone expecting him to always have the answers?" Everyone looked at each other after the sudden outburst.

"He's losing it," Tuffnut sang.

"I know. It's awesome." The dragon emerged right behind Fishlegs, causing him to flee.

"Can somebody hold it still? I wanna pet it." Carefully, I decided to approach it. Of course, this didn't go unnoticed by Reign.

"Do you actually have a plan, or are you just trying to get yourself killed?"

"If I can train it, it'll leave Toothless alone," I explained.

"Right, so you are trying to get yourself killed."

I stood my ground, ignoring Reign's concerns and Snotlout's discouragement. If I let them get inside my head, we'd just be right back to square one. I kept myself rooted in place, and as the Whispering Death started barreling toward me, I closed my eyes and stuck out my hand. Thankfully, the dragon stopped right before my hand, and didn't barrel me over like I wasn't there.

Carefully, I opened my eyes and stole the smallest glance at the dragon. It was sniffing my palm, getting closer and closer, but as soon as it almost touched, it whipped around and buried itself back into the ground yet again.

"Oh... kay..."

"Um, I know what you're thinking, and the answer's no." Disregarding what Reign had just said, I jumped down into the hole. I knew she was worried, but at the moment, protecting Toothless was my priority.

The only light coming in was from the other holes it had made. There was really no way to see down these passages, so I'd really have to listen in order for this thing to not kill me. A queasy feeling settled over my stomach as I looked around, but luckily, Fishlegs came down to join me.

"Aw, thanks, Fishlegs. I kinda figured you'd be the last to volunteer," I admitted.

"Yeah. I didn't want you to have to face that thing all alone." I growl slithered through the darkness, not too far away.

"This thing's been busy."

"Quick question: why are we down here again?"

"This is where it spends all it's time. There's got to be something down here that can help us."

I took a few steps closer to one of the passages, when a figure shot through, the sound of a whip cracking left behind.

"There it goes. Let's follow it." I expected Fishlegs to immediately join me at my side, but he just stood in place, nervously looking around.

"Oh! You were talking to me?" I sighed.

"Fishlegs, new dragon. You love this stuff." He hesitated a few more second before throwing his arms down against his side and following.

"I hate that about me." Carefully and quietly, we started to make our way down the tunnel. Considering how quickly it could move, the Whispering Death could very likely have been pretty far ahead of us at this point, but I had to try to catch it. I just had to.

Tree roots desperately clung to the crumbling soil above us as sunlight fought to provide illumination on the paths before us. Some tunnels that branched off were pitch-black, while others had a clear other side. It was almost like another world, hidden deep below the surface.

A snapping sound from a tunnel to our left caused us to spin around, gasping as two glowing eyes glared at us from the darkness. The creature glared at us for a few moments, before lazily falling from the hole, revealing itself to be merely a kidnapped sheep. As soon as we took a sigh of relief, however, the Whispering Death burst out from the wall with a screech. I grabbed Fishlegs and quickly pulled him into another tunnel, pressing myself against the wall in hopes of not being seen.

It slithered past us without noticing, but interestingly enough, when it came to a patch of light created by a hole, it hissed and moved as far away from it as it could. Astonished, Fishlegs cried out.

"Hiccup, did you see that?" Unfortunately for us, the Whispering Death heard that. It whipped around, causing me to press my hand against Fishlegs' mouth to silence any scream that could have followed.

"Can it wait?" It slithered past again, not noticing us. "Let's just hope it keeps going." As soon as I said that, the dragon halted in its tracks, spiny rail blocking our escape.

"How'd that work out for us?" I held a finger to my lips to shush Fishlegs. We couldn't blow this, or we'd be dead meat.

As we were waiting, Fishlegs shook my shoulder and pointed to a spot on the Whispering Death's tail. I followed where his finger was going, and laid my eyes on what appeared to be a dragon bite.

The Whispering Death quickly snapped its tail as it slithered back into the darkness, finally leaving Fishlegs and I.

"Did you see that?" he asked excitedly.

"Was that a bite mark?"

"Not just any bite mark. That's a Night Fury bite mark. I think I know why these two are looking for each other." Things then started to make a lot more sense.

"They have a history."

"A grudge," Fishlegs confirmed.

"If that's true, how long do dragons carry a grudge?"

"To the death..." That was it. I had to train this thing, and fast.

"Let's get out of here before it comes back."

"That is a really good idea."

We started to run down the opposite end of the tunnel that the Whispering Death had gone down, but out of nowhere, it appeared in front of us, blocking our way. It tried to lunge at us, but because we were in a circle of light, it just ended up going around, giving us a chance to run.

"Hiccup! Fishlegs!" I looked up to see Reign's worried expression staring down into the tunnel. As soon as she saw me, however, it switched to one of relief.

"Yup! Right here!" I called up.

"Did you see the Whispering Death? Was it cool?" Tuff pressed.

"Did you touch it?" his twin interjected.

"I wanna touch it."

"Can we talk about this later? We really need to get out of this hole!" The rumbling started to intensify again.

"Yeah, you do." We both turned around to see a massive cloud of dust heading right for us.

"Fishlegs, you go first."

"No argument here!" I hoisted Fishlegs up as high as I could.

"Grab my hand!" The weight was lifted from my shoulders as Fishlegs was pulled from the pit, and I turned around so I could get out. "Hiccup, hurry!" I jumped as high as I could to try and grasp Reign's hand, but I kept falling just a few inches short.

"I can't reach!" Just as I managed to grab her hand, I slipped from her fingertips and fell right back down to the bottom.

"Hiccup!" I wasn't about to give up. I got myself right back up and reached out to grab her hand again. "Just a little more!"

"I'm trying!" I braced myself as the cloud got too close to escape. "Everyone stand back!" I shut my eyes as I was launched into the air.

Thankfully, rather than being greeted with the jaws of the Whispering Death, I felt the smooth scales of a Thunderdrum beneath me. Shriek delivered me back to the others as quickly as she could.

"Thanks, Reign."

The dragon emerged and glared at me, screeching angrily.

"I don't think it likes you in its hole," Tuffnut observed pointlessly.

"Yeah, I got that."

"Can we get out of here? Please?"

"No. I know I can train this thing. Anybody got some dragon nip?" Snotlout and Fishlegs quickly placed a few bushels of dragon nip into my hands. I took a deep breath, then slowly approached the dragon. "Don't be afraid. I'm a friend." I extended out the dragon nip. "Here, you'll love this. All dragons love this."

I was too quick to assume, however, because while the Whispering Death seemed like it would take the bait at first, it ended up blowing the dragon nip at every other dragon, subduing them, and thus getting rid of our best line of defense.

"Oh, great. Now we're defenseless."

"Any ideas? I'm throwing it wide open to the group."

"I've got an idea. Run!" As cowardly as it seemed, it was essentially our only option at this point. We all started to run for cover under the trees, when the Whispering Death was suddenly tackled by a black blur.

"Toothless!"

Toothless and the Whispering Death roared at each other, then it tried to whip Toothless with its tail. Luckily, my dragon was able to avoid getting hurt, and I tried one last time to get onto him. However, he just threw me off, so I tried to calm him.

"It's okay, bud, it's me. I know what's going on with you and that other dragon. Let me help you." I stretched my hand out, but he ignored it, instead dashing right back into the fight. "Toothless, come back!"

Out of nowhere, he fired a plasma blast at my feet, keeping me from coming any closer to him. I looked at my loyal dragon in disbelief as he glared at me before dashing after the Whispering Death.

"Awkward..." I turned on my heel and approached the other dragons.

"Come on. We have to go after him."

"Hiccup..." I looked at Reign with crazy determination, and she quickly backed off from what she was initially going to say. "Can you at least explain?" She helped me up onto Shriek, and we started the search again.

"Fishlegs and I got a good look at that Whispering Death's tail, and it had a Night Fury bite mark on it. We're thinking Toothless and this thing got in some sort of fight, and now they're settling grudges," I rushed to explain.

"So Toothless has an arch enemy. Kind of like you and me."

"Snotlout! You're not my arch enemy!"

"Well, you're mine." I shook my head. There was no winning.

"He's just trying to protect you," Reign reasoned, attempting to comfort me.

"That's not it. Toothless doesn't want you around because this is between him and the other guy. He's a fighter, like me. Not... whatever you are." I braced myself for the impact of what was about to come out of my mouth.

"I never thought I'd say this... Snotlout, you're right." A confused look crossed his face.

"Wait, huh? You guys heard that, right?"

"It's not a fair fight! If Toothless is gonna win, he has to fly, and he fly without me."

"So, what are you saying?"

"I'm saying we need to find him, and soon." Reign shook her head for some reason, but pushed Shriek to dive closer to the ground and fly faster so we could find Toothless. We ended up circling back to the woods, when I saw him darting across the ground. "There he is! Let me down there." Reign was hesitant, but she did it anyways.

As soon as my feet touched the ground, I could tell Toothless heard me. His ear plates perked up, and when I got close enough, he turned around. The defensive, feral slits of his eyes expanded into the loving ones that recognized me, and he finally nuzzled into my palm.

"Hey, bud! You had me so worried there, for a while," I admitted. "You haven't been yourself lately. Glad to see you're still you." The ground began to tremble again as the Whispering Death closed in on us, and it shot up from the ground. "You could just walk away from this, bud." Instead, he took a defensive stance and threw me off. "Let's just go home." He darted at the Whispering Death inside the trees.

"We were so close! I thought you had him!" Toothless fired a plasma blast at the Whispering Death, but ended up missing, and was smacked out of the air and onto his back.

"He needs our help." Reign hoisted me up onto Shriek and we got as close as we could to the fight, because all of a sudden, our dragons stopped in their tracks as Toothless growled.

"Come on, girl." None of the dragons would move.

"Hookfang won't budge!"

"I think ours is broken..."

"They know that this isn't their fight, guys." I watched in horror as the Whispering Death backed Toothless against a cliff and blasted away the land around him, trapping him.

"Toothless! Buddy... It's gonna knock Toothless into the canyon!"

I had to do it. If he wouldn't let me get on him by myself, I'd have to force myself on. And the best way for that was for him to catch me.

Pushing aside all fear, I closed my eyes and stepped out over the ledge, trusting Toothless would catch me.

"Hiccup!"

Sure enough, before I could hit the ground, Toothless swept under me to catch my body, and I was able to lock my feet into position.

"You save me, I save you. That's how this works."

With me riding him, Toothless was able to dodge everything the Whispering Death threw at him, and fire a plasma blast back at it. As things started to turn around, sunlight emerged from the cloud cover, and the Whispering Death screeched in agony before burying itself underground. Almost exactly like we had seen before.

"Sunlight, Hiccup! That's its weakness!"

"Okay, bud. Let's keep him above ground." We shot into the air, then quickly dove down, while Toothless fired plasma blasts into each of the holes. It was finally shot from its underground hiding spot, and Toothless immediately tackled it to the ground. But as soon as he had subdued it, he opened his mouth to fire a fatal plasma blast. "Toothless, no!"

Toothless hesitated, then removed itself from the dragon's head, allowing it to shoot back into its home and leave us alone. The others flew to us as soon as it was gone.

"Oh, man. Toothless could have finished him off!"

"I guess all dragon grudges aren't to the death."

"I guess I'll have to change that in the book." Everyone began the flight back home, while Toothless and I stuck around for a few seconds longer.

"Hey, bud, what do you say we go home?" He purred in agreement. "Besides, if Reign's going to chew me out, it's best if we're safe in the village."

And sure enough, as soon as we got back, I got quite the ear full.

"You're insane!" she spat. "You're absolutely insane! How could you think that diving down into the home of a Whispering Death, and then jumping off a cliff would work?"

"Uh, we-well, technically- "Her glare silenced me.

"Thor... you're so irresponsible, and you don't think before you do those sort of things!" I opened my mouth again. "Up, up, up, up, up... I'm talking. You're just absolutely wonderful at scaring me half to death! I swear, I'm not going to make it out of this year because of you two." She took a deep breath and turned to face away from me, then as soon as she was composed, turned back. "But I'm always so unbelievably glad when you're safe. And everything always works out." She reached out and brushed my cheek. "I got lucky, ending up here, on Berk. You people are as caring as you are crazy." I laughed. "Just... maybe take some time to slow down and enjoy life?"

Reign briefly reached out to peck my lips, and I smiled at her.

"How about a little flight around Berk, then, milady?" I climbed up onto Toothless and extended my hand out to her.

"So long as it's leisurely. If I get thrown off by one of your crazy tricks again, I swear to Thor..." I laughed and helped her up, then we took off just as the moon was rising.

When our past rears its ugly head, it usually doesn't have six rows of razor-sharp teeth and a bad attitude. If it does, you're gonna need a great friend who has your back. I will always have Toothless' back, and he will always have mine.