Kamen Rider Tarock Re-Dealt: All Rider War – The Devil's Nail
Part 2
As they watched another red building on the holographic display of the city hovering in midair turned white, and from the top a small yellow blip came flying up to the saucer floating above the city that represented its home base.
Their home base.
END-Shocker's home base.
At the center of the room, in a sealed transparent room, a group of men in white unitards and ski masks were sorting slivers of shiny red metal, trying to find how they all fit together. On one end of a table they'd already managed to find enough to make the shape of a sharp tip of something like a blade.
Watching them at their work was an imposing man wearing a golden mask and long red cape, leaning on an ornate cane. "This is taking too long," he growled. "The Dai Shuryo wants this complete by tonight!"
"We know, General Jak. We know," replied another man watching the technicians' efforts. With his wild mane of white hair, immaculate white suit and black cape he looked a lot like a foppish composer. He wouldn't have been in a place like that long if he was, though. "And every minute another piece is found and brought back. We've even located the hilt."
"Locating is not retrieving, Shinigami," Jak retorted, scowling bellowing his golden mask. He turned to another officer, "Titan, I certainly hope your squads are putting in more of an effort than Shinigami's."
The other two had been sights to behold, but they were nothing compared to Titan. He wore a tailored black suit with white gloves and cravat, but his head was a black oblong shape covered in wide, never-closing eyes surrounding one central bloodshot eye that seemed to stare right through to a person's soul.
"You overestimate your position, Jak," Titan said in a resounding voice. "And you underestimate END-Shocker. We are endless. That is why the Dai Shuryou has given us that name. We will find them."
"Some general," laughed another figure. "A few setbacks and he turns into a panicking coward." The speaker was a shorter man than the others, wearing black armor and a huge, wide helmet patterned with black and gold stripes that made itlook a little like a Pharaoh's headdress.
Suddenly a gleaming sword was in Jak's hand and being held against the black-clad man's throat. "Say that again, Ambassador," Jak snarled at him. "The empire I served spanned worlds. None of you have never even seen the stars, have you!?"
"If you're so anxious, why don't you actually go out there and oversee the efforts yourself?" Titan scoffed.
"Why don't you?" Jak angrily retorted.
"Because I have faith in our operatives," Titan answered him. "I have faith in the power the Dai Shuryou's given us all. And I remember that our objective is to reassemble the artifact, not kill Riders. Once it's all in one piece again, they'll be dead anyway."
General Jak slung his sword over his shoulder and strode out of the room. "And while you're sitting around basking in your status, I'll be out earning status."
Once he was gone, the Ambassador asked, "Shouldn't we have stopped him?"
"Why?" Shinigami retorted. "If he actually kills a few, the better for our side. If he doesn't, there'll be more of the world for us when this is all over."
Tarock sped up as she tried to keep the one-armed Bat Mutant in sight, but steering her bike was turning out to be a problem with one hand covered by a giant spike or cannon or whatever her new weapon was supposed to be.
The Bat Mutant looked over his shoulder and spotted her gaining and started to pump his wings even harder to pull away. Tarock aimed and fired a bolt of watery energy that clipped his wing and sent him into a spin, but the mutant was an expert flier and with an angry shriek he pulled up into the air again.
And as he did something huge came diving at Tarock from the other direction, something so big the entire sky seemed to go dark before it slammed into the ground with such incredible force Tarock was blown off her bike and eighty feet through the air before she crashed through a wall and rolled to a jarring stop.
Instead of feeling dazed, Tarock jumped up and punched through the roof of the half-wrecked building she'd landed in. Normally even she might've been scared to have something that huge drop out of the sky on her. It had to have been nearly a hundred feet tall, looking like some kind of hellish chandelier with enormous green wings made of ugly stained glass. Sticking out from near the center was a long neck with a skull-like face on it and underneath that were three writhing arms with pincers big enough to crush a car.
But right now, she was just angry. This thing was getting between her and the Bat Mutant, and she needed to get back what he had been sent to steal. And now this thing…what had Gentaro called them before? Sabbats? She had to get past it, but did even she have enough firepower to bring down something like that?
The Sabbat screamed and splayed its giant glass wings before taking to the air. Tarock considered those special cards in her case that could combine into a giant lion, but wondered if it was the time. This felt so early in the marathon still, and it had taken forever for them to recharge themselves after the first time she'd used them.
Instead she aimed her arm cannon at the Sabbat and fired at one wing, but the ripping bolt just deflected off doing no damage. She changed targets and aimed at its head but as her next shot glanced off it turned to look at her, zeroing in on her vantage point.
Tarock ran to the edge of the roof and jumped to the next one as the Sabbat spun along the ground like a tornado, smashing the building she'd been on to dust and taking off the side of the other building she'd jumped to for safety. The Sabbat suddenly lifted off the ground, still spinning, and once it was in the air it stopped and fixed its eye sockets on where Tarock was standing.
Then with a scream that made her clutch her ears pain, it was diving at her, pincers snapping and its giant glass wings still ringing with the force of its cry. Tarock managed to aim her weapon, figuring she could at least go to Hell knowing she'd fought to the end. But then a streak of light ran up into her arm cannon…
"Dire! Frozen Malestrom!" The spike on the end folded back into a parabolic dish as it had before but now a stream of water flowed out from the end and formed itself into a spiral. Within seconds it was a giant whirlpool with dark chunks of ice spinning inside. It slammed into the Sabbat and tore off half its wings before knocking the grotesque creature out of the sky.
The Sabbat landed with a crash that knocked Tarock down. Frost coated its face but it shook its neck back and forth to wave it off before it screeched in anger and started crawling along the ground to her. But again Tarock felt a power that was incredible even compared to what she was used to start building in her arm cannon.
"Cataclysm! Tidebreaker!" Energy stabbed out of Tarock's cannon and a curved prong grew from each side, forming a huge golden trident. It went screaming at the furious Sabbat and blasted right through the monster, scattering hunks of metal and stained glass all over the area. Its skull-like head crashed onto the roof next to Tarock and snapped at her angrily a few times then finally went still and crumbled into a pile of blackened junk.
Tarock panted from all the power she'd just unleashed , but she looked back and forth across the sky for any sign of the Bat Mutant. For just a second she thought she saw a dark speck in the distance, but by the time she'd jumped down into the wide wrecked area where the Sabbat had been and found Shift Runner, it was completely gone.
She'd destroyed a deadly monster.
But she'd failed Black.
With no enemies in sight Tarock reverted back to plain old Liss Decker, feeling plainer than ever after letting the Bat Mutant get away with his prize. She rode through the streets awhile, trying to see if there were signs of any other groups of monsters looking for the same thing as her prey had gotten away with, but aside from a few of those weird shrieking men in black unitards and ski masks who took one look at her bike and vanished into the alleys, the streets were strangely empty. People were probably hiding from all the monsters, but where had all the monsters gone, and what were they looking for…?
Suddenly a door creaked open and a man stepped into the street. "Hello," he called, "Do you need help?"
"Do I need help?" Liss asked. "Mister, maybe you didn't notice, but there's monsters everywhere! You sure you should be coming out and giving them the chance to see you?!"
He laughed lightly. "That doesn't look like something you're very worried about."
"I can protect myself," Liss said.
"So can I," he replied. "I've seen this kind of thing before."
Liss knitted her brow and studied the man. He was tall and thin, lanky to the point of being almost bony, but the weirdest thing about him was his hairstyle. It was a dark auburn with streaks of grey, but it hung down completely covering one half of his face so that Liss could only see one of his eyes. Even when he turned his face to the side, she could still only see one eye at a time.
"You're looking a little stressed, miss. Why don't I show you someplace you can relax for a minute?" he suggested.
"I really can't, okay? I need to find this giant bat who flew by here a while ago. He's got something really important."
"Oh?" the man asked, peering at her around his strange haircut. "What does he have?"
"A piece of metal."
He smiled faintly in amusement. "A piece of metal! Well, then…"
"Have you seen a giant bat fly past here or not?" Liss demanded.
"Probably," he answered. "So many strange things have been flying past lately. I'm afraid if there was one bat in particular, he slipped past me. Are you sure you aren't interested in taking a break, young lady?"
"All right, if it'll help you asking," Liss said after a second. "What do I call you, though?"
He shrugged with a wry smile. "Just call me Joe." Then he waved his hand toward a storefront near the street corner. Over the door was a sign written in kanji with an eye in the middle that had a vertical slit for a pupil. As Liss looked at it for a second wondering what it meant the symbols seemed to flow and rearrange themselves into words she understood: Cat's Eye Café.
Liss parked Shift Runner outside and followed Joe into the place, a traditional-looking little café with a bar made of orange glass with a few stools in front of it and vases holding pretty but fake-looking flowers on top of it. There were a few tables along the front window, but Liss's eyes were drawn to a weird poster of a naked woman facing away behind the counter. What was that doing there?
Behind the bar was a woman in her late twenties, with patient dark eyes that matched the color of her luxurious wavy hair. She greeted Liss and Joe with a warm but practiced smile. "Ah, Shimamura-san! I'm surprised to see you again. Won't Francoise scold you for spending so much time around beautiful young girls? I see you even found a new one today!"
Joe gave a smile of his own and responded with a dry laugh like he'd heard this many times before. "I'm glad you're still keeping the place open even with what's going on out there, Rui," he replied.
"They don't seem like the kind to be looking for a good cup of coffee…is that what we can get you?" Rui asked.
"For me, yes," Joe said. "As for…" He turned toward Liss.
"Liss," she supplied. "I'd prefer some green tea, if you have it."
"Of course, Lees," Rui replied and turned around to start working on their order. Liss sighed and just took a seat at the counter, resigned to her name being mangled at this point.
Suddenly a cat yowled and Liss, her nerves already on end from everything she'd seen that day, whipped around to face it. There in the far corner of the room, hidden by a shadow, was a wispy teenage girl sitting in front of a laptop with a yellow-furred cat in her lap. Rui turned and gave her a disapproving look. "Ai! Keep the cat quiet when we have customers!"
"Onee-san, look!" Ai replied and spun her laptop around. It showed a website with a logo that Liss thought said ORE Journal, showing a video of a crowd of monsters storming through the streets. After a second it cut to an aerial view of the city, showing red columns that appeared to represent those gangs of monsters, all heading for the middle of town. "They say it looks like they found what they were looking for and now they're all meeting in one place!"
Liss grumbled at what that meant, and wondered where Black was now and if he'd end up solving her mistake. Or if anyone would have the chance. But then Rui set a teacup in front of her, and Liss took a grateful sip. As she was leaning forward to set her cup down she noticed Ai was standing a few inches away, staring at her face.
"What happened to your eye?"
"Ai!" Rui glared at her. "You can't just ask someone something like that!" Joe snickered.
Liss gave her a bewildered look, but Ai just tilted her head and stared at the white crystal orb in one socket that had replaced her eye after a terrible battle. "A monster smashed my face there. Some people put that in there to replace it," Liss replied simply.
"Oooooooh! You fight monsters? You must be really strong then! Hey Rui! Let's ask her to join!" Ai blurted out.
"Shhhhhhhhhhhh!" Rui hissed. "You've said enough, little girl!"
"But don't you think we could use some muscle when Hitomi's away?" Ai asked, oblivious to her sister's irritation. Joe laughed lightly. "She's really busy right now protecting Toshi from all those monsters, right? And we need to get going soon. Wouldn't she be a big help?"
Liss knitted her brow. "What's she talking about?"
"Nothing," Rui assured her, cutting off anymore statements from her little sister with a pointed glare. "More tea, Lees?"
She nodded. "Sure. But then I should really get back out there and see if I can help."
"Maybe you shouldn't be in such a hurry, Lees," Joe spoke up.
"What are you talking about? Of course I have to hurry."
Joe sipped his coffee and nodded gently. "Of course. But I'm sorry to say, you won't be the one to finally slay evil. Evil's something in all of us; it can't be destroyed, it can only be contained. You aren't the first Kamen Rider, and even the first Kamen Rider wasn't the first one to fight an evil group to the death. There'll always be another. Some patience wouldn't hurt."
"Eh? She's a Rider?" Ai asked loudly, but a glare from Rui shut up the entire room. Liss was picking up her teacup again when she heard a strange chattering noise from the street. She turned her stool around just in time to see a purple-feathered bird monster with a large white beak and wearing a belt with END-Shocker's symbol on it, a skeletal bird spreading its wings to the sky.
And tucked into that belt was a jagged piece of shiny red metal.
Liss almost choked on her mouthful of tea. She was reaching into duster for the Arc Driver, but Joe reached out and put a hand on hers. "Wait," he said. A second later five other monsters came slinking out of the shadows between buildings and gathered around the Purple Parrot. A red-furred, spotted cat creature, maybe a jaguar; a snake-man with silver scales; a huge blue fish with wicked teeth that reminded Liss of a barracuda; an orange-skinned iguana crawling on all fours; finally a dark green monkey-man swung down from the top of a building.
"Do you really think you can take on so many?" Joe whispered.
"I've beaten worse monsters than those," Liss retorted.
"Like the one that took your eye, huh?" Joe said. "Why not spare yourself some new scars if you can? There are other ways, you know."
She narrowed her eyes. "And you know one, you're saying?"
He smiled patiently at her and stood up. From out of nowhere he produced a faded yellow scarf and wrapped around his neck. "I've done this a few times," Joe said. Suddenly he was gone from her side and the door to the café had been blown open by something Liss couldn't see.
Then a second later a blur with a yellow trailing behind it charged through the crowd of monsters, knocking them aside with a force she never could've managed in her Wands Form. The blur whipped back through them again, stopping for a split-second at the side of the Purple Parrot and then shooting off down the street again. Liss slipped out the front door after it while the monsters were distracted by the surprise attack.
Just around the street corner, leaning casually against a wall but panting slightly, was Joe. As she came up he held up one hand, fingers clutching a shard of shining red metal.
"Who are you, mister?" Liss asked, a little suspicious, but a little awed.
"I'm Joe," he answered. "You might also say I'm your predecessor. So I know what I'm saying when I tell you there will always be evil to fight, Rider. Don't plunge into it so readily it overwhelms you; there will always be villains, but there seems to be a regular shortage of heroes." Then he put the metal into Liss's gloved hand.
A scream came from above: it was the Green Monkey jumping off the roof of the building over them, and as he came down he vaulted off the side of the opposite building to come shooting at them like a hairy screaming missile. Joe's eye flashed for a second before he turned into a speeding blur that ricocheted between the sides of both buildings at angle, going higher and higher until he slammed into Green Monkey in midair, sending the monster's head and arm spinning away. Liss took off running to take advantage of the time Joe was buying her by taking on the monsters.
She ran down an alley, wishing she knew this town at all so she'd know a good way to run to lose a pursuer. She took a few wild turns as she wound through back streets, ducking under a chainlink fence and through a lot full of rusty old cars. But from above her she could hear a weird cry of "Kill you! KILL YOU!" Liss risked a glance over her shoulder and saw Purple Parrot flying above keeping an eye on her. Suddenly Silver Snake slithered out from underneath one of the old car wrecks, while Orange Iguana jumped down from an equally rusty old storage building. The two monsters scuttled after Liss, driving her toward a brick building that looked like the office of the lot.
But she clutched the metal shard even as her back was pressed against the rear door of the building. Purple Parrot landed and started stalking her along with his reptilian friends, but just as Liss was reaching for her Arc Driver she was sure she could hear the sound of a train coming from right behind her. Then powerful blue and yellow arms wrapped themselves around her from behind and yanked her through the door.
In the confusion no-one spotted the tiny wisp of rainbow-colored light streaking for the door just before it closed.
The next thing Liss knew she'd landed on her butt and a door slammed shut in front of her, a blast of air whipping her hair into her face. After a second she recognized the familiar clacking of train tracks underneath her…and two new monsters were standing over her
One was covered in thick blue scales, like hunks of turtle shell all over his chest, head, arms and legs. The other one was covered in yellow and brown, with strands of fur hanging off his shoulders and a long horn extending from his forehead.
Liss grabbed for her Arc Driver again, but to her surprise the two of them jumped back and held up their hands.
"We don't want to want fight!" the blue one said, then slowly knelt down to be at Liss's eye level. He took her wrist, then undid her glove and stroked her hand. "I could never bring myself to hurt such a lovely creature…They call me Urataros, charming lady, and this is the DenLiner! It's such an incredible machine, allow me to show you."
She grabbed her glove back and stood up. "I don't even care about how you did it, but why did you bring me here if you don't want a fight?"
"To take you where you need to be," a calm voice answered from behind the two monsters. Liss looked past them to see a man in a dull brown suit sitting at a small table at the back of the car. He had a round head and thinning hair, and a napkin tucked into his collar as he delicately picked away at a pile of fried rice in front of him that had a tiny flag sticking out of the top. "That's what all trains do!" he said with a cheeky grin.
"And let me show you the length and breadth, my lady!" Urataros said and fell to one knee, taking Liss's still-uncovered hand. She pulled it away in annoyance but he stood up and leaned her against the wall. "…won't you let me reel you in?"
The other monster bumped him out of the way. "She doesn't have time to flirt with you! She's an ally of justice!...Aren't you, miss?"
But Urataros shoved him aside. "She's got nothing more important to do, Kintaros. No-one can get off until we reach another stop. I promise to make your stay…memorable."
"Coffee? Tea?" a shrill voice interrupted, and Liss found herself grateful. A white-clad waitress with a pink streak through her hair pushed a drinks cart through the door.
"I'll have some!" Liss called out and stepped away from Urataros.
"It's your funeral," said someone sitting by himself behind her. Liss turned and squinted at the man, wearing a plain black overcoat over a pink shirt and black pants, with a weird pink box with a pair of what looked like lenses lenses hanging from a strap around his neck. He was flicking through a stack of photos in his hands without looking up as he said it, all of them blurred or overexposed to the point of being unrecognizable. He set them down on one side of his table, and had no reaction at all when he picked up the coffee mug the waitress put in front of him and accidentally spilled it onto his photos.
Or had it been an accident?
Liss took a seat against the window and a sip of tea, then immediately turned and spat it out, spraying the window. "What kind of tea is this?"
"Oh, did I put in too much pepper?" asked the waitress.
"Who puts pepper in tea?!"
"Well, everyone said it was so bland, I was trying to make it more interesting!" the waitress said with an innocent smile, then obliviously turned away from Liss and pushed her cart on down the length of the dining car.
The two monsters had retreated to a table to sit in silence. Urataros stared into the distance, and Liss wondered if he was still thinking of some way to put the moves on her. Kintaros, however, leaned against the wall and started to snore.
Liss set down her tea, not interested in it anymore, and just stared out the window at the strange dry landscape of blinding sand, canyons and barren mountains under an unforgiving sun the train was passing through. Were they really traveling through time? Was that what it looked like outside time the way she usually saw it? And what time would it be when she got the chance to get off again?
As she sat there one of the end doors opened and a group of people came in…what kind of people commuted on a train like this? One man stood out to Liss in particular: from the goofy smile on his face alone she would've called him a teenager, but the fluorescent colors of his clothes under his black jacket just made the idea stick even more. There was a blue t-shirt, magenta sleeves peeking out from his jacket, and bright purple pants with a pattern of pink, yellow and blue squares all over them. He took a seat opposite the photographer, who paid no attention to him at all.
At the tail end of the group was another strange man but after a second Liss realized he wasn't wearing a mask. His entire body was a dark indigo, his face sleek and reptilian with two fins coming off the top of his head and another golden pair on the sides, framing his fang-filled mouth. He had on a long trenchcoat that matched the colors of the rest of his body, and when he saw Liss staring as he walked past he snickered, whipped out a bubble pipe and blew it in her face before he broke away and danced to an empty seat at the end of the car, swiping a cup of coffee off the trolley as he went.
Suddenly a small tremor ran through the train. The man in the corner who'd been eating the pile of rice moaned in disappointment as the pile flattened all over his plate and the tiny flag toppled over. "Maybe next time, Owner?" the waitress asked supportively.
"Maybe next time," he groused, oblivious to the flecks of rice all over his face.
Suddenly Kintaros turned and looked urgently at the wall. "What was that? Crying?"
"…what?" Liss asked, eying the monster cautiously.
"This happens all the time," the waitress assured her with a smile.
Then without warning Kintaros turned transparent like a ghost and flew away through the side of the car.
The second after he disappeared another monster came through the wall and collapsed in the middle of the car. This one was covered in red scales with a pair of horns sticking up from the forehead of his demonic face, and weird black "M"-like symbols all over his chest and shoulders. He raised one fist into the air and angrily screeched, "Nobody said crying, stupid bear!" The red monster picked himself up off the floor, kicked an empty table, not budging it an inch, and sat down hard in Kintaros's empty seat, grunting in annoyance. "Tch! I was just at my climax…"
Liss just sighed. She wondered if Sensei had any idea how weird some of the Kamen Riders really were. Was she anyone to talk, though?
"When can I get off again?" she asked. "I really need to get back in there."
The owner gave little smile. "When the train crosses another access point."
"But—"
He cut her off with a shrug. "There's no way to hurry it, we're going as fast as we can already! The DenLiner is the fastest train ever made! It goes even faster than time!" he finished with a laugh.
The red monster looked Liss over and made a dismissive sound in his throat when he saw her belt and no doubt guessed what it was for. "Wait, it's that American Rider! What are you doing here? Did you get scared and run away from your mission?!" he snorted. Liss looked back at him, eyes narrowed, and he looked back at her, face immobile. But then she turned back to pondering the landscape. She looked around at the other passengers for some clue as to what to do, since they all seemed used to these monsters on their train.
But the waitress said nothing and just wiped down the counter, and the owner looked intently at the back of his handkerchief as he wiped his face clean. As the red monster stomped over to confront her Liss realized they wanted to see how she'd handle it.
"I was sent after one of the monsters by Black. It had a piece of metal that's apparently really important," Liss said. "I lost it and I ended up here." He seemed unsurprised at her answer. "Your group didn't get in trouble, I guess?"
"Sure we did! They're out fighting it now (where I should be)! Because we aren't afraid of stupid monsters!" the red monster declared, and Liss wondered what the difference was between the four on that train and other "monsters." But he went on, "Looks like you're hiding out as far away as you can get, huh?"
Liss turned away from him. "Do you have any tea without pepper, please?" she asked the waitress.
"I'd have to make a new pot."
"That's fine, I'll wait for it. Nothing else to do right now," Liss replied.
The red monster slammed his fist against the wall. "Hey! I'm talking to you!" he snarled.
Liss sighed and looked down at the cooling cup of pepper tea in front of her, but pushed it away. "I really don't feel up to arguing with anybody, Mister…"
"Momotaros!" the red monster snarled, which got a chuckle from the other two monsters in the car. He glared at them but they didn't stop. He turned them back to Liss. "You're running away? What kind of Kamen Rider are you?!"
Again, no-one said anything. The owner got up and left the car, the waitress following him to hopefully start that pot of non-spicy tea. The photographer stood up and aimed the thing around his neck out the window, carefully snapping shots of the empty landscape. Urataros hadn't budged an inch in his contemplative silence. Only the young man in the fluorescent colors was looking their way at all, smiling in amusement.
For a second Liss felt an urge to ball a fist and show him how funny it really was. But as Momotaros screamed his scorn at her again, she sucked in a loud, deep breath and shut her eyes. Surprisingly Momotaros stopped in mid-sentence and let out a confused grunt as he studied his unresponsive target.
It felt like ages had passed since the time she'd first met that strange girl named only Lost. Since then, especially since Lost had been taken away by the Empress and Liss had failed to get her back, Liss's only thought had been becoming powerful enough to find some way to save her. Everything else had seemed unimportant. Like someone else could worry about it; Lost was her only concern.
Once, Liss had been an angry delinquent who only saw her powers as the way to prove that she mattered to a world that saw her as a worthless teenager who'd never amount to anything. That Liss would've punched this red demon or whatever he was clean out for getting in her face, and reveled in her strength.
But thinking about the time and those kinds of petty emotions, Liss just felt tired. The red monster or demon or whatever was being a pain in the ass, but she'd been one herself when she first became Tarock. That kind of person wasn't worth the effort of a knockout punch, and she'd only be turning into an asshole again for doing it.
"I guess I'm a Kamen Rider who's learning to pick her battles," Liss answered.
"Oh?" the young man in the fluorescent colors said, his grin widening, turning slightly sinister. "So what would you do if…this happened?"
Liss tensed herself for danger at his ominous words but he'd already flung something into the air; an orange blob that splattered against the wall, spraying bits of itself everywhere. She just had time to duck out of the way of one before it expanded into someone wearing a camouflage-print uniform and toting an assault rifle. But instead of a head there was a weird orange growth shaped like a bloated turkey with two legs sticking out from the back. The rest of the splatters had turned into identical monstrous soldiers.
Immediately the train car was a scene of chaos. The glob-headed soldiers fired their guns, tearing up the dining tables and shattering the windows, filling the air with broken glass and blasts of hot wind from outside. Momotaros, Urataros and the purple monster who'd been blowing bubbles were on their feet and wielding weapons. Urataros swung a long pole with diamond-shaped blades at the glob-heads while Momotaros had somehow produced a giant sword and knocked another of their attackers to the floor with it. The purple monster had a huge shotgun in his hands and as he squeezed the trigger Liss jammed her hands up against her ears to keep from going deaf from the blast.
The owner and waitress scrambled out of the car along with the other passengers. The photographer sat at his table, sipping his coffee and looking completely unfazed by the battle exploding all around him.
Just as Liss was about to join in an iron-hard grip closed around her wrist. It was the man in the fluorescent colors who'd started it all, and he was dragging her to the access door in the side of the car. "Play a game with me," he said with a smirk.
"Sure," Liss answered. "This one's called 'Kiss my Fist.' " She threw a punch with her free hand at his face but he caught her fist effortlessly with his other hand.
"It's too noisy in here," he said with his smile not budging an inch. "Let's play outside."
Then he kicked the door open and leaned back, pulling Liss with him…
He held onto her wrists as they both fell, letting go a few seconds before they hit the grounded. While he landed on his feet Liss gasped in pain and surprise as she hit the cracked earth on her already sore rips but rolled with the impact a few times before she slowed to a stop and managed to get her feet under her. Before she'd gotten to her feet, the Arc Driver was locked in place around her waist.
But he was ready too; in one hand he held a weird blue box with a yellow knob on the front and two slim black bars sticking out from underneath. "I'll pick the game this time," he said, and twisted the knob.
"Perfect Puzzle," it rasped. Liss tensed but her guard faltered for a second as she thought she placed the name. Wasn't it a cell phone game? What the hell was this guy doing?
"What's the next stage?...What's the next stage?" the box exclaimed before spitting a blue window in front of itself that whipped backward covering him and sent giant colorful coins spinning through the air around him. "Dual up! Get the glory in the chain! Perfect Puzzle."
The window shattered, leaving him changed. Now over a white undersuit with black block designs he wore heavy armor like Tarock's, a dark blue mask framing green eyes narrowed in determination. Thick blue shoulder guards framed a gold-colored chestplate with jigsaw piece designs inside, although on the back she thought she caught a glimpse of red along with a huge version of the knob on the box he'd used to change. Blue gauntlets with golden wristbands covered his hands while black boots with golden plating reached to his knees.
"Kamen Rider…Paradox," he introduced himself. "I hope you'll be an interesting opponent," he went on in a smirking tone.
Liss didn't answer his taunt, sparing a second to watching the DenLiner speed into the distance as tracks laid themselves in front of it. But as it seemed like it was starting to turn back Liss's way something exploded out of the ground, a hideous gigantic creature with a black snake-like body and a collection of curled yellowed horns emerging from its back near the top. A mane of white fur surrounded its red-scaled, alligator-like head.
"Let the Orochi keep them busy, you've got enough on your mind," Paradox said, putting away a weird green plastic-looking object that was still glowing faintly with power. Then in the next second he'd closed the distance between him and Liss and thrown a punch that she dodged just in time, his knuckles slicing through the edge of her hair.
"Swords Suit!" In a flash she was clad in her red armor once again and turned to slam her elbow into the back of Paradox's neck, but he was ready and blocked it on his forearm. In the split second after that attack Tarock lashed out with her leg and caught him in the midsection with her knee, staggering him for a second but it was all the time Tarock needed to throw a punch that connected with his head, jerking it violently to the side.
She went into the strongest spinning kick she could manage with fatigue starting to set in with all the fighting she'd been in already that day. Her foot slammed into Paradox's midsection again and he gasped in pain but as she jumped, clenching her fists together to bring them down on his chest he jumped backward himself and suddenly held his arms up in front of him and the weird coins that had scattered everywhere floated and formed into a grid above him.
"You're not bad…let's see how adaptable you are," Paradox said. Then he jerked his arms around, shifting the coins up, down and across. Finally two went drifting down to him with the rest flying off again: a yellow one and a pale blue one. "Speeding up! Invisible!" said the voice of his device as they touched his body, which seemed to ripple and then fade from sight.
A second later there was a rush of wind by her side and something drummed at her kidney with punches. Tarock gasped and fell to her knees in surprise and pain just before a flurry of what felt like kicks pummeled her back and knocked her flat.
…right in front of one of the weird coins, a green one with a picture of someone holding up a four-leaf clover. Not sure if it would even work for her, Tarock reached out for it.
"Fortune!" She jerked up in surprise as she heard her own Arc Driver say the word. It could recognize these things? The coin dissolved into a green glow that flowed down her hands, through her body and into the crystal dome in the middle of the Arc Driver.
And just then the DenLiner swerved to avoid a lunge from the Orochi off in the distance. As one car switched to the front and opened up revealing a long snake-like head, light glinted off it from the sun, and in the intense glare Tarock could see the outline of someone running up to attack her at incredible speed.
Paradox.
She cupped her hands together and swung, the sword Skycalibur forming in her hands. It wasn't the thin-bladed claymore she was used to, now it was a wide-bladed broadsword with a design of outspread wings on its red crossbar. It seemed to sing as she swung it with all her strength at where Paradox seemed to be coming from. She heard a cry of surprise and the sword shook at it hit something she couldn't see.
A second later he faded into view again, chuckling. "You're not so bad," he said, but lifted his arms and the coins all over the area flew up for him to make his pick again.
As they formed into a grid Tarock held out her hands and suddenly the air was full of blinding crystal dust. Paradox grunted in surprise as the dust formed itself into a storm of crystalline snakes, moths, spraying sea horses, stacks of turtles and buzzing horned beetles. A few swarmed Paradox, keeping him from focusing on his power coins. The others spread themselves around scattering the coins he'd summoned. Beetles caught the edges of the coins on their horns and pushed them as they flew, sea horses focused the streams of water they spat to batter his prizes away, and snakes sank their fangs into each other's tails, formed themselves into crude tires around the coins and wheeled them away across the sand.
The moths were darting back and forth over Paradox and sprinkling thick, blinding powder in his eyes to distract him while beetles rammed him with their horns and turtles rolled and threw themselves against to knock him off-balance again and again.
It had taken every Wild Card in her case, but it also bought her the moment she needed to end the fight. Tarock concentrated all her power into her new sword and started to spin. "Cataclysm! Surging Current!" Every time she turned faster and then even faster until a whirlwind formed around her. It whipped dust and rocks from the ground into the air. Lighting arced along the airstream, and even over the roaring wind she'd created she was sure she could hear a grunt of pain. After another minute it cleared, and Paradox came falling down like a bomb and hit the ground with a crash.
Then he got back up.
The Orochi howled as it crawled after the DenLiner, only for the snake-like head the train had sprouted to turn around and spray a blast of power that seared its sinuous body.
Inside the head car, the purple monster in the trenchcoat was sitting on the back of a motorcycle, giggling to himself as he steered the train in battle. It wasn't how this kind of battle was usually carried out, but their usual driver was busy elsewhere. He looked back over his shoulder as he heard the door open.
"Ryuutaros," said Urataros. "We're needed. All of us."
"What about that thing?" Ryuutaros retorted in a nasal voice, gesturing at the image of the Orochi on the screen in front of him.
"Fine! Stay here and hide from a fight you worthless brat!" Momotaros snarled.
Ryuutaros turned away to get back into his fight, but Urataros stepped forward. "What Momo-chan—"
"Momo-chan?!"
"What he meant was we need to go help out there, or Den-O won't be strong enough. There's still a Kamen Rider here who can keep fighting," Urataros went on. Ryuutaros looked back at him for a second, then all three of them disappeared.
"Not bad. You've almost got my heart boiling," Paradox said in an amused tone. "But if you want to compare power, let me show you mine."
He pulled the box off his belt and twisted the knob to the other side. "Knock Out Fighter. The strongest fist! Round one. Rock and fire." He slipped it into its slot on the side of his belt. "Dual UP. Explosion fist. Knock. Out. FIGHTER!" Suddenly his mask spun around to a red one with a brow made to look like spiky anime hair. The jigsaw design on the chestplate changed to one of hot rod flames, and his chunky shoulder armor jumped off and attached itself to his fists like boxing gloves. Then he came running at Tarock. She swung Skycalibur at him but he easily blocked with the side of one of his gauntlets, shattering her blade into a hundred shining pieces, and delivered a punch that cracked the air and sent Tarock flying.
She sailed through space for almost two hundred feet, totally unaware of what had just happened before she came to a bone-jarring stop, the front of her armor caved in where Paradox had hit her. The only thing her dazed mind could process was a sensation of green in front of her eyes, and something big and round rolling into her open hand, almost by itself…
Then suddenly she sat up, feeling fine and full of energy. Just in time to see a silver coin with a picture of someone flexing their arms on the front before it faded away, its powers spent on her. But she looked up to see Paradox coming in for another attack, and decided it was time to stop pacing herself.
"Empress! Major!" yelled her Arc Driver as she loaded another card. What was left of her Swords armor shattered away and a giant card appeared in the air drifting down over her, forming her regal purple Empress armor. The sun caught on the crown-like points of her new mask, filling her with a sense of truly awesome power.
Paradox just kept coming and when he was close enough threw a punch with so much force that a trail of fire exploded across the ground for fifty feet in the direction he'd swung and shattered most of the swarm of Wild Cards. But Tarock was already gliding through the air above him out of his reach.
She came down with a kick that he blocked on his punching gauntlets and Tarock vaulted into a backwards flip, her cape fluttering behind her. As soon as she landed Paradox threw another massive punch but Tarock suddenly swung a weapon of her own, a heavy scepter with a large jewel on the tip, the Arm of the Empire. Her attack knocked Paradox's punch away before she swung it again like a mace and landed a vicious blow on his chest that sent a giant fountain of sparks flying. She whirled and pointed the Arm of the Empire at him and her Arc Driver announced, "Woe! Quickening Ray!" before a beam of purple laser light lanced from the end and ripped into his chest armor.
He stood back up, armor smoking, but he was laughing quietly. "My heart really is boiling…"
But Tarock didn't give him a chance to go on. She summoned her power again and the Arc Driver said, "Dire Fate! Imperial Onslaught!" The gem on her scepter shimmered and a cloud of energy issued from it, within seconds forming itself into a crowd of armed warriors that rushed at Paradox like a giant screaming wave. He swung and punched with all his incredible might but some of Tarock's ghostly soldiers managed to get close enough to gouge him with their weapons.
But Paradox was still on his feet by the time the ghost army had disappeared. "You're not bad," he said. "Why don't we settle this with one last contest?" Then he spun the knob on his device again. "Finisher: Dual Gashat. KNOCK! OUT! Critical Smash!"
He went running at Tarock with a yell, and she only replied, "Suits me fine," and concentrated on her own ultimate attack. "Cataclysm! Paragon Overthrow!" First the gem in her scepter and then her entire body burned with purple energy. She took off, flying across the distance between her and Paradox, scepter held out in front of her. He swung a glowing fist at her just before they collided and a massive explosion ripped the air.
When the dust and fireballs finally cleared, Tarock was panting but still on her feet, in a patch of grass and violet flowers that hadn't been there before. Paradox had hit the ground a little ways away and his armor rippled before disappearing. He smiled as he got to his feet, though. "You really got my heart boiling," he said, but pulled something out of his jacket. "I think I'll go see if there's anyone else worth playing against now, though."
"Activating Quick-Travel," a mechanical voice said as he pushed the button and then vanished in front of her. Tarock sighed in annoyance that the entire fight had gotten her nowhere, but the howl of a train horn behind her got her attention. She turned around to see the DenLiner coming her way fast with the Orochi right behind it, and a door in the side of the train open with someone leaning out, extending an arm for her to catch.
It was the photographer. The one who hadn't noticed when a fight broke out around him. He leaned over as the train neared where Tarock was standing, and she grabbed his arm to let him pull her aboard.
The door slammed shut and Tarock fell flat on the floor of the train. For a second there was nothing but the sound of the DenLiner cruising on its tracks but then something huge and dark—the Orochi—smashed into the side, denting the metal and shattering the glass. The train seemed like it was about to tip over for a second before it settled down again.
"You're needed in the front car," the photographer said simply.
"What's in the front car?"
"Something only a Kamen Rider can use. And right now, it looks like you're the closest thing we have."
"Screw you!" Tarock snapped, but he just smirked faintly in amusement, reminding her not a lot of Paradox. Who were these people?
But a screech from the Orochi pushed the question out of her mind. Tarock got up and stumbled to the front of the train, passing scared-looking passengers until the last door opened and she found herself in a darkened room with a motorcycle parked in the middle. Sleek and covered in blue and white armor, it looked almost as tough as her Shift Runner.
Almost.
She climbed on top and gripped the handlebars, then almost let go as a sensation of knowing hit her brain like a tidal wave. A screen in front of her lit up showing the giant black serpent crawling alongside DenLiner before giving it another bump that almost tipped the train off its tracks. But Tarock didn't need it, she could see everything around the train while she was on this bike, even the canyon three miles ahead that DenLiner's tracks formed right over while the Orochi had to stop and jump it.
Tarock turned and the train turned with it, forming tracks in an arc as she went back the way they'd come to face the angry monster.
"How do I fight it—" she started to ask, but then the train cars split off from each other, and one at the rear sped up to the front on a new track. Once it connected there was a blast of violet energy from the front, reshaping it into a giant image of Tarock's mask in her Empress Form: long arcing yellow lenses with purple plating beneath and a three-pronged crown-like formation above the eyes.
That was surprising enough to see, but then three long claws on reptilian fingers extended from both sides and front of the train, like the dragons on her scepter.
The Orochi reared back its head and spat a giant fireball at DenLiner but behind her mask Tarock narrowed her eyes, waiting for just the right moment, then when it was seconds away from hitting the train she pulled back and the bike went into a wheelie.
The DenLiner's tracks formed a ramp for just a second and the talons on the front of the train caught the Orochi's fireball. Tarock gunned the bike and the train picked up speed, then she leaned and it threw the fireball it'd caught right back at the Orochi's side. The monster screamed in pain as a scarred patch was left where the fire had hit. The Orochi crawled around to come straight at the Denliner, but Tarock didn't flinch and rode straight toward it, knowing what to do next.
Just as they were about to crash the DenLiner's talons grabbed the Orochi by the neck and tossed the giant serpent into the air. Before it could land again Tarock pulled the train into a steep turn, then leaned hard back on the bike making DenLiner's ramp into the air at an angle. "Speed Liner! Imperial Splitter!" the Arc Driver said then the talons on the sides of the train glowed golden before seeming to double in size, rear back and slice through the middle of the falling Orochi.
With the danger passed Liss staggered back out of the car and DenLiner took control of itself again, going back into a more comfortable speed as it still continued to blaze through the arid space outside of time it occupied. Liss walked back through the cars until she saw the photographer standing by one of the doors and looking absently out the window.
"What are you doing?" Liss asked.
"What does it look like, little girl? Waiting for my stop," he answered her.
Liss sighed, remembering her decision when Momotaros had gotten in her face. "I am too. Gotta find out what's so important about this," she said, fishing the piece of jagged red metal out of her duster pocket.
The photographer made a "hmmm" sound. "There'd be a lot of interesting things to photograph there…Maybe I should go with you."
She could feel the train starting to slow down then and a hiss of air came from the door as it got ready to open. Liss looked up at the photographer. "Who are you, anyway?"
"Me? I'm just a passing-through Kamen Rider."
And half the readers just cried out in despair, the rest in anticipation.
Well, there's another chapter down. As for how Jak can exist in a world where Black never became Black RX, like I showed last time in Tarock's world, well…I'd be really interested in hearing that story myself! Somebody should write that. Or tell me who already did.
For those confused by some of the characters featured here, Joe was my classic Ishinomori cameo like was all the rage in Kamen Rider movies a couple years back. A little too obvious in my choice, I guess, but there you go.
The setting and the various monsters are of course from Kamen Rider Den-O. They appear and disappear kinda like they did here because a different monster possessing the hero is what gives him his different forms. They all disappeared at the end because all of them possess him at the same time to enable his super mode.
Just what are the fragments of red metal? Next time we'll find out, although I'm sure a couple of you have already guessed.