Disclaimer: I own nothing about Super Heroine Chronicle, any of the represented series or Kamen Rider. Itsuka Kotaro belongs to Toa Solaric.

Tenth Show – Fair Play

"You again?!" hissed Noel.

Gaim Yami placed a finger to his chin upon seeing Claude and his friends. "I do recall seeing you before. Ah… now I remember. Akihabara, correct?"

As he spoke, Kan'u picked up that his voice sounded different from the Gaim she knew. Then again, this change in voice could simply be a side effect of the evil that has possessed him. To be fully certain of his identity, she would need to try and force him into a situation to release his armour. Now that she had a plan, her mind calmed down and allowed her to remain composed and ready for battle.

"If you're here, then what happened with Adam?" A dreadful feeling came over Claude. "What did you do with Zeronos and the others?"

"I simply did my job," replied the black warrior in a casual tone. "I got the information I needed about Delusion Power and went on my way to the client's next job. As for whether they would pull through and recover from our battle, that's none of my business."

"Adam's soul was supposed to be mine to reap. If you've forced him to depart this realm, then I will claim your soul as compensation!" declared Lala.

"Ooh, scary~!" A second voice came from behind Gaim Yami before the red Taka Helmet of OOO stuck out from the large hole. "Seriously, kid… you're really not pulling off that Grim Reaper vibe."

"King?!" This time, it was Tsubasa on edge. "What are you doing here?!"

He waved casually. "Yeah, it's kinda funny how only a short time ago I told you to keep that desire burning in your heart only to pop up again just like that! Seriously, if you want to blame someone, blame that woman for wanting such an extravagant birthday gift!"

"… It's not even her birthday," remarked Gaim Yami in a flat tone. "For that matter, I doubt that anybody actually knows anything concrete about her, let alone her birthday."

"Well, it's probably someone's birthday!" protested King. "Good enough reason for me to help out with picking up a birthday gift."

"Would you two shut up?! Geez… this is why I hate working with amateurs," growled a female voice as a black exoskeleton managed to squeeze through the hole.

Surprise briefly flickered in the Symphogear user's eyes. "Even you're here, Laura Bodewig?"

"We meet again, Kazanari Tsubasa. However, this time I'm not here for you." The German supersoldier pointed to Stern and Yuri. "Relinquish control of the Time Machine to us at once."

"That's not happening. Luciferion, emergency command 555!"

Standing by.

On its master's command, the device transformed into its standard Heat Head form before it triggered a pre-constructed spell, transporting all three intruders along with all members of the party to a wide open grassy area elsewhere on Eltria.

Complete.

Laura's visible red eye locked on to Stern. "What did you do?!"

"It's a basic emergency command to transport all life forms to an area far away from the facility which houses the Time Machine. The breach has been sealed and the Time Machine itself has also been locked down, meaning nobody can use it without our command codes," replied Stern coolly as she charged up an attack spell. "Pyro Shooter!"

"Why you-!" No time to deploy the AIC projector considering how fast those homing projectiles were coming so Laura immediately took to the skies to avoid them with Stern in hot pursuit.

"I'll support Stern against that machine!" shouted Yuri before she leapt into action as well.

"That Missy's really done it now," muttered King.

"Imyuteus Ame no Habakiri Tron…" Upon hearing the activation song, the pendant on Tsubasa's neck came to life, replacing her attire with her combat form. Immediately, a pair of swords popped out from her leg gear before she grabbed them and combined the hilts together to form a double bladed staff. "King is mine!"

"Lala, you better go with her to make sure she doesn't do anything stupid," added Claude just as Tsubasa and the evil OOO clashed in battle again.

"Roger that." Gripping her scythe, the dullahan chased after the two.

"That leaves Gaim for us," muttered Noel before sending a few playing cards powered up with explosive magic in Gaim Yami's direction. "Claude, you need to transform. I will cover you!"

"Transform?" The Chinese warrior looked puzzled until the young man scanned his Ring on his belt.

DRIVER ON; NOW!

His belt buckle activated and some knobs appeared on the side of the hand shape while it flipped the hand finger directions to the other side and began to sing.

SHABADOOBI TOUCH HENSHIN! SHABADOOBI TOUCH HENSHIN!

"Henshin!" The black mask ring got scanned over his buckle to initiate the transformation.

CHANGE NOW!

Kan'u gasped in surprise as she saw the newly formed Kamen Rider Sorcerer. "Y-you are just like…!"

"Kamen Rider Sorcerer! This is where the limelight shines!" After getting that out of his system, he let out a happy sigh. "Ah, now I finally remember how it was supposed to go! I wonder if this will make it up to Amitie."

"I'm glad for you. Now let's get to work!" shouted Noel just as she narrowly avoided a physical strike from the red bow.

"R-right!"

CONNECT NOW!

With his own melee weapon summoned, Sorcerer attempted to hack at Gaim Yami's chest armour but he ducked under it and executed a foot sweep to cause the other Rider to trip and fall flat on his black cape. But just as he tried bringing down his red bow, he barely noticed the Green Dragon Crescent Blade coming at him and flipped backwards to avoid it.

'That's right… regardless whether or not this is the Gaim-sama I serve, he's still bound by the evil spell. I shall save him from the sickness that has overcome his will!' Firming her resolve, Kan'u got into a neutral stance. "Come! This Kan'u Unchou will be your opponent!"

"Hmmmm… alrighty then." After taking a moment to assess his current odds, Gaim Yami reached for three Lockseeds, two of them with the code 'LS-10' and the third that simply had an 'S' inscribed on the surface. He then tossed the two 'LS-10' Lockseeds into the air before securing the other one to his red bow.

LOCK ON!

As soon as it was secured, he then pulled the bow back before firing the energy projectile towards the airborne Lockseeds.

CONNECTING!

As soon as the projectile hit the green Lockseeds, they were split open and a pair of giant mechanical looking watermelons appeared in front of Gaim Yami, each coming from an individual Crack in the air. "Eeeehhh?! Jumbo watermelons?! But we just ate breakfast!" exclaimed Noel.

Kan'u on the other hand, looked a lot more worried. "No, this is…!"

YOROI MODE!

The two watermelons then transformed into giant humanoid warriors, each equipped with the Suika Sojinto which gave Claude a bad feeling. "This is going to be tough."

Gaim Yami dusted his hands. "Now it's three on three! Let's play fair everyone!"

"Eternal Saber!" Yuri projected her sabers out of red magical energy from her palms before swinging her arms to slam them against Laura but her own beam sabers blocked the attack. At that same moment, Stern swooped in and charged an attack spell.

"Blast Fire!"

"Useless!" Even though it took a solid amount of mental concentration, her AIC was strong enough to withstand the attack. Laura's right red eye then spotted Yuri's Soul Wing arms clenched in fists about to slam down on her but she fired out her wire daggers in an attempt to tie those arms together and prevent them from moving further. That forced the Soul Wing arms to dissipate to avoid that fate.

'Odd… Levi and the others haven't responded to my telepathic calls. Could it be…?'

A cool smirk formed on the German super soldier's face. "You guessed correctly. My Schwarzer Regen is hampering your ability to contact your other comrades."

Stern's blue eyes widened slightly. "Your unit is capable of nullifying magic? That explains how you can block my shots."

"Your magic is channeled through standardized algorithms and computations through your personal weapons. The end result is still one that can be replicated by science. So it was just a matter of programming in that additional element into my communications jamming signal. The same case goes for your magical blasts and your companion's magical beam sabers which can be blocked by my AIC and my own beam sabers."

Intruder detected at Time Machine facility. Lockdown protocols are being bypassed.

"There's a fourth? Transport the life form out of the facility!" exclaimed Stern in response to Luciferion's notification.

Unable to comply. Intruder is not recognized as a corporeal life form.

"So it has no real body…?" The enemy had some sort of spirit on their side?

Time Machine has been activated.

Stern began to move in the direction of the Time Machine facility when Laura aimed her railgun. "You won't escape!"

"Vesper Ring!" The ring projectile fired from Yuri hit against the rail gun just as it released the shot, deflecting it wide from Stern but instead, it went in the direction of where Lala, Tsubasa and King OOO were battling and forced the combatants to split apart to avoid being caught in the line of fire. "I-I'm sorry! Are you alright?"

A quick check from Stern showed that their allies were a little shaken up but otherwise unharmed. "They're fine. Hold that woman off while I investigate the facility!"

"Right!"

"That was close!" Lala coughed a bit as some of the dust entered her lungs.

"Dammit, where is he?!" Tsubasa was trying to wave the dust away as quickly as possible when she heard the familiar chiming sound of the O-Scanner scanning Core Medals on the OOO Driver. "A new transformation…?"

But instead of announcing animal names, the OOO Driver voice announced something rather different.

SHOCKER!

GEL-SHOCKER!

DESTRON!

SIEG SHOCKER! SIEG SHOCKER!

Orbs of gold, silver and bronze flashed around the King's body before forming his new suit of armour. The helmet's features were made out of sculpted gold with the eye lenses black in colour. The middle torso portion used a silver colour with the features somewhat resembling a snake's body. Even a cobra's head was popping out of the right shoulder pad. Mounted on the wrists were the upper jaws of a snake which looked like they could deploy weapons for him to use. Finally, bronze armour designs were attached to the legs in which the right leg featured aspects of a scorpion like a stinger tail and the left leg displayed spikes for close range attacks. As for the circular chest plate which usually displays which animals are being invoked, the top portion showed a gold eagle while the middle portion showed a silver coiled snake and the bottom portion showed a bronze scorpion.

For the first time since setting foot on this world, Tsubasa felt genuinely uneasy. "W-what type of Combo is this?"

"Heck if I know but I like this already!" The Symphogear user can practically feel the King's glee even though his mask hid his facial features. "I'll make good use of these new Core Medals that she gave me. And with the appearance of a new Combo, there are only two words that are appropriate to say in this situation!"

Flicking his wrists, silver whips were shot out of his wrists with the ends having snake heads hissing aggressively at Tsubasa and Lala.

"HAPPY BIRTHDAY!"

It didn't take long for Stern to arrive back at the facility. The breach had been sealed and she wasn't detecting signs of any other breaches in the area. Teleportation into the facility was a possibility but even then, there should have been bind spells in place to immediately latch on to the person teleporting inside without prior authorization.

Once inside, she reached the console and was surprised to see some animal leftovers. To be more precise, it resembled a snake's old skin freshly shed off. 'A snake charmer of sorts?'

No time to dwell on that. She needed to go through the logs and see what had taken place. Pulling up the log folder on screen, her eyes darted to the top which indicated a brief opening of sorts between here and Kan'u Unchou's timeline lasting only five seconds. 'Whatever opening had been present lasted only a moment. And even if they did, they should have arrived at this facility but there's nobody else here.'

Maybe that non-corporeal intruder also helped that other person avoid the security features as well by making a brief transport out from here to the outside? That certainly was a possibility. In whatever case, she needed to run a search to see whether someone had actually slipped through that opening and verify if that's merely someone lost or another enemy to deal with.

'How troublesome…'

ROCK-CHAN NOW!

Scanning his summon ring, Claude got out of the way of another strike from the Suika Arms melee weapon. One second later, Rock-chan popped up on his shoulder. "I could use a little help with that thing!"

"Umu!"

Just as the Suika Arms raised its weapon and slammed it down, Sorcerer brought up the Dis Halberd with all of his strength and barely managed to deflect it, giving Rock-chan her opening. Wielding her own version of the Black Blade, she ran up the length of the Suika Arms weapon before diving into the armour's opening. With her small size, she was able to squeeze in there and slash at what looked like the central control module for the giant mecha which caused it to shake uncontrollably before exploding, sending scattered pieces of green armour all over the place, some of which collided with Claude.

"Oof!" Damn, this thing was heavy but he can't be idle right now. He needed to check on the others.

A quick scan showed that Noel was faring well against the other Suika Arms but she still hadn't found her opening yet. As for Kan'u and Gaim, she was holding her own, avoiding the melee strikes of the Sonic Arrow's bladed edges and fighting defensively. Considering how durable his armour is, she opted to conserve her stamina instead of wasting it on attacks that won't slow Gaim down.

'She certainly is quite nimble,' thought Gaim Yami. 'In that case…!'

One second later, Kan'u was arching backwards just as the Sonic Arrow's blade cut an inch of her long black hair. 'When did he get so fast?!'

Keeping up with his movements became much harder for her and she felt the Sonic Arrow's edges land some cuts into her torso, causing her blood to darken the green fabric of her top. With her movements becoming a bit more sluggish, the black Rider took the opportunity to kick her back some distance so he could land the final blow.

"It's over for you." Gaim Yami wanted to catch his breath after using that much stamina to move at maximum speed for the past few seconds but he needed to finish this quickly. His left hand secured his Lemon Energy Lockseed to his Sonic Arrow before the right hand tapped the Cutting Blade once and then moved to pull back the bow so it could gather energy for a powered shot.

LOCK ON! SOIYA!

"She's in trouble!" Sorcerer tried to get the giant watermelon armour piece off him but it was pretty heavy. "Rock-chan, help me find my Teleport Ring!"

"Umu?!" The little summon tried to reach the chain that held Claude's other rings but with its 'hands', it was having trouble getting a grip on the object.

ORANGE SQUASH!

'My body won't… respond…!' It was hard for Kan'u to move, especially after being the recipient of a powerful kick from the other Rider. Her weary eyes could only spot the row of orange and lemon slices lined up in her direction.

LEMON ENERGY!

"AISHA!"

ORANGE SPARKING!

Her heart skipped a beat for a moment as she heard someone shout her true name. 'Can that be…?'

At that moment, a large metallic orange landed in front of her in time to deflect the shot fired from the Sonic Arrow before someone clad in a blue bodysuit used it as a springboard to leap into the air and fire a few shots from his own Musou Saber at the surprised black Rider who forced himself back. With things back at a standstill, the orange went back to the other man and formed his armour just as he knelt down in front of her. "Aisha, thank God I was able to find you!"

The dam of emotions broke as her eyes shed tears of joy. "Gaim-sama!"

"Don't worry. Everything's going to be okay." The warrior then stood up to face the black Rider who struggled to keep his body steady.

'Those colours…!' Gaim Yami felt an odd tightening sensation in his heart that made him feel dizzy. In a raspy strained voice, he managed to get out a few words. "Just who are you…?!"

ROUTE SPLIT:

A. "Armoured Rider Gaim! This is my stage now!" (Kazuraba Kouta as depicted in 'Koihime Musou: Kamen Rider no Monogataru' by CrimsonRider94)

B. "Arriving on stage, Armoured War God Gaim!" (Kamen Rider Chrome's Oda Nagata)

C. "Kamen Rider Gaim! Now let's dance on my stage!" (Vanishing Raptor's Yamato Kusanagi)

Fenikkusumaru's incarnation of Gaim will not be featured due to not giving me a clear cut answer on whether Kururugi can be used or not.

A route split in the middle of a boss fight? Why not? Also, special thanks to the composers of the Gaim OST for helping me get out that last part there.