There once was a hero.

He was a very good hero, as far as heroes go. He did all the things a hero ought to do. He fought bravely against the most fearsome of beasts.

            He saved princesses from wicked witches and monstrous dragons.

                        He stood firm against the tides of ghosts and evil spirits.

                                    Once he even saved the whole kingdom from the devil.

Everybody loved Hero, and he was very happy to help them.

After all, helping is what a Hero ought to do.

But as time passed, Hero began to feel a little different.

            When the Goblin Brigade of Diamond Mountain kidnapped Princess Mango, Hero immediately dashed up over the shining rocks to save her, sword in hand. But when he arrived outside the goblin den, he found that he didn't want to hurt the monsters. He still wanted to save the princess, of course - a Hero is always a Hero - but he couldn't bring himself to hurt someone else in order to save the day. After all, saving the day like that meant ruining someone else's day forever.

            Hero paced back and forth in front of the den, and Princess Mango's cries grew louder. Finally Hero realized that he could use a sleeping spell on the goblins, and he snuck off with the princess while they were all snoozing away.

            But Hero continued to run into trouble. On later adventures, he never wanted to fight the villains anymore. When the Twilight Mantis captured King Midas' golden castle, Hero was helpless to save the day - even though he had a can of Twilight Bug Spray. When he looked into the Twilight Mantis' big red eyes, he just didn't want to hurt it.  After a time, Hero decided to lure the Twilight Mantis away with a big delicious jar of Nightmare Jelly, and the castle was safe again. But nobody was sure that the Twilight Mantis wouldn't come back again. So King Midas was worried, and Hero was worried even more.

            Things got worse when the three Great Dragons - Hunger, Weariness and Doubt - attacked Sonata City. Hero had fought each of the dragons once before, but never at the same time, and that had been when they were all much younger and smaller. When Hero appeared to stop them again, riding on an albatross, the dragons looked different to him. Even though Hero could feel the fear and panic in the people below, he also understood how the three dragons felt.

            And again he could not fight.

            Terribly confused, Hero fell under the curse of the Dragon of Doubt, and his albatross became very tired under the gaze of the Dragon of Weariness. They fell to Earth, and soon the Dragon of Hunger had devoured the entire city.

For the first time, Hero had failed.

            After the disaster at Sonata City, nobody wanted Hero's protection anymore. They didn't trust him to come to the rescue when people were in trouble. Every city Hero came to shunned him, and made him leave. Hero didn't know what to do. He just kept walking, thinking about villains and heroes, wondering what  to do.

            One day Hero was walking through a meadow when he found a very strange tree. The branches were made of glass and the leaves were like mirrors. Most interesting of all was the clear fruits that grew from the tree. When Hero looked into one he could see out of another. Curious, Hero pulled one of the fruits from the tree and cut it in half. The two pieces stuck together like magnets. Even though the fruit looked strange, it felt very much like a big plum, and Hero was very hungry, so he took a bite of one of the pieces. At the same time, a groundhog popped out of the ground and suddenly chomped on the other piece.

            And suddenly Hero was a groundhog. He wasn’t just any groundhog, though. He was the same groundhog who had bitten the other fruit half. He remembered his groundhog family, and that his name was Basil, and that he liked dandelion soup.

            And then Hero was Hero again, and Basil looked just as confused as Hero. It seemed that when Hero had become Basil, Basil had become Hero too.

            And Hero had an idea. He took as many of the fruits as he could and stuffed them into his hat, then ran off toward Diamond Mountain.

            All the goblins of the Goblin Brigade were very hungry when Hero arrived there. Food doesn’t grow on Diamond Mountain. When Hero offered Boss Goblin a slice of the fruit, he took it eagerly. The other half Hero gave to Princess Mango. They ate the fruit, and quickly both of them apologized to each other. Princess Mango’s father had apparently forced the Goblins to leave the kingdom many years ago, and the only way for them to eat was to steal food. The Goblins had only kidnapped Princess Mango so her father would give them enough food to eat. The Goblins apologized and were let back into the kingdom. Hero said goodbye and ran off to King Midas’s golden castle.

            King Midas and his people didn’t like Hero anymore, so he had to sneak around everywhere he went. He snuck into the kitchen and put a slice of the fruit onto the King’s plate, and then stole a jar of Nightmare Jelly from the magician’s room. He put a slice of the fruit into the jar and ran off toward the Forest of Dreams.

            The Twilight Mantis ate the Nightmare Jelly quickly, and at the same time King Midas tasted the strange fruit on his dinner plate. For a few moments King Midas and the Twilight Mantis became each other, and when they returned to normal they understood each other.

            Hero called his albatross friend to pick him up, and together they flew toward the peak of The Precipice.

            At the top of the jagged mountain, the three Great Dragons stood at the cliffs, looking out across the world. The Dragon of Doubt was the first to see Hero, and it gazed upon him with all its worry and confusion. It could not curse him, though, for Hero was so sure of what he was doing, and he believed so strongly that he could help everyone. The other two dragons came near, Hunger growling and roaring, Weariness barely awake. All three of them snarled at Hero and bared their huge teeth at him.

            Hero took from his bag three more fruits, cut them all in half with a single slice from his sword, and threw them with all his might into the dragons’ mouths. Thinking of the people he had failed to save and the people that still needed to be saved, he swallowed the rest of the three fruits in one big bite.

            Immediately he felt sadder, hungrier and more tired than he had ever been before. He felt like he would never eat again, and like he could barely move, and like nothing he did ever did any good. He was all three of the dragons at once, and though each one was different in its own ways, there was something strange that he felt as all three of them. It was a memory of a monster… a strange creature that had put a curse on all three of the dragons when they were only babies. Remembering the monster, Hero became very afraid.

            And then he was Hero again. He was shocked. It seemed impossible that these dragons could be scared of something. He looked to them. They were silent.

            After a few moments, the Dragon of Doubt lifted Hero into the air and carried him to a hole in the Precipice. From the hole Hero could hear a cold and bitter roar, echoing from deep inside the mountain. The monster that had cursed the dragons was at the bottom.

            The three Great Dragons looked at Hero closely, as if asking him for help.

            Hero didn’t need to be asked. He drew his sword and leaped into the darkness.