Chapter 37: Project Trinity
As the three begin to leave, Jesse appears in front of them, breathing heavily. "You guys, big trouble."
"Are you okay you look like you seen a ghost."
"Heh Heh, something like that." She laughed sarcastically.
Out of nowhere, the building she left began to ignite explosions from the roof as they see the body of Noah fall. Nolan without realizing uses his turbo shot to catch Noah before he hit the concrete.
"Jesse, what in God's name is going on!?" Nolan asked.
As she was about to answer though, Jessie gets off guard by JACK and ACE appearing behind her and grabbing her. As fast as they came, they blow back the riders with a strength that never existed until that moment, and that they kept hidden from Noah.
That sheer power causes the three to cancel out their transformation and causes themselves to fight to stand back up.
"There's no freaking way. The both of you were dead." Nolan managed to say.
"There's no way that you guys could possibly be alive unless… JOKER never died…" Yuliya fits together.
"Congratulations, I knew training you to have a perceptive mind on things was a good idea…" a dreadful but familiar voice uttered behind them.
They didn't want to turn around, but as they heard the footsteps track themselves in the grass, they slowly turned, only for their worst nightmare come true…
"By the way you guys…" the figure started. "Thanks for following my orders for protecting Jessie. Now with her alive, my plan can finally commence, and Shadow Day will become a reality…"
"Dom…Dominick!?" Yuliya asked slowly, building up tears.
The figure walked towards JACK and ACE as laughed as a black and red dragon-like claw beast slid up his shoulder. The figure turned around, revealing to be Dominick. No…JOKER!"
"Dominick, we should finish these kids. They'll still be a nuisance for us in the future." The Dragon said.
"You're right, Ryuge. Let's wipe them out." Dominick replied holding a sword-like key out in the air. Dominick tossed it in the air causing the dragon to catch it in his mouth. He then slid onto the brace and the belt appeared.
"Welcome to Chaos… HENSHIN!" Dominick called out as Ryuge slid onto the crimson red belt.
"CHAOS MODE!" Ryuge called out as black and red dragon-like samurai armor encased Dominick. He appeared as Flight mode of the samurai mode rider, with his black wings stretched out and his blood red armor the shape of a dragon. His helmet was a cross between a samurai helmet and a dragon helmet and he had a sword that shot straight down his back. He held his hand in front of him to develop a ball of black energy that he shot at them. The blast lit up the area, causing people to run for their lives and the four teens to become bloodier.
"Now, that was fun. How Ironic that they thought they were saving their city, when in actuality they created Armageddon, the very thing that will exterminate these humans. Well, it looks like there's only one thing left from keeping me from becoming the ruler of the Dreamon, and that's you…" Dominick commented, turning to Jessie.
Jesse starts to scream, only for ACE to hit the back of her neck, knocking her out.
"Let's go… we have work to do." Dominick commanded, snapping his fingers and opening a nightmare vortex. The two obey as they walk through with Jessie.
Nolan looks in horror as he reaches out, only to black out when the portal closed. "I messed up… I couldn't protect you…I'm sorry…"
An hour later, Nolan wakes up only to find himself in the infirmary along with Tim Yuliya and Noah, all hooked on machines and all bandaged up. There, Rodriguez sits going through the Project trinity folder.
"Hey, woke up huh?" Rodriguez asked.
"What happened…? Oh God Jesse; I have to save her!"
"You're not going anywhere! Not until your wounds heal. When that's done, then I'll let you do whatever you want. But for now, you stay put."
Nolan leans back in the bed, allowing Rodriguez to talk. "Okay, for starters, until they wake up, I'm going to explain Project Trinity and what it will do, to make a major comeback…" Rodriguez started, causing Nolan to listen.
Rodriguez opens the folder showing specs of the C.L.A.W. system. The specs showed the design of the Shinobi, Marksmen, Samurai, Speed, Power, and flight claws.
"Okay, I'm guessing you wanted to know what project trinity was all about. Well for starters, project trinity was developed about five years ago after the genocide of Colonel Gracia and his squad. The research team and higher up figured that the C.L.A.W. system should need upgrades, more preferably with the same designs of the Samurai claw and the Shogun claw. So Project Trinity was born. The Shinobi C.L.A.W. was created along with the Marksman C.L.A.W. and for emergencies; the Speed, Power and Flight C.L.A.W.s were developed as well to attain the full potential of each claw. This also brings up the Kaiser C.L.A.W."
Rodriguez flips the page, showing the Kaiser mode and it's three forms: Speed Kaiser, Power Kaiser and Flight Kaiser. "Recently, after you demonstrated the DNA override command with the Power C.L.A.W., the development team developed a mode that is more powerful than Kaiser Mode: Trinity Mode.
He flips the second page and Nolan's eyes widen as he looks at the next page. The next page shows a silver version of Kaiser Mode, with the shoulder pads of Power Kaiser, the wings of Flight Kaiser, and the boosters of Speed Kaiser. "This is Trinity mode, our trump card. And we need you to use it and save our planet from shadow day."
"What's Shadow Day exactly?" Nolan asked.
"It's the apocalypse to be straight forward."
Nolan turned to his left to see Noah getting up next to him. "It's the day that all life fears the most. It happened about five years ago, when JOKER caused the chaos that was the genocide that took the life of Colonel Gracia. So many lives were saved because of Dominick, before he became the next JOKER."
"How did Dominick become JOKER exactly?"
"One of JOKER's abilities as a reptile D-Brid is that he could shed his skin. He used it when he posed as Colonel Gracia. When Dominick killed him, the sand flew towards Dominick, without him noticing. Apparently, Dominick didn't mind his body be taken over because after watching how he easily exterminated the army, he was more than powerful.
"Isn't the title of JOKER supposed to represent traitor?"
"By becoming JOKER, Dominick not only betrayed humanity, but the Dreamon Race as well. That's why there have been so many Dreamon attacks in recent years. I ordered the Dreamon to kill Dominick. But as it would seem, he created the C.L.A.W. system, the very thing that I knew would be of special value to us if we attained it. It's ironic, that you were fighting for the destruction of humanity, rather than saving it like the people of this city thought."
Nolan looks down, feeling the guilt building up inside. "I have one more question, Noah."
"What's that?"
"I wanted to know, why you look just like me. You weren't so specific when you told me the first time…
FLASHBACK
"Your worst fear is yourself, you can't bear the fact that if you turn into someone like me then you will lose everyone you care about. But what does that matter. In about two minutes, you'll be dead; I'll find that Jesse girl and that'll be the end of that."
END FLASHBACK
"Well, let me ask you; what are you afraid of, truthfully?"
Nolan thinks for a long minute. "I'm afraid of losing my friends; I'm afraid of doing something that I'll be stupid to go through with and lose my friendship with them."
"So you're afraid of being rebellious. I see." Noah commented. "Well, look at me. I'm not afraid to take risks, no matter how stupid they are, I could be as rebellious as I could be, and I don't care about my friends because if they're too weak to understand, then they're not worth it, no matter how close to them I am. In a nutshell, you could consider me as your opposite twin. And since I'm a D-Brid, like Jesse and Queen, I'm just your D-Brid form."
"D-Brid form…"
"Yep, that's what I am. And that's why I'm going to help you guys take JOKER down."
"You're serious?"
"It's my duty as the KING of SPADES to do what's necessary to complete the challenge in front of me."
Tim and Yuliya Slowly wake up one after another, realizing that they're in the infirmary along with the other three.
"What happened?" Tim asked. "And why am I in bandages?"
"I don't know, I had a crazy nightmare that Jesse was Kidnap and that Dominick was alive and became JOKER. Yuliya laughed. "By the way, where's Jesse?"
Tim looks at the expressions of everyone in the room and keeps quiet.
"What's wrong?" Yuliya asked.
"Jesse was kidnapped by JACK and ACE…" Nolan said. "And your nightmare actually happened. Dominick is JOKER, and we been fighting for him all this time."
"You're lying." Yuliya snapped.
"I'm not I've seen it with my own-"Nolan starts, before getting cut off by Yuliya's screams.
"Don't give me some Bullcrap excuse! I know that's not true, so don't lie to me, what really happened!?"
"Yuliya, that's exactly what happened… I've been doing research on the Kaiser C.L.A.W., and I came across project trinity and a hidden file showing plans about resurrecting JACK and ACE and killing us and taking Jesse. It's all true." Tim explained.
Yuliya calmed down and looked back at them. "So it true. We've been betrayed by our commander, the man who raised us in this war, the man who trained us to be warriors who instead fight to protect, were trained to destroy, well, then, I never thought I'd say this, but I'm done, I can't deal with this."
"You're kidding;" Tim replied. "You're not quitting out on us."
"Want to bet?"
"I would actually. We're not quitting until we defeat Dominick and save our worlds. Now I'm going to stay, and help Nolan save Jesse. If you want to go, then go. But if you want to try and save Dominick, then I'd suggest you help."
Yuliya sighs for a long minute. "Alright, but let's make a promise: when this is over, we forget everything that we've been through. We forget about the Dreamon, being riders and we go back to our normal lives. Understand?"
Nolan and Tim stay quiet and look at Kaiger and Kiba respectively. The two C.L.A.W. beasts nod causing those two to nod.
"Alright, now what are we going to do about getting Jesse back?" Nolan asked.
"I have an Idea. But will you guys up for it?"Noah suggested.
"Dude, we're all ears."
"Okay, what I was thinking of, is that we hit them head-on."
"Hit them head-on? You mean…"
"Take the fight to them. We're going to the nightmare realm to defeat JOKER!"
"Sounds good when we're leaving?" Tim agreed.
"First, though, I want Nolan to achieve Trinity mode. Then, you can go on." Rodriguez said.
"Trinity mode?" Yuliya questioned, thinking about the folder that Dominick carried with him some years back.
"I'll explain later." Nolan reassured.
Meanwhile, in the nightmare realm, Jesse slowly wakes up, rubbing her head, from a splitting headache given to her when ACE knocked her out. She leans upwards to realize she's in a dungeon-like cellar, with a chain latched on her ankle.
"What happened? Where am I?"
"You're in the nightmare realm; the world of the Dreamon." QUEEN's voice echoed next to her.
Jesse turned to her left to see her sitting with a black rose in her hand. "Hey there, you're awake huh?"
"QUEEN, what's going on? Why are we here?"
"It's because JACK and ACE are alive, JOKER turned out to be your commander like I thought and he plans on killing us to achieve his goal of creating Shadow Day: the end of the Nightmare Realm and the Human World.
"You can't be serious; you think they could actually do it?"
"Well, do you think your Bodyguard can rescue you?"
"Do you remember our conversation this morning?"
FLASHBACK
Back with Jesse, QUEEN appears next to her in the chair beside her.
"So, are feeling okay?" QUEEN asked the teen.
"I don't know I got a feeling that something bad is going to happen."
"Well, you're right about that, something bad is going to happen."
"What do you mean by that?" Jessie asked feeling intimidated.
"JOKER is alive…" QUEEN uttered, causing Jessie's heart to skip a beat.
"What do you mean by that!?"
"I mean, that KING didn't kill him. JOKER is a D-Brid that controls reptilian Dreamon. Reptiles are known to shed their skin."
"So what you're saying is that he faked his death to throw everyone off!?"
"That's exactly what I'm saying. And if I'm correct, then the Riders won't be able to survive."
"What can we do?"
"Nothing, unless God can give us a miracle, we're screwed."
END FLASHBACK
"If Nolan and the gang could rescue us, then that'll be a miracle in itself. Because I know, they will save us and our worlds. That's just the kind of heroes they are…" Jesse reassures herself.
Back with Nolan and the rest, Nolan sits in the training room, transformed into Kaiser Mode already, holding the three super claws in his hands.
"Nolan, are you sure you want to do this now?" Rodriguez asked, with the other watching.
"I'm going to save Jesse, no matter what the cost. I'm ready." Nolan replied.
"Okay, whenever you're ready."
"Okay, let's go Kaiger."
"You got it."
Nolan then slides the speed claw first, transforming into Speed Kaiser. He then slides the power claw and then the flight claw.
DNA OVERRIDE: ERROR ERROR ERROR!! The brace repeatedly announced.
"What's going on!?" Nolan shouted.
The transformation shifted violently, developing red, white and blue lightning before transforming into trinity mode briefly before immediately breaking down, sending Nolan crashing towards the floor. The rest of them race towards the training room to retrieve Nolan.
"Hey are you okay!?" Rodriguez shouted.
Nolan cracked his eyes slowly. "Did it work?"
Rodriguez shook his head. "We need more power to hold the transformation."
Nolan leaned his head back. "Damn it."
Noah, standing the farthest from the group pulls out his deck full of King of Spades.
"Are you thinking what I think you're thinking?" Torakai asked Noah.
"I don't know if it'll work; I'll wait and see, maybe I won't have to do it."
"Well, if you do decide, you'll be fulfilling your duty as KING."
"I know, partner…I know."
END