Author's notes: a few things before we get to the story. First off, this is a prequel to a Monster High story I did called Defection. As for Kamen Rider continuity, all Showa era shows and neo-heisei era shows happened on the same world as Monster High, but not the others. As for this takes place in Wizard's episode count, this takes place sometime in the mid-twenties. Also, everyone is speaking Japanese and let's assume that Toralei is bilingual.
….
Toralei and her parents, Rio and Komodoyoko Shishimura were on a plane that was heading to Japan. They wanted Toralei to visit her ancestral homeland at least once her life and Toralei reluctantly agreed to it. She had never wanted to go to Japan before because her uncle had been killed by a group of normies dressed as the Super Sentai team Choushinsei Flashman almost 20 years ago. To make matters worse, one of the killers was never caught.
"If this turns out anything like that trip to Syria, I am going to be so pissed off," Toralei said to her step-dad, Rio. He was a muscular, male werecat that had the head and mane of a lion with yellow fur and orange mane.
"If you're worried about what happened to your uncle," Rio started, "don't be. Japan has become much safer for monsters since the 90's. And no car bombs have ever gone off in the country."
"Now we're talking," Toralei said with a smile as she rubbed her shrapnel wounds. "Still, you better be right about this country having the best damn seafood in the world."
"I am," Rio said.
…
Several hours later, they had landed dropped, their stuff off at the hotel and started fright seeing around the monster side of Tokyo. While Toralei had had her reservations about this trip but she was enjoying herself so far. Tokyo was a vibrant city that she was glad she was seeing up close. And after having some delicious octopus dumplings, it turned out that her step-dad was absolutely right about the quality of Japan's seafood.
Of course when your country is an island, you pretty much have to make the most of what you've got to work with, Toralei thought. Unbeknownst to her, she was being watched.
Medusa sometimes ventured into the monster side of Tokyo to look for any monsters that could be potential gates. She wore a muslim shawl around her head to conceal her snake hair. With that in place, she could easily blend in among the monsters in her Phantom form. If any of the monsters there thought it was strange that a muslim reptile monster was in Japan, where both those things were uncommon, they kept it to themselves.
They probably don't notice or think I'm someone who likes to cosplay in public, Medusa thought. Japanese monster society sets the bar pretty high for strangeness, to herself as she sensed a gate among a group three monsters: an adult lizard woman, an adult male werecat and a teenaged female werecat. Medusa got closer to them and was able to determine that the teenaged female was the gate. I knew these trips of mine would pay off eventually.
Medusa found an isolated spot between the human and monster sides of Tokyo to turn into her human form and ditch the shawl. She had just the Phantom in mind to after the teenaged werecat.
She caught a cab to Akihabara, the world's nerdiest shopping district. She searched around a bit and found who she was looking for. Her target was a pudgy, little-aged Japanese man with glasses wearing a T-shirt of Space Sheriff Gavan and carrying two large bags of manga. She walked up to him and motioned for them to take their business into a nearby alley.
"What's going on, Medusa?" the man asked.
"I have a mission for you, Stymphalian," Medusa said. "It involves going over to the monster side of Tokyo and driving a female, teenaged werecat into despair. She's traveling with two adult monsters, probably her parents. Attacking or killing one or both of them should do it."
"Are you telling me that I get to bring a new Phantom into existence and kill some monsters?" Stymphalian asked with barely contained glee. Medusa nodded yes and he dropped his bags of manga. "Best day ever!" Stymphalian shouted with his arms raised in jubilation.
"Just be careful with the gate herself," Medusa said warningly. "Phoenix killed at least one gate that I know of because he was so enthusiastic with the brute force approach. And now he's in the sun, in a constant state of being blown up and reborn over and over again."
"But that happened because he fought that wizard guy," Stymphalian said in confusion. "Those two things aren't really connec…." Stymphalian stopped when he saw the glare Medusa was giving him. "I mean, I'm all over it," he said nervously as he grabbed his manga and left.
It was worth a shot, Medusa thought in regards to her failed attempt to use Phoenix's fate as cautionary tale to other phantoms about the dangers of screwing up. On the plus side, I can get out of here before I catch Otaku, Medusa thought, eager to no longer spend time in Akihabara.
…
Toralei and her parents had seen a few of the sites around Tokyo and were about visit a Shinto shrine when a humanoid creature dropped out of the sky. The creature had a yellow body, a beak on its face, talons for hands and large wings coming from its back. The creature's beak talons and feathers on its wings appeared to be made of bronze.
"Can I help you with something," Rio asked.
"Yes," Stymphalian said. "You can drop dead: that will help a great deal." Stymphalian then slapped Rio aside with the back of one of his talons and looked at Toralei. "You seem familiar."
Rio then pulled a knife from his jacket that had a blade that was 8 inches long blade 1 inch wide. He slashed at Stymphalian, but that only made a small spark emit. Stymphalian at Rio with its right Talon, but the male werecat avoided the blow. Rio then tried slashing at Stymphalian's head but Stymphalian moved its head so that the knife hit its beak and got embedded there.
Stymphalian shoved Rio to the side and sent him to the ground. Stymphalian could easily kill the lion werecat, but he wanted to drag this out to prolong the gate's suffering and increase the odds of a new phantom gaining physical form. He then took another look at Toralei.
"Now I know why you look familiar," Stymphalian said as he assumed his human form. "Me and four friends of mine killed a male werecat that looked like you."
"You're Blue Flash," Toralei said in short breath, struggling to come to grips with how a bird creature who just admitted to killing her uncle almost 20 years ago and was trying to kill her now.
"Yes," Stymphalian said as he reverted to his phantom form. "Or rather, my gate was."
"Gate?" Komodoyoko asked.
"I could explain things, but you'll understand when I kill the lizard," Stymphalian said as he began walking towards them. He stopped when something like four gunshots went off and several sparks came from his body, hurting him.
Komodoyoko and Toralei turned to where the gunshots came from and saw a man standing next a weird looking motorcycle, wearing a motorcycle helmet and holding a gun-like weapon with a smoking barrel. He took off the helmet, revealing himself to be a young, Japanese man with brown hair.
"You're not killing anyone," the man said as he slid a silver 'faceplate' over a large, ring on his left hand. "Henshin!" He called out as he placed his left hand over a buckle of a left hand on his large, metal belt.
Flame, Please, an exuberant male voice called from the belt. The man held his hand to his left and a red circle with strange symbols appeared in front of it. Hi-Hi, Hi-Hi-Hi.
The circle traveled over the man and he was now wearing a black costume that included what looked like the coat tails of a trench coat and small, silver shoulder pads. There were also red stones on the face and chest, silver lines dividing the chest into six sections and making two 'eyes' on the face.
"It's showtime," Wizard said.
