Skrill

"This elusive creature is highly secretive, it is known to ride lightning bolts. Found only during electrical storms that can shoot bursts of white fire."

- Hiccup talking about the Skrill.

The Skrill is a Strike Class dragon appearing in the film adaption of How to Train Your Dragon. The Skrill is seen in the Dragon Manual while Hiccup looks for more information on Night Furies. A frozen specimen appeared in A View to a Skrill Part I and Part II and A Time to Skrill.

Appearance and Characteristics
This incredible creature has large wings and a spiked back and tail. The spikes on the Skrill's back and tail are sharp enough to cut with the slightest abrasion, and it's an excellent flyer. It also appears to have three shark-like gills on its neck. The Skrill possess a crown of spikes on its head which nearly all are the same length except for the center one. The Skrill's crown can also be used to give it expression, as it is able to control them to be pulled back or forward. Skrills have three short spines on their chin. Its head slightly resembles that of a Thunderdrum or a Flightmare. The proportion of its head, body, and wings are quite close to that of a Flightmare's. It apparently resembles a Night Fury in flight and rivals its speed, being only slightly slower. It's the size of a Deadly Nadder, but incredibly fast, comparing speed to size.

Like the Monstrous Nightmare, its locomotion on land resembles that of a Pterosaur, using the large claws on its wings to walk and run on land. However, the Skrill has been shown to walk and run on its two legs with its wings folded. A new model in School of Dragons was made for the Skrill, featuring the Skrill walking on two legs, instead of its original locomotion. Find more information at Dragon Anatomy. As with most of the dragons in the dragon manual, it's listed as being "extremely dangerous" and the manual instructs readers to "kill on sight", although it's name was only mentioned.

Behavior and Training
One of the most mysterious and feared species in the Book of Dragons, the Skrill is aggressive, powerful, and nearly untrainable. It appears to be almost as feared as the Night Fury, if not more feared (this could perhaps be due to the Berserkers who used to harness the Skrill and use it as a weapon). This reclusive dragon is belligerent and as unpredictable as lightning strikes. It is very territorial, despite following stormy weather; Skrills do not breathe fire, instead, they channel lightning down their metallic spines, firing it from their mouths in a show of destructive blasts. If you find yourself flying through a thunderstorm, watch out! Despite it's average size, Skrills can give as good as they take, and they can take a lot.

Skrills were thought to be untamable dragon but was proven to be untrue as they needed to show that human was going to give it enough trust to be helpful to those were willing to give up their lives for the skrill. The Frozen Skrill had seen Hiccup and Toothless who were both on the this Skrill mind to get revenge but seeing they were protecting his life from harm he protect them from harm. As the Skrill thank his saviors by bowing down to them as sign of gratitude be saved and freed.

Abilities
Like all Strike Class dragons, Skrills have blazing speed, extreme intelligence, unique firepower, and are masters of stealth. What is unique about these dragons is that they are able to manipulate electricity, absorbing electrical energy from storm cloud and redirecting it back as powerful blasts.

Absorbing Electricity
The Skrill is an electrical dragon. It can absorb and store lightning's electrical energy. Using its metallic spines, it can channel lightning through its body and fire out destructive blasts through its mouth. Skrills obtain their lightning blasts from absorbing electrical charges from thunderclouds. And since the electrical charges in thunderclouds are very active, Skrills can achieve very powerful firepower. Skrills also have the ability to direct multiple bolts of lightning, making the dragons greatly feared by Vikings. They can also store the electrical energy in its body and use it at a later time. Its ability to harness and store electricity gives it a static field, making your hair stand on end if you get too close. The Skrill most likely has a powerful electrolyte in its scales, which it can use to create powerful electrical charges throughout its body with static electricity, and also create a conductor for electricity to travel freely on its body.

Intelligence
In A Time to Skrill, Skrill's intelligence was shown, as it recognised that Hiccup tried to lure it back into the glacier. Also, it was smart enough to follow Hiccup's trail in the archipelago, and it even knew which house was Hiccup's.

Riding Lightning
The Skrill is able to "ride" lightning bolts. It was first and only seen in A Time to Skrill, after the Skrill was tamed and set free, it ascended upwards at supersonic speeds through a field of lightning bolts. The Skrill was able to use the energy of lightning to accelerate very quickly and fly at supersonic speeds. It was able to reach the clouds from the glacier it was on in seemingly one or two seconds, which would mean that the Skrill was traveling close to the speed of light, which is much faster than sound. It is unknown why the Skrill only used this ability once, possibly due to a limit. This move is by far faster than any other dragon, but the stats say otherwise.

Electrical Field
Skrills are able to create an electrical field, that acts similar to a force field. It does this by charging its wings and tail with electricity, forming a T shape. Then, it joins the electricity together by closing its wings together and springing its tail upwards. It then forms a round electrical field that can be used to block itself from projectiles, similar to how a Seashocker does to protect itself from predators. This was shown when the Skrill was in control of Dagur, it used this ability to block Toothless' plasma blasts. The Skrill can cover its wings for extra protection against a stronger blast. However, the electrical field was seen to be strong enough to deflect some blasts from Toothless, as seen in the third time Toothless fired, the Skrill did not cover its wings. The resistance power of the electrical field cannot be determined other than it was able to deflect weak blasts. It is unknown how a much stronger blast could affect the Skrill while using the electrical field. This however determines that this ability is the last line of defense for the Skrill. When the Skrill was under control of Dagur, it could not dodge the blasts or accurately fire back because it was tied up on ropes.

Firepower
Unlike other dragons' fire attacks, where it is a single blast of some sort, Skrills have the ability to shoot lightning in a long line over great distance of their unique ability of electrokinesis, adding more power to it and more damage to whatever is unlucky enough to get hit. All the electrical power it gets to fire its lightning comes directly from the clouds by natural lightning. A side effect of getting hit by the electric blast causes people to talk gibberish. A strange effect was discovered, that when the Lightning Blasts of a Skrill and the Plasma Blasts of a Night Fury meet head on, a massive explosion of a electrical plasmatic surge will form and can knock dragons from the sky. Skrills can fire their lightning blast with extreme precision, their blast are also very explosive. According to the Cartoon Network site the Skrill's lightning blasts are equally as powerful as a Night Fury's plasma blast. Skrills have a shot limit of 4, however while in a storm they can recharge their shots very quickly at any time they want, and they can store four blasts of lightning ready to be released. With this advantage of continuous shots, the Skrill takes a huge advantage over their shot limit by constantly firing its blasts in a quick succession. It often does not take good aim before firing because its shots are easily rechargeable in a thunderstorm.

Ice Hibernation
It was revealed that their hidden ability is their inner body heat, Skrills could survive being frozen for decades. Dragonpedia states that once Skrills emerge from being frozen, they will show to be as fierce as the day they were frozen, as shown when Hiccup and Fishlegs revealed to Stoick that the Frozen Skrill could still be alive and dangerous, and indeed it was.

Speed and Stealth
The Skrill is a very fast flier among dragons. Its speed is seen to be competitive to that of a Night Fury's, as the Skrill was always able to catch up and cling right behind Toothless every time in a chase. The Skrill has a sleek, dark colored body, which makes it extremely difficult to spot in dark clouds and gloomy, stormy weather, with the only warning of them being there is the light given when lightning travels through the clouds and their electrical outline when it absorbs lightning prior to attack.

Strength and Combat
Skrills are very strong for their size. The frozen specimen managed to defeat Stormfly with just one slap of its wings. It is said that Skrill is one of the few dragons that can fight against Night Fury.

Senses
Their sense of vision is shown to be strong enough to see in dark clouds.

Stamina and Endurance
The Skrill's stamina and endurance seems to be incredibly high, as the Frozen Skrill was able to emerge from hibernation, attack the Riders' dragons, go in search of food (unsuccessfully) and then engage the Riders in combat with no pause in between. The Frozen Skrill has been able to endure many attacks and still look fine to continue in flight. It has even been seen to be able to take a plasma blast to the head and continue to battle with minor injury, where most other dragons would have been defeated at this point.

Weakness
The Skrill has one weakness, water. It cannot channel electricity and looses all firepower when it is wet. If you force a Skrill to fall in the water, it will lose its upper hand.

How to Train Your Dragon
In How to Train Your Dragon, the Skrill is mentioned briefly as Hiccup reads the Dragon Manual for information on Night Furies.

Book of Dragons
The Skrill is featured in the Book of Dragons (short). It is said to be highly secretive and is known to ride lightning bolts like air torpedoes to reach supersonic speeds, and usually only comes out during electrical storms. It can shoot blasts of lightning as its entire body crackles with static electricity. Just being close to a Skrill is enough to make one's hair stand on end. Skrills belong to the Strike Class dragons. Bork and his sheep Willy found one that caused their hair to stand on edge.

Dragons: Defenders of Berk
In Dragons: Defenders of Berk, the Skrill was the symbol of the Berserker Tribe in which it appeared on their ships' sail, shields and their chief's belt. According to Stoick's grandfather, the Berserkers were said to use harnessed Skrills in their attacks, they would attack behind them after they rained lightning blasts upon their enemies.

A Skrill was found frozen in a solid block of ice, found by Berserkers who attack Bucket and Mulch to keep it hidden. Hiccup, Astrid and Snotlout flew it back to the Academy, where it was eventually blown open by the Twins, unleashing the Skrill. It is pursued by the gang and Dagur for until it was captured by Alvin when it fell into the ocean.

The Skrill was then locked up and put in a cage on Outcast Island. Wanting the dragon, Dagur secures a fake deal with Alvin and ultimately steals the Skrill, using it to battle Alvin, Hiccup and Toothless until he gets electrocuted after Hiccup tricks him into making the Skrill attack while he is standing in a puddle, and the Skrill is set free. In the end, the Skrill is refrozen in a glacier once again when Hiccup and Toothless lure it into an iceberg and provoke it into knocking itself out when it charges Toothless's reflection, Hiccup melting the glacier with the aid of the twins and Barf and Belch.

Dragons: Race to the Edge
In the episode A Time to Skrill, the Frozen Skrill breaks out of its frozen cage and starts chasing Hiccup and Toothless. It attacks Outcast Island, and later Berk. The Skrill chases Hiccup and Toothless to the Ship Graveyard. After Hiccup goes back to Dragon's Edge, the Skrill flies through the sky, when Dagur and the Hunters spot it and capture it. Later the gang finds it and frees it after the short battle. At first they wanted to put it back into the glacier, but when Hiccup saw the fear and sadness in its eyes, he convinced other to set it free. After a good-bye bow to Hiccup, the Skrill flies into the sky.

Titan Wing
Source: Dragons: Rise of Berk

Titan Skrills still resemble their younger counterparts. However, they are now larger and teal blue, instead of purple, and their mouth is light blue. Also, the spines on their back is longer and sharper and the talons on their wings have grown significantly thicker.

Known Skrills

 * The Skrill that Bork encountered (see Book of Dragons)
 * Frozen Skrill (see A View to a Skrill Part I and II and A Time to Skrill)
 * Icebane ( see Dragons: Rise of Berk)
 * Hunterbolt (see Dragons: Rise of Berk)

Appearances

 * How to Train Your Dragon (film) (Mentioned)
 * Book of Dragons
 * Riders of Berk Commercials
 * Twinsanity (Berserker Crest)
 * The Night and the Fury (Berserker ship sail)
 * A View to a Skrill Part I
 * A View to a Skrill Part II
 * School of Dragons
 * Dragons: Rise of Berk
 * A Time to Skrill

Trivia

 * The Skrill is the Berserker Crest.
 * The Skrill is the second Strike Class dragon introduced in the franchise.
 * Also, is the single Strike Class dragon introduced in Defenders of Berk.
 * According to the Cartoon Network site, Skrills are completely untrainable. Dragonpedia, however, says Skrill are nearly untrainable, which is the case.
 * Hunterbolt's description in Rise of Berk states "Training a Skrill isn't the easiest to do"
 * A Skrill's favorite food is sheep (mutton).
 * Fishlegs' theory that the Frozen Skrill knew that Hiccup was leading it into a trap was logical, since every Strike Class Dragon has extreme intelligence.
 * Berserkers can actually control a Skrill to shoot out lightning during electrical storms. The most likely theory is that the Skrill has sensitive organs along the side of its wings. These organs are able to absorb lightning better than any other part of its body. Once pulled down, the Skrill is not able to absorb lightning as easily. This is a similar movement to a Skrill absorbing lightning naturally.
 * The Skrill is said to draw lightning from the sky and strike it in several directions at once.
 * Their appearance on the How to Train Your Dragon Live Spectacular greatly differs from that of other sources.
 * The Skrill is one of the few dragons which is able to go toe to toe with a Night Fury.
 * It is possible that the Skrill stats are wrong. It is shown to be a very fast flyer in both Defenders of Berk and Race to the Edge, even when not riding lightning. This means that the Skrill stats could be 19/?
 * Hunterbolt's description (Rise of Berk) says that the Skrill is the fastest dragon (While riding Lightning of course) Snotlout is determined to have the fastest, strongest and scariest Dragon around.
 * The one time a Skrill has been seen riding lightning, it traveled much faster than any dragon seen before, which further proves that 19 wouldn't be its top speed.
 * The Dragon Tracker part 4 says that the Skrill is an extremley fast flier, and is difficult to keep up with, even for a Night Fury. The scenes used to illustrate the Skrill's immense speed show the Skrill flying normally, without any enhancements (Riding Lightning). This further supports the fact that the Skrill's top speed would be above 19 while riding lightning.
 * School of Dragons description of the Titan Skrill states that the dragon is capable of striking with the speed of a lightning bolt.
 * However, it is impossible for the Skrill to fly at the exact speed of lightning, when riding a lightning bolt, as it is the speed of light.

External link
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