Disclaimer: I don't own Kamen Rider. It belongs to Toei. Orcinus and other assorted characters of this fanfic belong to me.

Author's Note: So I decided to come back to the Kamen Rider section for a little bit. I'm hopefully going to get a bit of work down on this fic, but I don't plan to continue with my other Kamen Rider fic, just so everyone knows.

Chapter 3

Words and Actions

The hulking gray monster grunted as it stepped through the forest. Its weak eyesight could make out the glow of a campfire a short distance away, but the humans' senses were so dull they would not notice him.

"Darn beer goes right through me," a human voice muttered from nearby.

The rhino monster halted as the small human forced his way out of the bushes in front of it. He seemed to be somewhat disoriented, but still noticed the large shadowed figure.

"Blimey! What a strange looking rock!"

The creature had no idea what the human had said, but he had seen him and that was enough to seal his fate. It bellowed as it charged forward, head down and horn pointing right at the drunken hiker. His eyes widened in surprise, just before the rhino barreled into him and knocked his body through the air. A sinking snap sounded as the man crashed into a tree. The monster turned away from its victim and started toward the campsite, intent on making sure none of the other humans got in its way.

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"Go away!" Tom snapped as a fist rapped against the door to his apartment. He tossed a fistful of paper into the plastic trash bag in his hand. The floor was covered with more garbage, all of it left there by the room's untidy occupant. It was sparsely furnished with only a couch, desk, chair, and lamp brightening up the room. Dark curtains hung closed over every window.

The knocking continued until Tom had had enough. He tossed the bag down, kicked a pile of paper out of his way and headed for the kitchen.

The kitchen was cleaner, but only because Tom didn't use it as much as the living room. There was no table, only a fridge. Tom approached the counter and threw open the window over the sink. He pulled himself onto the counter and lowered himself out of the window, grabbing hold of the nearby tree branch and climbing down it. He reached the tree trunk and shimmied down it.

"Ahem," Tom turned around to find Mary standing behind him. "Can we talk?"

The youth sighed loudly and glanced around the small garden. Deciding that attempting to run away would be undignified, Tom shrugged. "Fine, there's a diner near here."

Tom set a fast pace as he led the way to the shop. Mary easily kept pace with him, her gaze stayed fixed on him as though she feared he would disappear just like after he had killed the moth creature.

The diner was a small building in amongst the larger housing brick structures. It was a little crowded at this hour for Tom's taste, but he wasn't about to invite the SPOOK agent into his home.

He sat down at his favorite table and Mary slid into the seat across from him. A smiling waitress appeared almost at once to take their order.

"Cheeseburger and a side of fires with a Sprite," Tom quoted his favorite order from memory.

"Just a coffee, black," Mary said.

The waitress jotted the order down, gave one last smile and turned for the kitchen. They sat in silence for a few minutes, before Tom broke it.

"If you want the 'Biobuckle' back, you're wasting your time," Tom leaned against his seat, crossing his arms and doing his best to look intimidating. "As long as those creatures could be looking to take me out, I'm keeping it to protect myself."

"Director Phillips has no problem with that," Mary nodded. "We actually want to make you an offer… We wouldn't expect you to fight the monsters for free after all."

"I'm not working for SPOOK," Tom said instantly. "I can get by with my lifeguard job."

"Why are you so content to just ignore those things?" Mary's expression darkened. "They've already killed so many people and they'll kill more so long as they're still around."

"I'm a lifeguard, not a cop," Tom replied coolly. "Fighting monsters is not what I wanted to do with my life."

Mary scowled, but didn't say anything more as the waitress had just returned with Tom's cheeseburger and her coffee. She took the steaming cup and sipped the bitter liquid. "If I can't say anything more to convince you-."

"You can't," Tom interrupted.

"Then I'll be going," Mary said, standing to take her leave.

"Go ahead and hate me if you want," Tom said. "I just want to take care of myself. Where is the harm in that?"

Mary glanced back at him, prepared to make some kind of angry retort, but Tom's expression had become uncertain, instead of his previous cold mask. Mary wondered if he could fake his emotions as well as he masked them, but she thought there was a sense of desperation in his eyes as though he wanted her approval of his actions.

"Director Phillips assigned me and Chang to guard you for the next couple of days," she informed him in an emotionless tone. "In case, the creatures come after you."

Tom nodded and turned his attention to devouring his burger. Mary continued the rest of the way out of the diner. She stood on the street for a few moments, replaying the conversation in her head.

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"We won't be able to count on his help," Mary said as soon as she strode through the door to Phillips' office.

Phillips nodded. "Disappointing, but unsurprising."

"Do you still want us to guard him?" Chang asked his usual steel expression in place. "If he won't help, then-."

"Then it's his choice," Phillips interrupted. "He's now an innocent bystander, one that we need to protect just like any other."

"Protection is waste of time!" Chang snapped. "All we do is wait for the monsters to move and then try to contain the damage. We need to take the fight to them."

"Too dangerous," Mary said. "You know the creatures' pools are too well guarded. Attacks against them might as well be suicide missions."

Chang sighed. He knew all of this of course, but that didn't stop his insisting that they should take a bolder approach in fighting off the monsters.

"R&D is making progress with their weapons research," Phillips said. "Soon we might be armed well enough to attempt an attack against a pool."

"If that Rider wasn't so cowardly, we would already be much better armed," Chang scowled.

"Not everyone is suited for the battlefield, Chang," Phillips said gently, but focused a hard stare on his subordinate.

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Tom felt annoyed. Knowing that SPOOK was keeping an eye on him hadn't been as assuring to the youth as Mary thought it would be. He felt like they were invading his privacy.

"Nosey buggers," Tom muttered as he neared his apartment building.

The hairs on the back of his neck began to bristle and he felt the same sense of impending danger he had just before the moth had attacked him. He spun around and spotted a large gray humanoid shape lumber out of an alleyway. The rhino lowered its head and charged forward, its horn aimed straight for Tom's head.

"Move, kid!" Chang exclaimed, emerging from the shadows into the bright circle created by a streetlight. He pulled his futuristic sidearm from his jacket and fired at the advancing juggernaut. Mary appeared from another alley and opened fire on the creature's back.

The shots bounced off the creature's thick hide and it just kept coming at Tom. He braced himself and leapt to the side at the last second, the rhino rushed past and crashed into a brick wall. It snorted and pulled its horn free of the hole it had punched in the stone, spinning around to face Tom.

"Get out of here!" Mary called as she ran forward. "We'll take care of this."

Tom glanced between Mary and the rhino, then turned and ran for his apartment. The rhino started after him, but Chang leapt onto its back and pulled out his knife. He drove the blade down, but it bounced off the thick hide. Chang gasped and the rhino reached around and grabbed Chang's arm. It yanked him off and tossed him away. He crashed down on the hood of a car and fell unconscious.

Mary screamed an enraged battle cry and unloaded the contents of her weapon at the rhino's head, but that was no more effective than any of the previous shots had been. The monster jumped forward and reached out with a massive hand to shove her. The force knocked her down and she dropped her pistol.

A massive foot raised above Mary's head. Her eyes widened. An engine revved and the rhino looked up just in time for a motorcycle to ram into it. The blow sent the beast stumbling back. The vehicle's rider pushed the kickstand down and climbed off the bike. He removed his helmet to reveal Tom's smirking face.

"Guess I can't just stand on the sidelines after all," he said as he pulled the Biobuckle out of his jacket pocket. The blue pendant was pulled from his jeans pocket. He placed the buckle against his waist and the blue and gold vines reached out to hold it in place.

"Henshin!"

He pushed the pendant into place and the buckle's eye opened with a flash of blue light. "Transform," the belt droned as mist formed around Tom's body, before a line of blue light moved from his head to his toes, forming the skin-like suit. A shockwave of blue energy rippled across the ground as his transformation finished, Mary threw up an arm to shield her face from the wave, while Tom's motorcycle was knocked onto its side. The rhino however took no notice of the blast as it struck its feet.

"All right, tough guy. Let's do this," Tom raised his green eyepieces to glare at the monster. He charged forward and slammed a fist into the rhino's gut. The behemoth barely flinched from the blow. Tom threw a flurry of punches all with the same result as the first. The rhino slammed its fist down, but Tom rolled to the side. He stepped back in and caught the rhino's chin with an uppercut. It staggered back this time.

Tom leapt skyward. His feet morphed into the fishtail as he flipped towards the rhino, he slapped the tail against its head several times, before back flipping away. He landed on his reformed human legs and stared at the rhino.

The creature didn't move for several seconds and then it lowered its head to glare at Tom. His eyes widened behind his mask as the rhino charged at him, its horn slammed into his chest and sent him flying back. He landed beyond his motorcycle on the ground, clutching at his battered chest. A hole had been torn in his suit from the horn impact.

The rhino advanced on him, stepping on his motorcycle as it did. The metal frame bent under the beast's weight. Tom staggered to his feet and raised his fists though he couldn't imagine how we would beat the rhino when even his tail kick attack had failed to slow it down.

He felt a strange tickling sensation on his arms and glanced down to find the fins there growing larger and longer. He now had a pair of blade-like fins extending out just a little bit beneath his wrists.

The rhino threw a punch and Tom snapped back to reality just in time to duck under it. As the rhino stepped past, Tom struck out with one of the fin blades and it scored a long green cut in the monster's side.

A surprised gasp escaped the creature's throat. It probably wasn't used to being hurt. Tom spun around and slashed another wound into the rhino's back. It spun, swinging a fist as it did, but Tom ducked around the blow and slashed another mark into its chest. He quickly followed it up with a vertical slash across its stomach. This time lime green flame poured out of the wound. Tom back flipped away as the beast slammed both of its fists down on the spot he had just been standing in. He jumped forward and raised both arms above his head. He swung his fin blades down as he hit the ground; two more slash marks appearing on the rhino's hide. It bellowed in pain, stepping back from the small creature that had hurt it so much, but it was too late. Green fire poured from its wounds, until a giant cloud of flame exploded out of it, leaving behind a fragile brown husk.

Tom lowered his arms, the fin blades shrinking back to their more harmless size. He exhaled sharply and then gasped in pain, placing a hand against the wound in his stomach.

"You should come with us and get that looked at," he turned around to find Mary standing behind him. He felt too weak from the fight and blood loss to talk so he just nodded his head.

"Let's go…."