Hiya,
here I am with yet another time traveling story, this time from httyd with an... unusual twist.
Enjoy
A Gronckle hovered above the ring, looking for its next victim. Astrid waited until the dragon moved on before ducking behind a barrier closer to it. She found Hiccup already kneeling there and everything from the past few weeks came flooding back; how the village runt suddenly became better than her, pushing her further and further from her goal.
She pointed her axe at him and growled: "Stay out of my way! I'm winning this thing."
Hiccup put his hands up in surrender. "Please, by all means."
Astrid darted off, going from barrier to barrier, closing in on the dragon as the crowd above cheered her on. Now that the adults were back from their raid, she had to prove she was ready to join their ranks. She had to prove she was the best.
Hiccup stood up and looked around. Amidst the crowd of onlookers, Stoick was watching him, beaming with pride. He locked eyes with Hiccup and gave him a nod of encouragement. Hiccup adjusted his new helmet and forced a halfhearted smile before turning towards the dragon again. He wished all this would end already so that he could go back to Toothless.
Astrid slammed her back into a barrier, the beast hovering just inches away.
"This time. This time for sure," she said to herself and, with a fierce battle-cry, lept from cover, axe at the ready.
"HAAAAA..."
A sudden explosion rocked the ground and threw many vikings off their feet as smoke billowed from the center of the arena.
"Hiccup!"
Stoick's exclamation of his son's name was drowned out in the ear-piercing crack of six lightning bolts that erupted from the smoke.
After the ground stopped shaking, the vikings quickly recomposed themselves, ready to fight whatever caused the explosion. The smoke slowly cleared to reveal the miraculously undamaged arena.
Hiccup was covering his head with his shield while Astrid stood with her axe at the ready facing the threat. The Gronckle was shakily hovering at the last tip of their triangle, shaking its head as if it was dazed. And in the middle of it was... a group of toddlers?
Now there aren't many things that can throw a viking off but this was definitely one of them, judging by the stunned silence that overtook the crowd that would otherwise already be in a war frenzy. That silence was promptly interrupted by a high-pitched angry screech.
Stoic watched in bafflement as one of the toddlers, a tiny girl with blond hair pulled out her equally tiny axe and pointed it at a boy with black hair with a wordless screech. The boy answered with a mouthful of gibberish and the two behind him that looked like they were twins joined in. This resulted in the children dissolving into an argument of babbling and incoherent nonsense, with the blond girl attempting murder, and the chubby blond and scrawny auburn-haired boy just looking around, obviously confused.
Then Stoick's attention was drawn to the Gronckle. The beast had apparently overcome its shock and was steadily approaching the group.
Oh no you don't. Stoick thought as he jumped up from his seat, where he had fallen due to the tremors, and yelled for his men to subdue the beast. He'd be damned if he let a group of infants get eaten by a dragon, even if they appeared from Thor knows where.
His men couldn't get there in time to stop the dragon's first blast and Stoick thought that was it for the children. To his surprise they scattered at the last second thanks to a warning yell from the previously quiet boy with auburn hair.
As the dragon was dragged away, Stoick turned to the onlooking vikings.
"Can someone tell me whose children these are and how in Thor's name did they get inside the arena!?"
As if on cue, the children snapped into attention and their eyes locked onto Stoick. Their jaws went to the floor and Stoick thought he heard the scrawny boy mutter something that sounded almost sarcastic. Other than that though he got no answer.
More vikings came to look at the children who had started a sort of a hushed conversation among themselves, all the while sneaking glances at those surrounding them. He heard the familiar clicking of wood on stone as Gobber hobbled over to him.
"Gobber, have you ever seen them in the village?"
"Can't say I have. They do look familiar tho," Gobber said while scratching his chin with his hook. "Could be someone's idea of a joke; droppin' a bunch of mini cadets in front of a dragon. Seems like somethin' Alvin would do actually."
Stoick glared at his friend at mentioned of the name but chose not to comment on it and instead turned his attention back to the strange children.
"Let's take them to the Great Hall. Have Gothi look them over while we look for their parents."
Gobber nodded and went to pick up one of the kids but the boy immediately started fussing and wriggled out of his grasp. Everyone watched flabbergasted as all the children wobbly stood up and, once again led by the auburn-haired boy, toddled out of the arena. Gobber looked at the chief, shrugged, and went after them to direct them to the Great Hall.
Only once almost everyone followed them did Stoick realise that his son and the Hofferson girl were still in the arena.
"I'm sorry, son. I know you wanted to show me your dragon fighting skills but..." Stoick gestured vaguely in the direction of the Great Hall.
"Yeah, I know. No worries, dad," Hiccup waved his arms glad for the delay, however strange it was.
Stoick clapped his son's shoulder, almost making him sink to his knees, and headed out of the arena, the two teens following him.
"I promise to solve this quick and then we get right back to it. And soon you'll become a real viking, just like it should be! Odin knows it's been long overdue for you to start showing your real talents," he added over his shoulder, failing to notice the pained look on Hiccup's face and the enraged scowl on Astrid's.
Despite what Stoick said however, he had a feeling that this would be a very long day.
"Ruff, Tuff, Snotlout! What did you do?" Astrid yelled as she pointed her strangely small axe at Snotlout, who happened to be closest.
"Hey! Why are you looking at me? It's always these two muttonheads' fault," Snotlout whimpered, his voice much higher than usual, and edged away from the axe.
The twins looked at each other, noticing their very small bodies.
"We did this? Best Loki day ever!" Tuffnut yelled and banged their miniature heads together. For Astrid this was the last straw.
While his girlfriend was attempting homicide, Hiccup took a moment to look around. They were in a large stone pit with multiple giant reinforced doors and a gate that had openings big enough for them to climb through. Above them was a chain net that again had holes too large to keep them in and a large cloud of smoke, that seemed to be slowly dissipating. Something about the place seemed strangely familiar.
In comparison to their surroundings, their bodies seemed very small and... chubby? Except for him, he actually felt like he lost almost all the weight and muscles he managed to put on over the past few years.
"Hiccup, look! I have never seen a Gronckle this large, not even a Titan Wing. It must be some new subspecies, maybe a relative to the Catastrophic Quaken," Fishlegs piped up, pointing at a Gronckle the size of a house that was currently hovering towards them.
Hiccup looked the large dragon over and felt his face pale as it bared its teeth and charged up a blast.
"Everyone, scatter!"
At Hiccup's yell everyone's instincts kicked in and they rolled out of the way just in time to avoid the blast. Hiccup did a somersault and tried to land upright, but to his surprise ended up on his back as his feet failed to support him. He ignored it in favor of devising a plan.
His next look on the dragon told him that he no longer needed one, the reason for this being a group of giant vikings that launched themselves onto the dragon, pinning it to the ground with equally large nets and bolas.
Hiccup looked at his friends to see if he wasn't hallucinating, and saw his own confusion reflecting in their faces.
"Um, did we somehow get transported into Jötunheim when I wasn't looking?" All he got in response were weak shrugs.
They watched helplessly as the dragon was wrestled behind one of the large doors and locked in. Watching a it get treated like this, even if it had just tried to kill them, was torture but there wasn't anything they could do. They had no chance against giants, especially without their own dragons, who didn't seem to have been transported with them to... wherever this was.
"Can someone tell me whose children these are and how in Thor's name did they get inside the arena!?"
The dragon riders froze as the loud, commanding, and very much familiar voice rang through the arena. Six pairs of eyes landed on the vast form of Stoick the Vast. A very angry looking, three times bigger than he should be Stoick the Vast.
"Ta ta da, we're dead," Hiccup announced and the others couldn't help but agree.
As more vikings, many of which were familiar as well, gathered around, Hiccup hissed to the twins, "Now would be a good time to tell us what happened."
The twins looked at giants surrounding them, at each other, back at Hiccup, and then both shrugged.
"Sorry Hiccup, as much as we would love to take responsibility for this amazing trick, I'm afraid that taking others accomplishments isn't our style. Though now we will have to think of a prank even more epic than this, lest we bring shame upon the Thorston name."
Ruffnut nodded, "Correct, my brother Nut. All we can say is that due to unknown circumstances we appear to have traversed time and space, and our bodies have seemingly undergone drastic changes, most likely to cope with this action. Therefore the objects and lifeforms surrounding us aren't abnormal large, as you assumed, but rather we have become much smaller than what we're used to. Well, maybe except Tuffnut, he was always tiny."
"Precisely what I- Hey! Everyone knows I'm the taller twin."
"Are not."
"Am too"
"Are not."
"Am too!"
"Are-"
"Guys, can we please get back to what is going on here?" Fishlegs interrupted before the argument could dissolve into a full-out brawl.
"We already told you, due to unknown circumstances-" Tuffnut started, looking offended that no one seemed to understand them, but didn't get to finish, because at that moment a giant Gobber stepped forward and picked Snotlout up. The Jorgenson wasn't pleased by this in the slightest.
"Hey, put me down you freak! What am I a baby?" Snotlout struggled to free himself and ended up victoriously sprawled on the floor.
Hiccup put his hands up to get the others attention, trying to process everything that was going on, "Okay, listen! There is obviously something weird happening but sitting around here arguing won't help us. How about we take a look around and then decide what to do?"
None of his friends objected and so they got up and left the arena, only now realising how hard it was to walk.
Hiccup immediately registered that everything around them looked like Berk, but built for giants and from the time before they made peace with dragons. All the houses were either new, singed, or unfinished. The people passing them looked weary and on edge, and kept glancing to the sky, just like the people of Berk used to do when there were still raids from the dragons. Looking closer, Hiccup could see even more giant, slightly younger versions of some of the vikings he knew among them.
Then giant Gobber caught up to them and started herding them towards what must have been the Great Hall. Hiccup decided to let him and see what their game was.
He sighed inwardly. This was going to be a very long day.
What was this you ask? Yeah, I dunno either. Sorry it's so short.
Good news is this is most likely not going to remain a oneshot! And as courtesy of the writer's block currently occupying my CW fic, the next chapter should be out sooner than my usual half a year.
Thank you for reading
