AN: So my brain farted. And I figured that I might as well upload this (after running this by one of my frequent reviewers). I'm working on the next chapter for Star Wars The Shift!Verse rewrite, but since it's Hiccup's birthday (one of the few he will get)... I figured I'll upload this crazy AU.
I'll explain some more over at the side!tumblr I set up for this fic. It's PRHTTYD dot tumblr dot com
Basically it's a crossover of Power Rangers and HTTYD. I'll upload my explanation why I'm crossing them over tomorrow, I have too much work to do today. I hope you guys enjoy this crazy brainfart. (Seriously, my brain latches on to Power Ranger AUs for Fandoms and I have to get them on document to get it to stop.)
A series of drabbles about Hiccup and zord!Toothless
Or
Seven Easy Steps (Yeah Right) to Become a Power Ranger.
1. Sell-out
Helsinki 'Hiccup' Horace Haddock was kind of, maybe, not really, possibly a sell-out.
Maybe.
Or maybe the pressure had finally gotten to him after all this time. Or maybe he finally learnt why his Dad was terrified of him being out during a 'dragon'-attack.
His mother had died during one. Not dead as in 'Oh no! They carried her off!' She was dead as in – that little urn on their mantle? Yup that's her. His father, Stewart 'Stoick' Haddock was still trying to bring himself to bury the urn. It would be kind
of sweet if it wasn't so sad. (He still talked to it – Hiccup overheard the one-sided conversations sometimes).
And then Uncle Gilbert 'Gobber' Smith became a double amputee.
It happened during one of the Haddock Rescue Services operations, carried out in tandem while the armed forces focused on the mechanical beasts. Hiccup had planned on bringing out one of his inventions. Maybe the one that captures the dragons – if they
could reverse engineer it! Think about it!
Hiccup had planned on proving himself able of being a field agent. Not be the first heir to Haddock Industries to have to operate the Haddock Rescue Services from behind a desk.
Didn't really matter now. Hiccup was pretty sure that he had found his place. Medical school was never someplace he thought that he'd end up but here he is. And he knew where he was going. Prosthetics were getting better all the time, and he fully
intended to restore his favourite Uncle's limbs to him (maybe even modify them to be better). But before he could get building prosthetics he had to learn about prosthetics. And to make the prosthetics he wanted to make,
he had to first know how they matched up with the human body. Ergo - medicine.
It helped that the University of Berk was one of the best in the country for medicine (and that because of all of the attacks (and before the attacks, the various natural disasters), the hospitals were great at trauma treatment and rehabilitation).
And it wasn't like he had much of a life before anyway. (Any and all social life before medicine is eaten by medicine).
2. Competition
Yes, it was only first year (there's no such thing as only in medicine). But Hiccup had to start bulking up his CV for his Foundation years already. Yes, the SJTs (Situational Judgement Test) would make up the majority of his score, but that was
for fifth year.
He was one of the lucky ones. Unlike the others, he actually knew what he wanted to get into.
So, bulking out his CV…
Sports teams were not his thing (not that he was bad at sports, especially after that massive, all-too-surprising growth spurt – but that first time that he could look down at Snotlout though!), so that was a no go. Research assistance was
usually handed straight to Second and Third Years, they were the ones that were frantically trying to start the bulking-out-CV process (being a Fresher he was not given priority). And since he wasn't assisting any research, he couldn't write and therefore
couldn't publish any papers.
Which left volunteering (which, practically everyone on Berk did anyways) and contests. It was great that it didn't actually matter what the contest was about, just that he participated in one.
It was also great that he could bust out his old engineering/mechanic tools.
It just so happened that this particular competition was about medieval warfare. A short presentation and a demonstration of the workings of the created project. (Maybe Hiccup was cheating a little but he technically wasn't.) It just so happened
that one of Hiccups old inventions was, essentially a highly modified trebuchet. All he needed to do was strip it to its skeleton (a job that would take maybe half a weekend day), record a demonstration of its use and BAM the practical portion of
his submission done.
He just wasn't expecting a dragon attack when he was recording his demonstration. Also, he was absolutely not expecting the boulder to hit one of the giant mechanical beasts. And he was definitely not expecting it to crash into the protected forests of
Berk (owned and up kept by Haddock Industries – and open to the public during the summer, open to the sustainable hunting society during the autumn and winter).
3. Conspicuous
The mechanical dragon was huge (and night-black, and had weirdly glowing green eyes).
As in, how the heck are the helicopters missing the thing from the sky?
Okay, so maybe it was because dragons never ventured this far into the island. Berk had been successfully keeping the dragons at bay from the rest of the Archipelago for decades now. (No we are not evacuating, we run on stubbornness – not glucose
and the other essential nutrients gained from the intake of food). Berk also happened to be a coastal city, with the more important buildings located far away from beach and sea and it's not because there used to be tsunamis hitting the city
every now and then – if the dragon attacks had a bright side…)
Hiccup was lucky. His ancestors had apparently preferred mountainous grandeur over splendid oceanic views. The Haddock family estate and grounds wereactually located around fifteen minutes from the UoB's Medical Faculty (thank goodness for forward
planning doctors insisting the main training hospital and the medical school (which the University of Berk actually expanded from) being built inland. Also, thank goodness once again to the early Haddocks for going 'yeah, we'll donate you the
land to do it).
Still, it was ridiculous. Hiccup now had a dragon in what essentially was his backyard (that was pretty much shared with the public three out of four seasons).
Another thing. Why didn't it just get up and fly away? Better yet, why had it not attempted to kill him yet? That's what dragons were supposed to do after all (even the tiny, human-sized ones). Instead, it was warily watching him in a puzzled manner.
Hiccup gathered up his courage and moved slowly up to it. His hand briefly touched it. The night-black dragon gained extensive glowing red detailing and his head hurt.
The dragon startled and roared at him before flying jerkily away. (Strange, both the fins on his tail were black, one tailfin had turned red).
4. Mind reader
There was a tutorial today and Hiccup had forgotten to do it.
To be fair, he couldn't remember much after the dragon encounter. In fact, he woke up in his bed this morning not knowing exactly how he got there. And he somehow had to answer the question for this histology practical that he did not have the time to
review.
On top of that, the entire section of the class was just staring at him, waiting for him to answer (he had the worst luck, he was stretching – not raising his hand). AND Astrid, composed, not-normally-in-his-section-but-because-of-issues Astrid was
sitting across him, eyebrow raised.
How did you identify the separate layers of the epidermis anyway?
Then a disembodied voice floated into his mind (it had kind of an oh-my-goodness-why-didn't-you-do-the-work-you-have-no-excuse tone to it).
"Uhhhh… The germ layer is stratum basale, it's the single row of cells sitting on the basement membrane separating the dermis from the epidermis. We can tell the difference between those and the melanocytes by looking for production of keratin granules.
Next is stratum spinosum. We can tell the difference between these layers by looking for the artefactual pulling away of the cells, except for the points of the desmosomes. Then stratum granulosum, differentiated by the keratohylain granules. Then
stratum lucidum (but it doesn't really show up unless we have an extremely good slide) and finally stratum corneum (which are basically the last layers of living cells before they become too full of keratin and die)."
The professor looked satisfied.
Astrid looked curious.
Then the practical was over and the class rushed out to the various café's and cafeteria's around campus. Expect Astrid hung back and reached up (two years and ten months on from his sixteen year old growth spurt, and he was still not used to being tall)
to grab his shoulder.
"Hey." She said.
"Hey, As-, hi, hey, hi Astrid." Hiccup stuttered out in surprise.
"Gotta get rid for that stutter for the OSCEs. Anyway, good job there. You basically said what I was thinking word for word."
"T-th-thank you?"
She gave him another thump and walked off. (Time was ticking on the precious hour of lunch they had). That was when he realised, that disembodied voice earlier? It was Astrid.
5. Bonds
It was five in the afternoon. He was dead tired from the day. He had assignments to do. He really needed a nap.
He was trudging through the woods of his family grounds to the site of the dragon crash.
Why?
Well, evidently the dragon had done something to him. After that first thought (which was admittedly quite face-saving) floated through his head, he had been hearing things all day. And he did not need to know about what that one guy was
going to do for his girlfriend (poor thing was nervous enough about the ring in his pocket). Some things were supposed to remain private.
So he was going to get to the bottom of this.
By finding a dragon. (How has his life come to this?)
...
The dragon definitely looked different. Its night-black body-fuselage (what?) had now developed the glowing red detailing that he remembered from their last encounter.
"Well, at least I'm completely crazy" Hiccup breathed out shakily, staring at the dragon.
[No, just somewhat.] Came the weird indescribable (okay, not totally, it was distinctly male) not-sound.
Hiccup stuttered out. "That was in my head. How is it in my head? You weren't actually making a sound were you?"
There were mechanical sounds of gears and pistons whirling and then the dragon cocked his head to one side. (It was strangely cute).
[Strange human. I didn't make a sound. And why would I be in your head?] Same the sassy male tone again.
"I don't know, you tell me! I only started hearing thoughts after I met you!" Hiccup yelled (perhaps a little stupidly) at the mechanical beast.
[Wait – you can hear my private computations?]
"Private computations?"
The beast bounced around excitedly. The formerly, glaring green eyes opened up wide.
[Tell me! Tell me! I'm thinking of the sequential number…]
"Four."
[Fish are…]
"Food, not friends… wait isn't that quote supposed to be backwards?"
[I am a pretty little princess.]
"I am a… I'm not going to continue that. Wait, no, I'm here because you need to turn this off!"
[I don't know how to.]
"What?"
[I didn't even know that this could happen if a human touched me.]
"What?"
[In fact, it's been a really long time since I could compute for myself.]
"What?!"
[That boulder crashing into my navigational systems was the best thing that happened to me.]
"Wait, what?!"
The dragon looked at him and lay down. There was a sizeable dent the size of the boulder his trebuchet threw in what would be the upper occipital are of the skull on a human.
[I can't really hear her anymore. But it took some time for me to reboot my autonomous function. If that thing that knocked me out of the sky did not take out my navigational systems then I would have flown back and stayed under her control.]
"Her?"
[She calls herself a queen, but she's not. She's the thing I think I'm supposed to fight, but the timing was all off and then we were under her control.]
"What are you anyway? I mean we call you dragons…"
[Not too far off the mark. We are dragonzords. I'm a Night Fury.]
"I thought all dragons had fangs."
[I do have fangs!]
Hiccup (not noticing that he had, at some point during the conversation settled himself down next to the giant mech) patted the Night Fury rather condescendingly.
"Whatever you say… Toothless."
[I'll show you 'Toothless'!]
Needless to say it was the start of a beautiful friendship and the death of whatever that could have been left of Hiccup's social life after choosing to read medicine.
6. Repairs
[I don't know about this Hiccup.]
"Well, stop yapping and let me do my work!"
[I know you are set on getting me to fly again but,]
"Look, yes I haven't done this in almost four-five years but riding bicycles and all that."
[I don't know, what if I fall back under her?]
"You know I won't let that happen bud."
It had been a couple of weeks since Hiccup met Toothless. Every evening he took his textbooks and notes, and huge piles of scrap metal left over from when he was fourteen-fifteen (had it really been five-four years since he fiddled with the heavy tools?),
packed it into onto the spare Park Ranger's pickup that nobody used and got to work hammering out the dent-slash-reinforcing that spot (made no sense that the metal over there had corroded enough for the boulder to actually do damage. Then again the
navigation systems was located awfully close to the outer layer of the dragonzord's fuselage).
Hiccup was a pretty sad case. You see, he didn't live on campus – he took a fifteen (thirty if there was a jam) minute commute to the medical school. Also, he basically ignored Fresher's Week so while other medics still had something of a social life
(and random cliques), he didn't have any clubs or societies. He just had his textbooks. And his notes.
Maybe that's why Stoick seemed so happy and relieved that Hiccup was basically heading out every night – to be fair, it was winter, it was already dark out when Hiccup's lectures ended. (He had not been outside in a while. Awkward secondary and
sixth form days do not a social butterfly make).
He probably would not be happy that the friend was a dragon – well, a dragonzord – then. Maybe.
Who knew really? His Dad had weirdly random times of reasonability. If he could actually get his father to listen to him. (Stoick may or may not have selective hearing, but the one time he heard what his son had to say – a week after Gobber had
convinced him to put Hiccup into the Junior Rescue Scouts with the other Berk teens – was directly after Gobber lost two limbs ("Dad, I don't think I want to fight dragons anymore, not when they could use me elsewhere."). They sat down and talked,
hashed it out – and Hiccup hit upon maybe looking into how prosthetics work. And then from there realising that he had no clue how the human body worked and you needed that when making prosthetics).
But that was a blue moon event really, who knew if he could ever repeat gaining the ear of Stewart 'Stoick' Haddock, Owner of Haddock Industries, Holder of the Haddock Estate, Head and Commander-in-Chief of the Haddock Rescue Services ever again.
So he'd hide Toothless in the huge (strangely invisible from bird's eye view) Cove and go over his notes while hammering out the mess he made of Toothless's navigations.
7. Power
He found the cockpit.
There was a cockpit.
To be fair, Toothless was equally as startled when Hiccup fell into his 'head'. But there was a cockpit. And a switch that set itself to 'free-roam' on the navigation panel.
Other than the green-tinged screens in front of Hiccup, there was a predominance of the colour red. (Why red anyway?)
"Hey Toothless?"
[Yeah?]
"I'm going to switch you over to manual control".
[What?]
"Ready?"
[Hiccup! Don't!]
Hiccup flipped the switch, and then the largely complicated, confusing dashboard and control panel faded away. It was as if the systems inside were repurposing itself for his use. All that was left was a floating black with glowing red detailing orb.
"Hmmm…"
[Hiccup, what did you just do?]
"Not sure actually, but if I can give you back your flight –"
[I've said it once, I'll say it again. Yes, I miss flying but it's not that baa…]
Hiccup placed his hands on the orb, and Toothless flew.
...
"THAT WAS AMAZING!"
[So that's what that's for!]
"Huh?"
Hiccup had basically fallen stylishly out of the cockpit without injuring himself – also, he might have been on a bit of an adrenaline high. (He was surprisingly more durable and agile these day, not that he noticed it). Now he lay back on the grass staring
up at Toothless, who had for some reason only now decided to reveal that he could, indeed become smaller (more the size of a car than a six storey building).
Toothless stared down at him.
[That data file I found a while back remember?]
"Back in the first week of knowing each other?"
This was basically week eight of let's try to fix Toothless, his birthday (one of the few, actual ones he would get) had come and gone without much fanfare and the final exams for the year were drawing ever closer.
[Yeah. The data file was entitled Riders.]
"And you said it didn't seem important."
Toothless's response was to 'barf' up something.
"Oh, eww. Toothless!"
[At least I do not bring up the items I intake as fuel.] Toothless 'said' as he nosed the item over.
"What do you intake as fuel?"
[I don't know. Anyway, here.]
Hiccup looked at the badge-pin-clip thing.
"You want me to accessorise my bag." He deadpanned.
[No. I want you to say, 'Saddle Up' and then 'Night Fury'.]
"Um. No."
[Humour me.]
"I would but I have an anatomy lab tomorrow and I haven't prepped for it yet."
[What are you here for then? Go! Go!] Toothless said, hurriedly headbutting Hiccup towards the pickup.
"Alright! I'm going!" said Hiccup as he climbed into the vehicle, sliding the badge-thing onto his satchel strap while muttering "Pushy, overprotective reptile."
[I heard that. But Hiccup?]
"Yeah?" He replied as he turned the ignition?
[Promise me that you'll try it out when you're in danger?]
"Sure."
...
In danger came about seventeen hours later.
A dragon attack happened. (A somewhat regular occurrence.) 'She' (as Toothless called her) sent in the Terrible Terror zords in droves. (A very irregular occurrence).
Terrible Terrors were not the largest dragonzords. At normal zord size, they were the size of an average man. Because of this, they apparently were not deployed very often. The armed forces could take the one or two groups that appeared hand-to-hand if
they came.
Civilians didn't usually have to worry about the Terrors. But today, they swarmed the city of Berk.
Hiccup had the misfortune of being in a 'safe' zone that turned out to be a danger zone. (It was the green lung of the coastal region, people rarely chose to run there because they rather not take their chances in a forest.)
There was something like a battalion of Terrors making their way through the woods. There was no way Hiccup was going to be able to sneak away.
His face fell into his hands.
"Great, just great." He muttered to himself as his watch gently 'clicked' against something as his hands fell to his sides. The badge-pin-clip thing. He had for some reason had jammed it onto his belt.
He pulled it off the loop of his and looked at it. It had a deep red background and a rendition of Toothless on it (red detailing and green eye and all). Shrugging he raised the badge to the sky and decided to add his own 'Hiccup'-flair to the words Toothless
told him to speak.
"Saddle up! It's morphin' time!"
Then all he saw was red.
...
The one who hungered could see what the zords under her control saw and hear what they heard.
Which was why she had sent so many of the Terrors into Berk. One of her most valuable assets had been operational, but not under control for months. The same amount of time she had been (with great risk of losing control of those assets) sending her dragonzords
deeper and deeper inland to search for the Night Fury.
But she couldn't risk going any deeper with anything but the Terrors. They had the simplest security system to bypass and so could go deeper inland.
So when a man, fully clad in red burst through the undergrowth in front of one of her battalions and yelled "Night Fury!" she startled.
And for the first time in a long time, felt fear.
His helmet bore a high resemblance to her missing Night Fury.
...
Hiccup was actually, a little confused. He could only really tell two things about the situation.
One. He was wearing a helmet (which was feeding him information about the Terrors, what strategies were best for the situation, etc.)
Two. The (he was going to stick with badge) badge had inexplicably changed his outfit. All he could tell about that (from the little he could see of himself without glancing down) was that he had black gauntlets and gold gloves on. And a lot, a lot of
red.
The thought came to him that he was very, very screwed. This led him to the third thing that he could tell about the situation.
He did not stand a chance against them.
That was of course, until he realised that he somehow dodged a punch from a Terror. After that, he stopped thinking too hard and let the power coursing through him work. It was all instinct. (And a whole lot of luck).
The number of terrors slowly dwindled (what Hiccup didn't know was that she had been slowly funnelling Terrors from around the city towards him, and she was running out of Terrors to throw at him). But the number he faced grew.
Instinct once again caused him to raise his right arm and call for a "Bow Guard!"
Red light formed around his arm and formed a shield. Hefting it up (Hiccup was getting used to not being surprised anymore at what he was doing), he yelled "Guard Toss!"
The shield was still solid, but regained its red glow. He wrenched his arm forward in a throw and watched as the shield gained speed, becoming a red streak of light as it smashed quickly into all the remaining Terrors, wrecking them.
Hiccup sighed and ran away, hoping that there were no more.
...
Despite having had to take the bus to where he was during the attack (as it was a good fifty kilometres away), after a ten minute sprint he found himself at the Cove where Toothless hid. He was still dressed in whatever getup the badge put him into.
And he was freaking out.
"Toothless? Bud? I need to talk to you!"
There was no response. Hiccup would have worried if he didn't spy the signs of Toothless being in the middle of a sleep cycle.
"How do I get this off?" He asked himself, "I need to power down."
The red glow surrounded him again and he blinked. He could feel the slight chill of the last bit of winter, soothing on his flushed face.
"That's it? Power down?"
Hiccup stared at the badge (which had reappeared on his belt).
"My life has gotten infinitely more complicated hasn't it?"
AN: So thoughts?
Didya enjoy it? (If you are a 90s Kid I hope you understand bits of it). Also, I drew pictures of Hiccup in his morphed Power Ranger form and the badge/pin that is his morpher.
It's on PRHTTYD dot tumblr dot com.
Also, tomorrow I'm uploading what basically is an essay on why I crossed them over. So there's that to look forward to... Ask me stuff about the AU over there! I'll be glad to share my thoughts on these Rangers (and to explain a bit more lore if you want it).