Disclaimer: I don't own any rights to Kamen Rider with the exception of this fanfic and its characters.
Chapter 1
Guard your Life
It was a hot and humid night, the kind that Donald Ames looked forward to. The pool in his backyard saw plenty of use during the summer and he had already broken his record time from one end of the pool to the other. Tonight he hoped to shave off a few more seconds.
He gasped as he surfaced and picked up the digital wrist watch he had sitting by the side of the pool. He sighed as he saw his time hadn't improved at all.
A loud croak sounded nearby. He glanced around, puzzled since there shouldn't have been any frogs living in the suburbs. The croak sounded again, louder then before. A splash followed and Donald whirled around.
A large silhouette rose out of the water at the other end of the pool, another loud croak coming from it. Don screamed and grabbed hold of the pool's edge, pulling himself out, but the frog monster swam across the pool with frightening speed and laid a slimy hand on his back, pulling him back in.
The neighbors heard his scream and would call the police, who wouldn't show until early the next morning, roping the house off with yellow crime scene tape.
Detective Launders had been placed in charge of the case. After interviewing the neighbors, one of the younger officers had fetched him, insisting he look at the pool. The water in the pool had turned a lime green color and had a thin layer of mist rising from it. Donald Ames floated face down in the center of the pool.
"Looks to me like he should have used more chlorine," Launders muttered to himself.
"I hardly think that is the problem," Launders looked up to find a stone faced woman with black hair striding towards him. Her Asian-skinned flunky with the scar-covered face trailed her as usual.
"Care to explain what the problem is this time, Mary?" Launders asked.
"No, we're taking over as usual," Mary replied. She looked at the rest of the officers. "So you can all go reduce the donut population, or whatever it is you do."
Launders scowled and turned away, shouting orders at his men. Mary stood by and watched the police pack up and leave, Launders muttering grumpily the whole time.
"So it's a well digger this time?" the Asian-American asked when they were finally alone.
"A most unusual one it would appear," Mary said, glancing at the green liquid.
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"No running!" Tom shouted, glaring down from atop the lifeguard's chair at the five-year old below. The infant of course ignored him and kept right on until he reached the ladder leading into the shallow end of the pool.
Tom sighed and reminded himself that it was only five more hours until quitting time. He leaned his elbow against the chair's arm and rested his chin against his fist, lazily watching the pool, behind him came the screaming of numerous guests as they rode the water slides, rafts, and various other water park attractions. The hot summer was doing Sea Zone a world of good.
The sandy haired youth could care less as he got paid the same no matter how many people visited the park. More people only made his job harder and more annoying.
For some reason, or other, Tom noticed a woman out of the crowd. She wasn't particularly attractive, looked too old for him, and he wasn't really looking around for a girlfriend anyway, so he guessed the thing that had drawn his attention was the muscled idiot male following her and generally seeming to annoy her.
Tom hopped down from the lifeguard stand and headed towards the two. He hid himself in the crowd so the man wouldn't notice him. After he had reached the two, he bumped into the man, who fortunately or maybe unfortunately was standing by the edge of the pool. He tripped and fell into the water with a not so masculine shriek of surprise.
"Sorry," Tom said and bent down to extend a hand to the man. The woman meanwhile looked surprised and didn't take advantage of the distraction to leave unfortunately. "I should have been watching where I was going."
The man sputtered in reply and accepted the helping hand out of the pool. He seemed no worse from the fall, so Tom turned and headed towards the poolside snack stand.
"Nice shot," Sandy commented as he strode up to her.
"Be quiet and get me a bag of Fritos," Tom said.
"Aye, captain!" Sandy remarked with a sarcastic salute. She grabbed the bag and tossed it at Tom, who caught it. "Now pay up."
"Nope," Tom replied, pulled the bag open and taking one of the chips. "You know I don't carry my wallet around here."
"Because with all the people around, you're afraid one of them is a pickpocket," Sandy rolled her eyes.
Tom turned and leaned against the counter, so he wouldn't have to endure Sandy's disbelieving expressions. "It's entirely possible. I'll reimburse you later."
"Whatever."
Tom watched the pool, briefly glancing at a splash fight that at first he thought might be one inept swimmer in need of rescue. He spotted a rather horribly-made rubber frogman making his way toward the pool.
"Looks like Paul's back," Sandy commented as she too spotted the frogman. The frogman shoved a group of tourists to the side. "And a bit grumpy. You want to go chew him out?"
"Me?" Tom sighed, crumpling up the Frito bag and tossing it into the trash. He started toward the lumbering frogman, who was still shoving people to the side and heading straight for the pool. Tom wondered for a moment what Paul's issue was and then grabbed the frogman's shoulder and spun him around.
Too late, Tom noticed the rubber suit felt strangely slimy. He also noted with a second glance at the "costume" that it while it bore a small resemblance to the entertainer's frog suits, there were several differences in this one. He concluded that either the costume department had gotten a bigger budget (unlikely), or he had just grabbed an actual frogman.
The frog croaked loudly, conforming Tom's second guess and then it slammed an oversized hand into his side and sent him flying through the air. He crashed into one of the folding lawn chairs.
Naturally, several people noticed the frogman's spectacular display of strength, came to a similar conclusion as Tom, began screaming and running for the exit, something the rest of the pool attendants quickly copied.
Except for two of them, one of them was the woman Tom had saved early and the other was an Asian guy dressed in a black coat. He drew some kind of silver high-tech pistol out of his coat and tossed it to his female companion. He then drew a second one for himself.
The two took careful aim and fired at the frog. Tom, who was directly behind the frog and trying to untangle himself from the lawn chair, feared he would be hit, but every shot was dead on. Too bad the shots only seemed to annoy Frogger. It turned and sprayed white foam out of its skin at both of them. Both rolled to the side and opened fire again. Frogger made a spectacular leap into the air and landed next to the woman, wrapping its hands around her neck.
"Mary!" the man shouted. Somewhere in the corner of his mind, Tom noticed that he had almost no accent.
The guy drew some kind of hunting knife out of a holster on his jacket. Tom thought the knife would be the kind of thing Rambo might envy. The knife was stabbed into Froggy's back, who released a pain-filled croak, before backhanding the man away, the knife still sticking out of the frog's back.
Tom gave the lawn chair a brutal kick as he finally freed his foot from it. He stood up and stared at the fight, which had degraded into the guy trying to pull the frog away from the woman.
Something clattered at Tom's feet, prompting him to look down. A white rectangular object lay at his feet. Gold and blue trimming covered the device. A lens covered over by black panels, which made it resembled a closed eye was in the middle of the device.
Tom looked up to see an older man standing next to him. He was dressed in a black business suit and had dark hair. "Use that with what's around your neck."
"What?" Tom asked. The only two things around his neck was his lifeguard's whistle, which he doubted was what the man meant. The other was an old necklace which he had since as long as he could remember.
Almost without thinking, he bent down and picked up the device, he grabbed the blue metal square that dangled from the cord around his neck with his other hand and yanked it off the cord. As he held the device near his waist, something grabbed it, prompting him to look down again and find blue and gold vines reaching from his waist to grab the sides of the object and pull it away. The vines formed into a gold and blue belt strap, while the rectangle became the belt buckle. A panel popped out from the side of the buckle's lens. The panel was just the right size to hold the necklace piece which Tom placed on it and then pushed it back into place. The lens opened, like an eyelid and blue light flashed out of it.
"Transform," an electronic voice issued from the device. A white mist covered Tom, and then a line of blue light moved down his body, replacing the mist with a suit of some kind. When the light reached his feet, it pulsed across the ground, sweeping the feet out from under the three nearby combatants.
All three stopped to stare at the being disturbing their fight. The suit Tom now wore didn't feel uncomfortable at all; rather it fit him like a second skin and even looked a bit organic. It was a blue and black color in varying patterns mostly, except for the white chest and the insides of his legs. Small fins extended from this part of his arm for mere ornamentation Tom guessed. His gloves contained webbing between the fingers.
He glanced at his reflection in the pool to find a helmet fully covering his head. Green lenses gazed back at him. The helmet was blue and black with white patches on the side resembling those of an orca whale. He also noticed a black fin coming out of his back, which of course resembled the fin of a killer whale. He noted the white patterns on his chest and legs also followed the same whale motif.
The blue square with the picture of an orca indented on it was visible through the belt buckle's eye.
Tom glanced up at the frog, which was trembling with an emotion he guessed to be rage. The creature leapt at him, but Tom stepped to the side and avoided it. It turned around and swung its oversized hand at him. Tom caught its hand and delivered several kicks into its stomach, before spinning it around and letting go, sending it crashing into the pool fence.
"Is that all you have?" Tom asked as the frog stood back up.
It answered by opening its mouth and shooting out its long tongue. The tongue wrapped around Tom's wrist. Tom planted his feet firmly and resisted the yank of the frog's tongue then he grabbed the tongue and yanked on it for himself. Froggy stumbled forwards and into Tom's fist. The tongue released Tom's arm after that.
Tom leapt forward, thrusting out both feet for a flying kick, but the frog leapt into the air, flying even higher then him. It dropped down on him, feet first and slammed him back into the pool with a splash.
The frog landed on the ground with a croak and leapt towards the pool edge. A fin broke the surface of the water and headed towards the frog. Tom's form could be seen through the water and though the waves made it difficult to see, it appeared as though the lower of his body had formed into a fish's tail. Tom leapt from the water, revealing that he had indeed taken on a mermaid-like appearance. His fish tail slapped against the frog's head repeatedly, before Tom back flipped into the water with barely a splash.
Froggy stumbled back, releasing a surprised gasp before a blast of lime green flames exploded out of it, leaving a brown frog-shaped husk behind. The husk fell to the ground and crumbled apart.
Tom leapt back out of the water, the lower half of his body returning to normal in a flash of white light. He pushed a button on the buckle of his belt and the panel popped out. He removed the blue pendant from it and a line of light moved down his form, the suit vanishing as it did. The belt straps disappeared as well and the buckle clattered to the ground.
"Hold it right there," he looked up and saw the guy was now pointing his futuristic pistol at him. He noticed the massive scar covering the man's face. "You're coming with us."
"There's no need for force, Chang," the guy in the suit said calmly. "I'm sure the young man would gladly come with us. He probably would like some answers."
Tom shrugged. "Whatever."
