"Son, we need to talk." Hiccup turned around from his workbench as he felt Stoick's hand rest on his shoulder. His father was a giant of a man in every aspect of the word. His broad shoulders could just barely squeeze through a doorway, his thick beard would hardly let light through it, and his booming voice could be heard easily over the roar of a race. Hiccup was nearly the polar opposite of his dad.
"Yeah dad?" Hiccup asked, putting his tools down on the tabletop. Unfortunately, their thoughts also never seemed to align either.
"I think it's about time to go into training," his dad simply stated.
"I uh, oh, what?"
"You've been working hard behind the scenes, and you know these bikes inside and out better than the back of your hand. I think it's time you get out there and see what you can do on the seat of one of these things." He smiled at his son, anticipating excitement, but when he noticed his son staring at him, he continued. "I put you into the training courses with Gobber and some of your friends. You'll be racing in the Underdog series with them this year."
"Wait, but I enjoy working in the garage, I haven't wanted to ride on a bike since I was seven, dad!" Hiccup finally piped up, but his dad just waved his hand.
"Don't worry, you'll do great I know you will. You've done great on the dirt bikes we take out every summer."
"But those are completely different! I'm not even cut out for this type of work, everyone else has had much more experience than me, I mean Snotlout has been on a motorcycle since he could walk. What do you expect me to do?"
"You'll do fine. Not everyone in that series has experience, that's what Gobber is there for. Oh, I got something for you," Stoick said with a small smile as he reached behind his back, revealing a blue and purple racing helmet. "Now, this is one from Oswald, so it might be a bit big on you, but hopefully it'll fit just fine." Stoick tried to put the helmet onto Hiccup, only to find that the helmet slipped over Hiccups head loosely, so he took it off and put it under his arm. "Oh, uh, well," Stoick coughed and looked around. "I'll be sure to get you one that fits." He walked back out of the garage and left Hiccup to slump back into his chair.
Hiccup sat there looking at the blank spot his father was standing in, trying to understand the information he had just received. As he turned back to the bench to work on a transmission, he couldn't even remember what tool he needed. Turning back at the door to see if Stoick was anywhere nearby, he lamented to himself, "I've worked on motorbikes for years, and now he expects me to race one? I haven't tried to race a bike in years, what does he think I'm actually gonna do?" He shook his head before grabbing the wrench he had been using.
"Welcome to race training!" Gobbers thick accented voice cut through the air as he walked in front of the group of teens.
"Woah, I knew you were messed up but I didn't realize you looked that bad!" Snotlout spoke, earning a glare from Astrid and an elbow from Fishlegs.
"Aye! This is what happens to ye if yer not careful, but it's worth the risk when everything pays off." Gobber spoke up, chuckling to himself.
"Yeah, I suppose you're not really having fun unless you feel some pain." Astrid said, loosening up her shoulders.
"Ah, yes. Pain. Love it." Everyone looked back at Hiccup and some groans were heard.
"Oh great, the mechanic is here. He's not here to race is he? Right?" Snotlout asked looking around to everyone else's faces to gauge their reactions.
"If he is I don't think I'll be able to see him."
"Yeah, cause he'll be so far behind us." Ruffnut finished Tuffnut's sentence before they laughed.
"Who cares, we're here to race, let's get back to training," Astrid said turning back to Gobber.
"Yes, ye don't want to miss out on this. But if ye are curious, yer all here to race."
"But he's only here because he's Stoick's son, he'll just slow us all down!"
"Yer gonna be slowing yerself down with that attitude before Hiccup does anything, Snotlout. Now, can we please get started?" Gobber cut off Snotlout's complaining, to which he only got a disgruntled sigh in response. "Good. Now, get yer bikes." There was a pause as everyone looked at each other.
"Like, right now?" Tuffnut asked.
"No, not right now. You should have been on them yesterday!" Gobber exclaimed before erupting into laughter. When he looked back and saw all of his pupils still looking at him dumbfounded, he got back on track. "Go on then, get yer bikes! The best way to learn is to try."
"Are we actually having a race then?" Astrid questioned.
"Ye all are such nosy little creatures, aren't you? Yes, yer going to have a little race amongst yourselves."
"And if we crash?"
"I'm a firm believer in the philosophy of learning from yer failures. Now get out there!" Gobber shouted, and everyone started heading to the garage to get their bikes.
"Hiccup, you're starting in the back!" Snotlout added as he walked toward his team's garage.
Hiccup was about to say something when he heard Gobber pipe up "Hiccup, you're starting in pole position."
"Wai- I- what?" Hiccup stumbled over his words, at a loss for what to say. Snotlout didn't have that same problem though.
"You're gonna give him pole position like that? He hasn't even been on a bike like this before!"
"We train by walking through the fire, Snotlout. Hiccup has the least experience, so he's starting first. Fishlegs, you're second. Ruffnut, Tuffnut, you're third and fourth. Snotlout, you can start in the last row with Astrid."
"At least there's one good thing to look forward to, huh Astrid?" Snotlout said, nudging her with his elbow.
"Good luck looking forward to me, I'll be seeing you in my mirrors. If you can keep up." Astrid said before sliding her helmet on and walking away from Snotlout.
"Right," was all Snotlout could mutter before getting his own helmet.
"Gobber, why did you put me first out of all places? Snotlout's right, I haven't raced one of these bikes before!" Hiccup asked, walking alongside Gobber.
"It's a trial by fire, Hiccup. Everyone is gonna be out of their comfort zone with this one, and everyone will have at least one singe mark by the time we're done. Just try not to get burnt up out there, we still have lots more to go over. Oh, and yer dad wanted me to let you know he got you a new helmet." He said as they made it to Hiccup's garage. His black helmet looked a little smaller than the one his dad tried to fit over his head earlier in the week, but his attention was drawn more toward the bike. It was a beautiful bike, a deep blue at the front, trailing to a dark purple at the back, the classic colors for the Berk racing team his father managed.
"It's all yers. Try not to tear it up too much today." Gobber chuckled to himself. "Now get yer gear on, we gotta be on track in a few minutes," he said, giving Hiccup a pat on the back before walking to the other garage stalls.
After suiting up and getting onto the bike, Gobber led them out onto the starting grid. Even though Hiccup had driven bikes around the garage area like this hundreds of times on the team bikes he's worked on, he was shaking like a leaf the whole way to the grid. On his way there, he was able to see everyone else's bikes. Fishlegs had a reddish brown bike, almost clay colored. The twins had shamrock colored bikes with grey accents on them. Snotlout had a candy red bike with black trim, and lastly Astrid had a sapphire bike with gold accents. All of the bikes were quite different, except for the twins bikes as they raced for the same team, the only difference between the two was the numbers.
"Now, yer gonna go around once as a warm up lap. Line up back here once yer done, and then you'll race for five laps. Then, we'll talk about what went right and what didn't. Go on then!" Gobber said as they all started going down the frontstretch. Before he even made it to the first corner, though, everyone had blown past Hiccup. I thought this was a warm up lap? Hiccup asked in his head, looking back to see if he was just seeing things.
Riding through the turns Hiccup thought about how this would end. His confidence kept getting whittled down as he tried to keep up with the rest of the group, only to find that he was unstable throughout the turns on his bike, both on the fast turns of the esses, and the slow hairpin corners. When he eventually made it around the last turn, he saw everyone else already lined up on the grid, and a couple shook their heads as they saw him slowly riding up to the front of the grid.
"Right, when I raise my hand up, that means get ready!" He said as he raised his hook into the air. "When it comes down, that means go, ye got that?" Several engines revved in response. "Great!" Hiccup grew more nervous with each word out of Gobbers mouth, his palms felt like they were sweating through his gloves. Gobber walked to the grass along the side of the track, making sure to keep in view of everyone. He raised his hook up into the air, and all the engines revved up. Hiccup revved the engine, something he reserved for testing the engine itself, never before dropping it into gear after doing so. So when Gobber lowered his arm, Hiccup promptly stalled the engine. Everyone else went racing by him as he tried to get the engine restarted, which proved to be difficult as the nerves caused his fingers to slip several times before getting the engine started again.
Hiccup took off and started making laps, but that proved to be troubling. Each turn he felt like he was going to slip off his bike and straight onto the track. The tires felt like they were covered in oil, and he knew he wasn't sending it into the corners like he should have. He couldn't see anyone in the distance, and for the first three laps it was quite a lonely time. However, on his fourth lap, he saw a blue bike coming up quickly in his mirrors. Before he could even ask himself what to do, Astrid had passed him and was taking the next corner at full speed. He had seen racing on a television many times before, and just as many times in person, so he knew that riders would lean almost parallel to the track in a turn. However, seeing it right in front of him on a bike himself looked completely different. He felt like he would never have the confidence to pull off something like that, and seeing Astrid speed by him like that just made it clear that he was outclassed here, and likely always would be. Coming up to the end of the lap, he saw Snotlout coming up behind him. Coming through the next few turns proved to be difficult for both of them, as Hiccup tried to just stay on track, and Snotlout tried to find any path around him. Snotlout finally got past Hiccup after a couple turns, promptly turning around and waving an upturned hand at him as if asking "what are you doing?" Hiccup saw a green bike in his mirrors a distance back, but he passed the finish line with Gobber waving a checkered flag before they could pass him. Hiccup could finally relax, but he knew he had done poorly. Maybe he did poorly enough for Stoick to take him out of training, but knowing how stubborn his dad could be, Hiccup knew how long these next few months of training would be...
A.N: I've had this story in mind for a while, so I thought I might as well go for it. Hopefully you enjoy it too, and if you find any mistakes/issues in any chapter, please let me know so I can fix it!