Hey this is my first Sentai fic, Super Sentai and its characters do not belong to me but are a product of toei. The characters in this fic are all original and if any names are similar to any individual out there it is a coincidence.
That said I hope you enjoy.
ShinKu by the way is a mixture of the Japanese word Shinwa which means myth and Kuricha which means creature. I don't speak Japanese so this is nothing official and if Shinku does mean anything in Japanese please let me know.
Prologue.
A museum can be a terrifying place at night. True there are many places in the world that inspire fear in people, some with good intention. But for Hirioshi Takagawa there were far better places to be than in the stuffed animal exhibition of a museum doing the night shift.
It seemed like someone had deliberately arranged all of the larger and more ferocious animals into posses of attacking whoever came around the corner. This did not help Hiroshi's nerves. He quickly did one more sweep of the exhibition and then hurried out of the room to inspect a different room, closing the door behind him. It was a shame because if he had stayed a few minute longer he would have had an excuse to leave that building as fast as possible.
In the darkest corner of the room something moved within the shadows, rising up, out and bubbling all the while like hot tar. Suddenly a figure calmly rose out of the bubbling mass of darkness. Strange black liquid dripped of its body and then slid back into the darkness as if it was alive. The creature itself was humanoid in shape but that was the only similarities it shared. Its body was covered in dirty looking black bandages, some of which dangled from its arms, shoulders and waist. Around its head the bandages were so loose & lengthy it looked like the creature had long messy hair. If someone was to see it from a distance they would mistake it for an Egyptian mummy having a bad hair day. However upon closer inspection you could see its hands and feet were mechanical; shaped like human appendages but made of metal with wires and gears visible in certain areas. As it started to move you could hear the gears turning with each action it made.
The creature slowly moved into the centre of the room, shuffling and twitching all the while. Once there it started to pull at the bandages covering its chest, ripping quite a few of them with sudden jerks of its arms. At last its robotic chest was revealed; a mass of wires and gears with a small black orb at its centre. Just bellow it was a tall thin cylinder not attached to any part of the creature itself. It was the reason for its appearance in the museum.
The creature took the cylinder shaped device out of its chest and held it carefully in both hands, holding it out in front of it as if it was a sword. The cylinder was made of rock around the rim at both ends whilst the central shaft was polished silver carved with strange looking runes.
As the creature went around the exhibit the Cylinder began to emit a green glow in its hand, becoming brighter as the creature approached a corner leading towards the big cat exhibit. It turned to face the exhibit which displayed a panther, two lions and a leopard displayed on a jungle background. Pointing the cylinder to each one in turn the rod glowed brighter until it was pointed at the stuffed leopard, at which point a symbol appeared on the silver of the cylinder. It was small, the size of a penny. It depicted a bowl with four tiny circle on the upper inside with one at each corner, whilst the bottom had only one circle in the middle. On top of the bowl were three crosses, standing like crucifixes.
The Creature looked at the symbol and then at the leopard, approaching it in its clumsy shuffling manner, cylinder continuing to grow brighter as it grew closer. Unfortunately this caught the attention of Hirioshi who nervously started to jog back towards the exhibit, thinking it was the light of a thief's flashlight.
The creature finally reached the stuffed carcass and placed the cylinder against its furry chest. On contact the stone ends of the cylinder disintegrated, leaving the smell of sulphur hanging in the air. With the rock section gone the remaining silver melted into a liquid but did not drip or run down the furry body of the leopard as liquid should. Instead it was absorbed into the leopard's body as if it was a sponge, leaving only that strange symbol where it had been. Things started happening really quickly after that.
The first was Hirioshi entering the room. As he turned the corner he was startled by two things. The first was the creature that looked like it belonged in the ancient Egypt exhibit and the second was to see one of the stuffed big cats crash to floor and start convulsing.
The stuffed leopard had a large tear forming on its back as the polyester and wire frame were being pushed out of it, causing many more tears. With its fake innards scattered across the floor and its skin lying in tatters all was still for a minute. Then suddenly the leopard skin began to rise, black liquid dripping from the rips as it stood in an upright pose. Looking like a deflated furry balloon it suddenly began to inflate. It tore clean in half at the waist with the hips and legs filling out as if some invisible force were wearing it.
The skin around the feet erupted then stitched itself back together, only much bigger than before and with larger claws. What was left of the tail also stitched itself back together and attached back to the lower waist.
Suddenly a silver liquid dripped from the upper torso and into the now fully repaired lower torso until a well developed silver waist appeared between the two sections. The tears on the upper section started to heal as well. They also started to take a more humanoid appearance, filling out with a ribcage and muscles. The front legs began to change into bipedal arms with a claw on each paw reshaping into a thumb. Four silver fingers erupted from the remaining paws of each arm, the leopards growing claws becoming the knuckles. Apart from its head which was still ripped in a few places the stuffed carcass from a few minutes ago now looked like a well toned human in a tight spotty furred body suit with silver fingers and exposed midriff.
With the rest of the body completed the head started to stitch itself back together where it had torn and inflate to resemble the form it once had before becoming an exhibit. Silver orbs appeared in its eyes before changing to an emissive blue. Its jaws, having grown back, began to form teeth far larger and pointed than it had originally had. A silver forked tongue ran over them before being sucked back in. Atop its forehead two large bumps began to appear before erupting into a pair of horns that stood straight up like a gazelles. Two similar bumps appeared at its shoulder blades. When they erupted it was small silver feathered wings that appeared, each one under a meter in length.
And so at last the creature stood; a bipedal leopard with silver fingers and wings plus a pair of horns on its head.
Then, almost as if they had always existed, clothes appeared on the creature. Its torso and leg were now covered by a black robe with a purple sash around the waist, similar in appearance to what some bishops wore. However upon its chest that same symbol could be seen as the one that had been on the cylinder which created this creature.
Hirioshi had been very still during all this, partially in awe of this strange creature but mostly due to the fear of witnessing its horrific transformation. He let out a breath he had not been aware he had held. Suddenly the creature turned its head to look at him, its glowing blue eyes studying him with curiosity.
It spoke.
"ZoMech, would you kindly bring that man to me?" its voice was oddly gentle, as if a father were speaking softly to its baby. So taken aback was Hirioshi that he failed to notice the mechanical mummy, or ZoMech as the creature had called it, jump up into the air with such swiftness that within minutes the creature was ontop of him and dragging him towards the creature. Hirioshi had yelped when he'd been caught but once he was before the leopard man he fell silent.
"What are you doing here?" it asked.
Hiroshi babbled "I-I-I work h-here. P-please don't hurt me!"
The creature looked at him with those glowing eyes, its feline face giving away no expression. It lowered itself on one knee so it was on level with Hirioshi, its wings fluttering behind it.
"I am afraid I can't do that. You see it has been a long time since I have indulged myself with the sound of human screams. I find the best way is setting you people on fire; the screams last longer that way. Please, indulge me good sir!" and with that it stood up straight, raising a hand to point at Hirioshi.
Flames erupted from within its robed sleeves and ignited Hirioshi.
The creature and his robotic accomplice remained until the fire had died out. It had been momentarily annoyed by the sound of the fire alarm but with a wave of its hand it had silenced it. It knew it had to leave before the, what were they called again, fire brigade showed up but wished to see the end of its work before it left. As much as it would have loved having its fun with the approaching humans the creature knew it had a task to perform that required stealth until it received further orders.
With a wave of its arm a hole appeared in one of the museums windows. The ZoMech crawled up the side of the walls and out of the hole, the creature following it by flight despite the size of its wings. Once it emerged from the hole the creature waved its arm once more and the hole vanished, leaving only a missing display and a few burnt bones that had once been a human only 10 minutes ago. If the creature had had the capability it would have smiled.
Hope you enjoyed. I'm writing two fics at the moment so I don't know how soon the next chapter will be out but I will try to make it soon.
Please leave a review and next time I will introduce the team.