Author's note: this picks up right after an earlier story I did called 'Preludes'. If you read this one without reading that one first, you will be confused because 'Preludes' establishes a lot of things this story is built on. Also, I paid an artist on Deviant Art to draw a picture of Raven as Kamen Rider Nocturnal. Sorry I can't put it as a link.

inspector97 dot deviantart dot com /art/Raven-Queen-Kamen-Rider-560198266

...

It was in between classes at Ever After High. Raven was walking through a hallway when Finelope rode up alongside her on her wheelchair.

"Hello Raven," Finelope greeted.

"Hey Finelope," Raven greeted back.

"I need to talk to you about something important," Finelope continued. "But not here: during lunch outside the castleteria."

"Okay," Raven agreed, curious to see what this was all about.

...

At lunch that day, Raven went outside and found Finelope. Unfortunately, she was also there with Evan Chanter. Raven (like most people in the school who weren't also huge assholes) did not like Evan but she had already told Finelope that they'd talk so she walked over to them.

"What is this about?" Raven asked as she glared at Evan.

"I need your help," Evan said. "There is a group coming here that have very bad intentions for this world and I need to fight them. I can do that, but I need to tap into your immense magical power and combine it with my knowledge of how to actually use such power and for that, I need your cooperation."

"And why I should I cooperate with you?" Raven asked scornfully. Aside from her own dislike of Evan, she had a good reason not to help him. The method of tapping into someone else's magical power that Raven knew about was hextremely painful to whoever was being tapped.

"Because if you don't," Evan began, "a lot of people could get hurt because you didn't help me stop this crisis before it escalated."

"Since when do you care about other people?"

"I don't: but you do. And I can use that to make you do what I want."

Raven glared at Evan again, who was currently wearing a very smug grin.

"Has anyone ever told you that you have a very punchable face?" Raven asked.

"Many times," Evan answered.

"Please Raven," Finelope spoke up, hoping to calm things down. "I don't know much of what's going on, but if these Foundation X guys are half as bad as Evan says they are..."

"Wait, Foundation X," Raven interrupted. "That's who's coming?"

"Yes," Evan answered. "How do you know of them?"

"I'll get to that in a bit," Raven said. "I will help you fight them, but no tapping into my magic. I'll fight them in my own way."

"And what way is that, you developmentally challenged sorceress?" Evan asked condescendingly.

"This way," Raven said as she summoned the Nocturnal Driver around her waist. She was going to transform into Kamen Rider Nocturnal, but was interrupted by Evan.

"Holy shitballs!," Evan exclaimed. "Since when the hex are you a Kamen Rider?"

"Since about a week," Raven answered.

"I'm confused: what's going on now?" Finelope asked.

"I've recently decided to emulate a group of warriors called Kamen Riders," Raven began. "Some of them have them have fought Foundation X, so that's how I know about that group." Raven faced Evan. "But why do we need to fight them ourselves? Can't we tell the authorities about this and they'll take it from there?"

"If I told them about an incoming extra-dimensional threat," Evan began.

"They wouldn't take you seriously," Raven finished. "And there would be the same problem if I tried to tell them." She knew that because they were both future villains, no one would listen to them.

"I could tell them," Finelope spoke up. "I'm a princess: they'll listen to me."

"And what will you tell them when they where you got your information from?" Evan asked.

"From you," Finelope asked. "Oh," she said as she drooped her head and realized that that option would have the same problem.

"Besides," Evan continued. "Even if they believed us, while they're responding to the threat with the glacial pace of government bureaucracy, Foundation X will use that time to gain a greater foothold in this universe."

And if we go to the authorities, Evan started thinking, they'll want to punish me for how my stealing brought Foundation X here in the first place. They might even hand me over to Foundation X in an attempt to smooth things over.

"How do you know about Foundation X?" Raven asked.

"That's not important," Evan responded.

"He's been stealing from them," Finelope answered truthfully.

"What?" Raven exclaimed. "And you're asking me to help protect you from them?"

"Yes," Evan answered flatly. "But tell me this Raven: does that make me automatically wrong about how it's best for this world if we remove Foundation X from it as soon as possible, or how the authorities will must likely ignore any warning made from either us? While you are thinking about that, keep in mind that if Foundation X were to learn and copy stuff about magic from this world and take that knowledge back to their world to further their agenda, it would endanger people in that world."

"Damn it," Raven muttered under her breath. "How is it that you being a psycho and a sadist and manipulating me to help cover your ass doesn't make you wrong?"

"I have no idea," Evan admitted.

"Who else is a part of this?" Raven asked.

"So far, it's the three of us plus Faebelle," Finelope answered.

"Oh this just gets better and better," Raven said sarcastically as she put her hand on her forehead. Due to the bad blood between them, Raven was not looking forward to having to work with Faebelle on this. "Don't get me wrong: I'll still help. I'll just like it even less."

"Hexcellent," Evan said. "One last thing: do either of you know of anyone else we can bring in on this? They'd have to know how to fight and be able to keep a secret."

"I've got someone in mind," Raven said. "I'll bring Cerise Hood."

"Why her?" Evan asked.

"She's stronger than she looks," Raven answered.

And she really knows how to keep a secret, Raven mentally added.

"I'll bring someone too," Finelope said.

"Great," Evan said as he took out his mirror phone brought up a map with a specific location selected and showed it to Raven. "Come here along with whoever you have in mind after school. We need to start making preparations."

Raven looked at the map and selected the same spot on the map app on her phone. It was a clearing just inside the dark forest near the school.

The three of them parted ways after that.

...

Raven met up with Cerise later and told the hooded girl that she needed her help with something important. After classes that day, Raven lead Cerise over to the Asain part of Book End while explaining the current situation she had gotten into.

"Please wait out here," Raven said to Cerise outside Mr. Woo's butcher shop. She went into the shop, past Mr. Woo and into Meiling's dojo. Meiling wasn't there at the moment.

She and Finelope are probably already on their way to the rendezvous point, Raven thought.

Raven thought that it might be a good idea to tell Cerise and Meiling about each other since they had quite a bit in common with hiding who they really were. The problem with that was that each of them trusted Raven with their secrets and she didn't feel right betraying that trust, which she'd have to do tell them about each other. Raven decided that that was an issue for later since she had other things to worry about.

She began looking over some of Meiling's weapon racks, trying to find a weapon that would be a good match for Cerise. After about three minutes of searching, Raven found what she thought would be a good choice: a pair of knives. They had curved blades that were about three inches long and one inch thick. Raven did a few practice slashes with one and decided that the knives used with Cerise's speed would make for a deadly combination. She took the knives (along with their sheaths) and rejoined Cerise outside the shop.

"What was that about?" Cerise asked.

"It's a long story," Raven said as she handed Cerise the knives. "Short version: I know someone who works here and she's going to be okay with me borrowing these for you."

"She?" Cerise asked as she took the knives and attached the sheaths to her pants. "I don't know of any women who work here and I've been here a few times."

"You have?"

"This place has hexcellent braised spare rips. Try them and you'll understand how this place stays in business despite Woo calling all his customers cocksuckers."

"I had wondered about," Raven said as she put her hand on her chin.

Cerise took a knife out and swung it a bit, finding that it was not that heavy thanks to her half-werewolf strength. She was very curious as to how Raven was connected to this place or what this woman was or what these kind of knives were doing at a butcher shop but decided not to pursue the matter because she knew that people had reasons for not sharing everything.

"These will do nicely," Cerise said as she sheathed the knife.

With that taken care of, Raven summoned her demonic horse Demona out of an infernal portal in the ground that Demona jumped out of. Raven and Cerise got on Demona and rode towards the rendezvous point.

Some time later, they got to Evan's specified location. Finelope, Meiling and Faebelle were waiting for them there. Meiling had a pole weapon with a short, curved blade attached to her back (this was called a quado, but Raven didn't know that) and a sheath for her sword at her side. Raven and Cerise disembarked and Demona jumped down into a portal like the one she came from.

"Hi, I'm Finelope," the plus-sized mermaid said to Cerise after moving up to her. "That's Meiling. She's a friend of my roommate. It's nice to meet you."

"Nice to meet you too," Cerise returned the greeting, then turned her head and got a closer look at Meiling. "Those are the largest muscles I've ever seen on a girl before."

"I get that a lot," Meiling said and then flexed her arm to show off her physique.

"Hello Raven," Faebelle said to her in a drawn out way practically dripping with spite (1).

"Faebelle," Raven said back. "Will everyone's least favorite psychopath be joining us or does he think he's too good for that?"

"He's going to be here," Faebelle said. "He had to do something first and it's taking him a while getting back from it."

"Might as well work in some practice while I'm waiting," Cerise said as she unsheathed her knives and swinging them. Meiling noticed that the knives were the same ones from her dojo but didn't mind.

If I'm going to help with this, my stuff can too, she thought to herself.

"Good idea Cerise," Raven said as she summoned the Nocturnal Driver around her waist. "Henshin," she said as she channeled her magic into the belt and became Kamen Rider Nocturnal.

"That's cool," Cerise said with her eyes slightly wide in shock.

"Indeed," Faebelle agreed as she looked over Raven's armor. "I think I hate you slightly less now."

"Good to know," Raven said. She materialized the Night Axe and started practicing with it. Meiling drew her quado and joined them in weapons practice.

Roughly ten minutes later, Evan showed up in a wooden cart that was being pulled by Terry the tabby. There were two humanoid creatures with him that had black bodies with strips of what looked like white cloth over them and what looked like a black hole on the face.

"Hello ladies," Evan said as he got off the cart. "Sorry I'm late: Terry didn't move the cart as fast as I thought he would." He looked around and got a good look at Nocturnal. "So that's your armor. Do you have a rider name yet?"

"Yes: I'm Kamen Rider Nocturnal," she answered.

"Not bad," Evan said.

"Who did you do that to?" Nocturnal asked, pointing at Terry.

"A stray cat I found. Don't worry: he's not in there anymore," Evan answered as he went back to the cart and came out carrying Lil' Fatty with significant difficulty. "Lil' Fatty here did me a great service so I removed him once he'd given me a Yummy." He put Fatty down and went back to the cart. "Can you come over here, Finelope?"

"Sure," Finelope said as she moved to the cart, where she saw the spell rifle laying down inside. She grabbed the butt of the rifle, dragged it closer to her and held it. "I finally get to try this thing out," she said hexitedly.

"Another thing you stole from Foundation X?" Nocturnal asked.

"No," Evan answered. "My mother once experimented with the creation of magical firearms, based on mechanical ones used by people in other worlds. This is a prototype left over from that." Evan went back to his cart and pulled out a large, brown strap with many capsules of green energy on it. He walked up to Finelope. "These are what's used to power the weapon. You put them in here," he said, pointing to a slot on the top and then sliding a capsule inside. "They'll pop out when empty and then you put in a new one. Each capsule is only good for eight shots, so please aim first."

"Okay," Finelope said. Evan wrapped the strap around and attached the ends together so Finelope could wear it as a bandolier. He copped a quick feel during this but Finelope choose not to notice.

"Now I want to take a look at my new allies," Evan said as he faced Cerise and Meiling. "You I know," he said to Cerise, "but you I don't," he said to Meiling.

"I'm a friend of Finelope's roommate," Meiling said.

"Oh, you know Michigo," Evan said with a hint of unease. "What has she told you about me?"

"All bad things," Meiling answered.

"That sounds about right," Evan said, then took a closer look at Meiling. "You actually look like Michigo. Well, your face does: your physique is another story."

"All Asian people kind of look alike," Meiling said.

"Yes, that's true," Evan said.

Good thing he's racist enough to fall for that, Meiling thought.

"I just want to thank both of you in advance," Evan continued, "for helping with the most noble endevour imaginable."

"Protecting our universe from extra-dimensional evil?" Meiling asked, causing Evan to chuckle for a bit.

"No: saving my ass," he clarified. Both Cerise and Meiling glared at him angrily (as well as Raven but nobody saw that under her helmet).

"Why are we helping you again?" Cerise asked. "I mean, you're an asshole."

"And a sadist," Kamen Rider Nocturnal added.

"And a psychopath," Meiling piped in.

"And a sexual deviant," Faebelle said.

"For the last time, Faebelle," Finelope said angrily, "liking fat chicks does not make him a sexual deviant."

"In a very broad sense, it does," Evan admitted.

"What's going on here?" Cerise asked in confusion.

"Evan and Finelope are seeing each other," Faebelle explained.

"We have more important things to worry about," Evan said, not worrying about Faebelle revealing that particular secret. "To answer your original question, Cerise, you're helping me because as bad as I am, Foundation X is worse and it's best for everybody if they are quickly removed from this universe. Now let's go over what we have to work with."

Author's notes: (1) if you've ever watched 'Seinfeld', Faebelle said this in the same way Jerry would greet his nemesis Newman.