A/N: The story line will be more or less the same with some deviations of my preference here and there, but nothing too huge. I also may put a slightly idealistic OC or two in here, but he/she/they will be as minor as possible. Most likely one of the bigger differences will be in dialogue for the fact that I only saw the movie once a couple weeks ago and the time difference will also come into play. I will also warn you that I'll be experimenting with perspective in this piece so it will be switching between first and third person once in a while and tone sometimes too. Well, without further ado, please enjoy Dragon Apocalypse…
Chapter One: Adventure Born From Flames
Twelve days North of Dismal, a few degrees South of Freezing to Death, and nestled neatly in the Meridian of Misery is Berk; home of the fiercest, fittest collection of post-apocalyptic survivors north of the south pole. It snows about nine months out of the year and the other three aren't too delightful either. Berk has been here for five generations, but no building is more than three years old which is why Berk looks more like a shanty or ghetto than a moderately prospering village bordering on city. But it's home none the less, and the only thing to complain about really is the "pest problem". You know how most places call little creatures like rats, mosquitoes, locust, and wolves as pests? Well ours are a bit bigger. Actually much, much bigger and much, much more deadly. What, you don't believe me? Fine, have a look at that sheep right there. Nice and plump, billowy white fur, lazy eyes scanning the grass in the moonlight for a tasty patch to nibble on. That sheep is about to get very dead, very fast. Giant claws snatch the poor creature up, piercing its underbelly, and the docile farm animal is dead before it can utter more that half a surprised yelp. Wait for it…wait for it…BOOM! A fire ball about the size of a hay bale crashed down onto an unsuspecting home set high on our mountainous community, the smell of burning wood, plastic, and melting steel fills the air as all hell breaks loose. You see we don't have your prissy little mouse infestation or anthill under our house to worry about, although those things are in no shortage in Berk. We have DRAGONS to worry about.
A young man wakes with a gasp as a great explosion sends a shock wave throughout the village followed by the wailing sirens placed on every other block. As the young man leaps out of bed and throws on a set of lightweight and moderately flexible survival armor, the telltale sounds of a dragon battle fill Berk. Seeing as how there is an around the clock patrol in place, the racket of chainswords and large caliber bullets being fired into the sky quickly filled the village. In moments the young man bursts out into the streets of Berk along with the rest of the population that was not out on patrol. He took to the street, sprinting past the scrappy metal buildings of his home and vaulting over low chain link fences on his very familiar route. As he just barely clears the fence of the general store he hears a gruff voice bellowing at him, "Hurry up and get inside Hiccup!"
Yes, you heard right. This boy of somewhere around fifteen's name is Hiccup. The people of Berk, who claim to be the direct descendants of the ancient Viking people of several centuries past, have many strange customs, and one of them is naming their children rather unpleasant or unflattering names. This tradition is supposed to make their children tough from an early age, but some believe the old wives' tale that such names are meant to scare away evil spirits that come in the night and drop cowardice and disloyalty into their minds. Or to steal recently lost teeth which are kept hidden under a pillow, depending on which version of the Norse legend/rumor you hear. Poor Hiccup did not only have the misfortune of having an embarrassing name, but he was an embarrassing Viking. He was just barely thicker around than a beanstalk and he wasn't particularly tall either. He earthy-red hair was always badly ruffled and sticking up in every which direction and his personality was far too docile. He was also going through the "awkward phase" of his teen years, so his coordination was about that of a two-legged puppy.
"I'm going!" Hiccup hollered back, not slowing his pace any, just narrowly ducking in time to avoid being close-lined by one of the village warrior's electric-sledges (the name is rather self explanatory I believe) as the mighty man as he wheeled about to receive a report from a tribesman.
"Any Night Fury sightings yet?" he bellowed over the surrounding chaos.
"Not yet sir," his informant yelled back, firing his massive assault rifle at a low flying dragon.
The man grumbled thoughtfully and nodded with relief. This certain Viking stood about six foot ten and was practically sculpted in the likeness of Odin himself, except this man still had both his eyes in their sockets unharmed, and his deep red beard looked like it hadn't had a proper shave in months, just swiped at with a steak knife which in fact it was. His name was Stoick the Vast, chief of the Hairy Hooligans of whom inhabited Berk. Stoick happened to spot Hiccup as the boy narrowly escaped being decapitated by his weapon designed to similar to Thor's mighty war hammer.
"Get out of here Hiccup!" Stoick boomed at the retreating back of the boy. This time Hiccup didn't holler back a response, but really poured on the gas. When Stoick the Vast, a man who was said to have ripped the head off a dragon's shoulders as a baby, said to move, you shut your trap and moved.
By now the sky was ablaze with dragon fire, bullets, and scattered grenade fire, although the grenades were used much more scarcely since there were less and less every month and were very hard to make in bulk. Hiccup dove through the open bar-like front of the blacksmith as the fireball of a Pit Bull (a round dragon named for its similarity in appearance and ferocity to the dog) nipped at his heels. Upon his entry, Hiccup managed to bowl over the other young lad that he apprenticed under Gobber with; Dimsodz, owner of the ever so flattering nickname Dim Socks. The boy was skinny for a Viking like Hiccup, but he was lean in the good way, muscle rippling visibly under his skin with almost every move, and he wasn't going through as bad of an awkward phase as Hiccup was. But Dimsodz still didn't have the raw bulk to be able to wield the overly huge automatic guns the Berk warriors wielded with any kind of efficiency and didn't seem to have any desire to either. Dimsodz had blonde hair that naturally curled, but still flowed down over his shoulders. He also played the guitar very well. The one time he tried to teach Hiccup he beat him over the head for breaking three strings on the second strum, so that was the end of that.
"Sorry I'm late!" Hiccup exclaimed as he pulled himself to his feet, nearly tripping over Dimsodz's still grounded form.
"Ah, made it without being eaten I see," Gobber said with a muse in his heavy brogue.
"Are you kidding me?" Hiccup said as Dimsodz finally regained his feet, grumbling about a bumbling moron, "They don't want to mess with all this!" Hiccup then flexed his nearly nonexistent muscles.
"Oh, so they don't need any toothpicks?" Gobber shot back as he handed a new Death Spit, a favored heavy machinegun of most Vikings, and a fresh batch of ammunition with it to a waiting warrior, "Face it Hiccup, if you ever want to get out there, you need to stop all of…..this." Gobber then waved his hands over the general area of Hiccup's form.
"You just gestured to all of me," he said with chagrin.
"Yes, yes I did. Boy, ye can barely lift a damn rifle, much less handle the kick, ye can't wield a chainsword without cutting yer own arm off, and ye can't even heave a grenade five good meters," Gobber said, thrusting an assault rifle into his arms that was about half the size of his torso, "Now un-jam. Quick. Dim, ammo run to Nest 1, move!" Hiccup was going to bring up his little contraption that he had been building in the past months, but he knew that Gobber would just shoot him down saying that all of his test runs with the strange "lightning cannon" failed dismally.
Dimsodz took off pushing a cart stacked with ammunition to the first of the three AA guns that were positioned around Berk. Over the years Nest 2 had been completely blown to pieces and Nest 1 was a very temperamental gun. Luckily it was working tonight though. Meanwhile Hiccup had ejected the magazine of the gun on his worktable, which protruded from the wall next to the forge, ripped open the slot on the side of the blocky barrel, and forcefully jammed his iron ramrod down the barrel twice. A mixture of shattered bullet, shell casing, dirt, and dragon flesh fell out of the side slot and magazine port. It must have been point blank shooting from the ground that caused that mess. Hiccup then quickly restored the weapon to battle ready form and lugged it back over to Gobber, who tossed it out to a waiting Viking.
Suddenly a blast of fire crashed down on one of the neighboring buildings to the forge. Moments later they dashed onto the scene lugging along heavy fire hoses. They were the fire brigade, a group of seven Vikings around Hiccup's age of whom he envied greatly. There were the twins Ruffnut and Tuffnut, who were always, always at each other's throats. They both had long, straight blonde hair, blue eyes, and rather unpleasant faces with a good amount of blemishes. And be sure you never mistook Ruffnut for a boy or that'd be the end of you. Then there was Snotlout, the burly meathead who was the spitting image of the ideal future Viking. He was stocky with bulging muscles and thick, short black hair that was usually hidden under his combat helmet. Then on the other side of the Viking spectrum, but not quite as far over as Hiccup, was Fishlegs, the nerd for lack of a better term. Although he was a big kid, most of that mass was fat and he had just a bit more boldness and charisma than the animal that was the first part of his name. The boy had short blonde hair and blue eyes, and was about a good five inches taller than most other kids his age. Another brother and sister duo in the brigade was Deluge and Torrent. Deluge was tall, broad-shouldered, and had a demeanor as cold as ice. He was the only one of the younger generation that was tall enough to look eye to eye with Fishlegs, mostly because Deluge was a year and a half older, and had most of the muscle Snotlout had without as much fat or stockiness. The older boy had dull green eyes and messy brown hair. His little sister, who was three years younger, had the same hair color and face shape, sharp and high boned, but that was bout it. Torrent has long, flowing hair, and was very thin. But thanks to her slightness she was agile as a fox. She always had a mischievous grin plastered on her face that screamed "I'm up to something, and man are you gonna get it good when it happens" and her eyes were also green, but they were sharp and sparkling. The only other thing she and her brother shared was a love for boats and sailing. And last but not least there was…..
…Astrid. Ethereal Astrid, the most beautiful girl in the world. Time stood still as she ran from the flames behind her. Her silky blonde hair tossed and flowed behind her, her bangs blew gently across her forehead, held up elegantly by her brown leather headband. She was athletic built, but she still had curves, and the only word to describe her face is 'angelic'. She is perfect, and I swear we locked eyes for a moment….
Heh, yeah right. Time picked back up when Gobber yelled my name and shoved another jammed gun into my arms. I looked back and they were gone, so I let out a sigh and set to work. It's funny, a couple years ago I would be in such a panic during dragon raids I was just about useless, or at least more useless in most of the others' eyes, but now it seemed like business as usual. So much so that I can fantasize about the girl of my dreams while I'm unjamming an unnecessarily huge rifle in the middle of a freaking hail storm of dragon fire. Suddenly an all too familiar high pitched whistling cut through the sound of the battle and several voices at once rang out, "NIGHT FURY!" I whirled around to face the shop opening just in time to see the brilliant blue explosion erupt from Nest 1, rocking the foundation of the fortified AA gun installment. Night Furies were the most revered and mysterious of all the dragons. They never stole anything, they were never seen for more than half an instant against the black night sky, and they never missed. No had ever brought down a Night Fury, but if I could shoot one down then there'd be no way anyone could think or talk down on me ever again. Or at least see me as somewhere near an equal.
Gobber vaulted the shop ledge out onto the street saying, "They need me out there." But before he charged off into battle with his chain sword that was built into his missing wrist he turned around to me and said, "Hiccup. Stay here. Mind the shop. Don't move. You know what I mean." Then he charged off into the fray with a truly Viking battle cry.
"Ha, stay," I mused to himself, "Maybe when the ocean turns pink and boils." I bolted into the back of the little blacksmith to retrieve my masterpiece: The Snare. What it did exactly was fire a large wire net coursing with electricity, designed to snare a flying dragon and hopefully fry it mid-flight. Although my little invention had its…miss-firings in the past, I was sure it was going to work tonight. I grabbed the wheelbarrow like levers in the back and pushed it out onto the street, weaving between my fellow tribes men and women. On my way out Dimsodz was returning to the smith at a sprint. He yelled at me asking what the hell I was doing, but I did stop, slow, or even shout back. I, Hiccup Horrendous Haddock, was going to take down a Night Fury. I set up The Snare on the crest of a hill away from the main area of the village where all the fighting was. Here I didn't have to worry about getting my head blown off or any worse fate. Unless of course the Night Fury spotted me first, cause then I'd be doomed.
"C'mon, where are ya?" I murmured. And then I saw it, a little shadow against the sky just darker than the night itself. I looked down the crosshair iron sight that ran along the top of my cylindrical net cannon, predicted the dragon's flight path, and fired. The net shot off crackling into the sky. For a full second it just kept going. And then there was a bright flash where I had been aiming and a lightly glowing streak fell from the sky toward the island. "I HIT it!" I screamed in victory, spinning around to the direction of the others, "Did anyone SEE that!"
The only living thing I found looking back at me was a Monstrous Nightmare, a huge, dirty orange dragon with a nasty tendency of lightning itself on fire.
I let out a sigh and said with misery, "Well that just figures now don't it?" The dragon let out a gruesome roar and spontaneously combusted. I let out as manly a scream as I could considering the situation and ran for my freaking life. Just behind me I heard a fiery explosion and a symphony of clattering. There goes The Snare, and four months of after-hours toil and frustration with it, but worrying about that could most definitely wait. Of course I managed to find the one place in the whole village where no one else was around to see…