Hey everybody! If you haven't already, check out Kamen Rider Utsura – The Lost Levels! That's got the explanations for some new developments in this chapter!
There was a deep silence in the care room of the CR Ward.
Doctor Emu Hojo looked down. A pair of Rider Gashats, their cases charred black and their labels bleached grey and white, rested in his hands. One, Mighty vs. DynaMighty, was a game he'd mastered long ago, but had never been made into something for a Kamen Rider to use. The other game, Train Tracker, he'd never heard about at all.
"That's quite a story," he said to the patient. Kensei Hidenaga propped himself up, but there was no sign of irritation that his account wasn't accepted out of hand. His shoulders were slouched forward and his eyelids hung low. A tired sigh slipped out of his throat.
"I know it's pretty crazy," Kensei admitted.
"Didn't say we don't believe you, Hidenaga-san," Emu replied with a softly friendly smile. "The results of your latest physical indicate you've been through an awful lot recently, especially the fatigue in the brain we've noticed. It's like you've been pulling all-nighters for weeks…forcing a new Gashat into existence, stands to reason that could take a toll on you."
Kensei's eyes closed all the way and he made another sigh, but one that faded into a very tired smile. "I'm…glad to hear you say that, Doctor Hojo."
"Emu," the doctor corrected him with a friendly smile.
"It's a weird business, kid," said the other doctor, clad in his signature loud Hawaiian shirt, Kiriya Kujo. "Trains traveling through time isn't that crazy to guys like us."
Emu flipped to another image on the tablet he had in front of him. "It also explains something else we found in your last examination: there's a light concentration all throughout your body that's similar to the Bugster virus. It wasn't there as of your last exam, but if you'd been constantly combining with Mishiranu-san for weeks, that might account for it."
Kensei pulled his knees up to his chin and looked away thoughtfully. "Would it account for me being able to do something as insane as just making a new Gashat?"
Kiriya chuckled. "Probably. Emu's done that a few times himself, haven't you?" he asked and clapped the younger doctor between the shoulders.
When he heard that Kensei stared at the veteran Rider in awe, and Emu scratched the back of his head self-consciously. "It…helped, sometimes," was all Emu said.
Kiriya chuckled too, but as Emu started in on asking about Kensei's other symptoms, Kiriya leaned over a little and looked at the exam results on Emu's tablet. Slowly he stepped away from the two of them, and walked out of the CR Ward entirely.
He had a call to make.
Over and under, then back over again, Yoshoku Kasuga twirled his trusty Chase Billion cartridge across his fingers.
He didn't really care if anyone in the restaurant recognized it for what it was anymore. It was almost three, and part of him cursed the rest for being too trusting.
Of course she wouldn't show up to meet with him again. Rei wasn't the trusting type. They'd only met each other like they had before because of their fathers and that arranged marriage that would never happen. She didn't trust any other Riders, even her enemies' enemies…
All of a sudden Yoshoku's phone rang.
It was the most distinctive ringtone he could think of, the sound effect that played when a building was broken into in Chase Billion.
He'd picked it to stand out.
"Hello?"
"Yosho-kun," Rei's voice answered on the other end. Wait, since when had she had a pet name for him? "Can you come pick us up?"
" 'Us'? What's going on?"
There was a minute where Rei was talking to someone else on the other end before her voice returned. "An old friend…surprised me today with a visit. He's kind of sick, though."
"Sick? What's wrong with him?" Yoshoku asked.
Rei's voice dropped to a whisper. "I think it's that game disease thing," she explained.
"I'm not a doctor, though," Yoshoku replied. "Why don't you call an ambulance instead?"
"Well," Rei said, then went quiet as if deciding what to say. Finally she did speak, and said, "He's got a belt like the other Riders, and he has a game here too. It's called…Ju Ju Pizza?"
Automatically Yoshoku got up and walked out of the restaurant.
By the time Yoshoku got to the location he'd been given, a yellow motorcycle was pulling up to the curb.
A motorcycle with no rider.
Sitting on a wooden bench was Rei, Yoshoku had to admit he was a little surprised to see. Next to her was a heavyset boy around their age, with dark greasy hair that stuck out in all directions. His round face was covered in sweat, and his clothes were decorated with dirt and stains.
Swirling around him were small puffs of an orangey static.
"Hey, kid," the motorcycle whispered to Yoshoku. "Give me a hand, would you?"
"Yeah, sure," Yoshoku said and pulled a Gashat out of its slot on the side of the bike. The bike transformed into a Kamen Rider with stubby arms and legs and wheelframes attached to his arms then faded into a doctor in an orange Hawaiian shirt Yoshoku recognized; Kiriya Kujo.
The doctor stepped over the curb and knelt down in front of the bench. Rein propped up the boy leaning on her, a look of concern on her face that still looked like it didn't belong there to Yoshoku's mind. It only took him a second to decide she looked nicer with it, though.
Meanwhile Kiriya got out his Game Scope, pressed a button and a holographic window opened. He put it away again and then checked the boy's pulse. "How long have you had these symptoms, son?" he asked.
"Five months," the boy croaked.
"Five months?" Kiriya repeated.
Rei sighed. "Kibi, why would you do something so dumb? You should've gotten treated…" Yoshoku gave her a questioning look, but the girl's attention was instead focused on the "Kibi" person beside her.
He turned his head and looked at her with glassy eyes. "I needed it so my plan would work. I need the Kamen Riders to give me the game."
"What game, Kibi?" Rei asked gently.
The boy coughed and gurgled, "The famous one about food. Ju Ju Burger."
Kiriya coughed too into his own hand. "The Kamen Riders don't own the legal rights to that game. And no offense son, but even the way things are now I don't think GENM's desperate enough to sell one of their biggest IPs to a high school kid."
Kibi shook his head violently though, and Rei held onto his shoulders to make sure he didn't fall over. "No! Not the rights to the game! The Gashat! I need it for my business!"
With a bewildered expression on his face, Kiriya whispered to Yoshoku, "Do you know what he's talking about?"
"Maybe, sempai," Yoshoku answered the veteran Rider. He turned to Rei and Kibi. "You said he had some Rider stuff of his own?"
She nodded and said to Kibi, "Show them, maybe that'll convince them." Kibi picked up a beat up green messenger bag by the side of the bench, unzipped it and got something out.
It was a Gamer Driver like the kind they were both so familiar with. Instead of a bright green case for its main body, though, it was a dull orange, with weaving strings of small black outlines of tomatoes, fish and mushrooms. In Kibi's other hand was a Gashat of the same color, the label reading "Ju Ju Pizza" and a pizza chef triumphantly raising the cheesy confection above his head as tiny monsters with huge drooling mouths closed in around him.
Kiriya sank down to his knees to get the closest look he could. "Where did you get something like this?" the doctor asked, his voice a mixture of disbelief and suspicion. "Does it work?"
"I got it in a lootbox from our friend," Kibi said, and coughed. He looked over at Rei. "Right?"
"Eeehhh…" she started to say, then audibly sighed with relief at a loud beeping from Yoshoku's pocket. He got out the Chibi Gashat of Bakusou Bike, and thought there was the briefest smirk on Kiriya's face as the veteran Rider recognized it. Yoshoku triggered the game and a window appeared of what the Chibi Gamer connected to it was seeing.
What it was seeing made Yoshoku clench his teeth. A crackling purple cloud was cruising between a pair of skyscrapers.
Yoshoku clicked the trigger in the sequence to set the Chibi Gamer into pursuit mode, so they could locate the thing as they moved further along. "All right, looks like there's a monster that needs my attention. Doctor Kujo, do you think you'd mind—"
He stopped in the middle of his question when Kibi suddenly jumped up, body tensed, eyes shining with clarity. "Monster. You said monster, right?" he asked, his lips forming into a confident smile. There was no sign of his earlier sickness except the occasional buzzes of strange static around his body.
"Well, yeah," Yoshoku answered, and a look of panic was forming on Rei's face. "But you're not in much shape to—"
"HENSHIN!" Kibi yelled, grinning like a demon, and hit the button on his Gashat.
"A Ga-cha PiZZa! Ju Ju…PiZZa! Ju Ju! Ju Ju Pizza! Toss it! Spin it! Top it! Slice it! Drive it! Serve it! Pizza Logic!" the Gashat cheered more than said, and Kibi turned it upside down and loaded the circuit panel into its slot on his belt. Even the usual ga-chan sounded louder and more confident. Kibi pulled the lever open, prompting an announcement of "Service Level 2!"
A Kamen Rider's armor started crawling across his body, the usual silver shin guards and running shows bellows. The armor covering his torso was the same orange as his belt and Gashat, black lines of pizza topping reaching up and down across his suit, fish and mushrooms and peppers and tomatoes…
He had armor across his chest like the Level 2 forms of other Kamen Riders, but instead of the colorful button mapping that usually appeared, there was a pizza, and instead of icons underneath the health meter there was another slice of pizza. Running across his head was a spiky red mohawk
Kiriya and Yoshoku stared at the flamboyant Rider in disbelief. Rei facepalmed.
The new Rider thrust both arms up to the sky as hard as he could and cheered. It was impossible to believe the sickly boy from just a minute ago had transformed into this energetic figure.
"Kamen Rider…ZZa! I'll prove I'm worthy!" he announced and summoned up the ring of icons for his inventory. He literally stabbed his fingers through the frame. "You'll see!"
"Open Cruiser," his Driver said and a wireframe of a bicycle filled itself in next to him. It had barely finished solidifying before he landed in the seat and started pedaling furiously in the direction of downtown. In another second he was nearly out of sight.
Kiriya and Yoshoku turned to Rei, who sighed.
Meanwhile, two groups of kids were filtering out Machina Vision's lobby, a few already wearing promotional Machina Vision t-shirts from their field trip.
"When does that VR system they showed come out?"
"My cousin already has one."
"He's a liar! You're a liar!"
"That was boring! We didn't get to see their Kamen Rider once!"
"Children, please," the sharp voice of one of the teachers cut through the air over all their debating. "If everyone could please line up and board the buses for the trip back to school." A collective groan started to go up but died halfway up its collective throat when the teachers focused their best sharp glares of exasperation on the students. A neat line of children walked past their teachers into their buses, grumbling in annoyance but only far enough away for the teachers not to make out what they said.
While the last of the students were getting on board a thick purple cloud zipped out of the shadow of the building. It sprang up and solidified into two shapes. One was a superhero with a lantern jaw, wearing a white helmet with built-in sunglasses and a blue unitard with red gloves, cape and boots, and a silvery letter "I" on the chest.
Next to the hero stood a lumpy purple leaning back on long feet, his hands ending in hands were the fingers were longer on one than the other. Equally mismatched were his eyes, one nothing but a tiny black speck and the other as big as a plate. His head was a long, shapeless lump sticking out over his chest looking like a mountain range. It was full of flat teeth, and on the end he had a big red ball for a nose.
"Wait up for us!" the hero called as he ran to the field trip bus, waving his hand at the driver. "Hold on, we're a last part of the service!"
"What service?" the teacher standing by the door asked.
"We're here to hand out goodies and entertain the kids on their ride back to school!" the hero grinned.
"Hey, it's Champion Infe!" someone on the bus cheered.
Infe nodded and pointed at the monster. "With my archenemy Lue! Were you guys excited to see us in the new League of Cosmos game today?"
"Yeah!" a cheer that almost blew the teachers off their feet ripped down the bus.
"You want to see some neat tricks and get some cool prizes to take home?" Lue asked next in a gargling voice.
The teachers barely had a second to clap their hands over their ears before an even louder "YEAH!" exploded down the vehicle.
"Is it okay? We're pretty far away," one of the teachers whispered, but Champion Infe held up a gloved hand to assure her.
"We have an arrangement with the company, everything's fine," Champion Infe said, then turned around with a look of worry on his elongated face. "Uh oh!" he said with overdone acting. "Looks like Lue's about to sneeze!"
The purple monster shook his long nose in a circle, making exaggerated, "Ah…ah!" noise for a second. He turned and sneezed a cloud of purple glitter onto the bus driver.
All throughout the bus the students laughed. The bus driver who was now covered in purple sparkles even managed a laugh. It left him too distracted to notice a tiny purple cloud in the middle of the storm of glitter zipping into the bus's ignition key, leaving it glowing for just a second before anyone saw it.
Brushing the monster's glitter off his clothes, the bus driver made another good sport smile and pulled out of the Machina Vision parking lot.
"Has your little toy spotted it yet?"
"Which one?" Kamen Rider Sling asked. They made quite a sight, a Kamen Rider in a business suit on the back of a yellow motorcycle with big anime eyes instead of a headlight. Cruising next to them, looking only a little less eye-catching, was Kamen Rider Zero on her sleek black motorcycle, the front tire spinning rapidly under the wolf's head worked into the design.
"Well, I'd say the monster cloud, but that boy with the pizza Gashat has me wondering too!" said the yellow motorcycle, or more properly, Kamen Rider Lazer.
"Stop!" Zero interrupted them. "We have to find Kibi! He's bound to try something crazy!"
Kamen Rider Sling tilted his head. "He is? How do you know him, anyway?"
For a few seconds Zero just stared ahead down the road. Then she said, "He's an old friend. He was always doing stupid things like this."
"Oh yeah?" Sling asked. "Like transforming into a Kamen Rider?"
Again Zero didn't answer for a second. "No," she said. "Doing whatever he thinks of…without thinking."
Sling took a breath to say something else but suddenly the front wheel of his bike swung from side to side and he skidded for a few seconds before regaining control. In those seconds pulled ahead of them.
"Forget it, kid," Lazer said. "She doesn't want to talk, don't push it or you'll just be setting yourself up for trouble."
The Rider shook his head and focused on spotting a target, either that cloud or the weird pizza warrior that Zero seemed so eager to catch up to. Right then one of his Chibi Gashats buzzed urgently at him, and Sling triggered it. A window appeared over it showing a school bus speeding down a city street, swerving from lane to lane as hissing purple sparks jumped off of the wheels. Only someone with sharpened combat senses could've seen the faces of terrified kids swaying back and forth violently behind the windows with all the speed the bus was building up.
"Looks like one of your little friends found the monster cloud," Lazer remarked.
"Looks like he's not the only one who did," Sling replied, spotting a figure in orange armor suddenly turning onto the street behind the bus, pedaling furiously on his bicycle and actually starting to catch up.
Around them the children who'd been so happy to have them on the bus were screaming louder and louder in waves. Champion Infe and Lue laughed evilly at the sound, and the bus driver clutched the wheel with white knuckled-hands, his face a mask of silent terror.
"Who wants a prize?" Champion Infe taunted and whipped a big red pouch out from under his cape and pulled off the string holding it closed. A pair of black snakes jumped out and crawled down the aisle between the seats, getting more screams out of the kids. "Surprise your parents with a new pet!" Infe sneered.
"Look, a Kamen Rider!" a girl shrieked over the noise and pointed out the window at Kamen Rider ZZa, who'd pulled up to the side of the bus on his bike. He turned and gave her a thumbs up. "He'll save us!"
"He'd have to stop this bus and let all of you get hurt to do that!" Champion Infe retorted. "Someone who'd let that happen wouldn't be much of a hero!"
One of the kids kicked him on the shin, and Infe didn't even flinch. "He's a better hero than you! You're a fake hero!" she yelled.
Champion Infe looked down at her, his heroic grin turning sinister when it curled up at the edges. His teeth seemed even longer and the sunglasses built into his helmet flipped up to show sharp, mocking eyes. "Maybe I'm actually teaching you the most important less of your little lives. Only idiots risk themselves to look out for people they don't even know."
"You're a liar!" the girl screamed.
"Maybe you're just a dumb kid," Lue chortled, pointing a stubby monster finger at her. Tears pooled in the girl's eyes and the two villains just laughed even harder.
Then a window shattered and Kamen Rider ZZa came shooting into the bus, looking like an orange missile as he tackled the pair of Corrupture. Both Infe and Lue went down in a heap and struggled to pull themselves apart from each other, and while they were doing that ZZa jumped to the driver's seat and grabbed the top of the ignition key.
It burned in his hand and ZZa stifled a grunt of pain. He started twisting it off but bolts of purple electrical jumped from the key and wrapped up his arm, climbing up it to his shoulder.
But with one last burst of strength Kamen Rider ZZa pulled it down so hard the head of the key snapped off in his hand. The bus jerked forward but finally stopped.
"Everything's gonna be okay now, kids!" he assured them with a wave, not seeming to notice the painful-looking black spot covering his palm. ZZa reached down and grabbed both Corrupture and dragged them out the bus door.
He threw both of them to land on a patch of grass by the side of the road and with one jump he was in front, his shadow over them seeming to stretch to the sky. "Nobody terrorizes little kids and gets away with it!" Kamen Rider ZZa declared.
Champion Infe suddenly launched himself into the sky and then came down landing in a dramatic crouch before he stood back up, hands on his hips. Lue gurgled angrily beside him, and the purple monster bulged and reformed upward. In his most heroically defiant voice, Champion Infe said, "And one Rider's supposed to scare the two of us? And one who hasn't even been immunized from the old virus, by the look of things!"
It was true, small flashes of orange static were breaking out around Kamen Rider ZZa's body every few seconds. He didn't move at all, as if he didn't even notice the ugly blurring effects that flickered in and out all over his body. "It's not an infection, it's an opportunity," ZZa declared. He opened a ring of icons around himself and hit one showing a white rod with a bright pink disc attached to the end.
"Gashacon Wheel!" the weapon floated out, the white rod part attaching to the back of ZZa's arm, and a disc the size of a manhole cover sticking out over his wrist. ZZa clenched his fist and it whirred threateningly at the pair of Corrupture.
"Let's make this quick, shall we, Lue?" Champion Infe suggested with a sneer. The purple monster sniggered and his long nose shrank back into his face, then stretched across the distance between them and ZZa. The red ball on the tip of Lue's nose was aimed at the Rider's head like a giant fist.
It caught Kamen Rider ZZa right in the chest. He didn't budge, and Lue's nose slid off fell onto the ground at the Rider's feet. As the front of his face snapped back to where the rest of Lue was standing, the monster looked almost ashamed.
"That the best you two can do?" ZZa called.
"Is that a challenge?" Champion Infe growled at the topping-decorated hero.
"It sure is!"
Suddenly, Champion Infe launched himself at Kamen Rider ZZa. His powerful fists hit ZZa hard in the chest, Infe's heroic strength multiplied by the speed of his flight. ZZa gasped and stumbled back. Infe allowed himself to grin at getting the upper hand.
Just before ZZa swung his buzzing pizza wheel and caught Infe right in the chest with it. The caped hero didn't even have a chance to make a noise of surprise before he was knocked into the sky.
The monster Lue followed Infe's path into the sky with his eyes in disbelief, then looked down at Kamen Rider ZZa as something seemed to stir in his brain that he'd be next. Lue's wide mouth groaned open, showing a deep blackness inside. Tiny shimmering stars floated in the darkness, then suddenly they started pelting out of Lue's mouth and going off in tiny explosions all over ZZa's body.
Patches of ZZa's infection buzzed all over his body again, but he didn't even seem to notice as he crouched and flipped backward onto the roof of the school bus to avoid another barrage. The Rider pulled back a cocking lever on the oversize pizza wheel attached to his arm. Just as Lue had found his new target and started spitting another stream of stars, ZZa fired back with a blast of pizza condiments from his weird weapon.
Mushrooms. Anchovies. Pepperoni slices. Pepper slices. Olives. Pineapple chunks. All collided with Lue's shooting stars, violent pops erupting where they met. After a few seconds Lue closed his mouth and stepped back panting, his strength spent for. Immediately Kamen Rider ZZa jumped at his alien opponent, holding out the spinning Gashacon Wheel in front of him.
Its razor-sharp cut into Lue's lumpy form like it was nothing but fried dough. The wheel flashed back and forth like a living pink blur. At the same time ZZa reached up and grabbed Lue's stretchy nose, pulled it out and let it snap back like a rubber band. His own nose caught the surprised Lue right between the eyes and knocked him flat on his back. Trash cans and bicycles that were too close to the powerful impact bounced off the ground and fell over.
In the bus, some of the kids who could see what'd just happened to Lue laughed as the ungainly monster went down from a blow from his own nose.
"This Kamen Rider's funny!"
"He's beating the monster with…vegetables?"
"Let me see!"
"No way! There's no room!"
One of the teachers shook her head and went to check on the driver. "Are you all right? Can we get away now?"
The driver shook his head, partly to clear it and partly to mean "no". "That guy snapped off the key," he replied. "We're not going anywhere!"
He was distracted when the kids screamed just before something big and orange slammed into the side of the bus and slid off.
Lue was back on his mismatched feet, stomping closer to the bus and looking extremely angry.
Flashing stars that looked weirdly like pizza slices flashed in front of Kamen Rider ZZa's eyes. Lue's tongue had caught him by surprise and the thing hit like a wrecking ball. Underneath them the ground shook lightly as Lue raked the asphalt with the toes of one foot, as if he was about to charge.
Without any warning a sizzling laser beam shot from somewhere above him. It plowed into Lue's belly and he was pushed back along the ground a few feet, the force of the attack bulging through his body until his back was contorting.
But Lue started to push his feet forward even while his back surged out impossibly behind him. Kamen Rider ZZa looked up, spotting a black robot in the form of a wall perched on top of the bus, the laser beam coming from his mouth. Abruptly the wolf-robot cut off the beam and jumped down, just before the energy that'd been caught in Lue's body bounced back and went screaming past the roof of the bus into the sky.
A hand grabbed ZZa's and pulled him of the ground; it was another Kamen Rider in black armor just like the wolf's. "Rei!" ZZa laughed. "You're finally here!"
"I would've been there right away if you'd stayed in sight," Zero sighed in irritation. "God, you haven't changed at all, have you?"
"Neither have you!" he laughed again. "I bet you could still knock a guy down with one hit!...Or hell, with just a nasty look now!"
"Kibi!" Zero interrupted. "Stop this. You'll get hurt if you don't."
Before he had a chance to reply, Lue suddenly squashed his body down before springing back up, jumping high and blotting out the sun over the two Riders' heads. They desperately scattered before he came down like a wall and caved in the street where his flattened body hit.
Zero shook her head to clear her vision and hurried to get up before Lue had the chance to attack again. The Corruputure had just bounced back KageDon's beam. What could stop an enemy like that?
It seemed like ZZa already had an idea, though, as he had a light green Gashat in one hand. "Farm Level 3!" it said as he hit the trigger. "It's your new life! Life in the breadbasket! HARVEST THE VALLEY!" Then he turned it over and seated it in the backup slot in his Gamer Driver.
Overhead a screen unfolded itself in response to the game Kamen Rider ZZa had just activated: Harvest Valley, showing rolling green hills and tilled fields next to an old farmhouse underneath the logo. Out of it floated a Gamer robot with tiny arms and legs, wearing a wide-brimmed straw hat. It drifted down over Kamen Rider ZZa and attached itself to his shoulders and head, the hat covering his Mohawk and a basket-like container on his back. Attached to the back of his left arm was a rod with a multi-pronged head like a pitchfork.
ZZa was about to charge Lue, but Zero grabbed his shoulder.
"Level 3…are you serious?" Zero asked in shock. "Kibi, you'll never survive with a level that low!"
"Numbers are just excuses not to hit a problem with everything you've got!" ZZa replied in a laughing voice.
"…you're still saying that too, huh?" Zero mumbled.
"You haven't changed a bit either, Rei," ZZa snickered. "I wonder how Dai still puts up with it all."
Then he charged away from her, right at Lue while the gummy monster stretched his nose out like a mace and whipped it at ZZa's head. The heavy ball on the end hit the back of ZZa's helmet with a CLANG but he turned right around, jabbed the Corrupture in the stomach with his pitchfork and hoisted the rubbery monster off the ground.
"I wonder how he would too…" Zero whispered.
Far overhead, Champion Infe hovered in the air, watching the brawl unfolding between Lue and the Riders below. Instead of diving down to attack, the caped hero turned and flew downtown. The Kamen Riders looked suitably distracted to him.
Infe went lower and darted between the skyscrapers, looking for a good viable target. A lonely square of green park space with a few people passing through caught his inhuman eye. He grinned, and landed right in front of a couple walking the concrete path through the middle, hands on his hips and feet the path hard enough to crack it.
"Citizens! I hope you're both having an excellent day!" Champion Infe declared to the two of them, the light gleaming dramatically on his heroic grin.
"We…we were," the lady gasped, her hand over her heart.
"That's a disappointment," Infe said. "I was hoping to ruin it with this." He reared back his head and exhaled purple gas all over them. In seconds it had covered half the park, and people all over were falling to their knees coughing.
Then they stood back up, with purple virus cells in place of their heads.
Champion Infe rubbed his gloved hands together, his giant grin turning menacing again. "Perfect…" he said in a gloating tone.
However he looked up as he heard a strange screeching noise above him and looked up to see a tiny fighter jet diving down at him, cannons blazing and tearing little holes in Infe's cape. The Chibi Gamer pulled up for another pass.
"Hey, you're ruining the look!" the hero complained.
That was nothing compared to the floating miniature battleship that came up out of a storm drain and fired its adorable main cannon at the back of Infe's head. As the shell exploded and sent pieces of his helmet flying, a miniature yellow motorcycle zoomed out and rammed Infe on the back of his legs, bowling him over.
Like any proper hero he recovered quickly, and took off into the air. Champion Infe clapped his hands together, surrounding them in a yellow glow. He swept one muscular arm and a blade of light passed along behind it, slicing through the jet and battleship Chibi Gamers. Infe then pointed an accusing finger at the little motorcycle, a bolt of energy ripping from the tip and exploding the bike into a little pile of colorful pixels.
Infe looked with contempt at the other little yellow motorcycle coming his way.
It wasn't until the rider, a masked man in a business suit, shot him with a rifle that Infe realized it wasn't as small as the one he'd just destroyed.
Lue splatted and slid off as he was thrown into the side of a car, only to flow back onto his feet. Kamen Rider Zero immediately launched into an attack, snapping the barrel off her golden pistol, twisting the knife blade out and slicing at Lue with it.
She wasn't the only one. "Vegetarian Special!" Kamen Rider ZZa laughed before a green pepper and a brown mushroom both a foot tall ejected out of the basket he wore over his back. They came down and he sliced through both with his arm-mounted weapons—the giant pizza cutter and now a scythe on the other. Both blades chopped through the vegetables into smaller segments that cut into Lue's body like shuriken and sent tiny purple pieces flying off.
"Come a little closer, Rider! Let me give you a hug!" Lue growled and reached out for Zero with his stretchy arms. She ducked underneath and they wrapped around Lue's own body instead.
While the Corrupture was trying to wrestle free of himself, Kamen Rider Zero whistled. KageDon, her black wolf robot, growled and pounced Lue, who hit the ground with a SPLAT. With bright steel claws he slashed at Lue again and again, until the monster managed to plant a foot on KageDon and kick him off.
"Hey Rei, you saw it, right?" ZZa called to his old friend.
"Yeah, I saw," she called back. "His weakness is blades. If we cut him we can hurt him."
"If you had an army!" Lue taunted them.
"We've got more than an army!" ZZa laughed, and looked at Zero. "Right, Rei?" She didn't answer him, she didn't even look his way. "Rei," ZZa called, more gently. "Don't you have faith in the games Dai made for us?"
Her reply was silent, but said more than words would've. Zero pulled the game loaded underneath her chest armor and locked in her other game, Bare-Fisted Monk. She leaned back, raised her arms in a practiced fighter's stance. The edges of her gloves seemed to shine for a moment with cutting force.
"That's a lot better," ZZa said with a smiling tone. "You ready?"
"Bare-Fisted Critical Chops!" Zero's gear announced.
"Guess so," ZZa chuckled, then loaded his backup Gashat into its slot on his giant pizza wheel. "Valley Critical Harvest!" The Gashacon Wheel whirred threateningly, shooting off sparks that were, strangely, shaped like vegetables.
Lue growled and stretched his arms out at the pair of Riders, who rolled out of the way. "You'll never beat me! I'll spread until I cover the planet!" he roared.
Zero put her fingers to her mouthplate and whistled. KageDon growled and pounced on the monster along with both Riders, claws bared.
Kamen Rider ZZa dragged his sparking wheel from one corner of Lue's body to another, carving out long triangles that looked weirdly like pizza slices. Zero attacked him from the front, striking precise blows with her hands that cut like swords, while KageDon faithfully charged from the other side, hacking with his dagger-like claws.
"Stop! STOP! This isn't supposed to happen!" Lue wailed as more and more pieces of his rubbery form flew away from him. The Riders' combined attack was so furious that in a matter of seconds there was nothing left, except the usual stream of energy from a defeated Corrupture flowing back into their prison in the sky and a layer of gold coins all over the ground.
ZZa sighed and leaned back on his heels, chuckling softly. "It was just like Dai said it'd be, wasn't it?" he asked.
"Yeah," Zero replied, painting a little from the furious attack. Even KageDon seemed to be panting, nosing her hand at the same time like he was trying to get Zero's attention. "It was intense."
"Intense?" ZZa laughed and playfully nudged her shoulder with one hand. "This is amazing! Dai was right! We can do anything like this!"
"He was right," Zero answered. "These games he made for us are amazing," she added, but then looked away.
Behind them, the door to the school bus opened and a river of children started to gush out and surround the pair of Riders. A few tried to climb on top of KageDon, who shook them off as gently as he could and jumped to the roof of the bus to get away. ZZa tilted his head and focused the gaze of his giant anime eyes on his old friend instead.
"…Is everything all right? Where is Dai, anyway?" ZZa asked over the cheering kids.
She flinched away from the question.
A Corrupture Cell, in a worn-out salaryman's suit, managed to lunge out of the pack of them trying to catch up to Kamen Rider Lazer. The bike-Rider made a noise of surprise and was about to put on a desperate burst of speed before he spotted a wall of virus-headed people in front of them.
Sling's rifle snarled and the salaryman-Cell burst, flowing away into the sky until he was sent forth again like all defeated Corrupture. He held onto the handlebars with his other hand while Lazer skidded to a stop. The Cells had formed a tight circle around them. "Got any bright ideas?" Lazer asked.
"Can't you jump like this?" Sling asked.
"If I had room," Lazer protested.
"Hold my gun," Sling replied and set his rifle on Lazer's handlebars. He didn't listen to Lazer's indignant "oy", instead getting his attache case from where it hung on his shoulders and flipped it open. A flurry of holographic screens floated out of it. Kamen Rider Sling ran his eyes down the list of corporate expenditures his Chase Billion game allowed, then tapped an option that said "Motorcycle Jump Publicity Stunt".
He didn't even look at the fictional money being drained from his account, all he looked around for was the motorcycle ramp he'd just "bought", a bright yellow with flames painted on the side.
"Hey, you aren't bad, kid!" Lazer said before he whipped himself around zoomed up the ramp, over the heads of the Corrupture Cells surrounding them.
"Too bad he's about to be dead!"
Overhead Champion Infe was flying down right at them, fingertips glowing as he warmed up a shot.
"Hey kid, you see my black Gashat?" Lazer asked hurriedly.
"Yeah…?" Sling replied.
"Put in the slot next to the other one! I got an idea!"
Sling didn't argue, the evil superhero was about to crash into them. The black Gashat locked into place with a proud "ga-chan". Sling flipped off as the bike he'd been riding started to transform into something else.
If it weren't for all the momentum he was already flying from, Champion Infe might've stopped cold at what he saw. The motorcycle that'd been arcing up at him combined with a little robot into a Kamen Rider, clad in yellow and black armor. His mask had ridged golden spines sticking off the brow at sharp angles, a row of pink spikes decorating the top of his head. Under the health bar on his chest were icons showing an archery bow and a small scythe.
Like the pair of pink and yellow blades in his hands that Lazer raked across the surprised Champion Infe's chest.
"Now, kid! Hit 'em with everything you got!" Lazer yelled over his shoulder at Sling. Sling ran down the holographic list of stunts he had available, and tapped his finger twice to confirm next to "Inaugurate New International Headquarters With Fireworks".
A ring of rockets sprouted from the ground, totally surrounding the ground where all the remaining Corrupture Cells were standing under Champion Infe. They growled and clawed at the air, trying to help their stronger brother.
They wouldn't get the chance. The rockets' fuses lit by themselves. Seconds later the entire circle of ground lifted into the air and slammed into Champion Infe. Sling just had a chance to see Lazer make a desperate jump off the island before it was completely destroyed in a storm of colorful explosions.
It was still going on when Kamen Rider Lazer limped over to Sling. "The games you kids use now are crazy," he said with a shake of his head.
Sling couldn't resist a soft chuckle before he said, "Welcome to the next level."
A little while later they managed to catch to Rei and her weird friend, who was leaning on her as they walked, bursts of orange static still popping up all over his body. Kiriya had refused to let them move while he called an ambulance, and soon Kibi was lying on in the observation room in the CR Ward.
Kiriya and Emu leaned over him, puzzled by the obviously virus infection, but how Kibi wasn't starting to turn transparent like other sufferers in stages as advanced as his obviously should've been.
"Hey," Kiriya said behind his hand, and whispered, "Are you sure your friend's a human?"
Rei just shook her head, but chuckled in the middle of it all the same. "Kibi's always just been…Kibi. He always said, 'when you have passion, everything else is just details.' "
"You do remember, huh?" Kibi replied with a labored smile.
"Maybe you'd care to tell us a little more about how you two know each other?" Emu suggested with the friendliest smile in his repertoire.
She started to stand, but Kibi cupped his old friend's wrist with his hand and sat up byhimself. "Yes, doctor, I'll be happy to tell you that," Kibi answered for himself. "We knew each other when we were kids, growing up in a little rural town down south. Dai and Rei already knew what they were gonna do when they grew up. Rei's dad owned that big computer company, and Dai always said he was gonna marry her and start a new branch that made video games. He had so many crazy ideas…like that one about the pirates, Rei? Remember that one? Didn't he call it High Seas Raiders or something goofy like that?"
Yoshoku frowned when he heard that name. "High Seas Scourge?" he asked. It was indeed familiar to him…
"Yeah, that was definitely it," Kibi replied, but quickly picked up his previous line. "Anyway, me, I always wanted to do something more down to earth. Like start my own chain of pizza restaurants…tell me, what do you guys think of 'Pizza Craps: Where Everyone Comes Up a Winner'?"
Exchanging an incredulous look with Emu, Kiriya replied, "I'd keep working on that one, kid."
He waved his hand to dismiss the question and went on. "I got a lootbox as a present from Dai with the Driver and this game in it, Ju Ju Pizza. He said he hoped my dream was coming true, and that I could use the game he sent me to be my own mascot."
"Wait a minute," Rei interrupted and gave him a harsh look. "Dai sent you a present?"
"Sure he did," Kibi answered, looking slightly confused. "Why wouldn't Dai do something nice for me?"
Rei leaned back against the wall and looked away. "Never mind."
Kibi looked at her strangely for a few seconds, but shook his head and resumed his story. "But I thought two mascots would be even better than one, and I heard the other Kamen Riders had a game that made a friendly monster, so I came to see if I could convince them to let me have it."
"What about the virus, Kibi-san?" Emu prompted him.
The patient looked at him in surprise. "The what? Oh, right. We don't really have good healthcare in the town we're from…that's part of why I need to get the restaurant off the ground soon, so I can start bringing some money in. That's why I decided to come and get that game to use for my business like Dai's note said."
Emu looked thoughtful, and left the room for a minute. When he came back he had a yellow Gashat in his hand, with a boy on skates serving a hamburger. "Ju Ju Burger" read the name on the label.
"Thank you, Emu-san," Kibi said, but grabbed it roughly out of the doctor's hands, and jammed the clear circuit board up against his chest. Immediately Kibi's entire body erupted with orange static again, but strangely it all drifted into where the Ju Ju Burger Gashat was pressed into him. As if there were a magnet attracting the infection to that one spot.
A bright glow came from the tip of the game, getting more and more intense as clusters of orange static flowed out of Kibi's body. His face twisted into a silent scream of pain. Rei and the doctors lunged for him.
But then it was already over. Kibi held the Gashat out to his side and the light solidified into a humanoid form. Whatever he was, his body was covered in dull bronze and silver-colored armor. His right arm ended in a hand, the other arm was a conveyer belt with hamburger ingredients stuck to it—lettuce, tomato slice, the top half of the bun…
Perhaps it followed naturally then that instead of a head, on top of his shoulders was an enormous hamburger. A bite was taken out of the side, slightly off-center, and through the opening peeked a shiny black face with one green eye and a long, skinny mouth.
Kibi greeted the confused-seeming figure with a smile. "Hello, you must be Burgermon. My name's Kibi, and my dream is to serve people delicious food."
"I like delicious food," the burger-headed monster replied.
"Will you help me achieve my dream, Burgermon?" Kibi asked.
The monster looked at him as if confused. "You have one of those games. Does that mean you're a Kamen Rider?"
Before Kibi had a chance to answer, Rei propped him up and smiled at Burgermon. "It sure does. He's the most special Kamen Rider there is: he's a chef and a warrior for justice."
"That sounds really nice of him," Burgermon said. Kibi looked back at Rei, his expression slightly surprised at what his old friend had just said about him. She smiled back at him, then she noticed Yoshoku looking at her.
He smiled too.
Rei looked away, her cheeks turning a shade of pink.
In front of Ayatsu Shuugouteki's eyes, the newsfeed scrolled by on the bottom of his TV screen. He couldn't miss it, it was even being shown on those giant screens on the sides of buildings on the streets.
A pair of Riders—none that reported to the Machina Vision CEO—were shown hacking a purple monster to bits in front of a school bus. One that, the report pointedly noted, had been on a field trip to Machina Vision headquarters.
"Where the hell were our people when this was happening a few feet from our doorstep?" he demanded."
"Right here, father," came the sharp reply from his son, Suihei, perhaps better known as Kamen Rider Corsair. "Unfortunately, our Gashats were being tuned for new upgrades at the time in question."
It was a minute before Ayatsu knew how to reply. He'd gotten angry in Suihei's presence more than once. Their great plan demanded a lot of Ayatsu, and his unshakeable CEO's façade slipped sometimes slipped around the few people who knew his vision.
But Suihei had always been eager for his father's approval. To hear him speaking like that…
Ayatsu sucked in a loud, menacing breath as he recovered quickly from his unpleasant surprise. "That's enough, Suihei," he growled. His son flinched back for a second, but the scowl quickly formed again.
This was getting nowhere. But their unity project was finally heading into the early phases of final testing, it was bound to wear on all of them sometime. "Go and make sure those upgrades are finished. We'll be needing them very soon to make up for this little display," Ayatsu said, dismissing his younger son with a wave.
Suihei didn't need to hear it twice. He went down the hall and flashed his ID badge at a sensor in front of the private executive elevator. It went down silently to a secure room somewhere in the middle of the building, where he saw his older brother Senjou leaning outside a pair of sealed doors. As usual Senjou looked totally nonchalant, arms folded over his chest and a mildly amused smile appeared as he saw his brother coming closer.
"Did the news give father a stroke?" Senjou asked conversationally.
"Close enough to it," Suihei grunted and flashed his ID at a sensor next to the door. A panel slid open with a pad for his handprint while a camera in the wall scanned his face.
Senjou laughed lightly and gently pushed his younger brother's shoulder. "Don't start being an ass, or you're on your own." He got no answer as the door unlocked with a loud shifting of bars and gears, but probably hadn't been expecting one.
Sitting on a counter on the small white room inside were a small pile of Gashats, a small stack for Senjou's, with Suihei's familiar High Seas Scourge game off to the side.
"You're Level 55 now, huh little brother?" Senjou asked him. "Try to enjoy it, okay?"
His younger brother didn't say anything. Instead Suihei was staring silently through the bulletproof glass, at the sight they saw every time they came to get their upgraded Gashats. At the teenage boy seated at the giant computer console on the other side. His face was a mixture of filthy and shiny with spots of grey dirt and others with his skin glistening from sweat. His eyes were kept open with a metal frame fastened to his face, and his arms were held upright by metal tendrils fastened to rings in the ceiling.
There was something in Suihei's gaze that hadn't been there before, as he watched the teen programming away at even further upgrades to their games.
Then he turned away and followed Senjou back out of the room. Behind them the heavy security door closed and sealed itself again, leaving Dai Gakusha trapped once again.
Standing at the rear entrance to the hospital, Emu Hojo waved goodbye. Kibi and Burgermon were leaving through the loading area, the only place Emu had thought they might not be seen and cause a panic with the other patient. They didn't even seem to see the young doctor, with how enthusiastically Kibi was explaining all the plans he had for his restaurant empire.
The door slammed shut and Emu turned to face the hall and get back to his usual rounds. As soon as he got back to the main hallway, someone was waiting for him.
Doctor Kiriya Kujo was leaning against the wall, a jacket resting on his shoulders and one shoot pressed against the wall in a way doctors were told to avoid with all the filth on the bottom of the average shoe.
What Emu really noticed was how Kiriya was grinning like a demon.
"Emu. How was your day?" Kiriya asked.
"Fine," Emu asked.
"Being just a doctor working out okay for you?" Kiriya pressed on.
"It's good knowing the difference I'm making, and it's kind of satisfying to be able to do that in a way that doesn't involve being a Kamen Rider," Emu answered, but his face turned serious. "That's not really what you're asking, though, is it?"
A very familiar sly smile lit up Kiriya's face, and Emu started instinctively raising his guard before he reminded himself just what the other doctor had put himself through to prove his worth. "The head of GENM of America's coming to Japan. He and I had a very interesting discussion about your future as a Kamen Rider."
See you next GamE