-CHAPTER 1-
ADVENTURE IN HELHEIM
The hooded man reached out a grimy hand for a wrinkled, purplish fruit from a tree. It distorted for a very brief while, then turned into a bulky lock with the design of a single papaya at the front. He allowed himself to have the pleasure of a smile, which he rarely did.
"This Lock Seed will be extremely useful…"
Kinji strode to the bookstore for his part-time job, while glancing up at the familiar billboards, which used to feature random advertisements for things like fast food, restaurants and underwear, were now filled with pictures of Armored Rider Bravo.
With his Sparta-themed, spiked glossy green armor and purple arm guards, he possessed a regal aura, compelling people around him to look at him.
His shoulder guards each had a large spike of the same color as the main part of his armor.
On his waist was a Sengoku Driver, which looked like a large belt buckle, with a mini blade at the side, and on it was a bulky, lock-like device called a Lock Seed, the front half of the lock flipped open to show the cross-section of a durian, only without the large central seed, and at the bottom half, showed a single, spiked sword with arcs of red zigzags which represented lightning bolts. Bravo's yellow, upturned and almond-shaped eyes seemed to stare directly at everyone who gazed at him, brandishing two of the swords featured at the bottom half of the open Lock Seed.
Kinji snorted.
Bravo had made his debut by preventing an attempted murder, disarming the perpetrator yet not harming the criminal or himself. Since then, he had become a celebrity, for nobody else had the ability to use Lock Seeds for any other purpose than for summon creatures named Inves, mainly used to settle disputes, be it petty or major, though Kinji thought that he was too much if a show-off. The strange thing was, nobody, not even the paparazzi knew his identity.
As he walked towards the bookstore, he noticed some weird, curling multicolored plants. Curious, he walked over to see what it was, and was and got sucked into a gap that looked like space was zipped open, zip and all.
That was the last thing he remembered before losing consciousness.
Kinji's eyes snapped open and he jolted up, staring into space with wide eyes for a while, then attempted to regain his bearings.
He looked around suspiciously, expecting to see the glint of a camera lens of the filming crew of some prank show. Instead, he spied a Chinese temple, complete with the acrid smell of lighted joss sticks and smoke wafting softly out of the entrance. He took a slow step into the temple and scrunched up his nose slightly, the smoke stinging his nose.
Though the low light made it difficult to see, he could make out a the familiar, bulky shape of a Lock Seed on an altar ahead, placed respectfully in front of some statues of bronze statues of Chinese deities. He staggered forward, his legs weak from lying down.
With a trembling hand, he picked up the Lock Seed.
It was the Grape Lock Seed, with six grapes stacked up in an inverted pyramid at the front.
He also spotted a belt buckle with a hexagonal hollow and a 'face plate' at the side.
The belt buckle was exactly the same as the one on Bravo.
"Hey… Bravo did this too…" Kinji mused, and without hesitation, put on the driver. It formed a yellow belt around his waist. Kinji decided to ignore the fact that it could somehow fit perfectly on his waist and activated the Lock Seed. The lock on the Lock Seed opened, and grape symbol shone purple once, then shone again when a syllable was said.
[BU-DOU]
A bunch of grapes in the shape of a frustum appeared in the air and just floated around the top of his head. Kinji then fitted the Lock Seed inside the Driver's hexagonal indentation, then pressed the lock down with his thumb.
[LOCK ON]
Kinji pulled up the end of a blade to slice down. The front half of the Lock Seed flipped open, showing the cross-section of the grape featured on the Lock Seed's front on the top half and the picture of a pistol with a grape motif on the bottom half.
[HAIII! BU-DOU AARMS! RYU! HOU! HAHAHA!]
The frustrum landed on his head, light purple, illusory water went over his body, green Chinese-style robes forming wherever the water the water touched him, the left lapel of his robe overlapping the right side. The frustrum split into four parts vertically and opened, the two at the sides folding and forming the arm armor, the front forming a breastplate, and the back forming back armor, some fitting at the back of his head. Three spheres formed a triangle on the chest, and a fourth was on the three spheres. A traditional green Chinese helmet with an intricate rimming was his helmet. Kinji didn't seem to get what was going on, and patted himself all over in disbelief.
"That… I'm just like Bravo… I… HELL YEAH! Now…"
Kinji enthused, until he realized that he was in a strange forest he didn't even know how he entered.
He opened and pulled out the Lock Seed, which reverted him back to human form. Kinji then stepped out of the temple and saw trees and weird plants sprouting from the ground. He spied a purplish fruit growing on a tree. He peeled of the crinkly skin without picking it to reveal a juicy fruit with translucent, cloudy flesh.
"Looks so delicious…"
Kinji muttered, then quickly plucked the fruit and took a huge bite without hesitation. Instead of biting into a delectable, juicy fruit, he nearly broke his teeth on the hard material of a Lock Seed.
"WHAT THE HELL!" He groaned.
Instead of a juicy, delectable fruit, he was staring at a Lock Seed: Specifically, the Kiwi Lock Seed. He recognized the brown, capsule-like structure which was supposed to represent a kiwi. Kinji grinned, though he thought that it looked nothing like a kiwi.
"This place… the fruits are Lock Seeds!" Kinji breathed.
He wandered around for a while, picking the fruits and chucking away the low-level Sunflower seed Lock Seeds and those that had yet to mature.
What he wasn't told was that the Inves would grow stronger after eating Lock Seeds.
Or that it happened to be their favorite food.
An Inves staggered over and picked up one Lock Seed that Kinji threw away and seemed to examine it before shoving it into its mouth. It staggered around, picking up other discarded Lock Seeds that were lying around.
The sound of the Inves consuming the Lock Seed alerted Kinji. Craning his neck to see the source of the noise, he saw a trembling Inves. It sprouted four translucent insect wings and they beat so quickly that it was just like having a miniature tornado right in front of him.
The Inves, with its new power, had apparenty decided that Kinji was a threat and flew over at attack him.
"WHAT THE HELL IS HAPPENING!" Kinji screamed.
Activating his newly acquired Grape Lock Seed, he frantically put on the Sengoku Driver and fitted the Lock Seed into the Driver, then pressed on the open Lock.
[BU-DOU]
[LOCK ON]
A traditional Chinese melody played, and his armor for his upper body materialized and floated down, then he sliced the Lock Seed after shouting: "HENSHIN!"
[HAIII! BU-DOU AARMS! RYU! HOU! HA-HA-HA!]
After he transformed, he flipped out the pistol portrayed on the bottom half of the opened Lock Seed and furiously pulled on the trigger as fast as he could on the trigger in a moment of desperation.
Most of his shots hit the Inves, and one struck its wings and, unable to maintain its flight, crashed to the ground, struggling to get up.
"Oh yeah, that Bravo guy did this too…" Kinji mused, then pulled upwards on the miniature blade attached to his Driver again.
The Driver announced:
[BU-DOU SQUASH]
He pointed his gun at the Inves, expecting some sort of powerful, cannon-like blast of energy.
As the seconds passed, Kinji grew more and more puzzled.
The Inves took the chance to get up on its feet and hastily hobbled over to Kinji, using its forearm like a hammer to smack Kinji so hard that he fell on the ground, disoriented.
To his horror, the remaining Lock Seeds had attracted a whole mob of Inves, and some were furry and feral, like lions or stray dogs who had overdosed on steroids and growth hormone pills.
Shaking his head, Kinji hopped to his feet and jumped out of the range of the Inves' physical attacks. Spinning his pistol in his hand, he proceeded to take normal shots at the Inves. He tried to take shots at some of the Inves' weak spots. However, they were barely affected, staggering forward like a zombie army.
Wringing his hands, Kinji rolled out of the way as an Inves took aim at him, shooting energy projectiles at him, missing him by just a hair, so close that his left bicep got grazed. As he ran, some weaker Inves took the time to snap nearby fruits up and grew wings, some growing even larger, and some evolving into more feral or insect-like forms. Or both.
"Are these guys like attack on sight or something?!" Kinji thought furiously to himself. It was then that he noticed a tab with two round finger grips, of course, in the shape of grapes, at the butt of his gun.
"Hey, I wonder if…" Kinji muttered. He pulled on the mini blade again, then the sound rang loudly:
[BU-DOU SQUASH]
Kinji pulled on the tab.
Relatively large, translucent purple spheres circled the muzzle of the pistol and Kinji pulled on the trigger. The spheres shot forward at a blinding speed and crashed into the Inves, destroying them all in a massive explosion. The Inves were still intact, but exploded into fragments too tiny to see with the naked eye soon after they staggered around disoriented for a while.
Pulling back the flipped up front of the Lock Seed and pulling it out, the armor disappeared, seeming to fade away. Kinji wiped the sweat from his eyebrow and checked his pants, praying that he didn't wet himself.
Taking a deep breath, Kinji decided to return to the temple to check for clues to the forest he was in.
As he attempted to backtrack his steps, he noticed a significant difference in the appearance of the space near a tree, and went over suspiciously to check out what it was. Kinji found himself looking at a rip in space: Similar to the one that had dragged him into this freaky forest. Then, he felt a force pulling him into the rip.