The engines of the twelve collossal monster trucks bellowed loudly in the shadow of the beast they were pursuing. The prey was enormous, even for its kind, and struggled against the harpoons buried under its black scales and that fettered it to the cars with arm-thich chains of steel. Despite the five harpoons, the dragon still had the strength to remain airborne, and fought to escape hard enough to lift the front wheels of the five vehicles from the ground, sending great clouds of red dust up into the air some one hundred meters in all directions. 

KLANG.

The sixth harpoon pierced the dragons scales to the sound of metal crushing through metal. 

KLANG.

KLANG. 

The nine monster trucks drove in separate directions, using their weight to force the dragon down to the ground, into the center of their formation. It beat its wings even harder, but one of the harpoons had torn a gaping hole into one of them. It could no longer fly.

KLANG.

KLANG. 

Eleven of twelve harpoons fettered it now, and it stared defiantly at the twelfth car. It slowly aimed the harpoon at its head to the disturbing sound of rattling chains. The dragon had fear and anger in its eyes as it faced certain doom. Behind the window screen of that twelfth car, it could see the vague outline of a young human man. His ruffled hair was red, his skin sunburnt, a tattoo covered his neck from the collar of his velvet jacket up to his jawbone. The monster truck he controlled was not a replica, but a true antique from the time before the apocalypse, and was painted deep blue with silver dragons painted on it. The image of a dragons skull ’decorated’ the hood - the symbol of Ingines national flag. 

The dragons rust-red eyes stared defiantly back at the man - no, at the overgrown twenty year old child who had not earned the right to be called a man - who madly grinned back at it. His expression carried the height of arrogance, malicious excitement. Madness in power. 

Traitor. Disgusting, spineless traitor, spawn of cowardice. 

There was only one choice left to make. Either the hunters got what they came for. Or the dragon would destroy it before they could get it. It was the choice between the enslavement and the extinction of its remaining kind. 

It was a choice they had made since long ago. With a violent jerk it lifted its head from the ground with such force that the two cars that had harpooned its neck dragged through the dirt with howling engines. With a rattling sound the dragon regurgitated its stomach content, half-digested meat and pieces of bone flowing like liquid through its teeth, mixed with the dragons own blood. 

It saw the young mans face distort in rage and panic and the twelfth harpoon shot towards it at a violent speed towards the spot between its eyes. 

Just a second too late. 

The dragon crushed something it had regurgitated between its crocodilian iron teeth. When the harpoon pierced its cranium, it was already dead. Scales, flesh and blood turned to rust, and flew away in the wind in the form of the same red dust that covered the desert. All the harpoon pierced was the skull of black iron that crashed lifelessly against the ground. 

The red-haired man wordlessly roared and jumped down from the car. He marched toward the dragonskull and with his hands shaking from anger, he picked up pieces of the item the dragon had crushed in its jaws. Shards of what had been a perfectly spherical, polished black stone. 

”Back away from it! Prince Thorn! Don’t touch that thing!” One of his men shouted from a different truck. ”It still hold magic!”

”Shut up! Shut! Up!” Thorn yelled back and ran his hand through his hair in frustration. He knew the man was right. They would return to the city and send some of his fathers mages back here to take a look at it. Make sure it was safe. Put the pieces back together.

Honestly, it wasn’t just their loss. They’d had two goals, and achieving even one of them - the killing of the dragon - was more than his father had thought he could accomplish. They could piece together the stone shards, and most likely, it would still be a formidable weapon in their battle. They never again had to fear irondragons. Just that meant that as long as Ingine existed, the name Thorn Fordlord would never fade from history books. It was that kind of accomplishment. 

He shouted to his men to mark the spot on the map, threw the stone shards back into the sand, and drove back the same way from which they came. 

——————

The iron dragon was held in darkness. The pain from the harpoons had numbed into a peaceful quiet, the noisy engines of the monstertrucks had given way to silence. It slept, its body comfortably rolled up like a cat, relieved by the release of the fear, pain and betrayal. It did not get up until it saw a bright light far away, one that quickly approached. Soft, pale golden-white, accompanied by a pleasant humming sound as if angels were softly singing. It held Absolute Peace. And, perhaps, a little bit of sorrow. But the dragon had done the best it could. They all had. And aside from not being enough to change their fate, it had no regrets. And there was nothing more to fight for. 

It stood up and welcomed the light... 

.... and then the light stopped. Or, rather, the lights - now when it was this close, one could see there were actually two lights close to each other. 

”Great deity, why have you hesitated? You, who are god of reincarnation and who should be impartial to all, why will you not make this being undone so I can be born anew? Could it be, the choice of dooming my kind to death over slavery, was such a great sin even to you? Do you intend to doom me to wander this world as a ghost? Because if not, I’ve kinda had a bit of a day and I REALLY don’t want to drag this out..” 

”Anrin of the black ones.” Echoed Truck-samas heavenly voice. ”The words of the holy readers have reached me. Should you accept my request, you are to return to life, and to the duty your ancestors set out to accomplish. For the sake of the plot, you must not die this day.”

”The words of the holy readers..?” Anrin asked quietly. ”Why? Why would the holy readers concern themselves with changing history?”

”Their will is unknowable to all. Including me. Honestly, my job is just to run people over, I don’t think too hard about the complicated stuff.” 

Anrin thought about it for a moment.. and then she shook her head. 

”Just let us rest, Truck-sama. My people have long since accepted the risk that came with our goal. I want us to pass in peace. The readers aren’t necessarily kind, and there are worse fathes than death.”

”Each and every one of you will be able to choose to accept the offer or not. Although, for the time being, this offer only extends to you - I will reincarnate you back into your own world and time, and whether you can summon the other iron dragons back or not depends on how much of that shattered stone you can restore to wholeness.”

”.... hmmmmm.....”

”Also, I will let you have a nice front seat view as I run over Ryker Fordlord. How about it?

”I accept the terms and conditions. Return me to the world of the living, and I will carry out the will of the holy readers to the best of my ability, great Truck-sama.” Anrin said with a wide, dark grin spreading upon her maw. 

—————

And that was the moment that sealed the fate of Anrin, Ryker, and Thorn Fordlord. And - though I knew nothing about this whole thing - it sealed mine as well. I was just sitting in my living room that evening, reading light novels in my free time. I anticipated a calm evening like all others. Then, I suddenly looked out the living room window. Two sharp light came crashing towards my fifth floor apartment and that was how I died. 

Hey, help me out, okay? I know light novels. I know there’s someone out there reading this... you gotta help me, this place is insane. You’ve got to convince the author to let me go back home! PLEASE, I’m BEGGING you. 

———-

Authors comment: HEEEEEEEY and welcome to this nutty interactive story project of mine. So what’s all this about? Well, it’s kind of a choose your own adventure. I have an outline of the plot, the main characters, and the main events more or less ironed out already... but all of it can be subject to change. 

How? By reader input, of course. That’s right, you get to comment on what you want to happen next. The deal is thus: The main character cannot hear the voices of the readers, and his/her actions cannot be chosen. He/she will simply react and try to deal with what’s coming their way. And guess what, you get to decide what comes her way. You even get to decide, to an extent, if she succeeds or fails. You’ll deside if she goes back home, dies a miserable death, and quite a lot of the stuff that comes her way, really. 

The supporting side-character Anrin knows about the will of the readers. If a request is chosen by me, the author, Anrin will be able to hear the reader comments, and you can make requests directly. She still have some agency and will choose her actions herself, but if she can be convinced, she’ll do her best to influence the plot according to the reader requests. Truck-sama also knows the requests of the readers, but since He is a divine force of nature, he can’t easily be convinced to do anything. Won’t hurt to ask, though, if you think a certain transmigration/reincarnation would be interesting.

Everybody else is counted as an NPC. They have their own goals and desires, and are unaware of the reader influence on the story. You can request NPC’s to appear or disappear, what will happen to them, and what they will do. As long as it’s a reasonable fit with their character, it might very well happen. 

So, have fun. I know I will have fun writing this ridiculous this thing. 

- Llamadragon