Hospital staff jumped out of the way as the bizarre figure charged down the hall to a bank of elevators.
A masked wizard in green robes, flailing a golden staff taller than he was, was a weird sight even for a specialty hospital like Seitou University.
Kamen Rider Rune stepped into an elevator, the hospital staff inside happy to get out of his way. Even before the doors closed he was hitting the buttons to enter the secret code to enter the CR Ward. The doors hadn't finished opening when he exploded out of the doors and charged down the hall to the meeting room.
Everyone there was shocked to see Rune explode in. Poppy retreated some steps, holding her hands to her mouth in surprise. Emu and Kensei grabbed for their games out of reflex before realizing the intruder was an ally.
"Guys…!" Rune panted. "He took her! Hourakou…stole Kiiko! I tried to stop him but he almost bit me in half!"
Kensei's eyes hardened as he heard Rune's story. "What? Where are they?! What happened to Kiiko?!"
More gently, Emu came closer and asked him, "What happened? Please tell us clearly."
"Well, I saw her walking around looking kind of out of it," Rune explained. "I saw her going up to the roof so I followed her. See if I could talk to her and find out if I could help."
Emu nodded in approval, but his usual smile was missing thanks to the seriousness of the news.
"When we were up there, suddenly a bunch of big bugs attacked us," Rune went on. "Hourakou started talking through them. It was weird…I mean, even for what we usually see. I tried to use my magic to protect Kiiko, but they broke through hard lava! How strong do bugs have to be to break through lava?" he shook his head in disbelief.
"That really shouldn't be hard to believe when they're Corrupture," Kensei sighed. "Please, get to the point."
"Right…sorry," Rune shook his head. "The bugs turned really big somehow, and then broke through the wall I tried to put up to protect us and bit me. Almost broke me in half! When I came to with the new color, I saw the bugs flying away. Kiiko wasn't around, and I'm pretty sure I heard Hourakou say he'd come specifically for her. I don't know why, but it can't be good, can it?"
Kensei was bristling by then. "No. It can't," he hissed. "Not if Hourakou Byougen's involved."
Immediately, Emu stepped between them before another word could be said. "We need to get everyone together and go after her. I have a very bad feeling why Hourakou would want Kiiko-chan. You two, please go find your friends and tell them to get ready for a fight. I'm afraid this is going to be big. Very big."
With a nod, Kensei was heading for the elevators, reaching out a hand and taking Rune by the arm to hurry him along. The doors closed behind them, but Kensei frowned hard at the light showing the elevator climbing the floors, as if that might make it go faster.
Meanwhile Rune drummed his fingers on his staff, not sure what to say that might ahelp Kensei relax. Obviously he was angry, with Kiiko in danger from the most dangerous enemy they'd ever had. Maybe that any Kamen Rider ever hard, period.
But he didn't have to. Kensei was the one who broke the silence.
"What did you talk about with Kiiko?"
"Oh," Rune paused, trying to quickly figure out the best way to answer that question. "She was…she was worried about you getting hurt fighting Hourakou. Kiiko wasn't sure what she'd do if anything happened to you, after everything that's happened to you being a Kamen Rider already."
Kensei nodded solemnly. "Yeah, she was talking to me about that too. But I can't stop fighting now, can I?"
Rune shook his head. "No, you can't. None of us can. We've gotta see this all the way through to the end."
"No matter what happens," Kensei replied.
"No matter what happens," Rune agreed.
Emu stayed behind in the CR Ward a little while longer.
His phone was against his ear, before going to voice mail again.
Part of him wasn't surprised, but a much bigger part was holding out hope. Hope that a missing friend wasn't missing, and had a good reason for his silence.
"Taiga's still not answering, is he?" Poppy observed."
"No," Emu admitted. "He's been sensitive most of the time we've known each other, but losing before that tournament…it never seemed like something that would bother him so much he'd avoid everyone afterward."
Poppy sighed. "I thought he was getting better too. A little rude sometimes, maybe, but…"
She expected to see Emu turn around, a cherubic smile on his face like always. This time he didn't move, though. Didn't say anything. His phone went back into his pocket.
Just before she was about to reach out for him, Poppy squeaked in surprise when the monitors lining the walls erupted with noise and a broadcast image of a monstrous face staring right out of the screens.
A face covered in rippling blue scales, flickering purple eyes leering out as if locked right onto Poppy. A giant lizard-like mouth that looked more like a gaping pit, inside nothing but pure blackness looking back at her.
Out of its head sprouted countless tentacles, squirming around horribly, and after a few seconds of watching Poppy felt her stomach clench when she saw that each of them ended in a mouth that was snapping opened and closed with lightning speed. Spewing thick yellow venom all over the street.
Three grotesquely long, snakelike arms extended from each shoulder, covered in yellow and red scales. Every arm ended in a snake-like head with glistening black beads for eyes. Golden rings surrounded the abomination's shoulders and neck, and they were decorated with patterns of black pixel shapes.
Strangest of all, perhaps, was that below the waist it appeared to have the blade of a huge sword instead of a body, lodged into the ground in the middle of a six-way intersection.
And the thing was huge, its shoulders at the same height as the crumbling buildings around it.
"GameDeus…" Poppy gasped in shocked disbelief. Even though it was a more horrible version of that terrifying enemy that any she'd ever seen.
"It is GameDeus, isn't it?" Emu agreed. "Scarier than any version we saw before…"
She didn't answer right away. There was something else about it that grabbed Poppy's attention. Something familiar, but something that seemed to be the opposite of the hideous monster displayed on the monitors. Something…something Poppy could feel even through a screen.
"Emu," she said quietly. "I think I know what happened to Kiiko-san."
Still, Kiiko fought as hard as she could while trapped in the cocoon.
It was no use, she realized grimly. She wasn't a fighter, she was the navi. Whatever process had created her, had given her incredible powers she'd probably never fully understand…
None of them had been anything that would help her win a fight, thought.
"Kind of familiar, isn't it?" Hourakou's teasing voice asked her. "Like that time when you went to another world, and met those weird other Kamen Riders who possessed people with monsters. You actually got to fight then, didn't you? Didn't take too long to take you out…you just don't have the strength for something that demanding."
"You know about that?" Kiiko said, trying to seize an opportunity to distract Hourakou, for any good it might do.
"Ooooooooooooooh yeeeeeeeeeeeeeees," he purred almost right into her ear. "You had no idea, did you? Part of me followed you so it could study the original strains of the Bugster virus. That way I could see what the best parts were, and the best parts were how much more infectious the original virus could make me," he said with a giggle.
Kiiko slumped back against the cocoon, sighing as if giving up. She hoped it didn't sound too forced to be believable. "Haven't you spread all over the world, already? There's Kamen Riders fighting you around the globe."
Hourakou's giggle turned into laugh. An echoing, evil guffaw. "And yet I'm still devoting most of my attention to Japan, fighting the Riders here! With this final stage of my evolution, of the Corrupture evolution, I will become a true plague! After today, darkness will engulf the world for a thousand years!"
"A thousand years?"
"A thousand years!" Hourakou echoed, unmistakable glee in his disembodied voice. "A good long time to create an oppressive status quo that an inspiring hero can rise up against, wouldn't you agree?"
Kiiko shrugged, not sure if Hourakou could actually see her. "The heroes have had pretty good luck taking you on before. Especially last time," she said, despite her own doubts about that situation.
To her surprise, Hourakou replied by giggling again. "And thanks to you, I've evolved since then, my dear! That's what the thousand years of darkness is all about: putting humanity under oppressive conditions to see how they evolve!
"Besides," he added, "like I keep telling you, this is what humanity created me to do. You want to blame someone, blame them."
"Kuroto and Masamune Dan aren't normal humans," Kiiko retorted as venomously as she could.
"My dear, my dear," Hourakou said. "After today, what a 'normal human' is will be very different."
From every inch of the cocoon formed an image of Hourakou's smiling face.
Then from every smiling face lashed a long tongue whose tip embedded itself in Kiiko's skin.
Fire lit up the darkened sky.
A squadron of fighter planes were going into a dive, each releasing its missiles a second after the one before, aimed at GameDeus's head. The huge Corrupture laughed and an eerie green light beamed from his eyes. The missiles went off in midair before they got anywhere near him, but he wasn't done. Three of GameDeus's snake-headed arms snapped down at the ground suddenly, each of them grabbing a JSDF tank or jeep, then smashed the vehicles together in a horrible fireball. The GREAT graphic that appeared over it did nothing to make the scene less terrifying.
Kamen Rider Ex-Aid could see the giant monster from half a mile away, even with how fast they were coming up on it. He was standing on the back of a serpentine dragon, formed from the armor of Utsura's Sensou Chambara form.
It was obvious to the doctor's trained eyes that Utsura was already under strain, trying to use such a powerful form by himself, but he'd refused to use anything less. They had to get there and get to work as fast as possible, Utsura insisted.
Ex-Aid had to admit he couldn't disagree with his younger ally's motivation.
He tapped Utsura on the shoulder and said, "Let's land a few blocks away."
"With a monster like that down there?" Utsura asked in obvious disbelief as he looked back at the pink-armored veteran Rider. "Don't tell me you think we should be hiding with all the damage we saw it do to the JSDF!"
"Hourakou Byougen already knows what we can do, and he knows we're coming," Ex-Aid pointed out calmly. "We need to do what real pro gamers do in a challenging situation: come up with a plan and stick to it."
There was no point in arguing against that. Utsura landed the dragon and after it touched the ground it split into armor and attached itself to his undersuit again.
Overhead a massive wooden ship with propellers instead of sails cruised by. Utsura knew it carried the rest of their allies. At least, the ones who could be reached. For some reason, Taiga Hanaya wasn't answering when Emu tried to call. What could he possibly be doing that he didn't know about the giant monster that'd appeared downtown, Utsura wondered.
And where was Parado? Hadn't he and Kiiko getting awfully friendly? Where was he while Kiiko was in life-threatening danger?
But the airship carrying the rest of the Riders was starting to come down to land. Once they were down, the attack could begin, and Utsura was hoping to get to that as fast as he could.
He turned to look back at the new GameDeus, and Utsura's blood suddenly turned to ice as he saw a wicked grin form on the monster's ugly face. GameDeus reared back his head and spewed a stream of dark sludge from his mouth.
Then it spewed more from mouths of the tentacles flailing around from the top of its head. A few were aimed in the rough direction of the airship carrying the other Kamen Riders. Most were just being belched out wildly, tearing up the street and what was left of the buildings that surrounded the intersection. Utsura's stomach clenched when a few of them sliced through the airship.
And, he was very much afraid, its passengers.
A blast of light that must've been Kamen Rider Sling's jetpack streaked away from the falling wreckage of the airship, carrying a dark shape by the arms. That must've been Zero, so that meant two of them were safe.
But what about Brave and Rune? They couldn't fly…
Could they? A figure in bright blue armor, his white cape billowing behind him, jumped over the edge of the falling ship. He fell slowly. Majestically. His boots hitting the ground with barely a shudder.
That was Brave. So what about…
From out of the dark clouds overhead a streak of lightning lanced down. Kamen Rider Rune jumped from the railing and actually landed on the lightning and rode it to the ground like a slide. Sparks shot off his shoes while he skated down the lightning and skidded to a stop next to Kamen Rider Brave.
Utsura was thinking that was everyone, but suddenly his thoughts were cut off by the revving of a powerful engine. A bright yellow motorcycle drove up and skidded to a stop next to the Kamen Riders.
"Kiriya-san," Ex-Aid said, fading into a sigh.
"That's me," the motorcycle said, its front jerking to the side in time with his speech.
"You don't have to fight something this strong if you don't want to, Kiriya-san," Ex-Aid gently offered.
"Emu, we started fighting apart. Let's finish fighting together. Like we did before."
A silent nod was Ex-Aid's reply. He got a black Gashat out of a panel on the side of the motorcycle and plugged it into a slot. A small robot Gamer floated down and attached its arms, legs and head to the motorcycle, transforming it into Kamen Rider Laser for this gigantic battle against a gigantic enemy.
"Maybe you'd better suit up too," Utsura suggested to Ex-Aid.
"You're right," Ex-Aid said, a new Gashat clutched in each hand.
"Level UP!"
Out of nowhere Ex-Aid's bulky mech-suit jumped and gobbled him up. Its top hatch sprung open after a second and then Kamen Rider Ex-Aid came leaping out, still glowing with the bright golden power of invincibility. Before it even started fading, he was making his way down the street at high speed toward the new Game Deus, an unmissable incoming attacker.
The other Riders took advantage of it, spreading out to form a circle around the intersection and closing in from different sides.
Now, the final battle was beginning.
"I'm sorry, Kiiko-san. I know the joining process must not be terribly pleasant for you, so I'll let you see something inspiring," Hourakou purred.
Still Kiiko struggled from the cocoon where he'd imprisoned her, but Kiiko was getting weaker. The tentacles embedded into her skin were doing something, but whether it was sucking something out of her body, or pumping something into it, she didn't want to think about.
But she looked out through the eyes of the new GameDeus, and could see Kamen Rider Ex-Aid charging straight at them, glowing like a literal beacon of hope.
Their world's greatest hero, charging straight into the rescue like he knew nothing could stop him. And honestly, nothing ever had.
"Yes, it's inspiring," Kiiko said, still trying to play along and distract Hourakou, in the hope it'd help her friends. "You don't sound worried about him coming out here to fight you, though. Not worried?"
"Why? Shouldn't he be worried about fighting me?"
"Heroes usually do what they have to do even if they are worried," Kiiko said, trying to keep her fading strength from showing. "They're trying to keep the world the way it is, and guys like you try to change the world to make it more the way they want."
A deep, extremely disappointed sigh sounded next to Kiiko's ear. "Oh Kiiko, you're such a unique form of life, but your viewpoint is so typical. A hero, and a villain, they both want to change the world.
"A hero wants to change the world to make it safer for his friends' smiles, or the beauty of his home and the continuation of his peaceful life. Such temporal concerns. A villain has a grand vision, and wants the world to change enough, that he knows the important thing is the world to come," Hourakou explained through another sigh.
"Even if it means people die? Even if it means life is torture?"
Another disappointed sigh. "Oh Kiiko-chan." A long pause. "I never said I didn't think I was the villain, did I?"
Kamen Rider Ex-Aid looked right into the flashing eyes of the monster towering over him. Without any hesitation, he called up, "This doesn't have to be a war. Give us back Kiiko-chan, and surrender."
GameDeus's body shook while he gave a horrible laugh. "It doesn't have to be a war, Doctor Hojo!" GameDeus degreed, booming in Hourakou Byougen's voice. "Because this is going to be the dawn of a new era after I've built up enough of the virus to cover the planet. Attack me! See if you can stop it!"
In a flash, Ex-Aid held the Gashacon Keyslasher, a sword with a long green blade and a keypad built into the side of its handle. "I will change my patients' fate, and the entire world, if that's what it takes," he said, his voice quiet but full of determination.
"No, you won't!" GameDeus grinned before suddenly lashing out with a snake-headed arm on each side.
With a deft slash of his weapon Kamen Rider Ex-Aid deflected one incoming arm then reached out and caught the other incoming arm with his hand. The Rider skidded across the asphalt for two feet before bringing up the Keyslasher with his other hand and severed the hissing snake with one powerful cut.
"Not bad, Doctor Hojo," Game Deus said. "Truly an impressive first blow." Then the snake head rolled back the other way and reattached itself to his arm.
"Not bad, Byougen-san," Ex-Aid replied in turn. Just before a storm of glowing arrows flew down from the sky and embedded themselves into GameDeus's shoulders, pinning them to his sides. Kamen Rider Brave stepped into sight, already conjuring another bombardment of glowing arrows that lodged themselves in GameDeus's monstrous face.
Two missiles fired from behind and exploded on impact with GameDeus's back. Kamen Rider Sling pulled up in his flight and looped around for another pass. Zero charged out of the darkness, wailing on her guitar and opening up cracks in the ground that spewed fire. Fire that singed the monster's scaly hide.
"Skybreaker!" announced the voice of Kamen Rider Rune's staff before the clouds over GameDeus's head rumbled and opened, lightning lancing down and digging into skin. Once. Twice. Then four bolts at once stabbed into the master of the Corrupture.
And from the edge of a cracked rooftop, Kamen Rider Laser combined his weapons into a compound bow and fired a single but brightly glowing arrow into GameDeus's forehead. The huge monster was pushed back, almost hitting the ground.
Almost, but not quite.
"A valiant first effort, Riders," GameDeus chuckled. "But you knew it wouldn't be that easy."
He threw his snake-headed arms wide. The arrows impaling them went spinning away, broken into pieces. Around him the Riders scattered, trying to keep from being impaled by the flying arrow shards. While they were busy dodging, the burn makes from their fire and lightning attacks on GameDeus's body were already turning back to normal.
And an evil light filled GameDeus's eyes. "Here's mine!"
Suddenly a pustule on his midriff burst open and a gang of monsters rushed out, waving weapons as they charged to attack the masked heroes.
And in the shadows of an alley, Kamen Rider Utsura rolled a game between his fingers in anxious thought.
He was already having to make a bit of an effort to stand up totally straight in all his armor without being combined with Kiiko. How long would he be able to last if he tried to use his ultimate form? The power to actually alter reality, and even overpower the master of the Corrupture's own ability to remake the area.
What kind of strain would that put on Utsura's body? His mind?
Ex-Aid had warned him against just using Mighty Fest, since they didn't know what might happen. A doctor to the end. Remembering it made Utsura smile a little inside his mask.
But the sounds of battle lulled for a few seconds, and picked up again when Utsura saw game monsters crawling out of burst boils on GameDeus's body to attack the other Kamen Riders.
And Utsura shoved Mighty Fest into its slot in the back of his glove. "Level UP!" it yelled, but Utsura wasn't listening. The only thing he noticed was his samurai armor peeling away, leaving only a dark shape of a Kamen Rider speeding across the broken street, trailing an extending muffler behind him from the neck.
He charged through the plague of monsters, zigzagging in between right before they saw him coming their way but before they could move fast enough to attack him. Utsura skidded to a stop on the street all the way past them and GameDeus. Behind him, the Corrupture monsters he'd raced between suddenly stopped, then screamed as HIT graphics erupted all over their bodies and fell down, melting into a trail of ugly purple slime.
"Hidenaga, what are you doing?!" Sling yelled as he rocketed past, strafing the back of GameDeus's head with his machine guns before pulling up so he wasn't caught in the nest of thrashing tentacles coming off the monster's head.
Was there a note of appreciation in his voice at what he'd just seen, though?
"I'm fighting to the end, like I have this whole time!" Utsura yelled back. He jumped high enough to clear the top of GameDeus's head. Some of the snarling, flailing tentacles coming off the top seemed to notice Utsura arcing their way and twisted toward him, but he reached into his trailing muffler and pulled out a long pole. A curving blade sprouted from the end.
Utsura whirled it, slicing one tentacle-mouth off the writhing appendage it was attached to. Two of them sprayed slimy spit at him from both sides but Utsura had wrapped himself in his infinitely long muffler in the time it took to blink. The awful slime splattered all over it but slid right off. Utsura came out of his defensive posture spinning, whipping the end of his muffler into the tentacles, leaving numerous cuts that seeped purple ooze.
"Look who's joining us!" GameDeus bellowed with laughter, not even bothering to turn around. "But I knew you would, Hidenaga-san! No 'hero' can ever hang back when their best friend's in enemy hands!"
"That's what makes a hero, freak!" Sling yelled at him. "They fight for people who can't fight for themselves!"
"Can Kamen Rider Utsura really fight for himself?!" GameDeus laughed again. He had a point; Utsura's was body twitching, and clouds of pixels came loose and drifted away from the spacescape covering the Rider's body. "Wonder how long he can keep up a form that powerful by himself! Guess there's a price to pay if you're only a partial Patient Zero!"
But Utsura sucked in a hard breath and the twitching stopped. For the moment, anyway. He pounded in a sequence of buttons on the back of his gauntlet, and said, "See what only a partial Patient Zero can do when he's pushed!"
He clutched his arms to his shoulders and concentrated for all he was worth, ignoring the strain to his body that his ultimate game was putting on it. Instead, all of Utsura's mental energy flipped down the list of minigames in his head, allowing himself a smirk as he went past "Gator Skater" and remembered how well that had worked.
This time, though…this time he was going to hit Hourakou with more than just one game at a time.
This time, Kamen Rider Utsura was going to unleash Mighty Fest X's full power.
Even if it killed him.
Utsura threw his arms wide, rays of light shooting out from his fingertips and covering the entire devastated intersection. Already, the dark sky was turning a pleasant blue again. The devastated buildings turned into fantastic buildings, shaped like boxes or like spirals, decorated in fantastic colors like purple, green and orange. The streets leading into the intersection turned into white and red checkboard patterns.
Small, colorful creatures that looked like the famous Mighty floated through the air and circled curiously around the numerous Kamen Riders before drifting off again. Slightlys, the little creatures who explained things in the tutorials or sometimes filled out the roster in games with lots playable characters.
GameDeus clenched his teeth. "You think this will make a difference, Kensei Hidenaga?" he demanded.
"All by itself? No way," Utsura admitted. "But games are supposed to bring people together."
A look of unpleasant surprise seemed to cross GameDeus's monstrous face, and Utsura chuckled. "Surprised you, didn't I?" he asked. "Guess it's something it takes a player to notice."
Before the huge monster could come up with a snide retort, a glowing arrow exploded against the side of his head, blowing one of the flailing tentacles off. It landed on the ground, cracking it, but instead of reattaching itself, the tentacle melted into a thick puddle of sludge.
Kamen Rider Laser looked down at the bow he held, as if he himself couldn't believe his shot had managed to do that much damage in one shot.
And then the rest of the Kamen Riders seemed to realize what was going on.
As one, the heroes of many campaigns attacked their giant enemy.
In Utsura's mind, he focused on a game named 'Hurricane Collectors', about little creatures running around collecting treasures thrown out of hurricanes, and avoiding dangerous debris through own out of the same hurricanes.
Out of nowhere a tornado whirled itself into existence. It wasn't as tall as GameDeus, who looked down at it with an unimpressed expression, but two, then four, then six others formed around the Corrupture end boss. Right away the tornadoes raced around the area chaotically, flinging objects everywhere. Cinderblocks, hissing dynamite, but things like oversized diamonds and bags of money too. One terrified chicken almost hit Kamen Rider Rune in the face, who gasped in horror and ducked just in time.
"Hey, whose side are you on, anyway?!" he yelled over his shoulder at Utsura.
"You know better than to ask a question that stupid!" Utsura yelled. As if to answer his declaration, the tornadoes suddenly turned and aimed their funnels at GameDeus's face and blasted streams of rubble up at his eyes.
The giant boss enemy hissed and leaned back out of reflex, flailing at the tornados with his numerous snake-headed arms and randomly blocking some of the incoming debris. Utsura's tornados just heaved up more and more, coming faster, leaving dents and bruises where they hit. And, it didn't take a genius to notice, distracting the giant enemy.
"Now," Kamen Rider Brave said calmly. He spun his sword above his head, conjuring a swarm of his magical arrows, then leveled the blade at GameDeus's head. The next blast of rubble from the tornados smacked into GameDeus again, but Brave's arrows cleaved through them and embedded in the monster's face and sending shards of his armor flying when they lodged in his chest.
"One more time, Brave!" Utsura yelled with a laugh, his mind clicking on a game called 'Apple Archer'. "Try and hit these!"
Suddenly, oversized apples started falling from the sky. Brave gave Utsura a look, but conjured more arrows and sent them flying. Arrows pierced apples, point tallies floating up. 100, 500, 750, 1000, 2000, 3000…but a huge cluster fell onto one eye and turned into a sloppy mess. Kamen Rider Brave had sent arrows shooting at the apples before they landed...
A piercing shriek of pain split the air, bending trees back at the ends of Utsura's Game Area from its terrible force.
GameDeus lashed out with numerous snake-faced arms. They went high and low as he spun in place, high swatting away the last of Brave's incoming arrows, low tearing a circular trench in the concrete. But even with all the chaos, the Riders could see their enemy's wounds weren't healing back up like they had before.
"We have to keep it up!" Ex-Aid shouted. "Give us something to get close enough to land some decisive blows!"
"You got it, Emu!" Utsura called back. He pivoted his body and focused on another minigame on his list, one called 'Cake Walk'. In front of Ex-Aid himself and in front of Zero appeared giant slices of cake, then another one slightly higher, then more, forming stairs that wound through the air up to GameDeus's shoulder level.
"When he hears this he'll be bleeding from the ears!" Kamen Rider Zero shouted and charged up the cake stairway. Ex-Aid ran up the other one without a word, wielding his Keyslasher while Zero was holding her guitar tight to her body and holding her pick ready to unleash a powerful solo as soon as they were close enough.
After another second, they were, within a good jump's distance of GameDeus's shoulders. He'd recovered and was glaring at them angrily. All the tentacles sprouting off his head had swung around and were aimed at the pair of Riders, then spat black slimeballs the pair's way. Zero gave her guitar a powerful strum and a bombardment of flaming notes cleared a path through the slime.
Ex-Aid didn't even bother trying to defend himself. His golden body crashed right through the slime that came his way, any one of them as big as he was. But what was a slimeball, even one as big as a man, to the truly invincible superhero?
Golden light surrounded Ex-Aid's body, even brighter than before. Fiery energy engulfed Zero's. Then as one, they both unleashed it. In midair Ex-Aid brought up his Keyslasher and made a cut in the air in the shape of an X. Zero slashed her pick across the strings of her guitar. A blazing X and a stream of flaming notes surged through the air and blasted half a dozen tentacles off of GameDeus's head.
"Now you, Rune!" Utsura yelled, at the same time focusing on a game titled 'Coffee Crash'. "Ride Laser and get ready to attack!"
"Ride Laser?" Rune asked, but Kamen Rider Laser was already ahead of him. Out of his belt the second game came and he reverted back into a lean yellow motorcycle. Right before a pile of dark brown coffee beans appeared a ways down the street, a red arrow bobbing up and down over it.
"Let's go!" Laser ordered, his front wheel jerking from side to side in an awkward approximation of speech. Shaking his head, Kamen Rider Rune jumped onto his back, riding another Rider through the pile of beans.
Rune almost fell off when suddenly the bike's speed doubled. He leaned forward as hard as he could and grabbed onto the handlebar with one hand for dear life, onto the staff he was sure he'd need any second in the other.
The bike skidded around a corner and ran over another pile of coffee beans and went even faster. Glancing over his shoulder, Kamen Rider Rune could see GameDeus turning to keep his eye on them. But they were going so fast, there was no way he could keep up with something so small.
Especially not after Laser ran over yet another pile of coffee. They zoomed behind the monster, who was already turning to try and spot them again.
It was the time to attack.
"Skybreaker!" announced Rune's staff. A spear of lightning shot down from the sky and stabbed into the back of GameDeus's neck.
"GYAAAAGH!" the monster screamed, angrily whipping around, but couldn't see anyone there. Another lightning blast exploded right between his shoulders. Another hit him on the side of the head, blowing off three tendrils in one shot.
Another lightning bolt struck him, but GameDeus didn't look around for Rune and Laser. Instead he looked down the street, where Kamen Rider Utsura was still beaming power from his fingertips.
And reached out for him with one giant snake-arm.
"You shouldn't have been able to sustain that ultimate form by yourself," GameDeus said, almost smiling. He ignored another lightning bolt that burned its way into his shoulder. "But that's the real power of that game of yours: it connects you with other people! That's how you've been able to stay in that form!"
Utsura braced himself to run but the it was already too late. The ground erupted underneath him, one of GameDeus's snake-hands breaking through it and clamping down on Utsura's waist. The one that'd been reaching for him plain view had just been a distraction.
Another lightning bolt struck against GameDeus's shoulder, but this time it only had the half the force behind the last several had. Brave raised his sword and summoned a barrage of arrows aimed at the arm holding Utsura and they lodged themselves in one side and out the other, but GameDeus just kept hauling in his catch, ignoring his new injury.
"It's no good…we lost the power boost without Hidenaga being able to concentrate!" Rune said.
All of a sudden, he realized they weren't moving anymore. Kamen Rider Laser had stopped, even the eyes in his fairing were closed. He tipped over and threw Rune off him, then started snoring.
"Oh god, he crashed!" Rune moaned.
GameDeus dangled Kamen Rider Utsura in front of his face. The Rider's armor was flickering and disintegrating off his torso with his connections severed after the shock of being seized by a giant snake. "I'll admit it, you honestly had me worried for a little while there," GameDeus snickered, ignoring a blast of flaming musical notes that hit the side of his head.
Utsura gasped, "We will stop you!"
"I'm sure you'd like to try," GameDeus smirked down at him. "But in the meantime, your friends will have to make do without the extra power that made them a threat."
Then without another word he flipped Utsura through the air and down his throat.
See You Next Game