Hiccups: the ring of fire and warrior of Night.
A/N: the meeting of two different storylines. I adore both my version of Hiccup and NFF's version that he gave me. I thought it would be nice if they met.
The boy lay, almost silent, on his bed. His mind was caressed with nostalgic memories that instilled within him a vague awe. Sleep wasn't coming soon though; the distracting presence of thought making the plans of unconsciousness unpleasant.
He gave a small snort of anger at his indecision, his frills extending slightly out of his neck before the unhappy reminder of their use made him them slot back in. Hiccup gave a half-awake query to the gods, "why can't I sleep? I'm tired, I ran around doing errands, I should have been knocked out the moment I hit the pillow."
The conciliation of this fact brought him no closer to his rest than before, and eventually he had to give up; a powerful being defeated by his body's own refusal to accept that it was bed-time.
The bed felt uncomfortable now, with the feelings of disappointment emanating from Hiccup almost embedded in the fur skins. He brushed off the heavy covers with the limited strength his tired body could muster, before rising to accept consciousness for the time being.
With the obstacle removed, Hiccup moved himself with tired autonomy to an upright position. He rubbed the sleep out of his eyes with imprecise movements before checking the time according to the position of the moon. He stretched out his unhelpful body before peering out of one of his custom-built flight windows.
His gaze was interrupted; no flames, no shouting. Just the sudden, nostalgic, vision of Night Fury eyes.
This time there were three pairs, not the single pair that he remembered seeing after he first noticed Toothless. He stared for a moment, his awakening mind in utter disbelief that such an event could occur. Thus it could only be a hallucination, right?
Although Hiccup had never had any problems with seeing things that weren't there he rubbed his eyes, impatient to remove the trickery that might lurk within his vision. The green glow never ceased, seeming to burn brighter with the clarity that Hiccup's mind now bestowed upon it.
His disbelief merging with honest fear at the implications, Hiccup's glowing frills started dropping out, ready for anything. His mind was too focused on the sight in front of him to rein back the survival mechanism.
Midnight (other Hiccup) could not see much in the village, neither could Toothless or Shadewrath. They were told by Gothi that they would find another like them here, based off news she had received from a contact. Right then, a strange glowing came out of one of the houses; a ring of dots that shone from a window.
Now the demigod (as NFF assures me) had a target, He motioned for the other two dragons to silently follow him as he squatted and crept closer. He did not know that those dots meant and so he was surprised when a stream of small fireballs lit up the enclosing darkness.
Hiccup did not know what was going on. He had kept his eyes on the intruders when a phantom voice whispered into his ears, "give them a rain of hell."; A woman's voice that carried authority.
Hiccup had no choice, body completely out of his control, and soon he could see his frills began pulsing due to their lightening of the room, getting faster and faster while gas gathered in his throat.
The gas formed a cylinder, surging up his throat surrounded by their unreactive coating, periodically the magical energy would manipulate the coating to form separate shots before enhancing each one. Eventually each one would be finished by Freyja and a stream of projectiles would advance towards the group.
Midnight had little time to react as the first projectiles came closer. Luckily for him, Night had been paying close enough attention to erect a shield.
The phantom surface shimmered into view and absorbed the multiple hits, small blue explosions splattering over the flat surface.
Midnight and his accompanying Night Furies flinched at the sight of heavy ordinance slamming into the shield, before planning how to react. The rain of plasma blasts was still terrifying, each hit numerous and powerful.
They had almost completely decided on just taking out the figure; to prevent his constant fire, but Night prevented them, "he is not in control of himself. Freyja has decided to use him against me."
The halo increased in brightness in response to Night's realisation. The pods gave off a piercing pulse into the night, periodically lighting up the entire area.
Freyja's voice was now screaming in Hiccup's mind, "kill them! kill the damned subordinates of Night!" to whom he did not know, since he himself was not listening.
Instead, He was trying to break free, even as his pods detached from his neck in complete neglect to his true wishes. They span in unison to accumulate more energy for the magic use; small lightning bolts escaping from excess energy.
The magic surge made Freyja's presence even harder to ignore, and soon Hiccup was driven insane by the relentless shouting.
No. he wasn't insane, he was Furious.
An important emotion, the real harbinger of death, The Night Fury's trademark power above all others.
The chemicals summoned within his body; in response to this anger, incinerated all traces of the voice out of him.
She may be strong, but a Fury with Fury is stronger. The flow of emotion enhanced, purging Hiccup's body of the would-be invader.
The wisps of her essence eventually retreated to the rotating pods before being forcibly expelled in a laser burst.
Midnight had to wait this one out, which did not come naturally with the sight of each projectile slamming into the shield. He even imagined it began gaining cracks after a while; these perceptions did not help his sanity.
The god of Night mentioned a shift he saw in Hiccup, "He seems to be expelling Freyja's presence, fortunately for us."
Midnight took this advice with relief, "thank Odin, I really thought we were-"
20 lines of light appeared, rapidly depleting and then shattering through the shield. They would've killed Midnight straight away if Hiccup, recovering control, hadn't let his aim wander.
As they were, the intense blue lasers touched down to the left of Midnight, burning deep into the ground and setting surrounding grass on fire.
They began to move, still at the mercy of Hiccup's control but thankfully still travelling away. The beams almost hit Shadewrath's snout before they petered out.
Everyone on the receiving end of this mysterious weapon was extremely worried about their chances of survival. Whoever this person was, he held great power.
Hiccup was extremely tired and emotional from his ordeal with Freyja; sweat poured out of his every pore, but he owed it to the strangers to apologise for his attack; purposeful or non-purposeful as the case might be.
He decided on flight as his best option and leaped out of the window, only to buffet his fall with an exaggerated twist of his wings, increasing drag dramatically, before using his thrusters to get close to the suspicious gang of newcomers, flattening his wings for effective flight.
He hoped this confrontation wouldn't be his last. Hiccup's friend Toothless also awakened after the loud battle. But he was far quicker than Hiccup to gain full control and go after his friend as Hiccup flew off.
The darkness surrounding the parties was periodically lit with Hiccup's still pulsing, still freely revolving pods; although the owner wasn't in a mood to fight.
Midnight realised that Hiccup may not have recovered enough to speak, so he began instead, "Hello, I would question your attack, but I know that wasn't you. So now I shall introduce ourselves, I'm Midnight and this is Toothless and Shadewrath. Who, by all of Thor's majesty, are you?"
Hiccup's neutral look faltered with guilt for a moment at the mention of the attack, but knew it had to come up at some point. He gathered his mixed emotions, pushed them out with a sigh and tried to address Midnight's question with seriousness. Instead he felt his embarrassment surge, "First of all, sorry. I… ah… really did not mean to… how to put this? shoot you. Yeah. By the way, I'm Hiccup and I also have a Night Fury named Toothless. He should still be sleeping."
The stated dragon was not sleeping, or in any way docile. He had cloaked to sneek up to the person and dragons surrounding Hiccup and prepare to strike.
He eventually uncloaked and revealed his intentions with his front claws dangerously close to Midnight-Toothless' and Shadewrath's throat, before speaking; each sentence a perfect rendition of a dragon in anger "What are you doing with Hiccup, do not dare to harm him or I will kill you all."
Midnight was shocked at the sudden intervention, having two Night Furies gives you a sense of invincibility after all. Luckily Hiccup intervened, "Toothless, I'm fine, please don't threaten Toothless and Shadewrath."
Toothless withdrew his claws with a schink; letting Hiccup continue.
Hiccup took this as his cue and pushed forwards, "okay, so… can we start talking about… stuff? Like why is one of your Night Furies named the same as mine?"
Midnight, having heard Hiccup introduce himself, had a simple answer, but the repercussions for such a weird anomaly were even more shocking than the hail of plasma blasts, "my original name is Hiccup, like yours. And speaking of that, we are quite similar aren't we?"
Indeed they were, Hiccup to Hiccup as dually their minds cut conscious thought to concentrate on the puzzling anomaly; magic was fine by now for both, doppelgangers still weren't.
Loki's interference was strongly suspected in such an unforeseen circumstance.
Hiccup and Toothless wondered how there were people from other islands who looked like him, while Midnight, due to his trust in Gothi's words, wondered why she hadn't known about this particular detail. Their physical appearance could be seen in their enhanced vision in the night to be almost identical; apart from Midnight's slight Fury features.
Eventually they realised that they were staring silently, and so one of them had to challenge said silence, lest they stand here forever. Midnight started, "So, anything I should know about you, apart from rotating discs of light around your head?"
Said discs were still rotating, but Hiccup was currently too shocked to remember how he retracted them. So he settled on answering, "I'm Hiccup, and Toothless made me inhale some sort of gas that turned me into what I am now."
Midnight-Toothless and Shadewrath were shocked that such an ability existed. On Midnight's side there was a small suspicion that Hiccup wasn't revealing everything.
Obviously when you had such obvious potential revealed in the previous battle he was hiding something. Midnight took this on and questioned Hiccup for the complete truth, "and what exactly happened after you inhaled said gas? I've seen your halo thing, and I just don't think that's the limit of your capabilities."
(Toothless had meanwhile slipped around back to Hiccup's side, to take a more direct role in guarding him, and so the two different groups formed a face-off, thankfully without conflict at the moment.)
Hiccup was fine to expand; since he still needed to apologise and didn't want them annoyed at him for keeping anything secret, "well, as far as I can remember; ability to change into dragon, different dragon shot types, dragon propulsion system and the ability to scale power of each shot."
Each one rang through Midnight-Toothless with some shock, he could never have expected that his species could imbue a human with such powers.
A slightly more extensive list than Midnight had been expecting, and filled with 2 exotic options that he hadn't heard before, but he took it nonetheless.
Perhaps he could find out more at another time. But first they had to decide where to go; dawn was coming and the resident Vikings were not going to be happy at the sight of new strangers.
They agreed among themselves to retreat to a private place; Hiccup suggested they depart to the cove and Midnight took the option quickly, feeling the urgency in Hiccup's tone.
They all set off, Hiccup and Midnight spreading their wings for the short flight ahead. Hiccup had an initial smug moment as his thrusters gently pushed him slightly, but his confidence; that a little effort would be able to make him outpace Midnight, was proven wrong.
Their Night Fury companions took off casually, keeping themselves separate from this new race.
Midnight flapped his wings powerfully, rushing past Hiccup with speed inherited from close supervision from Night Furies, as well as having the appropriate parts as well. Midnight had somehow guessed this was a competition and smiled back at Hiccup.
Hiccup responded to that challenge with an increase of thrust power, speeding past Midnight before pulling his tailfin up to start pitching up, or backwards from his vertical position, towards the cove. He got to horizontal, still leaning backwards into the turn, before angling his left wing by the wing root to roll him back to level.
Meanwhile the dragons were less interested in the race, instead they had the opportunity to find out more about each other, a chance they took full advantage of.
Hiccup's blisteringly fast flight continued while Midnight struggled to reclaim dominance. From the demigod's perception, Hiccup's blue clashed with the rising sun; giving him something to aim at.
Hiccup's antics with the propulsion weren't fine by Midnight however, and he consumed those flames with darkness, causing Hiccup to fall initially, before beginning a shaky flight with wing power.
Midnight rushed past him with his new-found advantage, but Hiccup wasn't in the position to back down to a total stranger. He re-ignited his thrusters, straightened his flagging wings and came back in front of Midnight. The demigod wasn't about to let him, letting the cloud of darkness begin engulfing his flames.
Hiccup fought back though, utilising the power in his pods to increase the fire, making it harder for Midnight to extinguish the flames. Midnight persevered and eventually the thrusters flamed-out again. Hiccup was tired of this, and at the same time he realised they had overshot, "Sorry, it's back there, goodbye,"
Midnight was about to question this random statement when Hiccup's form dispersed into gas. Now this wasn't something he had expected, and his reaction was slow enough to give the reforming Hiccup a head start.
Now Hiccup was in front again.
Midnight, like Hiccup, never gave up and lifted his tail violently to turn hard towards the cove. The overly-competitive were soon level; Midnight quieting Hiccup's propulsion with bursts of Night's powers.
Eventually they both tumbled onto the ground of the cove, each of the two shifters too pre-occupied with racing to chicken out of a naturally-hazardous situation.
They got up to their feet, chuckling like kids, before noticing Shadewrath, Toothless and Midnight-Toothless smirking at them; it turns out that neither of the shifters had won the race. Both weren't disappointed, instead they actually hugged at the closeness that having their little competition had given them.
This, to turn the tables, shocked their dragons. At the time of their last encounter they were passive-aggressive, friendly, but with an element of distrust. Now they were hugging each other on the white sand beach of the cove.
Truly, a miraculous emotional transformation of miraculous, emotional, transforming beings.
Hiccup and Midnight hadn't lost their gaze on the dragons during that time, and laughed at the looks of surprise. They began to capitalise on this by changing their current behaviour and acting serious. Hiccup started, addressing his own Toothless to begin with; "Toothless! Why are you so confused, bud? We're really getting along now! He's a pretty sharp flyer himself, although don't tell him I said that."
Obviously the last part was actually meant to be heard by Midnight and he smiled. The compliment by itself plunged the Night Furies present to even deeper depths of confusion. Eventually they recovered, finally realising that this friendship had developed, and they were complimenting each other.
Now the dragons themselves, although hesitant to develop their relationships beyond using simple greetings, saw the reason for conflict had gone. So, they now introduced themselves further, giving stories and affectionate rubs to one another.
Hiccup and Midnight were extremely pleased that their dragons had bonded together so well. They themselves had yet to trade stories, and so they did (each of their stories comes from "Hiccup gone half fury" and "NFF-Hiccup's encounter with the god of night").
Each one found out more about each other and about themselves; Midnight learning especially well; hearing about some new shot types from Hiccup; he may not be able to use the magic ones well, but he could make do with what he had.
Hiccup, meanwhile, was fascinated that Midnight had an extremely potent sense of aim and trajectory; almost ludicrous in its extent. Hiccup had some experience, but the tale Midnight told; about how he had managed to hit a mast in such a way it had sailed up to the group, amazed Hiccup.
After 30 minutes of discussion the tales ended. They each had more to tell, but they thought it wouldn't be necessary, instead details about their respective island's layouts and inhabitants were exchanged; since, for any future meeting's sake, they had to get their respective villages on their side.
Firstly, they would have to get Stoick on their side. To favour speed they used flight again. Hiccup took the lead, since there was no real reason for Midnight to try to sabotage his thrusters.
They cleared the village limits, to the astonishment of the villagers, and Hiccup, as the guide of the group, made sure to touch down deliberately slowly; pulsing his thrust to slow his descent. The others soon joined him and Hiccup knocked on the door.
Stoick was preparing some lunch for himself when there was a knock on the door. He came out to see Hiccup at first, "Hiccup, my boy! Where have you been?"
Hiccup twitched a little, the answer would be unsettling for him, but nevertheless he faked a cheery smile as he answered, "I met some friends."
Stoick gave a hearty laugh, before noticing these friends. The laughing abruptly stopped and Stoick looked at the assembled party with wide eyes.
End of chapter.
