Exercises in Futility

What was he fighting for, he asked himself; what was the reason for going on? All these wasted years, all these endless battles and he kept pushing himself, keep fighting against every opponent the world threw at him. Would it not be better to give in, he asked himself; would it not be better to abandon the fight?

Beneath the shifting shape of his mask, he clenched his teeth. Hadn't he rallied against life in those early days, traipsing through the mud and the dirt of the front, dragging his shattered form across the endless battlefields, through the wild forests and the empty towns, putting down his foes whenever they blocked his way—Spinne-Mann, Fledermaus-Mann. Skorpion-Mann. What was the point in carrying on, what was the point in fighting any further?

A terrible thought crossed his mind. He should just let this other man defeat him, he should just give up, accept that there was no escaping this dead world, that, in this place, only death was real.

And yet he could not; despite himself, he could not give up the fight so readily.

Deftly, he sidestepped, narrowly avoiding the thrust of his opponent's punch. Inside, he felt the confusion and anger of the armour he wore, its essence almost alive, the shape of it almost like flesh. He had long since learned to reconcile himself to the horror of what had been done to him by the Sicherunggruppe, and yet, even after all these years, every now and then, Heuschrecke feared that the sickly armour that encompassed him when summoned was alive in some fashion independent of his own existence.

He sidestepped once more, the other relentless in his assault, driving him back with a series of punches that afforded him no chance to think, no chance to coordinate his own attack, and despite coming across as a bruiser, Heuschrecke realised that the other man was controlling his movements precisely.

He threw up his forearm, blocking a punch and catching hold of the other's arm as it came swinging in from the left.

"How did you find out about me?" he asked, feeling the seething flesh of his armour twisting into a snarl.

When von Shockä's surgeons had performed their work on him, they had believed that they were creating the perfect being, a reflection of how man had been at the beginning of all things, before the Garden, before the Fall. What they had fashioned instead was monstrous in appearance, a foul creature more akin to an ambling human-locust than any actual measure of perfection. The armour itself, if such it could be called in contrast to that of his opponent, was little more than cancerous tissue, tumours that expanded and contracted at will, washing over him from the knot of bound hair, the rotting trichobezoar that they had buried in his stomach.

The other soldier wrenched free and took a step back and yet did not resume his attack.

"I-I don't know," he confessed with discomfort. "I know that I have to defeat you if I want to return."

Heuschrecke nodded.

"We all remember that. When I stumbled into this place, I knew that there was someone I had to defeat in order to escape."

The soldier in the red armour hesitated.

"And you never found him?"

Sadly, Heuschrecke shook his head.

"I found him. He was an old man, his armour worn down by years of usage. It looked as if he had been living in it."

He was silent for a moment, unable to turn away from his opponent and yet the urge to fight fading within him.

"His name was Cyclone Ranger. I killed him with my bare hands."

The dust stirred on the ground between them.

"And yet you're still here?"

Again, Heuschrecke nodded.

"After him, there was another, and after that, another. I don't remember their names. It was a series of unending battles, and every time I thought maybe this would be the victory that would earn me passage off this dead world." A hollow laugh escaped his lips. "And yet here I am. Still."

Reaching down, he crossed his arms at his waist once more, this time in reverse, and, without warning, his putrid bio-armour receded into nothingness, peeling away to reveal his tired features, his bare chest, the sodden bandages that wrapped his arms, the aged greatcoat he wore over his shoulders.

"Perhaps there is no way out," he said softly, "perhaps this world is an illusion and the only escape is…"

His voice trailed off, incapable of saying what he meant.

Was this really true? After all this time, was he really willing to give up his life, to abandon his fate to this man he had just met, the first opponent he had encountered in so, so long.

"I'm sorry," the other answered. "I believe you. And yet I have to know. If there is a way to return to those who are waiting for me, then I have to try that, and if that means defeating you, then so be it."

He straightened up, somehow resplendent in the matte red armour he wore.

"My name is Flavius Furius Aquila," he announced, "in my time, I was a centurion of some small repute. Now, I am just a soldier trying to find his way back to his comrades."

Heuschrecke nodded and closed his eyes.

"Thank you," he said softly, "for trusting me with your name."

The wind stirred between them once more and he sensed rather than the saw the impending fist flying towards him.

x

"Hey kid!" he called into the distance. "Hey kid, are you lost?"

Across the edge of the quarry, he could see her clearly, a child in school uniform, long dark hair and a leather briefcase that looked as if it had seen better days.

"What's a kid doing out here?" he asked himself with a grimace, and then added, "Talking to yourself is the first sign of madness, Genki. That's right. And answering yourself is the second sign."

He smiled at his own joke and then began to jog slowly around the edge of the pit, moving patiently towards the edge where she stood peering at something on her wrist, a watch maybe, something like that, he thought. At age 24, it had been a long time since Tamashii Genki had found himself in a situation like this, his scarf loose about his neck, his guitar heavy on his back as he approached. More than a handful of years out of university, his time at Jack Ryder's armoured hero academy cut short by its closure and the terrible tragedy that had occurred then.

Grimly, he remembered watching as Erik Caine had torn through Towerhacker Stadium, his Stardust Sabre clashing with the silver blade of his opponent's épée, watching as the very stadium had trembled.

He remembered the look on Caine's face as he realised what he had done, as the blade shredded the armour of Ryker's son, as the stadium crumbled and the buildings fell.

Those had not been good days, he had been 18-years-old, and, like any 18-year-old, he had bounced back from it, going solo despite the heavy restrictions placed on armoured heroes shortly after the tragedy. There had been too many rogue agents such as Ryusei Long still prowling the country, the government had argued when talking of greater legislation; too much power had been received by those without the sense or compassion to use the armour they inherited or constructed.

Six years after the tragedy and there had been hardly any of those heroes the students of the academy hoped to emulate left; six years and Tamashii Genki had found himself drawn into another mystery.

"Hey, kid," he said drawing up to the child, resting his hands on his knees and letting out a breath. "Hey, kid, you're the first person I've seen all day. You have any idea where this place is?"

He remembered driving through the night, remembered the cold fog that had washed over him, leaving beads on condensation on the visor of his motorcycle helmet, but after that there was nothing, a blank space in his memory, as if he had slipped over into another place, another dimension—a dimension of sound, a dimension of sight, a dimension of mind, like that old TV show used to say, he thought, and then paused, trying to remember if that had been The Twilight Zone or The Outer Limits.

Not, of course, that such things were unusual. He found his bike took him wherever it wanted nowadays, sometimes almost as if it had a mind of its own, as if it was following a path. Whatever was different about the worlds he visited, one thing remained the same: there was always someone who needed his help. Maybe in this world, this young girl was just such a person—or maybe she was someone who would lead him to that person. Whatever the case, he couldn't pass up the chance for a conversation with an actual human being. It felt as if he had been walking around all morning and all he had seen were empty quarries and abandoned industrial areas, a sight that reminded him of the time he had found himself idly looking up something or other about the Kuril Islands and come away with more knowledge than he had really needed.

The young girl turned to him, straight dark hair, her eyebrows slightly unkempt, a small white button badge with a question mark appended to the right strap of her pinafore.

"What's your name, kid?" Genki asked, slightly unsettled by the sternness of her gaze.

"Joan," she answered softly, the faint suggestion of a Scottish accent characterising her words. "Joan Smith."

She lifted her arm to show the watch bound to her wrist by a thin leather strap, its display flickering, a sudden projection of the ten planets of the solar system springing up in three dimensions, rotating slowly from the small blue-green orb where they resided to far distant Planet X as it crawled its way back into the orbit of the sun.

Genki blinked in surprise.

"Young man," the girl said in a tone that was deadly serious, "I have the terrible feeling that we are not where we should be."

x

"This place is awful." He paused, cupping his hands to light a cigarette and then shaking the match free. "Where did you say it was, again?"

The wind caught the hem of his aged trench coat, faded beige, tartan lining, fashionable at one point but now, like the white shirt and black suit trowsers he wore, the brown leather brogues, tired and old.

Ahead of him, the young man with the mass of bleached hair looked out over the shifting fog that seemed to extend for miles before them, his oversized black jumper threadbare and shapeless, his tartan bondage trowsers decorated with safety pins.

Funny, he thought, when first he had met Kazama Ryunosuke 12-years ago, he had seemed so much more straight-laced. Not, of course, that the boy had changed physically, discounting the constant change of hair colour. He remembered Kazama's pink phase, then the blue phase, then a strawberry red phase, and countless others, and, if it wasn't for the fact that he knew the boy to be inhabiting a simulacrum of human likeness then perhaps Punk Rocket, now well into his mid-40s, would had felt slightly jealous about the other's almost eternal youth.

"Oi, are you even listening to me?" he called out to the boy, a stream of pale blue smoke billowing from his nostrils.

Sweeping his coat back and digging his hands into his pockets, he strode over to where Kazama stood on the soft grass, still damp with morning dew.

"Come on then," he said, giving the boy a playful punch in the shoulder, "spill the beans."

To think that, when they first met, Kazama had trashed his favourite ax. Now look at them, he thought, and smiled goofily.

"It's a Fictionspehre," Kazama remarked without turning to look at his travelling companion.

Rocket snorted with displeasure.

"What the bloody hell is one of them when it's at home?" he asked.

Kazama sighed loudly.

"It's a thing that the leftover gods of the Prometheans used to make, a bottle universe outside of the usual flow of time, a place where they could test out their stories."

"Stories?" Rocket asked, arching an eyebrow.

Kazama nodded.

"Stories," he reiterated. "Those old gods used to think of all reality as a narrative, these little Fictionspheres were where they would withdraw to test out possibilities, introduce new characters."

Punk Rocket scowled darkly.

"Life's not a story, that's nonsense."

"Tell that to those old gods," Kazama said with a shrug.

In the distance, there was the faint sound of a motorcycle engine, a low rumble that grew slowly louder, until, at last, in the distance, a figure in black leather upon an old Suzuki T20 could be seen visibly parting the fog.

"That one of your old gods, you think?" Rocket asked with hesitation.

Kazama shook his head, reaching into a pocket and drawing forth a humble tuning fork, its handle carved in the likeness of a skull.

"Somehow, I don't think so," he answered softly.

Patiently, he tapped the fork against his thigh and lifted it to his forehead—and was abruptly thrown forward as something struck him on the back of the head, the fork tumbling from his hand and landing on the grass with a thud.

With a growl, he turned to see a surreal plant creature composed of vines and blossoms dressed in the likeness of what appeared to be a cheap Hallowe'en witch's costume, its roots wrapped about a battered old skateboard.

Punk Rocket took another drag on his cigarette.

"I've got this one," he said, "you go find out if that chap on the bike is friend or foe."

Without pause, he stepped forward, squaring up to the plant monster and stubbing his cigarette out in what should have been its face, the foliage blistering and burning, the shape of the creature recoiling.

Kazama Ryunosuke smiled to himself at the absurdity of his friend's offensive against their new challenger, and then, reaching down for the tuning fork, he prepared himself for the arrival of the masked man on the motorcycle.

x

There was a sudden flash, his eyes opening as the fist sailed towards his face, as the sickening armour of his tumours vomited forth from his pores, enveloping him, swallowing whole the fist, twisting, shattering, breaking.

Flavius Furius Aquila screamed in alarm from behind his mask as the head of the old soldier tried to eat his hand, breaking the bones, dissolving the armour, crawling forth from the solemn other's mask and climbing its way up his forearm, shredding his armour, peeling back the flesh as it went.

From within the mass of swollen tissue, Heuschrecke stood still, immobile, even as Aquila struggled, crying out in ancient curses, trying to wrench his arm free from the spreading mass of the other's armour.

The perfect being, the Sicherunggruppe had called him, a reflection of how man had been at the beginning of all things. And yet, all he was, at the end of the hundred years or so since the end of the war, since he had wondered through the mist and fog of what was left of Europe, was a locust, devouring everything he came into contact with.

When he had told Aquila that he had killed Cyclone Ranger and those that followed him with his bare hands, it had been something of an untruth. He had certainly laid his hands upon those opponents he had faced in the early days of the arena, but, after that, he had let his armour do the rest, the tumours of its gangrenous, cancerous shape blossoming out from him, eating alive those who struggled against him.

Heuschrecke, like his namesake, had survived by eating his foes.

Screaming now in real panic, Aquila tried to pull his arm back, the sickening sound of flesh twisting, of sinews tearing suddenly filling the air between them. He tried not to listen to, chusing to focus on the screams. He had long since learnt that it was easier to listen to the screams; if he listened to the sounds coming out of their mouths, then he didn't have to focus on the noises the rest of their bodies made.

He closed his eyes—and then felt a tremendous pain as the extended flesh of his mask was severed, torn away from the flesh it was anchored to, taking with it the remnants of Aquila's arm.

Swiftly, his eyes snapped open, his face visible for a moment in the gaping hole left by the severance of the extra limb, and then, moments later, new flesh regrew, swollen insect eyes and pulsating green flesh hiding the soft frame of his human form.

Before him, Flavius Furius Aquila stood, hunched over, clutching his left shoulder and the ruined remnants of his arm, the extrusion of Heuschrecke's mask seething and wriggling on the ground still, the remainder of Aquila's arm still within it.

He turned his attention from the wounded soldier to a third man, young, his expression full of cold contempt, a sword outstretched before, its hilt a steel case of some kind. At his hip, his left hand rested upon a holstered gun of some unknown design, he noted, and his costume was unusual, a trailing coat decorated by flames, loose trowsers and heavy work boots, his dark hair unkempt, his eyes wild.

"Sorry for breaking up your fun, boys," he smirked, and, for the faintest moment, Heuschrecke thought he caught sight of fangs in the boy's mouth.

Conscious of Aquila's laboured breathing, of the fact that this new challenger had witnessed the secret of his monstrous armour before he had been ready to reveal it, he remained tense, uncertain of how to react, the flesh that covered him writhing in anxiety.

The boy, 19-years-old maybe, Heuschrecke estimated, looked from him to Aquila and smirked.

"Yeah," he said, "I think I get the gist of what was happening here."

Before the old soldier could react, the boy's hand was on the gun, his finger around the trigger.


A/N: Genki Tamashii created by Rider09 ~ u/1938693

Punk Rocket and Ryunosuke "Ryan" Kazama created by Kamen Rider Chrome ~ u/676659

Zackery Masayoshi Orion created by Lewamus Prime 2019 ~ u/6878339