Hiccup's encounter with the god of night
A/N
Chapters were delayed due to computer trouble.
I used results for pirate ship classifications to classify the British fleet.
Part 8
Hiccup returned home after his enjoyable agreement with the 'British' leader. He had given the leader a map to tell him the way to berk, so they would probably arrive in a few days. In the meantime, he was wondering about the support he could give to the small settlement, to make the deal equal. He arranged a longer patrol that would take riders around the, largely unprotected, island.
Astrid was still not quite herself. She had gone to the island and gotten captured, not only that but she hadn't been able to escape but had to wait for the peace operation of Hiccup, thirdly she was sure that Hiccup still hadn't forgiven her for her actions as he gave her disapproving looks. Eventually She had kept her freedom but lost respect.
Hiccup finished up his protection plan for the 'British' island and went on to think about Astrid's behaviour. She had been incautious and defiant and, with the responsibility of being the dragon rider leader, had to be punished in some way to make up for her wrong. He thought of the ships on the island and had an idea.
Back at the island Astrid was furious at Hiccup's brazen idea for her punishment.
"you want me to join a fishing crew for a month? Just because I wanted to explore!? What kind of twisted idea is that!?"
Hiccup braced himself against Astrid's inevitable anger. However, he was sure that this would be a good chance for her to learn to be part of a team, not as a separate individual who did what she liked and got into trouble because of it. he readied his serious expression and voice
"I'm going to tell you just this once so don't forget this. You went on a poorly planned exploration on an unexplored island by yourself. I'm sad to say this Astrid but you need to work on teamwork so that is why you will be joining the crew. Understand?"
Astrid was furious
"why can't I do my own thing? Why do you have to boss me around? Why do you create a dictatorship"?
Now Hiccup certainly didn't like being talked to like this, he normally tried to be calm and be peaceful, but Astrid wouldn't listen to that approach. Thus, came back hard and fully utilised his draconic features.
As Hiccup gathered his fury his teeth grew both longer and sharper, his eyes became slits, and an angry hurricane of purple fury surrounded his darkening frame. His mouth opened to utter speech that came out as a half roar
"you will not talk about me like that! You di your own thing and could've easily been injured. I have a dragon rider force to take care of and I care for each one. a. lot. I simply cannot have you throw yourself into such dangerous situations and simply relying on luck to get you out. I don't want you to get hurt because of my carelessness"
Astrid quietened, calmed in the view of his anger, but also his compassion for her. She didn't think that Hiccup cared so much about her, but he showed her just how much he cared. His face of anger gently faded into his normal face as he turned and walked away on the harsh, grey path back to the village.
The last purple wisps spiralled into the quiet air before dissolving into nothing.
Astrid was left alone until the fisher sent for her. Hiccup had to prepare for the primary shift of patrols over the 'British' island, to test the weather and obvious threats to the island and dragons flying above.
Snotlout arrived at the dragon stables as Hiccup was preparing. His panicked face was surprising to Hiccup as he ran towards him. Fearfully, he gave his news.
"Hiccup! Viggo built a huge ship! It has so many ballistae and archers no dragon could possibly get close, it even has metal around the hull to protect it from our shots! How could we possibly defend against that?!"
Hiccup grimly accepted the news. Dealing with dragon hunter ships was extremely risky. One lucky shot and a dragon rider is doomed. He was lucky to get away last time but this time there would be far more weapons to contend with. He was even tempted to attack the dragon hunters from land, without dragon support.
While thinking he realised he still needed to do his patrol, he hauled the completely packed, leather saddle and went off to find Toothless
After he had found Toothless, Shadewrath also joining them, they set off for the test patrol to the island.
They went over a few miles of open sea before coming across a majestic sight.
Three ships sliced through the clear blue water, the sun shone on the pearly white sails hung from the oaken booms of the masts.
Two of the smaller ships flanked the larger one and each had its own complement of cannons: the smaller ones had 16 per side with two at the front for 34 in total, while the larger one had 50 cannons each side with 6 at the front for a total of 106 powerful cannons that gleamed majestically in the strong sunlight.
Hiccup spiralled down on Toothless onto the larger ship (I'll refer to as man o' war for a more complete name), assuming it to be the vessel of the leader he had met. His assumptions were proven when he could see a man with a large hat walk confidently towards the bow of the ship.
Hiccup landed. He was suddenly faced with the cheery face of Edwards and the stunned crew.
"hello Hiccup! Nice to see you on our journey to berk. Any news?"
Hiccup nodded grimly.
"the dragon hunters we face have a totally new warship. The scout over there said it has metal sides and many ballistae."
Edward was initially shocked at the fact the ships had metal sides but laughed when he heard the ballistae. Hiccup was confused, did he understand the problems ballistae posed to the dragons. Edward explained his laughter
"ballistae? That's practically medieval! Our ships cannons can do better than old tosh like that any day!"
Hiccup was glad to hear it, if the riders couldn't get close then Edward should be able to. He asked about the ammunition supplies before continuing his journey to the 'British' Island.
He came across the small Island again and It amazed him how beautiful the island was even on his second visit: lush green forests and an imposing mountain surrounding a calm cove. He came down to the cold, grey caves for a check on any remaining inhabitants. He was surprised to see quite a few.
"why aren't you people off with Edward?"
They initially regarded him with confusion before realising it was the boy that had talked to Edward before.
"we're merchant crew, we only move goods and don't have experience of fighting. We have a ship too, but it's unarmed."
"How can you afford to sit around each day? It seems a bit dull in the caves"
The crew members stiffened at him calling their home dull but realised how the foreigner saw these caves.
"it is a bit dull, but we make do. We are annoyed that the fact the warships get to go while we have to stay here for our own safety. We haven't been on the water in years."
Hiccup nodded in understanding. He knew that for this crew losing your ability to sail would be like losing your dragon for a dragon rider. He thought on the problem of the unarmed ships and had an idea.
"if you sail to berk we could get your ships refitted for warfare, and then you could sail again without fear of being attacked."
The crew member still had a problem
"how will we reach berk? We still don't have anything to protect us."
Hiccup knew the simple solution
"easy, I can protect your ship."
The man was sceptical that the little boy could defend a large merchant ship.
"with what? The small, single man boat I assume you came over in."
Hiccup pouted. Irritated that these people were belittling him. He called out behind him
"Toothless! Show these people I didn't come across in a boat.
The crew laughed, what kind of a name was toothless? They were silenced when the dark dragon unearthed itself from the shadows. Hiccup responded to their looks of fear.
"this is what I came over on. A dragon. And he should be able to protect you to berk."
The men took a little time to recover from their shock to soak in what Hiccup had told them. once they understood a cry of ecstatic happiness erupted from their faces.
Hiccup smiled, they were ready to go.
Edward stood at the wheel of his warship with a spyglass, scanning the waves for friend or foe. Eventually he took in a surprising sight: a ship was coming towards them fast! He was about to warn of pirates when he realised that it was their unarmed merchant ship.
Their merchant's ship quickly caught up to them without the heavy weight of weapons weighing them down. Edward was furious that the merchant had decided to sail towards them without any weapons of their own, he shouted over the sides of the ship at the merchant captain.
"what are you doing? That ship is unarmed! You could easily get shredded by any weaponry that goes through these seas!"
He was surprised to see the crew members were quite calm given their perilous situation. In a moment they shouted back the reason:
"we got air support!"
Edward looked up and saw the imposing figure of the dragon flying above the merchant ships.
The four ships continued their journey, Edward was unsure about the merchant ships but glad for the dragon that guarded him from above.
The large ships docked at Berk, right at the end of the pontoons because of their immense size. The fishing crew down at the harbour were shocked to see such imposing ships dwarf their own. They were scared until the familiar face of Hiccup on his night fury made itself known. Hiccup explained the massive ship's existence.
"these are from a new ally of this island. These ships are for helping us to defeat the dragon hunters."
One of the fishers was heavily disappointed
"how are these ships supposed to destroy their ships, I don't see any visible weaponry."
Hiccup wondered why they didn't notice the cannon ports but remembered he was still the only one on berk that knew about them.
"these ships have cannons: a weapon unseen in our area. Hey Edward! You were talking about firing blanks? How about a little performance for these fishers?"
Edward listened until he heard the full statement. He smiled and gave the orders.
"load and fire blanks! Let's show them a good ol' firing salute!"
The gunners happily obeyed, they loaded the gunpowder and rags into the cannons and, after pulling up the covers pushed the fronts out of the gun port. Then they carefully lit the fuse and waited
The fishers looked at the scene in confusion until the cannon fronts pierced through the gun ports with their cold metal gleaming. The fishers wondered what such a thing could do when a deafening sound sounded through the humid, dry air.
This single sound was followed by far more ripping shots that echoed scarily off the vertical cliffsides surrounding the harbour. The fishers could see the flashes of fire as each one discharged and rocketed back onto it's restraining ropes. Eventually the gunshots stopped, and all cannons rested with warm barrels behind the gun hatches. The gun hatches closed, and the sight of the powerful weapon was hidden. Hiccup interrupted the deathly silence
"now do you think that they have enough power?!"
The fishers eagerly nodded before hurrying back to their duties. Hiccup sighed in relief and went to tell the other riders about the good news. He slowly trekked up the steep paths leading to the village, passing villagers who rushed to see the source of the loud sound, he hoped Edward could deal with the influx of villagers but for now he had to meet the other riders.
Hiccup entered the dragon academy where the others were washing down their pampered dragons. Scales were gleaming in the sunlight and it distracted Hiccup from the grey water that pooled on the floor: he slipped and immediately knew the consequences of his stupidity. The teens looked at who had made the sudden noise and laughed upon seeing Hiccup, wet and miserable, in the waste water. Ruffnut was the first to comment.
"the great night fury rider can't even see where he's going!"
Tuffnut agreed
"exactly sister, Hiccup: good in the air but horrendous on land!"
Hiccup chafed at the disrespectful comments but continued his plan
"we need to try to take that boat out when it leaves the harbour. We can't let it get out with the amount of weaponry it has on board."
Snotlout was understandably unimpressed.
"did you notice I said they had a lot of anti-dragon weaponry?"
Hiccup responded calmly
"I did notice, the plan is to cause a diversion, so we can use a fleet to take down the ship."
Tuffnut thought this idea was crazy
"what kind of open topped ship could even get close to a dragon hunter ship without being shot?"
Hiccup again replied, looking at the other teens for their emotions, they were currently mystified, as were their dragons who wondered why the teens had stopped cleaning.
"we now have an ally, an ally with powerful ships."
The teens were still sceptical. Snotlout again replied using his own knowledge on the highly armoured ships.
"how powerful? We have to go against a floating fortress! I don't think any of our ships could have weaponry powerful enough to take that warship on."
Hiccup emphasized his earlier point
"we don't, but our ally has. For now, however, we should concentrate on patrols. You know the schedule and I need to go and make some weapons. Goodbye for now."
He gave a respectful wave to his companions before heading to the old, rugged forge. He could hear the sound of his feet on the ground in clarity as he reflected on various ideas for ship-bourn weapons. He wanted these weapons to be powerful and light to give adequate protection to the merchant ship.
He settled on his old idea of plasma launchers as well as a cannon for arching fire: a mortar. He entered the forge with his goal in sight and fired up the coals for some weapon crafting. He also added certain accessories like range finders, since he knew the mortar would need careful aiming.
Hammers clanged on metal as Hiccup kept steely determination on his task. The scrap metal gradually took shape; the cylindrical firing chambers smoothed and reinforced.
He worked through the night with the assistance of a certain god. The components were placed on their mounts and onto a cart which he would carry the completed weapons over on.
When the main components had been finished, he concentrated on the sober, gruelling task of extracting enough explosive plasma to adequately arm the weapons: ammunition for the plasma launchers and explosive charges for the mortars. The long work went smoothly.
The morning came again and now Hiccup had to move it over, He pulled the first cart over to the harbour before hiding it for the big reveal to the merchants. He continually did this until all the carts were in position, now all he had to do was bring the crew over to see their new arsenal.
The captain warily walked over to the hiding place followed by his crew, they hadn't expected Hiccup to be done this quickly, or to the supposed strength the weapons had.
They were still unsure until Hiccup drew back the curtains in a small cave and showed them the various carts of his handiworks. Their wariness disappeared as they looked in wonder at the beautiful machines of war that Hiccup had created:
Long, carefully rounded silver metal marked the elegant firing chamber of the plasma launcher. The mortar was short yet had higher calibre than the cannons used on the other British warships. Waking them from their trance, Hiccup asked them to help him transport the weapons, they gladly agreed.
Once the light but sturdy weapons were in place, Hiccup showed them how to load and fire the launcher and the mortar, as well as using the rangefinder to aim the mortar (the launcher had a straight shot)
Once satisfied, Hiccup went up to the academy to wait for the first news of the scouting missions.
He clambered over the uneven ground towards the heavy iron gates of the ring, here he met an extremely tired Ruffnut and Tuffnut, who had the first scouting mission of the day. Both were smiling slightly, and this unnerved Hiccup.
"so, what happened on the scouting trip? And why are you smiling?"
Ruffnut gave Hiccup the details
"so, we saw the ship. Large, right? And we were circling over the ship when we saw the ballista positions. [Hiccup dreaded hearing the next part of this predictable story] so we went down and pranked one of the defenders."
Hiccup sighed.
"any more information apart from pulling pranks?"
Tuffnut had recovered enough to take this question away from his sister.
"they seemed to have the ship in the water, Snotlout told us it was on land. I think they're close to launch."
Hiccup nodded. They would need to prepare for battle again. He urged the twins to tell the rest of the riders about the battle, except Astrid: She was in punishment after all and she had shown she was reckless. He would talk to the captain about strategy until the rest were ready.
The determined faces stood in the ring with their dragons behind him. Snotlout was going to try his best to bring honour to his family, the twins were ready for some sort of destruction, and Fishlegs was faking it. Hiccup gave the signal to leave before flying off to escort the British ships into the battle.
Viggo was highly satisfied with the ship he had designed, the hull sides were fireproof, so the riders couldn't sink the ship, the arsenal was sure to shoot down any dragon that came close, especially with the fresh recruits that had been training while the ship was built. He just needed a long scout of the area to check for traps before he launched the vessel.
Hiccup cruised warily over the fleet he was escorting. They had met only one dragon hunter ship so far and it was a quick battle: no one escaped capture to warn Viggo of the British ships incoming to the location. Eventually they would have to resettle the base close to the island and rest in preparation for the coming battle.
Astrid was fed up with having to do fishing. One session and she already knew she would much rather be flying than hauling in the next net of fish. She had heard about the dragon hunter's new ship and wanted to be part of that battle. She was sure she could join the battle, just needed to sneak out of fishing.
Astrid steadily walked off to the harbour exit. Just as she reached the foot of the giant ramp that led to the village, an elder fisher stopped her.
"Just where do you think you're going?"
Astrid stayed confident
"just trying to find something to eat, I'm hungry"
The fisher nodded warily before letting her go on her way. He had been briefed by Hiccup about Astrid's work with them but thought letting her go was fine, little did he know the brash teen had just made her getaway.
Astrid noticed she was out of sight and sprinted towards the dragon stables. Stormfly had been well cared for by Hiccup and she used this to her advantage as she saddled up in less than 5 minutes. With the saddle on, she got onto Stormfly and they headed to dragon hunter island. The fisher looked on with a mix of admiration and irritation: She had defied her tasks, but she was a spirited youth who was obviously eager to ride.
Hiccup was still guarding the ships before the sound of another dragons' wings could be heard by his sensitive dragon ears. He turned around and was appalled to see Astrid and Stormfly, in the distance but catching up.
He performed a sharp turn and raced to meet Astrid, sighing in exasperation. She only smiled smugly upon seeing Hiccup.
"You can't keep me down on stupid fishing boats! You should know that by now. What are you going to do about it?"
Hiccup considered his possible decisions. A physical punishment was out of the question, but he could still do something non physical to make her regret her decision. He sped forward and turned into position in front of Astrid. She was heavily confused by his actions, surely he was going to give her a punishment? That's when she saw dark purple clouds billow from the thin body of Hiccup. Stormfly tried to dodge but was blinded by the thick clouds in front of her.
Hiccup calmly switched Toothless' s tail to stiff and He himself spread his wings. The wind caught the large appendages, lifting Hiccup swiftly into the air. A sharp turn around before switching vision to thermal. Astrid and Stormfly's thermal signature blazed from inside the thick clouds, Hiccup turned around again to chase the troublemakers.
Astrid was honestly scared in the middle of this dark cloud, she couldn't see anything apart from the occasional shots from Stormfly trying to light up the pitch black surroundings.
Hiccup slowly closed the distance, taking up a final approach onto Stormfly's back. One second later, Astrid was suddenly aware of another human's presence behind her. She turned around with a quick strike, but Hiccup easily caught it, Astrid's eyes widened when she realised Hiccup had managed to stealthily switch dragons.
"Hiccup!? How did you get here? You were on a dragon 30 metres away!"
Hiccup smiled in the pitch black, He dispersed the cloud, Astrid could clearly see his face. Astrid only just realised he had dispersed the cloud before Hiccup responded.
"Magic."
With this simple word, Hiccup Extended his wings with superhuman speed. Before Astrid could react Hiccup was whisked away by the strong winds.
Hiccup waited until he was clear of Stormfly, He switched to inverted flight before dropping below Astrid's line of sight. Once Astrid was unsure of where he had gone He went onto the next stage of his prank.
Hiccup gained speed underneath the underbelly of Stormfly before ending up in a relaxed pose in front of Stormfly.
Astrid was furiously trying to look for the elusive Hiccup, she heard a startled shriek from Stormfly and saw Hiccup in a lounging pose, even while thousands of feet in the air and held up only by his wings. Hiccup laughed at Astrid's shocked expression.
"I'm never going to consider a physical punishment, but please remember not to mess with me. Hiccup out."
The cloud gathered again, obscuring Astrid's view. Once the cloud receded again Hiccup was back on Toothless' s back. Astrid was undignified by his cheap attempt to frighten her.
"just because you can grow wings and summon clouds doesn't give you the right to order me around."
Hiccup was amazed that Astrid could keep up her attitude after the scare he gave her. He was already planning a better one. He started a reply.
"three things. One I only order you when it benefits everyone, secondly I could see you when you were in that cloud, you were scared in there. Thirdly. You should know that's not the only thing I can do to frighten you."
He continued facing her. Astrid was irritated at her humiliation, but she was distracted with a growing blue glow from Hiccup's mouth.
A bolt of plasma roared across the distance between Hiccup and Astrid, a few metres out the shot disintegrated into pieces. Astrid felt the shockwave rattle down to her core, she saw Hiccup prepare another one and finally tried to apologise.
"Stop, Hiccup, please stop!"
Hiccup dissolved the blast, waiting for Astrid's next words, hopefully of apology.
"I'm sorry Hiccup, you know that I hate being ordered around. It's … frustrating."
Hiccup nodded in understanding
"I'm glad you could apologise, I don't want to restrict your freedom, but you treated me like a pushover, I am not by any means a pushover."
Having given Astrid something to think on he returned to the ships. The meeting with Astrid had been unwelcome but he felt hope as he saw his destination, the rider camp stood proudly on the shores of one of the islands surrounding the dragon hunter's stronghold.
He landed, the sun was setting. The battle could start tomorrow, so for now he rested.
A guilty Astrid landed afterwards and rushed to Hiccup to continue her apology.
Dragon hunter stronghold:
The ammunition storage of the business mark was steadily being filled. The men just needed one night rest before they were ready to take control of the ship.