Kamen Rider Altis Chapter 14
Disclaimer: I don't own or make any claim of ownership of the Kamen Rider series. Kamen Rider Altis and its characters belong to me, and may not be used without express permission. But don't be afraid to ask.
It had been thirty-three days since I'd seen the sun.
The huge lamp hanging over me was making a hell of an attempt at subbing for it, though.
"Are you ready for this, Madeleine?" a voice from out in the darkness beyond the ring of light around me asked. Doctors all decked out for surgery walked into sight.
"It's what I've been here trying to earn for the last month, isn't it?" I asked back.
He chuckled a little. "That was your last test." Somebody put a breath mask over my face and the air I was breathing smelled sweeter.
"When you wake up, we'll have a new name for you," the doctor said. I'd be able to see the fleas on a dog's back a two hundred feet too, but thinking about what they were going to do to make that possible made my stomach churn a little.
I didn't get to focus on that thought for too long. The room blurred as the doctor reached for his first instrument. Then I was out.
At some other point in my life, I might've been amazed at how suddenly I woke up. I was groggy for hours after I woke up from getting my wisdom teeth pulled. That was before I had a black blob try to crawl inside my skin and had spent most of a month working out non-stop, though.
I was still in the operating room, but lights were on everywhere instead of right above me. Standing over me with a smile on her face was Faye McGee. I could see every single pore on her cheeks like I was looking at her through an observatory telescope.
"Do I know you, lady?" she said. "You look sort of like this wimpy reporter I brought in here a couple weeks ago."
I smirked back up at her and gave her a shove. She must've staggered back five feet before she stopped.
"Down, girl," she warned me with a smile, and held something out for me. "Save that stuff for the Taint."
It was a belt with a thin red box on it. I didn't have to guess what it was for. I took it and realized I was grinning myself. I knew what kind of responsibility came with this thing. I was accepting that I would be asked to risk my life, maybe every day, by wearing it. I took it anyway.
If I was lucky I might even get to crack the story of the century while I was at it.
I looked Faye in the eye and could see every little vein. "Is this it, then? I mean, now it's official?"
"If you were expecting a big ceremony you must've been thinking of some other outfit. Yeah, you're one of us now, Tora. And don't worry about the eyes, all that settles down pretty quick."
"That's good to know," I said. We left the medical wing and I got dressed again. As I strapped on the belt, which weighed practically nothing, Faye reached over and pushed down on the top. One second it looked like one of those weird buckles Altis and the others wore, the next it was the most average-looking black leather belt I'd ever seen.
"That figures."
"It's actually pretty new," Faye told me. "Mine's getting refitted with that system. Altis refused to even let them try with his, though."
Altis. God, how long had it been since the last time I saw him? He'd been back to the little hideout a few times, I'd caught him training in the gym. I'd always been sparring with Faye or somebody else when he was, though, and he was always gone before I finished. But then, he didn't do anything except kill Taint. Ever. Everybody there did that, sure, but Faye brought in beer and movies and we'd hang out some nights. Nobody around the base talked about doing that with Altis.
"So," I said. "When do I get to bag my first Taint?"
"You get to investigate a site of occurrence with me and Mike as soon as we get back to Rittersburg." "That's all, huh?" It's what I was used to.
"No, it's not. We've picked up three new Taint."
"I thought we couldn't just pinpoint them with radar and go after them. Their energy only shows up once in a while."
"We can't," she corrected me. "Not unless they're as powerful as these ones. These ones give out a less intermittent signal."
That explained why I was being sent out right after I got my belt. "So I do get to bag my first Taint."
Faye's face got somber. "Odds are, yeah. Don't get any ideas about this being fun, though."
"Faye? My sister's dead. Altis probably would've smashed me into goo too if Abby hadn't been right there when the slime tried to crawl into me. No, this isn't fun. Exciting, yeah, but that's not the same thing."
"Good," she said, smiling a little grimly.
We walked to the little garage where they kept all their cars and the motorcycles the agents used while they were in the base. There was one I'd never seen before parked next to Faye's. The plating on it was dark red with yellow trim. The keys were already in it.
I looked over at Faye. "Would I be overestimating myself if I guessed that was for me?"
"It's your other graduation present," she explained, a smirk breaking through all the doom and gloom.
We rode back to Rittersburg, and I thought of how weird I must look with how long it'd been since I'd ridden an actual motorcycle. Not since those two weeks I went out with that one guy right when I was feeling especially free after I started college. Lucky for me that was something else I'd been taught to the point of exhaustion over the last month.
Faye led the way to a crummy motel near the west side of the city. One with doors to the rooms on the outside. I knew the kind, but the way we got in was a new one on me. Faye took out a gizmo that was made of a plastic card with a magnetic strip hooked up to a little black box with LED lights on one end. The red one blinked at us a few times before the green one went on and the lock clicked open.
I'd been expecting a disaster area on the other side, but for a motel room the place was actually pretty neat. The bed had been slept in but not made up, and the stench of days-old laundry drifted from a traveling bag in the corner but that was it. At least, that was it for anything any normal investigator would've noticed.
On the pillow I could see droplets-tiny, tiny droplets-of blood. They were so small as to be invisible to the naked eye, but there was something else there besides dried blood. Something thick and black…
"Madeleine, watch the door while I'm looking around," Faye said, and I stepped outside, shut the door and took up a lookout at a discrete distance.
Looking inconspicuous was, something I wasn't entirely surprised to learn, part of the curriculum for becoming a semi-professional monster killer. It went against the grain for me, since my job normally called for me to get people to notice and talk to me, but they told me I was doing okay by the time word came down I was ready for my robot eyes.
A couple minutes went by while Faye was inside the room. People passed, but went up the stairs next to where I was standing or into other rooms. Some of them eyeballed me, but nobody did anything else to acknowledge I was there.
Then, I saw her. I thought my eyes didn't take for a second, because all I saw for a second was a person-shaped blob of black walking toward me. I concentrated and I could see a lumpy brunette woman coming closer, but with my new eyes I saw blotches of black glistening all over her body. That was when I realized she was looking right at me. And she'd stopped in front of the room Faye was checking out.
"Do you need something, lady?" she asked me with obvious irritation. I'd heard people say nastier things to me. I moved to the window and tapped it twice with the end of my finger like I hadn't realized how close my hand was to the glass. I hoped I'd done it hard enough for Faye to hear, because I'd just found the Taint staying there.
Before she could make the first move, I jumped at her and locked my hands around her throat. If Faye didn't hear the signal on the glass, she was sure as hell about to hear another one. She hissed at me and tried to pull my hands off her neck, but while she was doing that I kneed her in the stomach. She doubled over and I gave her a kick to the forehead that knocked her on her back.
They hadn't had to squeeze years of hand-to-hand combat training into the month I'd been at the base, I had a decent background in that already so it wasn't hard to pick up some of the more advanced stuff. What they mainly taught me was priorities when I ran into a Taint. If possible, get them off-balance to give yourself the opportunity to change safely. Stopping them from escaping is the highest priority during an encounter. Things like that.
I hoped I was doing the trainers proud as I pushed the switch to turn my belt on. "Transform!" I yelled to key the voice recognition system too. Then, for the first time, I changed.
It started with a tingle at the base of my neck that turned into a feeling of cold that spread over my whole body. Then it was replaced with a hot, kind of heavy sensation. It was my suit finishing the process of forming around me. It was just as well, the lady I'd just knocked flat jumped back up and landed on her feet. Her fingers had already stretched out into horrifically long tendrils, and like I'd seen happen what seemed like a hundred times already, her skin was already cracking and falling off. Underneath she was green and leathery. Then her head cracked open, and a green face with dark hollows for eyes and a gaping mouth replaced it. Twisted growths that looked sort of like tree branches reached up from its head like hair.
My first Taint and it was a plant? Since when could they do that? And why was I thinking about logistics when a very pissed looking monster had finished the change to its fighting form in front of me? It swung an arm at me and four whip-like vines caught me on the side.
I went into a roll to lessen the impact, which wasn't all that bad to begin with. I felt pain through my suit, but it felt more like a single punch to my side than a super-strong monster whipping me four times at once. I turned, crouched and jumped at the Taint, concentrating on the end of my fist.
A transparent disc formed there, amplifying the force of my blow as it rammed into the Taint's head. It recoiled a couple steps but didn't go down. I crouched then jumped in arc, linking my hands together and aiming them at the top of the Taint's head when I started to come down. I concentrated again, imagining a short triangular blade between my hands. One appeared and cut into the top of the Taint's head, but even as black goop started to leak from its wound it wrapped a couple vines around my leg and threw me through the windshield of the nearest car.
Again, it was surprising how I didn't feel almost dead after taking a hit like that. I was dazed for a second, a few pinpricks of pain here and there that were already fading. Still, the Taint was probably winning. I'd hit it twice, and it didn't seem like I did much damage either time. Was I not focusing the energy hard enough? Was my timing off, and the potency had faded before I hit? The weapons I created didn't last long, after all, and only had a short window, a very short window, for when they were really effective.
The Taint's vine-fingers dug into the street as I was peeling myself off the car and erupted all around me. They came at me from all directions in a whipping frenzy. I formed a blade in each hand and sliced through two, let the blades disappear and formed a shield in front me as I charged through the vines to get to the Taint itself. I took a few vines to the back and almost went down, but in another second I was through. The Taint was right in front of me.
I worried for a second about Faye, and why she wasn't joining in when there was no way she hadn't heard the chaos unfolding in the street. I thought hard on the image of the weapon I needed next and a circular saw blade as big as a hubcap flickered into being in front of me. With a thought it went whizzing at the Taint and cut right through its left arm. It gave off this weird roar like a tree groaning right before it falls over, but the wound closed up.
Then another arm started to grow where the old one had been.
I created another blade as quick as I could and sent it at the Taint but it whipeed a vine at my projectile and caught it on the flat side, and knocked it away before it got close enough to do any damage. By then its other arm had grown back and it hit me full in the chest with all four vines. That time, I felt it. And it hurt. Not as much as when I flew backwards into a brick wall, though.
An idea hit me as I got up. It would be trick y to pull off, but it didn't seem like anything less would bring down a Taint like this. And for whatever reason, I was on my own.
I ran back and forth down the street in the Taint's direction. It kept whipping its vines at me or jamming into the ground to try to get me from below, but I was always gone just a little bit before it would've clobbered me. I sent a blade at the Taint, then ran to my right and sent another one without waiting to see if the first connected. I kept going, sending another one. Then another one.
None were as sharp as I could've made them if I'd taken the time, but I didn't have the time to take. I heard that tree-falling-over noise, then it got louder and angrier, and I took that to mean my idea was working. I kept running in circles around the Taint, sending blades at it as quickly as I could. Vines kept breaking out the street trying to get at me so I couldn't slow down to see how much damage I was doing, but after about the thirtieth blade I stopped hearing the asphalt shattering behind me.
The Taint was gone, all that was left was a pile of hunks of vegetable matter dripping with black goo. It looked like it worked; I'd cut it so fast and so often it didn't have time to grow back. When the pieces shrank back to human remains a second later, I wasn't feeling too proud of what I'd just accomplished. Instead of focusing on that I tapped another switch on my belt and the black goo flowed into an intake on the front. When it stopped I kicked in the door to the room where I'd left Faye.
While I'd been busy with the tree Taint outside, it looked like Faye had been busy with something in there. The bed was tipped up to lean against the wall, or the larger piece that hadn't been hacked off, anyway. Near the bathroom in the back the sink had fallen off the fall, but looking closely it I swore I saw a tiny crack in the floor underneath it.
The sink and the floor underneath it moved with one good kick. Underneath was a tunnel sloping down. Not too far before it leveled off, but I had my answer for what had happened to Faye. I slid down it and got up to run, grateful to whoever had put night vision in the power suits.
It's easy to lose your sense of place when you've got nothing to orient yourself. I didn't know how long I'd run before I the tunnel turned up and I had to crawl up a slope before I was up on ground level again. The tunnel let out into what looked like some kind of old factory, with conveyer belts and catwalks all over the place.
It also had three Taint standing around something not far away from me, and I didn't have to guess what.
I whipped another circular blade and buried it in it the back of the nearest one, who was long, pink and slimy. It thrashed around in and the slash I made in its back closed up as I watched, but at least I got their attention. They turned around, and I got a better look at them. The one I sliced had a long segmented body, long and pink with spindly little arms and legs, and its head opened up into four triangular flaps revealing a gaping mouth.
The others were even scarier, if only because the power I was picking up off the two of them was twice as high as the other one. One of them looked like a bear, but with glistening red eyes, clawed hands instead of paws, and something in its stomach that it took me a second to recognize as another mouth. One big enough to swallow my head whole.
The last Taint was even bigger than the bear one, but that probably had to do with how it looked like it was based on a huge red bull. It had pair of horns, each a good two feet long, and a bovine face that was only missing a metal ring through the flaring nose.
And between them, unconscious and dripping blood from her head, was Faye McGee. She didn't even have a chance to transform before they got her. The Bull Taint had a squirming black blob in one hand, but it squirmed underneath his skin as they turned to face me.
The three of them split up, the Bear Taint coming straight toward me while the Bull and Worm ones circled toward me from the sides. This wasn't good. The slight amount of Taint that I had in my system made it so I could use a more powerful system than the one most of the other investigators wore, but I wasn't supposed to be fighting three Taint by myself on my first case. Especially not ones like these. Even if the Worm Taint wasn't as powerful as the other two, it was probably a quick healer, and the strategy I used on my last kill wasn't that viable if he had two other monsters helping him out.
But hell if I wasn't going to make them work for it
The Worm Taint weaved toward me on its belly, its arms and legs hanging from its sides limply, looking almost silly until it open its mouth again and a jet of green slime shot at me. I got out of the way with only a few tiny drops on me, but I could hear the hissing as they ate into my suit. I saw the Bear Taint coming right at me from my left and created a different kind of weapon this time, a heavy orb, and lobbed it at the mouth in its stomach that was opening up to take my arm off. The orb hit the Taint in the neck and knocked it down, just as Bull Taint charged from the other side of the room, shaking the ground with every step. I got out of its way, but it was quicker than it looked and turned at the last second and slashed me across the back with a horn. The suit didn't do much to blunt the feeling of that attack. I went flying into some piece of machinery and slid off, seeing stars.
I'd made a stupid mistake rushing after Faye like I had. I should've called in, told home base where I was so they could send help in case of trouble. That wasn't just standard procedure, it was common sense. I concentrated a little and a small light started to blink in the corner of my mask's view. If anyone picked up the signal I was sending, at least they'd know what happened to us.
The Taint closed in on me again, Worm Taint coming straight at me at its two big brothers coming from the sides again. Worm Taint's mouth opened again but I created a disc underneath it and vaulted the disc upward as hard as I could manage. Worm Taint went cart wheeling and landed with a splat.
Bull Taint rushed at me, a horn aimed at my heart. I'd barely avoided that attack before, but I had an idea this time. If only I still had the energy to make it work.
The wall of angry red surged in my direction, and I created a disc underneath my fee. Then another one under that one, and another one under that one. Each pushed me a little higher until I was above Bull Taint. I jumped over it and formed a stubby blade-sacrificing size for sharpness-in my hand that I dug into its back.
It bellowed and I pushed the blade as deep as I could then dug it upward to the Taint's neck. It turned and kicked me down, but the anger burning in its eyes had dimmed.
It was more and more of an effort to focus the energy I was using to shape my weapons, though. I'd done too much too fast, and I only had one dead Taint to show for it. The one in front of me was wounded but the other two…they were already closing in to finish me off.
Then…the sound of an engine approaching. Something smashed through the wall of the building nearby. A motorcycle. Altis's motorcycle. With Altis on it, already in his Wanderer armor. There was another bike behind him, ridden by Mike in his own armor.
Bear Taint suddenly spoke up in a voice I recognized. It was the voice of that creature, the one made of black rock that had been forming a nest of snake Taint. "This venture has become too risky. Retreat."
Worm Taint spewed acid at the ground in front of it, burning a tunnel that it slithered into. The other Taint ducked inside. I didn't follow, I was kneeling down to check on Faye. Before I could go through any of the usual methods my eyes did the job for me. She was breathing just fine, no Taint in her system that my handy new x-ray eyes could spot.
"Leave her," Altis interrupted me. "Let's go."
I looked up at him. "What about Faye?"
"Kran will make sure she' all right," he said, indicating Mike with his thumb. "We've got a job to do," Altis said, then slipped down the tunnel after the Taint. A nagging little voice told me to stay with Faye; who knew if this wasn't just a trick so they could get rid of her while Altis and I were gone? Another voice told me go with him. Hadn't I joined this outfit partly to get to the bottom of the story? With a last look at Faye, I followed Altis.