Hey! This happens around Chapter 16 of the main Kamen Rider Utsura story! If you're caught up already, enjoy!
The day seemed unusually bright.
Everyone seemed to be moving faster out on the street, smiling brighter, laughing louder.
The loudest laughter was coming from downstairs as Kensei Hidenaga finished combing his hair and buttoning up his school uniform for the day. When he got down to the kitchen, his mother was practically dancing around the table as she laid out breakfast for them.
"Something special happening?" he asked, smiling a little to see her so happy.
"Like you don't remember!" she chided him teasingly.
"Of course I remember," replied Kensei, who didn't.
"Tomorrow's the anniversary of the day Yuuma-kun saved those people from that wizard monster!" she chirped.
Kensei sat down at the table, suddenly not really feeling like he was in the room with anyone else. He didn't remember the exact day that happened; honestly he'd kind of wanted to forget. The fact that his brother was dead—kind of—seemed like it should be enough, shouldn't it?
Silently he took the En En Chambara Gashat out and set it on the table next to his food. The game that made him a Kamen Rider. The one that Yuuma had managed to come back to bring him.
Because Yuuma couldn't be there to use it himself.
As he started eating, Kensei started thinking about his brother. Yuuma, the strong, brave, caring idol of the whole school.
What kind of Kamen Rider would he be?
One who probably would've taken care of all their problems already.
Kamen Rider Utsura: 52 Assaults
A deafening burp that knocked Kensei back in his seat marked the final passing of his gigantic hamburger. He groaned, and wondered if he'd ever be able to stand up again, feeling like he'd swallowed a wrecking ball.
"And 47 seconds to go! You made it!" the girl holding the stopwatch announced.
The people at the next few tables clapped at Kensei's triumph over the hubcap-sized hamburger. The girl who'd been timing him leaned down to pin a gold badge with the number 1 on it to his uniform jacket, and Kensei was surprised to find the energy to sit up and return her smile.
"See if I ever let you talk me into anything again, Kiiko," he said, smirking.
"Quiet! The student isn't allowed to contradict the master!" she retorted.
"Oh, before you were 'the trainer', but now you're 'the master', huh?" he laughed. "Guess they promoted you already?"
She frowned. "Maybe you need to go back to being a 2nd Mate to learn why you shouldn't make fun of the master," Kiiko said and reached out for the badge she'd just given him. He reached out and caught her wrist.
"Oh no you don't," he laughed again, but quietly as his digestion kicked in. "I earned that."
Kiiko pouted at him for a minute, then pulled back with her wrist and Kensei let go. "Mmmm, my shift's over in a few minutes. You and me have things we need to do though," she said.
"Well, master, why don't I go make sure my reflexes are still sharp?" Kensei asked and got up, heading for the pair of arcade cabinets at the back of the Big Bang Burger.
The gaudy but faded marquee for the Tuna Diver machine still hung over a blank screen and a greasy piece of paper taped quickly to the front saying OUT OF ORDER. Instead Kensei stepped over to the other game, a battered and faded machine but one whose attract mode still showed a chicken bouncing off a narrow landing pad and exploding in a cloud of feathers as it hit the ground.
A little uncertainly, Kensei slid a coin into the slot of Astro Chicken. The high score list disappeared and a screen telling him to get ready gave him a large fraction of a second to do so before Astro Chicken started dropping from a corner.
He hit the button to make Astro Chicken start flapping his wings, and it seemed to limp to the right toward the landing pad instead of fly, but shot straight up until Kensei hit the button again. Astro Chicken dropped straight down, limping slightly the direction Kensei wanted it to move until he hit the fly button making the chicken go up like a missile again.
It might just have been the age and condition of the machine, but something made Kensei doubt that was why the chicken controlled like a car with five flat tires. Doubt that it was just a joke that the company that made it was named Scumsoft. Especially as the energy meter bottomed after 6.4 seconds of flight and Astro Chicken dropped to the ground exploded.
"Could there be a worse game than this…?" Kensei mumbled. Another chicken fell onto the screen and after some furious maneuvering he got it almost to the edge of the landing pad. But again the furious bouncing up and down drained the energy meter just a little too soon and chicken number two went up in a blaze of feathers.
He faintly remembered Kiiko saying something about wanting his name at the top of the high score list for this game. That when he managed that, his training would be over. No kidding.
So he was a little surprised when the chicken bounced up and down less furiously than before he actually managed to land it in the middle of the screen. Astro Chicken tossed back his head and let out a BA-COCK! The heavy lady digging into her third Captain's Burger sitting next to the games jumped in her seat, spilling her soda all over her lap.
He'd barely had a second to realize he'd accomplished his goal than Kiiko seemed to un-melt out of the floor next to him. "What was that?" she asked.
"I, uh, beat the level?" Kensei replied as he recovered from her surprising appearance, even though nothing about Kiiko was ever restrained. Another chicken dropped from the top of the screen and Kensei started the stop-start flying technique he'd just used to land the one before it.
Suddenly something buzzed against his side, and it felt like something was trying to tear its way out of his pocket. As Kensei lost control and Astro Chicken fell to his doom, he realized it was just his phone vibrating. He got it out, ignoring the mocking yellow GAME OVER sign on the screen.
There was a text message from an unknown sender, but skimming it told him who sent it.
"Servers hacked to leave message. Perpetrator has identified themselves and wants meeting with Riders, claims hack was requested to them by Kuroto Dan. Wants meeting at south platform of Tomobiki Station ASAP. Show Gashats to notify contact."
Kiiko leaned over his shoulder, resting her chin against it. Kensei shuddered for a second. "Kuroto Dan?" she asked. "He was the bad guy who made the old monsters, right? The Buggers?"
"Bugsters, but yes," Kensei answered.
She stuck out her tongue and made a disgusted noise in her throat. "Even what I thought they were is a better name."
"…if they have a cool-sounding name or not really isn't the point, Kiiko."
"Of course it is! How are the heroes supposed to seem cool if they fight enemies with dumb names? What's impressive about beating a bad guy who sounds weak?"
He half-chuckled, half-sighed. "Guess we know what we're doing after your shift," he said.
"You have way better things to do than look into stupid rumors about a bad guy they already beat."
"But heroes are always supposed to answer calls for help, right? If they just went straight through all the towns without helping anybody the game would be over in two hours, wouldn't it?" he replied with a teasing smile.
"Mmm," she grunted.
Kensei walked around the block as he tried to call the other Kamen Riders to make sure he didn't fall asleep from the huge burger he'd let Kiiko talk him into eating for his training.
When he turned a corner he suddenly stopped and stared at something he thought he saw in the sky between two buildings. What he assumed was a spaceship, looking just like a dark blue turnip with a pair of pole sticking out from the sides, crazhed in a giant block hanging in the air and disappeared in an explosion with blocky edges like in an old video game.
Then he blinked and there was nothing there.
"...This is Kasuga. Hello?...Hello? Hidenaga, you better not just be calling to make some stupid prank!"
"Uh, hi!" Kensei yanked his phone back up to his ear. "Did you get a text from GENM just now?"
"Of course I did," Yoshoku replied. "We gonna look into that now?"
In the sky where he'd just seen the spaceship had exploded a series of words in dull pink letters: "STAR EVIL: Ready." Then just like the ship it was gone again.
"Hidenaga?...Hidenaga! I swear, if you're playing around on purpose—"
"Yoshoku, have you seen any weird video game stuff in real life lately?" Kensei asked.
"All the time. We fight video game monsters together, remember?"
"No, I mean…I guess you haven't. Let's meet at the station."
"On my way. Are you bringing Mishiranu?"
Kensei scanned the skies again for a few seconds before he answered. "Yeah, just in case. I get the feeling something weird is going on."
"Like what?"
"I don't know yet," Kensei answered.
As he and Kiiko walked through the streets Kensei couldn't shake a feeling that something really was wrong. The poisoned injury on his arm seemed to shake a little instead of just the usual painful itch.
But soon it was more than just that. There seemed to be some kind of magnet pull on the back of his brain as he walked, like some power was building up nearby. As he looked over at Kiiko, she looked him in the eye and asked, "Do you feel that too?"
He nodded. "I feel like, I don't know, like something's getting ready to happen. Something big. Something…bad."
As they got to the station platform Kensei took out his En En Chambara Gashat and started to twirl it on one finger like he'd been told, hoping that the person who'd hacked GENM would see it and come out to tell them what was going on.
"Hey!" a high voice yelled out then, one voice rising over the noise of all the people chattering on the platform. No-one looked up from their phone or books, but suddenly a little girl shoved her way between a young couple, interrupting their kiss.
She had on a blinding green blouse and a dazzling yellow skirt, paralleling the electrified pink color of her sneakers. It was all Kensei could do to look straight at her, let alone the Mighty logo on the heel of her shoes, or the bearded knight with his winged helmet and flowing white cloak from Taddle Legacy on her shirt.
Although the girl herself would've been hard to miss all on her own. Just to start with she was a westerner, a pale girl with wavy brown hair and dark green eyes that bubbled with excitement. She ran at the two of them so fast Kiiko yipped and jumped backward, seemingly afraid the girl would knock her over.
Instead the girl stopped and looked up at the two of them, grinning. "Is that the real En En Chambara?" she exclaimed in wonder.
Kensei smiled as Kiiko recovered. "Yeah, this is real one. The one that isn't just a fun game, it's also where Kamen Rider Utsura's powers come from."
"Can I try it?" the girl gasped.
With an overly loud sigh to get everyone's attention Kiiko took a step forward. "It only works if your body's been specially reformatted," she explained, then gave the girl a sharp look. "Are you the person who hacked into GENM?"
The girl's enthusiasm faded away and she rubbed the toe of her shoe against the ground. "…not exactly," she admitted.
"What does that mean?" Kiiko asked.
Kensei stepped forward and got down on one knee to face the girl on her own eye level, before Kiiko accidentally made things too awkward with her bluntness. "Let's start over, okay? My name's Kensei, this is Kiiko. What's your name?"
"Perri!" she answered, her face lighting up again.
"Nice to meet you, Perri. Now, is it true you hacked GENM's computers? You must've had a really important reason to do something like that."
Perri chewed her lip. "I did it because Kuro-san said you needed to know something bad was coming soon."
He reached out and patted her shoulder. "How do you know Kuroto Dan? And what did he say's going to happen?"
All of a sudden the buzzing on the back of Kensei's head turned into a burn. He heard a whistling sound behind him, grabbed Perri and rolled over to his side as a long-bladed knife shot past Kensei's shoulder, cutting into the shoulder of his jacket and impaling itself in the side of a train car.
The knife's owner came running down the platform, half-bent over and his feet making no sound in the dead silence following an attempt on someone's life. He cackled faintly as he ran.
And it was no mystery why. His body was covered in light brown fur with dark spots running up his arms. He had a canine-like face, the muzzle a little short and flat on the end with tall egg-shaped ears. Like a hyena. The only thing he wore was a red unitard with a yellow belt over it.
"Come home with us, Perri," he said, then started to cackle again.
"I don't want to go," she whispered to Kensei. "Don't let Hyena take me…"
Kiiko crouched down and whispered to her, "We won't."
Kensei stoo back up, En En Chambara in one hand and his Gamer Driver in the other. He locked the Driver onto his waist and then hit the trigger button. "Kenjutsu Level 2!" He faced the Hyena. "I'm giving you one chance. Back way." Around them people were screamed and started fleeing in panic as they recognized a battle between two superbeings about to begin.
The monster's cackle was his first reply. "You know that's never how it works, Rider," he said.
"I know," Kensei answered. "But this isn't just a game," he added as he slotted the Gashat and his black and yellow undersuit raced out to cover his body. The pieces of his samurai armor appeared through the title screen of the game above him. They twirled through the air and attached themselves to his arms and legs, his helmet with its bright golden crescent rolling out last and landed on top of his head then locked in place with a click, completing the change to Kamen Rider Utsura.
A press off a button on the side of his belt brought up a ring of boxy icons around him and Utsura tapped one. Immediately the train platform was gone, and they were standing in a Game Area simulating a dirt road surrounded by grass. Large pools of rice paddies covered an area running from where the two of them were standing over to a tall green wall in front of an even taller red pagoda.
Hyena snapped his fingers and two long knives seemed to jump out of his palms before he clenched his furry fingers around them. Utsura responded by calling up another ring of icons around him and punching through one, causing a pair of wireframe short swords to form in his hands.
Kiiko grabbed Perri by the hand, dragging her behind a cluster of cherry trees as Hyena dashed to the side and Utsura blocked him. The Rider held up his swords, forming a V with the blades as Hyena slashed with one of his knives. Utsura closed his weapons together like a scissors, pinning the knife before he leaned back and yanked the weapon out of Hyena's hand.
But the monster just cackled again as he cocked back his remaining blade. Utsura was faster than the monster seemed to be expecting and disarmed Hyena with a fierce upward swing from one sword. For a second Utsura spun like a tornado and got his enemy with both swords at the same time.
The game monster was knocked through the air, but suddenly he crashed through something like a pane of glass and stopped. The empty air around him started to flicker and turned into the window of a train car, his legs dangling on the outside. Utsura stopped and stared in confusion as the scenery around where Hyena had landed pulled back to reveal the train platform, an ugly circle of miscolored pixels spreading out and breaking down the boundaries of the Game Area.
Suddenly a shadow jumped out of a crack in the tiles, something too tall and thin to be a real human, even if the nose hadn't been almost a foot long. As it moved in front of Utsura to block him another shape formed out of big blocky particles into a white-faced vampire in a tacky red jumpsuit. The vampire flashed his fangs and hissed menacingly at the Rider, who cleaved through him with a strong downward swing from both swords.
With a hiss of pain the vampire split in two and then exploded, peppering the platform with shiny blocks. The shadow tried to grab Utsura but his sword flashed out and cut through its fluttering arm. The shadow jerked back, its mouth dropping open in surprise before Utsura sliced through it horizontally with both blades, then down from its head to its hips. It popped and broke down into black blocks like the vampire had. As Utsura pullzed back the wakizashi in his hands, though, a weird blue-yellow static drifted back and forth across it exposing bits of the wireframe through the cover.
Perri and Kiiko watched the fight unfolding from behind a metal pillar holding up the ceiling. "Shouldn't we be running?" Perri asked.
"No," Kiiko replied quietly. "If he has minions around here, there's probably even more near here to try to get you if you run. We're safer here, where Kensei-kun can come help us if something happens."
By then Hyena had flipped back onto his feet as the Game Area broke down completely. Light caught on the tip of his knife as its owner cackled again. "Think you can pull that off again, Rider?" he taunted.
"I might be worried if you brought some tougher friends than those two!" Utsura retorted.
His enemy laughed, and it was lower than his normal cackling call. "You have no idea how strong our forces are."
"Then show me. Since you're the one who's not afraid."
That was when Hyena threw himself at Utsura, his knife aimed at the Rider's midriff. Utsura swung a sword to parry the attack again, but Hyena's knife passed right through the blade as the wireframe flickered into visibility and the top of the wakizashi cracked and then shattered. Hyena's weapon jabbed into his body, a giant HIT! graphic appearing at the point of impact. Utsura gasped in pain and staggered as three marks disappeared off his heath bar at once.
Kiiko gasped and covered her mouth as she saw an ugly blue bruise form on the yellow of his undersuit. In another instant it spread all over Utsura, the armor over his feet and shoulders, the crescent on his helmet starting to flicker through solidity and the green lines of their wireframes underneath.
But the horror of that was nothing compared to what Utsura himself saw. Behind Hyena weird flickering blocks rolled together into a shape and size like a human being. Then it solidified into a face he recognized: it was Yuuma Hidenaga, his older brother. His handsome face had been badly ravaged, with his skin ashy grey like a zombies and his eyes red and sunken in, his clothes dirty and ragged. He looked down at Utsura, his mouth hanging open in disappointment, maybe even fear. He looked over at Hyena, then turned away and buried his face in his hands before he disappeared.
Cold tingles ran up the Rider's arms. Utsura's other sword swung out slower than before, and Hyena laughed, exposing his teeth in a horrible grin. Then he caught the flickering blade in his hand and squeezed, making pink blocks go flying away from the shattered weapon. Utsura retreated, tossing away his destroyed swords. As he'd been expecting Hyena came after him, jabbing with his knife and laughing louder at his enemy.
And as he did Utsura pressed the x3 button on the back of his Mighty Hand. The glove shook with power before it spread to his whole body. Just before Hyena could stab him again Utsura turned into a red and yellow blur as the knife cut through the air where he'd been standing. In the next instant Utsura's fist swung up and connected with the furry monster's jaw. Another one of his laughs stopped in the middle as he was knocked flat on his back.
Utsura turned to check back on Kiiko and Perri, but whatever Hyena had infected him with seemed to be spreading faster. They could see his real eye behind the giant ones in his mask, then his entire face would be seen.
"Let's get out of here!" he yelled.
The girls stood up and ran for the stairs at the end of the platform with Utsura following them. He lurched forward as his boots flickered like he'd been expecting to have more weight in his feet, gasped and rolled down the last few stairs after them.
As he landed on the bottom his armor flickered away completely, and Kensei pulled the Gashat out of his belt. It hissed and almost jumped around in his hand, its circuit panel covered in a cloud of blue static.
"What's happening?" he gasped. "Why did I see—" Kensei started to gasp, then stopped himself. Yuuma…had that been part of Hyena's infection, or something else?
A huge dark shape appeared in the sky then started getting larger, the sky seeming to get darker as it came down. It was another monster, a grey-feathered vulture the size of a man. He shrieked and tried to bite Kensei's face as he came down. Before he could touch Kensei an ice spear suddenly shot out and smashed into him.
The vulture went into a crazy spin over their heads, but Kensei smiled in relief as he saw another giant bird coming their way. It looked like a huge yellow ostrich, and had another Kamen Rider on its back wearing a long purple robe and holding a staff in one hand.
"Glad you could make it!" he called to Rune.
"I'm sorry for having a life!" Rune called back as he pulled the Cocobobo he was riding to a stop.
"Yeah, right!" Kiiko yelled. "You were so late because you were trying to get to a save point so you wouldn't have to do a dungeon over in some game, I bet!"
"I did not! I left the system running so I wouldn't lose my progress!"
"WATCH OUT!" Kensei yelled to interrupt their exchange. "Those monsters have some kind of power that cancels out the Gashats! The one I was just fighting even got rid of a Game Area!"
Rune looked over and Kensei thought he could see disbelief in the giant eyes of the wizard-Rider's mask. But then the vulture-man had turned around and was coming back to attack again, the exposed red skin of its head turning darker, maybe in anticipation of the kill.
When Rune shot a jet of fire from his staff, the vulture-man suddenly flew up, a trail of blue smoke flowing from his wings that covered Rune's body. Patches of his cloak started flickering, the bird he was riding going completely rigid before changing back into just a wireframe model and then disappearing totally. Within another few seconds his armor was gone too, and only a confused Doku Dasao was left lying on the street.
The vulture-man landed and started to walk closer to where Kiiko and Perri were standing behind some stairs. "Come back with us, Perri," he said. "You're being so cruel to the Doctor…he misses you so much."
"No!" Perri screamed. "I won't help him! Stay away, Scavenger! All of you! I won't go back!"
"Perri," Scavenger, the vulture-man, squawked. His beak seemed to form itself into a mocking grin. "How are you going to stop us?"
"I won't let you," Kensei said even as the Gashat in his hand twitched. He jumped in between Scavenger and where the girls hid. Scavenger laughed, like he'd been expecting it, and swiped at the powerless teen with his wings. The feathers seemed to sharpen themselves into knives as they came at Kensei's neck.
Then there was the sound of a shot. A blast of grey blocks flew from Scavenger's shoulder where the shot landed. The monster spun around to face the one who'd shot him. There, in blue armor and aiming a smoking blue and white six-shooter at him, angry oversized eyes peering out from under the wide brim of his hat, was Kamen Rider Sling.
"You really do have this much trouble when I'm not around, huh?" Sling asked. Scavenger spread his wings but Sling fired his gun in a steady diagonal burst that bit into the monster's wings and kept him from flying off again.
Scavenger squawked slowly, but after a minute it got louder and it was obvious he was laughing. "You think that holding me off will protect her?" he asked. "That there are only a few of us? Our forces come from every game, they cover every type imaginable! Show them how powerful we are, White Rhino!"
Suddenly something huge and white charged around the street corner, turning so harshly it smashed through the concrete and rebar of the building with no resistance. It crashed into Sling, sent him tumbling like a ragdoll and covering him with that blue smoke or static, or whatever it really was. His armor flickered all over and then faded away like the other Riders'.
As his attacker stopped the could finally make it out, a huge musclebound man, but with the head and horns of a rhinoceros, the tip giving off the smoke. The only thing he wore was tight blue pants and a pair of dull bronze bracelets. He roared and pounded his chest while Scavenger made his squawking laugh, and both stepped closer to the powerless teens.
"Run!" Kensei yelled. White Rhino bellowed and charged after the youths as they ran away. Kensei himself hung back, limping after his friends. White Rhino turned after him, seeing an easy target, and after the horned juggernaut got closer Kensei suddenly broke into a run and jumped over the roof of a car.
White Rhino crashed right through the car, but there was no sign of Kensei when the surprised monster pried his horn out of the wall. Scavenger hovered nearby, looking around and hissing, sounding extremely annoyed. Hyena danced up beside the others, chattering again as he twirled twin knives, one on the index finger of each hand.
"Looks like they got away from you," he laughed at the other monsters.
"They got away from you first," Scavenger squawked angrily.
White Rhino started shaking his hands from side to side and looked around nervously. "Doctor Morbis isn't going to like this," he said in a deep, gravelly voice.
"He prepared us for this," Scavenger replied.
He held up a Rider Gashat. Its case was transparent, revealing the circruit board inside. The label showed a young boy falling back as a dragon, a ninja, a spaceship shaped like a winged arrowhead and an eyeball with metal tentacles came out of his TV screen. The name on it was Action 52, and the panel sticking out of the top was giving off a fountain of the same blue smoke that had disabled the Riders' powers.
With his taloned thumb, Scavenger pressed the trigger button. The game crackled and fizzled instead of giving a loud activation at first, as if it couldn't connect with its own data. "Crrrgggt! Frzzzt! 52 games in 1! Zzzrrrrrf! They're smooth! Like ice! A game a week for an entire year!" it finally exclaimed.
Small, dark shapes started to shoot up out of the Gashat's circuit board. As they got higher they changed into more definite forms. Bats. Small dragons. Meteors. Fighter ships in a variety of poorly-conceived shapes and images. Triangular medieval shields floated up along with the others.
Then in the sky, they started to spread out in all directions and buzzing like a cloud of angry, badly-drawn hornets.
A single gigantic scream seemed to go up at once as streams of ugly pixelated spaceships flew lower between buildings, parts of some of them flickering between totally out of place colors against the rest of their armor.
A few of them flew extremely low, crashing into the middle of a row of traffic and a group of cars blowing up into clouds of flames that strangely seemed to stop billowing, then turned into the stark yellow and red of low resolution 8-bit graphics.
More of the ugly spaceships buzzed the people on the streets, who were already fleeing in panic into any doorway or down any side street close enough. A man in a tight grey suit fell, the spot between his shoulders giving off tiny clouds of pixelated smoke from a projectile just barely recognizable as a laser beam.
A golden shield crashed through the eighth-floor window of an office then flew through like a battering ram overturning computers and desks, and one screaming lady too slow to dodge out of the way.
One ship crashed into the side of a building, its pixels tumbling through the air. One landed at a man's feet and suddenly changed into a bulging sack with a yen symbol on the front. Gasping at his good fortune he reached out to grab it, then screamed in pain as it started burning his hand.
In the middle of it all, the powerless Kamen Riders were running form shadow to shadow in the spaces between the big buildings. Fiery explosions with visible pixel seams between the parts erupted around them. Yoshoku pulled Kiiko away from the edge of a blast as a car went up in flames behind them, and the singes to her clothes and skin were plenty real.
"What do we do?" Doku asked once a patrol of spaceships flew past without noticing them and he dared to step away from in front of Perri.
"We regroup," Kensei answered.
Yoshoku scowled as squadrons of mismatched game enemies flew by. "We shouldn't be running," he hissed. "We should be ending this."
"We would. If we had anything to fight with," Doku replied.
"I know," Yoshoku replied, scowling more intense than when they'd been rivals.
After ten minutes of watching the skies and the path behind them, they slipped into the Seitou University Hospital building. Getting in a certain elevator and then tapping in a code on the buttons—Basement twice, First Floor, Door Open and Door Close at the same time—it dropped so fast Perri's gasp at the speed turned into a gulp as the air was suddenly forced up out of her lungs.
Kiiko covered her mouth, but Kensei could tell she was chuckling a little at the little girl's surprise.
"Where are we going?" Perri managed to wheeze out.
"To the secret hideout!" Doku said, grinning down at her.
Perri looked up at him, her jaw dropping in disbelief. "You have a secret hideout?!"
"Of course we do," Yoshoku chimed in. "The other Kamen Riders used to use it, now we do."
The elevator stopped and they walked down a short hall into the CR room. As soon as they were inside Kensei got a bottle of antiseptic and a cotton swab out of a first aid box and walked over to Kiiko. "…what are you going to do with those?" she asked nervously.
"You're burnt. Hold still."
"Nooooooo! That hurts!" Kiiko dodged as Kensei tried to clean the burn mark on her arm. She jumped over the meeting table away from him and back into a corner on the platform. Kensei patiently walked around to where she'd gone, and Kiko shrieked, jumped over the rail on the edge of the platform, climbed down and dropped onto the lower floor.
He walked after her again. "Kiiko, it's so it doesn't get infected."
"Yeah, you should listen!" Perri called down the stairs. "I wish I had a nice boyfriend who looked out for me like that!"
Kensei went rigid in the middle of his step and almost missed the next one. "W—w—w—we're not going out," he managed to stammer.
"…that…THAT'S RIGHT!" Kiiko yelled back up the stairs. "Besides, kids your age shouldn't think about things like that!"
"Kiiko, you act like a kid with how you always just make me play video games with you," Kensei mentioned.
She turned red and pointed an accusing finger at him. "You were no good at games until I started training you!"
"He's still no good at games," Doku interrupted. "Hidenaga, how about you let me train you from now on?"
"Tch! Are you kidding?" Yoshoku spoke up too. "What do either of them know? You learned more from your brother, Hidenaga."
Suddenly a huge shadow fell over the two of them. It was Kiiko, except she'd seemed to have grown to ten feet tall and her eyes were glowing like exploding stars. "What did you say about my training?" she growled.
Then Kensei appeared next to her and rubbed a swap of iodine on the burn wound. She flinched in surprise then yelped as the sting set in.
And then all of them noticed Perri giggling. "Oh my god…you guys are really the Kamen Riders?"
"Even the best sentai have funny moments," Kensei replied as he grabbed Kiiko around the middle to keep her from running away as he cleaned off her arm, but he was smirking a little as he did.
Doku sighed. "Without our Gashats that's all we are, the comic relief," he said and set down his Taddle Craft cart. It still shook and hissed almost like a living thing. There was even a POP and it jumped an inch off the meeting table. Yoshoku put his Bang Bang Sunset cart down next to it and stepped back.
Even Kensei put En En Chambara on the table as thick, cloud-like blue haze passed over the shaking power item. The three Gashats seemed to sense each other, and shook and crackled as whatever the monsters had done to them crawled back and forth through their colorful cases. He sighed as he looked down at them, the basis of their power. Kensei had a feeling all three of them were thinking the same thing.
It was like part of himself was gone. Like he was less of a person than he'd been before getting into a fight with Hyena. Doku sighed too and looked down helplessly at the sources of their power, his earlier enthusiasm from showing Perri the hideout gone.
"Mmmrgh," Perri suddenly groaned. She clutched the sides of her head, her eyes squeezed shut. She jerked it from side to side, as if she thought she was trying to fight off a persistent headache. Doku was reaching out for her shoulder to help her, then her eyes snapped open and an excited smile formed on her face. "I REMEMBER!"
Doku recoiled in surprised, but Yoshoku leaned forward. "What do you remember?" he asked.
"About other games you can use!" Perri exclaimed. "Kuro-san told me! I just remembered!"
"…you did?" Doku asked after he'd recovered. "That's a really important thing."
"Yeah, it is," Yoshoku added. "Kind of surprising you'd just forget something that like," he said, eyes narrowing a little.
The next thing he knew Doku was standing between them. "She's a kid, okay?" he said defensively. "Cut her some slack."
Yoshoku folded his arms and tapped his bicep with his finger. He leaned and whispered in Kensei's direction. "Back me up, Hidenaga: isn't this all a little convenient? This kid we know nothing about shows up right before we get attacked, then when our weapons get taken out, suddenly she knows where to get replacements. And she says the guy telling her all this is the same one who almost destroyed the world."
"It is kind of convenient," Kensei admitted. "But we're already trapped pretty well just by losing our power. Besides, let's not forget how that same guy eventually teamed up with the other Kamen Riders to save the world."
"Yeah," Yoshoku replied, his face still hard. "So he could survive until he had a chance to fix his plan."
"Yeah well, we don't have any plan right now. And your mother would help somebody in trouble like Perri, right? You in, or not?" Kensei asked
Giving Kensei a withering look, Yoshoku answered, "Fine, I'm in. But I'm going into this looking for a trap."
To his surprise, Kensei put a hand on his shoulder, and smiled over at him. "I'll be counting on you to watch our backs." Kensei turned away from him and back to Perri, "Can you show us where the other games are?"
"Guys!" Doku said as they started following Perri out. "I think I managed to put it all together…those monsters we fought, all those weird different enemies that looked badly made, I think I remember why they looked familiar."
"Well, don't leave us in suspense," Yoshoku prompted.
"It's from a game called Action 52. It's supposed to be one of the worst-made games ever."
More and more spaceships, dragons, and rockets straddled by cowboys twirling laser lariats over their heads were filling the sky. Through the dark, ugly stream overhead, it was almost impossible to see a black island floating above as it came down, especially with how it flickered in and out of sight every few seconds.
The island came down, covering five blocks on every side. It was covered by what looked like a brown rocky mountain one minute. As it touched down the outside of the mountain peeled away, leaving a tower of shiny black boxes. A second later windows lit up on its sides, and the ground around its based sprouted smaller buildings.
The city around one edge flickered and then turned into a grey, cratered-covered surface like moon. It got to the end of a block and stayed a crater-covered lunar surface but turned a tropical green. Another block and the rocks became a bright berry purple. On another side a forest of identical trees in perfectly symmetrical rows spread over the buildings. In another direction an 8-bit version of a sleepy Mexican village with clay houses and a street barely wide enough for two people to walk down side by side, fenced in by round bushes and littered with colorful sombreros.
At the very top of the shiny black tower at the center of all the unfolding chaos, a man in a green jumpsuit with yellow stripes running along the shoulder. His face was craggy and just one side of distinguished. His hair was black and thinning, forming into a short widow's peak on his forehead and a scraggly mustache and goatee.
"I hope you have good news for me, Cygore," the man said as the door slammed closed behind the man who'd just entered. He was a slight, stooped man, wearing a dark green apron and gaudy yellow pants. He had a wispy skullet, black hair hanging down past his shoulders while his forehead was so bald and shiny it seemed to give off a light of its own. The man's nose was long and pointed, almost looking like a bird's beak. His right arm was gone, replaced by a mechanical prosthetic ending in a metal pincer.
"Yes, Doctor Morbis," Cygore answered in a high, nasal voice. "Scavenger's found the girl, and made sure none of her friends have left the building they snuck into. More of our forces are closing in to surround the area."
The doctor whipped around, a scowl on his severe face. "Not good enough!" he snapped. "Only she can make us complete! Why didn't the Sub-Species secure her in the first attack?!" Doctor Morbis held up his gloved hand, block-shaped sections flickering into different colors and then into complete transparency. "Even I can't keep this up for ever, Cygore!"
"Doctor," his assistant whined, "I wasn't even there! Besides, you made them to be the fighters! I just work in the lab!"
Morbis took a step back and sighed, pushing the palm of his glove against his face. "Speaking of," he asked less harshly. "how is the final member of the group coming?"
Cygore's face lit up. "The Ape-Man's all ready! He broke his way out of the tube! A tank couldn't have blown through that glass, but he did it with his bare hands!"
"Man-Ape, idiot," Doctor Morbis corrected his assistant. "Get him ready to fight. Evidently, we can't afford to pull our punches."
"With all due respect, Doctor, the Kamen Riders are helpless. They're just kids now," his assistant said, thoughtfully twirling the claw on his arm, then immediately regretted it. Doctor Morbis stared at him so coldly that Cygore was sure icicles were forming on the knife-like end of his nose.
The temperature seemed to drop more as a furious silence covered the room like some kind of evil, suffocating blanket. Cygore was about to turn and run, even though he knew it would do him no good, when Doctor Morbis answered. "We shouldn't count them out yet."
"Yes, Doctor! You're the boss!" Cygore said. Then he turned and ran out of the room before Doctor Morbis changed his mind again.
The five youths stopped and looked around one last time for any sign of game enemies. Once they all gave a nod that the coast was clear they made their way to the rust-spotted back door of the filthy concrete building Perri had directed them to through their tense trip through town.
On the way over, Doku had told them what he knew about Action 52: "I heard about it because of a video on the internet, when this guy reviewed a comic about the Cheetahmen, who were the mascots of this obscure game that was supposed to be really bad. It was called Action 52 because it was a cart with fifty-two built in games."
"And you can tell all those things were from that game because you can just recognize them?" Yoshoku had asked, more than a little incredulously.
Doku had frowned at him then. "Those three monsters we fought were some of the main villains from the comic, thank you. And I checked out some videos of Action 52 after that, and they were all a mess of half-made, broken games that were just embarrassing! Even for video games back then!"
A cold trickle of anxiety then seeped down Kensei's spine and seemed to settle in the bottom of his stomach. "Those games are so broken and they broke the Rider Gashats too?" he voiced his fear.
No-one had said anything after that. On the way Kensei was sure he saw the corrupted version of his brother again, but before he could make a move Yuuma was gone again.
The building Perri led them too was dark and empty, but by the light of their smartphones she took them to an old office and pulled a rusted, useless-looking switch almost hidden behind a battered desk. Her proud smile returned as the lights in the office and all down the hall came on.
"Not bad," Yoshoku admitted. "Dan was stealing power, and they never figured out how even after they caught him looks like."
"He was pretty smart," Perri said with a nod.
But Kensei put his hand on her shoulder. "We'll see if that's true after we get those Gashats he hid."
"He was, you'll see!" Perri replied. A few minutes later they entered into a large room with a bank of electric meters against the wall and a loading door on the corner next to them. There were still a few black folding tables set up around the room, probably left over from when Kuroto Dan had been hiding out there while on the run from the police.
Kiiko pressed her fingers to her temples and shut her eyes. "There's something here. It does feel like a sleeping Gashat."
While they talked Perri had stepped away and was running her fingers over a strip of rough concrete at the bottom of a wall. Her fingernail sank into a hidden seam, and Perri grinned as she pulled open on a concealed panel. Inside was a thick silver briefcase that she took out and dropped on one of the old tables.
She started fiddling with combination locks on the case, and Doku and Yoshoku stepped away for space as they waited for her to finish. Kiiko looked over at Kensei, who was leaning against the wall, staring at his feet. "Kensei-kun, is everything all right?"
He looked up at Kiiko and smiled a little, but his eyes seemed tired as they met hers. "About as good as they can be, with game monsters all over town," he answered.
Kiiko was about to press her question when there was a loud click. The top of the briefcase sprang open and Perri led out a triumphant yip. They came over and saw three Rider Gashats resting in a cut block of foam.
The first one had a bright blue case, showing a superhero in a gaudy costume; green on the torso with a yellow stripe down the front, bright blue sleeves and legs with blindingly white gloves and boots. He had on a yellow hood and white goggles with a silvery spike on the front of his mask as well. The logo above the character said BRAVOMAN – SUPER UNEQUALLED HERO OF EXCELLENCE!
Second was a white one showing a man in a white suit and helmet, a big red chevron on the chest, using an air pump to inflate a round red monster with a yellow diving mask on. The logo said DIG DUG.
The third and last had a dark purple case, the label showing a winged, blue-scaled Western-style dragon. A pair of long yellow horns reached back from the top of its head, and from the look in its narrowed amber eyes it almost seemed to be challenging the person looking back to play. It was sitting on the logo, which said DRAGON SPIRIT.
As they inspected the games, Perri reached inside the top of the case and pushed a small black button hidden in a corner. A cone of light gushed out of a spot in the middle of the top of the case, and in it formed a hologram of a slender, handsome man in a dark suit, but whose smile seemed somewhat condescending. Perri squealed and grinned as she recognized him.
"Greetings, players! It is I, God Kuroto Dan!" he said, holding his arms out at his sides in greeting, as if waiting for praise he couldn't hear. He then held up his fingers as he addressed his audience. "If you've discovered this then the game has taken an unexpected turn."
While Kuroto launched into his schpiel, Kensei palmed the Dragon Spirit game as surreptitiously as he could.
"What you see in front of you are games representing history. You may not even have known they exist. That is why they make the perfect wild card: the old are usually forgotten, overlooked, and underestimated. Whoever is threatening my glorious vision will never expect the power these games contain."
Doku and Yoshoku gave each other a look. "Nice to keep your priorities straight," Yoshoku muttered. Perri shushed him.
And Kuroto went on. "Yet their status as legendary games, their place in history gives them great protective powers. So, players, champions, arm yourselves and strike down the blasphemers who challenge the gamemaster's design!" he exclaimed, gazing upward and waving his arms out to his sides as if staring up at something majestic. Then he suddenly leaned forward and said in a sharp whisper. "And don't even think about rebelling against me with those. It won't work."
The hologram flickered out and the light feeding it flicked off. "That's some awfully forward thinking, from what I remember seeing of the guy," Doku spoke up.
"Maybe these weren't strong enough to make a difference by the time things were really happening," Yoshoku replied.
"Let's hope they're strong enough to solve our problem," Kensei put in. Then he immediately walked away from the case. As Doku and Yoshoku reached out for a new Gashat they saw the empty spot, and started to spin around when they saw something that stopped them all cold.
A thick, syrupy blue puddle was oozing under the loading door behind them. It seemed toinflate, pushing the door up with a horrible metal clattering from the rusted wheels being forced up the contorted tracks.
"Get ready!" Kensei yelled unnecessarily, his new Gashat already held up as he positioned himself between Perri and the blob.
The door slammed into place at the top of the track. Standing on the other side were White Rhino and Hyena, the deranged monster laughing as he licked the blade of his knife. In the sky behind them a dark shape hovered, Scavenger the vulture-man.
"We're done asking nicely, Perri," White Rhino growled, then huffed threateningly through his huge nostrils.
"What do they even want?" Doku whispered to her.
"They want me to make things like this forever," she whispered back. "I don't want to go…I don't want the world to be broken!"
Doku squeezed her hand and she smiled weakly. Then he suddenly let go and charged the two game monsters. Following his lead Yoshoku and Kensei ran after him, awkwardly jumping over the puddle of blue slime on the ground. The two monsters were so surprised by the Riders charging them with no armor they actually jumped back.
"Now!" Doku yelled and raised the Gashat he'd grabbed and hit the trigger. "Dig Dug Dig Dug DIG! Pooka Pop! Fygar Flop! Collect veggie treasures!"His normal black and green undersuit formed over him as the title screen showing Dig Dug inflating a round red Pooka appeared above. A boxy white Gamer floated out then split apart and attached itself to him. A white crash helmet with a blue rectangular bar on top and matching visor came over his head, cube-like shoulder pads were next and then a chunky white chest plate with a red chevron on the front was the last piece. His Gamer Septa had changed into a short white rod, and he twisted the knob on it causing a ring of icons to appear around him. He hit one showing a dark brown mine shaft.
Hyena spun his knife on the tip of one hairy finger as he came closer to Yoshoku, who lifted the Bravoman game defiantly and hit the trigger. "Chouzetzu Rinjin! Who is rising against me? I'm your friend from Planet Alfa! 'You're cool, but rude' – I don't get it! BERABOH!" it sang as he loaded the game into his gun and hit the trigger. The title screen of Bravoman leaning back as an army of robots and ninja came storming down at him appeared. A Gamer with a green center, blue appendages and white hands and feet bounced out of the screen, a long red scarf trailing through the air behind it. It hopped in crazy circles around Hyena a few times, the furry monster yelping in surprise and jumping back to keep it from crushing him.
Then it broke apart as the Gamers always did, and Yoshoku, now Sling, jumped into the air out of instinct as the bottom part came bouncing his way. His feet came down inside and they locked down on his undersuit, becoming blue pants with white boots that came up his knees. The main body of the Gamer came down over him next, covering his torso with a green shirt with a yellow stripe down the middle, and sleeves and gloves that matched his legs. The top spun a few times before it attached over his head, becoming a yellow hood with thick blue goggles over the big eyes of the goggles he already wore, with a lightly arcing needle-like fin sticking out of the top of those goggles. Around his neck was tied a long scarf that was a dark, heroic red in color.
Hyena had gotten over his surprise, and somehow snarled and laughed at the same time, stabbing the air with his knife. Sling called up a circle of icons showing Game Areas and tapped it with one gloved finger.
Kensei's hand was shaking as he clutched the new Gashat, but he managed to steady it and said, "Let's play." He hit the trigger. "The spirit fills you! Fly the wings of hope! Now the NEW DRAGON LEGEND is ready to begin! My sister IRIS is the scariest!" He slammed the Gashat into his belt and immediately his yellow and black undersuit unfurled over his body.
A massive Gamer the size of a car drifted out of the Dragon Spirit title screen, a horned blue dragon like the one on the label of the game. It shook its long neck back and forth, pushing the fighters around Utsura away with the force of its wings. Then it split apart and clamped down on Utsura as armor. The head came down over his, the jaw dropping down and covering his chest with his face peering out through its mouth. Chunky shoulder armor and a chest plate covering his health bar came next, covered in a pattern like rough blue scales. Heavy blue greaves with a silver-colored bar on the front and curved yellow fin on the sides closed over his feet. Lastly heavy gauntlets made of silver-colored bands over his arms that had a working of a dragon's head sticking out over his hands with golden horns trailing back over the forearm.
As soon as his new transformation completed Scavenger seemed to come dive-bombing at him, beak open letting out a terrifying scream. The crackling smoke that had put the Riders out of action before was trailing from his wings as he raked the talons on his feet against Utsura's thicker armor. It covered the Rider while Scavenger beat his giant wings and rose back into the sky.
But Utsura stepped out of the fog, a few puffs of the smoke from his enemy's wings crackling against his armor before dissipating. Like the others he called up a circle of icons and tapped one. As the world around him shifted, eight-foot wings expanded out of his new armor's back.
"We have to go now, Perri," Kiiko said as she pulled the younger girl's arm, being more serious than she ever had about anything.
"I'm not done yet," she complained, leaning away from Kiiko and trying to hook the edge of the case the new Rider Gashats came in.
"NOW, Perri!" Kiiko shouted, just as the little girl's fear-sweat-soaked hand slipped out of her grip. Perri yanked the block of foam out of the case and threw it away, almost hitting Kiiko in the face with it. Underneath was another rectangular object, one that Perri grabbed and slipped inside her shirt.
By then Kiiko had grabbed her wrist again and was dragging out the other door of the hideout. Perri didn't resist anymore. Instead she smiled gently as she cradled the bump hidden inside her shirt.
Those creepy game monsters hadn't gotten Kuro-san's masterpiece. And they wouldn't get it. No matter what.
The Game Area closed completely over White Rhino, who snorted in warning to his Rider opponent. He was standing in a tunnel with walls of brown dirt. A faint light seemed to come from somewhere even though the massive game monster was surrounded on all sides by dirt and rock. But Kamen Rider Rune had disappeared somewhere while the dank tunnel was forming.
Figuring, as he always did, that the best defense was a good offense, White Rhino bellowed loudly and took off down the tunnel at a ground-shaking run. His big feet tore up the ground leaving a cloud of dirt behind him as he ran, lowering his horn to meet Rune's spine when he caught up with the Rider.
Thanks to all the dust his juggernaut charge sent billowing up, he didn't see the hole in the floor until he was two steps away.
The warning cry he'd been yelling turned into a scream of terror and surprise as the ground broke away under him and White Rhino plummeted down the pit. Everything turned into a brown blur around him before he hit the floor of another tunnel what seemed like an hour later, blasting dirt down all the branches of the T-junction.
Once he'd managed to peel himself off the floor he leaned against the wall, trying to rub all the dust from his beady eyes with his big clumsy fingers. He didn't see it coming when a figure with a bright blue light shining from the top of his helmet ran up and landed a powerful flying kick on his side.
White Rhino whipped around, his horn aimed at the shape's heart. "There you are!" he yelled as he stabbed at Rune. The Rider lifted the rod in his hands and blocked Rhino's attack. Blue fog like before trickled off the tip but slid right past Rune. Rhino stopped pushing forward for a second as he was sure he heard Rune chuckling, then the Rider lunged forward and slammed his knee into the mutant's chin with surprising force.
Then before White Rhino could recover Rune tapped the button on his weapon and a wide drill bit popped out of one end. He stuck it against the wall and the dirt flew away from him digging a new tunnel. This time, though, White Rhino had a target in sight and charged again, right behind Rune.
He ran right underneath a boulder as it broke loose from the dirt in the roof of Rune's new tunnel.
Boxy nodes of the edges of the Game Area closed together into an empty construction site just before the knife flew at Sling's heart. The Rider gasped and to his surprise his legs suddenly stretched up until his head was almost ten feet off the ground when he stopped. The weapon went by underneath without doing any damage.
His legs retracted again and Sling went on the attack before Hyena had a chance to throw another blade. There was a lot of empty space between them, but he always already figuring out that didn't matter…
Sling threw a straight right at Hyena's face and the "extra" arm from the Gamer on top of his real one stretched out and the fist smashed into the mutant's jaw, his jeering laugh turning into a squawk of pain.
It slid back to its normal shape, and as Sling threw another stretching punch with his left he heard a muffled "BERABOH!" come from the voice of his gun its holster. Hyena gasped and ducked, sending Sling's fist whizzing overhead. Sling ducked too and threw a kick with his leg extending out at lightning speed, catching the mutant in the stomach with the full span of his boot.
Sling stood up and planted his other boot, the leg stretching out and extending him fifteen feet off the ground. The leg retracted with him still in the air, and he came down with his other foot aimed at Hyena. When his kick connected with the dazed mutant Hyena could only gasp as he was knocked to the ground. As soon as Sling landed he went into a crouch and threw another extending punch that caught Hyena in the chest and pushed him along the ground until Sling's arm got to its maximum length then snapped back.
Guessing he had one trick he still hadn't tried, Sling thrust his shoulders forward. The helmet stretched off his shoulders on a blue coil just like his arms and legs did in this form, colliding with Hyena's forehead. Knives went flying from his hands straight up into the air, all of them sinking into the ground tip-first in a circle around Hyena's unconscious body.
A majestic green forest with a river branching through it appeared below them, completely contradicting the screeching giant vulture coming at Utsura like a wrecking ball and trailing smoke from his wings.
Utsura's wings beat hard and pushed him backward out of Scavenger's way, the edge of the smoke trail covering him but washing off as it did before. The Rider sighed in relief; "the power of history", or whatever the heck Kuroto had been talking about, seemed like a pretty powerful defense after all.
He leaned down and flew after Scavenger, going on the offensive. Dragon Spirit was a game he'd never played before, but how much could there be to figure out about being a dragon?
Banking around to keep Scavenger in front of him, Utsura held out one arm. The dragon head on the end glowed then roared just as it spewed a fireball. The sizzling projectile flew and exploded between Scavenger's shoulders. The mutant's beak jerked open in a cry of pain drowned out by the explosive burst before he started going down, circling crazily toward the treetops below.
Utsura tucked in his wings and went into a dive after Scavenger. He knew the mutant probably still had some fight left in him and wasn't about to let himself be suckered into another bad position like when he'd underestimated Hyena before. The Rider aimed his other arm at the falling Scavenger and the dragon's face on the front flared with light before a smaller shot arced forward and fell like a bomb, exploding as it hit Scavenger too.
As his second shot hit home, Utsura saw someone standing in a break between some of the trees underneath him and froze.
Even from that high up, Utsura's sharpened eyes could make out every detail. The ashy skin color. The dirty and ragged clothes. The despairing look on his pale face. It was the zombie-like version of Yuuma Hidenaga that Utsura had seen in his last fight. His eyes seemed to burn through the Kamen Rider's mask even that high in the sky, and Utsura could see him whisper the words, "How could you fail us?"
The next thing Utsura knew something had crashed into his back and was tightening clawed fingers around his throat. It could only be Scavenger, but even though Utsura aimed a fireball over one shoulder the stranglehold on his neck just got even tighter. Blackness started creeping in from the edges of his eyes.
Then there was a loud TWANG and Scavenger screeched and let go. The ground seemed to spin but Utsura's wings sprang all the way out and stopped his fall. He went into a circling glide, letting him get his bearings. There was no sign of his brother on the ground, but Utsura did see someone else. It was a man with the head and fur of a cheetah, wearing a white gi and a black belt with a dark blue buckle.
And in one hand was a loaded crossbow pointed to the sky.
The cheetah fired his shot. It went wide of Utsura's shoulder by a few feet and hit Scavenger who turned around and flew to a safe distance while Utsura finished coming down a decent distance away from the cheetah. He squinted, trying to gauge what the new entrant in the fight wanted.
But he kept it aimed at the ground.
Then the cheetah spoke in a crisp British accept. "I say, dear chap, don't you think you should keep your eyes on your enemy?"
"Who are you?" Utsura demanded.
With unbelievable speed—how much from his species and how much from skill, Utsura could only guess—the cheetah whisked another bolt out of a quiver on his back and reloaded his weapon.
Then he looked Utsura straight in the visor and answered, "My 'father' named me Apollo."
In the tunnel, White Rhino managed to work enough space under his arm to punch the boulder and send a thin crack shooting all the way to the top. Another punch and crack the widened. Then a third punch and his fist blasted through the stone, smashing it into a storm of rocky splinters.
"I'm stronger than you think, Rider!" White Rhino roared. He spotted Rune turning to run off down the tunnel again and lowered his head as he charged after the young hero. He'd taken a few gigantic steps before suddenly he heard a high-pitched roar and something grabbed him from behind, hooking a pair of powerful arms over his own in a full nelson.
Rune stopped suddenly as he heard White Rhino struggling behind him. Something else had attacked his enemy? Since when did Game Areas spawn other enemies? But then he saw who was wrestling with White Rhino and recognized them.
It was a cheetah-faced man with huge shoulders and biceps, whose white shirt and pants were secured by a black belt, the buckle showing a black baobab tree over a red background. The fur on top of his head was styled into a buzzcut.
And Rune recognized him.
"Hercules!"
The cheetahman looked up. " 'Ey, you talkin' to me?" he asked in a cheesy Rocky Balboa impersonation.
Suddenly Hyena rolled onto his stomach and grabbed two of his knives that were stuck into the ground. The turned into silver blurs as he hurled them at Sling.
Sling gasped and was about to throw a punch and knock them out of the air, but something yellow and white sped out from behind a stack of oil drums and swatted the weapons aside. "Oh no," Hyena managed to groan and laugh at the same time.
It was a cheetah-faced man in a white tank top and pants, wearing a black belt that showed a black baobab tree on yellow background for the buckle. He had a read bandana tied around his head and twirled a pair of long wooden clubs in his hands.
"What's the matter, sub?" the cheetahman laughed at Hyena, talking in a high, slightly nasal voice.
"…who in the hell are you supposed to be?" Kamen Rider Sling demanded.
The cheetahman laughed over his shoulder. "Name's Aries. Who are you supposed to be? Bravoman?"
Hyena snarled as he got to his feet and flashed a knife in each hand. He threw one at each of his new enemies, Aries batting it out of the way with his club, and Sling's arm stretched and slapped the other out of the way.
Aries rushed Hyena, swinging his clubs back and forth through the air and yelling, "LIVIN' LARGE!"
Sling could only stare at the cheetahman's back for a second in disbelief, then ran after him, throwing a stretching punch at their shared enemy.
And now…the Cheetahmen.
Ah, this has been a trip. The rest promises to be crazy too.
Couple of notes. I realize the name of the Bravoman Gashat isn't the real translation of the game's name, just throwing a little shout out to the cartoon based on it from a few years ago.
As for the Cheetahmen, I'd considered the Kamen Riders having Gashats based on the three of them to be able to fight in the broken game environments of Action 52, but eventually decided it was way more in the spirit of ficcing to have the Riders meet up with them instead.
Incidentally, that video review of the comic book that came with Action 52 about the Cheetahmen is really, it was done by Bobsheaux. Last I looked it was still up. Because that didn't really give them much personality, though, the way they act and talk is based on that commercial for the game. Last I checked that was still up on youtube too.
Also, in the spirit of cost-cutting in actual tokusatsu, I imagined Utsura's new dragon armor as looking like the Drago Knight Hunter Z suit painted blue and with bigger wings. ^^
Hopefully the story isn't TOO bulky, but at least I'm having a little fun with it… =)