Daletopia

Chaos reigned in the midst of the small village. Huts with thatched roofs burned. Children screamed. Bodies piled on the edges of the streets. Demons raged this way and that, dark, terrible things with black scales and eyes of burning fire.

To my eyes, there wasn’t much left to be saved, but Ser Erik and the other Honoured Heroes leapt from the truck and assumed their battle stances. Reluctantly, I joined them, though not before I let down the tailgate for Atlas to hop down from the pickup bed.

“You’re in over your head,” he told me, “We both are.”

“Foul demons!” Ser Erik shouted, raising a glowing blue longsword high over his head, “Your Demonlord has been defeated by the Legendary Hero! Surrender now or prepare to die!”

The demons turned and screeched. They pooled in towards us from every alley and clambered over burning buildings as if the flames were nothing. One even slunk out from beneath a pile of corpses, blood dripping from his snub-nosed face.

They surrounded us on three sides, and outnumbered our party twenty to one. One demon with four arms who was slightly larger than the rest stepped forward. He sniffed the air. One of his larger outer arms pounded the earth. His red eyes burned with rage and he screamed wordlessly.

That seemed to be the signal to attack. The demons rushed forward and were met in charge by Ser Erik and Imalor who cleaved through demons as if they were made of paper. Arthur loosed arrow after arrow into the surge of demons, his shots always finding their mark. Lynessa whispered an incantation into the crystal at the top of her staff, causing a large swath of them to be disintegrated by a sweeping beam of light.

It occurred to me that I was not doing much. I had to keep up my appearance as the Legendary Hero, or else they might refuse to return me home. I glanced at Atlas. The tiger opened one eye from where he was lazing on the ground.

I pointed at the horde of demons. “Kill things.”

Atlas blinked slowly, then closed his eyes. Darn lazy tiger. I’d have to make him sit with Lynessa on the way back.

Well, if Atlas wasn’t going to do anything, then I’d have to fight the demons myself. It really couldn’t be too hard. I’d killed the Demonlord in one hit, after all.

I stepped forward, squaring up with one particularly nasty looking demon. His flaming eyes fixed into mine and within them I saw all manner of evil and villainous intent. I swallowed a lump in my throat and swung my fist.

The demon didn’t even move. My fist bounced ineffectually off its face. The demon snarled.

This wasn’t right, I was supposed to have magic powers! I punched him again to similar effect. I shook out my hand. Punching that thing really hurt my knuckles.

The demon slammed me in the chest with its hand, its sharp claws tearing through my shirt. I felt blood begin to drip down my chest. Its other hand clutched my shoulder tightly, claws sinking in deep. I shouted in pain, but the sounds of the battle must have drowned out my cries. The Heroes took no notice.

I slammed my fists into the demon’s chest, but it didn’t even appear to notice. It lowered its face to mine, revealing its maw of razor sharp teeth.

“Your breath is awful,” I said. I squirmed, finding its grip iron. It leaned in to take a bite.

Suddenly, I was thrust to the ground, face pressed into the earth. I heard the demon screech. Had one of the Heroes noticed me struggling? No. As I managed to find my feet I saw Atlas tearing at the demon’s throat. He looked to be injured, with scratches to his shoulder and the front of his torso. The demon slammed his flank with a clawed hand and I felt a burning in my side. Atlas twisted his jaws and the demon fell limp.

Atlas turned to me, tail lashing in anger. I looked down at my side, where a new wound had magically appeared beneath my clothing. I understood.

“We seem to have been linked somehow.” Atlas snarled, “When either one of us are hurt, the other is injured as well.”

“How lucky.” I said sarcastically.

“More than you know,” retorted Atlas, “If injuring you didn’t hurt me as well, I’d have left you to die.” With that last chilling thought, he stalked back to the truck and climbed into the bed. I looked around. The heroes had seemed to be doing well, at least at first, but the tide of battle had turned. The demons’ reinforcements seemed never-ending and more and more kept pouring towards the party, even as the stack of corpses grew larger and larger beneath the heroes’ feet. Sweat beaded on the foreheads of Erik and Imalor, who appeared to be doing nothing more than holding the demons away from Arthur and Lynessa.

Lynessa fired off another spell, though it seemed weaker than the first. Arthur shot his last arrow and pulled out a dagger. I wanted to help, I did, but I wasn’t a hero. I had no magical powers, no mystical weapon, no…

But wait, I did have a weapon.

I ran back into my truck and turned the key in the ignition. The engine roared to life. Power hummed beneath my fingertips as I slammed the stick into drive. I hadn’t been the force to defeat the Demonlord, it had been my truck! And if a being as powerful as he could fall to a little head-on collision, then these numbskulls didn’t stand a chance.

I pressed the pedal clear to the floor. The truck leapt forward, engine roaring. I smashed the horn with the flat of my hand. Both the Heroes and the demons looked up in shock. Fortunately, the Heroes had the good sense to duck aside. Not the demons, though. No, they formed up and countered the charge. It was the last mistake they would ever make.

The first demon went under the tires with a loud thump and a large jolt. The second soon followed. The third smashed his head on the front bumper as he tried to duck aside and by the fourth, the demons realized that the truck could not be slowed. They scattered, howling as they did. I ran a fifth down as he tried to run down the road, then swerved to hit a sixth with a sideswipe maneuver.

I laughed as yet another demon stumbled and fell beneath the tires as I rounded a burning hut. Standing before me was the four-armed demon. He slammed the earth with his two larger fists and leapt.

The demon smashed into the windshield, arm reaching through a small hole he’d managed to punch in the glass. I swerved instinctively, sending us headfirst into a burning shack. To my surprise, the shack crumpled like a pile of twigs, burning boards brushed aside by the truck as easily as embers in the wind. Several bits of debris smacked into the demon, whose arm flailed wildly in the cab of the truck.

Eventually, the demon’s hand managed to find purchase on the first thing it could, which unfortunately ended up being my arm. His claws bit deep into my flesh. I jerked the wheel sharply to the left in an attempt to throw him off, but I wasn’t strong enough on the brake and my truck tumbled over and rolled. It fortunately landed back on its tires. My seatbelt snapped me back into place as the four-armed demon went flying, smashing into a large stone building.

I slammed the truck into park and killed the engine. The four-armed demon was lying still against the wall of the stone building. At first I thought he was dead, but then I saw the hatred burning deep within his red eyes. He began to push himself to his feet.

I reached to put the key back in the ignition, when out of the corner of my eye I saw Atlas approaching. The tiger slinked in close, unseen, and struck. Atlas jumped onto the demon’s back, pushed his head into the dirt, and broke his neck with a quick jerk of his jaws.

I slowly stepped down from my truck. The demons appeared to have all been killed or fled in terror.

The Heroes were first to approach me, but they were not alone. Out of small crannies and crevices crawled haggard-looking peasants. The doors of the great stone building, which I now recognized to look much like a church, opened, and even more townspeople poured out.

A man dressed as a priest approached the party and said, “May the Golden Sun bless you, Honoured Heroes! You’ve driven back the demon army and saved our village!”

Ser Erik walked up beside me and raised my arm high, “This is Dale the Legendary Hero and his noble Tiger, Foggy! They are the ones you should thank!”

Gasps came from the collected townsfolk. I could feel dozens of eyes all staring at me at once. Murmurs rippled through the crowd as they gazed at me in wonder.

“Pray tell, what is that magical weapon you used to defeat the demons?” Asked the priest, “It is like nothing I’ve seen created by the hands of mortals!”

“It’s, uh, my truck.” I said, “It was made by Ford.”

Excited whispers of ‘Ford’ and ‘Truck’ soon began passing around the crowd. A feeling of unease settled in the pit of my stomach.

“Oh, thank you Dale, wielder of the Truck and Champion of Ford. For your service this day we name you the hero of our town. From this day onward, this village is to be known as Daletopia in your honor.” Said the priest, kneeling down at my feet. That feeling of unease started to grow.

“Now you’ve done it.” Atlas said dryly, “They’re never going to let us go now.”