It's How You Play the Game
Note 09.15.2021: This chapter has been edited by RSBCS
The newly dubbed Beowolf Bugster let out a roar before charging at Ex-Aid with stiff and jerky movements. The creature moved with surprising speed despite it's zombie-like gait and landed a powerful strike across the Kamen Rider's breastplate with its clawed gauntlet.
"Gah!" exclaimed Ex-Aid as he was sent flying back. Glancing down at his life gauge, he saw that three bars had been depleted from the attack.
"This thing hits hard," said the Kamen Rider as he hit a button on his Gashacon Breaker, extending its blade.
[Ja Kīn!]
Ex-Aid dodged to the side as the modified Grimm attacked him again and swung his bladed weapon out, striking the armor covering the beast's flank, but not leaving much noticeable damage. Dodging a retaliatory strike, the Kamen Rider continued to strike at the Grimm's new form with his weapon, making sure to avoid the beast's flailing limbs that were trying to nail him, knowing that enough of those strikes would spell a Game Over for him.
Once he got a good feel for the Bugster's technique, Ex-Aid slapped the B-Button on his weapon and prepared to deliver a powerful slash to the beast's armor, but just as he did so, the Bugster snapped out a leg and sent him flying several feet with a powerful kick.
"Did I forget to mention that it learns as it fights?" chuckled the mysterious teen.
"Screw you!" cursed the Kamen Rider as he got to his feet, "I didn't want to use this without testing it first, but looks like you're forcing my hand."
"Oh?" scoffed the teen, "and what is this amazing something that is supposed to beat my creation?"
"This," said Ex-Aid as he kicked the Bugster to create space and pulled out a red Gashat.
"Oh, a new game?" asked the teen, "I don't see how a new Gashat is going to help."
"It's not just a new Gashat," said Ex-Aid as he pressed the button on the Gashat, "it's a new level."
[Gekitotsu Robots!]
Ex-Aid pushed the lever on his Driver back to its standby mode and slotted the new Gashat into his Driver, causing a red chibi-robot to appear and fly around, slamming into the Bugster and forcing the teen to dodge. The Rider then pulled the lever across his belt, triggering his transformation.
"Henshin," said the Rider, "Third Shift."
[Gachan! Level Up! Mighty Jump! Mighty Kick! Mighty Mighty Action X!]
The flying robot flew towards Ex-Aid, opened its mouth, and chomped down on the Rider's upper body, causing the teen to look at the rider in surprise.
"What the...?" said the teen in shock.
[A Gacha! Buttobase! Totsugeki! Gekitotsu Punch! Gekitotsu Robots!]
The robot then transformed into red armor that fixed itself to the Kamen Rider, granting him an armored breastplate, visor, and a large mechanical left fist.
"Now," said Ex-Aid, "let's try that again."
The Beowolf Bugster roared and charged again at the Kamen Rider, but this time, the Rider caught the beast's claw in his right hand and slammed a powerful punch into its gut with his armored left hand, sending the Bugster flying into a tree trunk.
"You were able to create a Level 3 Gashat?" said the teen, "I'm impressed. But that won't make things any easier."
"We'll see about that," said Ex-Aid as the Bugster rose up and charged again.
The beast attacked with a furious barrage of strikes, but the Kamen Rider easily parried the blows before delivering a powerful strike of his own with the armored gauntlet on his left hand. But suddenly, as he was preparing to strike again, energy arced out from the Gamer Driver that coursed through the Kamen Rider's body, causing him to stagger in pain.
"Damnit," he growled, "looks like there's still work to be done. Better finish it now."
Ex-Aid pulled the new Gashat out of the slot in his belt and placed it into a slot on his hip.
[Kimewaza! Gekitotsu Critical Strike!]
"Kora!" yelled Ex-Aid as he punched the Bugster-Grimm again, but this time with his robot fist rocketing off, driving the mutated Beowolf through several tree trunks before the Kamen Rider leapt forward and punched his hand back into the fist, causing a crater to form under the beast.
[PERFECT!]
Kazi removed the Gashats, dispelling his armor as the Bugster began to dissolve away like all Grimm, but suddenly the particles of ash were sucked into the device the other teen had used to create the Bugster. Once they were all absorbed, the teen removed the Dangerous Zombie Gashat from the device and smirked.
"Wh-who are you?" grunted Kazi as he felt pain shoot through him from the untested Gashat's side-effect.
"I'm just a gamer that wants to play the game of a lifetime," said the teen, "call me, Kaito Noire."
With that the now named Kaito threw down a smoke bomb and vanished, just as the others arrived with Glynda.
xXsceneXx
"I would like an explanation, Mr. Carter," said Ozpin as he faced Team RWKBY, "I was observing the field trip from the security feeds and I would like to know why that person had a device similar to the ones you use to transform."
"It's a bit of a long story," sighed Kazi.
"I believe we have the time," said Ozpin, "I will not allow a potential threat to my students to remain unknown."
"Fine," said Kazi, "then let's start at the beginning. It all started when I came home one day and found a sealed package on my bed along with a message from my father."
"A message?" said Ozpin curiously?
The teen nodded and reached into his pocket and pulled out a black Gashat with a symbol on it that resembled Ex-Aid's helmet. Pointing it away from the others, he pressed the button on it, causing a hologram of an older man wearing a nice suit and a lab coat to appear.
"Hello son," said the hologram, "I don't have much time, so I'll be brief. There are some problems here at Hyperion. There was a data leak and several terabytes of game data was copied from the master servers. From what we were able to find, it was data from our Augmented Reality system that we planned to release. A few days later, there was an attack on the lab, by people that seemed to have weaponized the game data and the AR system. I've sent you an experimental yet incomplete version of the AR to defend yourself, but be careful, they…"
The rest of the message was cut off by an explosion from the hologram that caused Aloquin Carter to duck and cover before the message abruptly ended.
"So that guy," said Ruby, "he's one of the ones that your dad told you about?"
"He had to be," said Kazi, "he used a Gashat like the ones I've developed for my powers, and they're all based on Games. In fact, I recognize the game used: Dangerous Zombie. It's the game Dad was developing to be released with the new AR system."
"I see," said Ozpin, "I will have to inform the other Headmasters to be prepared. You five may return to your dorms."
With that, Team RWKBY headed back to their dorm.
xXsceneXx
"So," said Yang as she flopped on her bunk, "you got a new power-up?"
"Yeah," said Kazi as he placed the new Gashat in a slot on his workstation, "but it's still incomplete."
"What do you mean?" asked Blake.
"Well," said Kazi, "the current power output can't be handled by the current settings on my Driver, leading to it to overload and give me a painful shock."
"Is there anything you can do about that?" asked Weiss, "I mean a power up is nice, but if it's a hindrance in battle, then it's kind of useless, right?"
"I'll just need to finish calibrating the Gashat," said Kazi as he sat down at his workstation and powered up his computer, "then it will work properly."
"Well if that's that, then I'm gonna take a shower," said Yang, "that was some day."
Ruby glanced at Kazi as the teen pulled the curtain around his area of the room, the glow of his computer from behind the sheet and the clicking of the keys indicating he was getting to work. Nodding to herself, the weapons nut pulled out a sketchpad and began to draw up blueprints for a potential weapon to build for her teammate.
So yes, Bugster Grimm will be a thing here. I also plan to use the Dangerous Zombie Gashat like Genm did in the show (albeit without the immortality) but that won't be Kaito's final form. No more spoilers for now. Tune in next time.
