This takes place after Ch. 33 of the main series, although like most of the movies this is based on, don't worry about it having a lot of bearing on the rest of the story. It'll be divided into a couple parts, though. Enjoy!
Another building exploded in a cloud of fire and cement dust. Already scared out of their minds, throats hoarse from screaming in terror, people scattered in all directions only to see more of the inhuman shapes closing in from every street.
Above, a sinister figure held aloft by multiple dark wings watched in approval as his minions spread further and further across the city, terrorizing the people as they searched for the last few pieces of the sacred object that was the key to his plans.
Without warning he heard a cry from below. "Henshin…V3!" There was a burst of light on one street. He focused his vision and could see a man in green, wearing a red and white mask shaped like a dragonfly's face and punching and kicking his way through the monstrous creatures lining the streets.
Ah, so the first of them had shown himself. It had only been a matter of time, the dark man supposed, just as it was only a matter of time before the rest of them followed suit. Their stubbornness was almost admirable, in its way. He idly wondered if it was his persistence or theirs that kept drawing him back in one form after another.
Still, it didn't matter. Let them come one at a time or as a united front, he thought. Power beyond measure would soon be his, and his forces were already as numerous as mankind's sins.
Kamen Rider Tarock Re-Dealt Mega War – The Devil's Nail
Liss Decker finished packing a few cans of spam and beef broth into her bike's saddlebags. A lot had happened at home, and while she was proud that her older sister thought she didn't need anyone to hold her up anymore, getting back to the Sphere for a little while to clear her head seemed like a good idea. Besides, there was that little army Avalon was developing she really needed to check in on, and see how they felt about having her finally fight at their side.
Plus, she chuckled to herself, she didn't need to stick around to see the rest of Sensei's rage at finding out his daughter was changing her name to be more like Liss.
She gunned the motor and started rolling down the street, going faster and faster until she felt herself breaking through the wall between her world and the Sphere. There was the usual bang as she left the town behind, followed by echoes vanishing into the distance.
But she was immediately thrown back in her seat by a wave of force and almost blinded by a burst of colored stars. Red, orange and blue danced in front of her eyes. Walls of green and purple streaked past her and into the darkness, making Liss's head swim.
Her bike shook violently as she sailed through something she'd never seen when she passed through the void between the two worlds. Another blinding burst of color came, brighter than the last one, and Liss fought down an urge to shield her eyes with her arm. If she fell off Shift Runner before she landed, she was sure she'd be annihilated by whatever was going on.
"Humanity's fate is sealed," she heard a despondent female voice wail suddenly, the word echoing into the distance. "The world ends tonight…" "They fight again and again but there's always another enemy…" "Eventually even they have to break!"
The tormented whispering got louder and louder and the colors brighter and flying faster and faster past her eyes. She was sure after another few seconds she was going to lose her mind, when without warning the wheels of her bike crashed into something solid and sent her tumbling from her seat onto hot asphalt.
Liss heard screams and she thought for a second the voices had given up subtlety, but as her vision started to clear she could make out her surroundings, and realized she was next to the smoking remains of a building. A panicked family was running down the street her way with a pair of monsters on the tail. The first was some grey-skinned thing with mottled red armor plating on its chest with a pincer in place of one hand and mandibles coming off its face. The second was green with black striping over his chest and arms, an insect-like face with huge hateful red eyes and a long blade-like hand that reminded her of a praying mantis's.
As the family passed her, almost to Liss's surprise the parents grabbed her arms and tried to drag her away. "Hurry!" the mother screamed. "Hurry and run or you'll die!"
She squawked in surprised and was hauled a few steps back but shrugged out of their grip. Liss didn't know what the hell was going on, but wasn't she supposed to be well-known? The mother shrank back a step when she spotted the orb of dull crystal in Liss's eye socket.
But it was then she noticed the casts of their faces, and the lettering on all the signs up and down the street.
This wasn't the Sphere, and it sure as hell wasn't her town. She was somewhere in Japan. And the two monsters who'd split up and were circling around to box her in didn't look like any Mythos she'd ever seen.
That didn't mean she couldn't handle this just as easily.
"Wands Suit!" her new Arc Driver announced as it scanned her card and her familiar thin blue armor formed over her body, transforming Liss Decker into Kamen Rider Tarock once again. The red and grey monster jumped for her, pincer extended. But behind her mask, Tarock smirked.
"Mag Step," she whispered and zoomed out of the way, nothing but a blue and black blur. The monster landed, surprised, only for Tarock to come up behind, kicking him a hundred times in one second. Pieces of his body cracked off and went flying into the air leaving just a pile of junk, with wires for veins and steel tubing for bones peeking out of the ends. No, that was no Mythos.
"A Kamen Rider!" the family's son exclaimed, grinning. "A brand new one!"
"Get out of here, you guys!" Tarock called over her shoulder, not even registering for a second that she'd understood what he said even though she didn't know the first thing about foreign languages. She turned back around to see the mantis monster slinging the chain of a kusarigama so it curled around her wrist. He yanked her toward him and sliced at her with the blade on his hand, but she ducked underneath. A flurry of blindingly fast punches slammed into his shoulders.
The mantis staggered away, sparks spewing from the hole she'd punched in his body. Tarock charged him at high speed to finish the job. He whirled to face her, and for a second she thought she saw fear in his hideous inhuman eyes.
Then a cracking sound split the air and something slashed across her knees. Tarock cried out in surprise and her momentum carried her into a painful roll across the ground.
She looked up into the face of another monster, this one green with a yellow face and stomach covered with red veins, his body reminding her of the consistency of a plant stem, and clusters of tiny roots in place of feet. Instead of one hand was a long barbed vine flecked with red.
Her blood.
Suddenly the plant monster charged her, the roots in its feet entangling themselves in the ground with every step and pulling loose again, leaving a trail of cracks and pits in his wake. Tarock jumped to her feet, battered legs shaking for a second. She threw a punch at the plant monster but her fist only rebounded off his leathery body.
Then he tackled Tarock, wrapping his vine around both of them. The spines dug into her thin armor and his flesh alike, but he hardly seemed to notice as they slammed into the ground…and it gave way underneath them. They twisted over and over as they fell into darkness, the spikes on the monster's vine digging into Tarock's body as she tried to struggle free. Finally they landed on something soft and springy that spread out like a gauzy net underneath them. A giant spider's web. And crawling along it in their direction was another monster, this one with a dark green body, a furry black head with menacing red eyes and a web-like cape hanging from its gaunt shoulders.
The spider. Of course.
The mantis monster she'd left behind dropped onto the other side of the web. Then another two monsters stepped out of the shoulders, one with a distinctly feminine form, her long hair a poisonous-looking purple and the rest of her body a dark blue. That is, except for the yellow and black spirals covering her breasts…
The other new monster was something Tarock could hardly begin to describe. It was covered in green and yellow scales, with a head the shape of a melon and a mouth full of jagged teeth. Under its arms were wide yellow wings. All of them started closing in as the barbed vine coiled tighter around her, but Tarock fought down an urge to scream. Instead she gathered her strength. She was Kamen Rider Tarock. She could get out of this.
She called up her speed, and the area around them seemed to turn a dark blue and the monsters slowed until they were almost standing still. Then Tarock started to hammer her fists against the chest of the plant monster, which only made the thorns embedded in her arms shake and dig in her flesh. She yelled out in rage and punched faster, with all of this form's incredible speed to make up for its pitiful lack of strength. The thorns dug into her but her fists started to glow with heat as she punched so fast her hands turned into red and black blurs, and finally she could feel the monster's bear hug on her starting to weaken, painfully dragging the needles out of her skin.
Tarock folded her legs up and got her feet between herself and the monster, then let out a yell and shoved. The needles were yanked out of her skin and she yelled in pain but rolled away from the plant monster and landed on her feet. She waved a shaky hand in front of her Arc Driver and her wand formed in her fingers even as ribbons of red flowed down over her gauntlet. The head burst into blue flame and she turned to the spider monster just as he sprayed a blanket of web at her from his mouth, but her swing burnt it away and before the spider realized what was happening Tarock extended the wand into its staff form and knocked the spider spinning into the darkness.
"Get her, Geba Condor!" one of the other monsters yelled. The fang-toothed lizard creature spread his yellow wings and launched himself at Tarock. She stabbed with her staff at his face and then gasped in surprise as he suddenly disappeared, then reappeared above her weapon and crashed into her. Tarock shoved the tip of her staff against the web and braced herself so the monster failed to knock her down.
"Trump!" said her new Arc Driver, and the head of her staff flashed and transformed through a new, refined power, forming an arc shaped like bearded men in robes holding their arms above them at the top. Inside the arc a ball of blue fire it hurt Tarock to look at formed at the tip of her weapon as she swung it at the yellow-winged monster. "Cataclysm! Devils Smite!" Immediately a wave of blue fire jumped from the tip of Tarock's staff. As it flew up it formed into a horde of grinning, fang-toothed demons made completely of fire. They screamed with glee as they split up, one crashing into Geba Condor and destroying both of them in a blue blast. The bee woman shrieked in terror as one spiraled through the air behind her, and then she suddenly charged Tarock, seemingly determined to take Tarock with her if she was already doomed. A rapier flashed in the monster-woman's hand at Tarock's throat but she batted it aside with her staff but the bee woman was fast and the sharp tip struck through her thin blue armor over and over. Ignoring the pain of her countless injuries Tarock let out a yellow and swung her staff like a baseball bat, knocking the bee woman into the fiery demon who'd been behind her the whole time, and in a blast of fire both were obliterated.
The cackling demons streaked through the air after the other monsters who just a minute ago had Tarock surrounded. The mantis monster made a terrific jump and tried to climb back up to the street but was incinerated as he clawed his way up the wall. The plant monster tried to make a last stand, whipping his vine-hand at the fiery demon closing in on him. As it touched flames raced down its arm burning it to a cinder before engulfing the plant monster himself completely. The horde of demons gathered together in midair and let out one last shrieking, victorious cackle before exploding into puffs of fire.
But Tarock didn't relax. There was one monster they hadn't caught, and by focusing she was sure she hear the spider scuttling in the shadows. Her weapon faded from her hand and she started looking back and forth desperately, clutching the wounds on her arms and whispering fearfully to herself. It wasn't her most refined trick to get someone to underestimate her, but without knowing the opposition better…
"Spider Man…Where are you coming from, Spider Man…?" she murmured.
Suddenly she spotted a streak of movement out of the corner of one eye. Webbed cape flapping behind him, the spider monster was flying through the air at her. He spewed a giant net of web but as he came down the card ejected from Tarock's Arc Driver and she slammed another one in. "Pentacles Suit!" it called and her thick dark green armor garbed her body and the familiar sensation of unstoppable strength filled her arms. She reached out to grab the sheet of web before it could wrap around her and tore it to bits before the surprised spider's giant eyes. "Dire Fate! Earthsplitter Kick!" the Arc Driver said next as Tarock went into a high spinning kick with one foot still on the ground, slamming her glowing foot into the spider's midriff with a horrific *CRACK*. The spider's body splintered away from where her foot connected, then his two halves dropped onto the web beneath them and exploded into flames.
Tarock jumped for the wall as the flames spread across the web and burnt it to nothing. Her powerful fists punched handholds in the rock and in another minute she was back on the street. This had been an insane morning, she already had new scars to show for it, and she had a feeling things were just getting started.
When Tarock scrambled back onto the street she half-expected, half-hoped to find herself on the streets of her hometown, or at least a city on the Sphere where she'd been before and she'd seen the people and the monsters already.
Instead there were still explosions ripping the sky and a trio of monsters passed down the street in the distance. Both were covered in green scales, but the first had the bulbous eyes and short horns of a chameleon while the one trailing behind him had long fangs and a hood like a cobra. Showing up behind them was a yellow and black lizard creature with giant googly eyes walking behind them on two legs that Tarock couldn't even begin to identify. These ones had company besides each other, though. Around them were a gang on men in weird black unitards and ski masks, decorated only with a ribcage design on their chests and huge belt buckles depicting a skeletal bird.
One of them turned and spotted Tarock, and let out a piercing cry: "EEEEEE!" The trio of reptile monsters whipped around to face her and she went into a stance. As they rushed down the street at her, surrounded by their masked minions, a weird robotic voice suddenly cut through all the noise.
"Launcher On."
A barrage of missiles screamed out from behind Tarock and slammed into the bat group of attackers. A fiery explosion engulfed them that only the cobra monster stepped out of, somehow looking pissed off even with such an immobile face. The rest of his little group had been blown to bits.
Tarock turned around to see where the missiles had come from and groaned as she spotted another figure, but he didn't look much like the ones she'd been fighting up to then. He had on a white and gray suit with orange stripes up down his chest and legs, matching the lenses over the eyes of his missile-shaped mask. Attached to his right ankle was a blue cuff with a rectangular box on it that went up to his knee, full of empty bays for the missiles that had just shot down the monsters.
"Another one?!" the cobra man cursed.
The newcomer pointed an accusing finger at him. "We Kamen Riders won't let you END-Shocker soldiers have what you want! Let's settle this one-on-one!" he righteously declared.
The cobra monster brandished one hand and spewed a blast of flame at the newcomer who calmly inserted a tiny green device into a compartment on his belt, which spoke in that same robotic voice as before, "Winch On." A green box appeared on his arm and a hook on a steel cable launched from the end and tied around the cobra. He slid an orange device into another compartment. "Rocket On," the belt said before a huge orange rocket did indeed appear over his other arm. It roared to life and took him into the air, dragging the cobra with him.
Tarock stared after them for a minute as the white-armored man flew out of sight behind a building dragging the fire-breathing cobra behind him. That had been a Kamen Rider, hadn't it? One of the local ones. One of the real ones, she supposed. She'd beaten down a bunch of monsters since landing in the middle of whatever was going on, but he'd taken out that new group like they were nothing.
She was starting to be hailed as the hero of a new age, but was she that far behind these guys?
"Kaaaaaameeeeennnnnn Riiiiiiiiiiiiiderrrrrrrrrrrrrr!" an angry voice hissed. Tarock turned, and saw yet another monster step into view from behind the edge of a blackened building. It was a dark green lizard man with a long, sloping neck and a tail that would've crushed cinderblocks. Down his back was a row of sharp spines that could've sliced off Tarock's finger with ease, but clutched in his scaly hands was a bright red ball covered in weird, menacing studs.
Then he dropped it suddenly and kicked it in Tarock's direction with a sound like a thunderclap. It flew over her head and landed a few feet behind her.
The next thing Tarock knew she'd been deafened by the roar of an explosion and had been blasted eighty feet into the air and crashed at horrific speed through a concrete wall.
She landed in an abandoned office space, but immediately grabbed the edge of a desk and struggled to her feet. Something told Tarock the lizard monster knew she hadn't been finished off by that bomb and needed to get the hell out of where she'd landed. She still didn't hear the breaking glass but saw another one of those studded bombs crashing through a window and dove through one in the opposite wall and fell two floors before she landed on her face.
Laying on her back she saw a puff of fire erupt from the floor she'd just been in, but a second later there was a silent roar and the two floors above it started to slide off the rest of the building. Tarock scrambled frantically to her feet and ran for all she was worth as an avalanche of concrete and glass thundered down behind her and pelted her with pieces of junk. One huge rock caught her between the shoulders and knocked her sprawling again.
Her hearing was starting to come back as Tarock got to her armored feet, the sound of the concrete chunks crashing and crumbling behind her. But it was a reptilian hiss that seized her attention as the lizard monster stepped into sight from between two devastated buildings, carrying another one of his studded bombs. He started to drop it…
…and Tarock decided she'd had enough of monsters she knew nothing about trying to kill her. She concentrated on summoning her weapon, the hammer called the Gran Crusher, but her Arc Driver seemed to intercept the thought and reroute it. "Trump!" it said in a flash of green light a massive gauntlet formed on her left hand, yanking straight down from the sudden weight. Inscribed on the knuckles were small silver pentacles while a golden star was set into the forearm and humming with power.
"Calamity! Temblor Punch!" The lizard monster's projectile arced through the air but even though she was in her slowest form, everything seemed to move in slow motion as Tarock brought back her arm and smashed her fist into the incoming bomb with a noise like an earthquake. A huge recoil ripped through her body and cracked the ground around her feet, windows and walls collapsing for fifty feet in every direction.
The ball bounced back at the lizard monster but erupted into flames from the power of Tarock's punch as it did. The lizard monster only had a second to lash his tongue in surprise and anger before the ball landed at his feet and exploded in a fireball fifty feet high.
Behind her she heard that weird robotic voice again. "Fire On." The Kamen Rider she'd seen a minute ago came into view dodging fireballs spewed by the cobra monster's hand and the swooping attacks of a bat monster who'd joined in the fight. His armor flashed and turned bright red, and a rifle with a wide nozzle at the end appeared in his hands. He squeezed the trigger and a stream of fire sprayed from the end, meeting with the cobra monster's next blast and creating an explosion in the middle that did no damage to either of them. The Rider plucked something off one of the slots on his belt and inserted it into the bottom of his gun and took aim.
"Rider Explosive Shoot!" the Rider said and pulled the trigger. A roaring jet of flame erupted from his gun and engulfed the cobra and bat monsters. When the fire cleared a second later there was nothing left of them but scorch marks on the pavement.
"Not bad," Tarock murmured. The other Rider whipped around to face her and for a second she found herself worried about being on the business end of his weapon.
Instead he swooped his hand up the forehead of his mask. "It was pretty good, huh? But it was nothing compared to you hitting that bomb back…it looked so easy!" He flipped switches on his belt and his armor faded away, leaving a lanky man with a shiny pompadour hairstyle and wearing a grey suit. But what most struck Tarock was he was looking at her with the brightest grin on his face she thought she'd ever seen.
She let her Pentacles Card eject from her belt and into her waiting hand and with it her armor faded away too. Dried blood had already seeped into the sleeves of her duster where the plant monster had impaled her arms. She flexed her arms and grimaced, but the pain wasn't that bad. A good thing, too, with how it seemed like this was only the beginning.
"An American Kamen Rider? And a girl?! That's so awesome!" the man gushed, his grin widening even more.
"Thanks, I guess. Who are you?"
He pointed one finger at her. "I'm the one who will befriend all the Kamen Riders! Even the ones in different countries, it looks like!" He paused for effect and looked her in the eye, but he couldn't keep up the try at a cool façade and grinned again. "Kisaragi…Gentaro!" he identified himself.
"Hi," Liss said, not really sure how to reply to such an announcement. "I'm Liss. Liss Decker."
"Lisa?" Gentaro beamed. "That's such a pretty name!"
"It's not 'Lisa'!" Liss protested, but she was cut off by a huge object flying overhead, looking like a brass chandelier crossed with an angry, snapping dragon.
Gentaro's grin faded. "Sabbats…Let's go, Lisa!" He ran behind a building to a white motorcycle with fairing shaped like the nosecone of a space shuttle and a tail shaped like the rear fins. Liss climbed onto Shift Runner and pulled up alongside him as he sped away down a deserted road.
"Where are we going?!" Liss called to her new ally.
"Hongou-san's calling all the Riders to a meeting to stop what's going on!" Gentaro answered. "He told us all to get the ones who were still fighting and bring them back to plan our attack! It's a good thing you came right now, we're going to need all the help we can get!"
"I didn't exactly come on purpose," Liss mumbled, and Gentaro obviously didn't hear her over the sound of their bikes. But if she'd landed right in the middle of a crisis, then somebody probably had a good reason for making sure she did, right?
She didn't notice the faint wisp of rainbow-colored light trailing behind them as they rode.
Eventually they stopped outside of a wide building with a pair of smoke stacks at one end and broken windows on every side. It looked like it might've once been a factory, but that had been a long time ago. Out behind it was an empty lot where some forty or fifty outlandish motorcycles were parked, and they left theirs in that area before going inside.
Now it served a slightly more noble purpose, as Liss saw once they were inside. There outlines of countless people standing around the edges of the main room and a metal catwalk a few feet above their heads. Gentaro climbed up that same catwalk and took Liss with him to an empty spot by the railing. Standing in the center of the room below was an aged Japanese man, his features worn and craggy, his expression stern, but as he looked up at the new arrivals their eyes met for a just a second Liss found herself forgetting to take her next breath. Aged he might be, but there was an intensity in his gaze that dwarfed even her old sensei's. It was like he was staring at her straight down to her thought she'd seen some things since accepting her powers, but the man down there…he had the eyes of a man who'd seen everything.
He lowered his eyes again to someone on the floor. "Ichimonji…does anyone know where Kadoya is?" he asked in a booming voice.
"You know him," said another voice, chuckling with light amusement. "Only showing up when it suits him. I think everyone's here that's going to be, Hongou."
"All right," said the first man, evidently Hongou, and then spoke up to address the entire room. "Thank you all for answering our summons. I'm sure you'd all rather be out there fighting END-Shocker, but we've been watching them, and we think there's something specific they're after." A light came on above him showing a map on the floor of what Liss could only assume was the city they were in. At twelve points across it were drawn red circles. "END-Shocker Kaijin activity is especially thick in these areas. We're going to break into squads, infiltrate these areas and find out what they're looking for.
"The first group will be overseen by V3 and Stronger, and will consist of Wizard, OOO, Garren and Leangle, Snipe, Meteor, Raia…" Hongou went on, rattling off a short list of names that meant nothing to Liss. Then he spoke up again, "Second group will be overseen by X and Amazon, and will consist of Gills, Specter, Drive and Chase, Guridon…"
A light groan went up through the assembled crowd, and Liss looked over to see a light frown on Gentaro's face. "What's wrong?" she asked him in a whisper.
"Hongou's putting all the veteran Riders in charge," Gentaro answered. "It sounds like the rest of us are just soldiers to him…"
"Third group will be overseen by Black and Skyrider, and will consist of Ghost, Ryugen, W, Drake, Showa, and Fourze," Hongou announced next.
Gentaro stood up and waved his hand suddenly. "Hongou-san! I'd also like to take the new Rider I found with our group! Stand up, Lisa."
"My name's not Lisa," Liss protested, but couldn't work up any energy for it. She was pretty sure that after this, she was stuck with it.
Every eye was on her at once and Hongou grimaced and pointed in her direction, prompting someone to point one of the ceiling lamps on her. "Who are you? I've never seen you before," Hongou demanded.
"I've never been here before," Liss replied. "I go by Tarock. Kamen Rider Tarock, I guess."
"How do we know she's not some kind of END-Shocker spy?" asked someone, a surly-looking youth in a white leather vest, with a strange yellow-faced creature in a black robe standing behind him waving his hands in a gesture to head off a confrontation.
"Because they tried to kill her!" Gentaro answered. "I saw it! Her powers are just like ours, and they're really strong!"
"Tch!" the vested youth said, obviously unimpressed, but Liss just looked away. At one point she would've gone over there and punched his face in for looking down on her, but that had been sometime before she'd lost her eye…shutting up jerks just didn't seem to matter anymore.
"It doesn't matter," Hongou cut in with a glower. "Right now we need all the help we can get. Those of you who've already been named, your squad leaders know where you're going. Get out there and find out what's going on. Fourth group will be overseen by Super-1. It will consist of…"
Liss didn't bother listening to the rest. She was following Gentaro back onto the ground and they joined a procession of others heading out back to the field of parked bikes. As they went Liss leaned and whispered to Gentaro, "Which one's Black?"
"Eh? Oh…that's him there," Gentaro replied, pointing to an older man dressed all in white, with a soft smile on his face that was calm and shrewd but showing some of the wear lines that covered Hongou's face. "Why do you ask, Lisa?"
"Because I know somebody who really respected him," Liss whispered back.
"Oh! That's great! Hey, Minami-san!" Gentaro called. "Lisa here wants to talk-"
But Liss clapped a hand over his mouth. "Do we have time for this?" she hissed.
"Ah," Gentaro nodded and smiled at her again. "Getting the job done first…you're a real pro, Lisa!"
Black/Minami climbed onto a sleek green bike with red headlights that reminded Liss uncomfortably of insect-like eyes. While she got onto Shift Runner, she thought on what Gentaro had said for a second, never really having thought of herself as a planner or someone dedicated to a great goal. That was how it was for these other Riders, though. Wasn't it? They were guys who devoted everything to saving the world from the powerful monsters that appeared again and again, trying to destroy it or mold it in their own image. Or so she'd been told by Sensei.
For the first real time, Liss wondered how she measured up in her fights against the Mythos. She'd said again and again that she'd been fighting to prove her own strength. That she mattered despite how many people had seen her as nothing but a delinquent. She'd convinced some important people of that, she remembered. One of them had given their life to give her a new Form Card. How many of these guys had done something like that? A lot, probably, right? How many had done something even more incredible? And how many had never done anything like that, but saved the world anyway?
She still wondered as fired up Shift Runner and joined the procession of motorcycles splitting up into the streets.
After a long ride into the hills in silence, Minami signaled for his procession to pull over and sneak up on a large church at the bottom of a hill. It was surrounded by a congregation of monsters, with more flying in circles above it and a few scrambling back and forth across the roof, one even perched on the tip of the tall cross on one side.
"They're everywhere," observed one of the Riders, a young man with bright orange hair and wearing a black jacket covered with gaudy pinky flowers. "Look, why don't I go down there, get their attention and lead some of them away? I could escape the most easily—"
"No, Takeru," Minami cut him off.
"And why not?" asked another one, a dour-looking man wearing an ivy cap and who'd had a black rectangular case strapped to his bike on the way in. "You veterans think we're not as good as you because we don't have your 'years of experience' or something?"
"That's not it at all," Minami replied. "Hongou wants us to observe the risks—"
"Hey, why don't I be a decoy?" Liss suggested. "I have super-speed. They'd never catch me, even without my bike."
Minami looked her up and down, and a weird self-conscious feeling came over Liss. It was Kamen Rider Black, the one her teacher had always talked about as the ultimate example of strength and bravery, and he was trying to figure out if she measured up. Liss had never really thought about actually meeting him, let alone having him pass judgement on her. "Well…" he started to say.
Then a triumphant cry went up from the doors to the church. A small group of monsters filed out. The first one was an ugly brown-furred creature with a skull-like face full of sharp teeth, clutching one arm that had been reduced to a stump by something inside. But as he came out he triumphantly held something above his head, a long piece of shiny red metal. Minami scowled as he saw it.
"What is it?" Takeru, the man in the gaudy jacket, asked.
"I have a feeling," Minami murmured, "but I hope I'm wrong."
"Watch out!" Gentaro warned and pointed upward. One of the flying monsters circling the church started flying their way. It was a hideous red bat creature with long fangs and furry yellow wings, looking like some kind of deformed flying squirrel. He shrieked a warning of its own to the other monsters as he spotted the Riders in their hiding place. There was an awful moment of silence as the monsters guarding the church stopped in place and registered what was happening, then as one they all seemed to scream and charge up to where the Riders were crouching, moving up at them like a wall of some kind of plague.
Minami immediately rose to his feet, clenched his fists to his right, then thrust his left arm out at full length and circled it above his head before swinging both arms back the other way. "Hen…SHIN!" he called out. As he did a belt fastened with a glittering red stone formed around his waist. For just a second his body took on the rough, jagged features of a man-sized grasshopper, then formed into sleek black armor, inscribed with red and yellow stripes around his neck, wrists and ankles. The red lenses in his mask flashed to life as he jumped high, somersaulting through the air with effortless ease smashing his foot into the back of the deformed flying squirrel right between the wings, knocking it into a crazed spin.
He vaulted off the flying squirrel's back and landed on the ground again. Rays of power erupted from behind him as he went into a stance and fearlessly announced, "Kamen Rider…BLACK!" For just a second the monster horde stopped in its tracks, and Liss and the other Riders wasted no more time in powering up.
"Cups Suit!"
"Budou Arms!"
"CHANGE…DRAGONFLY."
"Cyclone! Joker!"
Clad in her yellow armor again, Tarock immediately called up her weapon. "Trump!" The armor over her left hand flashed and morphed into a box-like shape with rising tidal waves engraved onto the sides. But on the front was a foot-long needle-like blade, and she wasted no time in impaling into the chest of the first monster that charged her, a red-and-black thing with long spidery legs coming off its shoulders and the sides of its head almost like hair. It screamed and jerked in pain, and Tarock kicked it away…how many spider monsters were going to try to kill her today?
She jumped over its head and knocked down one behind it with a flying kick, but five clawed hands reached out and grabbed her by the arms and legs. The spider-like monster she'd just knocked away lunged for her neck but Tarock managed to bring up her left arm and leveled it at the monster…
"Cataclysm! Shore Destructor!" The long needle suddenly unfolded backward into a round, fan-like shape. Tarock grunted and focused all her attention on keeping it leveled at her attacker, as it suddenly seemed to become even heavier as it glowed with power that a second later exploded out with a roar. A giant burst of water surged from her weapon and blasted the monster away from her while shaking off the ones holding her back. The wave spread wider and wider, catching more and more of the attacking monster horde in it before suddenly shooting up like a geyser and catching a bunch of the flying monsters inside its current. Then it roared again, expanding outward into a massive whirlpool above their heads that flung the monsters it had trapped in all directions, the evil creatures screaming and disintegrating into dust.
Tarock sucked in a breath while she could, and saw how hard the rest of the Riders were fighting. One in green and brown flew down from the sky and buzzed through a crowd of monsters, knocking them all down before flying up again and coming down with a ferocious kick backed by gravity.
"Let's Ride: Skyrider!" There was a flash and suddenly another green-and-brown Rider was flying up next to the other and they both came down side by side, sending up a giant explosion that sent monsters flying.
Two of the other Riders, one in green and purple armor and the other with white and blue armor with a plate like an insect's wing across his chest, both wielded pistols and blasted any attacker that was about to attack the other Riders from behind. Gentaro had taken to the air again with that rocket on his arm and crashed into one monster with his shoulder and knocked it to the ground, and as he came down to finish it off he slipped a device into his belt that turned his armor gold and armed him with a baton that crackled with electricity.
Another's armor was split down the middle, green on his right and black on his left. He seemed to move like lightning dodging attacks and knocking monsters down with incredibly fast punches and kicks. One monster landed a lucky punch between his shoulders and he staggered forward into a group of waiting attackers, but he switched something in his belt and his green side turned red, allowing him to greet them with a fiery punch. The last member of their group had a white robe on over his suit and was hacking his way closer to Tarock with a long staff that seemed to have a small mechanical spider clutching the very end…what was it with spiders that day?
Black himself was locked in combat with a scaled monster with fish-like fins and a row of bone-like spines sticking up from the top of its head. He jumped and landed a glowing punch on its chest that knocked it flying to explode in midair. As soon as it did, he pointed over Tarock's shoulder. "There! He's escaping! Tarock, after him! We'll hold the rest of them!" he yelled.
She looked and saw the one-armed monster running off as the others kept Tarock and her new allies busy, clutching the red metal to his chest. As he ran he looked over his shoulder and spotted Tarock running after him, then squealed and spread his wings.
A bat. He was another bat monster.
Tarock turned and made the longest jump she could and then ran at top speed back to where she'd left Shift Runner. As soon as she touched the handlebars its powerful motor roared to life and its tires sprayed gravel as she drove after the bat at top speed.
What could he have found that made leaving the other Riders behind worth it to stop him, she asked herself. And how did Black already know…?
To be continued…
Well, here we are. I'm trying to have Liss play off some of the official Riders and see how it goes, not dominating the spotlight as much as having her interact with them and learn a thing or two if I can help it.
For the curious the monsters from the first fight were…the first batch of monsters from the original Kamen Rider show, Spider Man through Tokageron. The fanged flying squirrel that gives the Riders away was the Dryad Flying Squirrel from V3, and the red and black spider thing from the big melee that Liss stabbed was an Arachnea Rubor from Kabuto. And the bat she's chasing at the end is Bat Mutant from Kamen Rider Black himself.
Kamen Rider Showa belongs to author Kamen Rider Chrome, and is used with permission. Thanks.
Well, there it is for now. More to come, and to quote CornShaq, I hope you enjoyed.