Disclaimer: I don't own Kamen Rider, or anything whatsoever that is assorted with it, except for this fanfic.

Episode 1

Flare Up!

"I'm late!" Adrian shouted. "I'm late, I'm late! I'm late!"

He was running down the sidewalk, lunchbox in hand, his partially buttoned coat blowing in the wind that his running was creating. Several people stared at him as he blew past them. As he came to a street crossing, he had to grab the tree growing there to stop, or his speed would have carried him right out into the traffic.

Adrian continued his muttering of "I'm late" as he paced the edge of the sidewalk, waiting for the light to change so he could cross. Finally, the green walk symbol light up and he rushed across the street.

It was all his uncle's fault that he was late! If he had woken him up, instead of letting him sleep in! Honestly, Adrian didn't like school anymore then the next guy, but that didn't mean that he liked being tardy.

At least, the school wasn't too far of a run from the house, but it was still better to take the bus, especially since neither his aunt, nor his uncle could drive him, since they only had one car and his uncle needed that to get to work.

"Why me?" Adrian asked, as he entered the park. The good thing about walking to school was that you could go through the park. It wasn't much. Just your standard wooded area with cement paths and open fields, where families would have picnics, or people would play fetch with their dogs.

He was in too much of a hurry this time to appreciate his surroundings, but he did hear the rustling in the bushes around him. He stopped and glanced around. He was surrounded to his right and left by bushes; the rustling was coming from the right. It was probably just one of the homeless winos.

Something flew out of the bushes and collided with him, knocking him off his feet. He groaned and raised his head to see what the object was. He felt it roll over and suddenly found himself staring into a mouthful of teeth.

"Ah!" he screamed and batted the creature off of him, surprised at how easy it was.

Adrian leapt to his feet. He grabbed the nearest weapon he could find, a stick lying on the path, and raised it over his shoulder.

The creature rolled onto its feet. It looked a bit more like a robot then an animal actually. It was bright red with gold trimmings. It had two bat-like wings and a long tail ending in a golden triangle. It had four short legs and a long neck, ending in a lizard-like head with two backward swept horns. Its eyes were a dark blue color.

"You're a dragon!" Adrian exclaimed.

The dragon glared up at him. "Duh!"

"But you're so small!"

The dragon glanced down at itself and then up at him. "I'm not small, you're just too big."

Before Adrian could reply, the bushes rustled again and a black armored figure stepped out of them. The figure was human in shape, but beyond that didn't resemble a human at all. The parts of him that weren't covered with armor were covered by something that could have been scales, or mail. Its fingers ended in claws and its eyes lacked pupils and were just two red unblinking orbs beneath its visor. A large sword was strapped to its back.

"Get out of my way, boy," the knight-like creature growled. "My business is with the dragon, not you."

Adrian realized that he was indeed between the knight and the dragon. The knight began to slowly draw his sword, while the dragon hopped up and down angrily. "Come on! It's two against one, we can take him!"

The teen glanced back at the two foot tall dragon and then at the black knight. He tossed the stick at the knight's head and then grabbed the dragon by the tail and ran for it. He heard the knight's sword slice through the air and some of the bushes behind him.

If he had been moving fast when he was worried about being late for school, then Adrian must have been flying now. He got out of the bushes and into the park. He glanced back to see that the knight wasn't far behind, the armor didn't seem to slow him down much, neither did the large sword. As the knight ran, a dark purple light seemed to shine from him and his armor seemed to melt into his body, the scale-mail and even the sword also melted into his body. What replaced the knight was a black haired man wearing a leather trench coat and sunglasses.

"Help!" Adrian yelled.

"What do you mean 'help'?" the dragon asked. He opened his wings and caught the air. He flapped his wings trying to get away and slowing Adrian down in the process. "We can take him!"

"You want to get yourself killed then go ahead!" Adrian still didn't let go of the dragon's tail though.

"Halt!" Adrian looked over to see two police officers running toward the leather-wearing creep. The creep didn't look like he had any intention of halting though. Fortunately, the cops were close enough to the creep to tackle him before he could catch Adrian.

Adrian glanced forward and ran. He didn't care that the cops had caught his pursuer. He just wanted to get out of there.

--

The knight growled as the police hauled him up, his arms cuffed behind his back.

"All right, creep," one of the officers said shaking him roughly. "You're coming with us."

He growled as he watched his prey disappear around a corner. "I don't have time to waste with you."

The dark purple glow surrounded him again and he melted back into his monster form. He snapped the hand cuffs and spun to face the shocked police officers. He grabbed both of them by the throat and lifted them off of the ground. They groaned in pain as they struggled to take a breath, both of them managed to draw their guns and fire, but the bullets didn't seem to harm the monster at all.

He huffed as he dropped the human's limp bodies to the ground. Killing such inferior opponents was no fun.

Shifting back into human form, he spun around and walked away from the park. He had a pretty idea where his prey might have fled to and even if the dragon did leave the boy, he still deserved to die for getting in his way.

--

Adrian didn't stop running until he had reached the school. He stopped and sat on the steps to catch his breath, holding onto the dragon's tail tightly.

He looked up as his right foot felt unnaturally warm and he smelled something burning. The heat became unbearable and he looked down to discover that his shoe was on fire. He yelped and leapt up, stomping on his burning shoe with his other foot and trying not to fall over as he did. Finally, the fire was out, but his shoe was ruined.

The dragon chuckled as two trails of smoke rose out of his nostrils.

"What did you do that for?!" Adrian asked.

"You were holding onto my tail like it was a life preserver, or something," the dragon replied. "And you embarrassed me. I could have taken that guy by myself."

"You're two feet tall, if that," Adrian pointed out. "I always thought that dragons were supposed to be huge."

The dragon sighed. "I'm not going to bother explaining anything to someone who is scared of a fight."

"I'm not going to pick a fight I can't win," Adrian replied.

"Yeah, whatever," the dragon replied, turning and leaping into the air, only to be stopped in midair as Adrian grabbed his tail again. "Let go! I'm going to go give that armored idiot a piece of my mind."

"No way," Adrian said. "I'm not going to let you get yourself killed."

"What do you care?" the dragon asked as it was stuffed into Adrian's backpack. Adrian zipped it shut. "You know, I could burn out of here."

"I don't think you want to do that in front of the whole school," Adrian said, slinging the pack over his shoulder and entering the school.

"You're so weird," the dragon said as they walked down the empty hall. "You don't find it strange that you're talking to a dragon?"

"A little," Adrian replied. "Now, be quiet."

He pushed the door to his classroom open. He paused in the doorway as the whole class stared at him. A glance at the clock on the wall told him that he had arrived almost a whole hour late.

"Mr. Meadows, take your seat," the teacher, Professor Corbin ordered. Corbin was a skinny, short man with glasses. His skin was always colored red, like he had spent way too much time on the beach trying to get a tan. For some inexplicable reason, Corbin seemed to hate Adrian. Even though his uncle had promised to call in and explain why Adrian was late, Corbin was still going to try and use this to embarrass him. "In a timely manner, if you can possibly manage it."

The whole class snickered at that. Adrian sighed and sat down at his desk, setting his backpack at his feet.

He glanced over at the girl in the seat next to him. Mandy smiled at him cheerfully. Adrian returned a half-smile and glanced back at his backpack, more intent on watching it to see if it would burst into flame then paying attention to Corbin's math lesson.

--

"So, your uncle didn't get you up?" Mandy asked as they left the classroom and headed to lunch.

"No, he said that rest is sometimes more important then education, then my aunt whacked him right in the head with the newspaper," Adrian made a swinging motion with his arm.

"I wish my dad was like that," Mandy sighed.

"You wish you had to run to school, get there an hour late, and then have the teacher mock you in front of the whole class?" Adrian asked. Not to mention get attacked by a Knights of the Round Table reject.

Mandy didn't answer. She was watching a confrontation that was taking place farther down the hall.

"Ah, man," Adrian sighed. Jacob and his three large and burly friends were shaking Kenny down for his lunch money again. Kenny was two years younger then them, not to mention rather short. He was in other words, the ideal bully magnet. "Hold my backpack for a moment, okay?"

"Adrian, wait…" But he had already shoved his backpack at her and was dashing at the three bullies.

--

"Agh!" Adrian groaned as he rubbed his bruised head. He was sitting at his usual place in the school cafeteria. Mandy was sitting next to him; giving him the look that she gave him every time he did something that she thought was stupid.

"You really shouldn't do stuff like that," Kenny said, sitting across down from them. "They just wanted some money."

"They were stealing from you," Adrian said loudly.

"And they still got the money, even after you rammed your face into their fists a couple of times," Mandy remarked.

Adrian shrugged and scooted away from the two of them. Mandy scoffed and rolled her eyes at his behavior.

"I thought you wouldn't pick a fight you couldn't win."

"Huh?" Adrian glanced around and then looked down at his backpack to find that the dragon had pulled the zipper open enough for it to stick its head out. "That was different from earlier. There was a point to that."

"Uh-huh," the dragon nodded.

"Really, there was," Adrian glanced around, afraid that someone might overhear him talking to his backpack.

"Yeah, I know," the dragon said.

Adrian frowned. "What was the point to you fighting that thing before?"

He didn't hear the dragon's answer as at that moment, the wall behind him exploded. A small chunk of drywall hit him in the head. It hurt even more the Jacob's fist did.

Adrian rolled under the table and glanced around. A pair of black armored legs dropped into view. Adrian gasped as the table was picked up and thrown away and he found the knight standing over him.

"Run for it!" he heard Mandy scream over the noise of every other student in the room screaming.

Adrian leapt to his feet, but before he could take another step, the knight had wrapped his arm around Adrian's neck and pulled him back, cutting off his oxygen.

He could make the dragon out at the corner of his vision, trying to get the opening in the backpack wide enough for its entire body to fit through.

Mandy ran at the knight with her tray and whacked it into his head. The knight growled and used his free arm to gently shove her. The gentle shove sent her flying through the air.

Adrian slammed his elbow into the knight's mid-section, but it didn't seem to have any effect. He grabbed the knight's arm with both hands and pulled, but it didn't budge either. He felt himself slipping out of consciousness. He wandered if he would meet his parents in heaven.

Then he felt something wrap around his waist and a sudden surge of energy as well as an increase in temperature. He opened his eyes to find himself surrounded by flames. The knight was screaming in pain from the heat. Adrian didn't know why, the flames felt quite comfortable to him. The flames were sucked towards him, covering his body and changing into a suit of some sort. His face was covered last, the flames forming into a helmet. The knight screamed even louder. Adrian's new armor was red hot to the touch. He reached up and grabbed the knight's arm pulling it away from his neck. The knight growled in rage and pain. Adrian let go of the knight's arm and slammed his elbow into him. This time the blow sent him stumbling back several feet.

Adrian glanced over at Mandy to see that she was still conscious and staring at him, wide-eyed.

He glanced down at himself. His feet were covered by red boots each with a design similar to scales on them and wings on the side. The toes of the boots were gold with claw designs on them. His gloves were also red and covered with scale and wing designs. The backs of his hands had gold armor shaped like a dragon's head. His fingers were covered with gold armor and the tips of his fingers were designed to look like claws. The armor on his chest followed the same designed, except that golden armor plats made to look like wings covered his shoulder and there was a red dragon head in the center of it. The eyes of the dragon were dark blue and appeared to be made of crystal of some kind. Whatever wasn't covered by armor was covered by a black suit.

His helmet was red like the rest of his armor. Two horns swept back from it, with a third horn in the center, but this horn was also a tail that was connected to the front of the mask. The lenses of the helmet were shaped like dragon wings and were a dark blue color. His mouth guard was shaped like a dragon's head.

"Hey, stop daydreaming, idiot."

Adrian glanced down at the belt wrapped around his waist. The buckle was shaped like a dragon head on its side. On both sides were two large armored pieces, the left resembled the front part of a dragon and the tail was holstered behind it. Oh the right was the larger piece and the back part of the dragon. The wings were on the back.

"Is that you?"

"Of course, it's me!" the dragon's head buckle replied angrily.

The black knight had meanwhile recovered and threw a punch at the back of Adrian's head. Adrian tilted his head to the side and the blow missed. The knight grunted in surprise and then Adrian spun around and delivered a kick to the creature's ribs, sending it flying through the air and out of the building the same way that it had enter, through the wall.

Adrian glanced back at Mandy to see that she had gotten up and ran for the exit. He looked back at the hole in the wall and stepped through it. The knight was waiting outside.

They were a few feet away from the school playground. Adrian was glad to see that it was empty. They were in the school's backyard. There were a few trees planted there, but it wasn't much.

The knight charged at him and threw a punch as soon as he was in range. Adrian caught his wrist before the blow connected. Adrian punched him twice with his free hand and then let go of his wrist, so he could hit the knight with both fists. He ended his flurry of punches with a kick that sent the knight skidding back several feet.

"Finish him!" Adrian's belt shouted. "Flip the armored segment on the left side of the belt down."

"You know, I don't find it strange talking to a dragon," Adrian said as he rotated the segment down. "But I do find it strange to be talking to a belt."

"You'll get used to it; pull the legs on that side up."

Adrian grabbed the legs and pulled them up. There was loud click and a gold dragon head was thrust out of the bottom of the piece of armor.

"Flare up!"

The golden dragon head opened its mouth and spat out a stream of fire which traveled down Adrian's leg and to his foot. The flames streamed up and surrounded his whole body.

The knight had meanwhile stood back up. Adrian leapt at the monster and raised his foot, the flames streaming behind it like some kind of wave. The knight reached for his sword and unsheathed it, swinging it up as Adrian fell toward him. A yellow flaming dragon head surrounded Adrian's foot and it connected with his foe's chest. Then there was a massive explosion…