"Mind if we watch your cannon?" Hiccup's smile was as friendly as ever. His group of friends crowded behind him. Tuffnut waved awkwardly. Snotlout crossed his arms over his chest and smirked at them.
"Sure," Matt clasped hands with Fishlegs in greeting. "It's great to see you guys again!"
"Where's the little vicious one?" Tuffnut peered around their legs as if he expected 628 to leap out at him at any moment.
"He's a first year," Brax answered simply.
"Well what about the creepy spider one?"
"Also a first year," Jim bristled at the mention of Mellow. He'd promised Sy he would try, however, and out of respect for that promise he did his best to tamp down the venom in his voice.
If he was lucky, Sy wouldn't add anyone else to his list of distasteful people he had to attempt to get along with for the sake of keeping peace with his boyfriend's friends. Sy's big heart was one of the first things he'd fallen in love with, but man could it be frustrating sometimes.
"Well what about the-"
"Let's just assume that if they're not here, they're first years," Hiccup suggested, quelling the flow of questions while he could.
"I shall be having silence in the class," Gru called out over the noise of the combined classes. "All of my student teams must be at their cannons now. If you are not by a cannon, you must be making your way there now. Additionally you shall be docked twenty points for failing to meet very basic requirements."
Most of the students shuffled closer to their chosen cannons.
"Now. You shall be aiming at the targets down the field. There will be forcefield set up around us, just in case you are terrible shot. If you miss and hit the forcefield, the objects shall be disintegrated. Possibly. Do not test this by running into the forcefield. Also, do not miss. You are expected to hit your target every time.
"Your targets shall be on that end of the field. That is approximately seven hundred yards from where you are now. The first five shots shall be stationary. After that your targets will move from side to side at slow, but increasing, speeds. This shall be a self regulated activity, you shall have as much time as you need, but only twenty shots. These are not live charges, but should be treated as such. Are there any questions?"
"No sir."
"Good." Gru pressed a button on his tablet. A large shimmering dome bubbled up around the designated training area. "You may begin."
Varian was the first one beside their weapon. "This is such a beauty! The diagrams on our worksheet did it no justice at all."
"It is a pretty weapon," Braxton agreed, though significantly less passionately than Varian. "But I've seen better."
"Beauty is going to help us with our goal," Matt reminded the boys as he angled the machine towards their target. "We should break this into parts. One to load, one to prime, one to plunge, and one to fire. Who wants to do which task?"
"I'll ram," Jim offered immediately. It was one of the least favorable tasks, but he didn't mind. Anything to keep the rod out of Braxton's hands. He had no doubt he'd be whacked with it otherwise.
"I can prime," Varian was all but bouncing in place. "I can study the chemical make up of the fuel source in between rounds, and maybe even come up with something better to be used instead!"
"You are not testing it while we're here," Braxton insisted quickly. "Matt, you want to load or fire?"
"I'll load," Matt replied softly. "I know you get more pleasure out of shooting things than I do."
Braxton laughed. He threw his arm around Matt's shoulders and squeezed. "You know me so well, Matt. Alright, men, let's get to work!"
It was easy falling into a rhythm with his friends. Prime the cannon, load the cannon, pack the cannon, aim the cannon, fire. Prime the cannon, load the cannon, pack the cannon, aim the cannon, fire.
Jim's temples were sweating beneath the thick band of his heavy duty ear muffs. He much preferred ear plugs to ear muffs, but the instructors insisted that everyone wear ear muffs so they could physically see that everyone was following safety regulations. Ear plugs were optional, and only if you wanted the extra protection. Jim usually opted not to take a set of plugs as well.
Braxton was the sole exception to the class provided muffs. He had a custom pair he'd made and had approved for use that protected his upgrades from being damaged by the standardized band of the human-use-approved muffs.
Technically the muffs were approved for a lot of different species. Jim just couldn't name them all off the top of his head. He'd learned the symbol that correspond to the subclass of aliens that humans fell into, and that was as far as he'd bothered to memorize things. Everyone was responsible for knowing their subclass for equipment, and for getting their own gear.
And if he thought equipment standards and subclasses were hard enough, Jim was glad not to have to mess with anything on the medical side of things. He couldn't even begin to comprehend how they determined which species were related closely enough biologically to mix and match medicines.
"Syracuse to Jim. Come in Jim. This is Syracuse to Jim, do you copy?"
"What, Braxton." Jim swatted Braxton's hand away from where he'd been waving it in his face.
"You miraged out there, thought maybe you got lost in a heat dream." Braxton crossed his arms and smirked. "We're all waiting on you."
"Sorry." Jim swung the ramrod up into his hands and shoved it down the barrel of the cannon. "I was thinking."
"About Syyyyyy?"
"No, Braxton." Though, now that he'd brought him up, Jim couldn't help a tiny frown from touching his lips. He did need to talk to Sy. Something had been off with him this morning, and Jim was worried. "Just thinking."
"Well you should consider doing that less. I basically never do it."
"Yeah, and look at how well that works out for you," Jim scoffed.
"I know!" Braxton's face lit up in his characteristic grin. "It's great! Everything's always coming up cold. My lucky streak started when Fikky agreed to date me, and it hasn't run out yet!"
Jim rolled his eyes affectionately, a smile starting to worm its way onto his face. "That isn't what I meant and you know it."
"What, exactly, is so great about being cold?" Tuffnut demanded from the sidelines. "It's cold all the time where we're from, and trust me, that's not such a great thing."
"It's just slang, Tuff." Hiccup reminded him patiently.
"You live with dragons, right?" Braxton turned to the senior students.
"Bit of a non sequitur there, but yes," Tuffnut answered cautiously. "What's that got to do with anything?"
"I thought you wanted to get back to the cannon firing," Jim reminded Braxton's back.
"Do any of them breathe fire?"
"A significant portion of the Stoker class are capable of not only breathing fire, but also lighting various body parts on fire." Fishlegs spoke up from the back of the class. "All dragons in the stoker class, and some species in other classes, are able to breathe fire or spew molten lava. There may be other, similar abilities in dragons we have not fully studied yet."
"Okay, perfect." Braxton leaned on the cannon, as he studied the group before him. "Imagine, just for a minute, that you live in the mouth of one of these dragons."
"Which one?" Snotlout asked.
"I don't care, pick one." Braxton shrugged. "Anyway-"
"Green Death!" Fishlegs supplied eagerly. "No. Red Death. No. Purple Death! No, Red Death. Or Purple? Hmmm."
"Perfect! That'll do!" Braxton spoke up over him in an overly enthusiastic tone. "Whatever color death you want, pretend, just for a minute, that you live in it's mouth."
Snotlout pulled a face and shuttered, seemingly wiping imaginary saliva off his clothes. The other boys were nodding as they took his statement a bit less literally.
"Now," Braxton continued. "Pretend like that dragon is breathing fire, all day, every day, for your entire life."
"Sounds warm," Matt laughed.
"Sounds hot!" Hiccup corrected.
"Exactly! Now, just how valuable might something cold be if you lived in that environment?" Braxton continued.
"Ooooooh. I get it now."
"Exactly." Braxton folded his arms over his chest triumphantly. "And that is basically what my planet is like at all times. Anyway, speaking of fire, FIRE!" with no further warning, Braxton pulled his hearing protection down over his ears, aimed his cannon, and took his shot.
"Very funny," Matt grumbled as he released Varian's ear muffs. He'd barely managed to yank them down over the other boy's ears in time.
Braxton laughed. "Oh please. I made sure you all were protected before I took the shot."
"You can't get lackadaisy about safety, Braxton." Matt wasn't letting up on this. "These things might not be loud enough to hurt our hearing with just one shot, but we shouldn't be taking those chances, and we shouldn't be treating it as a game. This is serious stuff, and we're using live charges."
"Alright, alright. You're right. I'm sorry."
"I know you get wound up over things involving your home, but you can't take it out on us. It's not fair to any of us." Matt pressed.
"I know." Braxton sighed and looked away. "I'm sorry. I've been stressed. I know that's not an excuse, but I'm not perfect."
Matt smiled and set a hand on Braxton's shoulder. "We don't expect you to be. Now, come on. I think we've got a few more shots to go, yeah?"
Braxton smiled over at him. "Yeah. Alright men, let's get this cannon ready for the next shot!"
AN: Hey friends! So sorry I missed a week. I know I've been working at making sure I don't do that, but, well, things happen sometimes. Anyway, thank you all for staying with me this far, and I can't wait to find out how this story closes down. Love you all and I'll see you next week!