"My gods,"

Valka whispered from the back of the van as she watched a news report on the twister they encountered moments ago.

"From our vantage point the damage could have been a whole lot worse. The tornado just narrowly grazed the school..." The reporter said as they showed a air shot of the school, showing one wretched end of the school and hundreds of wrecked cars and busses.

Valka stared at the screen. Her family was there, but from the looks of things, the should be alright. Key word: should. "Eric are you hearing this?"

"...as you can see from this footage. The National Weather Service is currently tracking a second supercell moving in our direction. I know it's hard to imagine..."

"A second cell." Valka muttered, looking at the doppler, seeing just as the reporter said. "This is gonna be bad."

"How can there be another system?" Eric asked from the front seat.

She didn't lose eye contact with the screen. "I've never seen anything like this. These updrafts are insane." she mumbled.

Eric sighed, seeing a power line crushing a red tractor blocking their path. "Got downed power lines." he said pulling the van to a stop, Alvin and Calum stopping the Titus on the other side. "We're stuck."

Val looked up to see Alvin and Calum walking over cautiously. "It's alright." she said. "I'm about to make his day."

Alvin opened the large blue door and looked at Valka, expectantly. "What else we got?"

Calum walked up behind Alvin, camera in hand. Val smiled seeing that her friend was alright. "Activity heading North towards the center of town." she said simply.

Alvin looked at her, not sure if he got what she was saying. "A second cell?" he asked.

She nodded. "It's super organized. The hook echo is huge."

Alvin smiled. "I wanna set up as close to the perimeter as possible. I wanna be in the middle. I'm not gonna miss it." he told her.

She nodded, exasperated with his orders. "I hear you." she said before turning towards Calum. "How you doing, Cal?"

Calum nodded, lowering the camera. "Never better." he said, his voice wavering as if he wasn't sure he was right.

"You hang in there, buddy. That was nothing." Val said finishing writing the GPS cords onto a page. "Here you go." she said handing it towards Alvin.

Alvin held his hand up, stopping her. "Send that to my GPS." he said. "Let's roll! Come on!" he called, walking quickly back to the Titus.

Val sighed, dropping the clipboard she was holding on the keyboard in front of her, connected to her many monitors. "You want a coffee with that, boss?" she said sarcastically.

Looking back at the screen, which showed an aerial view of the school. Please let them be alright.

...

"Astrid?" Hiccup called. It was dark, wet and cold. His left leg throbbed and burned in pain, a liquid flowed over the top and into the floor, he hoped it was water. He could barely see but he could just make out a metal beam that was digging into his leg.

"Hiccup?! Where are you!?" Astrid called, he could hear her some debris clanking and banging under her feet as she got closer. When he saw her, he realized how low their 'ceiling' was. Astrid was bent over so far her back was almost flat, on about a 70 degree angle.

"Here." He said casually, as if there was nothing wrong in the world.

She walked over to him carefully. "You okay?" she asked, sitting down near him.

"Everything down to my left knee is fine." he stated, a slight sarcastic tone lingering in his words.

She looked at him questioningly. "What are you-" she said, looking down to his left leg. It was under a metal beam, a liquid surrounding the edge. She knew very well what it was. "Oh gods," she sighed.

She looked around, trying to find out how to get it off of his leg, but found nothing. Almost everything was black. "Is there a flashlight or something?" she asked.

Hiccup stretched his arm back and turned slightly where his Camera was safely resting on a ledge, and flicked it's built-in flashlight on. The light was very bright and they had to shut their eyes for a moment to adjust. Once he opened his eye's again, he saw that his hopes had been crushed. It was not water, but hot crimson blood, seeping out of his wounded leg.

Astrid looked down as well, and while she was expecting the blood, she didn;t think there would be that much of it. One thing she knew, she needed to get the beam off of him and stop the bleeding.

She took a deep breath and bent her knees in a ready stance and put her hands around and under the beam. "Okay," she said. "I'm going to have to lift this beam. It's going to hurt, a lot, so... yeah." she trailed off into a whisper in the end.

Hiccup nodded his head and placed his hand on a small bar resting next to him. "Okay." he whispered.

"Okay." Astrid whispered, but not to Hiccup, to herself. She shifted her feet around to find the right position and began lifting. Thankfully, the beam was lighter than she thought, making it easier to lift. But it didn't minimize the pain.

Hiccup had to bite his lip to keep from crying out. But that failed. His fingers wrapped around the bar so tightly his knuckles turned white, and his other hand pushed hard on the ground, trying to distract him. But that also failed. It felt to him as if someone was stabbing him in the leg, repeatedly with a blunt knife. He didn't even notice as a few hot tears made their way out of his eyes.

Astrid dropped the bar a few feet away from them and turned back around, looking for something to tie around his leg to keep out some infection and stop the bleeding or he would die. She kneeled down next to him and wiped away a few stray tears.

He opened his eyes, the pain subsiding slightly. "Thanks," he whispered, smiling slightly before his leg shifted and pain shot back up through it.

"Is there anything I can use to wrap it up?" Astrid asked him.

He nodded slightly. "Uh, y-yeah, in my bag, my uh, sweater's in there." he said pointing to the bag a few feet from him.

Astrid quickly walked, or best she could since she was slouched over so far because of the low ceiling. She bent down and zipped open the bag, pulling out a fairly large black sweater. On the back, it read 'Berk Vikings: Track Team 2014'. She walked over to his leg and bent down, beginning to tie it.

"I didn't know you were on the track team." she stated, trying to strike up a conversation to distract him. "And even if you were I've never seen you at any practices." 

"I'm not." he replied, a small smile played on his lips. "Tommy is and when he ordered the sweaters he got an extra by mistake, so he - ow... gave it to me." he said, wincing as she finished tying the sweater tightly around his injury.

She smiled slightly, sitting down next to him. "You guys seem really close."

Hiccup avoided her gaze. "He's the only friend I ever had who didn't abandon me."

Her heart broke to hear that. She could barely remember the short time when the whole gang (Trey, Renée, Scott, Fisher, Tommy, Hiccup and Astrid) would hang out together. By the time they reached seventh grade, Hiccup was cast out. Scott and the others, minus Astrid and Fisher, would always pick on him and even beat him up. After that, Tommy ditched the group for his brother. Tommy was a year younger than all of them but he skipped Kindergarten so he could be with his brother. She started ignoring the two, focusing on her sports. She wish she hadn't now.

"Hiccup. I-I'm sor-" she began but Hiccup cut her off.

"It's fine." he said. "I understand why you did it. It's fine."

She shook her head. "No it isn't."

Hiccup nodded. "Yes it is."

"No it isn't!" she yelled, causing Hiccup to wince slightly. She sighed. "It was not okay. And I'm sorry." She admitted. She pondered a moment about what he had said a few moments ago. "And what do you mean you 'understand'?"

He shrugged, still not meeting her gaze. "You wanted to hang out with the 'cool kids', you know? I'm just a scrawny screw-up who no one wants to be around. I get it. If they caught you hanging around 'Hiccup the Useless' it would ruin your reputation." he started, playing with his fingers.

She shook her head. "You really didn't pay much attention over those four years? Did you?" she asked. He looked up at her, confused. "I wasn't hanging out with Scott and them, I barely did. I joined at least five sports that year and was practicing all the time. But I still ignored you. Left you alone."

He took her hand in his and gave it a squeeze. "Well, you're here now." he said with a small smile. "If not, I'd be stuck under that beam and would probably have bled to death."

She chuckled. He was right. If she wasn't down here with him, he'd probably be lying in a pool of his own blood. Dead. Then she realized something. They needed to get out of here. Bad.

"Hiccup?" she asked. He looked over at her from his wounded leg. "Do you have your phone?" she asked.

He nodded. Yeah it's in my pocket." he said, reaching into his jean pocket and pulling out his phone. "Try and see if you can call my dad."

She nodded and picked up the phone, checking for a cell signal. Nothing. "Damn," she muttered, sitting back down.

...

Stoick and Tommy were in their car, driving through their subdivision. There were pieces of debris lying everywhere that was flying from the twister. The destruction could have been a whole lot worse, giving Stoick hope that his son was alright.

He sighed, not taking his eyes off the road. "What was Hiccup doing out there in the first place?" he muttered.

"He's with Astrid." Tommy responded, earning a look from Stoick. "He's been in love with her forever."

"Hofferson?"

"Yeah." Tommy replied. "He's shooting this video project thing for her."

Stoick sighed, again. "Why didn't he just tell me?" he asked no one in particular. Then he thought of their 'talk' this morning.

"I don't know, Dad. You're so easy to talk to." Tommy replied sarcastically. When Stoick glared at him a glare, he held his hands up defensively. "Just saying."

Stoick knew he was right. He and Hiccup had a bit of a broken relationship. Hiccup was into computer programs and sciences and video technology. He was a lot more like Valka than him. Tommy, however, was into sports and such, more like Stoick. With Val being away for months at a time, Hiccup and Stoick remained fairly distant.

"Woah." Tommy breathed, pulling Stoick from his thoughts. To the left of them, was a destroyed house, a car sticking out of it. There was a van, on its side, a tree sitting next to it with its roots turned up. One of the things that caught their eye was a scruffy white dog, sitting on the sidewalk, looking at them. They climbed out and Stoick approached the dog, slowly.

"Hey boy." he said, kindly.

Tommy looked at the dog for a moment, recognizing it. He had checked over the interviews Hiccup had done and uploaded them to his computer for editing later. "Dad, that's Mildew's dog."

Stoick looked up from the dog and at the tipped van. Mildew might be inside. No one really liked the old man, but they couldn't just leave him.

"Mildew?" he called, walking over to the van. Once he looked inside, he was the old man, still strapped in his seat, holding the wheel. He seemed petrified.

"I was lookin' for shelter." he said calmly. "Was gonna drive..."

Stoick opened the dented door and went to undo the seatbelt, but it was jammed. He looked around, a few neighbours came out of their homes, finding it safe out at last, and hurried over to help. "Does anyone have a knife?" Stoick asked.

Tommy raced up from his spot on the ground with the dog, pulling a pocket knife out of his pocket. (Ha!) Stoick took it from him and sent him a glare. "I know, I'm not supposed to have that." Tommy sighed.

After Mildew was safely brought out of the wrecked van, he was seated on the ground where the neighbors were asking him if he was hurt, needed anything and such.

"Can you get everybody to the high school? They've got a storm shelter." Stoick asked. the men nodded before Stoick turned to his son. "You gonna stay with them."

Tommy shook his head. "No way." He was going to find his brother, after all it was his idea.

They hopped back in the car and continued their drive to the paper mill. After a few minutes of silence, Stoick spoke up. "That was smart back there with the knife." he said.

"Thanks," Tommy said, unsure of what to think. "I thought you'd be mad."

Stoick nodded, not looking at his son. "Oh, I am. Hand it over." he said, holding out his hand, palm up. Tommy sighed and handed over the pocket knife and Stoick slipped it into his pocket.

Tommy looked ahead of them at the stop sign coming up at the intersection. The road sign facing him read 'Churchill Rd'. He knew the area well, a map displayed in his head. "Dad, turn left on Churchill." he said.

Stoick gave him a questioning glance before looking back on the road. "I'm gonna take the highway." he responded.

"Dad," Tommy said. "If we turn on Churchill we can take Rosewood all the way." Stoick didn't seem impressed so he continued. "We'd save like 20 minutes."

Stoick didn't reply and Tommy slouched back in his seat, only sitting up as he felt the car turn left.

...

-TBBG