Author's disclaimers: Sonic and related characters are the copyright of either Sega or Archie Comics. All characters previously specified as mine are mine. Anything specific unmentioned here is not mine, but is copyrighted and I merely forgot to add their specific name.
Lost Chapter: Double Trouble
It was after the assault on Freedom HQ was over. The symbol of freedom for the Republic of Acorn had been reclaimed, Rosy the Rascal had been brought back to the Spire as something of a new ally, and Bionics had generally shown Scourge that he was not going to stand by and let the tyrant take over Mobius. The news, along with the photo taken by Bionics of the victory, had yet to circulate enough through the Republic's conscience to have its true impact yet. It still left those who had participated with something of a buzz, though, and now they were just sitting and waiting for something to happen.
Back at the Spire in particular, the Dark Legion were allowing themselves to savour their triumph in that battle. They had made an impact on both the minds of the Republic and Scourge's armed forces. They had received their honourable mention and commendation from the Republic, and the Legion basked in this newfound positive media. They had become much more of a trusted ally to the 'good guys' of Mobius, and this was sure to lead to much better relationships all over. They all felt, of course, that were it not for their protector in Bionics, they wouldn't have found themselves in this position.
Bionics had separated himself from all others in the armoury. He was busy working on something there for Lien-Da. He knew that he had some considerable feelings for her, even though it had been only three days since they had actually met. To him it felt as though they had known each other for months. He wanted to spoil her a bit, so he decided to provide her with a bit more... cutting edge technology in regards to her power armour. He would provide her with some modest upgrades in the hardware systems of it, such as a private communications suite and improved energy shields.
The best upgrade came in the form of improved selective magnetism and tractor fields in the gauntlets and boots. This allowed the closest thing Bionics could give to Lien-Da that had some semblance to his own powers. With the magnetic systems, she could use it to scale walls and ceilings, like a spider. She could also make sure weapons stayed in her hands or she could summon them from wherever they had fallen on the ground. She would never be staggered unless she allowed and so she could hold her ground very effectively. It was quite a special upgrade, and no-one else in the Dark Legion would have it.
All these abilities combined would ensure that Lien-Da would be a powerhouse warrior. Bionics really did hope that she would approve of it. He was now just making the finishing touches to it. It looked pretty much the same as her old armour. He stepped back and took it all in. He smiled at his work. He was pleased, in no small part due to the fact that he crafted it himself. He decided that she should see it now and test it for herself. He snapped his fingers and sent the armour to the simulator chambers, then sent an Immortal to fetch Lien-Da. He went into a separate lift to get to the simulator chambers himself. This was going to be an interesting end to the day.
Further up the Spire's vast stature, Lien-Da was lying on her bed in her private quarters wearing her armour. She was a little surprised that the bed could take all the weight of it, but then the power armour itself was actually lighter than she had ever expected armour of this sort to be. It felt odd to wear combat attire in such a comfortable and peaceful environment, but she was beginning to become so much more comfortable wearing it. Her mind suddenly filled with the image of her wearing the suit her whole life, and still having it on while lying in her coffin or on her funeral pyre. She frowned and shook her head to be rid of the thought.
She was contented enough for the afternoon. She had received a fair portion of the battle today, she had been the face of the New Dark Legion as they proved themselves allies of the Republic of Acorn, and she had shown that she had legitimately changed her ways to a reasonable degree. She felt spiritually refreshed, and she also felt that she had a much brighter view of herself now. Despite all this, she wasn't trying to delve too deep into that line of thought. She just wanted to spend some time kicked back and relaxed without having to think or tear herself up over her life at the moment.
Lien-Da closed her eyes and let the blackness of the inside of her eyelids envelop her vision for a moment of quiet harmony, and the silence of the room without the fireplace crackling away helped her in her carefully constructed time of detachment. She enjoyed it for the better part of 20 seconds before she heard a gentle rapping at her chamber door. As her mind was suddenly ripped back to reality she called out on instinct "come in." The door opened and revealed an Immortal standing there, expressionless and eternally devoid of life. "Kommissar, Lord Bionics requests that you meet him down in simulation chambers immediately."
Lien-Da closed her eyes and sighed gently. There was never more than an hour's respite from being in his company. She swung herself off of the bed and stretched her back out with a yawn. Then she grabbed her energy whip and pistol from off of her coffee table and walked out with the Immortal to the lifts. It always puzzled her why they waited for you to join them and then they led you to a place. She knew where the simulation chambers were, so the Immortal didn't need to do anything other than tell her Bionics wanted to see her. It was a curious idiosyncrasy.
They reached the lifts, and got into the one closest to them at that moment. They flew downwards to the simulation chambers, and only Lien-Da got out. As the doors closed behind her, she made her way further into the space until she entered the central foyer to the main set of simulation rooms. There she saw Bionics fussing over what looked like a new suit of power armour. She could see that it had the same design aesthetics that she had on her current armour. It was shaped to fit someone of the female persuasion, but now was just slightly more thick set, as though it had been given more muscle or protection. It also had special vambraces and gauntlets attached to it.
Bionics turned his head to see her and nodded in acknowledgement. "Lien-Da, glad to see you decided to join me." Lien-Da chuckled and retorted "Why on Mobius would I not attend if you asked me to?" Bionics then opened his mouth, paused, turned his eyes to his right and frowned in thought, before closing his mouth again and looking thoroughly awkward. He replied, in an apologetic manner, "point taken. Anyway, I called you down here to show you this." He held out his left hand to the suit next to him on said hand's side. "I've made you a new suit of power armour with some upgraded features to it. I'll show you the new bits once you've gotten into it and had a try of it."
"Wait, you want me to get changed into this armour here and now?" Lien-Da felt a surge of panic. She did not want to strip down in front of Bionics. The embarrassing fact was that she didn't have a bra on beneath her power armour's under suit. Bionics then huffed with casual abandon and reassured her. "Don't worry, Lien-Da. You only need to take off the power armour's plating. You can keep the under suit on and put the new armour on over it." Now assuaged that she wouldn't have to embarrass herself in front of him, she began to take off her power armour's plates and kinetic amplifiers one by one.
Soon she was down to her under suit, which hugged her body in a comfortable yet also somehow revealing way. She quickly reached out and began to apply the new plates of armour to herself. Bionics merely watched on with the look of general disinterest he reserved for such moments as these. Within the span of a minute, the new armour was on her, and she reached out and took the new helmet facemask from its position on a now stripped down robotic dummy. She reverentially applied the new mask to her face and let the rest of the helmet spring from nowhere and slide into place around her head and dreadlocks.
She took her first look through her brand new Heads-Up Display and at first spotted no real difference. Bionics was still outlined in the HUD's standard 'green-for-allies' glow, and she had all the same systems such as clock and general health status. There was, however, one small new box down in the top right corner of the display, and she concentrated on it. It sprung up to reveal an image of the armour with spread out arms and legs. Over the hands and feet was a small red blob each, and above these were the words 'offline'. Bionics spoke up and said "What you are staring at now is the most major of the new upgrades. They are selective gravity pads. These allow you to keep a hold of weapons, stick to surfaces, scale and run up surfaces, and even make boosted jumps."
Lien-Da concentrated on the gravity pad on her right arm, and it almost immediately blipped to green with a beep and the word above it switched to 'online'. She reached for her pistol, and held it up in front of her eyes. She opened her fingers, and the weapon remained firmly attached to her palm. She gave it an experimental shake, but the weapon still refused to dislodge. She reached it down to her hip, and found that the gravity pad temporarily disabled to let the weapon holster itself. She took up her energy whip and did the same with it. Then she activated the pads in her armoured boots and then leant further and further back. Her feet remained welded to the metal floor.
Lien-Da swung herself back up, but did so too vigorously, and her upper body flew forwards. Bionics reacted like lightning. He grabbed her gently and helped her to straighten up. Under the helmet, her cheeks had started to burn with a blush of embarrassment. "Sorry about that" she said through the speakers, her voice coming through with a harsh, robotic inflection. Bionics smiled warmly and placed his left hand on her shoulder. He didn't say anything, but instead turned and made his way to one of the larger simulation rooms, beckoning for Lien-Da to follow.
Once at the door, Bionics turned smartly on the heel and looked at Lien-Da with his hands behind his back. "I wanted to test this armour out against a particularly challenging opponent. Its improved general abilities combined with the gravity pads give you a decided advantage." He indicated the door to the room, and it slid open. "I will pit you against some standard enemies first, and then you will face a 'special' simulation. You go on in, and I will observe you and make notes." Lien-Da put her hands on her hips and said "you're going to just study me like some lab experiment?" Bionics nodded in mock vigour, and said "yes, if I am brutally honest."
Lien-Da sighed and said "alright, let's get this over with." She walked into the simulation chamber and turned in time to see the door shut with eerie silence. She saw Bionics type in something on a keypad outside of the room, look up at her and smile as if to say 'good luck'. Then the simulation activated, and he was obscured as a virtual world engulfed her. Lien-Da took in her surroundings and was pleasantly surprised. She had expected a battlefield, or maybe some urban ruins, something that shown signs of conflict. Instead, she found herself in a large and sleek metropolis. It bore a look that made it seem even more modern and futuristic than most cities on Mobius, if that was possible. She gazed up at skyscrapers and flowing white metals and clear glass. This place was very sci-fi.
Bionics' voice came in over her helmet's radio communications suite as clear as if he was standing right next to her. "I've given you the setting that best accommodates my simulations and the one which you can have the most fun with the new gadgets. Now, if I key in some fleeing civilians..." A few seconds later, a stampede of panicking Mobian citizens came around a road corner in front of Lien-Da and charged past her. The Heads-Up Display outlined them all in a friendly blue. A few screaming voices could be discerned amongst the hubbub.
"...Got to get away..."
"...What are those things...?"
"...Keep running, just keep..."
"...How could this happen to us...?"
"...This soldier will stop them, surely!"
At her mention, Lien-Da woke up and sprang forward into action. She activated the gravity pads in her boots to boost-jump settings and elegantly leapt above the simulated rabble. As she landed, she talked to Bionics over the radio. "Was that crowd really necessary?" The reply that came back was "It just helps to add to the realism of it all. Now, if I were you, I'd be heading for the city centre. I'll give you a HUD marker to guide you to it." On the HUD came a small yellow holographic arrow in the top-centre of her visor. It pointed directly forwards and so Lien-Da followed it. As she reached the corner the arrow swivelled and now pointed right. She smiled and kept on following. Soon the fun would begin.
Bionics stood at the computer console outside of the chamber and smiled to himself. He wondered just how well she would cope with what he had planned. This particular simulation had plagued him for a good few years now. He had gathered all the information he could, and had tried to beat it so many times, and had now just about cracked it. If it was something he struggled with, how would Lien-Da cope? He felt a tingle of nearly perverse enjoyment in finding out, but then he quashed that sensation and felt guilty for thinking so callously. He would help her as best he could, and would pull her out when enough was enough. He hunched his shoulders marginally and continued to type away.
In two minutes, Lien-Da had reached the simulated city's centre. It was quite well decorated with shrubbery and fountains and white marble. It looked suitably clean and nostalgic and expensive. It also happened to be crawling with soldiers. Lien-Da was surprised to see they were simulations of Scourge's armed forces. Bionics obviously wanted to pit her against something familiar first. The soldiers all turned to face her and levelled their weapons. Lien-Da crouched into a leaping position and flew upwards and to the right as the first soldiers opened fire. She landed ahead of the shifting deluge of bullets and lasers and sprinted with a newfound speed. Lien-Da brought up her pistol while on the run and was able to target one of the soldiers by the fountain. Her shot hit the unfortunate soldier in the head and he disintegrated into red glowing particles.
By now the enemy's fire had caught up with her, and her shields were starting to become very slightly affected. She launched upwards again, putting away her pistol, and activated the gravity pads in her palms. She landed on the side of a building and stuck there. Once she was stable, Lien-Da scaled it and flipped behind a thick metal balcony. She took a moment's cover behind it as it became riddled with bullet holes and laser burns. She wondered how she had been able to actually scale up anything with Bionics' simulation chamber not appearing to have anything of the sort. That wasn't important now. What was important was finishing off these grunts.
Lien-Da grabbed her pistol in her left hand and her energy whip in her right. She activated the whip and switched it to its rapier secondary transformation. Then she hopped over the balcony and used the wall to rocket herself at the fountain. She landed and sliced the head off of the nearest soldier. The simulated enemies had made the mistake of being bunched up. It was a close combat slaughterhouse. Lien-Da was able to shoot and stab and lithely carve away at the hapless footsloggers. Every time one died, they faded away to reveal themselves as some kind of solid light hologram. Soon, the entire squad had disappeared, and Lien-Da was left on her own with her weapons still active. She gently replaced her pistol and spoke to Bionics over the comms.
"That was entirely different. I mean, the way I could run and jump and move! It was just astonishing! It was almost too easy." She heard Bionics chuckle loudly at his end of the comms, and then he replied "well, to make sure you don't get too cocky, I'm starting the main simulation now. If it becomes too much, just let me know." Lien-Da scoffed and said "I'm sure I can handle it, Bionics." This did not allay him, as his tone of voice indicated when he continued "perhaps then I should warn you that even I struggle with this next simulation. Enjoy!" Now Lien-Da felt that familiar tingle of trepidation run down her spine. If this was something Bionics had difficulty coping with, how would she fare?
She got into a more stoic stance and readied her energy rapier for whatever appeared. She became aware that a bank of smoke or fog was passing over the square. No doubt Bionics was trying to add to the tension and mystery of it all. She felt a little annoyed with him for that, but still she did not complain. When the fog had passed, she looked on and saw what she was supposed to be facing. She frowned and wondered what was going on. She was staring at two Mobians, one of them a squirrel, one of them a skunk, both of them male. She vaguely recognised them from what little she knew of them as Elias Acorn, reigning king of the Republic of Acorn, and Geoffrey St. John, the head of the Royal Secret Service.
Geoffrey was dressed in very dapper clothes, a waistcoat, fine trousers, a long-sleeve shirt, fine leather shoes, and a white fedora hat with a black band around it and a small chip removed from the rim. Elias had a long sleeve t-shirt with a wide neck line, a pair of yellow cotton mitts, a long blue sleeveless coat with a hood and no buttons They also had open belts with a strange device for both of them. Behind her helmet, Lien-Da frowned and said to Bionics "is this some kind of joke, Bionics? I know these two people. Why are they here?" Bionics spoke quickly and said "whoever you think they may be in this dimension, they are not. These two come from a very 'loose cannon' dimension, and they were nearly able to break through to get to other dimensions when they shouldn't. These two are not to be underestimated, and have a very unique fighting method. Fight them, and you'll see."
Bionics then fell silent, and Lien-Da watched as the two familiar strangers looked back at her, then turned to each other and had a quick conversation. The one who looked like Elias Acorn said "well, who do you think this one is, James?" The one who looked like Geoffrey replied "no idea, Elliot, we'll just have to find out once we've defeated it." Lien-Da felt a little confused. Elliot? James? Bionics had been right; these two were not the same as who they looked like. She then said to them "I happen to be a 'she', not an 'it', you know." The two of them looked back at her with calm and serious expressions and the one called Elliot said "Our apologies, madam. A little social decorum does go a long way, doesn't it?"
Lien-Da raised her hand questioningly out to her side and said "who are you?" James huffed and said "the two of us are a single detective." Then the pair of them reached behind their backs and both pulled out a different coloured device of metal and plastic. The devices looked like some kind of memory units. "Let's go, James" Elliot said with certain decisiveness. Lien-Da used her HUD to zoom in on the green device in James' hand. He clicked it, and a small speaker on the side spoke in a clear and loud voice "Chaos!" She then turned just in time to see Elliot do likewise, and his black and purple device chimed "Joker!" They raised their devices in front of them and exclaimed together "Henshin!" James slammed his device into a socket on his belt module, where it seemed to vanish. The device appeared in one of Elliot's holsters, and he placed his device in his extra slot.
He clicked the holsters, complete with devices, to a diagonal slant on the belt module. The same voice announcer said, in rapid succession "Chaos, Joker!" Elliot held out his hands to his sides as a small tornado surrounded him and bits of conjured up debris were added to the mix. The debris then flew into the detective and formed up a set of armour. As the suit completed, James' eyes suddenly rolled upwards and he fell to the ground, as if unconscious. Lien-Da was surprised, but then she set her eyes on the now armoured Elliot. She thought that the suit looked thoroughly ridiculous. He was wearing an armoured bodysuit with a helmet that looked like that of a bug. It had bulbous eyes and a pair of spiky, metallic antennae. One half of the suit, the right-hand side, was black. The other half, the left-hand side, was green. On his left shoulder was a small, thin, flowing cloak.
Lien-Da half-laughed in her helmet, and said through the radio "Bionics, what is going on here? One of them has just collapsed. This has to be a joke, surely." Bionics' voice became very serious. "Don't, for one minute, become overconfident. James' soul has just joined with Elliot's in that armour to form a gestalt entity known as a 'Kamen Rider'. This particular one is named 'Double', due to his unique twin soul existence. Underestimate his abilities at your peril." In retort, Lien-Da said "alright, Bionics, I understand the seriousness of this." Bionics remained silent from his end of the radio. Double then summoned up a cyclone in front of him and sent it spinning at the Kommissar.
It was a good thing her boots' gravity pads were online, or else she would have been swept away by the miniature tornado. She drew her pistol and was able to use the armour's fine-tuned targeting systems to work beyond the hampering affects of the wind and aim a shot at Double. He took the shot in the chest, and it left a small scorch mark. The cyclone dissipated, and Double tilted his head in confusion. "Odd, Chaos has no effect on this one." Without warning, the left side of Double clicked up the holsters in his belt and removed the Chaos device in its belt while the right side remained passive and unmoving. The left side brought up a new device which, when clicked, produced the announced word "Solaris!" The device was placed, and the holsters were slammed back to their diagonal position. The voice cried out "Solaris, Joker!" The left side of Double then went through a colour shift. The green seemed to disintegrate to reveal a bright yellow layer beneath.
Lien-Da did not give Double more time to prepare. She fired her pistol at them again. The Solaris half of Double flexed it arm on reflex, and it instantly stretched in a most obscene fashion to become some strange tentacle. This unusual limb was swung in front of its owner to block all of Lien-Da's shots. The tentacle blurred with its movement, upsetting Lien-Da's vision. She stopped firing, and then she heard something which thoroughly shocked her. From inside the armour, she heard Elliot's voice say, in an argumentative tone "Hey, James! Don't go changing the memory without telling me." It was odd to hear that both voices had a part in the body that made up Double. Now Lien-Da growled, put away her pistol, and raised her energy rapier. It shifted back to being a crackling energy whip, writhing with electricity. She cracked it at the air, and it left an arc of lightning in its wake.
Outside of the battle, Bionics was still taking notes of the battle before him. Lien-Da was using her armour's abilities well enough, and she was adapting to face an equally adaptive foe. He knew that Double would inevitably use a transformation that she could not beat in any way, but it was merely a case of when she would push it far enough. He checked all the simulation data codes and made sure Lien-Da's vital signs were still at their peak. So far Double had not been too aggressive. Maybe it was a sign of respect to a lady, but then said woman was attacking him, so maybe he was merely waiting for the opportune moment.
His reverie was suitably interrupted by the sound of the door to the lifts behind him sliding silently open. Bionics couldn't hear it, but he could sense it. He turned to see Dimitri walk in, his Dark Legion cloak flowing gracefully behind him. He marched straight up to the machine god and stood up straight, looking Bionics in the eye. "Just what are you doing down here, Bionics?" In response to what sounded like a scathing question, Bionics replied "indulging your great-great-granddaughter to a little challenge of mine. I made her some upgraded armour, and now she's testing it against a particularly sturdy simulated enemy."
Bionics tapped a command into his mounted pad, and a screen was projected in front of them both showing the ensuing battle between Lien-Da and Double. She was now fighting Double in his Solaris/Joker form, and they were both using either a whip or tentacle to pretty much the same effect. Lien-Da managed to spin her whip around Double's tentacle and sent a searing electric shock through him. He was launched backwards with sparks of heat flying from his armour. Dimitri then said, with concern in his voice "this seems a particularly intense battle. Are you sure Lien-Da can handle this adversary?" Bionics looked at him and said. "Do relax. I'm sure Lien-Da will not come to any harm."
At that exact moment, they both heard a cry and turned to see Lien-Da on screen being thrown bodily into the plaza's decorative fountain, which collapsed all around her. Bionics said "ooooh" and winced. He turned back to Dimitri with a pained expression and said "well, she won't come to any serious harm, then." The Dark Legion's Grandmaster sceptically raised an artificial eyebrow at Bionics. In the end, the god wilted under the look and said, irritably "I will end the simulation before she comes to any major or life-threatening injury, okay?" With this, Dimitri looked satisfied and they both turned back to the screen to continue watching Lien-Da's progress.
By now, Lien-Da was getting quite mad. The adrenaline was flowing through her and her mind was becoming engulfed by the red mist. All she could think about was fighting and destroying this tenacious enemy. She was next to a building, and ran along the side of a wall to outpace Double's infernal Solaris tentacle. She had changed her weapon back to its rapier form. She then stopped on the wall and waited for Double to make another swing. As he did, she brought her energy blade down upon it, hacking a sizable chunk off. The Kamen Rider yelled in pain, but no blood emerged from the severed limb, indicating its auxiliary nature to its owner true body.
Double's hand formed up from what was left of his arm. He looked up at Lien-Da and then Elliot's voice emerged from him. "I think we need to find a new tactic for this one, James: Try Iblis combined with Metal." Both halves of Double flicked up the belt module, removed their memory devices, and in its place they pulled out a red one and grey. The former shouted "Iblis!" upon being activated, and the latter shouted "Metal!" They were both placed in the module and combined with one another. "Iblis, Metal!" was announced before the yellow of Solaris fell away to reveal the new red half that symbolised Iblis, and the black and purple of Joker fell away to reveal the grey and silver of Metal.
From off of his back, Double took off a short metal staff, which then extended out to become combat-ready at its full 4½ foot length. He spun it around to get a feel for the weapon. Then James' voice emerged from Double, saying to Elliot "shall we cut to the chase and use Maximum Drive?" Elliot's voice replied "hey, why not." The Metal memory device was then removed from Double's belt and slotted into a port on the staff. The voice announcer cried out "Metal, Maximum Drive!" Double held out his staff directly in front of him one-handed and suddenly the extensions of the weapon ignited violently into flame.
Lien-Da reasserted her firm grip on her energy rapier and held it in a two-handed position. She stood sideways with the blade running past her chest, ready for either a block or a quick stabbing motion. The flames on Double's staff began to flow backwards, as though in a high wind. As one, the voices of Elliot and James said calmly "Metal Branding." The flames re-intensified, and Double's feet shifted into a position ready to sprint. Kamen Rider Double sprung forward, at speeds matching what Lien-Da had seen both Sonic the Hedgehog and Bionics easily achieve. As he got within 4 feet of her, Double swung the flaming staff around to strike her. She positioned her rapier's blade for the inevitable strike.
It never came. It took a moment for her to fully realise that Double had stopped moving. He was in a position whereby if he was to hold the position he currently did, he would topple over from the unbalanced weight distribution. Lien-Da suspected she knew exactly what had caused this. She spoke into her radio "Bionics, what's going on?" From the other end of the communiqué, Bionics' voice was deadly serious. "I have frozen the simulation, and will be terminating it shortly." Lien-Da felt a sudden surge of anger hit her mind. "Why?" she shouted down the comm. link, "I was still fighting Double, why stop me now?"
She heard Bionics sigh, before saying "I tell you what, if you step a foot or so to the left, I will show you what would have happened if I had allowed the simulation to continue." She did as she was told and moved to the left of Double. A holographic copy of herself in her new armour blipped into place, and it held the same pose she had held just 30 seconds ago. The simulation started up again, and she watched as Double broke past her copy's blade block. He planted several hard hitting blows of metal and fire all across her body, and she was launched backwards by an explosion from the stabbed end of the staff. The simulated Lien-Da collapsed to the ground, half on fire, half smoking, and all dead.
The real Lien-Da could not help but gasp and by mentally shaken by the idea that this was what would have happened to her. She stared at Double, who had now been frozen again, and Bionics said to her "I think it was best that I stopped him there. You wouldn't have died here, of course. You would merely have been knocked unconscious by the program. In real life, however, Double's power would have been enough to end your life. Standby, I'm terminating the simulation now." As he said this, Lien-Da watched as the entire city, and her enemy slowly faded away from sight, and she was surrounded by the sleek metal of the simulation chamber once again.
She holstered her weapon, took off her helmet and went to the chamber door. Bionics and Dimitri were there to greet her upon egress. She looked tired and a little sobered by the sight of herself being dead in simulated form. Bionics put his arm on her shoulder and said, soothingly "don't worry, that won't happen to you any time soon. Double was a tough adversary. Even I struggled against him, you know." Now Bionics began to sound bitter, as though he took Double's defeat of him as deeply personal. "No matter what I tried to defeat him with, he was always able to adapt. He and the Kamen Riders' powers are enough to tackle the gods, and I swore that I will make sure to subdue him any way possible when I find him, one way or another."
Then he paused, shook his head and smiled at both Lien-Da and Dimitri. "But you don't need to hear anymore violent talk from me. I hope that you have learned a great deal from this session, Lien-Da. Use it well." Lien-Da nodded, and now felt a sense of revived happiness. Bionics went on "I believe it will be time for dinner soon. Let us get there and join your cohorts. I think a glass of wine will do me some good." They all made for the lifts. As they went, Lien-Da couldn't help but wonder where the real Elliot and James were in the Multiverse, and just what they were doing...
Far away from Mobius and the surrounding dimension, James was sitting in a chair in their office in their equivalent of New Mobotropolis. Without any warning, he sneezed quite violently. He managed to disturb Elliot from repairing a Gaia Memory gadget, and he earned a stern glare that could sear metal. James looked back and said "What, I can't help it if I sneeze, can I?" Elliot raised an inquisitive eyebrow and then went back to his work. James then tried to stay quiet for a while longer, but he felt a certain sensation, and he was compelled to share this sensation with his partner.
"Hey, Elliot, do you know if you're supposed to feel a sense of déjà vu when you sneeze?" Elliot looked back up at him and reached for his personal PDA. "It is known for certain cultures to believe that you sneeze when someone is thinking about you." At that moment, Elliot's face contorted and he sneezed as well. James looked at him with an idiotic grin, shrugged, and replied "I don't know. It's just that I get the sensation that we are being thought about somewhere else, somewhere a long way away from here." Elliot gave an annoyed exclamation and snapped "I don't have time for any more spiritual crap. I need to get on with this now." James looked at his friend with a sigh, then turned away and went back into his thoughts again. Someone out there was thinking about them both, he knew it, and he knew that soon they would be seeing beyond the confines of their own dimension once again.
Author's notes: Dear readers, I apologize for the long absence since my last update. I am afraid that my GCSE, combined with a serious bout of writer's block, has resulted in the story going underground for roughly a month. The thought of all of you waiting so patiently for me helped me to throw off the writer's block and so I could get up off of my sorry backside and get some of this done. To make up for the lack of updates over this period, I will post this chapter today and the next one, chapter 13, tomorrow. I do not know who the copyright for Kamen Rider goes to, so you'll have to forgive me for not knowing. In terms of Kamen Rider memories, Chaos = Cyclone, Solaris = Luna and Iblis = Heat. This chapter comes courtesy of both me and brave kid, so some of the credit must go to him for convincing me to write this. It will be the taster for a story I intend to write at a later date about a Sonic/Kamen Rider Double crossover. Until then, I hope you enjoy this chapter, and please do not forget to review. Remember, 'a review a day keeps the writer's block away'. Tatty Bye!
Edit: brave kid had informed me that I mixed up the characters. Geoffrey is Elliot and Elias is James. The modifications have been made, so feel free to read it again with the corrections added. Thanks again to brave kid for pointing the issue out to me.