And suddenly all fell… silent.
It was a disguised silence, an obscure silence, a deceivingly loud silence, but silence nonetheless. All about him bustled a loud and chaotic world of superheroes fighting weekly Outcast raids after dark, of students sparring and honing their abilities during the day, of classmates frantically shuffling their papers to prepare for midterm exams. The last concern certainly created hubbub; youths darted in and out of teachers' off periods to review material they should have mastered weeks ago, while others moaned loudly and obnoxiously about how they needed to study during lunch hours. Somehow, of course, lots of the people who shouted about exams procrastinated and never actually studied for them… but the culture of preparation and anxiety bloomed forth nonetheless, and everyone about Hiccup set about in a fearful scramble, the jeopardy of their grades terrorizing them into actually cracking open their doodle-filled class notes.
If anything, this should have been a loud period of the year. It certainly seemed so for everyone else. Midterms constituted an enormous stress upon students, a very important and very fearsome event of the year. It stirred up most of the teenagers. It evoked emotion. Instilled fear – for some poor souls, more fear than were they actually fighting an eight foot tall enemy face-to-face.
However, for Hiccup… the world seemed to lapse into a muffled lull.
Class notes felt inconsequential after encountering the Outcasts outside Skullion City. What did he care about the philosophy of rule utilitarianism and how it might hypothetically apply to his future actions as a superhero? What did all those rules and regulations of civil law do for him now? He found himself doodling pictures during the class' midterm review – sketches of looming, superpowered monstrosities hurtling out from the lines of notebook paper and reaching to throttle Hiccup's skinny neck. Fair enough, studying in his dorm room he did sometimes do, yet only with a half-hearted attention to the textbook material. He could keep his eyes on the pages of the books for fifteen minutes maximum… usually drifting off after even less time than that. Preparing for half a semester's worth of material seemed laughably simple after rush-developing a super suit, reading up on scientific journals, and researching the landscape of Skullion City in a mere two weeks. Hiccup did not even need to try at this.
Granted, the teen never had been one to gauge in deep academic studies. He learned the material he desired outside of classes; school rarely focused its subject matter on what interested Hiccup – and when it did touch upon Hiccup's curiosities, it did indeed do no more than touch – barely brush – over the simplest concepts of that material. Yet this era of midterms felt even more uninspiring, even more numb, than Hiccup had before experienced midterms. He could hardly even remember now that academics existed.
But this was all that existed. All to him, now. No more leads on his mission to find his father. No more new escapades outside Berk to plot. Only questions over which to puzzle… questions on which he got frustratingly nowhere. He had middle of the year classroom exams to work on, and little else.
Might as well try to study.
Choke through the material.
Let eyes wander in the lounge as he read through a book.
Settle on Storm Fly… quickly return back to the text.
Daze off again.
Thus time lapsed, lapsed in a horrible non-existing existence of time, an unmoving drag from one second to the next, nothing occurring, nothing forthcoming.
Seated in his law class, answering test questions on a sheet of paper. Multiple choice. A, A, B, E, A, B, C, B, D, D. Turn the pages. C, D, D, D, E, A, A, B, A, D, C. He had to force himself to check his work, and even then, he was not sure he would even notice a mistake were it 2+2 = 2700. He turned in the test without a care whether he received a passing or failing grade. Most likely, the score would fall somewhere halfway between the two.
Students trickled out of the classroom, one-by-one, then hurried to their dorms to prepare for tomorrow's big test in philosophy.
Yes, all felt silent.
All felt silent indeed.
Even P.E. classes felt mild in comparison – a strange sentiment, being as once riding on the back of a mentor's hurling motorcycle frightened him to no end, and he had spent the whole first week of school griping about the instructor's unacceptably perilous "teaching methods." The extremes of this sport surprised him not. Likewise Madame Valkyrie's abrasive retorts made little mark on him; she would not harm him like the Outcasts almost had, and so her words could be closed off into Hiccup's muffled, unfeeling, barely thinking headspace.
Perhaps… perhaps… she was speaking a little less abrasively to him, and there was something objective about the sense of silence in his physical training.
Restless and aimless as he was, this significance almost passed him by. And then he realized: She's started to take me more seriously.
More thoughts trickled through between midterms. Now's my chance to actually change myself and become the hero I should be.
Shame. Some guilt. But also resolution, determination. He could change these moments of quietness into something far greater. He remembered his rant toward Fishlegs the week before about needing to be someone who could not just fly through the air, but actively better peoples' lives… and though he could not necessarily his father's life with the limited information he held now, the least he could do was prepare for a situation where rescue might happen in the future.
Other students worried about A's and B+ grades. More advanced youths also paired up with superheroes and fought at night in the Outcast night raids, placing into action their skills. Never did Hiccup receive that duty. But someday, he hoped it might be.
Silent.
Silent indeed.
Thus midterms came and passed.
He sat before his desk late at night, keeping the lamplight dim so Fishlegs could sleep. The mound of pillows and blankets to his left seemed still as stone, yet Hiccup wished to respect Fishlegs' slumber as much as he could, and thus leaned in to squint at dim light, peering at a very detailed sketch before him...
His armor, not as it was, but as it could be.
The short design and construction time impacted the efficacy of Hicup's current armor and gear. The suit functioned, amazingly so, yet it hardly boasted the greatest technological achievements in the city. Thus far, Hiccup had found himself spinning and regaining his momentum in the skies moreso than steering straight. However, with some tampering, tweaking, and dedicated experimentation…
This is it, he told himself, staring at the sketch in excitement. His heart pounded in the darkness of the room. This is it. Just you watch, Storm Fly, just you watch, Uncle Spitelout… I'll be saving lives in no time at all.
Unsurprisingly then he found himself lingering in the lawn aside campus during his off-hours, enjoying the lingering green grasses of autumn before all turned brown and the temperature changed from chilled to chancy. Already he could feel the bite of approaching winter on his cheeks and the pain of parch-skinned knuckles; the increasing crispness in the air dried his skin, especially eating away at his hands – yet it was his hands he kept exposed as he worked on his vambraces outdoors.
A ring of books, half of them opened and held down with stones as makeshift paperweights, circled around Hiccup a though he were a wizard engaging in some magic ceremony. He sat cross-legged in the center of the mystic ring, arm guard in one hand, a simple screwdriver in the other fingers. Of course, a heap of tools lay near his feet as well, amongst the books, ready to be used at a later time. But he needed to undo some of his previous work first, which meant reverently disassembling some of the outer layers of the vambrace, in order to craft his intended improvements.
Working outside calmed him. For one, it provided him better sunlight – at least when the sun did not disappear behind clouds. Today's partially overcast weather rendered such a desired benefit as that questionably profitable; he might have received no more light here than in his bedroom today. At least it's not artificial light, he told himself. Something I don't get at home. Living on the upper stories of an apartment building in the middle of downtown rarely allowed him some fresh air. A second reason to step outdoors. And last, he understood snows soon would crash upon the ground, leaving the possibility of working outside impossible. He would seize this rare opportunity while the fall season still… somewhat… lingered. Time ticked quickly, the leaves from the trees falling off in increasing speed, and settling in piles around Hiccup's books.
Not many lawns carpeted Berk, yet the Superhero Headquarters, located outside the main center of the city, allowed for more expansive room… for green grass… for trees… and for games played outdoors.
Half a dozen stampedes crashed into one another now, not too far from where Hiccup sat quietly. He could watch the teams fight from the corner of his eye; they appeared to be engaged in some sort of fancy keep-away, a game involving much contact but not many rules. Tuffnut and Ruffnut cackled, separating to engage their magnet field, and bending poor Snotlout – who wore a huge metal belt buckle – out of competition. Yet at once both twins lunged for the football, grabbed it at the same instant, and started yanking at it while shouting profane insults.
It appeared fun, in a way. Hiccup simply shrugged, though. He understood that, with his weak frame and lack of superhero skills, he would hardly stand long in the competition.
"No! That's my ball! My ball, my glory!" a voice screeched out in the middle of the mayhem.
"HA! Eat my dust!" Something that sounded like Hiccup's self-confident cousin. A moment later, the earth erupted in a screech… Hiccup jumped at the boom of a pounding thunderclap… though once his heart rate slowed down to sustainable levels, Hiccup deduced that Astrid probably had shot lightning at Snotlout with her storm powers. Sudden winds whipped all of Hiccup's textbooks shut. He cringed, watching Storm Fly levitate into the air, mocking, "You were saying, Snotlout?" and holding her prize for all to see.
With an adamant punch into the air, Snotlout shot forth lightning. Fire met swirling cloud. Astrid tottered for a moment, and in that moment, it was enough for Clueless to make eye contact. Astrid suddenly appeared dead, confused… and in that bewilderment handed the ball to Clueless. But before Clueless could even touch the football, suddenly a whip of something shot past them, ran across the campus, and disappeared with a cackle.
"Speedifist," everyone groaned, loathing the boy's super speed for an infinite time.
Hiccup chose to resume his project, leaned down to reopen his books to their appropriate pages, and commenced dissecting his vanguard. Now if I alter it to better fit my forearm, then I can add this ray gun right here embedded into the left arm… right… exactly like this… and then…
A force smacked him in the head.
The football bounced down at his knee a moment later.
Everyone was charging after the ball – and by consequence – after him.
"No! Don't mess this up!" Hiccup exclaimed, pulling out his vambrace and automatically firing with his newly powered arm guard. Everyone shouted in shock.
"Wait! Did Hiccup just get the ball?" Snotlout exclaimed, baffled.
Hiccup glanced down at his feet, which so happened to be sporting his rocket boots, and smiled.
Still carrying the football under armpit, he launched into the sky.
Storm Fly shot after Hiccup. "Oh no you don't!" she exclaimed, attempting to both pursue him as closely as possible, while still safely avoiding the bursting jet flames streaming behind him. She cycled about like a twister, corkscrewing around him, reaching toward the center of her tornado to reach her prize. Hiccup attempted twisting, too, hugging the ball close at hand. Somehow in all the dizziness and unclear flashing visuals he saw a face reach in. A moment later, the weight of his hands disappeared, and Storm Fly was shooting away.
He followed her.
"Typhoon, here!" she called out to her roommate.
The large, chunky girl surged upward into the air. She astonishingly boasted a high jump and caught the football out of the air perfectly. She could have made a touchdown on a professional team. More superhero sidekickes charged after her: Push and Pull with their magnets, Snotlout with his bursting fire, Clueless with his memory wiping, Speedifist with his super speed.
"Got it!" Typhoon crowed.
Speedifist snatched it from her fingertips.
"Don't got it!" she howled.
Hiccup noticed Speedifist's trajectory and launched his boots in a direction intended to intersect his classmates' path. He missed, only barely, feeling Speedifist sweep past and air rush right after.
"After him! After him!" several voices.
"CRAP!" A human being suddenly crashing on a rock on the ground. As Speedifist plunged forward, Snotlout tackled the football.
So Hiccup landed. Pointed his weapon on his forearm and threatened, "This is on stun, but it's going to make you drop it."
"We'll see about that," his cousin taunted. Snotlout opened up his lips and belched for fire like a dragon, a huge blast shooting like a laser straight for Hiccup's head. Somehow he managed to duck and shoot in turn. A sudden shout "MY LEG!" preceded Hiccup diving in and grabbing the football.
Suddenly, a cell phone lying in the middle of the field went off, blasting country music at a deafening volume.
"That's it!" said Tuffnut. He seemed to be the only person unaffected by the cacophonous noise, and indeed only slowly reached down to the shut the over-loud cell phone off. "Hiccup wins the game!"
"Wait, what?" exclaimed Hiccup at the same time Astrid gasped the exact same words.
"Those are the rules," Tuffnut declared, turning his alarm off and beckoning for Hiccup to step forward safely. "Person holding the football when the timer goes off is winner. Say, best two out of three?"
"I…" Hiccup stared down at the football in his hands, a rather simple, typical sports item… but one which he gawked at as though it were the first alien to land on earth. "I won."
"Yeah," said Astrid, stepping past him. She only seemed slightly out of breath; even her braid did not seem too unruly after all this roughhousing. And though it was hard to gauge if her voice were terse or sincere, she did tell him the words, "Good game."