A/N: In short, I was coding this game and I got stuck, so I decided to write out this little idea. Decided to work with it a little more, since there was basically nothing decent when the time's two in the morning.
Look, I'm not that great in the creative writing department. At least, I don't feel like I'm that great. That's where you guys come in. I don't need you to make me feel better. I need you to make me feel worse. That's right! Review critically. I'll never get any better without good input. I will appreciate any good reviews, especially the ones that point out every problem, no matter how small.
Disclaimer:
Copyright 2011,20? Dreamworks, Cressida Cowell. All rights reserved.
Copyleft 2011 [myself]. All wrongs reserved.
In the deepest, darkest portions of the urban fortress, where mold grows and the programmers, likewise, there sits one curious, nearly balded, pasty-faced person. Not quite a man, not quite a child, but full of the sort of energy that you'd only find when chatting it up on IRC or some odd obscure chat medium like that. This person is a total IRC junkie and a programmer all rolled into one. A disastrous combination, if you were to ask anyone. Just give the miserable wretch some Mountain Dew, and watch those fingers rap away on the keyboard, spilling forth numbers and non-words onto the white screen ahead. Working away at the next big thing, this graphing calculator game. What makes today, among all the other days which tend to run together, special is the addition of a final bit of code that marks a new echelon in his project. But... there seems to be a slight problem here at the creaky desk of the basement-dweller.
"Compile... compile dammit! Compile!" the programmer screams at the monitor. The black box of a command prompt flicker in and out of the desktop as he repeatedly hits the batch script's icon, hoping for a good, error-free compile. A moment later, and he gives up on the current run. No one has to compile more than once to tell something went wrong, but the programmer's at the end of his rope. Too many sleepless nights and caffeine inebriation contributed to his persisting offset mood, which should not be confused with mere insanity. No word yet on whether or not there's a success, but that red text on the screen screaming "ERROR" ought to be a heads-up on how "well" things are going. He eventually got the hint.
A few more edits into the vast number of lines in the equally vast number of files, a few more sips of that cool elixir known as Mtn Dew and a few more curse words screeched at the computer later, something appeared to go right. And out on the flickery computer monitor flows the beautiful words and numbers of a successful compile job. The sort of words that whispers its own little tale of program flow, numeric conversions, and all the other bits and bytes that pass through its keen, ever-judging eye. The story formed from statistics of the compile job, the little notes dropped here and there to remind the coder of resources remaining, all of which scrolls onto that black screen, just shortly before it disappears into nothingness, leaving only a newly-minted file containing the fruits of all the hard work over the past years.
"YES!" the unnamed programmer yells into the cluttered confines of his room. "It is (almost) complete!" the oddball shouts, making sure to sneak in as a whisper that disclaimer just to remain correct, even though no one other than his chat buddies would ever know the difference.
Our hero... begins the transfer of his newest program to his beloved graphing calculator. No one needs to know what make or model that device is, but there's just one thing that makes it special. One thing that sets it apart from the rest of the world. One thing that gives it that "special" something. He overclocked that sucker by replacing a C9 capacitor with a highly unstable sample of uranium, giving the calculator a nice, healthy green glow. No one needs to know where he got that sample...
Meanwhile, somewhere, or actually, somewhen, clear across the rock we know as Earth, lies the isle of Berk. It's described as being twelve days north of hopeless, and a few degrees south of freezing to death, located solidly on the Meridian of Misery. It happens to be that time of the year, where the grass starts growing and the temperature, for most of the day, is somewhat above freezing. From an outsider's point of view, one would think of this place as, well, "strange." The problem with using that word, however, is that it's a vast understatement. Nowhere else in the world would one ever dream of people being that muscular, or stubborn. It's just not a common trait, but the real kicker is their pets. While other places have ponies or parrots, they have dragons.
It's already noon, and that black mass of a dragon is still happily snoring away on the rug near Hiccup's bed. For the first time in a long while, the boy drags himself out of his bed, without the "help" of his friend. Normally, he'd either get knocked out bed, or covered in drool, but none of those things happened. 'Strange,' Hiccup thought while looking at his dragon. 'Half past noon and my personal alarm clock didn't bother working.'
At that thought, though, the dragon slowly cracked open one of his eyes and looked right at his master, giving off the "Yeah. Good morning to you too." look. Hiccup rolled right out of bed, slipped on his prosthetic leg, put on a few clothes, then hobbled out his bedroom door and out into the main room of his house. Like a shadow, Toothless followed the scrawny boy.
The duo passed by the table as they were going to leave the place. On that table was some toast, a bit of dried meat, and some goat's milk, while on the other side of it, was some cod. His father must've left it out for the two before he left to do whatever it is the Chief guys do. "Hey Toothless, want some breakfast?" The dragon smacked his lips and gave his trademark gummy smile at that question, then went on to happily nom the fishies at a speed that would startle the laws of physics. Hiccup quietly ate his breakfast, trying to drown out those nagging thoughts that would eventually arise, like "Why didn't I wake up at sunrise?" or "How did Toothless eat the fish without even opening his mouth?" or, his favorite, "Since when did Toothless learn how to put on his tailfin and harness by himself?" Yup. It's a strange day so far, all things considered.
After breakfast was done and over with, Hiccup made his way to the front door, having Toothless by his side in case he tripped. "Hey Bud. Wanna fly?" Damned dragon couldn't even wait to walk outside when he picked up his human by the scruff of his neck and flipped him over and straight onto the saddle before taking right to the air. "Toothless! What's gotten into you?"
The Night Fury dragged his rider high above Berk, and then stopped in mid-air, maintaining his position without doing much more. Hiccup patted the dragon, trying to reassure Toothless that nothing is wrong, but really, he was trying to reassure himself that whatever was bothering his Fury, everything would be alright. When the dragon started growling at something unseen in the air, the boy knew right then and there that everything was not alright.
From the ground level, all of Hiccup's friends and a few other Berkians gazed upward to the Heros of Berk, just to find out what went wrong. I mean, the boy's dragon never acted in this manner, and today was just strange in general for everyone involved. At that moment, the sky darkened for reasons unkown, and that's when the people knew. Their sense of normalcy was about to be shattered yet again.
There was a flash of light in the darkened sky surrounding the black dragon, and after the light subsided, fairly small humanoid creatures with butterfly-like wings appeared, floating in place. The human sitting atop the great beast didn't get a chance to blink when the fairies started their attack. Vast quantities of bright colored orbs shot out toward nobody in particular, but the volume threatened to overtake and strike the two. With this impending danger, Toothless, in sync with Hiccup controlling his tailfin, dodged and weaved through the mass of relatively slow-moving projectiles. The Night Fury returned fire with his own swift plasma bolts, striking down one fairy at a time with unerring accuracy, but no matter how many of them went down, two more took their place. The fire was coming in from everywhere, forcing the dragon to perform aerial maneuvers that not even himself was aware he was capable of. At this point, Hiccup was just a bystander caught in the middle of this horrific firefight.
Vikings started pouring out of their homes to see what the noise and excitement was about. It didn't take them much to find out that there was some sort of fight, and that it was happening in the air, so they looked up and gazed at the most amazing thing ever. This black dot in the sky was weaving up and around carefully placed and constructed patterns of varyingly-shaped and colored orbs of light, proving to all that their heroes are indeed that. No one could ever dream of going up against that and hope to survive. The fight lasted for a few minutes before the lights died down and everything disappeared for just a quick minute, to be replaced by a glowing, floating crate. All eyes remain fixed skyward.
Hiccup, still dazed from the quick motions of his dragon, shook his head and reoriented himself, now that his Night Fury had calmed down. Seeing this lull in the fight, the boy worked up the courage to question the oddly menacing... thing... in front of him.
"Who are you, and why did you attack us?" Hiccup queried the box, unsure of what it wants or what it even is. A few moments passed and a grating, almost mechanical voice emanated from within the hovering object. "I AM THE PLACEHOLDER BOSS FOR THIS GAME. I COME TO POLITELY DO BATTLE WITH YOU TO PLEASE MY MASTER," The box boomed. How it is possible to be both that loud and remain polite at the same time is baffling. "WITH OUR WITHOUT INTERVENTION, WE SHALL DO BATTLE NOW."
Hiccup didn't get another word in edgewise when the enemy surrounded the field in a spinning circle, intent on trapping the dragon within, forcing him to fight the flying object. Toothless obliged, firing plasma bolt after plasma bolt onto the thing, each shot exploding almost harmlessly off the box. The box returned fire by saturating the airspace with glowing projectiles to the point where they seemed to blend into curved lines and weave in and out of each other. Toothless was quickly caught in between and slammed into these glowing ball-lines, resulting in a huge explosion. The dragon and human fell out of the sky, lifeless...
"Mwahaha! I've done it! I've finally made a game that combines my favorite movie with my favorite type of game! I've finally made a HTTYD Danmaku!"
Shortly after having transferred his freshly-baked game to the real deal, it begins. Just gotta navigate through the menus, select a character, and wait for the stage to start. Swiftly, the pale coder raps the keys on his calculator, trying to get his little pixelized avatar of what was supposed to be Toothless to dodge the ever-increasing patterns of bullets and lines on the screen. Things are going well. I mean, he did create the game, after all. A swift focus-switch strafe here and there, a few movements to the left and to the right, almost pixel perfect weaving through the storm of dots blanketing the monochrome screen, and then the unthinkable happened. The border of life and death flashed for a split second, then an explosion, making the dragon disappear off the screen. "Noooooooooo! Toooooooothleeeeeeessssss!" the now distraught geek screams, making the room shake and the calculator tremble. An indistinct feminine voice can be heard from above the basement's rafters.
Geekboy, in half a monitor's refresh cycle, straightens his face, then looks back at the screen. The avatar representing Toothless reappears at the bottom of the screen, blinking, waiting for the player to bring his attention back. "Oh, well. Two lives left," he chirps in a rather sing-song voice. If only he knew what the reality of things were, the reality that's being changed with his magic code and nuclear calculator.