Kamen Rider Tarock, Re-Dealt – Book One: Significator
Reading One: In the Cards
Disclaimer: I don't own or make any claim of ownership of the Kamen Rider series. Kamen Rider Tarock and its characters belong to me, and may not be used without express permission. But don't be afraid to ask. I also don't necessarily share the beliefs of any character in my stories, and in the case of the ones in this story, don't necessarily endorse anything they do.
Author's Note: This is kind of an experiment with a kind of main character you don't usually see in these things. Hope you enjoy.
Roger was the first one to notice that day.
Unfortunately for him, he was the slowest security guard on campus.
She had broken away from the crowd filing through the front doors and was only fifty feet from the curb when his cry of rage exploded across the lawn of Samuel Archer High School. He took off as she bent forward to go into a sprint, and he knew that if she got a chance to take off, the chase was already over.
An old blue car, probably a late student at the wheel, came speeding across the street in front of the school, right across her path. She didn't slow down at all, and Roger stopped and gaped at what he was sure was a vehicular homicide about to happen.
Seeing the girl about to jump into his path, the driver slammed on the brakes. She didn't stop, instead she jumped, slid across the hood of the car and automatically went into another run down an alley. Roger sighed and leaned against the fence.
Damn that kid. The only reason she waited until she was actually on campus to make a break for it was to make him and the other guards look that much worse. He was tempted to go over the vice principal's head and just let the cops take it from there.
She ran for another three blocks, weaving through the alleys, then got to another alley blocked by an old chain link fence. She climbed onto a stack of boxes next to it, jumped the fence, somersaulted as she landed and sprinted another block down to Marks Street, the one that ran next to the empty old culvert.
Everything was quiet. She knew better than to think she was home free yet, though. Somebody chasing her might've gone around the building to cut her off. Cautiously she looked around the side of the old brick building, but no one was in sight. She ran down the side of the culvert to a place where the fence was sagging and slid down the slanted surface to the bottom. Still running, she made it to the first overpass where the road crossed the culvert, and finally stopped to catch her breath.
It was only then that she truly noticed how cool the day was, or how thick the sheet of gray covering the sky. She'd been so focused on her need to spend a day anywhere but listening to a string of boring teachers, nothing else had really entered her mind except the details of her escape plan.
Looked like it was a good day; they'd given up quickly. The second time she'd had to run even farther than that. Maybe after the chewing out her parents had given the vice principal they'd decided it wasn't worth that AND making an honest effort to catch her and bring her back too.
Heh, Liss Decker. Truant officer's worst nightmare, huh?
Still, just because they'd abandoned the chase didn't mean it was over. They might've called the cops, and hell if she was going to be dragged back by anyone before she was damn good and ready for it.
But there was safe haven nearby. She just had to be on her toes until she got there.
A car passed right then and she ducked back into the shadows until it was gone. Once the coast was clear she clambered onto the ledge and up the slope on the other side of the culvert, climbed over the safety railing and took off down the street again. Another two uneventful blocks and she passed an old, low brick building with a new illuminated sign hanging out over the street. "Decker Engines," it read.
That was the place.
After checking one last time to be sure no one was following, Liss pushed open the front door and slipped inside. The front room had definitely seen better days. There was a desk with an old computer on it in one corner and across from it were a pair of battered chairs with a small table between them with a pair of car magazines on it. They were only a few months old but were still thoroughly torn and dog-eared. And suspended off the ground facing the door was a TV with a flickering screen.
"Be right there!" someone called from the next room. A second later a woman just a few years older than Liss entered the front room. She had short dark hair and wore a set of coveralls that had probably been green once, but were now closer to gray. Grease smudged her hands and face, which immediately went cold as she recognized the intruder in her business. "Liss, what the hell do you think you're doing here?"
Liss settled into one of the chairs and picked up one of the magazines. "Had another fight with mom and dad this morning. Didn't feel like school after that."
"What is this, your second time?" the woman sighed.
"Third," Liss said with just a bit of a grin.
"When did you get like this? Last year you hadn't skipped a day of school in your life. And if you think this-"
"Oh, stop trying to baby me, Paige," Liss interrupted. "Look at you. You're doing all right."
Paige crossed her arms over her chest. "Because I learned how to do something that'd let me earn a living."
"And I just told you, I'm not up for trying to learn today. Maybe mom shoulda thought of that before biting my head off in front of the whole family again," Liss retorted.
"I should call her and let her know you came here to hide out."
"…except you know she doesn't answer when she knows it's you calling anymore," Liss reminded her. Unnecessarily. She started to glance through the magazine again but a dirty rag landed on her face.
"Oh no you don't, punk," Paige glared at her. "If you're spending the day here, you're here to work. Got it?"
Liss picked the rag off her face and nodded. That was more like it.
They went into the garage and Paige got to work on a beat-up old truck that had been brought in. Liss handed over the tools Paige asked for, and listened while Paige explained what was what and what the probable causes were of the problems it had been brought in for. And despite Liss's claims not to be in the mood to learn, Paige didn't fail to notice how Liss wasn't missing anything about which part was which and what connected to what to make it all go.
Finally, Paige let them take a break to wipe the last few hours' worth of grime off their hands and faces. While Liss was still staring at the inside of a rag, she felt Paige slip a wad of bills into her pocket.
"Go get us something to eat," Paige commanded. "Keep mine light this time."
Liss didn't move. "So when are you gonna show me what you're working on?" she asked, pointing at something hidden under a dirty sheet in the corner of the garage.
"Lunch!" Paige bellowed. "Or you get to scrub out the toilet!"
"I'm going, I'm going!" Liss protested and scrambled out the front door. Once she was out on the sidewalk and heading for that Mexican restaurant a few blocks down, Liss smiled a little. This was nothing like what she had to look forward to at home. At least, nowhere near as malicious. And that was on a fairly good day that she was thinking about. When they heard she not only cut school but actually got away from a security guard…
All at once, Liss stopped walking. Something wasn't right.
But what? She'd been down this way to see Paige before, and everything was exactly the same as it had been those other times. There was the boarded-up gas station on the corner, and the ratty bar with no parking lot across from it that hadn't opened yet. There were only a few people on the streets, mostly ragged homeless folk and a few matrons hurrying home from the Vietnamese grocery before it got dark enough for the gang members to come slithering out of the shadows.
She looked again, and the concrete walls of the run-down buildings seemed somehow more gray than usual. The colors on the flashing "open" signs on the few stores on the block that operated in the day time seemed less stark against her surroundings. And there looked to be a strange ripple on the edge of her vision that was gone when she tried to focus on it.
Liss started walking again, noticing for the first time how loud every step she took was, and how thick the quiet of the street was. She couldn't hear any cars or barking dogs anywhere, and suddenly she couldn't remember if that had always been the case around there, or not.
Faster, she started to walk. For a second she thought about running back to the garage and talking to Paige, to see if she noticed the sudden strangeness, but then thought differently. The urge to get where she was going was stronger, like a pull she could only barely feel but knew she and even though it sounded moronic, Liss had the feeling that when she did she'd find the answer…
She tried to keep calm and walk normally, but with each step the feeling, the need to get where she was going became stronger. Then, Liss couldn't wait anymore, and she sprinted for the end of the block.
As she ran, it felt as if she was running through water. Liss could feel eyes on her from everywhere, like the decision to break and run had made whatever was causing this aware that she knew it was there. She pushed harder but moved even slower. The rippling wasn't something she could barely seem from the corner of her eye anymore, now it was encroaching around her vision so much it was hard to see her surroundings anymore. Still Liss kept going. If only she could get to the end of the street before this closed in completely, she might be able to—
Then suddenly it was gone and Liss lurched forward, landing hard on her chest on the sidewalk. And she wasn't alone. Beside her was a short but hulking figure clad from head to toe in black with red armor on top, which was torn open around the base of his helmet. Inside she could see pale blue skin, marred by a pair of dark puncture marks that he reached up with a shaking, two-fingered hand to touch.
He sat up with an effort and scooped up a sword almost as tall as Liss with his other hand, even though it shook as badly as his other hand, and indeed his whole body as he got to his feet and looked around for something.
Liss dashed behind the corner of a low concrete wall surrounding the Mexican place to assess the situation. The guy in the armor, who looked like some kind of knight to her, was turning around in a circle, looking for something, but he looked right at and past Liss without seeming to see her at all. Of course not, he was looking for whatever made those bite marks on his neck…
Suddenly, the air was filled with a hideous scream as something huge and green shot out from between two buildings across the street. It slammed into the guy with the sword and knocked him clean through the wall of the restaurant. From inside she could hear yells of panic and the sounds of something big collapsing. Whatever had crashed into that guy had hit him pretty hard.
But it didn't follow to finish the job. Instead it whipped around to stare at Liss with four eyes the color of blood.
It was some kind of weird cross between a person and a spider. The lower half was the spider part. Mostly. It was a bulbous sphere covered in dark green fur, with eight powerful-looking legs emerging from it. Or rather, six powerful-looking legs. The front two on the side closer to Liss had been chopped off at the first joint. Just like the arm on the human-looking torso sprouting from the front of its body.
It was at least twelve feet tall at the top of its head, and just as wide from front to back.
The spider's eyes blinked at her and it snorted, not contemptuously but as if sizing what kind of threat Liss and its surroundings presented. It turned toward the building it had knocked its opponent into…then suddenly lunged at Liss.
But she wasn't where she'd been anymore. By the time the spider managed to turn around Liss had darted around the corner of the restaurant. The, because that was how Liss was starting to think of him, had staggered back through the whole in the wall, but his hands quivered even more than before as he held up his sword.
The blade glowed faintly, but it hurt Liss's eyes to look with the way it shook in his hands. "Woe! Bladestorm!" a voice from his belt announced as the spider scrambled awkwardly but terrifying speed at him with the legs it still had. He raised the sword at the spider and all of a sudden the wind started to pick up, then brought the sword down in front of him in a vertical slash. The glow from the sword flowed from the tip and transformed into a stream of small knives as the sword came down, and the daggers shot toward the spider. They exploded as they made impact, and the spider screeched, but just kept on coming.
The knight lifted his sword to attack again but the spider was practically on top of him by then. Liss turned to run for her life, and everything seemed to move in slow motion all of a sudden. The the spider shrieked and pinned the knight to what was left of the wall between two of its legs. He tried to stab at it, but the spider bit down hard on his neck, and he screamed and struggled feebly. The sword bounced harmlessly off the spider's side.
The spider seized the knight by the throat with its one remaining human arm, and the arachnid legs that had been holding him in place rose up and stabbed down into him. He gurgled as the pointed foot impaled him through the chest and the other gouged into his waist, right through his belt strap…
…and as Liss took the first step, something landed in front of her. It was the knight's belt buckle, and the top of something dark red and rectangular had slid halfway out of a slot on top.
Liss bent down to pick it, but looked over as a strangled cry cut the air. The knight slumped back in the spider's grasp, but now his armor was gone and she could see more blue skin through the tatters of the black outfit he'd had underneath. Then with a sudden spasm, he just disintegrated into strands of blue light that in another second were completely gone.
Its prey seen off, the spider looked. It spotted Liss standing over the buckle.
Then it pounced.
Next time on Kamen Rider Tarock…
Liss: What the hell's going on? Monsters?! Is this some kind of stupid joke?
(The spider covers an entire building with its web, and Liss is caught in the strands as it crawls toward her)
Female Voice: Mistress, I have bad news. A new Tarock has been appointed. An outsider.
(Liss examines the strange device with a crystal ball lodged in the center and a bright red card)
Male Voice: Fascinating…I believe this is what they call a "game-changer."
(Liss, now clad in red and black armor, raises a giant sword high)
Narrator: Your fate is in your hands.
