The dual monitors were alive on the back wall of Ayatsu Shuugouteki's office.
One showed Kamen Rider Corsair, brandishing the biggest gun any Rider ever hard, blowing away robotic security guards on tank treads. He ran up to a pair of heavy metal doors and stabbed his barbed sword into a code lock panel on the side.
While the sparks flew from the panel, Ayatsu watched Kamen Rider Snipe trying to run up the staircase that Corsair himself had just left behind. However Snipe was quickly pinned down by laserfire from a pair of Auto Player sentries at the top of the stairs, and another pair perched on a higher ledge. A hail of lasers poured down, tearing holes in the steps and landings. Snipe retreated but fired back at the Auto Players with his Gashacon Magnum.
A bullet went through one of the Auto Players' heads. Sparks flew and it fell off its perch, smashing into a heap of junk on the floor. The rest of Snipe's fire went wild from his hurried retreat from the sentries Corsair had left behind to block pursuit.
Ayatsu dug his fingernails into the armrest of his chair. Perhaps the Auto Players would be more powerful if he'd been using that upgrade center that had been built out of nothing out in front of his company's office building.
He couldn't very well trust such a massive gift from his worst enemy though, could he? It had to be a trap. Anything that came out of there would just be waiting for the most delicate moment to turn and attack Machina Vision. Right when they were so close. So close to finally going live their ultimate project…
A miniature battleship cruised into sight at the bottom of the stairs and Kamen Rider Snipe came charging back into view, wearing the ungainly armor of his Level 50 form. The Auto Players blasted away with their arm cannons but the shots only glanced off Snipe now. The battleship cannons Snipe was packing lit up and the air was filled with return fire. It actually pushed through the lasers raining down before ripping molten holes in the androids' chest. They slumped over as the light went out in their eyes.
Snipe charged up the stairs. At the same time the metal doors Corsair had been waiting for slid open wide enough for him to squeeze through. Sitting on the other side was a frightened teen girl, as least as far as could be told with her arms and legs tied, and her mouth covered with a strip of duct tape. Corsair touched the girl's shoulder and she faded away in a burst of light. The simulated damsel in distress had been rescued.
Machina Vision had won another of the Corrupture's little games.
Ayatsu would deal with the problems from that later, though. He turned to face the other monitor.
There he saw something he could let himself be satisfied with lingering doubts. A Kamen Rider in white armor tore at the chain wrapped around his throat with his fingers. Another Kamen Rider, a tattered white bandana with "Blood Gang" written across the front, came into view in a flying kick that sent up a giant HIT graphic as his foot slammed into the white Rider's stomach.
Kamen Rider Utsura landed hard but before he even stopped skidding Buster started running again. He jumped and came down in another vicious kick that drove both feet into Utsura's ribs.
A pink-armored Kamen Rider, curved quills marking his forehead, charged through Buster's spinning chains to save his ally. In Ex-Aid's hands was his trademark mallet with neon highlights, that he slammed into his enemy's chest as hard as he could.
For once that day, Ayatsu was pleased at what he saw. Kamen Rider Buster not budging at all from the attack.
Slapping a button on the grip of his chain-whip. It made the two chains retract into the grip, and a long, curved top extended from one side. It looked like a baseball bat.
It probably felt like one too when Buster belted Ex-Aid in the side with it. A cloud of HIT graphics erupted from the impact and the pink Rider himself went flying.
Ex-Aid rolled with the force and probably avoided much injury; Ayatsu couldn't make out the health bar on his chest armor to tell. He moved into a counterattack quickly, Ex-Aid's hand already going to the roller on the game locked into his belt.
That was too small for Ayatsu to see either, but the results certainly weren't. Ex-Aid's Gashacon Breaker weapon faded away, and was replaced in the pink Rider's hands with a soccer ball. He dropped it to the ground and kicked it as hard as he could at Kamen Rider Buster.
Suddenly the ball changed into a comet. It collided with Buster's chest and actually knocked him onto his back before rocketing off into the distance. Buster jumped back up on his feet and was on the attack again right away. Of course, Ayatsu knew, Ex-Aid was fighting him to run interference for Buster's real target.
A white streak zoomed by the fight. It was a strange vehicle made of one giant wheel, its driver sitting inside it with a pair of excited children seated behind him. Kamen Rider Utsura was at the wheel, but in the blink of an eye he was gone down the street.
Buster's eyes followed Utsura for a few seconds, but his target was already out of reach. And in those few seconds where Buster was distracted Ex-Aid took a powerful leap into the air, onto the roof of a car down the street. Another jumped took him to the roof a building, and with another he was ought sight just like Utsura.
"Off!" Ayatsu barked. Obediently both monitors automatically went dark.
Already he was cringing, wondering what kind of loaded "reward" the leader of the Corrupture was going to show up and stick him with this time. And yet what could anyone in his position do? If the Riders opposing Machina Vision were to get one of the Corrupture's prizes, they might even be crazy enough to use it.
Against him.
When they were so close to a breakthrough on the Unity Project.
Ayatsu steepled his fingers in front of his face. Still, despite everything else lining up against him, his greatest effort was almost complete.
Hourakou Byougen wouldn't keep that infuriating grin of his for long, when he was faced by the combined power of the human race.
He wanted to leave.
Kensei Hidenaga found himself lying in the observation room in the CR Ward once again, itchy bandages wrapped all around his torso and arms. They'd gotten away with those trapped kids, but Buster had taken him by surprise again and gotten in some really good shots. It had to mean Machina Vision figured out that he the vital link in Emu being able to change into a Kamen Rider again.
That if they got rid of Utsura, they'd get rid of Ex-Aid too.
It had been like that before, with Emu's power to transform being tied to another Rider. That Rider was gone now, and Kensei was—hopefully temporarily—filling in by giving Emu his ability to change again. It was a major asset having the greatest Kamen Rider of them all back on their side, but it painted on a target on the person who made it possible too.
In the corner of the room the door hissed before it opened and allowed visitors in. The first didn't surprise Kensei, it was Doctor Emu Hojo. Just a step behind him, clad in shorter sleeves and skirt with the warming weather, was Kiiko Mishiranu.
Not surprising Kensei, Kiiko pushed past the doctor and blurted out, "Are you all right?"
"Well, I think Emu's about to tell us," Kensei replied, trying to give her a reassuring smile.
"You're mostly okay," Emu replied. "That is, you will be if you take it easy for a while."
Kensei fixed his gaze on the young doctor. "I don't think I'm gonna get the chance, do you? Those kids getting trapped when that Game Area expanded…it feels like somebody set that up to happen, doesn't it?"
"Yes, I'm sure it did," Emu answered. "But take it easy for now at least, please, Kensei-san?"
"I'll rest while I can, Doctor Hojo," Kensei answered. He was surprised when the doctor reached out and lightly flicked a finger against his forehead.
"Emu."
"Right, sorry," Kensei apologized. Emu nodded and walked back out of the room again, leaving the two alone.
Almost deliberately.
He expected Kiiko to say something to him. About what he planned to do next or about the hero standing up to his enemies or something. Kiiko did do something, gently tugging on his arm to indicate to him to sit up. When he did she stepped around the bed and started to rub the heels of her hands into her shoulders in slow circular motions.
"Does it hurt a lot?" she almost whispered.
"Only when I breathe," Kensei answered, attempting a joking smile, but Kiiko's growing look of horror stopped that cold. "Buster's really out to get me. I'll be feeling it for a while I think, yeah."
"You're going to keep fighting, though," Kiiko whispered. It wasn't a question. They both knew it wasn't.
"It's what the game's big hero's supposed to do, right?" Kensei answered her. "When there's a big scary bad guy he's supposed to work hard and get even stronger than them, right?"
Kiiko leaned back and rested on her hands. "I don't really like the sound of that," she said to his back.
Turning around, and grimacing from his new injuries, Kensei reached out and put his hands on her shoulders. "We've come a long way, haven't we?" he asked.
She nodded, then turned her back to Kensei. He knitted his brown in surprise until she leaned back against him. Kiiko's hair brushed his chest and her head came to rest on top of his shoulder. "We really have," she admitted.
"You bring your PortPlay?" Kensei asked.
Kiiko immediately held up the portable console, as if it had just been in her hand the whole time. "I always bring it," she told him.
He chuckled. "I believe that…want to play Salty Jr.? It's turning out to be pretty good."
"I get to be Wighty," Kiiko immediately answered.
"I should be Wighty," Kensei argued, but with a smile. "I'm the real one. I need the practice."
"I need to practice it to tell you better ways to be like him," Kiiko retorted, but also with a smile.
Again he chuckled. "All right, all right," Kensei admitted defeat. He leaned over the edge of the bed to get his PortPlay out of his bag.
For that moment, there was peace.
"I don't know about this."
"It's kind of late to say no."
"It sure is!" Doctor Kiriya Kujo exclaimed. Rei scowled and motioned harshly for him to lower his voice before anyone came in to see what the noise was. They were in one of the back rooms of Yoshoku's house, but he half-expected his father to be hoping for something new out of his and Rei's "relationship" with them visiting the house together.
Obligingly, Kiriya more quietly added, "Secret conspiracies are so much fun, you know. When I saw you starting a new one, I couldn't resist."
Rei scowled a little harder. Yoshoku settled back in his chair and looked hard at Doctor Kujo, trying to read anything about his intent. Yet the only thing on his face was that goofy grin that dominated his expressions at all times.
Then again, he couldn't really be there to drag them back to their parents and tattle on what they'd been planning to do, could he?
"Look, what do you think we're doing?" Rei asked, testing Kiriya, it sounded like.
"It looks like you're trying to figure out how to break into Machina Vision," Kiriya replied, still grinning but talking in a whisper. Maybe that meant they could trust him to stay quiet, if he was making a point not to be overheard, Yoshoku let himself think. "Not exactly legal, but desperate times, desperate measures, that kind of thing. Believe me, I get it."
A very unexpected thing happened next, in Yoshoku's mind. Rei looked at him, meeting his eyes and forming her mouth into a slightly anxious shape. Was she asking for his input? He did know the CR Riders better of the two of them.
A little.
Had she been fighting Machina Vision so hard by herself, the idea of letting other people in was really so hard for her? Even when a veteran Rider was offering it with a smile and an outstretched hand the way Kiriya was?
Yoshoku cleared his threat. "Dr. Kujo, we're trying to keep this small to minimize the risk."
"I figured. That's why I came alone."
Rei leaned forward then. "And this is deeply personal to me," she whispered. "Machina Vision's getting desperate, and I'm sure our time is running out. We can't be babysitting anyone who can't take care of themselves."
We can't? Had Yoshoku heard her right? Was Rei already considering him on the inside?
As Yoshoku was expecting, Kiriya hardly reacted at all to Rei's warning. "I learned a trick or two of my own as a Rider. I can still keep up with you kids, don't worry about me," he replied.
Rei sighed. "You could help us out a lot," she admitted. "So this is what we'd need—"
Kiriya leaned forward onto the table, planting his elbows and resting his chin on his hands. Rei and Yoshoku leaned back a little in surprise.
"You two make the cutest couple, you know," Kiriya smirked.
"Thank you for that, Dr. Kujo," Yoshoku said, fighting an urge to roll his eyes.
He wasn't surprised when Rei said nothing.
A huge white projectile came down at a horrific pace.
Kamen Rider Utsura bounced it back up with a practiced tap from his hammer.
It arched back the other way, where Kamen Rider Ex-Aid served it back Utsura's way with a knock from his own hammer.
At the same time both Riders jumped, flipped through the air in perfect symmetry and once they were upright again both hit the ball at the same time, shattering it into a rainbow of pixel blocks.
All the kids who'd been watching started to clap. A few got up and tried to swarm the impromptu stage, but the Riders were already slipping out the back as they waved goodbye.
Behind them the door of the hospital's staff entrance closed. In front of them, the non-descript car with tinted windows stood waiting for them, engine quietly humming in readiness to take them away.
"You're getting better at bowling ball tennis," Emu nudged with his elbow.
"The kids really enjoy that?" Kensei asked.
"Couldn't you hear them?"
"I was focusing a little harder on the bowling ball that kept coming down at my face," Kensei replied.
Both of them climbed into the backseat of the car. The driver put it in gear and pulled away from the hospital. Kensei felt a little strange as they left; it was a hospital farther away from where he lived than Seito University, and the streets were unfamiliar as they drove.
Gingerly, he rubbed at his neck. There were still sore grooves from when Kamen Rider Buster wrapped a chain around it. For the first time Kensei really noticed all the places someone might be hiding on the city streets—in the shadows of doorways, narrow spaces between buildings, behind darkened windows—and his mind did the rest.
Imagining Kamen Rider Buster crouching in any of them, all of them. Until Kensei least suspected it and would be the most vulnerable to a surprise attack.
Then it would be something even worse than a chain tied around his throat…
"Hey," Emu nudged him again. "Don't panic."
"I'm not panicking."
"It's something we learn to recognize in a patient," Emu explained. "And discourage, Kensei-san. You don't have to worry about facing this alone."
Kensei rubbed his throat again. "That's not what I'm worried about. I'm worried about what if we can't stop this guy at all. His power's insane for a Rider at Level 50…and he's gonna come back for another shot at us soon."
"That's a good sign," Emu said. Kensei turned around to give the doctor a puzzled look. "You said 'us'," Emu clarified.
"Yeah well, I guess it's always been that way for me and the other newer Riders. It seemed to me the other two new Riders and I had pretty small differences between us," Kensei replied. "Sorry, I don't mean to brag about it or anything. From what I heard, you had it a lot rougher getting along with the other Riders."
Emu shrugged lightly. "We made it through all that. I'm sure we can make it through this new battle too."
Suddenly there was a crunch of metal and they were thrown forward. Seatbelts dug into their skin. The two rebounded back into their seats, everything seeming to spin for a few seconds from the sudden whiplash.
When they could see again, neither Emu or Kensei were surprised with what their eyes conveyed. Standing on the hood of the car, his chain whip spinning in both hands, was Kamen Rider Buster.
He lashed it across the windshield and carved right through the front of the car, just missing the driver's head. Kensei tore off his seatbelt, turned and slammed his elbow against the car's rear window. A spider web of cracks splayed out on the glass and red lines of blood formed on Kensei's arm. He slammed his elbow into the glass again and then it gave way. Shining fragments flew through the air, but Emu and Kensei were more focused on hauling themselves through their improvised exit.
Buster jumped over the car, ignoring the driver, and landing in front of his real targets. They were ready, games in hand. "Henshin!" Emu and Kensei yelled together. A burst of garish power transformed them into a pair of powerful Kamen Riders.
…but powerful enough?
"I've got an idea," Utsura suggested. "Think you can keep ahead of him, and distract him with Mighty Bowl?"
"You bet I can," Ex-Aid clapped his shoulder.
They split, running off in opposite directions just before Buster's twin chains lashed across the air, aimed at their throats. Instead the chains tore through glass and concrete on opposite sides of the street and shaved off the top of their car, Ex-Aid and Utsura going into practiced dodge rolls forward just in time.
Utsura came up aiming himself right at Buster, a bomb in each hand. He heaved them at Buster's chest, but didn't pay attention as they bounced off and landed next to Buster's feet. Instead Utsura rolled into a ball, spun over Buster's then extended his feet to plant them on the enemy Rider's shoulders and vault away with new force.
Behind the white Rider his bombs went off at the same time. A explosion cloud went off around Buster, one gigantic HIT graphic spreading from one side to the other.
Then a crimson laser hit Utsura in the side.
He veered off to his right at a crazy angle and slammed into a wall, knocking the breath out of his lungs. Above him three Auto Players stood on the corner of a building, lasers attached to both hands and another pair mounted on their shoulders. Also what looked like circuit paths flowing with a faint purple light on the screens on their chest armor.
Twelve beams lanced down at the same point. "Not today!" Utsura screamed, jumping as high as he could. The concentrated beams burned right through the ground but Utsura was already almost at the Auto Players' eye level.
That was when he lobbed a bomb at the edge where they stood.
Its fuse ran out just before it made contact and another explosion cloud almost as big as the one that surrounded Buster erupted. The three Auto Players tumbled out of the bottom and hit the ground a second before Utsura did.
And they got right up and fired at him again.
This wasn't how it was supposed to go, Utsura thought desperately. If he couldn't deal with these quickly, he wouldn't be able to team up with Ex-Aid against the real threat. Since when were Auto Players so tough they'd survive an explosion and falling off a building unharmed anyway?
Utsura hit the buttons on the side of his Gashacon Breaker, extending its blade. His backpack opened and ejected a string of three bombs. They came down and Utsura knocked all three at the Auto Players just as another barrage of lasers came his way. The bombs went off and covered them in smoke. Utsura fell down onto his back to dodge their beams.
Then had to roll frantically to his side just as another pair of lasers stabbed down at him from more Auto Players not far away.
The ball was heavy in Ex-Aid's hands. He wasn't sure if he'd ever actually gone bowling in real life.
Then again, he was pretty sure he could remember the important parts from playing the game whose power filled him now.
"Here comes a strike!" he said, swinging the ball with one arm like a windmill. As it came down from behind, he let go.
Immediately the ball was surrounded by a trail of fire and started picking up incredible speed. Kamen Rider Buster whirled his chains in front of him like a rotor to defend himself. Ex-Aid clenched a nervous fist, afraid his unusual weapon wouldn't have the strength to break through Buster's defensive barrier.
And then it blew right through, hitting Buster and knocking him into a wall with an echoing sound of bowling pins clattering.
"Strike!" Ex-Aid yelled, thrusting his fist up in affirmation. Another bowling ball appeared resting on it and he went into another wind-up.
Buster pushed himself off the wall. One strong hand was still curled around the grip of his weapon but he gasped from the force of the attack that'd just hit him. Ex-Aid released the ball and it went even faster than the one before. It burst into flames after only a few feet.
The ball hit Kamen Rider Buster and knocked him into the wall, leaving a huge dent of cracked cement around him.
But he had one hand on his mask already.
Almost as if he was making a show of it, Buster yanked the Dual Gashat into view and twisted its knob. "10-Count Wrestling!" the recorded voice yelled. Buster locked it back into place and it disappeared. Ex-Aid was about to roll another ball. "Bowl Critical League!" his Driver's voice echoed out.
Then he let it go.
It transformed into a huge flaming wheel, one of the bowling game's most dramatic super shots. Kamen Rider Buster's body was already swelling to nearly twice its size as he changed modes to his pro wrestling game. He held out his thick muscular arms and caught Ex-Aid's flaming bowling ball before it could crash into him at full speed. Buster braced himself and leaned into the fiery projectile, the flames of his own new form jumping up and seeming to join those from Ex-Aid's attack as they pushed against each other with terrifying force.
"Come on…come on!" Ex-Aid said, as if that might make his attack win the contest of strength with Kamen Rider Buster.
With a deafening blast of noise, the contest of power ended. Buster grabbed Ex-Aid's bowling ball and tossed it into the sky where it got smaller and smaller until it was only a point of light against the darkness.
Then even that was gone.
And then Kamen Rider Buster was charging across the street to shoulder-check Ex-Aid.
Next the hero was flying.
A laser burned into Kamen Rider Utsura's shoulder, but he clenched his teeth and ignored it. The car that'd been chauffeuring them was squealing away down the street, so at least the driver was getting away.
Another laser stabbed out aimed at the middle of Utsura's back. Just before the beam impacted, Utsura launched himself into the air and somersaulted over the heads of four Auto Players. Coming down he snapped the blade from the Gashacon Breaker and slashed off the head of the android at the rear. The Auto Player's body slumped forward while Utsura bounced the head upward with a knock from his hammer, then went into a roundhouse kick. His attack knocked the severed mechanical head like a ball into the surviving attack androids. All three went down like a row of dominos.
Utsura's ears still rang with the metal echo of the Auto Players hitting the ground when they literally levitated back into a standing position. He was off and running into his next attack, not expecting them to stay down for longer than a second. The Rider jumped to the roof of a parked van and jumped off again as a storm of laser beams from Auto Players sniping from a rooftop sheared off the top.
He landed on top of a floating block and jumped off again in the direction of another one just as another barrage of lasers smashed it to pieces. A bright pink coin came spinning out the block's remains, right into Utsura's hand. Bracing himself like a Frisbee thrower, Utsura hurled the coin he'd just picked up ahead of him, toward the sniper's nest of Auto Players already aiming at the floating block where he was crouched.
Once, twice, Utsura's backpack popped open ejecting a bomb. With two swats from his Gashacon Breaker he knocked both bombs into the spinning coin, that showed an arrow splitting in two, one black and one white. The bombs and coin glowed, changed, and then four bombs were tumbling down onto where the Auto Players were standing.
A satisfying explosion marked their electronic passing.
And five lasers hit Kamen Rider Utsura in the back and blasted him off his perch.
Marks were bleeding off Utsura's health bar as he crashed through a block on the way down, and barely managed to reach out and grab the edge of another one. More beams suddenly shot up from a row of windows from more concealed Auto Players. Utsura gasped and hurled himself off the block as fast as he could.
Everywhere, he looked for a safe place to land. A window. A ledge. A fire escape. An empty rooftop. Anything.
What he got was a pair of lasers that clipped the same point on his leg. Utsura spun crazily and hit the wall of a building with a SMACK that would've made his attackers wince if they hadn't been emotionless machines.
Slowly, agonizingly slowly, Utsura slid down the wall the last dozen feet or so the ground. More beams blazed out from eight points in the darkness and left his white armor scorched in so many places it was almost all black when he finally landed on his back. Just like the health bar on the front of his suit.
Concrete chips flew when he stabbed the tip of the Gashacon Breaker's sword into the wall and struggled to pull himself to his feet. Maybe he could find Ex-Aid and they could come up with a plan. Maybe he could find a place to catch his breath for a few seconds and identity where a few targets were hiding so he could fight back.
What happened was twenty lasers slammed into Kamen Rider Utsura at the same time, from all different angles, as if one finger had pulled the trigger.
What happened was Kensei Hidenaga slumped to the sidewalk almost unconscious, blasted out of his Rider armor.
What happened was the Gashat ejected from his belt.
What happened was an ally was left helpless.
Grunting, Kiiko pulled the bedspread into place around its last corner. Her side of the top sheet hit her in the face suddenly, and she looked up to see Asuna tucking the corner under the mattress on her side. "Hurry up, Kiiko-chan," the nurse reproved her gently. "We have the whole rest of the floor to do."
"I feel like a maid," Kiiko replied, but tucked in the sheet on her side.
"You're not even an intern," Asuna smirked at her. "Besides, helping out around the hospital was your idea."
"Yeah…" Kiiko muttered. There was something else going on at the edge of her perception. A sudden flare of heat, or energy, and then nothing.
Something was very wrong.
She was sure she knew what, too. Kensei was being attacked, and he was losing.
Buster's wrecking ball-like fist crunched through the back of a parked car just as Kamen Rider Ex-Aid dodged the blow, but didn't miss the flames seeping back out around Buster's fist. He must've punctured the gas tank and the flames around his fists could only have ignited the fuel.
Then Kamen Rider Buster did the absolute last thing Ex-Aid was expecting.
He clutched the flaming car against his body like a shield and went into a charge aimed at Ex-Aid.
But Ex-Aid's powers came from the realm of platform games. He was fast and nimble, suddenly breaking into a run and dodging within inches of Buster's side as the juggernaut thundered past with his flaming cargo. Another few moments and the car exploded, completely engulfing Buster. Ex-Aid was blown back by the awesome force.
That wasn't nearly as startling with the game suddenly popping out of his belt with a tired "GASHuuun" sound. His pink armor faded away, leaving the shocked Emu Hojo.
"Kensei-san…no!"
Emu didn't get to dwell on that awful thought for long. Out of the blinding fire covering the end of the street strode Kamen Rider Buster, barely even singed by being at the heart of the explosion.
That was all Emu needed to see. He turned and ran, toward where he'd last seen Utsura. Through his dash bright red beams cut into his doctor's smock and jeans, and it took all the willpower he'd built up over his career not to collapse in pain. There was a helpless patient nearby, he already knew. If Emu couldn't be there, how could he call himself a doctor?
It wasn't hard finding Kensei, pinned behind a card by laser beams coming for all kinds of directions above them. His arms and torso were singed all over by laser burns, and there was an unmistakable relief as he recognized who went into a dive and roll to hide next to hm.
"We've got to get out here, Kamen Rider Buster is right behind me," Emu breathed.
"Ready when you are," Kensei said, a Gashat in his hand.
Emu nodded at him silently, then both hit the trigger button.
In the next instant two shapes slipped out from behind the car where Emu and Kensei were crouching. A fighter jet sprayed tiny bullets, knocking down four Auto Players and leaving small dents in their armor. A bright yellow motorcycle zoomed out and straight up the wall of a building, zigzagging through the feet of three more Auto Players who fired repeatedly trying to hit the speedy target and only burning holes through each others' legs.
Kamen Rider Buster stomped over to where his opponent had run, searching the street for the helpless doctor he'd been about to attack.
There was no-one behind the car the Chibi Gamers had emerged from.
No-one down the side streets.
At least, not that he saw at first. The bike Chibi Gamer zipped past Buster then, blowing a cloud of smoke from its cluster of exhaust pipes. When it cleared he could just barely see a pair of dark human shapes fleeing into the darkness.
Droplets of something fell into his eyes.
They weren't water, they were something more efficient, he knew.
The part of his brain that was still allowed to think.
He wasn't allowed to use it much anymore.
Around his eyes the machines opened and closed the lids a few times to make sure the drops were well-circulated. That fuzzy part of his mind seemed to recall he used to be able to do that kind of thing himself, once. Blinking.
Moving…
Gaming…
That was why he was here, he dimly, distantly remembered. He'd been quite the…what was the word…
…savant?
Again his eyes were pried open by the machines. Looking down at him was a scowling man in expensive wine-colored suit.
It was his boss, Ayatsu Shuugouteki.
Something about this being the chance of a lifetime. That was what he'd said when he'd approached Dai with his offer.
"Gakushsa-san," Ayatsu said, forcing his face into a limp smile that mostly convinced Dai Gakusha's foggy mind. "I need to throw myself on your mercy again! The company's having a little problem."
He nodded limply. It was the only movement he was still allowed.
"These spies tried to steal our secrets again," Ayatsu sighed and his eyes tracking toward the floor, making him look every bit the victim. "Kedamono chased them out, but this wasn't the first time. They'll probably be back, but we need to make sure our fighter's strong enough to stop them when they show up. You can figure out a way to do that, right?"
Dai's eyelids started sagging but were pulled wide open by the automatic clamps around them again. "He uses the Dual Gashat Gamma…the first Rider who had a Dual Gashat fused human and Bugster genetic material to double his capability…" Dai moaned.
"There's no such thing as a Bugster anymore! The virus has evolved!" Ayatsu shouted. He grabbed Dai by the shoulders like he always did when he got angry, which Dai dully noted seemed to be more and more often of late. Things probably weren't working out for him as well as he'd promised.
Not that Dai could do much about it anymore besides answer his questions.
"But…," Ayatsu sighed. "There's another option. And we have abundant samples of that." He let go of Dai's shoulders and the teen slumped the fraction of an inch back into the seat where he was securely strapped. "I'll get the donors ready. You come up with the process to integrate the material with a human, all right, Gakusha-san?"
"What about…the project? The synchronization rate is almost perfect now," Dai croaked. "If we let it go now—"
Ayatsu shook his head, cutting Dai off. "You'll manage, Gakusah-san. You always do," he said with a mildly convincing smile. "Get Kedamono powered up."
"What about Corsair?"
The question made Ayatsu stop as he got to t he sealed door. "I can't trust him anymore," the CEO answered without turning around.
Behind him the doors sealed up again, leaving Dai Gakusha sealed in his prison again.
"You should've called!" Kiiko tapped Kensei soundly on the side of his head.
Taiga Hanaya stumbled as someone suddenly nudged him in the side. It was Hiiro, who had a knowing smirk on his lips. "Look familiar?" he whispered.
Looking away, Taiga folded his arms and replied, "I have no idea what you're talking about."
Kiiko gave her friend another disapproving look, then leaned over to look at he gauze wraps around his torso and arms where he'd caught the worst of the lasers. "Do they still hurt?" she asked. "I'm not really that good at the nurse stuff yet…"
"Well, fingers all work," Kensei replied, giving her the most reassuring smile he could. "Good night sleep and I'll be good as new, I bet."
Hiiro pushed Kensei's head forward from behind. "You have all these doctors around, at least ask them, why don't you? Besides, you looking like that means we have a serious problem."
Taiga sat down at the table and looked Kensei straight in the eye. "Somebody's out to get you. Somebody you can't beat. And if we lose you, we lose Ex-Aid again."
Kensei shrugged helplessly. "I'm sorry, I'm doing everything I can! That Buster guy just isn't stopped by anything we throw at him!"
"Don't be mean to Kensei! He's out there risking his life!" Kiiko frowned.
"Dr. Hanaya has a point," Kensei conceded.
Hiiro Kagami made a neutral face at Taiga. "He does, for once. It'll be interesting to see what he tries with it."
Giving his fellow doctor a smoldering look, Taiga folded one arm over the other. He asked, "What did we do last time we had an unkillable enemy?"
Emu, Hiiro and Taiga were all looking at Kensei all of a sudden. "…what?" he asked. "What did you do?"
"We made a new game that could," Taiga answered, an especially smug little smile on his face.
SEe you next gAME
