Kamen Rider Tarock, Re-Dealt – Reading Twenty-Five: Affirmation
Note: This is it, the Mythos making their move. On that note, this chapter is a long one with pretty much non-stop fighting, so take as long as you need to get through it.
So far on Kamen Rider Tarock, Re-Dealt…
Delinquent Liss Decker found herself caught between combatants from a strange alternate world called the Sphere, and afterward found herself with the ability to transform into Tarock, a warrior of awesome powers. Tarock's creator asked Liss to become a champion for his people, who were being plagued by the reappearance of monstrous beings they call the Mythos. Mainly seeing an escape from her oppressive everyday life, Liss agreed.
Many battles followed, testing Liss's fortitude but also giving her the chance to gain powerful allies such as some of the Arcana, immortal beings who inspired the Tarot deck, and Ben Corland, her ex-boyfriend who can change into Vaga, a powerful warrior form of his own. However some Arcana automatically consider Liss a menace because the first Tarock was responsible for the death of one of their number.
Eventually she discovered a girl who only knew herself as "Lost," and was the source of the Mythos monsters but wanted nothing to do with them. However her status as their source marked her as the vital target of another being who controls the monsters, the White Lady. Liss and Ben embarked on a mission to try to rid Lost of her condition and leave her a normal girl, but before they succeeded Lost was captured by the most zealous of the Arcana, the Empress. She planned to put Lost to death in order to end the threat to her people, without realizing this put both Lost and the Empress's city in great danger.
What followed was a terrible, unexpected attack on both of the Sphere's main cities. Liss arrived and battled her way in to save Lost before it was too late. But the White Lady is ready for her…
The last of the small group of palace guards that had tried to storm the dungeons was cut down by a blast from the tail of a scorpion-man Mythos. Lost curled into a ball, trying not to watch as the slaughter ended. In the room where the Empress had imprisoned her, a group of Mythos were now between her and the door, keeping watch over her until…something terrible happened, she was sure. Strangely the White Lady hadn't chosen to speak to her and taunt her with her fate or any such horrible thing.
But if she was being guarded rather than taken somewhere, then there was time for someone to come to her aid. Liss had fought the Mythos, fought the Arcana, even fought the darkness of the Mythos within herself for her belief that no-one should be exploited or their course chosen for them by the powerful.
Surely she'd see that fight to the end and come to deny the White Lady her prize.
Wouldn't she?
Lost shut her eyes tightly. Her life had been a waking nightmare since she'd first woken up in the wilderness and vomited black slime that came to life as monsters. In the last few hours it had only exploded. So many lives were being lost. Because of her, because of this curse she'd had placed upon her by fate. She didn't think she could bear it, not for much longer. If the strain had a chance to become any worse, Lost was sure she'd lose her mind.
But Liss wouldn't let that happen. She was too strong. Too persistent.
Lost had to go on believing that Liss would save her. Had to respect her for that. Had to know in her heart that Liss would find a way to end this hell.
Had to believe. Had to know. Had to believe. Had to know…
The rough rock walls smashed and scraped at Tarock's armor as she was pulled deeper and deeper into the ground. Her vision started to adjust, revealing faint outlines of jutting rocks and outcroppings and the thick tentacles coiled around her arm and leg. She tried to reach for a new card but whatever was holding her seemed to sense her intentions and slammed her against the wall and dazed her just long enough to finish dragging her down to the bottom.
In a second she could see the hideous shape of what had captured her. It took up most of the space of a vast, circular cavern, and was a huge amorphous blob covered all over with waving tentacles and transparent bubble-like pods containing the motionless forms of Changelings, the weak faceless Mythos that nonetheless could assume a flawless disguise of anyone they liked. The whole mass throbbed like a massive heart, but instead of the sound of pumping it seemed to give off a weird, inhuman sound almost like singing. It rolled and reverberated and it seemed impossible that Tarock should even be able to hear it with simple human ears…
Tarock started to feel drowsy, the urge to just stop struggling filling her mind as the tentacles drew her closer and closer to the surface of this hideous thing. She could see some of the Changelings starting to scrabble at their cocoons and climb atop their broodmother to await the delivery of their most hated enemy.
Instincts she'd been learning to rely on since her monster-fighting career screamed a warning at her from the very back of Tarock's mind. She had to find something else to focus on beside the blob-thing's singing or she was as good as dead. It took all her willpower but she slapped the Royal Core on her belt, and the results were instantaneous.
"Coronation! King of Wands!"
Flecks of blue power raced from the diamond-shaped crystal and spiraled down to the top of the blob-creature and formed themselves into regal, bearded man in blue armor carrying a copy of her own wand. Tarock mentally directed his actions, and he ran through the mob of Changelings and flailing tentacles, smashing the faceless Mythos out of his way. When he got to the base of the tentacles dragging Tarock down his wand erupted into flame and he burned through one tentacle with a single swing.
The blob's hypnotic singing changed suddenly, flowing into a distressed squealing. The fuzziness in Tarock's head disappeared with a sharp *SNAP*. She kicked at the tentacle still wrapped around her wrist until it came loose enough for her to yank free and drop to the throbbing top of the blob monster itself.
Immediately a pair of Changelings tried to tackle her but she grabbed them and tossed them over her head. Dozens of them exploded from their cocoons and swarmed closer to Tarock and her illusory ally, not making a sound as they attacked.
Then a huge tentacle came crashing down on where Tarock was standing but she launched herself into the air away from it, coming down right in the middle of a cluster of Changelings. She extended a leg and smashed a kicked home, shattering six Changelings into dust with one blow.
"Mag Step," she said as another tentacle crashed down, heedless of the dozen Changelings it crushed as Tarock raced away at high speed. King also became a blue blur, shooting through the crowd of Changelings, smashing any who got in their way into white dust. But even as they did more and more erupted from the blob, and its waving tentacles continued to beat down, missing Tarock and King by inches as if it could sense their path…
Time seemed to have stopped as the new combatant's blade penetrated the Mythos's armor like paper. For seconds, or hours, he held completely still until one arm jerked forward and a piercing howl of pain filled the street. It happened to be the arm holding the rope tight around Vaga's neck, and Vaga was thrown across the ground with the noose pulling even tighter.
The black-clad combatant lashed out with her other hand, striking the Mythos's hand wrapped around the rope. He dropped it to Vaga's relief, then jumped away from a wide swing of the intruder's scythe-like blade. The Mythos gave a high-pitched screech of what sounded like fear and turned and went bounding away from his opponent, who bent down to help Vaga to his feet.
"Hurry, we have to catch that thing before he can deliver the crystal to his leader," she said, her voice low and muffled by the power surrounding her. Vaga tugged off the rope and threw it away.
"And just who are you supposed to be, and why do you know so much about what he's gonna do?" Vaga demanded.
She replied, "For now, call me Trideka. And don't question the wisdom of denying the enemy an advantage. There are much worse things to come than this."
Vaga scoffed in disbelief and swept his arm over the scene of destroyed houses and flaming ruins around them. "Worse than this?!" he exclaimed.
She nodded gravely. "Worse than this."
A chill went down Vaga's spine and he realized she probably knew exactly what she was talking about. "What about Liss?" he asked.
"You're worried she can't take care of herself?" Trideka answered with restrained disbelief.
Vaga sighed inwardly. This girl, whoever she was, was right, Liss could take care of herself just fine. The reasons for that were exactly why he'd accepted powers of his own to be able to keep up with her when she went to fight evil. "Okay, then we'd better go, huh?" Vaga said, and then went jumping off into the ruins of Mazones without waiting for her answer.
Tarock and King continued speeding over the shifting mass as more and more Changelings burst from it. The creature's massive tentacles continued to flail at them as they ran back and forth destroying any of the faceless Mythos in their way. But already her arms and legs were feeling like they were tied to lead weights, and even as they burst through a group of Changelings each Tarock could see things around them starting to slow down to normal. As she did one of the huge tentacles smashed down right behind her and sent her tumbling into the air.
She slammed into the blob belly-down and immediately a hole ringed with curved teeth opened and engulfed her arm. Tarock cried out in pain as the teeth scraped against her armor, and sent a command for King to come to her rescue. He jumped out of the way of another flailing tentacle and lifted his wand to bring it down on the teeth digging into Tarock's arm.
That was when a tentacle fifteen feet wide crashed down on top of both of them. King dissolved into nothingness at sustaining so much damage, and Tarock screamed in agony. Again it rose and then came smashing down on Tarock's back again, and she couldn't feel anything at all as it pulled back up again. Her armor crackled with power and then disappeared, leaving ordinary and vulnerable Liss Decker lying on top of a giant blob with her right arm trapped in a monster's mouth. Its teeth pressed deeper into her skin and a dark red stain formed on the sleeve of her duster.
Liss reached for the pouch with her cards with her left hand but a Changeling jumped on top of her and pinned her hand even as the tentacle raised to crush them both into jelly. "Guess this is it," Liss said, shutting her eyes tight and sucking in a deep breath to make it as quiet as possible when it happened. Maybe she'd overestimated herself rushing into Mazones like she had. Maybe she never should've gotten involved in this war in the first place. But if she was going out, she wasn't giving the White Lady the satisfaction of a show.
The giant tentacle started to swing forward and Liss clenched her teeth, but all of a sudden there was a whistling noise and a roaring explosion as the tentacle was blown off. Then someone clad head to toe in glistening black armor dashed past the Changeling holding Tarock down and slashed it with a long dagger making it explode into dust.
The blob-thing quivered and screamed in pain at the devastating attack, and with her left arm freed Liss shouted and smashed her fist down on the teeth biting into her other arm. Two of them snapped off from one punch and paying no attention to the red smear forming on the knuckles of her glove Liss punched again and broke off more of them allowing her to pull her arm free.
A figure in white armor and clutching a bow that still glowed faintly with the power of its last shot landed next to Liss and looked at her arm. It was Donis and the one in black was his partner Ven, former agents of the rulers of the city above them. "Are you all right, Tarock?" he asked.
"I've been worse," she said. She turned away when he tried to touch her wounded arm. "What are you two doing here?"
"Repaying a debt," Donis said, then suddenly grabbed Liss's arm and inspected the wound from being bitten there. "That's bad. We should-"
But Liss yanked free. "Thanks, but no time." She held up her green Pentacles Card and loaded it into her Fate Driver.
"Pentacles Suit!" In a flash she was clad in her thick green armor, and had her hand pressed to the Royal Core on her belt already. "Coronation! Ace of Pentacles!" the Driver announced before her strengthened warhammer with its raised star grille on the front appeared clutched in her hands. She lifted it high, and then yelled at the top of her lungs as she brought it down as hard as her form's awesome strength allowed. Ripples travelled across the blob's entire body, sending Changelings tumbling off and even snapping off a few of the thinner tentacles from the power of her attack.
The entire cavern rocked with the blob-creature's violent thrashing and squealing from the attack. The hands of Changelings erupted at Tarock's feet and grabbed her legs as two tentacles at once, fifteen feet wide and almost forty long, swung down on her. Donis gasped and fired his bow at the closer even though his weapon hadn't yet regained its full power, its blast deflecting the flailing tentacle a few feet away and smacking down only on the blob itself. The other seemed to roar as it came down, but Tarock yelled loudly as well as she swung her hammer with all her might as it came close. There was a wet snapping noise and the tentacle rebounded back, and didn't move again as it slapped into the blob's body.
Tarock set down her weapon heavily, panting and clutching her wounded arm. She told herself again how she needed to conserve her strength, especially with how the powered-up Gran Crusher seemed a lot heavier than when she'd still been part-Mythos. That just meant she needed to finish this faster and get to finding Lost, didn't it?
"Stand back," she warned Donis, then hefted her hammer.
"Ace High! Earthsplitter!" called out the Fate Driver. The head of her hammer erupted in pulsing green power before she brought it down on top of the massive blob. Lines of power rushed out from where she hit, splitting and spreading like cracks in ice. The horrible thing seemed to sense the invasive power spreading throughout its body and gave off a squeal that seemed to come from the entire expanse of its bloated body. More and more Changelings popped from it and swarmed toward Tarock and Donis, who clutched their ears in pain from the screaming before managing to gather themselves enough to ready their weapons.
Five dark shapes came toward Tarock and Donis, cleaving through the Mythos with their long daggers. The Changelings exploded into puffs of dust as they suffered any hit, but more just sprang up to replace them and protect their hideous mother. And the fact that they did was a worrying indicator that even one of Tarock's strongest attacks wasn't working against it…
Again she lifted her hammer. "Ace High! Earth-" the Fate Driver but Donis clapped a hand hard on her shoulder.
"Save your strength, Tarock," he said, then loosed an arrow that mowed down a row of Changelings. "You'll need it soon…MY LOVE! LET'S JOIN AND FINISH THIS!"
One Ven jumped out of the mass of Changelings in Donis's direction, one arm extended in a fist. Donis mirrored her move, jumping and holding out his free hand in a fist. As their hands touched they said as one, "Twilight Convergence." The color of their armor seemed to erupt around them, forming an orb of roiling black and white power. It spread outward in all directions, radiating a power far more intense than the first time Tarock had seen them use it. But the power felt different than when she'd been its victim as well; then it had been cold, a source of destruction. Now it was warmer, more alive, more like a true fusion between its participants.
The sphere of power pressed down the mass of the blob forming a widening crater against the horrible white flesh and destroying the Changelings that rushed forward in a suicidal attempt to stop them. The power touched against the green cracks from Tarock's attack, then flowed into them and raced throughout the blob. It quivered and shrieked in pain even more loudly, then there was a terrible, burning flash. When it cleared the cave was empty except for Tarock and her two erstwhile allies, and a sheet of ash covering the floor and walls.
"Holy crap," Tarock breathed at the power she'd just seen.
Ven gave a short but forceful laugh. "Do you hear that, Lurian?" she said. "We amazed Tarock!"
"We'll get the chance to try again soon," Donis said more seriously. "There are plenty of other monsters where that came from…"
True to his name, Spring-Heeled Jack bounded with ease over a still-intact stone wall with Vaga and Trideka right behind him. They were getting awfully close to the turrets of the palace at the far end of the city, and Vaga was worried what was there that the Mythos was trying to reach.
Spring-Heeled Jack turned suddenly and jumped through a thick plume of smoke coming from where a vehicle had crashed into a house and exploded. As Vaga and Trideka landed behind it themselves he was nowhere to be seen.
"There!" Trideka said, pointing with the tip of her scythe. He was bounding away to their left, already four hundred feet away and widening the gap in every second.
"Come on!" Vaga screamed, but instead of racing after the monster Trideka threw her black cloak wide. She wore a black bodysuit, chestplate and boots underneath, but around her slender waist was a silver belt with the number XIII on it in large raised characters made of ivory. At least, he thought it was ivory.
"Death's Head," whispered a sinister, grating voice from her belt and a skull, covered in some kind of black flame, appeared in her hand. She threw it in the fleeing Mythos's direction, and as the skull left her hand its jaws started to open and close and let out an evil cackle. The Mythos turned to see the skull and crouched and jumped even farther as it closed in, feeling the power it embodied: the icy power of absolute ruin.
The Mythos whipped his lasso down toward the street and wrapped it around a trio of bodies the Mythos had left as they pressed further into Mazones. He turned in midair and whipped them into the path of the skull, but it crashed right through them, its flames burning them to nothing and the skull's cackling seeming to grow even louder and more mocking.
Desperately the Mythos flung his rope again, wrapping it around huge hunks of stone debris instead and tossing them into the skull's path. Again the skull blasted through the obstacle the Mythos tried to put in its way with its dark flames burning the hunks of rock into a spray of dust. Then it zoomed forward and crashed into the Mythos's midriff, burning away flecks of his armor and then flesh with its flames.
Spring-Heeled Jack screamed as the skull bored into him until the curved edge of a dark blue sphere was revealed in the crater made by the skull's furious attack. A second later the skull flickered away, its energy exhausted. But the badly-beaten Mythos had no chance to recover before Vaga came hurtling out of nowhere and tackled him into a wall that crumbled as they crashed into it.
"Let's see how you like it, pal!" Vaga yelled and jammed the shaft of his spear across the Mythos's throat, squeezing the breath from his broken body. It felt unnecessarily vicious not to just finish the monstrous thing off, but for a second Vaga couldn't help himself. This evil thing had helped decimate the city around them, and Vaga knew by then it was only a tiny part of a much greater force bent on nothing but destroying anything it touched.
Its noose lashed out for Vaga's neck but he somersaulted out of its way before it could catch him again. As he stopped in a crouch the spear had morphed into a crossbow, its arch already snapping out of both sides of the barrel. A glowing bolt formed and even as Spring-Heeled Jack jumped to make his escape Vaga squeezed the trigger.
"Heartseeker!" he screamed and the bolt erupted with double its light and sped forward to pierce the Mythos's chest. With a last cry of pain he exploded into a blue smoke, and a second later Vaga heard something jangling as it hit the ground.
He looked around for what it had been and spotted a yellow crystal faintly glowing between pieces of rubble. The same one the Mythos had used to change into that suit of armor. Vaga reached out for it but suddenly Trideka appeared from nowhere next to him and snatched up the crystal and it vanished into the darkness under her cloak.
"And why do you need to keep that?" Vaga asked suspiciously.
"Because it's safest with me," Trideka answered, although defying his expectations she didn't make a threatening move to emphasize her point. And he had to admit there was a logic in her claim. There was an awesome power radiating from her, greater than any Arcanum he'd met or Mythos he'd fought. Even more than the Empress of Mazones, who'd slapped him and Liss aside like bugs. Thinking about it made Vaga take a step back without realizing it.
Trideka turned around without warning as an inhuman chattering suddenly came from behind her. Vaga didn't even have to guess they'd been noticed by a group of Mythos, and sure enough soon an axe-wielding, gray-skinned Minotaur climbed over a hill of debris and slid down it to close in on them. A green-skinned Ogre with two heads and a huge wooden club in each hand was right behind him, along with a black-furred monster with the face of a cat and weirdly feminine physique. Behind them were three squat monkey-like creatures with fan-like ears and leathery green skin that looked all too familiar to Vaga. Overhead streaked a bird with majestic red and gold feathers that left a trail of flames in its wake.
Vaga took aim at the Minotaur but suddenly a ray of light ran down the blade of Trideka's scythe. "Dark Reaping," came the voice of her belt. In the blink of an eye she flew across the distance between them and the gang of Mythos as nothing but a streak of black, and with one terrifying swing of her scythe cleaved right through the Minotaur and Ogre at the same time. Both barely had time to give a strangled cry of disbelief before they exploded into blue smoke as dead Mythos always did. Instead of blowing away on the wind, it flowed into the shadows of Trideka's cloak.
The fiery bird dove at Trideka but she spun and sliced into the bird's side with her blade. It disintegrated into blue smoke as its momentum carried it past her, but again the smoke flowed inside of Trideka's cloak.
A shiver running up his spine, Vaga fired his bowgun at the lizard-monkey creatures, glad for the moment that whoever she was, Trideka was on their side.
On the bottom of the Sphere, Sentos stunned the giant Troll he was fighting with a one-two punch to its warty yellow face, then grabbed the monster over his head and hurled it with all his waning strength over the walls of Avalon. At the stone giant's feet the city's guards fought with all their might to hold back the ragged remains of what had been an endless black tide of monsters trying to fight their way in.
Fortunately the guards were now being reinforced by four groups of specially-armed soldiers. The squad in green wielded star-faced shields that reflected the monsters' own attacks back at them, while their allies in red swung blades of light that cut through anything they touched with no resistance.
Three soldiers in blue uniforms stood on a rooftop and touched the metal rods they carried together. A whirling blast of blue fire shot from the point where they touched. It roared down into the crowd of Mythos and blew another score into a column of smoke. Even as they realized their prey wasn't as poorly-prepared as they'd thought, the Mythos that hadn't been destroyed tried to press their attack. Only a rough fifth of their invasion force still stood, but even as another blast from the blue corps shrank it even further, they threw themselves at the defensive line of the city guard.
Sentos brought his giant foot down on the mob of Mythos and a rush of blue smoke rushed out around the edges. Not faraway Captain Uthar yelled at the top of his voice and jammed the energy-projecting baton that was his primary weapon onto the chest of the dazed Mythos he was fighting and squeezed the trigger with all his might. The monster was pushed back as bolt after bolt ripped from the end of Uthar's weapon until one blew through the monster's chest and out the other side.
As the monster exploded and another took its place and Uthar blocked its attempt to disembowel him, he thought for a second about the Emperor who Uthar had seen surrender his powers and walk away from this war. Just how many days and nights of battle like this had the Emperor seen? How many campaigns had he been part of, how many enemies had he slain with his own hand?
How many times had the Emperor claimed victory only to have it tempered with the knowledge of how many good people had sold their lives to secure it? How many friends had he lost over the years? How many years had he had?
Had the Emperor maybe earned the right to want to put all this behind him?
Another Mythos came forward to attack Uthar, something with gleaming talons and a long ridged tail. He clouted it on the side of the head with his baton and then fired a burst that knocked it into two of its comrades. But then Uthar's attention was seized as a sound like a crack of thunder ripped the air and then another, and a huge dark shape like a bird passed overhead, trailing six long strands behind it. With a shriek it seized Sentos by the shoulders and dragged him into the air and beyond the walls of the city.
The Mythos surged forward, the ones closest to Uthar making a sound like cruel laughter. He pulled a small bullhorn off his belt. "Cups Corps, scatter them!" he yelled into it. "We need to finish this quickly!"
A hail of smoking grenades flew through the air and the line of guards fell before they landed. Uthar pressed a cloth to his mouth for a few seconds until he was sure the wave of surviving Mythos had stopped their rush, and some were flailing around blindly, some even coughing from the smoke they'd inhaled.
"CHARGE!" Uthar yelled, and the soldiers surged behind him. The red-clad Swords Corps took point and sliced into the monsters who were now spread all over the street, felling as many as they could as they pushed toward the city wall. The green Pentacles Corps ran by their sides, using their shields to deflect the blasts from the few Mythos who'd managed to recover already. The yellow Cups Corps followed at the rear, throwing grenades that exploded into showers of ice daggers that felled or drove back any Mythos that managed to get close enough to attack.
When they reached the wall Uthar's heart sank. The giant bird Mythos had landed with Sentos not far away, but even as he watched it closed its beak around Sentos's left shoulder and sliced off his stone arm. "Wands Corps, hit it with everything you've got!" Uthar ordered. The blue soldiers raised their wands and in groups of three touched the tips together. As before blasts of blue fire shot from the points of contact and ripped into the side of the giant bird, knocking it onto its side, but in another second it was up again and let out an angry wail before bashing the prone Sentos in his chest with its beak, sending huge hunks of rock flying and exposing a bright green glow from his body. The bird Mythos jumped on top of Sentos and claws with its feet at his chest, making the stone giant contort in silent pain.
If only the siege equipment for the leaders had been ready, but only the soldiers had been cleared…"Again!" Uthar ordered, as if they needed him to tell them. Once again the Wands Corps fired a salvo of blue flames at the giant Mythos, blasting feathers and pieces of the monster's body as each blast hit home. The bird shrieked and flapped its wings, and that gave Sentos a minute to smash his fist into the side of its head. It gave out a strangled squawk and toppled off him and was blown further away from Sentos by another bombardment from the Wands Corps.
Uthar and the others charged toward Sentos's prone form, but before they were even halfway there he knew they were too late. The green glow in Sentos's chest was weakening. By the time he and his fellow guards had reached the giant's side, it was completely extinguished.
Would this have happened if the Emperor hadn't left? Would it have happened if Tarock and her surly friend had been there helping to defend Avalon?
Or were things changing with new hands needing to take up the struggle, and he was simply afraid to acknowledge that two of them were his?
At the top of the Sphere, the opposite scene played out in what remained of Mazones.
A line of city guards tried desperately to push back against a wall of encroaching Mythos that continued to spread through the city toward the imperial palace. A mob of panicked bystanders huddled behind the guards, slowly trickling into the relative safety of the palace itself. They cringed as every few seconds a guard's scream of death cut the air and their surviving comrades had to jump together to keep the Mythos from piercing the line and slaughtering the people.
Above them dark shapes of flying Mythos circled around the towers of the palace itself, sometimes diving at the windows or at the crowd of cornered people. When the latter happened a ray of purple energy ripped from a high window and burned the attacking monster to ash before it could get close enough to attack.
In that window sat Empress Maeve, clutching her still seeping wound. It had seemed like the ordeal was finally coming to an end. That her suspicions of Tarock had been vindicated. Then she'd been attacked in her own home by one of her own allies, and been reduced to sniping monsters out of a window to protect her people.
Would she live to see the end of this? Was death while the people under her reign were slaughtered to be her fate?
Maeve shut her eyes and tried to suck in a deep breath to steady herself, but when she opened them again her vision was even more out of focus. Leone had hurt her worse than she'd realized…and as soon as she thought that there was a faint, familiar tingle in her mind. One that forced Maeve to her feet and made her stagger to the very edge of her balcony to stare deep and hard into the scene in the plaza below.
Her eyes cleared enough for her to recognize a figure in shiny black armor coming leaping into view and tearing into the guards. It was Leone, or whatever Leone had become. Maeve raised one hand while she steadied herself against the railing with the other, trying to aim a shot at the corrupted Arcanum. Surely that was a worthy use of her weakening energies…
But the Mythos seemed to part and allow Leone to dash to the front of their line where she slashed at the guards' defensive line, making it impossible for Maeve to get off a shot without a strong chance of annihilating her own people. Yet if she didn't take it who knew how many more of her people would lose their lives?
"Ace High! Crash Tide!" shouted a voice she could hear even as far as her balcony. Then suddenly a stream of water blasted into the plaza and widened into a wall of water that crashed into the pack of monsters, smashing the first row into oblivion. Advancing into sight was Tarock in her yellow Cups Form, and beside her were Ven and Donis, the exiled defenders of the empire. As Mythos pulled away from the group to confront this attack from the rear Ven split into five copies and dashed forward hacking at the monsters with daggers while Donis fired his bow and cut down three Mythos with one arrow.
Had they somehow learned of the near-destruction of Mazones and come to finally finish the Empress off, or…or had they come to fight in the city's defense?
Maeve sucked in a hard breath, her vision clearing for the few seconds she needed to focus on Tarock's location. She leveled her hand at the young warrior who'd been the bane of her existence to fire a shot…
…and didn't take it.
Maeve sank to her knees and gathered what little strength she still had. Tarock and her little cohorts were fighting the monsters trying to kill her people. That meant for that for now, they could be tolerated.
"Woe! Aqua Burst!" said the Fate Driver as power gathered in Tarock's enhanced Sea Hand and then fired a sphere of watery energy almost half as tall as she was into the crowd of Mythos. The first it hit were smashed to the ground before it disappeared into the crowd of monstrous shapes. Hisses of anger went up as some turned away from their attempt to push into the palace to see who was attacking from behind, and then a gang of monsters saw Tarock and broke away to attack her too.
Again she gathered her strength for a devastating attack, but even as she did her arms and shoulders were starting to sting from all the power she'd been drawing on to get this far. But she was almost there…there couldn't be many more between her and Lost.
"Dire Fate! Depth Pressure Kick!" She jumped high and energy surrounded her. When Tarock crashed down in the middle of the attacking Mythos the incredible pressure of the bottom of the ocean exploded outward and blasted most of them into the clouds of noxious smoke. Two, a scaly humanoid with webbed hands and feet and a gray-skinned beast with stubby wings, landed hard, but only wounded, and got up to attack Tarock again. Before they got the chance she switched to her close-combat powers.
"Swords Suit!" Her yellow Cups armor shattered and a red card drifted over her body, sheathing her black undersuit in the heavier armor of her Swords Form. Tarock swept her hand in front of her belt and once again her sword, Skycalibur, appeared. She knocked the winged Mythos away with a powerful slash that filled the air with sparks, and her slash to the scaly monster knocked it into the air before it burst into smoke.
Suddenly the cloud of smoke changed direction and blew past Tarock, who spun around clutching her sword and expecting to see a new threat, and only stopped thinking she might be until she saw who was behind them. It was Vaga, behind someone wearing a hooded black cloak and a huge silvery scythe-like blade covering one hand. They looked up at Tarock and she could see one side of a skull-shaped mask, or at least she assumed it was a mask with how the material looked an awful lot like actual bone. The blue smoke from the Mythos's death blew into the recesses of the person's cloaked and disappeared. But Tarock's attention was focused on the tremendous power she felt exuding from this person. Power of darkness, emptiness. Inescapable power.
"Who the hell are you?" Tarock demanded.
"Someone who's come a very long way to see you again," said a thickly distorted voice from behind the skull-mask.
"Her name's Trideka," Vaga said, then dashed in front of her and clasped Tarock on the shoulders. "Are you okay, Liss? What was that thing that pulled you underground?"
Tarock pulled away. "Never mind. Lost's in there somewhere, we need to finish this up and find her before they get her!" She turned back to the Mythos swarm but stopped at the sight of who was at the head of another group.
The shiny black armor with the feline helmet was unmistakable as Leone's, but it glinted like new and showed none of the damage it had taken during her previous fight with Tarock. "Well hello!" said the voice of the White Lady with mock enthusiasm. "How have you been, Tarock? Oh, I see you're wondering how I recovered from our last little meeting so quickly! Well, that's the beauty of being one yet so many…all I had to do was have a few of my children give me their essence to heal this body. And it's why you'll never get through this crowd and into that pitiful little house of state before I've gotten what I want."
"Let me just ask one thing before I kick your ass," Tarock said. "Why? Why do you act like you're having so much fun doing this? I saw what you were before…do you think you're some kind of goddess who's here to punish us or something?"
"Oh, no! For the longest time the only thing I had on what passed for a mind was survival, as it is for any living thing. But while I was trapped underground I could see what your kind were doing, how they treated one another, and what most of you were happy to turn a blind eye toward. Monsters are everywhere, children! Most of them don't even have claws or scales or fangs. I learned a lot from what I watched. I learned I could still seek survival, but I learned about something you lesser beings have called satisfaction," the White Lady answered. Then long claws flashed from Leone's fingertips and she turned into a dark blur that crossed the distance between them in a heartbeat and lashed her claws across Tarock's chest and sent sparks fountaining up.
Ven and Donis turned as Tarock cried out in pain, but more monsters broke away from the crowd and surrounded them. Vaga fired an arrow from his crossbow but Leone sliced it out of the air then blurred at him next. But another black blur stopped her short, and Leone found herself staring into the bottomless black eye sockets ofTrideka's skull mask.
Trideka's scythe seemed to flash before it swung forward and cut through Leone's chest plate even as the corrupted Arcanum darted back to escape her enemy. "What are you?" the White Lady asked.
"An envoy," Trideka answered before she flew along the ground after Leone, slicing through her dark armor again. Leone blurred back but Trideka followed and easily knocked her down with a kick. Leone got up and raced away, concocting a new strategy as it was obvious she was facing an opponent far superior to anything she'd expected. In the time it took to blink Trideka had hacked through her armor three more times, and Leone retreated to the crowd of Mythos that was halfway across the plaza now trying to push its way into the palace, and as she passed one monster it suddenly melted into a mound of black slime that flowed over Leone's body and mended her armor again.
Trideka followed after her, easily matching her incredible speed, and lashed out with her fearsome scythe that cleaved through three monsters and swatted Leone to the ground. The smoke from the monsters' demise flowed into Trideka's cloak but she didn't even seem to notice, closing in on her main prey instead. Leone had just gotten into a sitting position when Trideka appeared in front of her and impaled her through the chest on the scythe.
Desperately Leone flexed her muscles and one of her lion-shaped energy blasts flew from her visor into Trideka and exploded in a yellow firestorm. It cleared in a second and Trideka stood where she was totally unscathed except for a trail of fire on her cloak that burned without spreading.
But suddenly a thin white crack formed on her right arm and ran from the grip of her scythe up to her shoulder. Light started to shine through and spidery paths spread out from the first crack across her chest and down her side. She cried out in pain suddenly and Leone was able to shake free from the scythe and speed away to the safety of the Mythos crowd.
"What's going on?" Tarock asked, still looking Trideka over suspiciously.
"It's too much…my body's starting to break down," Trideka gasped. "Liss, the leader of the Mythos hasn't arrived to take Lost away yet…destroy these creatures and protect her before it's too late!"
"You'll never get the chance!" the White Lady screamed through Leone, who once again was wearing perfectly restored armor. Two monsters Tarock recognized all too well from her earliest battles with the Mythos stood at her sides. The first was a fanged vampire with huge bat-like wings, and the second a humanoid scorpion covered in chitin armor with pincers instead of hands and a barbed tail rising up from his back, rushed to her side, already starting to lose their forms as they did. They flowed together with Leone whose body was surrounded with a red glow. Bat wings erupted from her back and a long barbed tail below it.
Suddenly a deafening scream went up, so intense Tarock dropped her sword to cover her ears for what good it would do. It was the sound of all the Mythos in the plaza crying out as one by one, they started to melt back into the black slime from which they'd spawned. For just a second Tarock thought maybe whatever power had brought them to life had left them, but then her blood ran cold when she realized that as they melted the slime they reverted to was flowing in Leone's direction.
Next to Tarock, Trideka had suddenly disappeared as if she'd never been there. But Leone was, wings spread wide, and the giant pool of Mythos essence rose up like a wave and crashed down on top of her.
"Dire Fate! Final Ascend!" Tarock's Fate Driver said as she charged the Skycalibur sword over her head and started to bring it down and unleash her attack before whatever was happening to Leone could finish. The black slime surged high and formed itself into a tornado around Leone's body, spinning faster and faster and sending out a terrific force that blew Tarock and Vaga off their feet and Ven and Donis out of the air.
Behind Leone, Tarock could see the city guards finish hurrying the people they'd been trying to defend into the palace and shut the huge double doors behind them. At least they were safe for the moment.
But Tarock knew she wasn't. The black slime was solidifying into a giant four-legged shape, thirty feet high at the shoulder at least. It had the face and body of a powerful lion, but its teeth and eyes were a dark red, like the plates of armor covering its chest and belly. Leathery black wings spread from its back, blotting out the light in the plaza. Then an orange scorpion's tail whipped up from the back, its stinger glowing menacingly.
"What the hell is that?" Tarock croaked.
"It's called a Manticore, I think," Vaga said.
The monster fixed them with his evil glare and roared, the sound so intense it felt like swarms of bullets were peppering their armor. Then it lunged forward, scattering Tarock and her allies in all directions.
The bannister seemed to rise up and slam into Lost's side, and she grabbed onto it with what little strength she had.
The sounds of monsters in the halls had long since faded away but now she thought she could hear what sounded like the fearful murmuring of people below her instead. Lost felt a terrible desire to reach them and try to gain their help, but how could she be sure it wasn't another trick after one of those Changelings had broken her out of her cell? She still wasn't sure what had happened to it or her other guards after she started to vomit up black slime and eventually passed out, but why question a blessing like that?
She lurched down one step, then another, then something shook the entire palace, scattering pieces of stone from the ceiling and knocking Lost off her feet. Everything turned into a blur as she went bumping and rolling down the stairs until she landed in a painful sprawl at the next landing down. She crawled to the edge and peeked through the supports of the railing, afraid of what she might see in the room below, but almost cried in relief as she saw more people than she could count crowded into the entrance hall downstairs.
Lost tried to call out to them but her throat her was too raw after retching up so much slime she'd actually fainted. The building shook again and thin jets of dust feel from the ceiling, which would've drowned out anything Lost had to say anyway.
But she couldn't pay much attention to the pebbles bouncing off her neck and shoulders. All at once there was a flash in her mind, like a rod of red-hot metal had been shoved through it. Lost stared straight ahead for a second while seeing nothing, until the pain subsided a second later.
When her head cleared Lost was sure of two things. First that Liss was nearby and in terrible danger. Second, so was someone else, and Lost was the one in terrible danger.
The saw-toothed edge of the Ace version of Skycalibur had only just formed before Manticore swiped at Tarock with a paw twice as tall as she was. She planted her feet and held out her blade to meet the attack, the paw crashing into it and pushing Tarock back so hard sparks flew from the soles of her boots. He hardly seemed to even notice the blade biting into his leg. As her feet started to sting Tarock cried out and jumped as high as she could, right next to the monster's eye. She was about to plunge her sword into it when he twisted his head and his gaping mouth was next to her instead. As he swung his head forward to eat her alive she braced her legs against a giant tooth and vaulted backwards.
On the ground Vaga peppered Manticore's chest with his bowgun, but his shots just glanced off the huge monster's armor. Donis hovered behind him and loosed an arrow from his own bow. It flew through the air and exploded against Manticore's armor, leaving a small fracture.
"What do we do?" Vaga gasped in disbelief. He'd fought a few giant Mythos before, but those were monsters. This huge, armor-plated beast nothing short of a nightmare. His power felt like nothing as he looked up into the monster's face with a mouth big enough to swallow him whole and fangs that looked like they could stab right through his armor.
"We fight, of course," Tarock said and looked back and forth over the Mythos trying to find any weak spot at all. Manticore's tail whipped up and a ball of white light shot from its stinger. Vaga and Tarock scattered but it slammed into the ground and gave a deafening explosion that hurled them both a hundred feet through the air before crashing and rolling another ten across the ground. Tarock tried to peel her aching body off the ground but Manticore raised one gigantic paw and slammed it down onto her back, pounding hunks of rock and dust into the air as Tarock was driven clear into the ground.
As he lifted it up again Tarock vainly tried to push herself onto her back to at least be able to wield her weapon. Manticore didn't give her the chance, pounding her another five feet into the ground with another slam of his gigantic paw. This time he dragged it back and forth, grinding her into the dirt. Again he lifted up his paw.
"NO!" Vaga screamed and ran forward firing his crossbow. Again and again the arrows flashed out and again and again Manticore paid no attention to them at all as they bounced off his huge body. Donis fired off an arrow of his own, only for it to do nothing but send a tiny chunk of its armor falling off.
"It's no good! There's no vulnerable point on this monster!" Donis called.
"Or maybe we just can't see it," replied Vaga. "Change Trosik!" Power traveled down Vaga's body changing his green armor blue and tracing circuit-like patterns over his arms and legs. A golden disc engraved with arcane symbols formed on his chest. His eyes flashed and everything changed. Or rather, everything could be seen as it actually was.
Time seemed to have stopped around Vaga. Everything seemed to have dissolved into a blue-white haze. Even though he could still see outlines it was the lines of power underneath, connecting everything as bits of light ran through them on their way to places that even as he was, Vaga couldn't begin to imagine.
But now, maybe due to gaining greater control over this power, or maybe just due to the danger to Liss, everything seemed clearer than ever to Vaga's eyes. He could see the lines running up and down Manticore's body and saw one point near the center of the monster's chest where a large number of the lines converged, and the glow at the point where they met every few seconds was almost blinding.
And right in front of it he could see a thin, nearly invisible weak spot where the armor plates on its body met.
Vaga jumped at the monster, words forming in his mind. "RO…TA! Render!" The disc on his chest spun, becoming a blur, and by instinct Vaga touched his right hand to it, covering it in gold light. He chopped at the weakness he saw, and the power he gathered was unleashed. His arm left a bright trail in the air and split the armor plating on Manticore's chest just below his jaw. But Vaga's attack didn't stop at the armor, and bit into Manticore's chest too. The giant beast roared out deafeningly as Vaga cleaved deep into his body with blue ooze spraying out from the wound.
As soon as Vaga landed his armor flickered away and he collapsed, the strain of his last attack exhausting him completely. Manticore's tail whipped high and the tip glowed as it aimed a shot to end the life of the human who'd the audacity to hurt him.
Donis gasped in terror as Manticore readied himself to fire on Ben, who had no protection anymore. As fast as his powers allowed Donis flew in front of Manticore and fired an arrow from his bow straight into the gaping wound Ben had created with his final attack. It had only had time to charge to half power, but as the arrow exploded inside Manticore's wound the monster's tail swung to the side and the energy ball that shot from its stinger flew wide and exploded somewhere over the tops of the buildings at the edge of the square. The very air shook with the force of the explosion.
But Manticore roared angrily and his tail swung forward again, its stinger glowing. Donis choked. Ben still wasn't moving, and the Bough of Grace in his hands was dark after he'd used all the power it had been building up in his last shot. The monster fired another shot…
…and then his wife was hovering by his side, and seized his armored hand in hers. For a second they glanced down at Ben, and then at Tarock behind the monster who was just managing to get to her knees. Two strangers who'd seemed like enemies, but had come to their city and fought its invaders anyway. No words passed between the two, but they didn't move as Manticore roared, blowing them back a few feet with its force, and fired its stinger.
The energy ball was even bigger than the one they'd just seen and seemed to scream as it shot out to engulf them. Ven and Donis clutched their heads and said from the bottom of their hearts, "Twilight Convergence!"
Waves of black and white power swirled from Ven and Donis's hands, forming a glistening ball around them. Manticore's energy ball crashed into the edge and a horrible whine filled the air as it tried to burn its way inside. Ven and Donis concentrated only on each other, on the feelings they'd fought to recover since agreeing to take on these powers. The energies swirling around them spread wider and pushed harder against Manticore's attack. The whine of their energies colliding grew even louder, and then everything turned a searing white.
Nema and Lurian rolled to a bone-jarring stop not far from where Ben lay, their armor gone and the bracelet each wore blackened and crumbling off their wrists already.
Manticore lifted one giant paw to crush them once and for all when a storm of glowing swords and knives landed against his neck. He turned with an angry growl to see Tarock running in his direction. She jumped to her side, vaulted off the side of a building and aimed herself at the gaping wound Ben had made.
"Ace High! Thunder Cleave!" Electricity crackled up and down the curved blade of her sword, and with a strength born of anger, fear and desperation Tarock screamed as she swung Skycalibur in a wide arc and released the power she'd summoned. A wave of yellow energy formed in the path of her swing and ripped into Manticore's gaping wound.
The monster screamed as Tarock's attack pierced its armor and shot through its body. Lightning curved in terrible arcs coming up from Manticore's legs, back, wings, even from the tip of one huge red tooth to another. Giant red burns formed at the ends of the electrical arcs, and soon waves of choking blue smoke were coming off Manticore's body.
Tarock hit the ground in the crouch and her armor faded away, her strength spent. A sheet of noxious smoke rolled off Manticore and came crashing into her, so heavy it almost knocked her down, but Liss covered her mouth and ran for what little she was still worth in the direction she remembered the palace being. The double doors had been shaken partly off their hinges by the force of Manticore's powerful blasts and there was an open space where the doors met Liss managed to crawl through and found herself in a large entrance hall packed with scared-looking people. Three people in tarnished armor of the city guard accosted her until she waved her transformation cards at them, then shoved them out of her way and limped up the stairs behind them.
"Lost?" Liss called out as she climbed. She peered down a hallway and called down it, then froze as she saw something dark slipping through the next doorway up the hall. Liss was sure it was another Mythos who'd stayed behind to ambush someone, until she almost didn't hear the hoarse cry that followed.
"Liss…help me…!"
She staggered as quickly as she could to the doorway and saw a pair of lizard-like Mythos with long tails and wings sprouting from their shoulders dragging Lost between them to another door at the end of the hall. And standing on a wide circular balcony outside the door was the White Lady herself, and as always her red eyes seemed to burn straight into Liss's soul.
"Hold it!" Liss demanded, but the pair of monsters didn't listen and only dragged Lost out onto the balcony. Liss staggered out onto the balcony behind them and loaded the Swords Card into her belt, but nothing happened. Had the Fate Driver been damaged again, or was she just too weak to make it work?
The two monsters heaved Lost at the feet of the White Lady, who didn't waste a second slipping down and reaching out for Lost. But as their hands were about to make contact they started to bubble and melt together. Lost screamed and tried to pull away but didn't have the strength. Liss tried to charge past the two monsters but at the same time they lashed out with their scaled fists, connected with her stomach and face and knocked her into the air for a few feet.
By then Lost and the White Lady were starting to flow together at the torso. "Liss, HELP!" Lost screamed but her voice started to bubble. In another few seconds the two of them had melted into a black puddle, and the two lizard Mythos melted back into the slime they'd come from and flowed together with what Lost and the White Lady had become.
But what that was hadn't finished changing. The puddle bubbled and suddenly swelled upward into a giant black bubble, then limbs stretched out, two bird-like legs from the bottom and two wings erupted from the top. A long, sloping neck formed from the top with a single glistening red eye in the center of the almost unnoticeable head at the end.
"You set me back quite a lot, Liss Decker," came the voice of the White Lady, but deep and distorted, and sounding directly inside Liss's exhausted mind instead of reaching her ears. "But in the end I was too much for you after all."
"You say that like I'm already dead," Liss choked.
"Aren't you?" the White Lady retorted. "Everything falls into me, everything is absorbed. Now that I'm finally whole again, it's only a matter of time.
"Oh, you thought you were proving how strong you were, how much you mattered, didn't you?" the White Lady went on. "Girl, the first Tarock had been fighting me for years before he managed what he did. He had help from veteran warriors, including some of the most powerful of the Arcana. You thought you'd just put on his belt and just like that you'd be the savior of the world? No, of two worlds I suppose! You annoyed me, Liss Decker. You cost me a fair amount of stockpiled essence. But in the end, that was all. I am whole, and soon I will be strong. And you'll be a tiny part of that strength."
The winged monster stomped over to where Liss lay and tried to grab her with one foot. Suddenly Liss rolled over and pulled a long sliver of stone out of her coat and stabbed it between the monster's toes. It screeched in surprise, then Liss jumped up and screamed as she rammed her shoulder into the bottom of its raised foot with the last of her strength. Perhaps exhaustion was wearing on her mind, but even now, without power, and with Lost and the White Lady merged into this thing, Liss felt determined to save the poor helpless girl who'd asked her for help…
It jumped back and flailed its wings, thrown off-balance by Liss's surprise attack. Finally it toppled over backward and rolled to the edge of the balcony. There was a deep, terrifying groan of stone on stone and the balcony started to crumble beneath their feet.
There was a last crash and Liss felt herself flying. Something slammed into her side and there was a crunch as her left eye went dark. For a second the monster was right next to her as it gained altitude, and its side rippled and formed into a despondent face. Lost's face. Silvery tears fell from it and sizzled as they touched Liss's skin. The last thing she saw before she blacked out completely was the monster gliding away, giving a scream that sounded mocking and victorious at the same time.
It felt like Liss was falling past images of Lost's sobbing face for ages before a point of light appeared in the distance and started to grow. Eventually she realized she was looking up at a cracked ceiling made of cream-colored stone. Sitting next to her was a woman with flowing blonde hair but bandages wrapped over the top half of her face. Liss tried to sit up but the woman pressed her hands down on Liss's shoulders.
"Stay still, you're still weak," she said in a familiar voice.
"Thena?" Liss said in a voice that sounded too raspy to be her own. "What happened?"
"She caught you after you fell off the roof of the palace," said another voice, and even as Liss's vision cleared it seemed to remain hazy as it took her a minute to recognize the gently smiling white-haired woman she was looking at as Nema, Ven's human form. Even having just woken up, Liss noticed the bracelet Nema had used to transform was gone. "Good thing too, or you would've been smashed to bits."
Liss finally shrugged off Thena's attempt to pin her down and sat up. She was in a wide rectangular room and all across it people were lying in makeshift beds, most looking foraged from junk, with tired-looking people tending to the wounds of the bedridden. "How long's it been?" Liss asked.
"Coming up on the end of the third day," Thena answered her.
"Did you go after the monster?" Liss asked next.
"It was already out of sight after I saved you," Thena replied gently.
Liss sighed and fell back, closing her eyes. "Of course it was." Her stomach growled at her and her arms and legs felt too stiff to move again. She opened her eyes and looked up at Thena and Nema, trying to judge if she was really sure this was really the aftermath of that horrific attack on the city and not some kind of delusion. But as she did, she noticed the faint gray sheen covering everything.
"What…what's wrong with my eyes?"
Nema looked down at Liss, over at Thena and then back down at Liss as if searching for the answer to the question. Thena answered for her. "Your left eye was completely destroyed. The Empress insisted the best doctors we still have be put in charge of that, and they attached an Ora Stone to the socket. It's not quite natural, though, so-"
"There's a damn crystal in my head," Liss moaned. "Oh god…it's true, isn't it? After all that she got away and I have a damn crystal in my head…Give me a mirror."
Nema complied, handing Liss a hand mirror with some slivers missing from around the edges. Indeed, Liss's left eye was gone, and a milky white orb of crystal occupying the socket. Next to it was a patch of raw red scar tissue covering the skin from her eye to the top of her ear, which was flat across the top now after a slice of flesh had been chopped off by whatever the monster had done to her face. The weirdest thing was a string of circular silver spots on her left cheek and down her neck before disappearing into her shirt. Liss knew what those were; tears of the girl at the center of all this chaos, who she'd failed to protect.
"Your intervention spared many of our peoples' lives," Thena replied calmly.
"Yeah, until she comes back," Liss sighed. "Where's my stuff?" she asked, and Thena pushed a cloth bag into her hands. In it were the Fate Driver, looking a little scuffed but intact, and all four of her transformation cards.
"Liss! You really are up!" a voice called and she looked up to see Ben running over to her. He looked at her with nothing but relief, and carried a white paper bag in one hand that he held out for her. Even with getting used to a new eye, she recognized the logo on the grease-stained bag, and grabbed it away from Ben like it was the only thing that could save her life.
She tore the wrapper off a double Sandy Burger and bit deep into the calorie bomb. Another bite, a deep swallow and she took a long sip of the icy lemon-lime drink Ben had brought for her too. After all the chaos she'd been through, something familiar was exactly what she needed. Liss didn't even care how bad for her it was supposed to be.
"So that's where you went," Nema said, wrinkling her nose at the scent of the combo meal Liss was wolfing down.
"What?" Liss asked.
"When you started to wake up, he said you'd want something from home to get your strength back," Thena replied emotionlessly.
"You were watching me sleep?" Liss asked, taken slightly aback.
"So were they," Ben said, indicating Thena and Nema with a wave of his arm. "They wanted to make sure the great heroine who saved all their butts was okay," he said a little proudly like he wasn't afraid to embellish it. "Won't be too long before they need us again, right?"
Nema started to say something but Liss held up her hands for quiet. "Thanks, Ben," she said quietly and polished off her burger. He looked slightly awestruck at hearing her gratitude for a second, but nodded. Liss got up off the bed then, slung the bag with her Rider items over her shoulder and walked toward the door. She had to get away, away from this decimated city where she'd failed to save a critical asset. A friend.
"Ben, if they need to know anything about what we were doing, tell them, okay? I need to get the hell away from here…"
On the way out a ray of light glanced off her new eye and Liss froze as she saw a figure in a ragged robe, looking at her forlornly before disappearing again.
Liss hurried out of the building even faster.
It had been days since Paige Decker had received any word from her crazy younger sister, but she'd been trying to stay positive in the lack of news. When she turned the corner and the garage came into sight, though, she let slip an "Oh, shit."
Sitting by the front door was a dark-haired girl curled into the fetal position, and as Paige came a little closer she recognized the girl that looked a lot like her younger sister but with a blank white eye and a tattoo or something of silver bubbles on her cheek below it. Liss stood up and waited by the door as Paige approached. "What happened?" Paige asked quietly as she unlocked the door.
"I blew it," Liss said.
"Oh yeah?" Paige asked, staying calm, not judging or remonstrating. "What happened, Liss?"
And Liss told her. All about Lost's role in the creation of Mythos monsters and the White Lady setting out to capture her to join Lost's power to create those monsters to the White Lady's own power to control them. About Liss's attempts to find a cure, about Lost being taken by the Empress, and Liss and Ben joining in the devastating attack that led to Lost and the White Lady merging into a single being who escaped from Liss despite all she'd done to try to prevent it.
Paige set a cup of coffee from the garage's ancient coffee maker in front of Liss. "You're seeing images of this girl now? Because of that?" Paige asked, gently indicating Liss's new eye.
"Yeah," Liss sighed. "Just twice, but it looks like she's asking why I didn't save her. I don't know if I'm really seeing Lost or if I'm going crazy…"
Paige pushed the coffee toward Liss again. "Do you think you're going crazy? I mean, you have been through a hell of a lot for somebody your age, sounds like. That might really get to you."
"I'm not crazy," Liss said and took a sip from the coffee. "I don't know how this thing works yet, and nobody knows what Lost was originally…some kind of demon in space or something. But the point is I blew it. The White Lady got what she wanted…Lost's gone."
"Is she?" Paige asked.
"What?"
Paige shrugged. "Well, I have no idea how this works either, but if you're seeing her maybe she isn't really gone? Maybe she can really make some kind of contact with you, and maybe that means you can still save her."
Liss looked up at her older sister. Liss was tired, so very, unbelievably tired. She'd felt so defeated after losing Lost and being maimed in the process. But maybe it was turning out to be a blessing in disguise.
"Maybe," Liss said. "But right now I need to get my shit together. Then I'll figure out what to do next."
Paige nodded. "Then I guess that means you're free to help me get this POS running," she said, and jerked her thumb into the vehicle bay. Inside was a red SUV with a cracked windshield and rust coating the bottom of the doors.
"Guess I am," Liss said.
Night had long since set in over the town, but the lights were still on in the top floor of the dilapidated building Carl Stanford was converting into a regional office. He had a very important meeting to take that night.
The man seated in front of Stanford's desk was so tall and broad at the shoulders he'd actually needed to duck and turn sideways to get through the door. His light blond hair was done in a crewcut, while his face seemed to be a perfect rectangle with a pronounced lantern jaw. It almost seemed to Stanford as if it had been chiseled out of rock. With what he knew of the man's background, it wasn't a possibility Stanford entirely ruled out.
"Glad to have you here," Stanford said to his guest. "Especially considering the hour. I'm sorry I had to insist; we need to get this going as soon as possible."
The huge man waved it off. "I'm used to stranger hours than this. My father kept some very interesting company. I'd guess you do as well, Mr. Stanford, by the look of…" He trailed off, but waved his hand vaguely around the right side of his face.
Stanford laughed good-naturedly. It was true that he wore a gauze pad covering everything to the right of his nose except his eye now. His glasses were tilted slightly on his face because of the thickness of the pad. "Let's say I've been working myself pretty hard lately getting everything ready. Scouting the area and the…local talent."
"Ah yes, the 'local talent'. Except they haven't been seen much around here lately, have they, though? Up to something of earthshaking importance, I suppose."
"Yes indeed," replied Stanford. "In a mystifying place called the Sphere. If you're interested in our offer you can learn all about it just as I have."
The huge man steepled his fingers thoughtfully. "You do make an…interesting offer, Mr. Stanford. But my brothers and I are involved in a very particular pursuit, and I need to tell them I've seen something more substantial than a few lurid stories. If what you've got to tell me about is merely 'interesting,' I think the civil thing would be not to take up anymore of each other's time."
"So you're saying the resources we've made it clear we have aren't enough to pique your curiosity?" Stanford asked.
"If you mean those things sneaking around in the sewers," the huge man replied with a condescending smile, as if taking amusement in avoiding specifics, "yes, I know about those, and we have access to that sort of thing already. Have had for some time. I'm afraid I need more than that."
"You'd prefer something more tangible, then?" Stanford asked and from out of nowhere produced a white staff with a throbbing purple crystal at the top. A strange light entered Stanford's eyes as he held it up, and with each throb the feeling of a great, insubstantial power filled the office.
"There are more like this," Stanford explained. "The hearts of beings with great power. Immortals of great power. And most of them are up for grabs right now. My benefactor is looking for loyal lieutenants to share in the greatest of power she has to offer, sir. Does that, maybe, interest you?"
The huge man chortled, but then extended his hand. "All right, you've piqued my curiosity."
Stanford held out his hand in return. "Well…Ivan Gebok Tawanovitch, welcome to Silver Light."
End Book Four
First off, allow me to extend my gratitude to Kamen Rider Chrome for letting me sneak in a little link to his work in the person of Carl Stanford's new hire. Thanks again.
Second, hope everybody enjoyed the latest arc even if it was kind of short. Things are about to get harder for the Riders, but Liss at least isn't giving up. I'm planning on a couple little side projects for Tarock, so I hope you'll look forward to those too. One's a little thing I'm calling "Past Influences." It'll make sense when it's up.
Third, to make it easier to keep it all straight I'm planning to split the next part of Kamen Rider Tarock into its own story. Thanks for reading!
With this being the close of a major event in the story, I thought I'd do a rundown on the Riders the story has, especially since more are on the way.
Up first is of course Tarock herself, Liss Decker, delinquent turned mystical hero. She has four different forms, via cards created from the sacred objects of the four tribes the Sphere's human population originally formed. They are Swords (which is a little bit of everything: pretty strong, pretty fast, pretty tough), Pentacles (her power type, strong and tough but slow), Cups (fast but built around making powerful ranged attacks), and Wands (blindingly fast but weak).
Her closest ally for the time being is Vaga, her ex-boyfriend Ben Corland. He chased down the Arcanum named Jack when Liss was missing and a new champion needed, and browbeat Jack into allowing him to be that new champion. As a Rider his powers are fairly well-balanced with him not specializing in any one thing, and his weapon of choice is able to change into a sword, spear or crossbow. Recently he gained a second form, Trosik, which lacks physical power but can lines connecting everything in existence, which allows him to make small alterations to things happening around him or sense where weaknesses exist. Unless he completely gives up his humanity like the power's previous wielder, though, he'll probably never master it or be able to use it without badly exhausting himself.
Then there are Ven and Donis, or Nema and Lurian. They were a couple whose marriage was being torn apart by the stresses of the war with the Mythos, who were contacted by Arcana representing Lovers, who bestowed power to them to get rid of Tarock and bring honor back to their empire. Ven had the power to split into five copies of herself while Donis had an ability to see where his attacks would be most effective (not nearly as great as Ben's Trosik form, though). Later they were respectively armed with the Dark Gasher dagger and Bough of Grace bow. Their strongest power was the Twilight Convergence when they joined their energies and created a power sphere capable of giant explosions. They abandoned their former benefactors after Tarock let them go even though she had them at her mercy and managed to mend their relationship. Unfortunately their henshin bracelets were destroyed in this chapter.
Most recent and mysterious is Trideka, who represents Death itself. We've only begun to see her power, but it seems to dwarf anything anyone, Rider or Mythos, has shown yet. But she can only use it for a short time before her body starts breaking down and she needs to leave and recover. Tarock's sure to need her help. She might be even more surprised when she meets Trideka without her mask, though.
Sorry if it seems like kind of a depressing note to end on, but the fight's not over. Rest assured of that.