"DRAGON RAID!"
Stoick the Vast, Chief of the Vikings on the island of Berk, groaned in annoyance, shutting off the television and grabbing a mace before regaining his solemn, chiefly composure and heading out the door. It was such a shame too, he thought regrettably. He'd just gotten to the climax of the gory, warlike movie he'd been watching. The movie had been rated R, which was partly why he'd shoved Hiccup upstairs to go to bed early. The other reason, of course, had been that he was sure the young lad would go running out during the middle of the night on one of his foolish schemes to kill a dragon.
Whipping out his smartphone, Stoick sent a group text to all the Vikings that read: 'Dragon Raid. Arm yourselves, men!'
Two seconds later, a barrage of texts from the other Viking warriors began popping up on his smartphone screen, all reading: 'YAAHHHHH!'
And with that, the ferocious Chief of Berk stowed his phone away, swung his mace over one shoulder and charged into battle with a roar.
Hiccup hated working at the blacksmith shop.
Well, no. Hate was a strong word. But it was so boring staying inside and doing nothing but sharpening blunt swords, while everyone else battled against dragons. It was so unfair!
Gobber the Blacksmith looked up from his smartphone screen, which he had been staring at nonstop for the last five minutes. The village blacksmith sent Hiccup an apologetic, slightly condescending look over his shoulder as he grabbed a sword and prepared to rush outside. "Sorry, Hiccup, but duty calls. They need me out there!"
"What?! But-" Hiccup never got a chance to finish, because Gobber was already out the door, having jumped enthusiastically into the fray of battling Vikings and dragons. Hiccup groaned in annoyance.
Suddenly, his eyes lit up as a brilliant idea found its way into his head. Hiccup whipped out his smartphone, scrolling down his contact list until he found Gobber's number. He tapped the TEXT button and typed in: 'Can I plz go fight?'
Hiccup waited a moment. No answering text popped up. So he waited another moment.
A text bubble from Gobber appeared on his screen. 'NO', it read.
'But I'll kill a dragon!'Hiccup texted back. 'I might even get a girlfriend!'
This time, the reply came instantly. 'You wish.'
Hiccup groaned. 'PLZ?'
'I said NO', Gobber replied.
...
Hiccup groaned again.
Two Weeks Later
Hiccup pranced back from the Dragon Training Arena. He wasn't really all that thrilled about being trained to kill dragons, but his current excitement came from imagining all kinds of amazing features he would add to Toothless's prosthetic tail. Hiccup's eyes were alight with excitement, and there was a new spring in his step.
"Aye, Hiccup, m'lad!" Gobber fell into step behind him, grinning merrily as he clapped Hiccup on the shoulder. "Got some work for you teh do at the 'smithing shop today, whadda ya say?" Gobber's accent tended to make his speech rather hard to discern sometimes, though everyone in the village was somewhat used to it by now. Somewhat.
"Sure, Gobber," Hiccup told him, too excited to be deterred at the prospect of more work. They skipped merrily towards the blacksmith shop, Gobber humming a a popular Viking drinking song as they went.
The two Berkians entered the shop, Gobber immediately taking up a hammer and pounding hot metal into the furnace. Hiccup hurriedly pulled his phone out of his bag and sat down on a small wooden chair in a corner, sketching out designs for Toothless's tail on a new app he'd recently bought from the App Store. His fingers flew across the screen, detailing the finishing touches on a new design.
BAM! The door to the blacksmith shop flew open, accompanied by a loud, raucous voice. Hiccup rolled his eyes. He didn't even need to look up to see who it was.
"Aye, Snotlout, yer just on time! Well, wouldja' look at that, Hiccup! Our first customer of the day!" Gobber called out merrily, offering Snotlout a lopsided grin.
"Oh, I didn't come for your services today, Gobber." Snotlout sneered at the blacksmith, an arrogant undertone lining his normally obnoxious voice. "You see, I just happened to come across a blacksmithing app, with services half the cost of yours," Snotlout informed them. He wore a smug smirk, puffing out his chest victoriously when his gaze met Hiccup's.
"Wh—wha—-what?-" Gobber stammered, at a loss for words. "There's an app for that?"
"There's an app for everything," Snotlout informed him, the smug expression never leaving his face.
"Wha—it's an outrage! A -scandal-, I tell yeh! They—they're stealing my services!" Gobber raged, footsteps thundering around the blacksmith shop.
"AND," Snotlout continued, yelling to be heard over Gobber's angry ranting, "THERE'S ANOTHER APP WITH FREE SHIPPING, SO THE SERVICES ARE DELIVERED RIGHT TO ME." As if on cue, a perfectly polished hammer came flying in from the sky, landing with a thud in the dirt behind Snotlout. The teenager grinned victoriously.
"Wh—wh—there's an app for -that- too?" Gobber halted his rant in favor of staring at Snotlout in disbelief. Hiccup lifted his gaze from his smartphone, a spark of interest visible in his expressive green eyes.
Snotlout smirked. "Well, Gobber..." He strolled towards the charred wooden door of the blacksmith shop, clapping a meaty hand on Hiccup's shoulder and sending the smaller boy tumbling to the ground. "You snooze, you lose."
The door slammed shut. Snotlout's gleaming new hammer lay in the dirt, momentarily forgotten by its owner.
Hiccup miserably clawed his way into a sitting position, glumly wondering why Snotlout's visits always inevitably ended with him faceplanting in the dirt.
"Hey, Ruffnut?" Tuffnut cautiously scaled the slippery wooden planks that made up the roof of their house. "You there?"
"Uh-huh. Where else would I be?" Ruffnut brushed her hair out of her face, holding up a peace sign and taking a picture of herself with her smartphone.
Tuffnut plopped down next to her on the roof, snatching her phone away. "What are you doing?"
Ruffnut rolled her eyes. "I'm taking a selfie. Duh."
Tuffnut squinted at her. "What's a selfie?"
"Oh, for Thor's sake..." Ruffnut threw her hands up in the air. "How do you not know what a selfie is?"
"It's probably dumb, anyway." Tuffnut stuck his tongue out at his sister childishly. "Just like you."
"Hey!" Ruffnut gripped her brother in a headlock, and the twins rolled around on the roof, punching each other and wrestling like mad. They finally broke apart, Tuffnut turning away with a sullen huff and Ruffnut scrolling through the camera roll on her smartphone to view her most recent pictures.
Tuffnut finally turned to face his sister, slouching in defeat. "What's a selfie?"
Hiccup stomped through the forest, making his way into the cove where Toothless resided. "I," he declared, "am so leaving."
Toothless, who had crawled out of his hollow in the cove, nudged Hiccup curiously. "Yep, we're leaving, bud." Hiccup affirmed. "Just... pack up all our things and go wherever, I guess..." He tugged a bag of provisions out of a cleverly concealed crevice in a nearby rock, before walking over to Toothless and preparing to hop onto his faithful dragon's back.
'AND I WAS LIKE, BABY, BABY, BABY OOOHHH!' Hiccup's phone was ringing, and at full volume too. The teenager blushed furiously, trying his best to conceal his embarrassing ringtone. Toothless gave him a look that clearly read, Justin Bieber? Really?
Hiccup decided not to dwell too much on the disturbing fact that even a dragon knew who Justin Bieber was.
The young Viking finally worked up the nerve to see who was calling him, and noticed with a jolt of surprise that it was Astrid. Confused, he blinked twice to make sure he wasn't seeing things. Since when did Astrid call him? More importantly, since when did Astrid have his number?
(As for exactly how Hiccup had managed to acquire Astrid's number, you probably don't want to know.)
"Hello?" Hiccup pressed his ear to the screen. "Um, Astrid? Are you—"
"WHY, YOU SON OF A HALF-TROLL—"
Hiccup cringed and held the phone a good two feet away from his ear. Even Toothless winced.
"YOU CHEATING SCUM! Now, you'd better get over here RIGHT NOW and tell me how you took down those dragons or I'll CHOP YOUR LEGS OFF!"
Toothless whinnied. Unfortunately, Astrid heard it as a whimper and ruthlessly continued her verbal bashing.
"Yeah, you'd BETTER BE SCARED! Now, you'd better spill the beans or I'LL MAKE YOU, YOU LOKI-WORSHIPING—"
Hiccup clicked the 'End Call' button and exhaled in weariness and annoyance. He really didn't have time to listen to Astrid's ranting right now.
Toothless whined pitifully, squeezing his vibrant eyes shut and pawing at his scaly ears. It was times like these that he wished all these annoying humans would just shut up for once. But looking at his scrawny, Viking companion, the Night Fury resignedly decided it was too much to ask for.
Epilogue
It was a month after Fishlegs, Hiccup, and the other Berkian teenagers had defeated the Red Death, and Fishlegs was having a bit of trouble controlling his dragon, Meatlug.
"Meatlug," Fishlegs said, keeping his voice as calm and docile as possible. "Sit."
Fishlegs's dragon just looked at him as if saying, really?
"Meatlug, I said sit." Fishlegs smiled hopefully at his dragon, hoping the nonverbal encouragement would help Meatlug follow his commands.
The Gronkle simply yawned, ever so slightly amused by her trainer's attempts to tame her, though truthfully wishing Fishlegs would just let her sleep. Really; was it truly too much to ask to just be able to take a nap?
"Come on, girl!" Fishlegs encouraged. "You can do it!"
Finally, Meatlug decided that maybe, just maybe, if she obeyed Fishlegs, then she would finally have a chance to get some shut-eye. So the chubby Gronkle lowered herself into a sitting position and eyed her trainer expectantly.
"Good girl, Meatlug!" Delighted, Fishlegs tossed her a smoked cod. Oblivious to the way she sniffed it and turned her head away in disgust, Fishlegs smiled brightly. "Now roll over!"
What? He expected her to do -another- trick? Now, that was just overkill. Meatlug rolled on top of Fishlegs, a maneuver that would have crushed the boy if he hadn't been quite so large and chubby.
"Mrrrph-rug!" Fishlegs pushed the large and chubby Gronkle off of him, and 'tsk'ed disapprovingly at the dragon. Meatlug snorted in response, doubling over as she was wracked with dragon giggles.
Sitting down with a huff, Fishlegs whipped out his smartphone and Googled 'How to Train Your Dragon." Maybe other dragon trainers on the Internet would have some tips on controlling your dragon.
The first thing that popped up, however, was a Wikipedia article for a movie. Curious, Fishlegs clicked on the link. He scrolled past the title to an image of the DVD cover, which sported a picture of... Hiccup and Toothless?
Bewildered, Fishlegs scrolled down to the movie summary. The more he read, the further his disbelieving eyes widened. "What the..."
THE END
Author's Note: Hey, guys! This is my first fic, and I thought it would be a fun oneshot to write.
Please review this story; constructive criticism is welcome!
-Ember ;)