Hiccup dove into sketches. Hundreds of them, all racing about. Old concept arts, new ones, diagrams, calculations, carefully plotted designs. Idle scribbles from boring classes, little more than science fiction artwork. Blueprints from half-succeeded projects discarded six months back. Notes and annotations thrown about on graph paper. Analyses discussing improvements to make on currently functioning gear. Little sticky notes in half-decipherable writing complaining about broken parts. The dorm room drowned in paper, lined paper and graph paper and printer paper and notebooks and sketchbooks and textbooks and library books and every last resource – every last resource – he could acquire on the subject of robotics construction.

Somewhere beneath the piles of pages there might have been a desk or two. Perhaps even a drowned, suffocating roommate. Even the ceiling sported new decorations; Hiccup began taping up designs he liked above his bed, around the windows, near the doorway. Pencils and screw drivers littered what little floor was left from his heaps of textbooks and drawings; the only place flooring actually showed was a tiny little pathway toward each bed. Slowly but surely, though, the stacks sifted; they became neater piles, one for discarded drafts, one for possibilities, and one for sure designs he would implement in the coming weeks.

Two weeks. That's all you've got. Make the best of it.

The alarm blared at five o'clock in the morning. Fishlegs moaned like a beached whale, turning over in his bed and covering his ears in pillows. But Hiccup flew to his feet. Grabbed a book light. Began the day's work with undeterred tenacity.

Sketches drowned the floor, but metal parts, too, made their way to the bedroom. Infinite numbers of bolts and screws and hammers and screwdrivers and tools. And when Hiccup was not there, lying on his stomach with protective eye gear working on parts with his hands, he was charging to the 3D printer in the school, working out a design on the institute's modeling program.

P.E. class in the morning. Rush to philosophy. Head to law. Charge back to the dorm room. Get work done, none of it homework.

"Fixing up those boots?" Fishlegs asked, glancing as Hiccup secured his old rocket boots to his feet.

"Think I got it down now," Hiccup announced, peering down at his feet with a satisfied half-grin. "Built in some automatic sensors I'll place all over my body so the boots can turn off before I run into things. One for each foot, four for the legs, three on each arm, one for the back, one for the chest, and one…" he tapped on his forehead "…for the head, of course. Sort of need my head."

Off to dinner for a quick meal. He grabbed the tray of food and rushed to his bedroom to work and eat at the same time. And once Hiccup finished chewing on his taco, he chewed on the eraser of his pencil, leaning forward to his laptop screen as he mulled over information he read online.

"Mindlock, you're the human computer, you tell me… what're the advantages of these alloys I might use for some chest plates?"

Mindlock leaned over the computer screen, ate in the information. "Armor chest plates?"

Discussion ensued.

One yawn followed by another. "Goodnight, Hiccup."

"G'night."

"Your light's still on."

"Gonna spend more time working."

Nightfall.

Five o'clock alarm and another day of work. Rushing to the 3D printer with greater alacrity than any movement he ever showed in P.E. class.

Standing on top of headquarters eight stories above the ground. Felt wind ruffle the small tufts of hair sticking out from his newly-constructed helmet. Hiccup stared down, catching details of the concrete far below him. Inhaled shakily. Stared out toward the horizon and Berk's skyscraper skyline. Exhaled.

I better fly like a swan rather than a brick.

He jumped.

Face dive.

Boots measured velocity, kicked in, thrusting at an angle to level Hiccup and fly him parallel to the ground. He shrieked as he spun away from concrete and began racing safely forward. He whooped in delight and aimed himself upward, gaining atmosphere. Flight. Into downtown he rushed, past twenty story skyscrapers all lined in windows, catching his reflection as he turned to the left. Hundreds of feet down cars stopped at an intersection; he flew onward, rushing through the skyline.

"Wooooohooooo!"

Smoothest flight thus far! He felt far more at ease shooting through Berk now than he had the night of the last Outcast attack.

Now to test the sensors…

He forced himself to fly straight toward his own reflection. He rushed toward a building full speed, forcing himself to drive like a bull right at the windows of the office building.

Come on… come on… he grit his teeth.

Power cut down in his boots.

Sensors working!

But his velocity still shot him toward the window. The thrusters might have stopped in his boots, but they could not stop his current momentum.

"SHIT!"

Back to the sketchbooks. Back to the laptop. Back to launching ideas off with Mindlock, who contributed his knowledge, his numbers, his expertise. The entire time Hiccup moaned at his aching limbs, wondering if he needed to head to the nurse's office and explain he flew himself into a building.

Five o'clock alarm, next day.

Return to the top of an eight story building. "Alright, it's go time, this better work now." He glanced down at the metal bracers on his arms running from wrist to just below his elbow, each of them containing two thrusters on each forearm. It was a design he had considered implementing before; now he had finally tweaked it and was ready to test them. This'll solve the problem about stopping with my boots. Now I can use my arms to control and slow down. And I'll get more steering using my arms as well.

An hour later he rushed into the nurse's office, begging for ointment to assuage his new burns. "No, I didn't set myself on fire!" he protested.

Back to the sketchbooks. Thank god that was only a second degree burn. Still horrifically painful – his skin felt raw even now, as though it still were on fire – but not as horrid an injury as it might have been.

"Alright… looks like I need some protection elsewhere."

He completely skipped mathematic class to puzzle over equations of his own, pursing his lips as he poured over hoards of numbers. Occasionally he turned to the side to glance at an in-progress firearm, puzzling at it and mumbling to himself about discharge recoil, overheating, and energy limits. Eventually he pulled out tools and began picking at the design.

The next day during sunrise he did not jump off a building, but instead charged off toward an isolated park and shot the gun at a stone wall.

He darted away a moment later, shouting ecstatically, "It worked it worked!" while leaving it up to the fire department to handle the enormous mushrooming flames taking over the park and licking around the remains of the blasted stone wall.

Hiccup treated himself to an early bedtime that night, celebrating one success in his list of operations.

For amongst the explosions of paper in his room, he had one sheet tacked firmly to the door, a checklist of everything he wished to plan out and develop before his two weeks ended. Triumphantly that evening, still holding his firearm up with proud excitement, he leaned up and checked off a single bulleted point on that list.

Five o'clock wakeup. More work.

He, Fishlegs, and Camicazi leaned together to whisper during lunch breaks, arguing about tactics of entering Skullion City. "No, you can't just waltz in the main gate!" Fishlegs would squeak apprehensively, holding up his hands and waving them in the faces of his two, more stalwart companions. Camicazi snorted, "You watch me," to which Hiccup again would propose, "Let's just not do something stupid, okay?"

He leaped off the edge of a building a third time in five days, sporting more extensive armor, and rushed through the city with the birds.

Proud checkmark on the bedroom door. Thruster boots working at last.

More discussions in the lunchroom hall, this time about tools and weaponry. "How about stun grenades?" "Shouldn't you do something more lethal?" "That's what the ray gun is for."

He slipped on the new chest plate prototypes he had designed from the 3D printer. "Oh, god, wow," Hiccup murmured, hands reaching up to tap the armor on his torso with a proud metallic clang. "This looks amazing, wow." He stepped forward, turned around, beamed. If only there were mirrors in this room… He rushed to the laptop, pulled up the webcam, and snapped some photos.

Great! It works.

And then he paused.

The next moment, Camicazi received a text message asking if she were free and could help free Hiccup from the armor. Hiccup trapped in his own equipment became the topic of that evening's dinnertime. They got no work done on the planned discussion for that day: food and other necessary living equipment they would need on the upcoming mission.

Right after eating, with no little embarrassment and frustration, Hiccup charged into his bedroom to pull up his modeling program and adjust the designs of the suit.

Questions from the teachers arose, of course. "Hiccup, are you paying attention?" "Hiccup, did you forget to do your homework again?" "Hiccup, it's not like you to fall asleep in class."

Yet he felt… alive… every time he charged back into his dorm room.

Of course Mindlock protested every time Hiccup dumped another pile of parts or papers onto the floor. And frequently Mindlock reminded Hiccup that these projects were wearing him down; he couldn't sleep with all these alarms blaring off at five in the morning. Nevertheless, the two of them more often worked together, Fishlegs sympathetic to Hiccup's drive. Hiccup believed he noticed a hearty glow whenever Mindlock rattled off the statistics he stored perfectly in his mind.

They both felt more like superheroes than they ever had before. For this wasn't just training. This was the real world. A real task. A real mission.

And it better succeed.

Hiccup watched another sunset from his window, soldering tool in hand. Another day ended, another day closer to leaving for Skullion City. The checklist on his bedroom sported some marks, though not nearly as many as he would have liked.

But there was only so long he could wait and plan.

I'm coming for you, Dad.

And I think… I will be ready.