Ch. 7: Forbidden Friendship

~Hiccup-200~

I left the base after training. Astrid had been pretty hard on me. Although I guess I had it coming. Training with actual living enemies trying to kill you with real weapons is probably not the best time to ask questions.

I was going back to the cove where I last saw the Nightfury. I brought some meat along with me. It had probably been a while since he had last eaten. I was going to try to make friends with him. Something inside of me just told me that he wasn't dangerous. In fact I designed Toothless after the impression I got from him. I gave Toothless' dragon form retractable teeth.

Not what it seems to be. That was what had been going through my head. Dangerous looking, but harmless. Well, maybe not completely harmless.

I reached the cove and looked down into it. The Nightfury was nowhere in sight. I snuck down and slowly walked toward the center of the cove. I stopped as I could feel a pair of eyes staring me down from behind. I slowly turned and saw him standing there, a few feet from me, energy swords drawn. I was wearing my helmet but I could tell he was looking straight into my eyes.

"What are you doing here human?" He asked.

I slowly removed my helmet and placed it on the ground, along with the weapons I had brought with me. I took out the meat and showed it too him.

"I-I thought you might be hungry. So I brought you something to eat."

He looked at me slightly startled. He had obviously not expected that answer. He looked at the meat, then the weapons, then back at me.

"You mean you aren't here to kill me?"

"I didn't before. Why would I now?"

He turned off his energy swords and reholstered them. He took a few steps towards me and snatched the meat out of my hands.

"Thank you." He said, before turning away and walking to the other side of the cove. I could hear Toothless' voice coming out of my helmet.

"That went well."

The Nightfury had eaten the meat and was now messing with the ship again. He apparently had it cloaked, because I sure hadn't seen it there before. I picked up my helmet and held it under my arm. I then walked over to him.

"What do you want?" He asked, not turning away from his work.

"I just wanted to know if there was anything I could do to help."

"You're not like other Spartans are you? Most Spartans would have killed me, much less asked to help me."

"Most Covenant would have killed me, much less let me go."

"True." He turned back to working on the ship. I took a few steps and peered into it. It was full of advanced technological equipment. Some of it was fried beyond recognition as a part of the ship.

"So what's wrong with it?"

"Some of the systems are fried. Beyond that I'm not entirely sure. I didn't make the ship. They gave me it to fly."

I could hear Toothless doing something, probably scanning the ship's inner workings.

"It seems that the anti-gravity matrix is damaged, which is why you can only fly for so long before you crash. The stabilizer and directional controls also appear damaged, and the weapon system controls are gone entirely. Oh, and the communications have been destroyed beyond any hope of repair."

"What was that?"

"Oh. That was Toothless." I said patting my helmet. Toothless then transferred to my wrist hologram display and revealed himself.

"An AI construct. And a smart one at that." I wasn't sure if he was surprised that I had an AI with me, or that Toothless looked like a dragon. "Where did you get him."

"He was given to me for a special program I'm in. Don't worry. We can trust him."

"Do you think he could fix my ship?"

"I can tell you how to fix it. However, getting the parts and actually making the repairs will have to be up to you two. Plus I don't guarantee anything. I know the basic parts, but this ship is advanced even for me." Toothless admitted.

"Well then, Hiccup. I guess this is a start of an unlikely friendship." He said holding out his hand. I took it and we shook.

"My name is Nogard."

"Hiccup. It's a pleasure to meet you."

"Likewise."

"Nogard. You mind if I ask you something?"

"What?"

"Why do you only target buildings and vehicles that are unoccupied? As far as I know, you've never killed anyone. You could have annihilated us by now, but you didn't."

He looked off into the distance like he was pondering something. "The truth is, I'm not sure where I stand in this war. I do not completely believe in the prophets, or their great journey."

"What do you mean?"

"The prophets say we are doing this to please the gods. But I do not see how the slaughtering of entire species would please them. And then there was Halo. We were told it was a great weapon. One that would destroy the enemy known as the Flood."

I shivered. I had heard about what happened on Halo, just like everyone else.

"Yet I do not understand how it could do such a thing. The Flood are your enemy just as much as they are mine. Yet your race tries to stop us from using a weapon that would wipe them out. You surely must have a reason for doing so. I do not kill your kind because they are no threat to me, and you may be in the right. But I do not disobey the Covenant, because of my allegiance."

"You're not far off. We do try to stop you for activating Halo, and we do have a reason. On that first Halo, another AI managed to break into Halo's network. She then found out that the rings don't destroy the Flood, they destroy their food source."

"Which is everything."

"Yes. If the Covenant had activated Halo that entire section of the galaxy would not exist anymore."

"I know from your actions that you would not lie to me. So that means we have been trying to rush to our own destruction rather than fight it."

I just stood there in silence as a yes.

"There is something else. For a while now there seems to be sayings of a betrayal against the Elites. I do not know when this will happen, but I fear it will be soon."

"Well then. I guess we better start working on getting you back."

~Later that day. Astrid-201~

We were all sitting around a fire as Gobber told us old war stories. Currently it was the one about how he lost his arm.

"And then with one snap, the foul beast took my arm. But it wasn't over then, because I could see the look in his eye. I was delicious. He must have passed the word because it wasn't a week when another one took my leg."

"Ooohhh." Most of my squad mates said. Except Hiccup who seemed to be lost in thought.

"Isn't it weird to think you hand was inside of that thing."

Here we go again.

"Like, if your mind was still in control of your hand. You could have killed it by crushing its heart or something."

"Ugh, I'm so angry right now." Now Snotlout was getting caught in the moment. "I promise I'll avenge your beautiful hand, and your beautiful foot. I'll chop off the arms and legs of every enemy I fight. With my face."

As funny as it would be to see him actually try that, I doubted it would work.

I looked up across from me and saw that Hiccup had disappeared. I got up and walked over to the stairs in time to just glimpse him going down. I thought about going after him. But it was probably nothing.

So for those of you who might be confused on why the Nightfury isn't Toothless here's a brief explanation. When writing this story I couldn't decide if I wanted Toothless to be an AI or an Elite. So I decided to do both. Toothless is the AI, Nogard (yes, his name is dragon spelled backwards.) is the Nightfury, and they both sort of combine rolls in the story as Hiccup's best friend. As always, feel free to leave a review.