Wake Up the Hero!
"Aniki, you've got to stop going so hard on this stuff."
With a bemused grin, Joe playfully jabbed him in the shoulder, his expression soon changing to one of discomfort, pulling back his hand, shaking it, mouthing his surprise.
Slowly, Minami Kotaro turned his head, smiling beneath the heavy helm, the matte grey and burnt orange of his weighty armour. Despite the incursions of the Fog, despite the Neonoid and its minions, despite the eleven years that had passed, they had all remained the same. He looked down at his gloved hand, the orange gauntlet, the metal above the wrist. Well, he thought, they had mostly remained the same.
"You can take that off now," Yousuke said, stepping out from behind him, his expression stern.
Kotaro nodded, the armour peeling back to real the relative youth of his appearance, a young man in his early 30s, a plain black t-shirt long since faded to near grey, the glistening silver of a wedding ring of his left hand.
"I'm good to go then?" he asked.
Passing him, Yousuke bent over before a computer, his hands moving over the keyboard as he typed a note to himself.
"Sure," he said, paused, then looked up at the two men, "although I'm not happy about it. I want to properly study this new armour; I want to know what triggered it after so long."
Despite the sternness of his words, Kotaro was somewhat touched by the sentiment. He had grown up alongside Yousuke, and with Nobuhiko gone, the other man was his oldest friend.
"Don't worry about him, doc," Joe interjected, smiling broadly, "I'm with him, so you know he's in good hands."
Yousuke's frown eventually turned to a smile.
"You two together is what worries me."
Joe the Haze laughed loudly and heartily, and playfully, Kotaro shoved him.
"Check your passes with reception on the way out, JMDF get funny about that sort of thing," Yousuke warned.
Kotaro nodded.
"Will do."
The other man turned his attention to the computer again, yet as Kotaro reached for the door, he called out once more.
"Oh, and say hello to Reiko for me. I don't know how she puts up with you."
"Aniki, what about these you-foes?" Joe asked as the two made their way down the street, the warmth of late spring in the air.
Dressed in a combination of tasselled leather jacket, dark green combat trowsers, and army surplus boots, ever reliable, Joe the Haze had been a constant in his life ever since their meeting in the Demon World all those years ago—ever since the alien landscape of that barren desert had unlocked in him the powers of the Prince of Anger and the Prince of Sorrow.
"Unidentified Lifeforms, Joe," Kotaro corrected him with a smile.
That was what Hayamizu had called them, the old detective's mouth moving quicker than his brain, as often was the case. Just this once, however, the information had been of value to them.
"UFOs, that's what I said," Joe stated, his head turning longingly as they passed a hot dog cart.
Kotaro dug his hands into the pockets of his jeans, not slowing despite Joe's obvious distraction. There had been two of them so far, creatures that defied his understanding, their shapes vaguely animal—a spider and a bat respectively—and their language, whilst indecipherable to him, was clearly complex.
Those moments in which he had faced them, he had not felt as if he had been fighting the simple mutants of Gorgom, or the demons of Crisis; instead, the Unidentified Lifeforms had felt like fighting Birugenia. That worried him. If the enemies kept getting stronger—
"Aniki!" Joe was saying.
He turned to see Joe, hot dog in hand, apparently having tarried and still managed to catch up as he had found himself consumed by his thoughts. Despite the unease he felt, he tried to smile.
"Sorry, Joe, I didn't hear you."
His friend smiled back, no concern on his face. For a brief moment, Kotaro wished he could be so carefree.
"I said, don't you think we should check in with Rei-chan?"
His eyes widened, sudden panic crowding his features, all the seriousness that had been there a moment before now replaced with a concern that made him appear ten years younger.
"I forgot to pick Ryusuke up from school!" he exclaimed in alarm.
He could already see Ryusuke standing alongside Hitomi, a disapproving look on her face, as he pulled up, Joe jumping off the back of the Hayabusa and pulling free his helmet, even as Kotaro reached up for his own.
He had purchased the glistening silver bike early the year after the GSX-R400 had finally given up the ghost, incapable of reinventing itself as Acrobatter and Rideron were, arguably because it had never been alive. The GSX was beginning to cost more money than it was worth to keep on the road—at least that had been the argument he had presented to his wife.
"Papa! You're late!" Ryusuke chided him, a frown on his young face that was eerily reminiscent of that which Reiko so often wore.
He crouched down before the boy, ruffling his hair and smiling broadly.
"I'll make it up to you on the way back." A mischievous smile crossed his face, and he leant in close to the boy, whispering loud enough for the others to hear, "Really, it was your Uncle Joe's fault."
The young boy's eyes lit up.
"Uncle Joe!" he proclaimed in outrage, rushing past his father to harangue Joe the Haze.
Smiling, Kotaro stood up, turning his attention to Hitomi.
"I'm sorry I'm late, we got caught up in something."
Hitomi smiled sadly back at him, a flicker of concern on her face.
"These Unidentified Lifeforms again?"
Kotaro nodded, his own gloomy countenance returning.
"It was a bat one this time," he said, in danger of losing himself in thought again. "He was posing as a priest. He got away."
Hitomi shivered, reaching up and hugging herself despite the warmth of the afternoon.
"That's gross," she murmured, looking away helplessly. "I wish I could do more to help."
Unlike the rest of them, Hitomi had not aged, remaining trapped forever in her early 20s following her kidnapping by Crisis as a child, doused in the waters of the Valley of Miracles as Maribaron had desperately tried to shape her into the likeness of the Emperor's dead daughter, Garonia.
Kotaro forced a smile to his lips again.
"Don't worry, don't worry. I'm here, and there's Joe, and Kyoko too. It's enough that you remember to pick up Ryusuke when I'm running late."
Ryusuke had gained his name from Kotaro's old friend, Taki Ryusuke. A week before the wedding, the other man had died during a sting operation gone bad, bleeding out somewhere far from home, dying a hero, but dying alone nonetheless.
Kotaro still felt his loss keenly. They had been good friends, the two of them, maybe not as close as he was with Joe or Yousuke, maybe not as close as he had been with Nobuhiko, but a good friend nonetheless.
Hitomi shrugged, drawing his attention once more.
"Sometimes," she said quietly, "it feels like I'm being left behind."
Instinctively, he reached out to her, placing a friendly hand on her shoulder.
"It's not like that at all," he said, his brow narrowed, his gaze meeting hers. "Things are different now, we're all older, we all have different responsibilities. You don't have to stay in the same place, Hitomi-chan; you don't have to keep blaming yourself for surviving."
He could tell the words stung, he could see the sudden tears in her eyes.
"You're right," she said, pulling away, hastily dabbing at her eyes, sniffing back tears as she nodded. "You're right, I'm just being silly. I know all that."
He turned away from her, looking at the sunlight washing down from the sky, Joe's warm smile, his young son jumping up and down playfully before him. In his chest, he felt a sense of pride, a great well of emotion for both his son and his friends. Yet also, mingling amidst that pride and joy, was fear, the anxiety that somehow, someday these things would be taken away from him, and he would not be strong enough to prevent it.
"We all wish we could do more, Hitomi-chan," he said, but already his mind was elsewhere.
Sunlight, he thought. That bat creature had tried to stay out of the sunlight.
The wooden boards creaked beneath his boots, his eyes darting amidst the shadows, the shotgun heavy in his grasp. It wasn't that he lacked courage, that he had in spades, but he didn't so much like wandering directly into a trap.
Not that they hadn't done stupider things in their time, Joe thought, lips twitching in a smile as he scanned the darkness of the church's interior, trying to catch a glimpse of the creature that had, until recently, been posing as the late Father Jose.
Gently, he took a step forward, then another step, the stained-glass windows obfuscating the light outside, the candles of the altar offering only minimal visibility.
Come on, I know you're here, he thought with more than a little impatience.
Creeping forward, he caught a glimpse of himself reflected back in the pale blue glass of the nearest window, and he hastily looked away. He couldn't even remember the name of the Crisis monster that used it, but he remembered its mirror crossover technique, not because he had fought the creature, but because it had later revealed the evidence of creatures beneath the surface, a parallel dimension reached only through reflective surfaces—something some guy at JMDF was researching, Kanzaki, he thought the name was.
He felt the reassuring weight of the shotgun in his hands, and considered that he had enough in three dimensions without adding in the complications of another.
To his right, something moved. He whirled about, bringing the shotgun up, catching the shape of something human and hesitating. A mistake, he realised too late.
The façade was soon dispensed with, the bat creature's true form emerging from within, flesh blistering and melting away to reveal its sharpened fangs and twitching ears, the narrow eyes within its face all but useless.
I hope you're nearby, aniki, Joe thought, and unloaded both rounds of the shotgun into the advancing monster's bronzed chest.
The blast was enough to send the creature staggering backwards, the stench of the weapon's discharge between them, curdling smoke as the shells failed to penetrate the flesh and were pushed out, clattering to the floor.
Despite Joe's efforts to put an end to it, the kick of the shotgun had hurt the thing enough to send it stumbling, claws lashing out as it staggered into the light, candles toppling to the ground, fire rushing to meet the cloth of the altar.
Oh, this could get bad, he thought, cracking open the shotgun, pulling two further cartridges from his back pocket.
The bat-thing gurgled something, its voice low and threatening, the words in a language Joe the Haze had not heard, not even in his time in the arid and desolate Demon World.
He lifted up the shotgun again but was too late, feeling warmth and the delayed shock of impact, his body thrown backwards, the air knocked out of him.
Close to his face, he sensed the searing heat of the burning altar.
This could get really bad, he had just enough time to think, hastily rolling away, uncertain as from which side the attack would come.
He was saved by the roar of an engine in the distance yet growing closer, closer, closer. He looked up, crouched amidst the flames, to see the great double doors of the church thrown open, the light pouring in, the shape of Kotaro all but standing up on Acrobatter, his eyes full of fierce determination.
With a shout, he leapt from the bike, one fist in the air punching upwards, right knee lifted, the bike careening forwards, slamming into the monster and throwing it backwards into the wall before pulling back, the scent of burnt rubber as it retreated back outside, knowing that it could not aid its partner in such cramped conditions.
A living thing, Joe remembered, and he never failed to be amazed by the camaraderie and loyalty exhibited by the bike.
Minami Kotaro's feet slammed into the boards of the floor, the light behind him, the shape of him transformed, bulbous crimson eyes, armour of darkest black and vivid green.
"I am the child of the sun!" he called out throwing a fist forward, knuckles deep in the bat creature's gut. "Kamen Rider Black RX!"
With a growl, the beast brought up its right arm, swiping him away easily, throwing him amongst the pews, the wood splintering beneath him.
"Aniki!" Joe called.
The shotgun kicked in his hands again, the shot from both barrels going wide, the plaster of the wall behind the monster flaking and crumpling.
"Joe! Get out of here!" Kotaro called out, rising up from debris, the flames already closing in around him.
He was right, Joe thought, he was probably a hindrance here, he knew that. He wasn't a Kamen Rider like Kotaro or any of the older generation who had come to their aid during the final days of the Crisis Empire, but he was a cyborg also, and he could still make a difference.
Lowering his head, throwing the shotgun to the ground, he barrelled forward, slamming hard into the bat-thing, sending it tumbling, screaming into the sunlight that washed over the aisle of the church.
"Aniki!" he shouted, blood trickling down the side of his face from his prior impact. "Aniki! Do it now!"
"Right!" Kotaro shouted, bringing his arms down, balling his fists.
Again, as it had before when fighting the bat earlier, light shimmered across the surface of the steel at his waist, his armour warming with an ethereal glow, growing in strength of radiance, and as the monster pulled itself up, it found itself trapped between the burning sunlight and the radiance of Kotaro's secondary transformation lighting up the shadows of the burning church.
It seemed as if in an instant, the outline of Kotaro's figure swelled up, his armour doubling in size, matte grey and burnt orange, the plates of the armour locked together as if the shape of a turtle.
"I am the Prince of Pride!" Kotaro shouted, his voice trembling. "RX Heavy Rider!"
Smoke rose from the screeching bat, its body writhing, its flesh boiling in the sunlight.
Kotaro reached out before him, willing a shape into existence, the power of the Kingstone within his belt causing the impossible to happen, a trial of light between belt and outstretched hand, a blade forming from the illumination.
"Heavy Buster!" he shouted, reaching out, seizing the hilt of the sword with both hands.
The creature turned, and Kotaro slammed a boot down against the boards, bringing the fall weight of the sword down in terrible descent.
Flesh seared, blistered, burnt, and the shape of the monster gave away, innards swelling, flesh corroding, blood igniting, its entire being erupting in a tower of flame.
For a moment, Kotaro held the new form, tongues of flame causing the armour to seem more radiant even than in that first transformation, and then as vividly as once it had been called into being, so now it dissipated, returning to the æther, revealing the shape of Minami Kotaro once more, his t-shirt soaked with sweat, his body bent double, toppling towards the ground.
In an instant, Joe the Haze was there, arm around him, dragging the weight of him forward up the aisle, the altar burning behind him.
"Aniki," he said, glancing over his shoulder, uncertain even if Kotaro was still conscious. "Aniki, I know now might be the wrong time to say this, but we better get our story straight for this one. I think this time they're going to get us for property damage."
He glanced over at his friend, saw the weak smile on his lips, and smiled himself in return.
"I've already been arrested once," Kotaro said, he said softly. "I'm more scared of what Rei-chan will do."
Despite themselves, despite their exhaustion, despite the strength of their new enemies, as the two men made their way out of the church into the warmth of the early evening, both of them began to laugh.