"Hiccup! Astrid's here for repairs. Something about tha' bolt on her rifle being jammed." The boy sighed, setting aside his current project - a replacement prosthetic hand for one of the men who had lost his last raid - moving to the window where they took requests. He pushed aside some scraps of metal that scattered the floor, sighing yet again.
"If she'd stop friggin' using the rifle as a pistol and trying to free-scope it, we wouldn't have this problem." He mumbled as he pushed aside some cartidges of ammo, then leaned out the window. "Mornin' Astrid."
The blonde didn't reply, simply dropping the rifle on the counter. "I need it done by tonight. Scouts reported activity to the south, so we've got a raid soon." Without even another word or meeting his gaze, she turned and walked down the road.
"Yeah, nice to see you, too!" Hiccup said sarcastically, picking up the heavy rifle - not without struggle. "How does she lift this thing one-armed?" He said, groaning as he carried it through the shop before setting it on his workbench.
Hiccup had been working as Gobber's assistant in the shop for almost seven years now, starting when he had turned eight. Although he was more of Gobber's partner now - Hiccup himself did the majority of the delicate and more complex work, leaving Gobber to the production of larger things, such as mass amount of ammunition and molding the parts for the weapons.
The reason for Hiccups transfer to the forge was obvious. As the son of the Chief, he would have been expected to grow into a fearsome warrior, capable of carrying on the families honor. However, he had always been rather scrawny, more suited to running and building than swinging swords or shooting rifles.
Then there was the more obvious reason - his hand, or, well, lack of one. When he was eight, he had attempted to join his father in a raid in an attempt to impress him. The young boy had received a Nadder spike to his left arm for his folly, forcing the village herbalist to amputate it in order to keep the poison from spreading.
From the left shoulder down, Hiccup was a machine. His arm, an extremely expensive and complex machine of his own design, was made of lightweight titanum and had well over a thousand moving parts. Most people were rather creeped out by the sight of an arm that looked as if it had a mind of its own, so he usually wore a jacket and dragon-scale gloves when he was outside. However, here in the shop, the mechanized limb came in handy - especially seeing as Hiccup had made some... modifications to it. Whats the point of being a mechanic if you can't make your own prosthetic tricked out?
Gobber looked over from his workbench with a snort, eyeing Hiccup from the corner of his gaze. "She can mos' likely lift it one armed because she's not a twig like you are. Ya need some meat on those bones, boy." Hiccup waved him away with one hand, then wiped his brow.
"Yeah, yeah, yeah. I get it. Everyone else in town is a viking, im just... This." He said, waving his hand over his body. "Every time I tell her to stop shooting like that, and every time she just says 'I know what I'm doing' or just walks off." He thumped down into his chair, groaning. "One day its going to snap in the middle of a fight, and then she's in trouble."
Gobber just laughed. "Astrid does know what she's doing, son. And even if it does snap in the middle of a fight, she's handy enough with that axe of hers that it won't be a bother to her." Hiccup begrudging nodded.
Astrids rifle was one of Hiccups favorite designs. He had given her an unconventional, but effective. The barrel of the rifle was nearly a foot and a half long, with a six-by-four silencing box on the end, to muffle the sound of it firing. There was no flash, however - something he was immensely proud of.
The body of the rifle was shaped as you would expect - about a foot long, melding into a rubber padded stock. The whole thing from the suppressor to the stock was four feet long.
When he had presented it to astrid at her fourteenth birthday, the day she had decided to become a sheild maiden - as if she would ever be a simple caretaker. Many people, unsure of what her choice would be, had simply given her clothing or coins. Her closest friends, however, had known without a doubt what her choice would be.
Ruffnut and Tuffnut had pooled together money to buy her the axe that she still used today. Snotlout had given her a set of armor that his mother used to wear when she was a teen. Hiccup, however, gave her the first weapon he had ever made.
He smiled as he recalled her reaction when she had opened the case that went with it. She had sprung up and given him a hug, then grinned as he described how it worked and how it was different from other rifles.
"It uses specially made projectiles, capable of peircing through armor from over a mile away." He pulled out one of the projectiles from her pocket, tossing it to her. "It's like an arrow, kind of. Its sharpened at the end, because it doesnt have the same force as a normal bullet. But the rifle makes up for that. It has no flash, produces no recoil, and can hold nearly four hundred shots in a single clip. It's bolt action, and uses no gunpowder either."
The rifle was pretty much an extremely powerful crossbow, he explained. The bolt activated the mechanism that pulled back the cord, as well as loading another shot into the barrel. The scope mounted on the rail atop the rifle was the strongest he could find, capable of counting the hairs on a squirrel a mile away. She had loved it the second she first fired it, and commissions for similar weapons had poured in once she had started using it.
Hiccups smile faded as he recalled that that was the last time Astrid had so much as met his gaze. Shortly after that, she had begun to hang out with the other members of the group, pretty much cutting the useless Hiccup off. Fighters didn't make friends with forge masters.
Hiccup sighed, standing up from the chair. He fixed the bolt with ease - he just had to re-align the slide with the barrel, same as usual - and completed the prosthetic arm that he was working on before.
The rusty-haired teen stood from his workshop once his projects for the day were done, walking over to the welding station where Gobber was currently welding together two halves of a sword that had snapped last raid. Instead of conventional welding equipment, he was using the multi-purpose prosthetic hand. Which Hiccup had made.
As Hiccup approached, Gobber flicked up his mask, peering at the boy. "I s'pose you'll be takin the rest o' the day off to work on your project, I bet?" Hiccup nodded, and Gobber just shook his head before flicking the mask back down. "Well, off with ye'. I'm not one to encourage you're fool mission, but I can't stop ya."
As Hiccup turned to head to his house, he heard Gobber mumble under his breath. "Catchin' a Night Fury. What a fool."
(((((()))))
Hiccup had fallen asleep in his bed, the anxiety of the coming attack wearying him. It was nearly two in the morning before the klaxxon went off, startling the boy into awakeness. "Friggin lizards have the shittiest sense of timing. I spend eight hours waiting, and they decide to attack a half hour after I fall asleep." He rushed to the corner of his room, picking up a bundle of aluminum and fabric from his desk.
Snagging an apple on his way out, he bit into it as he pushed the steel door open. As a precaution, he quickly slammed the door closed, then waited five seconds. It was a good thing he did - moments after he opened the door there was a massive 'thud' that shook the house as something slamming into the door. He quickly pushed open the door, peeking out to look at the would - be attacker.
A large red Monstrous Nightmare was on the ground below him, its brains quite clearly scattered by the impact. Nightmares had thermal vision, allowing them to see the heat signatures of people through their shelters. Fishlegs - Hiccups only remaining friend - hypothethised that it was so they could find their mates over long distances. Seeing as Nightmares had the tendency to set themselves aflame, he was probably right.
He quickly jumped over the long neck of the dazed dragon, which began to regain its senses rather quickly. However, instead of rearing up to rejoin the fight as Hiccup expected it to, it instead flew to the south, away from the direction the dragons attacked from.
He watched the dragon fly away from the fight and its home for a few second, puzzled, then shook his head. Its sense of direction must have been muddled after the attack, or something of the sort.
He ran up the mountain that his house rested up against, carrying the bundle of rods and fabric under his arm. When he reached his destination, he was out of breath and had to rest on a rock, looking down at the town before him.
The battleground was a mess. The bards sung of a time where wars were clean and honorable, but that was against human opponents. Dragons had no battle lines, no strategy, no leaders that they could discern. They attacked at random, stealing supplies of food - mostly sheep, but sometimes grain and even cabbage if given the chance.
Many sections of the town were ablaze, the wooden homes burning. His house was the only house that was made of metal, seeing as the chief was the only one who kept important documents in his house.
If Hiccup had a pair of binoculars, he wagered that he could see Astrid in the center of the action, free-scoping her rifle. That afternoon she had come to pick up the rifle, lifting it up with her right arm, peering through the scope at a target in the distance they had for that very purpose. She had fired a shot, then pulled back on the bolt with her left hand, wrenching the bolt to the side. In the exact way that Hiccup had told her not to. If she had centered it on her shoulder, using it like a rifle instead of mounting on her forearm like a pistol or SMG, she wouldn't be having this problem.
Hiccup sighed, then moved to set up his contraption. "Gotta get set up before the alarm goes off." He began, mumbling to himself, but as he said so a low note rang out through the town.
Cries began to spring up from around the town, rising up to his ears over the clamor of the battle. "Night Fury!"
Hiccup began to move with haste, setting up the tripod legs of his building. He stomped on the spikes that secured the legs to the ground, then grabbed onto the handles mounted on the rear.
The contraption was a net cannon, which the people of Berk were used to using. They had to capture and study dragons somehow. However, this cannon was far more powerful than any they had ever used.
"Trial twelve, raid number seven." Hiccup mumbled as he peered through the scope. A high pitched whistle began to sound through the air, and the people below him jumped on the ground, covering their heads with their hands. In the middle of a fight normal, this would have been suicide. But as the whistling sound became louder and more high pitched, even the dragons fled the area, hovering up above the town like vultures.
The whistling grew to a louder, ear-piercing creshendo as Hiccup hurriedly pulled back various levers on the sides of the cannon. Suddenly, his eyes were drawn to the town as the whistle turned into a screech, and a massive boom sounded. A blue flash appeared as the Night Fury blasted past the barn, where they hid the sheep during raids. The blue light formed into a disc as it blew the roof of the barn to bits, the explosion shattering titanium and reinforced steel like a stone through a window.
The townspeople jumped to their feet, knowing they had a few minutes to regroup before the Night Fury struck again. To reasons unknown to the people of Berk, the Night Fury only attacked the three most important buildings when it showed up during raids - the Storehouse, the Barn, and the Granary. If it attacked more places than those three, their odds of surviving more than two or three raids was slim. They had never seen the Fury itself, but its handiwork spoke of a monstrous creature born of nightmares.
The hovering dragons descended upon the now-defenseless barn, snatching swine and sheep in their claws and fleeing to their Northern home. They snatched from the building freely for a few minutes, until the vikings managed to set up a perimeter around the broken building, chasing off the dragons.
Hiccup, his device now ready to fire, peered through the sights of his cannon nervously. The Night Fury attacked the three places, but not in a set order. So, to his regret, he had to wait for the third attack to begin before he knew where the Fury would strike.
The militia, now re-grouped, set into a steady, practiced rhythm. Half of them stayed at the barn, defending the animals that resided within. The other half mobilized and prepared to defend the site of the next attack, forming into a loose group. Attacks by the Night Fury were rare - it came maybe once every five raids, at random intervals, always keeping the vikings off balance.
The whistling returned, but the dragons and people skirmishing around the Barn continued fighting. All the others, however, jumped down to the ground or flew out of the blast radius.
The side wall of the Storehouse collapsed with a massive boom, revealing the meat and supplies that had been hidden safely moments before. The Inn was still about a quarter mile away from hiccup, but he was still rocked back on his heels from the massive shockwave the attack produced.
Hurriedly, he pointed the barrel of his cannon towards the Granary, then activated the program he had designed. The sights of his contraption came to life, clicking and whirring as the screen showed an enhanced image of the sky above the town, bathing everything in a green glow.
"C'mon, C'mon..." Hiccup mumbled anxiously, turning the massive cannon from side to side, scanning for his quarry. Doubts filled his mind, as they always did. What if the Fury attacked someplace else this time, instead of the usual spots? What if he missed and damaged one of the buildings?
He shook his head, trying to chase the doubts away. The whistling began again, and there was a frantic beeping from his machine. He glanced down at the screen, smiling as he saw his target outlined in a red circle. The machine began programming and figuring where he would have to fire in order to hit his target, factoring the in estimated speed of the drake and numerous other calculations.
Hiccup and Fishlegs hypothethised that the massive boom they heard during each attack was actually the sound of the Night Fury breaking the sound barrier, seeing as no actual projectile was fired. After several failed attempts and one false alarm - he had managed to confuse a Nadder with the Night Fury, whoops - he thought he had finally programmed the cannon properly.
The whistling began to reach its high point, and Hiccup tracked the form of the black dragon as it sped towards its target. "Dammit, you piece of junk, lock on!" he nearly shouted, staring at the screen as it tried to find the proper course.
The whistling increased to the scream that signaled that the attack was only seconds away, and the people in the town below hit the dirt, the dragons flapping out of the blast zone.
Just as the dragon prepared to fire, the red targeting disc turning white as it locked on. Hiccup immediately pressed the triggers on the top of the handles, wincing as the recoil of the cannon rocked him back. The whistle cut off, the blue shot missing its target and imploding mid-air. A loud, low pitched moan filled the air, and the people and dragons looked up, confused. Suddenly, every dragon on the island let out a roar, lifting off and fleeing to the north.
The stunned townspeople looked around, as if they expected the dragons to return at any moment. But as they kept watching, the drakes flew into the cloudless night, dissapearing over the horizon.
A raspy roar rang out over the town as the vikings realized that they had won the night, even though it had been more unusual victory. None of them were as proud as Hiccup.
"I... I caught the Night Fury. I caught the Night Fury!" He whispered, his shocked expression turning to a grin. "I did it! They're not going to believe that I, Hiccup the Useless, the one-armed weakling beat the Night Fury!" He whooped, then his grin faded slightly as he realized what he said. "They're not going to believe it unless I... aw shit. Find it."
Hiccup groaned, then headed down the mountain to find his prey. The rest of the town set to rebuilding what had been ruined in the attack, but within the hour, they were celebrating and recounting battle stories.
But come dawn, when the town had gone back to its slumber from the hectic night before, Hiccup was nowhere to be found.
(((((())))))
Shh. Shh. Shhhhhh.
I wanted to write this. So I did. Deal with it.
Im not abandoning any of my other stories, I just wanted to start a new one. So. If you all enjoyed Steam-punk HTTYD, let me know. Im not sure if I should continue this one or not, but leave a review and tell me if you like it or not!
Anyways. I'll update the stories whenever I get the inspiration to do so, which should be pretty soon. Im halfway through the next chapter of Fractals.
Love Y'all!
Arac.