Ride On Chapter 1
Warning!
The first part of this chapter deals with a situation of ATTEMPTED rape. You have been warned.
Last Week of November, 2010
After School
Streets of Brockton Bay
'Oh no…oh god, no…!' was all I thought as I ran. My lungs and legs burned with effort as I forced myself to keep running in spite of how exhausted I was. I swore to myself over and over that if I got out of this mess, I would never, ever let myself get into such bad physical condition again; I'd work myself until I got a six-pack and could outrun a member of the track team, dammit!
"Get back here, you little bitch!" one of the four boys chasing after me yelled. I ignored him in favour of running.
The last couple of months or so, the three girls I called the Bitch Trio, Sophia Hess, Madison Clements and my EX-best friend Emma Barnes, had backed off of me for the most part, with just the occasional mean-spirited prank to remind me that they were there (as if I could forget).
I had, stupidly, let my guard down a bit, cautiously optimistic that they may have, finally, grown tired of making my life a living hell. Alas, it wasn't to be. Today, as soon as I had gotten about a meter away from the doors of Winslow Highschool, that bitch tornado Sophia had set four boys on me, probably to scare me.
Unfortunately for me, I knew that at least two of the boys following me had very bad reputations when it came to girls; they didn't take 'no' for an answer when it came to their dates putting out and if they caught me, I doubted they'd hesitate to take advantage of the situation. No way did I want to trade my v-card in with scum like this.
So I ran.
Sadly, my four pursuers were members of the male half of the track team and were used to this kind of punishing run. So it was unfortunately inevitable that one of them managed to catch up to me and put me in a sleeper hold. I scratched and scrambled at his arm, drawing blood and jammed my heel onto his foot.
"Aargh, you fucking bitch!" he screamed.
A fist from one of his friends slammed into my stomach and almost made me throw up my lunch. It was followed up by a couple more before I dangled in the first boy's arms, winded and exhausted.
"Fuck! Look at me!" my captor growled. "Fucking slut just scratched me up like a fucking cat!"
"You shoulda restrained her arms first, dipshit." His friend jeered.
"Fuck this and fuck you." My captor snarled. "This is so not worth what that bitch is paying. Imma take her somewhere quiet and enjoy her, if ya catch my drift."
"Dude, not cool." Another boy said heatedly. "She only wanted-!"
"Fuck Sophia Hess and the horse she rode in on!" the last snapped. "Thinks she's so goddamn hot and shit, but won't give us the time of day unless we bow and scrape to her! We musta chased this skinny bitch across half the city! Just twenty bucks apiece ain't worth it, so Taylor fucking Hebert is gonna pay the rest with her body, plus interest."
"I'm out." The dissenter backed off. "I don't mind roughing people up, but this is where I draw the line!"
"Me too." The second boy said seriously. "Jamie, you'd better not go any further. If I see her dead or missing in the papers, I'll tell the cops everything."
"Screw you, Andy!" my captor shouted before dragging me off, one of the other boys following him, while the other two left.
'No…please, god…no!' I begged as I struggled weakly.
"Settle the fuck down, slut." 'Jamie' jeered at me. "Let it happen and hey, you might like spreading 'em for me."
I responded by sinking my teeth into his arm.
"AAArrghh! Fucking bitch!" he screamed and let me go. I tried to run again, but a kick to my side sent me sprawling.
As the two boys started to rip my clothes off, I struggled and resisted all I could, but nothing worked. Just as I lost all my clothes aside from my underwear, I felt something happening to me and…
[Destination]
(Two giant beings spun together)
-[Agreement]-
(Eternally as one, they so even apart)
[Alignment]
(Splitting apart now, they will return to what they once were again)
-[Agreement]-
(A flash of golden light)
[Alarm! Intrusion!]
(Two massive beings, focusing on the golden light shooting towards the two shining lights they had just sent towards the new host)
-[Disconnect?]-
(A sense of anger and frustration)
[Negation. Inevitability. Intersection Imminent.]
(The light struck the two lights just as they combined. When it struck the host, she heard one word spoken softly, yet with determination.)
-{HENSHIN!}-
I screamed and a dome of golden fire erupted out of me, engulfing the two boys and burning them to husks inside of two seconds. Neither of them had the chance to do so much as to scream as they died. This left me sitting next to two smoldering corpses, wearing almost nothing aside from ripped panties and a bra covering my nonexistent breasts.
"I…oh…oh god…!" I gagged at the smell coming off of the dead boys, and I barely managed to keep my gorge down. Staggering to my feet, I gathered up the scraps of my clothing and my bag before shakily making my way home via a route that (hopefully) no one would see my almost completely naked self.
As I walked, my mind darkly turned towards the bitch that was responsible for me almost being raped. Yes, the two boys had decided to do it without consulting her, but Sophia was the one who had orchestrated and enabled the whole situation in the first place. It was her fault.
She was gonna pay for that.
Two Days Later
Taylor's Room, Hebert Household
Returning to my house that day, I had let my tears flow for a good hour before dashing them and getting down to business. I was now no longer a student of Winslow and was just a homeschooled student. I hadn't told my Dad about the attempted rape, but most of the rest of the bullying? Hell yes.
He'd been angry, but I'd talked him down from storming either the Barnes Residence or Winslow and letting loose a stream of vitriol at the occupants. I just got him to withdraw me and to tell Alan and Zoe Barnes what Emma had done to me.
Once that had been taken care of, I had gotten down to figuring out how I had killed, albeit accidentally, my would-be rapists. It turned out that I could deploy a field of golden fire around me. It wasn't a wide field of effect, but it was about a meter square around me. The made it a fairly weak Shaker power, but the lethality of the golden fire, which had burned two humans to death, put it quite a bit higher on the threat scale than I was comfortable with.
I was also a Tinker, I was discovering. Just this morning, I had disassembled a whole host of old electronic junk to build…something. It was this 'something' which I was examining right this instant. It was a mechanical red-eyed grasshopper of some kind and it was completely unresponsive, even when I pressed the three buttons on its back.
"Wait…it needs something." I said aloud, seeing the blueprint of what it needed in my mind. It was…a belt of some kind…but I also needed to have a bucket load of metal for when I first used it. I didn't know exactly what it did, but I could tell that it was going to be just the start.
"I killed them." I muttered as my mind returned to where and how I had gotten these powers. I had a body count, two ordinary highschool boys. Yes, they were scumbags who had tried to rape me, but they hadn't actually gone through with it before I 'flared' at them. If I hadn't though, they would have raped me. An even more unfortunate part of my powers was I had no ability to control the strength and dimensions of my 'golden fire field'; it was either off or on all the way, no matter what I tried.
"No more." I said firmly. I wouldn't kill anyone else unless they had a Kill Order on their heads. After all…I was gonna be a hero.
The Next Night
Smilin' Sam's Scrapyard, Brockton Bay
There were at least four scrapyards in Brockton Bay; the largest one was the main yard, with the other three being smaller versions of it. There was no difference as to what was disposed of there, just the amount of it.
It didn't take a genius to figure out that the gangs, and probably the PRT as well, kept an eye on who bought stuff from the scrapyards, as well as the pawn shops and secondhand stores, to sniff out young naïve Tinkers who bought things in order to assuage their need to Tinker.
I had gotten by that little trap thus far by cannibalizing old broken electronics and stuff from the basement and a bit of enterprising raiding of bins in the neighborhood. It was amazing that people threw out a perfectly good blender just because there was a crack in the container. Replace the container and it was good, right? So wasteful.
Anyway, I had gotten around it before now, but I needed the metal, and I wasn't willing to announce to all and sundry that I was a Tinker, not until I had a costume to wear at least. That meant I had to basically commit a crime, to wit, breaking and entering, in order to get my hands on the metals I needed.
I didn't just go in though. I scoped the place out and there was, apparently, no security system in place beyond a high concrete wall and a heavy iron gate. I couldn't see any kind of security cameras either, which I found a bit suspicious, but the scrapyards, in all honesty, weren't worth that kind of investment, so it was plausible. I wasn't taking any chances though. I had black clothes on, as well as a balaclava that hid most of my face.
The dumpsters on the side of the perimeter wall allowed me to gain access to the scrapyard. I dropped down and landed lightly on the other side. There were mounds of rusting cars and the like nearby, so I doubted that getting out would be hard.
The amount of scrap metal that was in this yard was amazing, and it was a small one. The mind boggled at what a large one would look like.
Moving as stealthily as I could, I pulled off my backpack and opened it out, taking the belt and grasshopper out. The belt was a very basic type that clicked together at the front, but it also had what looked like a platform on the front.
After I put it on, I held the grasshopper in my hand and flared out my golden bubble, which I noticed was absorbed by both my belt and by the grasshopper. The belt didn't change, but the grasshopper's body turned black, with the legs and antennae turning cobalt blue. It also came alive and hopped out of my hand and around on the ground!
"Whoa…!" I breathed, eyes wide. "That is so cool."
The grasshopper looked up at me and jumped up to me, landing back in my hand. The center button flashed blue and I cocked my head to one side slightly before pushing it.
[Masked Rider Pantheon!] A deep voice said from the grasshopper, which scared the crap out of me. The grasshopper then jumped at my waist and attached itself to my belt, which prompted the same voice to say [Wind Charge!].
I was staring at it in confusion when the same middle button lit up blue again. Hesitating for a moment, I firmed my resolve and pressed the button.
A blue flash erupted from the belt buckle and spread out to encompass the junk around me. Where the blue light touched the metal, it dissolved and flowed towards me as blue motes of light.
[Reach to the HEAVENS, Masked Rider! Stand and FIGHT! As of this moment, the SCYTHING WIND is at your command!]
In a flash, the blue light was gone…and I was dressed in something that made me gape. Covering most of my body was a black bodysuit that fit my form perfectly and there were black armoured pads on my knees, elbows and shoulders. On my feet was a pair of cobalt blue boots, while my hands were covered by cobalt blue gloves. My abdomen and chest were covered by a cobalt blue layer of armour stylized to resemble the muscles I remember promising myself to build up. A red scarf fluttered in the breeze from around my neck and I wore a helmet that I knew looked like the grasshopper's head.
"Whoa…!" I repeated, and then paused. My voice was coming out garbled, almost completely unlike my own. A built-in voice changer? Cool. A good question here would be how was all of this built? And what the heck could I do with it?
I blinked as a wall of text appeared on my HUD.
Masked Rider [The First]: Auxiliary Equipment List
- Ultrasensitive Antennae – Allows detection of non-living enemies.
- Cat's Eye Vision – Special lenses in helmet that grant user night vision.
- Crusher Jaws – Special faceplate device strong enough to bite through steel chains.
- Iron Lung – Stores enough air to survive for two hours without exiting armor.
- Wind Converter – Absorbs host's [Solar Energy] and converts it into [Wind Energy].
- Typhoon Grasshopper – Belt device that runs armor systems.
- Muscle Enhancers – Grants increased muscle power, especially to the legs.
- Grasshopper Boots – Adds grasshopper-like jumping abilities to the armor.
"Huh…OK." I nodded instinctively. "And offensive options?"
Masked Rider [The First]: Offensive Equipment/Ability List
-{Barehanded}
Rider Tornado Chop
Rider Twister Punch
Rider Cyclone Kick
-{With Typhoon Pistol}
Rider Typhoon Bullet
-{With Cyclone Sword}
Rider Cyclone Slash
-{With Windstorm Spear}
Rider Windstorm Thrust
-{With Hurricane Cycle}
Rider Hurricane Break
"Do I actually have these things?" I asked with a raised eyebrow.
Running inventory…
- Typhoon Pistol…not found.
- Cyclone Sword…not found.
- Windstorm Spear…not found.
- Hurricane Cycle…not found.
"So I have to build them." I concluded as I looked around and winced, seeing how much of the scrap my suit had ended up absorbing. I'd better skedaddle before someone came to investigate the lightshow. "What can this suit actually do, physically speaking?"
Masked Rider [The First]: Physical Ability Chart
- Punching Power: 4 tons.
- Kicking Power: 30 tons.
- Grip Strength: 20X human average.
- Maximum Jumping Height: 15 Meters.
- Maximum Running Speed: 100 meters per 5 seconds.
I blinked, and then blinked again. Just to be safe, I blinked a third time. Nope, the data was still in front of me, however impossible it may seem. It was impossible though. The fastest any woman had run the hundred meters in hadn't broken through the ten second limit, while no man had ever managed to get below the nine-second limit. This little clump of information had to be wrong.
All data correct.
And now my suit was reading my mind. Lovely.
Shrugging, I decided to take my suit on a test drive. Turning about-face to look at the perimeter wall, I crouched down and jumped, aiming to land near the wall. Unfortunately, I underestimated the power of my suit's muscle enhancement and I ended up flying over the wall to land atop the building next to the junk yard.
"Whoa!" I stumbled as I landed. "That was…whoo! What a rush! Man, that was unexpected. Let's try this again…"
It took some doing, but I was soon able to control my jumping to an acceptable degree. What it depended upon for height and distance was how far down I crouched before jumping. Controlled jumping in combat was easier, ironically enough, as I just had to concentrate on jumping around my enemies.
How did I know this? Well, I accidentally landed in the middle of a bunch of ABB who were in the middle of shaking down an idiotic couple who had been making out in a car. Idiots.
I landed in a three-point pose in front of the ABB, looking up at the surprised gangbangers as they paused in the middle of their shakedown of the couple. The man was wearing a business suit and the bruising on his face showed that he had tried to fight back at least. The woman was wearing a dress, or what remained of it. Looks as if the ABB wanted to have some fun with her, fucking bastards.
The sight reminded me of when I had been in her place and my blood boiled with anger.
"Let them go. Now." I snarled at the ABB grunts as I straightened up. I counted them as I did. Five of them; two holding the arms of each of the couple, and one hastily pulling his trousers up.
"Fuck you, ya armored freak!" one snarled and drew a gun, snapping off a clip at me. The bullets either ricocheted off me or pancaked when they hit my armour.
"…that was exceptionally stupid." I said mildly and leapt into range of the man, snatching his gun out of his hand and crushing it into a ball of scrap. I then punched him in the solar plexus, sending him flying back before dropping the crushed gun to the floor.
"Get the bastard!" the apparent leader screamed and the four remaining ABB thugs charged in at me, one even waving a sword about. I could use that…
I let one punch my shoulder and felt nothing whatsoever. I wasn't even budged.
Then I fought back. My knowledge of fighting was limited, but I did know how to throw a punch thanks to a Dockworker showing me how when I was a kid. One blow to the gut each was enough to send all four of the remaining attackers to the ground, gasping and wheezing in pain.
I picked them up and threw them into a dumpster, slamming the lid on them and stapling it shut with a length of a nearby fire escape that I ripped off. Then I turned to check on the couple…
…only to find that they'd skedaddled in the fuss. Well there's gratitude for you. I couldn't really blame them though.
Sorting through the guns and the sword, I took the handgun that looked to be in the best condition and the sword, with the idea to use them. Then words popped up across my HUD.
Appropriate vessels for [Typhoon Pistol] and [Cyclone Sword] located. In order to shape into the correct items, de-transform and re-transform.
"Not here, I'm not." I mutter. "Can I get a holster for a pistol and a sheath for a katana?"
A blue flash and I had a holster strapped to my right leg, and a sheath hanging from my left hip, where I place the two weapons before leaping into the night.
Next Day
Streets of Brockton Bay
I had to find somewhere to turn into a lab. There were a fair few abandoned places in the Bay, but a lot of them were taken over by one or another of the gangs, with the Merchants squatting in most of them.
Walking around the Bay alone was not a good idea in the areas controlled by the gangs, for obvious reasons. Unfortunately, the so-called 'safe' areas of the city were closely patrolled by the PRT, Protectorate, Wards and New Wave, so they were bad ideas as well.
That left a fair few areas that were kinda-sorta no-man's land or neutral zones between the gangs, if you included the PRT, Protectorate and New Wave as gangs. My neighborhood was in one of those little areas. We hadn't had a PRT patrol out our way since I was a little girl, and the same could be said of patrols by the Protectorate or Wards. We were an area of little interest; just a bit too far away from the Broadwalk to make it a good place to rob or to show off, and a little too far away from the Northern Docks Area to have any decent places for the Merchants to squat. Just a bunch of suburbs in the shadow of Captain's Hill.
Just perfect for my purposes, really.
The problem was finding somewhere that was abandoned, still in good condition and not likely to have some random guy wander in. Anywhere too close to my home was also out, as the street I lived on was fairly packed, as was the entire block that I lived in. I also wanted some space between my home and my lab/base just in case things turned pear-shaped.
I paused as I eyed an old garage that had been closed down for years. The windows were boarded up, the garage doors were down and secured with massive padlocks and chains held the doors shut. None of that would stop me from getting in…as I could just rip a way in if needed.
With a smirk, I turned around and headed back home. Looks like I had a good place to investigate tonight.
That Night
When I had de-transformed the previous night, the sword and handgun had vanished as well. While somewhat concerning, I decided to trust in my tech and see what happened the next time I 'transformed' and donned the suit again.
[Reach to the HEAVENS, Masked Rider! Stand and FIGHT! As of this moment, the SCYTHING WIND is at your command!]
When I transformed this time, inside an alley, I discovered that the sword and pistol had changed. The katana was still a katana, but it now had a curved d-guard over the hilt, as well as a red fan installed at the base of the hilt, while the handgun was now a lot more…futuristic. It looked like a laser pistol, although I wasn't inclined to shoot it just for the hell of it.
Putting them back in their proper places, I started roof-hopping towards the garage. If I was lucky, I'd be able to get my hands on tools and parts as well as a base of operations.
Getting into the building was actually easier than I had thought, due to the fact that there was a skylight in the office section of the garage. Something to keep in mind for when I took the place over.
Inside, it was gloomy as hell, but my night vision lenses made it as bright as day. There were a bunch of half-collapsed desks and assorted drek scattered in the office. According to my suit's sensors, the place had a lot of rotting furniture and stuff here. Jeez, whoever'd closed this place down had done it in a hurry.
Moving into the actual garage, a very wide smirk grew on my face. The place was full of tools, spare parts and stuff, but the bike sitting on its side made me very happy. One of the things that was, apparently, integral to the armored suit I had created was a bike, so far be it from me to turn up my nose at it.
Motorcycle detected…currently in state of minor disrepair, requiring replacement of several components to make usable.
"Figures." I muttered. "Well, I can go beat up muggers or something to get the cash. Better start cleaning this place up first though. That office needs a good clean to start."
Once that was taken care of though…I could really get started as a Tinker.
I couldn't wait.
OK, so…yeah, not really fond of what I wrote at the start. I loathe people who try THAT kind of thing with women, even other women. I took the idea from ack1308's fic The Price of Blood, as it's the type of Trigger Event that suits the particular type of Tinker that Taylor is in this story. Didn't make me feel any better about writing it, but there you have it.
And so we have Kamen Rider!Taylor. Pretty much, she builds the insect transformers out of Kamen Rider Kabuto and the belts, while they form the armor out of materials around them during their first transformation, adding weapons as and when they get them. And in case it wasn't obvious, Masked Rider [The First] is a kind of shout out to the rebooted version of Kamen Rider Ichigo, while the transformation phrase that the morpher/transformer uses is in homage to Kamen Rider Ex-Aid. Taylor won't be using [The First] for long, as it's little more than a prototype and she's going to figure out a better version (and why it's needed) later on.
Oh, and the next chapter will have the PRT's reaction to the two dead boys. Keep it frosty!
Tinker: 4 (Taylor is able to build a variety of Kamen Rider transforming devices and belts, as well as a multitude of other tech to support and supplement her armor)
Shaker: 5 (Taylor is able to deploy a dome of golden fire around herself that is strong enough to kill unprotected humans in a matter of seconds. It has a radius and height of one meter around her and cannot be controlled aside from switched on and off as needed.)
Kamen Rider [The First] PRT Threat Assessment (as demonstrated in this chapter)
Brute: 5 (Is capable of crushing/breaking steel with punches and kicks, is immune to small-arms fire up to and including assault rifle fire)
Mover: 4 (Is capable of leaping a considerable height in the air, allowing for rapid transit)
Thinker: 2 (Has Night Vision)