They were dead.
They were all dead.
Michiko was dead.
Yuka ran until she couldn't run anymore, and then she collapsed to her knees and she screamed.
What am I?!
Curled up on the ground, Yuka allowed the snow to collect on her. Aside from her shivering she may as well have been a statue, beautiful and tragic and still.
She didn't move until she heard the sound of a car alarm. Even then all she did was turn her eyes upward.
There was a monster, stark white and animalesque. Like her. It was pulling its fists away from a car that had a huge dent in the roof. The car's single occupant, a young man, was cowering and screaming and trying in vain to open the crushed door.
Two long tendrils extended from the monster and pierced their way into the man's chest. He suddenly went rigid as a spark of blue fire appeared around him, and then he turned to ash.
Yuka's eyes widened. She finally moved. When she scrambled backward the snow blanketing her fell like the dead man's remains.
Out of the corner of its eye, the monster noticed her. It started toward her and she got to her feet in a panic, but then suddenly a voice called out, "Hey!"
The monster stopped and turned.
A woman was standing there, a funny-looking belt around her waist and a clunky cell phone that looked like a toy in her hand. "Leave her alone, or... or I'll...!"
It wasn't a very convincing threat, but the monster seemed to take it seriously nonetheless. It squared off against the woman and it spoke in a deep, rumbling voice. "You have the Faiz Gear? Give it here, and I'll spare you and this useless girl."
"No way!" said the woman with the belt. "I guess I have no choice..."
She flipped her phone open and punched in a three-digit code. An eerie mechanical sound emanated from the phone, and when she flipped it closed it announced, "Standing by."
"Transform!" the woman exclaimed, and she set the phone into her belt.
"Error."
The belt and phone glowed bright red and sparked. The woman let out a cry of confusion as she was thrown backward.
The monster chuckled. "That's right. You can't even use it. So give it to me." It began to advance on the woman as she laid there in the snow, cringing from her failed attempt at... whatever she'd just tried to do.
Yuka swallowed. She didn't know what these monsters were—and that included herself—but she knew she couldn't just watch this. She could save that woman; she had the power to—to do what she'd done before, but she didn't want to turn into that thing again. She didn't know if she could control herself.
So she got to her feet and, with a cry like that of a soldier rushing into battle, she tackled the monster.
The woman with the belt gasped. "Hey, you idiot—!"
"Get out of here!" Yuka exclaimed. "I can hold him off, but if you stay here then I—"
The woman looked from her belt up to Yuka and back down again. Her face set in determination. "Not like that you can't. Here!"
As the monster growled with rage and ran for Yuka, the woman got to her feet and tugged her out of its way. She got behind Yuka, snapped the belt around her waist, and handed her the phone.
"Huh?!"
"Push five five five," the woman instructed. "I can't do it, but maybe you can!"
"I—why would I be able—"
"I don't know whether you can, but please, just try it or we're both in trouble!"
"Oh?" The monster sounded like it would have been quirking its eyebrows in curiosity if it had any. It stopped in place to watch.
If anything, that just made Yuka's cheeks flush. What, did that thing not think she could do it? She bit her lip and pushed the 5 button on the phone three times.
"Standing by."
She held the phone up and repeated the other woman's earlier cry. "Tr—transform!" She snapped the phone into place on the belt and braced herself.
"Complete."
The other woman smiled and practically jumped up and down. Lines of red light appeared over Yuka's body and a suit of armor materialized around her.
She looked down at her arms and legs. "I'm..."
The monster sneered. "So you did it after all? That must mean you're—"
"Fight him, fight him!"
"R-right!"
This armor was different from the monster Yuka had become before, but it was no less powerful. She dodged and weaved around the monster's blows with ease. Her punches and kicks had a superhuman quality to them.
And most importantly, she still felt like herself. Like a human being.
She never wanted this to stop.