Disclaimer: I don't own HTTYD or Rise of the Guardians (where I got Manny, aka the Man in the Moon.)

I'm going to be honest here, this story is as pretty close to abandoned as it can get without me actually abandoning it. I just lost interest in the HTTYD stories, if not the movie, and don't know what to do with the story.

Updates will be few and far between.

Though to be fair this was the part I was procrastinating about because I threw in one of the deleted scenes, which I had to write out the dialogue for myself and fit it in with the movie's final script, which was a pain.

Enjoy!

Stoick: Mind yourselves! The devils still have some juice in them!

The dragons grumbled at the insult, causing Stoick to rub the back of his neck sheepishly and apologize.

[Hiccup sets up his bola catapult on an empty hill and looks around.]

Hiccup: Come on. Gimme something to shoot at, gimme something to shoot at.

[The camera pans around the night sky, and catches on a shadow. Hiccup shoots, and a loud cry is heard as the shadow is seen plummeting down into a forest]

Hiccup (cont.): Oh, I hit it! YES! I HIT IT! Did anybody see that?

"Good aim!" Gobber cheered, nearly falling off of his chair.

From beside Astrid, Toothless let out a slight huff.

[A Monstrous Nightmare shows up and crushes Hiccup's bola launcher.]

Hiccup (cont.): Except for you.

"Dude, his luck is…awesome!" Tuffnut cheered.

Everyone except for Ruffnut stared at the male Thornston twin as if he was insane, which of course he was.

His sister cackled along with him.

[A shrill cry sounds from the hill, and catches Stoick's attention. He turns to see the Monstrous Nightmare chasing Hiccup, and gets up to go help him.]

Stoick: DO NOT let them escape!

Spitelout: Right!

[Hiccup runs behind a torch pole and hides, just as flames reach around the corner. He looks behind it and on the other side, the Nightmare reaches to get Hiccup. Stoick punches the beast and jumps back to defend himself. The dragon tries to breathe fire, but coughs up a small amount of magma instead.]

Stoick: You're all out.

Hiccup (v.o.): Oh, and there's one more thing you need to know...

Hiccup: Sorry, Dad.

"Wait, what do we need to know?" Fishlegs asked, confused.

"This movie was made with the presumption that the ones who watched it didn't already know Hiccup and his father, and so didn't know that Hiccup was Stoick the Vast's son." Manny explained, disembodied voice still unnerving the Vikings.

"Oh." Fishlegs blinked thoughtfully. "Interesting."

Hiccup (cont.): Okay, but I hit a Night Fury.

[Stoick grabs Hiccup by the back of his shirt and drags him towards his house.]

Hiccup (cont.): It's not like the last few times, Dad! I mean, I really actually hit it! You guys were busy and I had a very clear shot. It went down, just off Raven Point. Let's get a search party out there, before it—

Stoick:STOP! Just... stop. Every time you step outside, disaster follows. Can you not see that I have bigger problems? Winter's almost here and I have an entire village to feed!

Stoick winced, regretting his harsh words.

Hiccup had only been trying to help, and it wasn't really his fault that the Nightmare had targeted after him and destroyed so much.

After all, Stoick had always told him to run and shout for help if he was being chased by a dragon, and the boy had been doing just that.

And then he'd blamed Hiccup because it was more convenient.

Some father he was.

Hiccup: Between you and me, the village could do with a little less feeding, don't ya think?

A few people in the crowd shifted self-consciously.

Stoick: This isn't a joke, Hiccup! Why can't you follow the simplest orders?

Hiccup: I can't stop myself. I see a dragon and I have to just... kill it, you know? It's who I am, Dad.

Stoick: You are many things, Hiccup. But a dragon killer is not one of them. Get back to the house. [To Gobber] Make sure he gets there. I have his mess to clean up.

"Well, you weren't wrong about that, at least!" Gobber said cheerfully. "I mean, sure, there was the Red Death, but that was more monster from Hel than dragon anyway…"

Tuffnut: Quite the performance.

Snotlout: I've never seen anyone mess up that badly. That helped!

Hiccup: Thank you, thank you. I was trying, so...

Gobber: Ah, don't take it to heart, kid. It's his job to be hard on everyone.

Hiccup: I'm not everyone! But it doesn't matter. The guy is impossible to please.

Hiccup looked resigned to being an eternal disappointment, absentmindedly moving around Gobber, handing him materials as the older blacksmith pounded away.

Gobber: He just doesn't want to appear to be playing favorites.

Stoick nodded in agreement.

Hiccup: He's covered in that department, believe me. If I didn't live in the same house with him, I wouldn't even know he was my father.

And then his face crumpled in hurt as he realized that that was really how Hiccup saw him.

Had he really been that distant over the years?

Gobber: Have you told him that?

Hiccup: Of course not. We barely even make eye contact. And when we do, he's always got this... disappointed scowl. Like someone skimped on the meat in his sandwich. [Imitating Stoick]Excuse me, barmaid! I'm afraid you brought me the wrong offspring. I ordered an extra-large boy with beefy arms. Extra guts and glory on the side. This here, this is a talking fish bone!

Gobber laughed.

But no one in the crowd did.

Stoick buried his head in his large hands with a groan.

He had a lot to make up for.

Gobber: No, no, you're thinking about this all wrong. It's not so much what you look like, it's what's inside that he can't stand.

Everyone in the crowd watching the movie, dragons included, gaped at the blacksmith incredulously.

"What?" Gobber wondered.

Seeing that Stoick was still beating himself up, Spitelout took over and hit Gobber upside the head.

Hiccup[Sarcastically]: Thank you for summing that up.

Still, they couldn't help but respect the lad, seeing him recover from such a blunt and rather insensitive statement so quickly.

Gobber: No, I mean there's the Viking way and then there's your way. And you're way makes grown men uncomfortable.

There were a few snickers in the crowd at Hiccup's indignant expression.

Hiccup: Speaking of uncomfortable, I'd like a new conversation, please.

Gobber: Alright. How's it going with the ladies?

Hiccup gaped at his master/mentor.

Causing even more laughter.

Hiccup: Oh yeah, way to get the mood back on track.

Gobber: Come on, I've seen the way you look at Astrid.

The blonde ducked her head sheepishly when everyone smirked at her, some because they had a feeling she liked him, too, considering how invested she'd been in their savior's recovery.

Beside her, or as close as he could get to the girl surrounded by Toothless and Stormfly, Snotlout scowled.

Hiccup: Please. Astrid wouldn't come near me if she was on fire and I had the only bucket of water in town.

Snotlout nodded firmly, but Ruffnut punched him in the arm when Astrid glanced at her, nonverbally asking her to do so.

Hey, she was all for hurting someone, excuse or not.

Astrid: Hey! Can I get this sharpened?

The girl in question appeared in the doorway, causing the two males to jump, but she hadn't heard them.

Hiccup (clearly panicking): Astrid! Hi, Astrid. Hello there. Welcome. What can I do…hey.

Gobber (and the audience) snickered at his apprentice's attempts to be cool, glancing at Astrid who was swinging her axe around.

Gobber: Uh, my 'manly' apprentice here will service all your needs. I have to…go…get…some…I'm just gonna go outside.

Hiccup scowled fiercely at the older man as he ran (more like hobbled) out of the forge, before turning to Astrid with a sigh.

Astrid stared at Hiccup suspiciously.

Hiccup (apologetically): Gobber.

The blonde scoffed, handing him her axe, causing him to nearly double-over at the sudden weight, though he managed to recover.

Hiccup: Okay. Razer-sharp battle axe, coming right up.

And with that he went to the other side of the small forge to sharpen it.

Astrid: Careful! That's my mother's.

Hiccup nodded in acknowledgement.

Hiccup: So, I saw you guys out on fire patrol last night. Looked like a good time.

Astrid: Yeah, I didn't get burned, though. It's only fun if you get a scar out of it.

Hiccup paused and looked at her skeptically, but didn't comment, instead shaking his head and wondering if he would ever understand how everyone else in this village's minds seemed to work.

Hiccup (sarcastically): Yeah, no kidding, right? Pain. Love it. Yeah, I would've been out there too, but I was out downing a Night Fury. So, yeah, pretty busy.

Astrid face-palmed. Before she had actually met Toothless, she had thought that Hiccup had just been making up stories to get attention, but now it was obvious that he downplayed things, not the other way around.

One of the many preconceptions about Hiccup she'd been forced to re-evaluate over the last few months.

Lesson number one: he wasn't really the type to be overtly arrogant at something, not like Snotlout.

…Not that he hadn't been flirting with her, in his own adorably awkward way, but still.

Astrid: Really? Where—

Hiccup: No, it got away.

The boy looked genuinely annoyed at that, but since Astrid was turned away from him, looking at the weapons on the wall, she thought that that was just proof that it really was a lie. Realizing that, Hiccup tried (and failed) to save face.

Hiccup: But it won't be back anytime soon, believe you me!

"This coming from the boy who then snuck it in." Stoick muttered dryly.

Hiccup: Yeah, this apprentice thing is just, you know, my sort of on the side, uh…I'm mostly here to bulk up. Lift some iron and stuff. Become one with the steel…

The boy scowled down at his scrawny form, muttering something with a sigh about how he'd develop some muscles someday, dang it.

His moment of distraction cost him, though.

Astrid's axe slipped off the wheel he was sharpening it on, causing a dent, causing his eyes to widen as he hurried to fix it.

"Hiccup!" Astrid groaned, closing her eyes and watching her mother frown, looking down at her axe and study it carefully.

After a moment, the older Hofferson woman shrugged. "Looks fine to me."

And that was that.

Then he noticed the blonde girl wandering towards Hiccup's little workroom.

Hiccup: No, you're not actually supposed to—

She opened the curtain anyway, glancing around at the piles of blueprints in slight surprise.

Astrid: What is all of this?

Hiccup: Oh, those, nothing. Just some stuff I'm working on…it's just confidential, upper-level development. I can't really talk about it, so…

The twins were practically salivating as they eagerly took in the designs, already seeing how much damage some of Hiccup's other inventions could cause and desperately wanting to get their hands on one.

Glancing at them warily, Gobber decided to stash Hiccup's papers away until he woke up.

Not if, but when.

He tried to get her out of there, but she resisted.

Astrid (reading): "The Mutilator."

Hiccup: Yes, yes. Basically it uses twin-weighted counter-levers to launch crisscrossing blades in four different directions.

Tuffnut and Ruffnut cheered.

He sighed, resigned to his fate and going back to fixing the axe.

Astrid: How do you hold it?

Hiccup: Well, you don't. You shoot it.

Astrid: Oh, well. I'm kind of an old-fashioned "take it down with an axe and then lop its head off" kind of girl. It's kind of the Viking way, right?

Hiccup sighed, remembering his earlier conversation with Gobber.

Hiccup: Go Vikings.

Astrid wondered how she possibly could've missed the slight bitterness in Hiccup's voice.

Astrid: I can't wait to get started tomorrow. We finally get a chance to show 'em what we've got. I am so excited.

Hiccup blinked in confusion.

Hiccup: Yeah…I'm…so excited…for you?

Realizing that he had no idea what she was talking about, the blonde turned to him.

Astrid: What, you didn't hear?

Hiccup shrugged at her.

Astrid: They're pulling men to crew the ships.

Hiccup: And you're happy because…you…like to wave goodbye?

Snotlout and Tuffnut snickered.

Astrid (scoffed): No, stupid. They need replacements to defend the town. We start training in the morning! We'll be fighting dragons!

Snotlout: Astrid!

Astrid and Hiccup turned to see the other teens outside the forge.

Snotlout (cont.): You coming to practice, or what?

Astrid held out her hand expectantly towards Hiccup, who handed her the axe with a little difficulty.

Astrid: This feels different.

Hiccup bit his lip, remembering that smoothing out the dent he'd caused earlier would be noticeable to someone who'd wielded the weapon before.

Hiccup: Oh! I rebalanced it…tightened it up…finessed it. We're a full service outfit in here.

Astrid: Huh. Thanks.

Hiccup: Sure.

With that, Astrid turned and left, the other teens going with her.

Tuffnut: Oh, I hope I get some serious scars out of this!

Astrid: I know, like a jagged on right across your cheek.

Snotlout: Yeah, or through my eye!

Hiccup felt his own face, wondering why the others would want to be maimed, before shrugging it off and turning back to his work.

A few moments later Gobber wandered back into the forge.

Hiccup, seeing Gobber about to comment, went back to their initial conversation about the Night Fury and his father.

He'd rather not talk about that, either, after the humiliating dressing down he got from his father, but knew that Gobber would only let himself be distracted from the Astrid thing with the more serious and long-lasting problems between Hiccup and his dad.

Hiccup (cont.): I really did hit one.

Gobber: Sure, Hiccup.

Hiccup: He never listens.

Gobber: Well, it runs in the family.

Hiccup sighed.

Hiccup: I just want to be one of you guys.

And with that he left.

The Vikings looked pained at the reminder that they'd all made Hiccup feel unwelcome in his own village, the one he might very well lead someday.

Please review!

Meh, I'm nowhere near satisfied with this. I've totally lost interest in this (not HTTYD as a whole, just this story), but I figured I owed you guys.

Okay, the deleted scene part is mostly lacking in the action descriptions because there's no transcript for it. Also, I did change it a bit, making Hiccup slightly less clumsy by having him fix the mistake he made instead of changing the…axe head, I think is the term.