How to Twist a Dragon's Tale (Hiccup)
wondering how he could see through it.
    "I'm just a Hero -- I mean an ordinary bloke, who happened to be passing," continued the Man. "In fact I'm in a bit of a hurry. I've got something important to do now, so I must be off... Lovely to meet you and everything ... you seem like nice little people, in your way."
    73
    "'You're a Lava-Lout!" roared Stoick, staring at the Man.
    All the watching Hooligans gasped in horror, and drew their swords immediately. Lava-Louts were one of the Hooligan Tribe's deadliest enemies.
    "I am not a Lava-Lout!" protested the Man indignantly. "Lava-Louts are gorillas in trousers! And that's a bit of an insult to gorillas."
    "You are so a Lava-Lout!" exclaimed Stoick. "Only low-down, double-crossing, mean-as-sharks Lava-Louts wear that kind of suit!"
    The Hooligans growled in agreement, and pressed forward, waving their swords and checking the sharpness of their axe edges, while crying out, "Kill him! Kill him! Lava-Lout Vermin!"
    "I get to kill him first, Chief!" yelled Baggybum the Beerbelly. "I haven't had a Lava-Lout in ages!"
    "Get to the back of the queue, Baggybum, you villain!" roared Tuffnut Senior. "You're always pushing in front of everybody else!"
    "I... AM...N0T....A....LAVA-LOUT!" howled the Man as loud as he could through his muffly headgear. "Oh, for Thor's sake, you do a good deed, and see where it gets you! In the soup, yet again, why do
    74
    I never learn? Bother this Fire Suit... I'll take it off and then you'll see ..."
    The Man got down from his White Dragon, and with both hands he pulled up the head section of the suit he was wearing. It was stuck very tight, and made rather a revolting squelchy, burpy noise as he peeled it up.
    "There you see!" said the Man triumphantly, as with a final rude B-E-L-C-H he detached the headgear from his face. "NOT a Lava-Lout!"
    Stoick walked slowly around and around the Man.
    The head that he had revealed was clearly not the head of a Lava-Lout.
    It was the head of a blond, bearded, handsome man, no, make that a very handsome man, slightly past the prime of middle age and currently looking a little bit cross.
    Stoick put his sword back in its scabbard.
    "Not a Lava-Lout," pronounced Stoick with relief.
    "But if not a Lava-Lout, then who are you?"
    The Man looked extremely surprised.
    "What do you mean ... WHO AM I?" said the
    Man. "I'm HUMUNGOUSLY HOTSHOT, of course..."
    75
    Humungously Hotshot was one of the greatest Viking Heroes of recent times, who had completed such great Quests as "the Slaying of the Rude Rippers" and "the Fetching of the Weird Stone." He had completely disappeared without a trace fifteen years before, and everybody had rather assumed he was dead, which was an occupational hazard of being a great Viking Hero.
    "No! Not Humungously Hotshot the Hero!" stammered Stoick the Vast in awe.
    Suddenly, Stoick was rather aware of the fact that he was standing in front of one of the greatest Heroes of the Age, dressed only in a pair of hairy knickers and one rather ancient blue sock.
    He sucked in his tummy, and tried to look his most dignified and Chiefly.
    "But we all thought you were dead!"
    "Yes, well," said Humungous, frowning bitterly. "I was on this Hero Quest in Lava-Lout territories and got caught red-handed by those Snakes-in-Helmets, the Lava-Louts. They slung me into one of their Jail-Forges, and so I've spent the last fifteen years underground forging swords for them. Which is why I'm wearing one of their Lava-Lout Fire Suits. It's made out of dragon skin, which means it's totally fireproof."
    76
    "They're evilly clever, those Lava-Louts," said Stoick the Vast, shaking his head. "How, by the great Hairy Thumbnails of Thor, did you ever escape?"
    "Oh, I didn't escape," explained Humungous. "NOBODY escapes from the Lava-Louts. They evacuated the island. The Exterminators were hatching."
    "What ARE Extermi-whateveryousaid?" said Stoick. "I've never heard of them before."
    "Exterminators are the Creatures who've made this
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