The first thing Dave heard was Indigo shouting, “WHAT DID YOU DO???”

  Dave choked, coughing and hacking until he pulled his shirt up over his mouth and nose. The dust was still everywhere, he couldn’t see. He realized he was crying. It took him a moment to remember why.

  Indigo ran down into the crater, totally ignoring his own safety, waving his hand through the dust as if he could clear it enough to see. “CHARIS!” he screamed.

  Reality caught up with Dave like a thunderbolt and he leapt to his feet, blind, coated in dust, swimming in moon bits. He tried to find the way down into the crater, but couldn’t get his bearings. Instead he followed the angel.

  “CHARIS!” Indigo shouted, terrified, running toward the temple… or what was left of it. “Charis! Ohmygod!”

  Dave couldn’t see. He stumbled and fell headlong down the side of the crater, rolling uncontrollably along a steep slope of powder-soft dust until he suddenly went under. He struggled wildly, drowning, until by some miracle he flopped out of the avalanche and spat dust until he could breathe. The first thing he said was, “Charis! Shit, I’m sorry! Charis!”

  They finally made it out of the cloud when they were a good halfway across the inside of the crater. When they could finally see they stopped to look.

  There was now a huge, red-glowing melted chunk taken out of the crater wall, and the entire top of the big Temple was GONE. There were melted hot red rocks scattered around the Temple’s perimeter like a giant campfire had been stomped out. Black smoke poured out of what was left of the building.

  Holy nuclear explosion, batman. Dave really hadn’t expected an atom bomb when he asked the sun dude for help. This was bad, this was really bad. He couldn’t make himself move. He just stood there shaking, frozen to the spot, staring in disbelief at what he’d done.

  Indigo screamed. “Aaaaah! Charis!” He started sprinting toward the Temple. “You blew up Charis!”

  “I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to!” Dave yelled back, also running for the temple. He clutched the skateboard hard; without Indigo he couldn’t make it fly.

  As they came closer, yelling their heads off, they saw weird lights exploding out of the lopped-off Temple foundations. More explosions rocked the stone, toppling what was left of the walls. It looked like there were tunnels underneath the structure, underground catacombs which were now on fire. More explosions spilled forth, in various colors: red, gold, blue.

  “CHARIS! CHARIS!” Indigo didn’t even try to look dignified. He was wringing his hands as he headed straight for the ruined building.

  What, were they keeping explosives in there? Tanks of gas? Rockets? Fireworks? Ammo? What the hell kept exploding? Dave moaned. It just kept getting worse! Everything he did backfired! Now not only was Charis blown up, she was being cooked and fricasseed as well! He felt hot tears coursing down his cheeks, making the moon dust into gray mudcicles that hung from his stubbly chin.

  Suddenly a black bat-winged giant demon came hurtling out of the smoking remnants of the Temple, roaring in pain. He landed in the soft moon dust, making another tiny crater of his own.

  What followed him out was a spindle shaped white hot light, floating in mid-air, with little lights orbiting it. He didn’t know if it was a UFO or… Dusty??! Good lord! Dave had no idea that Dusty could pull off demigod.

  The skater dude’s white eyes glowed like two stars, and he was surrounded by an aura of pure white flame. His long white hair flew upward in the hot wind that he was generating around himself like a tornado. Dave had never imagined the little guy could look so incredibly pissed off.

  Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

  “DUSTY!” Indigo yelled, super-relieved, running even faster.

  A thrill went through Dave. Pure delight. Then he looked at Dusty’s opponent, and felt fierce protectiveness. He had to save the last member of their team!!

  Dave charged the black winged dude. He was going to kill it. He was going to hit it in the face with his skateboard! He roared like a Celtic warrior, his ancestral blood surging, almost seeing red.

  Just as he reached the huge nine foot tall demon, it turned around pinning him with red flaming eyes… and Dave skidded to a halt, realizing that he was in trouble. Really big trouble. He didn’t actually have a weapon, or superpowers, or…

  Charis appeared from somewhere just then, floating and glowing like Dusty was and looking furious. Her velveteen purple running suit was scorched, in a shambles, and torn. Her hair was a mess.

  The demon pointed toward Dave in order to smash the human with some nasty supernatural power, and just as it as about to launch some kind of death-ray from its mouth, Charis screamed, “NO YOU DON’T! THAT’S MY BOYFRIEND!”

  She gestured and used an Elogic motion-shift to throw a red-hot boulder the size of three busses at it. The enormous, red-hot, glowing boulder flattened the demon with an almighty roar and whoosh sound JUST as Dave was swinging the skateboard, barely missing the nose of the skateboard.

  Dave barely pulled up in time, feeling a breath of flaming hot melted rock almost burn his eyebrows off. He backpedaled, throwing himself sideways into the dust and rolled to a stop.

  Another enormous cloud of dust washed over him, this time kicked up by Charis’s boulder. He couldn’t see, but he was weeping again… with joy. She wasn’t dead! He hadn’t blown up his friends using the Sun Dude. God was good!

  Suddenly she was there, throwing her arms around him and squealing, “DAAAAAVEE!” The aura of white flame that surrounded her burned his eyes, but didn’t hurt. In fact it felt warm and vibrated the air until his teeth shook. He threw his arms around her and held on for dear life. She was laughing. She spun in midair, and kissed him all over his muddy tear-streaked face.

  Dave hid his face in her hair, giving her a bone crushing hug, and whimpered.

  Indigo stopped running toward the Temple. His eyes rolled up in his head and he suddenly fainted, falling flat back into the dust like he was trying to make a snow angel. He didn’t move for a while.

  Scott and the rest of the Team slowly crawled out of the remains of the Temple spitting dust, covered in soot, looking like they had received the classic “I went through an explosion” movie makeup.

  Inu pulled himself out from under the rubble grumbling something about how this was one hell of a day at work.

  “Holy shit! What the HELL did you DO?” Scott yelled at Dave as soon as he saw them. He turned to look back at the destroyed temple, the new mini-crater, the melted stone. He put his hands on his head and kept them there.

  “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I blew you up. I didn’t mean to blow you up,” Dave ugly-cried helplessly, his nose running. He would not let go of Charis.

  Miradon—or what Dave assumed was Miradon—jumped out of the bowels of the Temple as a small black dragon. He looked around, astonished. “My goodness!”

  Dave caught sight of yet more figures running across the crater toward them, but this time from the direction of the small ruin with the three stones. He recognized the Lord Madrik in the lead by his white leisure suit, his garments almost glowing in the lunar sunlight.

  “Ah!” Miradon grinned. “Excellent thinking! Master Madrik! I should have thought of it myself.”

  Madrik skidded to a halt next to them, looking around at the mayhem. “What on the underside of Adoil did you do?”

  Behind Lord Madrik were a couple other tall, skinny, pointy-eared guys with pitch black skin just like him, and one super gorgeous pointy-eared elven woman who glowed white.

  Aliens. Enshi. More Enshi… while the government was still telling everyone on Earth they were all dead… but Dave really didn’t care anymore. He just held onto Charis and cried.

  Suddenly, a final giant winged demon climbed out from under a bunch of rubble, gasping and coughing. He’d managed to survive the lunar Armageddon somehow, but his luck had just run out.

  Literally everyone turned. Dozens of eyes lit up with fury. Everyone pointed.

  There was a roar, and a dozen different fireballs, lightning strikes, screaming golden things, rotating blades, lights, and what have you impacted the demon all at once as over two dozen Nythian mages launched their attacks.

  There was an almighty explosion. Nothing much was left of the baddie but a smoking black hole.

  The rescue party of Enshi and various, led by Madrik, looked around at the rubble, then at the dirty survivors, at Dave the Normal just crying, at the mass destruction. They finally turned to the passed-out Indigo with real respect in their eyes.

  “Wow,” a small human man with a goatee said, awed, “That’s one badass guardian angel!”