A/N: So this is an AU that I came up with for one of my own personal story, but I wanted to test it out. With HTTYD, the two universes seemed to coincide perfectly. I'm still working details out, and this will not even be started on for several months, so I just wanted to see if this would be worth the time spent on it. And this is just a teaser, not a full chapter, and it's not done quite yet. Give me as many critiques as you have on my style, and the story, and load on with questions. I'd love to hear them all. Thanks :)
This is Berk.
It's twelve days north of any movie theater or Wal-Mart, and a few miles south of freezing to death. It's located solidly within one of the only uninfected regions left in the world. The safe zone. In a word? Sturdy. We've been here nearly 14 years, since the epidemic started and the world ended. But we do have some perks, like fishing, hunting, and a charming view of the sunset. But there is a problem with the pests. See, we used to have stuff like mice, or mosquitos, but now we have, well… werewolves.
The sky sparkled brightly in the early morning, with another half-hour to go till the sun arose. The town was at peace, nestled between a scenic lake and massive mountains, surrounded by an out-of-place, make-shift wooden wall reinforced with scrap metal. Atop it were two men, one with a bucket over his head. He trembled.
"But why are we the ones that have to be up here tonight?" he asked, curled up to preserve body heat. "It's terribly cold out!"
His companion rolled his eyes and sighed, waving his prosthesis around. "I've told you this a hundred times over, Bucket. It's our rotation!"
"But Mulch, Ingerman said there'd be another raid tonight! I don't want to be up here when that starts!"
"Look, just go to sleep, Bucket. I've got this." The thick man, Mulch, sighed, and holstered his rifle. Out in the inky blackness, there was nothing. "We shouldn't even be out here," he muttered to himself. "The last raid was weeks ago. Everyone knew the filthy beasts have other things to do, like howl at the moon and such."
He continued to watch the hillsides that led to the wilds. His blue eyes catch movement. Mulch squints for a better look, and quietly kicks his sagging companion, causing Bucket to yelp.
"I think I see something. Quick, get the radio! Remember the signal!" As he talked, Mulch reached for the night vision binoculars, and peered into them.
"Uh… right. What was it again?" Bucket scratched his bucket with his good hand, trying to remember.
"Never mind that now, Bucket." Mulch slowly withdrew the object from his face, and turned to his companion, looking forlorn. "They're here."
~~~How to Train Your Were-Dragon~~~
Hiccup woke up to the sound of the bell ringing, and the safe zone on high alert. When the clanging finally registered, his eyes went wide.
"Therians. Oh man. Dad!"
The teen rushed downstairs, calling to his father. "Dad, Dad! Therian raid!"
He was stopped short as he saw the front door thrown open and slightly swaying as the hulking form of his father was already several yards from the porch. He rolled his eyes, and stepped onto the porch. He could hear the therians calling in their human forms. It was a ritualistic habit. They didn't see these raids as life-or-death. To them—well, the young ones, at least—it was a sport, a joke. They would come out, half-naked, and roar, and stomp and hiss at the wall, all the while laughing like idiots. They had a good 30 minutes before the mature therians arrived, and the chaos would begin.
Most people would leave. But we can't. The rest of the world is infected with a deadly virus that kills everything. So we're pretty much stuck.
But it seems that tonight, the pack was rushed. As he darted onto the defenses, Hiccup saw the therians had gone full-animal, and already raving against the wall between them and easy food. He shuddered, and rushed down to the armory as the first claws broke through the wooden barrier.
My name's Hiccup. Well, not really. I was born Johnathon, but everyone here goes by codenames, for some odd reason. Perhaps to tricky any invaders into thinking we're insane. As if our charming, post-apocalyptic demeanor wouldn't do that.
Heading into the town, people were rushing about the early morning. One man collided into Hiccup, roaring with insane laughter. "Morning!" he cheered, and got back off, running to wait for the therians to finally make it past the wall.
Hiccup kept going, dodging past the armed adults.
"What are you doing, Hiccup?"
"Get inside."
"Wuh?"
"Get back inside."
He paid no heed to them, just the urge to make it to the armory before the therians made it through. But it was too late. A rhino charged through the road he almost crossed, but luckily a strong arm grabbed him, pulling him from harm.
"Hiccup! What is he doing out again—what are you doing out?" His saving grace scowled at him. Hiccup hung meekly, tempted to shrug his shoulder at the strong man. "Get inside!"
That's Governor Haddock, codename Stoick the Vast. They say when he was a baby, he popped a therians head clean off its shoulders. Do I believe it? Yes I do.
Hiccup, flung away from Stoick, ducked behind the house the man was next to. All around, therians were starting to flood the streets, and the survivors, armed in their thick leather arm and neck guards ran forward, armed ranging from sub-machine guns to mere batons and tasers.
"What have we got?" asked Stoick.
"Rhinos, foxes, snakes—oh, and Hoark saw a wolf."
"And the Dragon?"
"No sign so far."
An explosion rocked off nearby, and Hiccup looked to see a snake morph into human just long enough to cackle over the raw destruction of it. One flaming piece of debris landed on Stoick's shoulder, and he just brushed it off.
"Good."
A rhino rammed into the building he was hiding behind, causing Hiccup to let out a little starteld shout, and dash off while some men tried to get at it. Dashing past the main commons, large torches went up into the air to light the night, casting a grim view as more and more of the were-creatures ran past. But he pushed that out of his mind, and ran forward into the armory, past the large hulk of muscle—if that's what it was—and to his station, getting it straightened up.
"Oh, nice of you to join the party! I thought you'd been dragged off and eaten!" the man exclaimed, wiping sweat off his brow as he jogged from area to area, grabbing guns and laying them on the counter for the defenders to grab.
"Wha—who, me? No, Come on, I'm way too muscular for their tastes. They wouldn't know what to do with all… this." Hiccup made his first sarcastic gesture of the day by referring to his scrawny body.
The weapons master moved to unlock the extension for his prosthesis and replace it with a more flexible hand-like item. "Well, they need toothpicks, don't they?"
The meat head with an attitude and interchangeable hands is Gobber, which may or may not be his actual name. I've been working for him ever since I was little, or littler.
At the window, the first customers had arrived, and that was another punch on his sarcasm card. They shouted demands for ammo.
Hiccup held up his arms to slow their screams. "Whoa, slow down guys, one at a time! Hoark, what do you need?"
"5 mags for the M16! "
"Make it 10!"
"Double that!"
"You got it." Hiccup dashed into the back for the ammo, and fingered through them until he reached the huge drawer full of it. After a few seconds trying to grab several at a time, he just pulls the whole thing out—albiet with some difficulty—and tosses it onto the counter.
"All yours boys!"
In seconds, the mags were gone.
He turned his back for a second, and felt the searing heat blast meaning another—
"Fire!"
This is his favorite part.
The unfortunate fire brigade came rolling forward with a small pressurized hose. A large, but not really muscular teen attached it to one of the few and luckily placed hydrants in the safe zone, and a beefy boy uncoiled it. Two blond look-a-likes fought over the nozzle until a girl shoved her way between them, took it, and slammed it on to put out the flames.
Oh, that's Fishlegs, Snoutlout, the twins, Ruffnut and Tuffnut, and Astrid.
Hiccup couldn't help but stare as he watched her flawlessly hose off the house, though the other scowling teenagers ruined the picture-esque quality to her moment of triumph.
Oh, their jobs are so much cooler than mine.
Caught leaning over the counter to catch a glimpse of them as they walked by, Gobber grabbed him and lifted him by the collar, just like Stoick did, and dropped him near the explosives.
"Oh, come on, let me out, please? I need to make my mark!"
His elder fixed him with a dubious glare. "Oh, you've made plenty of marks, all in the wrong places."
"Please, two minutes," said Hiccup, backing away out of habit and instinct from his drop point. "I'll kill a therian; my life will get infinitely better. I might even get a date."
"You can't shoot a gun, you can't aim any kind of launcher; you can't even manage to swing one of these!" To present the item in question, he held up a package of net with metal balls to weigh them. Before he could replace it, though, someone reached forward and grabbed it, and he and his buddies used it to rope a rhino, holding it down.
"Ok, but this," said the boy, gesturing to his own, supposedly more reliable version of a net launcher, "will throw it for me."
At that moment, the device decided to activate; it threw the net forward, catching a few guys waiting outside.
Gobber glared at his protégé. "See, now this right here is what I'm talking about!"
Hiccup stumbled to find an excuse. "A mild calibration issue-"
"Hiccup." The man stopped him and looked him right in the eye. "If you ever want to get out there to fight therians, you need to stop all… this."
He sighed, and looked up, frustration putting a new light in his eyes. "But you just gestured to all of me!"
"Yes," the big man said, giving a right nudge in Hiccup's chest. "That's it. Stop being all of you."
"Oh…," muttered Hiccup.
"Ooooh, yeah."
"You, you sir, are playing a dangerous game, keeping this much raw… manliness… contained. There will be consequences!"
Gobber shook his head, unamused. "I'll take my chances. Grenades. Reload. Now." He dropped a grenade launcher in Hiccup's arm, taking him by surprise, but Hiccup manage to lay it on his station table. He went over to the explosives area and quickly retrieved the grenades, starting to carefully insert more into the weapon's chamber. Outside, he could hear all the thrill in the voices of man and therian alike.
One day, I'll get out there, because killing a therian is everything around here. A fox head is sure to get me at least noticed. Rhinos are tough; taking down one of those would definitely get me a girlfriend. A snake? Exotic. The more bomb-happy, the greater the status. Then, there's the wolf. The werewolf. Only the strongest and bravest go after those. With a nasty bite that will instantly give you what makes them wolves, very little can measure up to their abilities. But the ultimate prize is the therian no one's ever seen. The Dragon.
A rising shriek came from outside, and Hiccup rushed to look as its signature plasma blast hit one of their towers.
This thing never steals food, never shows itself, and never misses. It is the only one of its kind we know of. That's why I'm going to be the one to take it down.
He shouldered the launcher, and handed it over to Gobber. He holstered it on his right shoulder, and gave him a nod. "Man the fort, Hiccup. They need me out there." Before leaving though, he fixed the teen with all the seriousness he could muster. "Stay. Put. There… you know what I mean."
And with that, Gobber the Belch, which is probably his actual codename, charged into the mass chaos, yelling at the top of his lungs.
And that was all Hiccup needed.
Within seconds, he himself was leaving the armory, darting through his fellow survivors to the Cliffside. Though they protested, he silently promised them they would all be thanking, worshipping him even, later.
He got to the cliff over the scenic lake. The sound of the battle seemed to disappear as he looked out at the sky, with the beautiful stars shining in the night. Good—easier to see the Dragon. He quickly sets up the small net launcher, and sits, ready for the Dragon to come flying around.
"Come on… gimme somethin' to shoot at, gimme somethin' to shoot at."
In the foreground was another defense tower, a good target for the Dragon. If it was going to hit anywhere, it's there.
Other therian sounds were still audible, setting Hiccup on edge. How is he supposed to know where it's coming from with all their noises? But then there's movement. A faintly moving shape in the darkness. It had to be the Dragon, there hadn't been any bird therians for months.
The tell-tale shriek rose, followed by the beautiful array of colors exploding out from the strike. Hiccup tried to keep it in his line of sight, but it was moving too fast. Before he allowed himself to hesitate, he blindly aimed and fired, the recoil knocking him back. But he looked up to this sight of the Dragon falling from the air to the ground by Raven's Point, much to his amazement.
"Oh, I hit it. Yes, I hit it! Did anybody see that?" Out of wonder and amazement, he widlly whirled around, a look of ultimate pride on his face. But then there's a terrifying crunch from behind and he slowly turned around to see a werewolf over the splintered remains of his launcher.
"Except for you…," he said. The wolf seemed to smile in a cruel fashion, if only for a second. But Hiccup wasn't waiting to find out if the wolf really was capable of such evils. He took off screaming as he ran to the village center; help was bound to be there.
It stumbled around as it tried to follow him down the steeper streets, sometimes bumping into the inner edges of the street. He kept running till he got to one of the huge torches erected throughout the town, and hid what he thought was behind it. He felt a thick body ram into it, and Hiccup stiffened. When nothing happened, he started to edge around, trying to see if it had gone.
But a massive figure flew past him and the sound of a foot colliding with a furry face caused him to press himself back into position. He watched as Stoick squared off against the massive werewolf, which mimicked the man in a mocking fashion. Stoick whipped out his shotgun and cocked it.
"I'm almost out, but who needs it?"
The wolf charged, and Stoick gave it a strong butt to the head with the gun and whipped it back across the creature's muzzle. He then pulled back, aimed the shotgun, and fired. The many pellets of shot spun out, some hitting the creature, others spinning past, but it was enough to make the wolf reconsider. It whimpered and retreated, howling to his companions.
Oh, and there's one more thing you need to know.
The torch, which had been clawed at, hit against, and worn down the entire early morning, started to collapse. It fell to show Hiccup, looking quite unsure and almost as if he were braced for something. The head of the torch came off the pole to roll through the town. They watched, along with the rest of the village that had then accumulated to where they were, as it rolled away through the village and off the cliff, and into the large lake it overlooked.
Hiccup winced with each thud and crashing sound, and without looking to Stoick, said: "Sorry, dad."