Exercises in Futility II
Wave after wave of them fell, the colossal shape of his new armour, the fusion of Yuuki's cassette technology with the technology designed by the original Shocker scientists all those years ago made him an impossible force of nature, the sheer weight of the armour he now wore giving him the presence of a tank upon the battlefield, an opponent that none in the Badan Empire could stand against.
Of course, if anyone was going to break the stalemate they found themselves in, it would have been Hongo Takeshi, he thought to himself. A smile crossed his lips, the gesture hidden by the grill of white metal that covered his mouth and ran up towards his crown, the glistening emerald eyes of his helm resting either side.
The white leather of his gloves creaked as Kazami Shiro tightened his hands into fists, the battered V3 armour he wore stained with dirt and blood, yet its sturdiness was undoubtable, its very existence the result of Hongo and Ichimonji's blood, sweat and tears.
He felt a hand on his shoulder, and turned to see Kuroi Kyoichiro at his side, his own subtle blue armour a scaled down version of Hongo's new form, another testament to both the genius of Yuuki, and the dedication of Hongo and Ichimonji.
Around them, the crowd of creatures pushed in, ahead of them the shadow of the black pyramid rose up.
"We have to push forward," Kazami announced, unflinching in the face of such odds.
"Then let's not keep Hongo waiting," the other man agreed, reaching down to the belt at his waist, a silent call sent out across ethereal radio waves.
The ground shook beneath them, a low rumble, the surrounding crowd of mutants suddenly uncertain, turning slowly away from the two cornered men—and then with a roar of mechanical fury, the shape of the TriCyclone tore through the crowd, mutants and monsters tossed aside and over its bonnet, as it skidded driverless to a halt before Kazami and Kuroi.
"Get in," Kuroi said simply, yanking the door open, his gloved hands falling readily upon the steering wheel, "let's go for a ride."
His flesh burnt, a plume of black smoke rising up from the ruptured fuel tank in the dirt, and slowly, Mikage Eisuke turned to face his opponent, his face slick with sweat, contorted in agony, suddenly human once more.
At his waist, Tsukuyomi slid the Geiz RideWatch into the spare Ziku Driver, the belt stirring into life, its internal operating system booting up in recognition of the sudden connexion.
'Rider Time!' the machine called out with mechanical bluster.
He stepped forward, the other watch that Geiz had given him held in his hand, and then abruptly he stopped, feeling a hand upon his shoulder. Instinctively, he pulled away, turning to see a man several years older than him, dressed in a white leather jacket, a black silk scarf tied about his neck, his eyes hidden by a pair of aviator sunglasses.
"Wait," he said, passing Tsukuyomi by, his shoes crushing the gravel of the barren land before the obsidian pyramid.
Tsukuyomi made to step forward, to argue his case, and the other man reached up, pulling his sunglasses free of his face, fixing the three of them with a stern gaze.
"If you're the kind of man I think you are," he said, his voice deep, resonant, "if you're like the rest of these men here, then you'll trust me when I tell you this is my fight."
"Man?" Sumire murmured, lifting a finger and pointing to herself. "Wait, wait, I'm not—"
The other paid her no heed, striding by, his gaze fixed solely on the other. Across from them, their wounded enemy, the hideous shape of the Tiger-Roid momentarily suppressed, straightened up, his face full of frustration and anger.
"Murasame," he growled, his features flickering, shifting slowly back into the bestial state bequeathed him by Badan, "you should never have left us."
"I was never with you," Murasame snarled, his lips twisting with distaste, his arms thrown wide. "Everything between us was founded on deceit."
"Everything?" Mikage asked. "Even our camaraderie?"
Hesitation was momentarily evident on Murasame's face, yet particles of light seemed to gather about him, a sudden radiant aura that burnt brighter as his anger rose, a single word now upon his lips:
"Henshin!"
Sudden recollection dawned, and Tsukuyomi remembered where he had seen this man before, the aged data-pads of unspoken history, the world that had existed before Oma Zi-o. They said that due to the reconstructive surgery that the original Kamen Riders had somehow outlived many of their generation; in 2038, he remembered reading, ZX had been the last of that generation to stand against Oma Zi-o, the last man left who still maintained those values of the previous century.
The weight of the RideWatch in his hand, the alternate Geiz belt about his waist suddenly felt extraordinarily heavy.
Ahead of him, Murasame Ryo leapt into the air, somersaulting forward, armour of silver and red coalescing from the light, drawn out from beneath the flesh within, and formed from the aura without.
Effortlessly, he landed before Tiger-Roid, the crowd of monsters shrinking back from him, leaving only Geiz and Sumire at the Badan general's back.
"Kamen Rider ZX," Tiger-Roid snarled, his lips twitched, black smoke still rising from his burnt back, "today will be the end of this!"
Murasame said nothing, his heels digging into the gravel, his gloved hands tightening into fists, an impossible sense of calm radiating from him.
With a roar, the savage Tiger-Roid launched himself forward.
The crowd was thinning, he thought, his breath ragged and short beneath the armour he wore; surely there was an end to all this. He tried to steady his stance, tried to remember everything his father had taught him as a child, everything he had learnt in the year that had followed his transformation, the years he had spent fighting alongside his comrades. He clutched the Ridol Whip tightly, tried to slow his breathing, tried to focus on what was happening, to prioritise the threats around him—yet even as he did this, he knew it was pointless to consider any others but the man before him, his white cloak billowing out, his own face likewise hidden; the man he hoped he would never see again.
"Apollo Geist," he growled, feeling the tension in his muscles, the ache in his bones.
In the distance, he caught sight of Jo and Yamamoto, fighting endlessly against armoured Combat-Roids and hideous creatures, and further still, he thought he could see Taki and Ichimonji—
"Hongo," he murmured, confused by the shape of the older man's armour, the weight of it, the steam that poured forth from it as he punched his way through wave after wave of opponents.
"You do me a disservice," the voice of Apollo Geist called, "turning your attention away."
His eyes widened beneath his mask, and Jin Keisuke turned to his right, narrowly avoiding an arched bolt of light sent his way from the removed curve of the mask, his own Perfector, as he called it, in mockery of Jin's own transformation process.
"Don't you fear me, Jin?" he called out, sunlight catching upon the fragile stained glass that seemed to decorate the front of his helm. "Don't you wish to know the story of my resurrection?"
Jin held tightly onto the Ridol Whip, the same light that danced upon the glass of Apollo Geist's mask reflecting upon the silver of his blade.
"No," he said fiercely, "I only care about putting an end to your wicked schemes."
The other man laughed, a rich, hearty sound; a cruel, ugly sound.
"Oh, they say ignorance is bliss, don't they, Jin? Perhaps I was once like you also, back in the old days, back before I was resurrected once more by Badan, before I was saved by the grace of a foolish Queene—before I robbed her of her strength."
"Shut up," Jin shouted. "I don't care what brought you back, I don't care why you came back. It doesn't matter to me. I'll still defeat you!"
"Really?" the other asked, lifting his right arm, the cruel edges of his curved Geist Cutter also catching the light. "Why don't we see how far you get with that?"
In the distance, Jin thought he could hear the roar of a car engine amongst the cries of the gathered Badan forces. He lifted his blade, and, in an instant, the sword clashed against the shape of the other's curved weapon, sparks igniting as metal met metal.
In the distance, Jin became sure that the sound he heard, the low rumble he felt beneath his feet, was certainly a car.
"Yuuki Jouji," the older man said, his voice trembling, his face full of wroth. "Yuuki Jouji, what have you done?"
Standing behind him, his face illuminated by the images of the vast stereovision screen, Yuuki smiled roguishly.
"I simply evened the playing field, that's all." He raised an eyebrow, as if surprised. "Surely, you're not afraid of a fair fight, Kurayami Taishi?"
"Such is not my concern," the older man said, his eyes wide, his lips twitching. "This gesture, doesn't it prove where your loyalties truly lie? Doesn't it prove that you have not truly given your heart to Badan after all? What did you hope to achieve with this?"
Yuuki's lips lifted in a thin smile.
"I'd say I've improved upon the work of your Great Leader," the other man replied affably. "I figured it was only fair that I used the skills Destron taught me."
With a growl, the emissary of Badan turned his hate towards the armoured figure to his left, the soldier from the future, the man who had warned them of Zi-o, who had told them of the true danger of Murasame Ryo, as if such had not been painfully obvious the moment he had slipped free of their control.
"And you, Combatant No. X" he growled, "where were your prescient warnings this time?"
"I didn't realise it was my duty to act as your guide," the other said, reaching down for his belt. "In fact, you could say I was just passing by."
Like mercury, the armour of the Time Shocker soldier seemed to dissolve, revealing a young man in a satin shirt and dark suit, hair ruffled, bleach long since having turned the black a warm brown. The buckle of his belt had been transformed into a weighty, white box inscribed with symbols the likes of which Kurayami Taishi had never seen before.
"G-Great Leader!" he stammered.
Nonchalantly, the man whom he had formerly mistaken for Combatant No. X pulled free a well-used playing card from his trowser pocket, an illustration of an unfamiliar mask etched upon it.
"You could say that," he remarked lazily, "at least at one time, and in one world."
Kurayami Taishi eyes widened in fear.
"Y-You," he gasped, "we were warned of you."
With sudden recollection, he recalled the image of that other man, the one who had visited them before the emissary of Time Shocker, the unassuming middle-aged man in the tan trench coat and the bucket hat.
"Damn you," he whispered, tightening his hands into fists. "Damn you, you were the true threat!"
With one hand, the figure before him yanked the belt buckle open, with the other, he slid the card within.
"Henshin," he said, his expression one of mild disinterest.
Particles of energy cauterised in the air about him, rushing to one another to form sheets of impossible metal, armour burning its way into existence from the gaps between unseen realities.
He spread his arms wide and the sheets of metal flocked to him; twisting about his limbs and locking into place until his entire body was clad in a suit of perfect, obsidian armour, the only colour being the glow of his mask's emerald eyes and the lines of a white 'x' traced upon his right shoulder.
With a further flash, seven cards of light materialised and drove forward, lodging themselves into his helmet and bleeding a hue of red into the shoulders and gauntlets of the suit.
Before the armour had fully crystallised about him, he reached down once more, snapping a second card free from the belt and unlocking the device once more.
'Kamen Ride,' the machine called out with mechanical bravado, the card sliding down and inducing a brief series of holographic icons to indicate the processed command.
He moved his hands over the surface of the belt, palms splayed, the atmosphere about him charged with static energy.
'D-D-Decade!' cried a voice from within the belt's machinery.
His gauntlets were stained with blood, his fearsome visage bespattered and smirched with the life-force of countless foes—and still he pushed forward, still he pushed back against the wave of enemies that had arisen from the black pyramid.
"Takeshi!" Tsukuba Hiroshi cried, wading into the fray, his throat raw from shouting. "Takeshi!"
The mask of a Commando-Roid shattered as one of them tried to hold him back, his elbow slamming into the fearfully familiar faceplate.
"Takeshi!" he called again.
In the distance, he heard the rumble of an engine, beneath his feet, he felt the ground tremble, whilst ahead, Hongo pushed forward, Ichimonji and Taki in his wake, fighting to keep pace.
About him, hands pulled him back, dragged him down, his armour battered and broken by the swift succession of kicks and punches that assailed him.
"Takeshi!"
The shape of countless faceless Badan soldiers swallowed him up, a morass of clenched fists and the heels of boots. The ground shuddered, the screech of tires, and cries of alarm resounded through the valley. From the darkness, he felt hands reaching in, groping for him, and then someone was pulling him up, blue gloved hands lifting him up from the ground, a mask with vibrant, yellow eyes, a trailing scarf.
"Kyoichiro," he gasped.
"Tsukaba," the other nodded in response, pulling him toward him, and shoving him towards the shape of the TriCyclone, the car's engine growling amidst the cries of defeated monsters.
Kuroi turned, examining the identical masks of each of the remaining soldiers.
"Get in," he instructed, "let's see if we even the odds for Hongo just a little."
She held the RideWatch in her grasp. It was impossible for her to not get involved, impossible to stand back whilst the two of them fought, and even though she understood what was happening was personal to these two men, even though everything she had ever read had informed her that it was not the place of monarchs to involve themselves on the battlefield, still, she could not let a brave man put his life on the line whilst she stood by and did nothing.
"I know what you're thinking," Geiz growled at her side.
She turned to look at her friend, unable to read her expression behind the mask, and then, she turned back and saw Tsukuyomi fighting against the force of some hideous antlion creature, its shape weighing down against him even as he pushed back against it, the blaster in one hand, a RideWatch in the other.
If Sumire had needed a greater call to action, she could not think of one. Instinctively, she turned the blade in her hand, leaning forward into a run, pulling the sword back and lashing out, tearing through the flesh of the exposed monster's back. Behind her, she heard Geiz cry out, partly from frustration, she imagined, partly from excitement, she hoped. She pulled the sword back and drove it deep into the monstrous antlion as the beast turned, leaving it embedded within the flesh of the creature long enough for her to pull free the Zi-o II device, and slide in the RideWatch in her hand.
'Rider Time!' the belt cried out. 'Gabu! Kiva!'
With a flash, her form changed, the armour shifting from that which she had obtained by the fusion of alternate Zi-o RideWatches to one patterned after the armour once worn by the Prince of the Fangires, the child who would one day become king, the man whose servant had once slid the watch across the table to Sumire—the man who would one day bring tidings of the collapse of the varied universes into one single whole.
"Geiz!" she called out, tearing the sword from the back of the antlion and turning.
With a swift nod, Geiz dashed past her, ax swinging wide as her boots stirred up the dust and she cut down the gathered creatures around Tsukiyomi. Meanwhile, in the other direction, Sumire launched forward, seizing hold of Tiger-Roid and tearing him away from the other man, her arms coming up under his, her chest pushed against the fur of his back, her hands grasping his shoulders.
"If you're the kind of man, I think you are," she called, "you'd know that you don't have time to waste on petty rivalries."
She pulled Tiger-Roid back as he struggled, turning at the waist and throwing him down to the dirt, the sound of the monsters around them jeering with spiteful childishness. Opposite her, Murasame raised a hand and tightened it into a fist.
"What is this?" he growled. "Are you offering to fight in his place? Is that why you changed armour?"
"No!" Sumire shouted with frustration. "I'm telling you that there are others here who have put their lives on the line to save the world, and you're betraying their faith in you by wasting your time like this."
She gestured into the distance at the shape of the other armoured men, each of them engaged in their own battles, each one of them pushing towards the obsidian pyramid.
"Look around you! Your comrades need your strength, and you're wasting it here!"
Murasame hesitated.
"Who are you people?"
A bitter laugh rang out across the battlefield as Tiger-Roid slowly lifted himself up, his animal features contorted in pain.
"Can't you see, Murasame?" he sneered. "These people are Kamen Riders!"
Beneath the mask, sudden realisation crossed Murasame Ryo's face.
Across the battlefield he saw the flash of light, the shape of armour shifting, the glistening metal of bat wings, the blood red breastplate.
"No," he murmured, backhanding the wounded Jin Keitaro, sending the man down to the ground, his uniform stained with blood and dirt.
Beneath his mask, his eyes widened, within his guts fury mounted, the sight of that armour, of that figure as he arrested the shape of Tiger-Roid, and pulled him away from ZX.
"No," he said again, "not here also."
Behind him, Kamen Rider X, his armour battered and burnt, slowly pulled himself up from the ground, his right-hand clutching at his left shoulder, the arm hanging limply at his side.
"Turning your back upon me?" he asked, his voice trembling, mimicking the other's earlier comments. "Is that how little you think of me?"
Beneath his mask, Apollo Geist's lips spread in a broad smirk, the image of the dethroned Fangire monarch momentarily forgotten as he looked down his old enemy, his fated foe. There would be another time, he told himself, another moment in which he would again face Kiva, in which he would again take the hand of his bride, the Fangire Queene, and crush the last of those who would challenge his role as the current ruler of all Fangire.
In his grasp, he held out his Perfector, pointing directly at Jin.
"On the contrary," he purred, "there is no one else I would rather fight."
How was it possible, Taki asked himself; how did he keep going? But he already knew the answer, because, after all, he was Kamen Rider, the original—he was Hongo Takeshi. Despite the odds, despite the wave of villains who stood against them, Hongo continued to punch his way forward, clearing a path for them, the shadow of the obsidian pyramid ahead.
In the distance, he heard the rattle of a car engine, the call of Stronger's Super Electro Ultra Cyclone, of Amazon's Jaguar Shock, but he could not turn away, could not look back on the progress of his friends, the terrible conditions they were fighting under, the terrible odds they faced; all he knew was that, like Hongo, like Ichimonji, like he was himself, they were fighting for their lives.
He lashed out, knocking back the malformed shape of Gama Jujin, acid spattering the dirt and gravel at its feet as the monster's mouth opened, leaking the foul substance from its maw. He sensed Hongo's hesitation, sensed his doubt.
"Don't stop!" Taki shouted, sliding two more cartridges into his explosive brass knuckles. "I'll hold them off!"
Hongo grunted, smashing forward again, the new upgrade to his armour already dented and scratched by the terrible conditions of the battlefield. He heard another Combat-Roid fall, and another, the screech of the hideous toad monster resounding with piercing shrillness as the creature barrelled forward. Taki bent at the knees, twisted at the waist, bringing his right fist up in an explosive uppercut that blew the monster's head clean off and sent the body tumbling backwards, trembling as it crashed into the dirt.
"Don't stop," Taki murmured to himself, shaking the blood from his knuckles, his face smeared with dirt. "Whatever you do, don't stop."
With a roar, another monster in the endless sea of creatures lunged forward towards him.
War, he had heard said, made for strange bedfellows. Certainly, he felt he knew this from experience, the recollection of the camps, the soldiers in GX armour, patrolling the perimeters, and, of course, the sorcerer, Woz, and Oma Zi-o's other courtiers, each of them in their drab robes, each of them with their unreadable expressions.
Yet to see Mikage Eisuke, to witness the ferocity and glee with which he had suddenly turned against his once former comrades, had so readily sided with Sumire after her speech, horrified Tsukuyomi. He knocked back another Combat-Roid behind him, the RideWatch held in his grasp, his knuckles bleeding from the amount of times his fist had met the metal armour of the countless villains. Ahead, Sumire and Geiz, giving Mikage a wide berth, continued their battle against the wave of creatures, and here he stood, the inactive belt at his waist, the RideWatch in his hand. A tremble ran through him, anticipation, excitement, moreover, the understanding that now was the time, if ever there was a time, to do something.
He had understood from childhood that, before Oma Zi-o had taken the throne, there had been others, he had known that there were Kamen Riders in the past who stood for something other than tyranny and evil, but he could never have imagined that there had been so many of them—and here he was, he thought again, the belt at his waist, the RideWatch in his hand.
Indecisive no longer, he slammed the RideWatch into the belt, his hand trembling as he pulled away.
'Rider Time!' the belt called out.
He drew in a deep breath, his face set with determination, his head full of the memories of all those times Sumire and Geiz had fought on his behalf, of all those times he had watched them battle against impossible odds whilst he had stood on the side-lines and done nothing.
"Henshin!" he shouted out.
The belt chimed its approval, a burst of energy exploding outwards from the cold metal and crystal, the letters 2-0-3-8 flashing up upon the display. Energy crackled once more and he felt waves of ions wrap about his lithe body, holding him in place as divine metal breached the barriers between worlds and shifted into place around him.
The field flickered and burst outward, washing over the battlefield in harmless waves, leaving behind it a warrior in burning red plate armour where once a man had been.
He lifted his balled fist, glaring at the stunned monsters around him.
'Kamen Rider Geiz,' the belt announced, 'RX!'
Without hesitation, he slammed in the other RideWatch he had been handed by Geiz in that moment in the Time Mazine when first they had arrived, that moment that felt so long ago now.
'Armour Time!' the belt responded. 'Valiant protector, Kamen Rider G3!'
A chill ran down his spine as he recalled those soldiers in their GX armour. Still, he thought, sometimes, you needed to fight fire with fire. Blue and silver armour layered itself over his uniform of red, his Faizphone X reconfigured into the weight of the GM-01 Scorpion, a heavy handgun designed to silence even the fiercest of assailants.
With a scream, a creature that was not quite an urchin, not quite a man threw itself forward, and was instantly blown apart by the bark of the Scorpion, a hole opening in its chest as it staggered forward and dissolved into ash. A shamble of foliage shuddered forward out of the crowd of Combat-Roids, vines flickering, arms outstretched, great leaves emerging from its back like wings; again, Tsukuyomi fired, blasting it apart, throwing himself forward, lashing out with the butt of the gun, punching and kicking his way to the centre until he stood alongside Sumire, Geiz, and the panting, monstrous animal form of Mikage.
"Nice of you to join us at last," Geiz said over her shoulder.
"What's the plan?" Tsukuyomi asked, ignoring the girl's sarcasm.
"Plan?" Mikage laughed bitterly. "There is no plan! We fight until we die, or until Murasame turns the tide."
Tsukuyomi spared him a glance.
"If I had known you were going to join us, I wouldn't have shot you," he murmured.
"I feel no pain," Mikage replied with an arrogance characteristic of these men.
"That's not what I was trying to say," Tsukuyomi snapped in reply. "It's just our odds of getting out of this would have been better if I hadn't ruined your rocket pack."
Again, Mikage laughed.
"It is of no concern." He paused, a sense of mischief almost manifest upon his features. "I can grow another."
There was the sudden sound of motorcycle engines in the distance above the noise of the crowd, and then with violence, the battered body of a wounded man in grey and red armour was thrown down at their feet, his breath shallow, his uniform covered in blood and dirt.
"I think the tides just turned," Geiz growled, "and not in our favour."
Instinctively, Sumire went to him, checking his pulse, trying to pull him up out of danger, as before her, the crowd parted.
"Hang in there," she whispered.
"W-Who are you?" Jin Keisuke barely managed to whisper.
"We're Kamen Riders," Sumire answered, smiling beneath her mask, "we're friends."
"You!" roared a voice from the crowd, an armoured figure in a trailing white cloak, a helm the colour of blood. "You! We have a score to settle!"
Sumire lifted her head, and above her, Apollo Geist lifted up his shotgun in both hands, the Geist Cutter bound to his forearm, and fired.
The walls crumbled, fragments of stone raining down upon him as he crawled back to his feet in a cloud of dust, wiping the blood away from his chin, eyes wide as he regarded the magenta armour, the swollen emerald eyes segmented by the sharp black ridges of his helm.
"D-Damn you," he muttered. "Imposter, false god, you are nothing compared to the majesty of the true Great Leader."
Before him, Decade rolled his head, looking away with indifference.
"Oh? I guess you weren't fooled by my act at all then?"
Kurayami Taishi tightened his hands into fists, his face contorted with rage.
"False god!" he said again, his voice rising into a cry. "Imposter!"
With a howl, he rushed forward, pulling his fist back, spittle flying from his mouth. Effortlessly, Decade stepped to the side as Yuuki stepped in, one gloved hand driving forward, slamming into the older man's gut, stopping him dead in his tracks.
Outside of the obsidian pyramid, beyond the crumbling walls, the failing Space-Time Break System, sabotaged by Yuuki, came the sound of the battle, the roar of engines, the explosive brutality of combat. Kurayami Taishi lifted his head, his eyes meeting those of the other man, former Destron scientist, Riderman.
From his right shoulder, the sleeve of his jacket unfurled uselessly at his side.
"Give it up," he said, his voice low and firm, "it's over."
"Never!" Kurayami Taishi spat, blood staining his chin. "Never!"
He pulled himself back, a cloud of foul smelling steam rising from his body, the flesh of his face and chest swelling, warping, melting, losing coherence, losing form, as, from within, the horror of his true form pushed against the veil of the flesh, ugly tendrils breaking through that thin mucus barrier, a myriad of fleshy vines seemed to explode outwards, blood spraying across gold and silver armour as the appendages erupted from within the body, bursting out of the stomach and chest as if the entrails had gained some remarkable, horrific independence.
"Banzai!" he cried out, his voice undulated, no longer human. "Badan banzai!"