Yoshoku's eyes darted from Kensei's unconscious body on the other side of the window to the new Gashats in Doku's hands.
Brutal Beat and Kaiju Squadron.
"I'm not even going to ask how you got those," Yoshoku said. "Do you have a plan for how we hit back at the Corrupture? Can we even ? I mean, you guys killed three of him at the same time. Maybe he's gone for good…?"
"You know it was too easy," Rei said quietly from behind, putting a hand on his shoulder. "This is all a video game come to life. He'll just come back even stronger till things are climactic enough."
Yoshoku frowned. "Did hanging around Dai teach you that?" he muttered.
She reached out and stroked his cheek with the back of her hand. "Please, don't, Yo-chan."
"Yo-chan…?!" he muttered even more quietly in open-mouthed shock, but let it drop.
Doku cleared his throat. "Nice to meet you, Rei…?"
"Just 'Rei' is enough," she answered him. Next Rei pointed to the games Doku was holding. "Are those for us?"
He nodded and held out his hands. "I've already got the Gashat I'm finishing this with," Doku said.
"Try not to sound too proud of doing it first, Dasao," Yoshoku said and took the game that said Kaiju Squadron. He looked up again to see Doku chuckling. "What's so funny?"
Doku shook his head while he answered, "Us. Listen to us. You remember how full of ourselves we were when we first got our Rider stuff? Now we sound like…," Doku said, but stopped himself.
"Hey, aren't we missing someone?" Rei pointed out. "That girl who's always hanging around Hidenaga-san? Actually, isn't that her now?"
Rei was right; running down the hall, her face red from lack of breath, was Kiiko Mishiranu. She stopped in front of the group, hands on her knees, while she took a minute to catch her breath enough to tell them what was making her run so fast to meet them. After a minute she gasped out, "I need you to come with me. Someone's calling me."
"Who called you?" Doku asked her.
"Not called," Kiiko answered. "Calling." She put her fingertips against the sides of her forehead and squeezed her eyes shut, wincing from something only she was aware of. "They want me to come to them. Something about a great power…a great power that can save Kensei-san's life…but only if his friends help."
"So what are we waiting for?" asked Yoshoku. "Lead the way."
Kiiko's expression turned to exhausted at how he'd agreed to come so readily, and she turned around and jogged back down the hall with the others following her.
They followed Kiiko out of the hospital and what felt like halfway across the city before she went into a park. It didn't take any guessing that they found what they were looking for. Standing in the middle of the asphalt path was a man in black. There seemed to be a strange kind of…distortion around him that kept any of the teens from being able to make out any of his distinguishing features. What his face looked like or even the details of his outfit.
But right away, Doku seemed to recognize him. "Dan-san…!"
"Who?" Rei asked, eyeing the indistinct man harshly. Whoever he was, he chortled and got something out of an inside pocket and held it up for them to see.
It was something that seemed to be ignored by whatever haze was leaving the person holding it hard to recognize. Instead the item seemed to have some kind of power to pull their eyes straight to it and imprint itself on their minds with crystal clarity.
It was a typically-shaped Rider Gashat, with the familiar handgrip and transparent circuit board sticking out of the top. The case was black, but with twinkling stars decorating it as well. Its circuit board had a network of platinum wires running from the bottom up to the top.
Lastly, the label showed a character like the famous mascot Mighty, except instead of being pink it was the same black with shining stars scheme as the case of the game itself. Its title was written in rainbow foil: Mighty Fest Infinity, a golden Mobius symbol substituting for "Infinity".
"Thank you for answering my call, Mishiranu-san," the Man in Black said. "I want to help you by letting know about the ultimate game."
"Oh?" Rei called out suspiciously, and held her arms in front of the others to stop them from getting any closer to him. "I thought Hyper Muteki was the ultimate game."
The Man in Black shook his head. At least, that was what it looked like through the weird field that surrounded him. "Hyper Muteki's the ultimate power, you're right about that. One of my greatest…but never mind that. Mighty Fest Infinity is the ultimate game, because it can focus and collect the power of numerous different people all enjoying the same experience. That's how it can save your friend. And after that, it's what can destroy the Corrupture."
"Let us have it, then. Please!" Doku called over Rei's shoulder. "Hidenaga's dying!"
"I know," the Man in Black said. "That's why I called you through Mishiranu-san."
Rei gave Doku a hard look over her shoulder. "Are you kidding? You trust this guy?" she demanded.
He held up Taddle Dynasty. "He sent me on the quest that got me this game."
"But if he's…," she started, trailed off, and finished saying, "that guy, do you really think we can trust him?"
All of a sudden Yoshoku slipped past her and ran up to the Man in Black, then held out his hand. "Please, sir. Tell us how to use that game to save our friend's life."
The Man in Black held out the game. "And forget about it!" a chorus of droning voices suddenly interrupted. Purple goo flowed out of cracks in the sidewalk and formed into six people, standing in a ring. They stalked closer to the teens and the Man in Black, a frightening purple glow in their eyes, purple smoke flowing out of their noses and mouths. "You're not part of this game anymore," the six of them said in perfect unison.
In Hourakou Byougen's voice.
Yoshoku pulled his Magnum, but the Man in Black stepped in front of him. "I am the Game Master, lowly virus. You do not dictate to me."
"You wouldn't be here offering these kids a power-up if things were that simple," the six people sneered in the same way at the same time. The smoke coming out of their faces thickening and completely engulfing them. In a split second the smoke was gone and the people had transformed into decaying zombies in rotted rags. "Pretty ironic, huh?" Hourakou's voice came from their decayed throats, before they charged.
"Is that all the imagination you can work up without my brains guiding you? Zombies? Because it's me? Going for irony, virus?" the Man in Black scoffed at the threat.
All six undead made a snide laugh. Hourakou's voice retorted from all of them, "Everything I've done, is because of what you created me to do. Let's see how your magnificent brains taste!"
The Man in Black turned partway to Kiiko and the others, holding up his arm, and tapping just above the elbow with his other hand. "It goes here, Mishiranu! There's a place for it there!" he yelled. Then the zombies were upon him.
It only took a second from the zombies to bring down the Man in Black. While the zombies were ganging up on him, the three Riders were loading their games ands and transforming.
"Chase Billion!"
"Bare-Fisted Monk!"
"Taddle Dynasty!"
But by then it was already too late to save the Man in Black. The zombies spread out, and there was nothing left in the area between them at all.
One of them was holding up Mighty Fest Infinity.
"Let's play a little game," all six zombies said in Hourakou's voice in disturbing synch. "And let's make sure none of your buddies get in to spoil the contest!"
All six of them raised a finger to the sky and a purple beam shot from them, converging in one spot that formed cube around the rea. Already the park was changing to something more threatening, the bright greens turning into barren grey ground, and the buildings vanishing against a blackened sky. It was the world of a nuclear holocaust. More zombies like the first were already pushing themselves out of the cracked dirt, their burning red eyes locked onto the four survivors.
How long they would hang onto that title, though…
Down in the CR Ward, Emu pulled on his doctor's smock and was heading for the elevator to start his rounds. Right when he got to the doors, they opened and Hiiro almost ran right into him.
"Ah, Hiiro-san, sorry," stepping slowly around his fellow doctor, while avoiding Hiiro's eyes.
"Something's on your mind," Hiiro stated plainly.
"So you noticed, huh?" Emu laughed, but weakly. "I guess I'm a little bit worried."
"You don't get to be worried, remember? You're the one who's always sure everything's going to turn out fine."
Emu forced a chuckle. "Yeah, that's what I always say, isn't it? It's just…about Kensei Hidenaga."
"I checked in on him for you on my way down. He's stable, but he's very weak," Hiiro explained. "His chances aren't good."
"He's just a kid," Emu mumbled. "If we'd been around—"
"Don't think like that," Hiiro cut him off. "We weren't around. This Hourakou Byougen character knew exactly what he was doing when he trapped us. Even back then, when he was still evolving into the monster he is now."
That word made Emu clench a fist. A monster. He'd run into human monsters in his time, but in the end, the worst of them had been able to see the light. Was there really any such thing as a 'monster'? A life form that existed only to fight, and kill, and torment other living things?
It was a thought that clashed with everything Emu had ever believed as a doctor. Life was the most precious thing in the world. He'd fought and destroyed dangerous virus monsters, but rarely had those been the most serious threat the Kamen Riders were up against. They were minions to a power-hungry human, pawns in a human's master plan.
But that had changed when the virus took the form of Hourakou Byougen. He was, as he'd said himself, doing what video game enemies did: attacking humans, especially 'heroes'. And he was doing it because that was what humans created him to do. Was it his fault he'd grown and become more clever, more powerful, more evil…without a human mastermind around to direct his actions?
"EMU!" shrieked a voice from back in the ward. Both doctors whirled around to see Poppy come charging down the hall, her pink hair and dress making her look like a laser racing at them. "There's a Game Area forming out in town! And the kids are gone!"
"What?" Emu and Hiiro demanded in unison. Hardly a second passed before the three of them were cramming themselves into the elevator as fast as they could.
A pull of the trigger. A zombie fell, its head no longer there. Kamen Rider Sling took aim and fired his rifle through the chest of another undead horror.
"You'll never get anywhere killing them that slow!" Kamen Rider Rune yelled over his shoulder. At the same time he brought down his staff and trapped fifteen zombies at once in a formation of ice. Heads and arms stuck out from it in all directions, flailing and moaning uselessly.
"There's more than one way to battle," Sling retorted as he decapitated two zombies with one shot.
He was aiming at another one when Zero danced by and cut its rotting body in half with a one-handed chop. Before she turned and sliced through four with a roundhouse kick. "Yes, there are effective ways," she said. "And I'd appreciate it if you'd hurry up and start using some of yours."
"Then cover me while I get ready."
"Of course," Zero said right away and closed the distance between her and Sling, raising her fists and keeping watch as he got the briefcase off his back and opened it to cycle through the purchases he could make for something useful.
Literal thundering blows came when Zero punched zombies to fend them off. She kicked one so hard they went flying far enough to smack into the invisible wall of the Game Area and slide down it before face-planting on the barren dirt. "Do you think you could protect me a little more quietly, Rei?" Sling spoke up. "I'm trying to pick something effective like you asked for."
"A master businessman has to be able to make strategic decisions while ignoring distractions," Zero retorted, but he was sure there was a chuckle there just before she made another thundering blast that separated the top half of a zombie from his bottom and cleaved through a few more of the undead who'd been coming up behind.
Rune chuckled too, much more noticeably.
Sling ignored them both. She was right, he'd have to be able to focus on multiple things. If he couldn't do it in a fight for his life, when would he? He settled on the little display that said "Skybox at Formula-1 Race" and the fake money was drained from his account.
"Heads up, Dasao!" Sling yelled.
It was a good thing Rune listened. A speedway track suddenly formed right out of the ground and a shining white race car zoomed by, tearing off the edge of his wizardly cape with its spoiler. The speed machine carved its way across the barren field, exactly like it carved through any zombie too slow to get out of its way. Which was most of them, with the way the Riders' zombie opponents were about as fast on their feet as the movies usually depicted.
"Nice work, Yo-chan," Zero said, and clapped him on the shoulder.
"Yeah, nice work! Almost got me run over…," Rune mumbled.
"I knew you could handle it," Sling said, sounding like he actually meant it.
Without warning a huge mass of zombies clawed their way out of the ground right in front of the track. Sling's conjured race car crashed into them, its tires spinning in place, and the zombies grabbed its sides and flung the car into the air. It hit the ground exploded, a fiery tire bouncing away and flattening one zombie as it went.
"I just keep coming and coming, Riders," Hourakou's voice came from zombies all around them. "Can you?!"
On the sides of the cube covering what had once been a park, Emu, Hiiro and Parado could see the running battle with the hordes of undead the three Riders were having inside. Kiiko was hiding behind the remains of a bombed-out fuel truck, but her eyes were glowing with power as she searched among the swarm of zombies.
"What are they doing?" Hiiro asked. "Coming out here and getting into a fight without saying a thing?"
"Let's get inside and ask them," replied Emu. "Henshin!"
Kamen Rider Ex-Aid and Kamen Rider Brave rushed up to the edge of the cube. Ex-Aid reached out and pounded a huge mechanical fist into the side.
It was rock solid.
"Let's hit it together," Paradox suggested. "Like we did last time."
Neither of the others said anything. Their gear spoke for them, literally, a garbled storm of Critical Strike!'s filling the air before the three veteran Riders unleashed their powers on the barrier surrounding the Game Area.
Brave made a mighty slash with his sword, a barrage of glowing arrows blasting from the air around him into the side of the cube.
Paradox brought down his Parabragun in its axe mode, putting all his strength into the two-handed swing.
And Kamen Rider Ex-Aid himself drummed his giant fists on the side of the cube. Every punch added to the one before, sounding like an earthquake.
Then they stopped.
Nothing had happened.
Three incredibly powerful Kamen Riders threw everything they had at the barrier and it stood up to their best efforts.
"I don't believe it," Paradox breathed. "What do we do now?"
"We believe in them," Ex-Aid replied.
"Get down! I'm gonna hit them with everything I've got!" Rune ordered the other Riders. He lifted his staff high above his head. Its jewel glowed faintly but as zombies closed in on them from every side the glow got brighter until a white sun seemed to hum with deadly power on top of the wizard staff.
"Taddle Critical Incantation! Frozen Tomb!" it cried out before Rune planted the bottom end in the ground.
"Cheery name, Dasao!" Sling yelled.
"Why you saying that like I picked it?"
There was no chance to reply to that one before the magic went to work. A spiral of ice whirled out of the jewel. Every second that passed it spread farther out from where the Riders were huddled together. Any zombie caught in it was instantly surrounded by a giant ice crystal, imprisoning them in a frigid coffin. An entire field of frozen undead stared at the Riders with burning hatred in the eyes some of them still had, until Rune smacked the bottom of his staff against the ground again.
The first ring of zombies around the Rider trio shattered, and the remains of the evil beings inside spilled all over the ground. Kamen Rider Rune hit his staff on the ground again and the next layer out shattered too. Again he hit the ground and again a layer of trapped zombies shattered.
Over the sound of breaking ice, Sling yelled, "Mishiranu! Where's the new game?!"
"Is the fight over?!" Kiiko yelled back.
"Yes! Where's the new game?" Sling repeated. Zero covered her mouth while she laughed quietly.
Kiiko leaned over the hood of the rusted car where she'd been hiding and pointed past them. At the same time the last of the entombed zombies shattered and fell to bits. "I see it," Zero said, pointing to where the spacescape of the game's case was just barely visible clutched in the rotted hand that was still twitching.
"What are we waiting for?" Kamen Rider Sling asked and started over to grab the game. He stopped after a few steps when he realized something. "Don't the Corrupture always disintegrate into purple junk and fly away after they die? Why hasn't one of those 'Game Clear' things shown up?"
Sling was sorry to get his answer. At the same time the countless pieces of the fallen zombies whirled into the air, battering the three Kamen Riders on the way up. The grotesque cyclone of body parts and bones spun to a single point high in the air, then started to form something.
Something huge.
First formed a huge skull, but not a human one. None of the Kamen Riders could really say what it was, just another monstrous horror from the twisted imaginations of video game designers. The head was tall and pointed, and there were sockets for five eyes instead of two. Its jaws opened almost half as high as the skull itself and the mouth was full of cracked but very large teeth.
A long spine. Six spindly legs and just as many arms with thick fingers that looked ideal for crushing Kamen Riders. The bone colossus dropped from the sky and hit the ground with so much force that knocked all three Riders flying.
Kiiko ducked back behind the rusted car where she'd taken cover before. It didn't protect her, with the bone colossus's shockwave knocking the car into the air too, just barely missing Kiiko's head before she was sent tumbling off the ground.
She locked the Bug Visor belt around her waist and shoved the Block Panic game inside harder than she meant to. A protective bubble formed around her body just in time to save Kiiko from being smashed into the ground at deadly speed. Instead she bounced once, twice, and came to a stop after hitting a pile of rusty car wrecks.
Maybe fifteen away, she could see more Kamen Riders—Ex-Aid, Brave, Paradox—smashing at what looked like thin air. They were trying to get inside the Game Area to help, that was obvious, but couldn't get through. Was Hourakou getting that powerful, that he could even keep out the most powerful of the Kamen Riders?
There was no time to worry about that. Kiiko nodded at them, then turned around and floated back the other way. "Don't worry, guys! I'm ready to help!" Kiiko shouted, but she was sure they hadn't heard her. That didn't matter; what mattered was using her powers to help the Riders against that monster.
Her bubble floated over to where the skeletal giant was taking its first steps to the stunned Riders. This time she'd be ready, Kiiko told herself. Last time she'd tried to use a Game Area Control Gashat, it'd been out of desperation when a Kamen Rider was in trouble. Now, she was used to the mental focus that was needed to use the power of a game like that correctly. Last time, she'd helped the Rider win.
This time, she'd make it easy for the Riders to win.
Underneath her the three Riders were just starting to recover from being blasted across the Game Area. Kiiko held out her hands and motioned a wall rising up. And it did: a wall of grey blocks as tall as the bone-monster Corrupture. Kiiko raised her right hand and another wall rose up out of the ground, blocking it on that side next. She lifted her left arm and another wall was coming up to enclose it on that side next.
Inside her bubble, Kiiko breathed hard and smiled with relief. It was working! She was right, she could handle Block Panic! In a minute the Riders would be back on their feet and they'd all tear this monster apart together…
As quickly as it had built up, Kiiko's surge of confidence died again. The walls she'd surrounded the bone colossus with exploded from the monster shoving its arms through them. One grabbed the bubble surrounding Kiiko and squeezed it, popping the bubble generated by her Game Area Control Gashat like it was nothing, when they'd always been indestructible before.
Another skeletal arm threw a punch at the nearest Rider to be on his feet: Rune.
Kiiko screamed as he was launched into the air, Rune's arms and legs flailing like a ragdoll. She didn't have long to look at what had happened to Rune with how then the Corrupture bone giant turned her to look right into its giant empty eye sockets. Empty except for a strange purple light seeping from somewhere far in the blackness inside the skull.
And then its jaws opened up and Kiiko froze with terror, afraid she was about to be devoured.
What happened instead wasn't much better. Hourakou's voice echoed from the depths of the skull. "Not even you know what are you, do you, Mishiranu-san?" it said with a slight laugh. "Not human, not a virus lifeform like myself, sometimes joining with a human to make them something more…now you're even trying to wield the power of a Rider Gashat yourself. I think you're my favorite part of this whole wonderful conflict we've been having."
"…but now it's time for our little game to end?" Kiiko supplied.
The horrible bone giant tossed back its huge skull so far Kiiko thought it might fall off, but instead the Corrupture just laughed. "If I sound cliché, it's because that's what I was created to be. But no, I have other plans for you, Mishiranu-san. Much greater plans than simple death…"
On the ground, Kamen Rider Sling looked up and saw something spinning by overhead. His jaw dropped in horror behind his mask as he recognized Kamen Rider Rune. Two small shapes fell from Rune's body on the way down.
Sling's first instinct was to run where Rune had landed, but suddenly Zero grabbed him by the shoulder. "We have to hurry and get those new games he dropped," she said.
"Shouldn't we make sure Dasao's—" Sling started protesting, but stopped when Zero looked him right in the eyes.
"His game will bring him back with a new power, right?" she said, echoing what Sling was thinking himself. "Mishiranu needs help and we can't help her without more firepower."
"You have any idea how those games work?" Sling asked, but was following after Zero as she ran to where they fell.
"Good businessmen have to be adaptable, don't they?"
Not for the first time since he'd become a Kamen Rider, Sling wished he'd bothered to actually learned how to play video games. He'd barely been able to convince his family to let him learn how to shoot.
Hopefully, that would be enough now.
He grabbed the first game he came to: Kaiju Squadron. It locked into the slots of his Magnum, and its artificial voice sang out with the usual enthusiasm. "Kai-JUUUU Squadron! The sea foams! The beasts ARISE! Scramble the mechs! Launch the jets! Tonight's the night a legend's made!"
Its title screen formed over as they always did and a bulbous shape like a squat fighter plane flew out. The strange thing circled Sling at high speed a couple times, but it was only when it came down toward him he noticed the arms and legs sticking out of its sides.
And then it seemed to gobble him up, flying straight down over Sling and everything going dark. Quickly he realized his body was only being reoriented, his arms going through the arms of whatever he'd summoned from the game, his legs going into its legs. The top flipped down and the dying sun of the Game Area flooded Sling's oversized eyes again.
His Rider suit was covered by a suit of mechanized armor, and with it he almost reached seven feet at the top of his head. The chest, arms and legs were colored a bright heroic red, contrasting with the black of the upper legs and arms. A pair of missiles was affixed to the back of each forearm and powerful wings with rockets on the ends and in the middle. Decorating the front of his new armor was the face of some kind of metallic dinosaur. No doubt he'd know its name if he ever watched those ridiculous kaiju movies.
Zero didn't take any time to appreciate Sling's new look. She had her own to figure out. The other game, Brutal Beat, locked into place in her harness and hit the switch.
"Bru-bru-bru…Brutal…Brutal, Brutal Beat!" A sharp twang from an electric guitar. "Feel the demon in your pick! Blast the souls with the amp! Worlds rise and fall when you play! Your chords have the POW-ah~!"
Like it had with Sling, a strange object floated out of the Brutal Beat title screen in front of Zero. At first Sling thought it was a battle axe, with its long handle and curving extensions coming out of the top. The weird blue fire flickering around their edges only made him think it had to be a weapon even more.
But then Zero touched it and the fire flared outward, and he could see the fingerboard of a guitar on the handle for a brief moment. Power from Zero's new weapon raced up her arm and covered her Rider suit. Sling couldn't even make out the details of her new armor, just that fire that seemed to be red and purple and white all at once dancing around it, the faces of demons flickering out of the burning clouds for a few seconds before sinking back in again. A magnificent mane like long hair hung down from the top of her head.
"Incredible," Sling breathed at the sight.
"Heh," Zero replied. "I'm not the only one."
"Let's see how well these things work," Sling suggested.
"Let's do that."
"Ah, it looks like your little friends are coming to make the requisite heroic rescue," Hourakou's voice echoed from the depths of the grotesque skull next to Kiiko. "Let's see how well they do!"
"You've never fought them in those forms," Kiiko said, trying desperately to distract the Corrupture leader. "You have no idea what they can do now!"
"They have no idea what I can do now!" Hourakou laughed the loudest, most horrible laugh Kiiko had ever heard. Two of his grimy bone arms rose up, and incredibly, the fingers detached and flew straight at Kamen Rider Sling like gigantic missiles as he flew in closer.
But Hourakou wasn't the only one with such weapons. Sling suddenly pulled up right before he was about to crash into the giant bone spears, dumping a cluster of blinking red orbs from his jetpack. Some fell to the ground but the incoming bone projectiles rammed into the charges and set them off, exploding in a pixelated GREAT. Kiiko had to closed her eyes and turn away to keep from being blinded by the awesome flash.
She didn't have a chance to notice the bottom of her hair was on fire from the blast.
In another second Sling had zoomed past until he was only a bright speck in the distance that was turning around for another pass. Hourakou turned his attention to the other tiny shape rushing at him, leaving flaming trails from her fiery mane and fiery…guitar?
It was only for a tiny part of a second, but Kiiko thought for sure she saw a look of surprise come over the skeletal face Hourakou was wearing.
But he recovered quickly, giggling, "Let's see how this one reacts to good old blunt force trauma!" Hourakou lifted his many giant legs and stomped furiously at Zero, his legs raining down around her like giant hammers. Yet Zero seemed, well, one step ahead of him, zipping from one spot to another just before Hourakou's bone legs smashed the dirt.
If he'd been closer to the ground Hourakou might've been able to hear what Kamen Rider Zero was up to over the cacophony of his constant crushing footsteps.
She was playing furiously at her new guitar, and that only made the fire surrounding it grow with the power she was pouring into it. Hourakou didn't see it yet but the cracks in the ground started by his violent stomping were getting wider. The ground was feeling thinner, and with a mighty power chord completely masked by the sounds of his attempts to crush her, Zero started the ground crumbling into a giant pit.
The farthest jump she could manage took to her solid ground where Zero looked back to see Hourakou flailing his giant bone arms and trying to grab at something to stop himself from falling into the pit Zero made. A white light erupted in the empty eye sockets of his for a split-second that made Zero think he'd been caught by surprise. Hourakou's giant feet that'd been trying to crush her seconds before scraped against the sides of the hole.
But it was pointless. He fell in. All of his arms and legs banging and slapping against the rock until he was in up to his bone shoulders. Two legs on different sides shattered from all the banging around and Zero could hear a crunch as one of Hourakou's feet hit the bottom of the hole. His skull dipped forward and hit the edge, leaving him looking dazed.
With all her might, Kamen Rider Zero jumped to Hourakou's highest shoulder before he could recover and try to stop what she was planning to do next. Zero ran down his arm to the bony hand that was still holding Kiiko.
"Did you do that all by yourself?" Kiiko asked breathlessly.
"You mean make the hole in the ground? Looks like it," Zero replied and aimed at the wrist.
"Those new games your friend made are powerful!" Kiiko exclaimed.
"Don't remind me," she growled more than said. A violent strum of her guitar's chords sent a flaming blast from the head of the guitar into the sensitive joint. Around Kiiko's body Hourakou's fingers loosened enough for her to grab Zero's hand. The Kamen Rider said, "We'd better get away from here fast."
Kiiko looked at her in confusion, still in awe of the power she'd seen Zero unleash. "Why?'
Zero pointed, and Kiiko saw it. "Because Yo-chan's about to strafe here in a second!" Without waiting for Kiiko to have a reply she grabbed the girl around the waist and jumped for the edge of the pit before the glow of Kamen Rider Sling's rocket was right overhead. Missiles launched from their mountings on his arms and pods on his rocket pack. Spreading out like a swarm of glowing hornets, the missiles exploded all over the back of Hourakou's giant skull and his spine, cracking off one of his giant arms.
A hideous howl of anger came from Hourakou's mouth as he whipped around to face Sling. Hunks of bone cracked and fell off from the sudden movement, but the Corrupture leader was paying no attention to such small details as his body's imminent destruction.
"Die, Rider," Hourakou said with disturbing calmness. Suddenly he opened his jaws and spewed a swarm of skeletons, boneless wings attached to their backs somehow propelling them through the air. They swiped at the air with clawed fingers, obviously eager for the chance to tear Sling apart.
"You first," Sling retorted. Right away two parabolic dishes flipped up over his shoulders and launched spiraling laser beams into the flock of flying undead. Two of the creatures next to each other were blown to bone dust by the same beam. Sling's other shot sheared the skull of another with a surgical precision that would've done Kamen Rider Brave himself proud if it'd been on purpose.
Sling wasn't staying where he was while he attacked. As fast as he could go while still being able to aim, he was flying backward, closer to the lip of the pit and solid ground. More lasers fired over his shoulders and more of the flying skeletons were shattered, but more of the gruesome things came from Hourakou's mouth and empty eye sockets.
The Rider raised his arms and the missiles moored there streaked away. More of the flying skeletons were reduced to dust as the first two missiles found their mark, magnificent orange fireballs going up and engulfing skeletons. His other two missiles screamed through the horde and exploded against Hourakou's tall forehead. Disturbingly, Hourakou was chuckling even as more of his flying skeletons came from the openings of his skull.
"Who do you think's gonna run out of ammo first, Rider?!" Hourakou laughed.
Just before Sling was about to come up with a biting retort, the electronic echo of a power chord being struck split the air. Out of nowhere a bolt of lightning lanced down and into the pack of flying skeletons, punching a hole by shattering almost twenty of them in one terrific blast. Standing on the edge of the pit, her guitar still simmering with power, was Kamen Rider Zero. Kiiko was standing behind her, eyes wide and mouth gaping at the display of power from Zero's devastating musical instrument.
"Sugoi…," Kiiko breathed.
"I mean, it's good, but it's not that good," Zero replied. "Is it?"
"You'd be doing me a big favor if you tried that again and found out!" Sling yelled. He shot another beam from his shoulder-mounted laser weapons, obliterating a few more skeletons, but the rest were almost on top of him.
Zero gasped and swiped her pick across the strings with all the speed being a superhuman Kamen Rider gave her. The sound it made wasn't as powerful as before, but the lightning bolts that rained down were still effective. Half a dozen more skeletons were hit and exploded, giving Sling the time he needed to get to clear of the pit and land next to the two ladies.
Hourakou had mostly recovered by then, and was shambling across the pit in their direction. His multiple giant fists slammed into the rock walls, and a few seconds later huge spikes made of pointed bone erupted out of the ground. Zero and Sling both grabbed Kiiko by the arms and ran for all they were worth from the deadly spikes growing out of the dirt.
"Wonder what this new game can really do," Sling asked himself out loud.
"It's looking like we have to find out fast, doesn't it?" Zero replied over the hellish noise of the ground being torn up behind them.
Kiiko made an excited squeak neither of them could hear.
Suddenly both turned and fired their weapons behind them, Sling with his shoulder-mounted lasers and Zero by striking the strings of her burning guitar. Fire and laserfire tore into a cluster of spikes, shattering them, giving the trio a safe place to run when more spikes burst up where they'd been when they fired.
The bone colossus loomed over them from the edge of the pit where Zero had dropped him, his arms clenching the edge while the stumps of two hung uselessly. He looked ready to pull himself out, and a red glow seeping out of the eye sockets of Hourakou's skull. An evil snigger passed his fleshless lips.
"Very clever, humans," he called down. "You'll never find that game you're hoping can save your friend in time. It'll be interesting to see which of you try to go on after he's gone…!"
"Kaiju Critical Barrage!"
"Brutal Critical Solo!"
None of the trio answered Hourakou's taunt. Instead Zero and Sling charged their finishers. The mechanical dinosaur's face on the front of Sling's suit opened its jaws revealing power gathering inside. At the same time Zero started a fierce solo, playing low then playing high before going down again. The flames around the head of Zero's axe and surrounding her armor roared up until they were too bright to look at, and Kiiko had to shield her eyes.
They expected Hourakou to fight back. To do something to defend himself. Instead he just stared the Riders down until they'd charged their attacks and fired on him at the same time. A massive laser beam with another twisting around it from the dinosaur on Sling's armor, a column of flames in the same of howling demons wearing band tees and ball caps as they raced up at the giant bone demon.
Both attacks plowed through the front of his ribcage and smashed through his spine before disappearing into the distance. Immediately the light inside his eye sockets went out. Bits of bone crumbled off his giant arms and tumbled into the pit, but Hourakou pulled on the edges as he disintegrated. Rocks crumbled as Hourakou's current form fell apart, making Sling, Zero and Kiiko run for their lives to make sure they didn't fall in and join him.
Finally, the rumbling stopped, and the trio could stop running without being afraid of falling to their deaths. The usual big GAME CLEAR graphic appeared spinning overhead.
"We did it," Zero breathed.
"Somehow," Sling affirmed.
By the wall of the Game Area, Ex-Aid, Brave and Paradox was still trying to batter their way inside. It was a little to focus, especially for Ex-Aid, because of the horrible sight of Kamen Rider Rune's mangled body.
Suddenly, Rune's hand twitched. His staff, the top impaled in the dirt, whipped itself backward into his hand. He was raised to his feet by unseen hands, jerking disturbingly as some of his bones finished forming themselves back together. Before his feet touched the ground again, already his game was announcing, "Taddle Dynasty! The masters convene! Earth rumbles! Wind blows! Water dances! Lightning races! Fire burns! Impyro the Ravenous! His fire devours and cleanses!"
Letting out a ferocious warcry, Kamen Rider Paradox smashed his Parabragun into the wall in front of them again. This time it went right through, but the scarred landscape was already fading. The Game Clear graphic just visible in the sky told them why.
"Guys, you're here!" Rune gasped, twitching a little still as he stumbled over to them. Evidently this revival hadn't been as clean as the ones before. "I wish I could say we needed your help, but it looks like it's already over…"
"We couldn't get through!" Paradox growled. "We've been trying to break through ever since we got here!"
"That's…not good," was all Rune had the strength to say. How powerful was Hourakou Byougen getting? Powerful enough he could keep even the most powerful veteran Kamen Riders at bay if he wanted?
There wasn't time to think about that, though. Coming running through the empty field, rapidly changing into a regular city street again, were Kiiko, Rei and Yoshoku. Kiiko stopped in front of the other Riders and panted out, "I know where the game we need to save Kensei is!"
"What game?" Brave asked.
"Something that can save your friend? Is that what you all ran out here to get?" Paradox asked, with a surprising quiet sympathy.
Kiiko just nodded, too out of breath to say anything else. She stood up, and pointed back behind her, where the huge pit Hourakou had fallen into still yawned open.
"It's buried at the bottom of that."