Night Fury

"Speed: Unknown. Size: Unknown. The unholy offspring of lightning and death itself. Never engage this dragon. Your only chance, hide and pray it does not find you."

- (How To Train Your Dragon) Hiccup reading the Dragon Manual about Night Furies.

"Night Fury! Get down!"

- (How To Train Your Dragon) Anonymous Vikings warning people about the Night Fury's presence.

The Night Fury is a Strike Class Dragon that appears in the movie adaptation of How to Train Your Dragon. It is one of the most powerful dragons and is the rarest dragon known. It was described as the "Unholy Offspring of Lightning and Death Itself". Toothless is the only known Night Fury.

Characteristics
The Night Fury is the fastest, smartest, and rarest of the known species of dragons, as Toothless might be the last known member of his species. It is small to medium-sized with a sleek, dark body with varying shades of a navy blue coloration. It sometimes appears bluish and has faint lighter patterns similar to that of a manta ray. The Night Fury somewhat resembles an axolotl in general appearance and has two pairs of wings with a shape similar to a bat, two mobile, ear-like plates on the back of its head that show its mood, as well as other pairs around their jaw depending on their age. They also have a pair of large, yellowish-green, cat-like eyes and sharp retractable teeth. Unlike most dragon species, the Night Fury has a short neck and lacks any kind of horns. The dragon is about 26 feet in length.

In flight, the Night Fury's wingspan is unrivaled, bearing approximately 48 feet, making it resemble some sort of jet plane. This allows it to fly faster, longer and further than any of the other dragon species. It is similar to the speed of a Skrill, being slightly faster. It uses the wing-like flaps on its tail to steer and maneuver, similar to an airplane rudder. However, a Night Fury will be incapable of flying if one of these flaps is missing or destroyed. This species also possess remarkable speed and agility on land, being able to outrun and outmaneuver most other dragons and even being able to jump to and leap from various objects like trees or walls. Night Furies are generally quite aggressive to any form of threat they find, similar to how the other dragons treat the Vikings of Berk. According to the Dragon Manual, the Night Fury is considered to be so aggressive that it is likened to the "unholy offspring of lightning and death itself". Toothless proves himself to be a highly capable and formidable fighter when he manages to defeat a Monstrous Nightmare, one of the Vikings most feared enemies, and also quickly outmaneuvers and defeats many vikings including Stoick the Vast, who is presumably the best dragon slayer in Berk.

However, like their fellow dragons, Night Furies appear to have a different personality when they are not threatened. They are curious creatures that attempt to understand new things they observe and are intelligent enough to attempt to recreate the actions that they see. Night Furies, in comparison to most other dragons, are very capable of communicating, and seemingly understanding human speech: the best evidence of this is when he makes a noise in agreement with Hiccup regarding the fact that the Red Death can fly or when Hiccup orders Toothless not to kill Astrid and Stoick. Toothless also does not have a very hard time getting his emotions noticed: for example, Toothless growled when Hiccup stepped on his drawing, or snarled in disgust and fear when Hiccup mentioned he put an eel in Toothless' dish. In Dreamworks Dragons: Riders Of Berk episode We Are Family Part I, Toothless demonstrates the ability to use echolocation. When Night Furies are at locations where their visual sight is limited, making it dangerous to fly, they can use a special roar. This roar, visualized as a purple colored soundwave from the dragon's perspective, bounces off all objects and obstacles nearby and allows the dragon to avoid them, even in mid-flight. Unlike with bats, this roar, or at least part of it, is still low enough to be within human hearing range; humans are able to hear the dragon using the roar.

In the second movie, Valka showed Hiccup hidden fins on Toothless's back, that even the dragon himself didn't know about, most likely because he lacked other Night Furies to show that feature to him. After that he is able to extend them at will. Those "flaps" are flat, leathery fins, placed in 'V' shape and extending from his back, to the end of tail. They gave him more manouverability and control in flight.

Night Furies are shown to be amazing swimmers as demonstrated by Toothless. He can swim in high speed and hold his breath for a while, but Night Furies do have a limit and will drown unless they have access to surfaces.

Also demonstrated in the second film, Night Furies are shown to be able to "charge" themselves, which gives them more strength, stronger fire with seemingly no limit, and the ability to not only withstand Alpha's control, but also to break that control over other dragons, which makes a lot of sense, as Toothless was the only dragon able to oppose the Red Death's control even inside its nest. This also give them a more menacing look with their back, nose and mouth glowing bluish colour similar to their fire, probably due to the amount and strength of this fire inside them. Toothless, in this form, was able to challenge Drago's Alpha, and not only hold his own, but also free other dragons from control, and order them to attack the evil Bewilderbeast. After that, the Alpha gives up, and the other dragons accept Toothless as their new alpha.

Behavior
A Night Fury's main type of attack style is dive-bombing at enemies at great speed while being completely camouflaged within the dark sky. The Night Fury is able to become completely invisible at night because of its dark colored scales. In addition of dive-bombing, the Night Fury will also spit out oxygen/acetylene-fueled flames that will explode upon impact and will instantly incinerate anything. They occasionally hang upside down like a bat. Sometimes when they are getting ready to sleep, they singe the ground with their fiery breath, while walking in a circle, much like dogs and cats do before laying down. Night Furies are picky eaters and prefer to eat fish. When hunting, a Night Fury uses its sharp retractable teeth as fishing hooks in order to snatch and grip prey from the water. Night Furies are also capable of completely swallowing prey whole and their stomach liquids, which are similar to battery acid, are strong enough to dissolve fish bones. When tamed, Night Furies are known to regurgitate half of their catch for their owners. As seen with Toothless, Night Furies have a penetrating, wolf-like or cat-like stare. While Night Furies usually keep to themselves, they are very protective. The Night Fury is a very dangerous and elusive dragon and should be avoided at all costs, unless of course, one is able and willing to train it.

Fighting Style
Night Furies are said to be amazing fighters. They use their incredible explosive fire to damage any unlucky foe. It is shown that a Night Fury can switch between different fire styles. In the TV series Hiccup tells Toothless to use "plasma blasts". Plasma blasts are purple fire-bolts that explode on target almost instantly. These are a Night Fury's primary defense and are very lethal. Second is the fire a Night Fury uses to warm up the place where it will sleep, as seen on the movie and the TV show. This fire isn't particularly strong, but it can light up fireplaces and stoves. Night Furies are very agile and swift in flight, using this to confuse their enemies. Toothless, a Night Fury, is able to fight off Hookfang, a larger Monstrous Nightmare to protect Hiccup, and he is shown to be strong enough to wrestle against a much larger Whispering Death. While in some cases Hiccup says that he has a limit of six shots, this is actually not sure, as we can see him shot many more of them from time to time. It is possible that this limit applies only to the battle typed fire blasts, and the weaker ones have different, if any limit.

Training
Training a Night Fury is very hard. Hiccup trained Toothless easily because Toothless couldn't fly and was stuck in a cove. A wild Night Fury will just fly away and ignore you. The only other way is to catch it (which is extremely hard). It is preferable to catch it without hurting it (which is even harder than catching it). Another way is to find its egg and train it when it hatches. This is even harder since Night Furies are the rarest of all the dragon species.

Official descriptions
Official website:

''The rarest and most intelligent of the dragon species, the Night Fury is distinguished by its dark color and piercing yellow eyes, as well as its smaller size, heavy chest and short neck. Possessing the largest wing-to-body ratio of all dragons, it can fly higher, faster and longer than any dragon, and its incredible power-to-weight ratio renders it capable of vertical takeoff. Its unconventional fire (a semi-solid mass alight with an acetylene/oxygen flame) explodes its target on impact. Its signature attack mode is executed after sundown and from high altitude -- enwrapped in its wings, it dives like a bullet, pulling up at the last moment to deliver one precise and explosive burst ... then vanishing back into the darkness. The only warning is the ballistic noise the diving Night Fury makes. Its kamikaze attack, along with its cautious behavior and analytical mind, makes the Night Fury a devastating opponent with an extraordinary success rate. To date, no Night Fury has ever been brought down.''

Dreamworks website:

"The most feared and terrifying dragon in the world is the Night Fury. Only few is documented about this dragon, speed: unknown, size: unknown, your only chance hide and pray it does not find you."

Chris Sanders:

"He's the Ferrari of dragons. Very, very fast. A lot of dragons have giant scales and are spiny. He has the clean, sleek look of a panther."

"These stealthy, high flyers are so fast they're almost never seen, but just because they aren't visible doesn't mean they can't flame a Viking village!"

Trivia

 * The growls and croons of Night Furies and Toothless are a combination of various sounds, including Supervising Sound Designer Randy Thom, elephants, horses, tigers, and even domestic cats.
 * Toothless, a Night Fury, is the only dragon in the first film to be given a personal name.
 * Toothless may be the last Night Fury, as Hiccup said he has never seen another. Valka also mentioned that he may be the last of his kind. Although a comment she made about never having seen one so close implies she might have seen another from a distance before she was reunited with her son. However, she may have simply seen Toothless himself from a distance. (This line is only used in a featured clip, but is removed in the film, as it conflicts with her knowlege of Toothless's split spine ability)
 * It can tone down its fire for different applications, for example, it can fire concussive blasts that can knock people off their feet (though not significantly harm them), while at the same time being able to destroy entire battlements with more powerful blasts.
 * When a Night Fury is about to fire on an unsuspecting target(s), you can hear it charge and ready itself for the attack. Villagers take that opportunity to prepare themselves for the worst. Cause of that opportunity, Hiccup was able to figure out if Toothless was about to attack, locate him, and take him down.
 * In the Riders of Berk episode We Are Family Part I, Night Furies are shown to have the ability of echolocation.
 * According to the School of Dragons website, Night Furies shoot lightning. This could explain why their shots are called plasma blasts as fire and lightning are both examples of Plasma, a state of matter, which is the form of high-energy ionized gas.
 * The game says Night Furies don't like fish, despite them liking fish in other media.
 * They are the fastest fliers of the dragon world, but according to the Dragonpedia, Typhoomerangs are just as fast.
 * The Night Fury is the crest of the Berk Dragon Training Academy.
 * According to 'How To Create Your Dragon', the Night Fury is a mix between a horse, wombat, kangaroo, bat, snake, dog, cat, panther and a bird of prey.
 * Even though it was stated Night Furies were slow and clumsy on land, Toothless has proven to be a fast and agile runner.