(Just a heads-up but this chapter's kind of combat-heavy. Maybe read it in smaller bites if that kind of thing wears you out.)
In front of them were three Corrupture ready for a fight. Crumble snapped his tooth-encrusted fingers together and giggled like a maniac. Crush laughed a deep, gloating laugh as he lurched closer and the metal block on his arm smashed a hole in the asphalt. Chomp licked his flabby lips, his stomach growling in an almost menacing way.
Behind them, Master Terror lifted his snake-headed staff and a poisonous-looking green light started glowing between its fangs. Mirage held one hand upward and a crystal ball with a dancing stream of light that ricocheted back and forth off the sides.
Kamen Rider Sling tightened his grip on the butt of his Gamer Pamaka. Then he suddenly whipped around and fired a quick burst at Master Terror's staff. The skeletal villain yelped in surprise and fired back with the energy he'd gathered in his staff, causing a terrific burst of energy as the two shots hit each other.
Before the glare had cleared Sling was charging Mirage. She threw the crystal ball in her hand at him but he showed he wasn't only fast on the back of a motorcycle, and darted around the explosion of light and gas as the crystal ball exploded. Sling jumped and immediately went into a spinning kick that knocked Mirage aside.
Impossibly, she twisted herself around in midair so she was right-side up and landed on all fours. "Not bad, Rider. I hope for your sake it wasn't your best!" she sneered over at him.
"Are you kidding?" Sling asked. "I haven't even gotten started. Literally."
Mirage formed crystal balls in both hands, and Master Terror charged another shot. "You would take us both on, Rider?" Master Terror asked. "Us, masters of the new world?"
"Saying it doesn't make it so," Sling said. "You want to be it, you've got to be able to fight for it." Then he whipped around and fired at Master Terror.
A charge ran up Rune's cane and gathered in the gem at the top. The pair of dice bounced furiously off the sides until they finally landed: 4 and 5, 9 explosive charges for him.
Three small explosions erupted as Rune drummed his cane against Crush's metal fist, just barely deflecting it before Rune was flattened. He still had six bursts left, but he had an awful feeling they were going to get used up fast against the enormous Corrupture.
Chomp charged up suddenly, his huge mouth open wide and spraying thick wads of saliva all over the ground as he aimed his gaping maw at Rune's leg. The Kamen Rider swung his cane and spent a valuable burst of power that knocked the pig-Corrupture flying crazily into the air.
A roar behind him took Rune's attention off the sight, and the Kamen Rider made a desperate jab with his cane and another small explosion hit Crush right on the chin. The rhino-monster rocked back on his feet for a second, then growled and swung that wrecking ball-like fist of his at Rune's head.
Rune leaned back so hard to avoid it he fell flat on his back. Then the next thing he knew a spiked ball bounced by, then as it came down it was clear that it, Crumble, was aiming to come down right on top of Rune's ribcage. Rune held up his cane, and a burst of power sent it bouncing up into the air. 4. Then it came straight back down, Rune gasped in surprise and he held up his cane again and another burst, 3, and again the spiked ball went straight up and started coming straight back down, a maniacal giggle filling the air.
The time Rune swatted Crumble with his cane and another blast of power, but this time he swatted the spiked ball away, in Crush's direction. The rhino-faced Corrupture let out an angry yell as his own teammate crashed into him and knocked him back into the side of a building.
Rune jumped back up. Chomp growled as he came running up behind Rune, jumping and trying to close his jaws around Rune's neck. The Rider swung his cane and with its last blast he knocked the pig creature flying again.
How long could he keep this up against three enemies? Rune had been able to knock them around but didn't seem like he'd done any actual damage. As Crush got up and Crumble unrolled himself, Rune raised his cane and sent the slot machine wheels on his body spinning.
For a second the Corrupture stopped where they were, unsure what to expect from Rune's unusual casino powers. Cherry…cherry…cherry locked in a row across his chest. A slot opened underneath the wheels and huge cherries whirled out like bolos at the pair of monsters. Crush swung his metal fist and bashed the cherries into jelly, and Crumble grabbed onto two more with his teeth-covered hands then tossed them over his shoulder.
And by the time they could focus on Kamen Rider Rune again he'd had time to come up with a more concentrated attack. A storm of playing cards blasted the two Corrupture. Five grew bigger and slammed into Crush's chest. 4 of Clubs, 8 of Spades, 8 of Hearts, 3 of Clubs, 2 of Diamonds. Another five slammed into Crumble, King of Hearts, Jack of Clubs, 2 of Spades, 4 of Diamonds, 6 of Clubs.
"What kind of hand is that?" Rune yelled, then gasped in fear and dodged as Crush charged through his attack, the cards too weak to hurt such a strong monster. He ducked to the side just in time and pieces of concrete shot up from where Crush's fist hit the ground but while he was distracted Crumble bounced over and slammed into Rune's back. He was knocked into the side of a car and a third of his health bar immediately disappeared.
"Are you kidding me?" Rune groaned. "My powers depend on luck like this?" He spotted the energy bar on his Gamer Septa, running low. Was that why he'd had such a miserable attack? Did he use up its stored energy even faster in a Level 3 form?
Rune quickly opened up his inventory to use his last precious mana-restoring coin. Crush was down on all fours and looking ready to charge, Crumble had rolled himself up again and Chomp had recovered again and was limping over to try to take a bite out of Rune again.
Then someone else was standing in front of Rune, in a very familiar yellow and black undersuit and plates of red samurai armor on top, wielding a pair of swords with green plastic-looking blades.
Crumble unrolled, and the hunched jester danced back and forth, clicking his fingers and the sharp teeth on them together. "Came to die with your friend, Rider?" Crumble jeered in a high but rough-sounding voice.
"Not yet," Utsura replied. Suddenly Crumble lunged at him, trying to sink his fanged fingers into Utsura, but the Rider twisted and they chewed off a piece off the armor over his hip instead. Utsura's sword was a bright green blur as it lashed out and hit Crumble on the elbows, making the crazed jester jump back with a yelp of pain before he could be hit again.
Rune tapped Utsura's side with his cane. "What are you doing? Trying to get a favor from me, now?"
"No, I came to see if you'd really been thinking about the question I asked," Utsura replied, and jerked his head to one side. Rune looked where he was indicating, and saw Sling dodging another exploding crystal ball from Mirage. A weird powdery kind of light went up and settled on the ground, and as soon as it had the ground turned a flat neon blue and started to spread outward in a wave with blocky, pixel-like edges.
And that wasn't the only one, there were spreading spots of color all over the street from Mirage's other shots. As Rune watched the edges of two of them touched and a hole immediately formed, and out of it crawled a spider as big as a person, and with a human head that had sunken skin and slicked-back black hair. He had on a black vest that looked like part of a butler's uniform.
Behind them two more touched then caved in to form a hole, and another giant spider crawled out, this one female and wearing a white lace apron and maid's headpiece. Another hole formed and yet another pair of hairy arachnid legs started to crawl out.
"We've got to get out of here or we'll be overwhelmed!" Utsura said. Crush swung his fist at the Rider who held his swords in a scissors-shape and blocked the powerful swing but was pushed a couple feet across the ground anyway.
"We're supposed to stay and fight when there's a danger!" Rune retorted. His fingers reached out for the coin in his inventory that would restore his energy, but all of a sudden another armored hand clamped down hard on his wrist.
The eyes in Rune's mask actually flashed red with rage and he tried to yank himself out of Utsura's group, but the samurai Rider pointed past them with a jerk of his hand. A store turned neon red, then its windows opened exposing demonic yellow eyes staring back at the two of them. Then the front door that was its mouth split open, up and below, and more of the giant spiders with human heads scuttled out.
More holes were opening in the sides of taller buildings as they turned into crazy patchworks of color too, and more spiders crawled out of them. The monsters rushed between the Riders and Master Terror and Mirage, forming a horrible swaying black wall of bodies.
"We're gonna get overwhelmed if we stay here," Utsura hissed. "We need a plan!"
Rune looked down at the almost empty energy bar on his wand, and then the icon showing the last of the rare magic coins he'd managed to find and save.
"Okay, fine," Rune sighed. "A plan. Are we taking him with us?"
Utsura nodded, then turned and saw what had happened to Sling.
A crackling shot from Master Terror's snake-headed staff shot out, glowing a poisonous kind of green. There was a sound of sizzling as Kamen Rider Sling went diving to his right as he returned fire. The skeletal villain expected Sling to shoot down the bullet, but instead his bullet hit Master Terror's staff and sent it spinning out of his skinless hands.
Incredibly Master Terror held out his hand and a chain of bones stretched out of the sleeve of his coat and caught his staff then recoiled. He blasted at Kamen Rider Sling again, catching the cowboy across his side and making Sling gasp in pain. He somersaulted out of the way of Terror's next shot, whipping out Scorching Kitchen as he did.
"Cooking?" the villain said with a sneer. "That's your great power?"
"Let me show you how many things bone powder goes into," Sling retorted and stabbed the trigger button.
The very same second a crystal ball landed in front of his feet and his vision turned totally white and there was a deafening noise. As he hit the ground the breath in his lungs was squeezed out by the impact as he landed, but his fingers stayed wrapped tight around Scorching Kitchen.
Colored spots filled his vision as it started to clear up, and his fingers trembled as he moved to load Scorching Kitchen into his gun. The sharp black tip of a spider's leg, stabbed into the hand holding his Gashat. He yelled so loud in pain his vision burred.
Then suddenly the spider's leg pinning him down dissolved into a stream of pixels as Utsura slashed through spider it was attached to. Mirage charged a crystal ball and lobbed it the Kamen Riders and Utsura hit the button on his Gashat and switched to archery mode. In a second he pulled back on his bow and shot down the crystal ball, spraying the ground with a cone of bright green pixels.
Sling managed to sit up and saw Crush charging up, Crumble bouncing closer and Chomp waddling his way over while licking his flabby lips. Rune was in front of them and power flashed from his wand, forming a transparent wall between the Riders and their enemies. Crush smashed his fist into it and a spiderweb of cracks formed in it though.
Another shot from Master Terror's staff, and Utsura switched to his dual wakizashi and crossed them like an X, just in time to block the beam. Utsura struggled to push back against it for a second and finally swatted the beam away but one of his swords was shattered in the process. "Kasuga, we have to get out of here and make a plan," he gasped.
A chunk of Rune's shield landed between them as Crush and Crumble crashed into it again. "Fine! Whatever!" Sling yelled. Utsura nodded. He pulled out Mighty Sketch and hit the trigger button just once, making the Sketch Gamer robot appear and fire a blast of paint high into the sky.
It came down like rain, splattering all over the street, the buildings, and the gang of Corrupture. By the time it stopped there was no sign of the Kamen Riders.
The power gauge on his Gamer Septa, almost drained, was the last thing Rune saw before he unplugged his Gashats and his armor faded.
"So…we just ran away?" Doku looked up at the others and asked.
"I'm wondering about that too," Kiiko said, giving Kensei a very sharp look. "You're the heroes, you shouldn't be running away."
Kensei slumped against the wall of the alley and sighed in exasperation. "What were we supposed to do? There was the beginning of a whole army back there between the Corrupture and their spider-friends. If we tried to keep fighting it out, they would've got us sooner or later."
"Not if you would've let me recharge my power back there," Doku cut in, glaring at Kensei, who just gave him a tired look back before he looked away again.
Yoshoku cleared his throat, and looked to be ignoring the growing cut on one side of his forehead. "Were you trying to talk to us into teaming up because you knew something like this would happen, Hidenaga? Did Genm tell you about this?"
"No, I just noticed how it seemed like more were showing up. Remember when that cowgirl teamed up with Graphite?" Kensei replied. "That was the first time, but it's been happening. And do you need any proof besides what happened just now?"
Yoshoku shrugged and sighed. "All right, so maybe I could use someone to even the odds a little when they show up with an army. You have a plan for how we go back there and get the edge on them before they overrun the whole city?" he asked, looking up as a huge 8-bit spiderweb finished spinning itself in the sky.
"Of course he has a plan," Kiiko immediately replied, then looked over at Kensei expectantly.
He nodded slowly. "Well, maybe if we use the Gamers to hold off the spiders while we took care of the big monsters ourselves—"
"You expect us to fight them at Level 2?" Yoshoku demanded.
"Are any of you listening?" Doku demanded. "If you'd let me recharge my energy, I could've hit the big monster again and then we probably could've turned that fight around! How am I supposed to look strong when I run away from fights?!"
Everything was silent in the alley for a second, but unsurprisingly Yoshoku was the one who broke it. He narrowed his eyes in annoyance and tilted his head. "What the hell are you talking about, Dasao? Look strong? Is that all you care about, looking strong?"
"Hey, I'm trying to represent people like me!" Doku fired back. "If I look like a pussy who got scared and ran away from a fight, how am I suppose do to that?! At least I've got a reason for it, besides just showing off like you!"
Yoshoku seemed to grow and grow until he filled the sky, and for just a second Doku flinched. "Is that what you think I do?" Yoshoku asked, his voice full of quiet menace. "Show off?"
Kiiko looked back at them then over at Kensei again. "We're going back while they're distracted, right?" she whispered behind her hand.
But he didn't answer her. Instead he looked past her, to where a girl maybe about eight years old was looking back and forth frantically then cupped her hands around her mouth. "Mama! Papa! Where are you?" She waited a second, then when she got no answer she buried her face in her hands.
"Hold that thought, okay?" Kensei answered and walked around Kiiko. "Hey?" he said to the little girl, who jumped back in surprise before she recognized he was another human and, presumably, not a Corrupture. "Are you okay? Did something happen to your parents?"
She looked him up and down, her tear-streaked eyes wide and untrusting. Then Kensei took out his Gamer Driver and fastened it around his waist. "Mister…are you a Kamen Rider?" she asked.
"Yeah," he said, trying to give a reassuring smile.
"Say that again, Dasao," Yoshoku scowled. "Tell me what you think I do in a fight."
But Doku had regained his composure and was scowling right back by then. "Well, if I'm so wrong, I couldn't tell you, could I? Why don't you tell me?"
Yoshoku clenched a fist, but then shook his head and sighed. "I'm trying to prove I can do something better than my stupid brother. Maybe you heard of him, Shintaro Wadari?"
"…yeah, I heard about him. Who hasn't? He's the most popular kid in school…but I didn't know he was your brother," Doku said, more quietly and a little bit surprised.
"Half-brother," Yoshoku said. "That's why most people don't know, we have different names."
Doku scratched his head. "…mind if I ask why?" he did indeed ask.
For a minute, Yoshoku didn't answer or look at him. Then he started to explain, "My father…I don't know if my mother really loved him. They knew each other since they were kids, and dad got rich but he never met another woman he could stand for long, so he kept trying to get her to marry him, and I kind of guess she agreed because she felt sorry for him in his big house and with all his money but nobody there to help him enjoy it.
"That's why I can't stand either of them. Mom gave him everything he asked for, even though she was on the police force and was giving so much of herself already. Then he paid that all back by having a son with his mistress, and then he gave Shintaro everything. Help with sports, help with grades, a guaranteed future…
"The day mom died playing Kamen Rider Chronicle, he got angry about how she could've done that to him. After everything he did to her. I don't know where we would've been without my dad, but I know we would've been happier."
Neither of them said anything for a minute. Doku spoke first, "How did she die?"
"Nobody really knows…it was total chaos back then," Yoshoku said with a shrug. "But that was her name on the box with my Kamen Rider stuff…that mustmean she wants me to deal with all this, and not my hotshot brother."
Again silence came down over the alley, and Doku scratched his head slowly. He walked away, closer to where Kensei was standing just by the entrance to the street, but Kiiko gave him a pointed look and Doku went back the other way. "You know, this probably sounds stupid," he murmured, "but I never really thought about someone like you having…issues. With your family, and other crap."
Hearing that made Yoshoku laugh, and for a second Doku's blood started to boil with anger. But he realized it was a soft, tired kind of laugh, not the loud jeer he was so used to hearing from the athletic and popular kids. Ones like Yoshoku. "Because you have so many, you thought you were the only person who had personal problems, huh? Popular people are still people."
To his surprise, Doku found himself laughing lightly too, and Yoshoku only leaned back against the wall and folded his arms with a light smile. Then he asked, "So, who sent you your Rider stuff?"
"Well…my big sister did," Doku admitted.
"What happened to her?" Yoshoku asked plainly, his face completely impassive, just waiting silently for an answer.
Doku could only shrug and sigh at that, at first. He thought for a second about the best way to explain it, to describe how warm, and brave and selfless his sister had always been.
Then suddenly a flicker of light caught his eye then from the other end of the alley. He saw it again, and froze. There, just disappearing around behind a corner was a cloud of silvery pixels, and in them he was sure he saw a face.
A familiar face.
"Onee-san…?"
"Mister, are you Ex-Aid?"
Kensei shook his head a little and smiled. "No, I'm Utsura," he explained to the little girl. "I know I'm not as cool as Ex-Aid and Snipe, but I'm trying to fill in for them the best I can until they get back."
She moved a little closer on the cement stoop where they were sitting, looking at the label on En En Chambara in his hand, with the demonic samurai on its label, shivered and looked away. "Snipe isn't cool, he's scary," she said.
"As scary as this guy?" Kensei teased, holding up the Gashat which made the girl squeal and look away. "Sorry, you're really freaked out. I shouldn't be messing around like that. Look, I'm Kensei, what's your name?"
She gave him a disbelieving look. "Kensei? Seriously? Are you good at sword-fighting?"
"Actually I do practice kendo, yeah," he laughed a little. "That's not the reason why, though. It's kind of paying off now since I fight monsters with swords, though."
She exhaled and looked away from him, but she was smiling a little all the same. "My name's Suzu," she said.
"And I'm Kiiko!" she cheerfully announced as she joined them, then looked over to face Kensei. "Doing some PR? Good idea!"
"I'm…just trying to help calm down a scared girl," Kensei shrugged, a little mystified by Kiiko's question.
"Mister?" Suzu asked, and both of them looked over at her. "If you're replacing Ex-Aid, does that mean you know him?"
He shook his head, trying his best to look apologetic. "No, I never meet him. I mean, the reason they needed me to replace him and the other Kamen Riders is because he just disappeared suddenly. I hope soon we can find out where he went soon, though."
Suddenly Kiiko laughed. "We'll solve that mystery in no time! And we won't need their help!" she said, jerking her head backwards to indicate Doku and Yoshoku. But Kensei glanced back, and only Yoshoku was still there.
"Hey! Where did Doku go?" he called.
"That way!" Yoshoku pointed and started running away down the alley.
The first instinct Kensei felt was to go after them, especially when the other Kamen Riders were just having a civil conversation. But he looked back at Kiiko and Suzu, Kiiko putting her hands on the girl's shoulders.
"I just scanned the area, I spotted her parents. I'll take her to them while you go make sure those two don't do something stupid," Kiiko offered.
"You can do that?" Kensei asked, unsure of himself, but realized what he was saying. Kiiko had weird powers that let her find Rider Gashats, and find Corrupture too. She probably could find people with them too, right? "Someday you're going to tell me how you can do all this, Kiiko."
She locked eyes with him, her mouth dropping open a bit and a kind of uncertain wavering in her eyes Kensei didn't think he'd seen before. "Someday," Kiiko said slowly. "But right now you need to go be a big hero again."
He nodded. Then he ran after the others.
The streets seemed to get tighter and tighter as Doku chased after the strange pixel cloud that he knew had his sister's face in it. Finally they back out onto a main road, and he could see those weird servant-spider people climbing over the tops of buildings. A karakasa hopped by on its one leg and stared over at Doku, but hopped away even faster as Doku gave it an ugly look. The infection the Corrupture had created was spreading, but all he cared about was the face in the cloud.
And as he watched it shifted and flowed outward into a human shape, even if it was still made of shifting, flickering pixels. He stared into it, and the face of his older sister stared back, then smiled with tired relief.
"Doku-chan," she said and reached out with a hand that passed right through his face. She stared for a second then her faced formed into a sheepish smile. "I'm sorry, I guess I'm still getting used to this."
"Hiromi. What…what happened to you? Are you all right? Where are you? Where's everyone?" Doku started to babble, tears pooling in his eyes.
"That's kind of a hard question to answer, Doku-chan," she said sadly. "All the people are there. The ones who died in Kamen Rider Chronicle, that's what it's called, right? I don't really know where we are, but we're trapped…"
"You're not trapped! You're here!" Doku almost yelled. "That means there must be a way out!"
She sighed. "I wish it was that simple," she said.
"There has to be a way," Doku pleaded with her.
Then suddenly, the sound of a gun going off cut through the air. And not just any gun, the burning whoosh only the energy from Kamen Rider Sling's gun made. An energy bullet flew out of the darkness and into Hiromi Dasao's side, blowing the ghost to the ground.
Furiously Doku whirled to face where the host had come from, his Gamer Septa already in one hand and Taddle Craft in the other. "I should've known it was just to get my guard down!" he screamed at Sling, his Gamer Pamaka smoking.
"Yeah, you should've. She was playing you from the beginning."
"…what?" Doku croaked, then turned to his sister, and saw she had formed the fingers on one hand into foot-long claws. "Oh my god! You're not my sister!" he yelled. He was right: a second later the cloud of pixels that had seemed to be Hiromi Dasao solidified into Mirage. "She can change shape?!"
The Corrupture villain jumped impossibly high then stuck to the side of a building. "And it almost worked," she said. "You humans are so easy to lead when someone shows you something you want to see."
"Yeah, I guess we are sometimes," Doku admitted, then looked over at Sling. "Good thing I had somebody watching my back this time."
"It was a valiant attempt, my lady," Master Terror said as he melted out of the shadows and immediately started charging his snake staff. "But we can still finish them now, while the wizard's weak."
From behind and on top of buildings, more of the maid and butler-headed spiders crawled out, coating the sides until there must've been at least 40.
Living up to his name, Crumble chewed a door in a cement wall with his fanged hands. Crush jumped down from the top of a convenience store onto a car, reducing it to jagged metal. Chomp reached out with his huge pig-like mouth, grabbed the back end of a butler-spider and swallowed the horrified arachnid in one gulp, then let out a huge gassy burp that rattled windows up and down the street. It almost made the Riders pass out from the smell.
"Hurry up and change already, stupid!" Sling snarled.
But Doku checked the power gauge on the Gamer Septa: only about 40%. It hadn't been long enough since the last fight for it to finish charging yet. Crumble's insane cackling as he closed in was all the pressure Doku needed to get ready for the next fight anyway. "Henshin!"
The purple cloak dropped over his shoulders, the mystical symbols all over it shining for a second as he pulled up the hood. The five Corrupture villains closed in, the waves of spiders crawling down the buildings to reinforce them.
Sling and Rune took a step back closer to the alley they'd come out of, only for a parade of spider-people to crawl out from that too and block them. The gun in Sling's hand roared as he fired at the closest spiders. The spiders on both sides of the one he'd shot shook in pain then popped too.
"Is that really it? You've given up, haven't you?" Master Terror sneered. He fired a blast from his staff at Sling and Rune.
Then at that second the loud pops marking the death of even more spiders behind him threw off Master Terror's shot. The green bolt shot up into the sky as a glowing white arrow ripped through the crawling army, a whole line of spiders bursting before Utsura charged through the spiders from behind swinging his sword.
"Maybe we were just trying to get you to think we were scared," Sling said as he strafed the closest spiders. "You monsters are so easy to lead when someone shows you something you want to see."
Mirage scowled. "You're still outnumbered a hundred to one, Rider!" she yelled, growling to hear her words turned back on her. The waves of spiders closed in around them.
Sling didn't flinch. "So let's do something about that." He whipped out Scorching Kitchen, and Rune echoed his action by drawing Gamble Paradise. Both hit the trigger button and the short stubby Gamer robots floated out of screens with the titles of their games, then flew in circles over the top of the street. Suddenly another Gamer robot, a dark orange one, joined them. Flaps opened in their arms and the robots started bombing the giant spiders with a rain of large paint balls, dice and root vegetables that exploded as they hit the huge, screaming arachnids. A few spiders took a few shots at once and burst.
While the Gamers circled overhead, bombing from the air to keep the spiders back, a figure in thick red armor, holding a bright green katana in his hands. "Was wondering when you'd finally catch up, Hidenaga!" Sling called over his shoulder as he strafed the ground in front of him, stopping Crumble and Chomp as the hideous jester and his pig-faced friend closed in. "Your plan worked pretty well, though…"
"Holy crap, that was almost a compliment!" Utsura laughed. He turned his attention to the Corrupture right behind him, Master Terror and Mirage themselves. The skeletal leader was charging a brighter shot in his snake staff than any the Kamen Riders had seen before.
But Utsura dashed over and hit the staff with his katana so it pointed straight up. The staff fired and its shot went into the sky, setting a giant 8-bit moth on fire as it passed by. Before the Corrupture had a chance to recover he was charging at them, sword swinging wildly to keep them from counterattacking. One slash caught Master Terror across the chest and he hit the ground with a sound like a bunch of dry sticks clattering together.
He turned back to face Mirage who'd tossed one of her exploding crystal balls at him. Utsura spun around and went into a jump kick that knocked her attack spinning out of sight.
"The three of you really think you can take us on without using all your power?" Mirage sneered, warming up another exploding crystal as she did.
"You know what the best way to be good at something? It's to be good at it, not to smash your way through it," Utsura replied, his voice hard and unfraid.
She suddenly flipped around the air and hurled her shot at him, and already Utsura tucked his sword against his chest and threw himself forward into a somersault. The explosion singed the back of his armor but he was unhurt.
Mirage scowled as she hit the ground and Master Terror got back up. "This is a game for your life, Rider!" Mirage said with a scowl.
He only raised his sword, a ray of light seeming to run up the blade and flash at the tip. "Let's play," he retorted, then charged.
The press of the last button in the combo clicked in and Sling pulled the trigger, sending a fiery blast into Crush's chest. He jerked back as the powerful bullet connected, a look of surprise on his wrinkly grey face. The horn on his nose dug a few inches into the side of the building behind him and Crush yelled and flailed as he tried to pull himself out.
But despite the dramatic display Crush was making, the smoking spot was already clearing and there was barely a mark. He'd taken Sling's most powerful hit and all that'd happened was Crush was stuck to a building for a minute.
In his other hand, Sling held tight onto Scorching Kitchen. The Gamers circling from the air were the only thing keeping the Corrupture from getting an army of reinforcements, but already Sling was aching to be able to fight at full power.
And to show that idiot Master Terror just how sharp his Level 3 form's knife really was…
He glanced over one shoulder and saw Rune kick Chomp away, the pudgy pig-monster spinning and landing on his head with a splat, but immediately getting up again. Rune used his wand like a weapon and swung it at Crumble's head. The evil jester staggered and Rune looked desperately down at the power gauge on his wand, then cursed.
It was all the distraction Chomp needed. He reared back his huge head, then sneezed right into Rune's back. A massive blast of snot hit Rune right between the shoulders and knocked him into Crumble's waiting hands. The jester grinned with a mouth full of teeth as sharp as the ones on his fingers.
As sharp as the ones that grabbed on Rune, and started chewing into his armor.
There was a scream at that second. A combination of Rune's scream of pain and Crush's scream of rage as he pulled his nose free.
The hulking rhino-faced Corrupture came charging right at Sling, the ground shaking with his every gigantic step. Sling fired a ball of biting snakes from his gun that coiled all over Crush's body and sank their fangs into him, but Crush didn't even notice and swung his metal fist with all this terrifying strength.
The air actually cracked with noise as Sling threw himself forward and under Crush's wild swing at him. Sling drew and fired his gun, but just like he'd expected his bullets hit Crush and did nothing, the giant brute turning around and charging again.
It was hopeless. Sling dodged, ducked and ran back as Crush came after him. Every time his fist came a little closer to hitting him. Eventually, it had to. And he went flying, his chest burning with agony. Crumble let go of Rune and let Sling crash into him. They both went down in a tangle of armored bodies.
"Why the hell didn't you fight back with magic?" Sling demanded as he tried to get out from underneath Rune. Chomp sneezed and coated their armor with green sludge, and all three Corrupture laughed.
Rune groaned and threw a slick glob off his shoulder. The Corrupture laughed and Sling growled in irritation with him. "I don't have enough energy to beat so many monsters…it hasn't been long enough for it to finish recharging. And Hidenaga doesn't seem to want me to use the last item I have to refill it."
A second passed. Then Sling whispered, "Do they know that?"
The huge block on Crush's arm came down, smashing a square hole in the street. He lifted it again to flatten the Kamen Riders.
Suddenly Rune pointed his wand at Crush and a cone of light flowed out of the end. The Corrupture's killer swing slowed down and the two Kamen Riders scattered out of the way.
Crumble curled up into his spiked ball form and came bouncing at Rune next, and the Rider twisted the dial on the side of the wand and sent a small tornado that blew Crumble backward.
He twisted the dial and aimed it again, but nothing happened. Desperately he shook the wand and aimed it again, but still nothing happened as Crumble hopped closer to finish him off. His next bounce landed only a few feet away. The next one would smash him into Rune.
But in the blink of an eye Rune whipped open his inventory and stabbed his fist into the icon showing the last stockpiled coin and the energy bar on his wand shot up to full. As Crumble bounced at him Rune activated his wand and stabbed it right into the Corrupture's side. A bolt of lightning ripped from the end and covered the Corrupture's body.
Crumble screamed and unrolled from the force of the attack he'd just suffered. "Bang Bang Critical FINISH!" Sling's Pamaka seemed to yell even louder than usual as he fired a round of gatling bullets ripped into him. The demonic jester just had time for a look of surprise to cover his face, then he burst and flowed away into the sky as defeated Corrputure always did.
A second later Crush's metal fist suddenly came down, hitting nothing. For the first time he was totally silent in disbelief that his ally had just been defeated by the Kamen Riders who'd been unable to do anything against them before. Then Rune turned to face him and unleashed a fireball right at Crush, hitting him from point blank. The rhino-faced Corrupture cried out in pain then as his clothes caught fire, but Rune immediately launched another fireball right into the burning center of Crush's chest.
Rune changed to another spell and fired it off, a huge jet of flame shooting out of the wand and blasting Crush back 20 feet. The hulking Corrupture was starting to recover and narrowed his eyes in rage, then pushed back against the flames. A shot rang out and exploded against Crush's shoulder just before another exploded against his other shoulder, knocking him off-balance. Sling slapped in a code on his Pamaka and fired a big cannon blast into the vulnerable burning spot on Crush's chest and knocking the Corrupture down.
Then suddenly Rune held his wand up above his head and jumped high. "Taddle Critical Strike!" A fireball burst behind him, forming the shape of a phoenix with wide wings and trailing tails.
"Bang Bang Critical Strike!" echoed an identical voice. Sling jumped into the air next to Rune. A hot wind blew down the street, carrying clouds of thick brown dust along with it. Both Kamen Riders came down in a blazing double jump kick right into the burning ring on the fallen Crush's chest. A look of horror, wide mouth gaping and eyes flickering. Then he burst and flowed away.
"That still would've been easier with full power," Sling muttered.
"Your idea to trick them worked pretty well, though," Rune admitted.
Sling chortled. "It did, huh? I suppose you're waiting for me to say looking helpless is so easy for you," he said with a pant after the intense attack they'd just made.
They stood up, dusting themselves off. Behind them was a whimpering noise, and the turned to see Chomp, the last of the three Corrupture war party. He reared back his head and sprayed a blast of snot at the two Riders by they easily jumped out of the way.
"Save your strength, I'll handle it," Sling said, then aimed his gun.
It was only for a second but the world went a bright white as another of Mirage's bombs went off right in front of him, but Utsura was jumping right through the blast and leaned back into a jump kick as he came through the flames. His boot slammed into Mirage's stomach and knocked her down. She gasped as the wind was knocked out of her and rolled a few times, letting Utsura turn and face Master Terror.
Seeming to grin, the Corrupture leader fired a burst from his snake-staff, training it on Utsura as he ran behind parked cars trying to escape. One blew up as the Corrupture's power hit it, then a second one, then Utsura jumped on top of the third and jumped straight at Master Terror. His sword was held high.
Master Terror tried to jump back out of the Rider's reach, but Utsura leaned forward and swung hard and fast, slashing his enemy across the body twice. He gasped in pain he could somehow feel, but without warning his free hand stretched out of its sleeve and grabbed the Rider. Master Terror stabbed the fangs of his staff into Utsura's arm, cutting right into his armor.
But the villain had surprise on his side, not strength, and even as burning venom rushed through his arm Utsura recovered enough to yank free and flip the lever on his Gamer Driver. "En En Critical Finish!" it roared as he raised his katana over his head. Master Terror gasped in horror and his arm stretched out of his sleeve to grab the dazed Mirage and pull her in front of him suddenly.
The burning green blade cleaved right through her. Behind his mask Utsura gaped in horror as Mirage dissolved away into the sky. He made an awkward swing with his katana that managed to knock Master Terror down and sent his snake-staff rolling away.
But then Utsura's arm went totally numb and his sword dropped out of his fingers. He stomped closer to Master Terror to finish the job, the villain looking over to where his weapon had landed and his arm started to stretch out to grab it.
He never got the chance. There was a loud sizzling bang and Master Terror's arm broke into splinters. Sling stepped up, his gun smoking. He clicked the trigger button on Scorching Kitchen, the Gamer robot flying down and splitting apart into his apron and weapons. Master Terror got up and started running away as fast as a skeleton could go. Sling seemed unbothered, pulling a pineapple out of one of his pods, then pulling a leaf out of the top revealing a sparking fuse. He tossed it after Master Terror, and the pineapple exploded as it hit the skeleton, scattering bones into the air.
"You done with the others?" Sling asked over his shoulder. Behind them Rune had changed to his Level 3 form too, and a smack on the head with his cane popped one of the last of the spiders. Only two more were still in sight, and they were crawling up over the top of a building and out of sight.
"Looks like it's over," Utsura sighed loud with relief, clutching his aching arm.
Strange 8-bit monsters were still circling in the sky, a fiery horse galloping across the clouds and a screaming ghost with three heads flying the other direction, but Utsura tossed a Doctor Mighty Gashat up in his hand and locked it into the slot in his bow. He started pulling it back to unleash its power and restore things to normal, silently hoping it would take away the pain in his arm from Master Terror's snake bite too.
But then he stopped and glanced back at the other two Riders. "Would either of you care to do the honors?"
Sling shook his head, and Rune looked away. He decided to let it go, and pulled back the string, wincing at the pain in his arm where he'd been bitten.
Then a cold tingle raced up his neck. Utsura jumped forward just a second before a giant sword with a black blade came swinging down, cutting into the thick mask on his back.
Wielding it was a samurai in heavy, shining black armor with the horned faces of oni worked in gold into the forearms of his gauntlets and cuffs of his boots. The chest plate was a dark, blood-like red, and he wore a mask with the face of a grinning hanaya demon. It was the same horrifying samurai on En En Chambara's label.
"Ikiru…" Rune breathed as if he couldn't believe it.
"Who?" Sling asked, drawing his oversized butcher knife.
"The Master of Shadows, the last boss in En En Chambara," Rune explained, his hands quivering and the dice atop his cane jangling.
"So?" Sling asked again, still not impressed.
"So," the towering demonic samurai replied for him, "only one person's ever actually made it to 100% completion of the game. And it's not one of you, that's for sure!"
Behind him Utsura had hit the trigger on Mighty Sketch but Ikiru whipped around swinging his giant nodachi in only one hand. Ikiru's weapon was nothing but a blur of blackness as it connected with Utsura's chest. Three quarters of his health bar had disappeared before he'd even touched the ground.
"You've had enough fun for today, Kamen Rider," Ikiru said, but turned toward Sling and Rune, who went into tight defensive stances. Ikiru didn't close to attack, though. Instead he snapped his fingers, but the result was a sound like an earthquake.
It felt like it too, Rune and Sling being knocked staggering by a wave of invisible force coming from Ikiru's fingers. Was he that powerful?
As if answering the question the two Kamen Riders were facing he lifted his massive sword over his head. A golden dragon's head was etched into the hilt of the weapon with a red jewel clutched in its jaws that started to glow. A second later the blade turned blinding white and Ikiru smashed it down on the ground. An even stronger shockwave ripped through the air and the Riders were only on their feet for another second before they blacked out.
From out of the sky flew down a woman in a black dress with skinless wings sticking out of her back, Queen Akuire. Then a cowgirl with a shotgun leaned against one shoulder with a pair of lips on the barrel as big as her own misshapen pair stepped out of a shadowy corner, Crimson Candy. "Gather them up," Ikiru said simply, waving his finger at Sling and Rune's unconscious forms.
"You don't have to tell us that, sugah," Candy replied.
He ignored her and turned back to where Utsura was laying. His eyes went wide in surprise as he saw someone else standing between them, a girl in a dark school uniform with her arms held wide in a hopeless defensive move.
"You can't have him," Kiiko said. A weird colorful light with block edges flashing in her eyes and around her fingers. She clapped her hands together and a bubble formed around her and Utsura, small block-like shapes on the edges forming together. The bubble turned a bright blue and shattered. Kiiko and Utsura were gone.
Ikiru didn't shout with rage, or destroy his surroundings. Instead he slid his giant sword into its scabbard on his back. Quietly, he said, "He'll be lucky to keep that arm, never mind save the day. But still, I wish you luck."
See you Next Game…