Disclaimer: I don't own anything that doesn't belong to me.
…
"Nushi!"
"Unfh…mnnngg…"
"Nushi!"
"Five more minutes…"
"NUSHI! WAKE UP!"
"OCELLUS IS ANOTHER TERM FOR SIMPLE EYE!" Nushi blurted as she sat up so fast she smashed her helmet into Goro's forehead, knocking him over and making her splitting headache already worse.
"Sorry!" She cried in apology as Goro rolled around on the thick bed of fungus carpeting the ground, cursing profusely both out loud and in the Buzzing, radiating immense ire.
"You should be!" He shouted back, clutching his head.
Formic laughed unhelpfully.
Nushi! Apista cried in relief, along with at least half the Hive. Thank goodness you're okay! For a second, I… I thought…
"Don't worry, your Majesty, you're not going to lose us that easily," Nushi assured Apista as her skull gradually stopped feeling like a worm was trying to burrow its way out of it. "What… Happened?"
She looked around in dismay, noticing that they were surrounded by skyscrapers, meaning they were no longer in Englischer Garten but Munich proper. Much to her horror, the fungus had spread everywhere, covering streets, cars, signposts, and was growing up the sides of buildings as she watched. If it weren't for the glowing gold hexagons overhead, she might have thought that the entire city had been overrun, but clearly the outbreak was still confined to the quarantine barrier generated by Hive drones.
"My seal broke."
Ariel, generating so much sorrow and despair and guilt that her beautiful white suit seemed to have gone gray, was slumped against the side of a nearby building, her phone still hovering beside her, the broken pieces of her Sky Hokie littered on the ground around her.
"I should've been paying more attention to it," the witch said morosely. "If I'd renewed it sooner, if I'd even remembered it was there instead of wasting my time… Flirting and playing to the camera," she said bleakly, choking in self-loathing as she waved listlessly at her phone. "Then this might not have happened."
Woo boy. Taking a deep breath, Nushi knelt down and hugged the fox. "Nushi, first of all, that's bullshit. None of this is your fault, and none of us blame you for this. I can't lie to you, and you can see into my mind, so you know it's the truth."
"I feel like it's my fault," Ariel muttered miserably, and seeing her like this, the opposite of her usual energetic, buoyant self, almost hurt Nushi physically.
Nushi shrugged. "Well, it isn't. And even if that's the case, so what?"
Ariel gave her a shocked look. "So what?! Because the seal broke, the fungus has spread! All of us got hurt! My Sky Hokie was wrecked!" She moaned and put her face in her hands. "And yes, I'm aware that last part sounds selfish and petty, but my parents gave it to me when I graduated from magic school, and I've traveled all over the world on it, so it has immense sentimental value!"
"Okay, the fungus getting this far is… Bad," Nushi admitted, looking unhappily at how much of the city had been subsumed by the contagion. "But the barrier is still up so the rest of Munich is safe, and everyone was evacuated from this part of the city before quarantine went into effect, so nothing really important has been lost. Nothing that can't be rebuilt by good old German engineering, with some help from the Hive, if they're willing to accept the offer."
I'm already in talks with them about it now, Apista informed them. Outlook is positive.
"We just need to take care of the fungus, and we are good to go," Nushi went on. "Maybe you could turn into a giant tube of athlete's foot powder, that could work."
Nushi could hear/smell/feel/taste Ariel smiling under her mask, a spike of amusement piercing through her misery like a shaft of sunlight breaking up the clouds on an overcast day.
"And so we got knocked around a bit, so what?" Nushi continued. "We're Sentai! Were supposed to take a beating! And besides, it's not like any of us got hurt too bad, these suits and our own bio-enhancements took care of that."
"Guys, I'm either blind or buried in fungus," Shin, his legs sticking out of the ground, called from nearby.
Goro used his proportionate ant strength to rip him out of the fungus. "You're not blind."
"Which is a profound relief," Shin told him gratefully.
"And as for the Sky Hokie…" Nushi hesitated. "Well… Maybe the Hive can fix it?"
"We don't really have much experience with magic," Coccinella reminded her. "Or Magitek."
"Then we can take it to the dealer," Nushi resolved. "And pay for it to be fixed, or even buy you a new one. We'll all chip in."
"I did not agree to this," Shin spoke up. Nushi ignored him.
"Oh, and for the record? I like it when you flirt and play to the camera," Nushi assured Ariel. "It suits you much better."
Ariel laughed at that, her usual effusive joy welling back up and reducing her negative emotions to a pale shade, soon to be wiped out completely by her natural radiance. "Well, I suppose it would be a crime for me to disappoint my number one fan."
Nushi flush that this. "Well, I'm not sure that's the right term. I mean, I wasn't even familiar with you before we first met."
Ariel grinned, leaning in close. "Well, I'm sure there's another label we can use-"
"Something is wrong," Mibojin reported as she jumped down from the top of a nearby building, landing neatly on the fungus.
Annoyed at the sudden interruption, Nushi wordlessly gestured at the fungal apocalypse surrounding them.
"Aside from the obvious," Mibojin replied, not the least bit sorry. "I've just finished scouting the area. Nothing is happening."
"Isn't that a good thing?" Ariel asked.
"No, it's not," Goro replied, concern rising. "You haven't cast another seal spell, so there's nothing preventing Parasitica from sending in her forces to attack. But there aren't any Funghouls anywhere. No Fungal Beasts. Why do you suppose that is?"
Nushi's blood went cold. "Because something big is about to come through, isn't it?"
As if on cue, the ground started shaking and the fungus beneath their feet started roiling, a most unpleasant and unwelcome sensation, not the least of which because it nearly knocked them off their feet. Off in the distance, in the center of Englischer Garten, the mold started building up into a grotesque mound where the meteor first landed, swelling and wriggling like it was about to burst.
Ariel squealed in disgust. Shin groaned. "Looks like we're going to be fighting a giant monster after all…"
Colossal centipedes erupted from the mound, shrieking and hissing as they writhed and slithered and piled on top of each other. They weren't as large as the ones that had managed to breach the planetary barrier, but they came in a close second.
As the Bugrangers watched in horror and disgust (and in Nushi's case, fascination) the centipedes rose higher and higher into the air, coiling and twisting and forming a vaguely humanoid mass before abruptly coalescing into…
Well, still something that looked as if it were made out of centipedes. It was as if every centipede monster in the history of Super Sentai (and a few from Kamen Rider) had been dropped into a blender, cranked up to the highest setting, then dumped in a lake of radioactive waste so that some shambling, misshapen thing came crawling out, then got struck by lightning for good measure. Tightly bound coils of purplish black centipedes made up its limbs, covered in mouths, eyes, mouths with eyes in them, and patches of fungus, with mushrooms sprouting here and there. It had four arms, two of which ended in claws made from multiple centipede jaws opening and closing in a grotesque interlocking formation, the latter two more conventional tentacles covered in barbed spines. Two long twitching centipede tails dragged on the ground behind it, and two massive centipede heads grew from its back, wriggling and snapping at the air. A huge mouth with an equally large eye set inside its mandibles was nestled in its chest, and its central head, set between a pair of large mushrooms covering its shoulders, was bristling with spines curved like horns, another eye set inside its mouth.
It shrieked, each of its heads wailing a different note that came together to create an awful discordant row which forced the Bugrangers to clutch their heads in pain as every window in Munich shattered, a few of the buildings overtaken by the fungus crumbled, and the honeycomb barrier flickered worryingly.
No… It cannot be! Apista cried in horror. Those are supposed to be extinct!
"Well, we are up against a foe that can revive the dead," Shin pointed out.
"What is that thing, your Majesty?" Goro asked.
In ancient times, the Hive was plagued by a race of gigantic insect monsters called the Bugoliaths, Apista explained. That creature, a Centicolossus, was one of the most common variants of the species. One of my ancestors and Bugrangers of that era were supposed to have eradicated them all millions of years ago! I never thought I'd ever see their like again, even in my worst nightmares! Bugrangers, this is even worse than I had feared!
"Why?" Nushi asked in alarm. "Are they explosive breeders or something?"
No, but thank you for putting that horrific idea in my mind. No, one of the things that made Bugoliaths even more dangerous is that they can take on the attributes of things they've eaten!
Nushi's eyes widened in horror. "Guys, has anyone seen the remains of ShellSlimer?"
"There they are," Shin said, pointing to one of the Centicolossus's tentacles, which had snatched something off the ground and stuffed it into the mouth on its chest.
"Fuck," everyone said eloquently.
This proved to be an apt invective to use, as, before their eyes, the Centicolossus's body wriggled and reshaped itself, the centipedes comprising its form shifting to take up new configurations. Its flesh grew slick and shiny as it was covered in a thin layer of slime. Its secondary tentacles wrapped themselves around the primary arms and became slime blasters. Some of the spines on top of the primary head turned into eyestalks, and its tails curled up to form a shell on its back.
The mutated Centicolossus shrieked again, even louder this time, and fired its slime blasters into the air, coating every inch of the honeycomb barrier in fungus. Static crackled across the surface of the barrier, and then it shattered, the drones generating it overloading, the fungus raining back down to Earth and covering the already infected portion of Munich in even more corruption, corruption which speedily began to spread past the former boundary.
It also happened to cover the Bugrangers from head to toe in the disgusting fungus. "When we get out of here," Ariel said with an eerie calmness while a horrifying firestorm of fury and disgust burned inside her. "We are all going to a very exclusive spa I know of. My treat."
"You know," Goro pointed out as the fungus started decaying and flaked off them, the vaccine spell still clearly in effect. "It's not as if any of this is actually touching our bodies thanks to the suits-"
"I. DON'T. CARE."
"No… No, no, no, NO!" Nushi wailed in horror as the Centicolossus began to lumber about, firing its blasters occasionally and engulfing more and more of Munich in the all-consuming fungus. "This is getting out of control! Queen Apista, we need our mecha, NOW!"
Shin nodded. "Yeah, this is the sort of problem only giant robots can solve!"
There was a pause. Ah, Apista said slowly, filled with trepidation. About that. We, um, don't have any.
There was a long, stunned silence.
Out loud, anyway, the Bugrangers were far less quiet on the Buzzing.
"What you MEAN you don't have any mecha?!" An incredulous Goro demanded.
We used to, Apista was quick to explain. But they were destroyed in battle with the Swarm. We've been working on new ones ever since we arrived on Earth, but construction has been slower than we would've liked since your planet is frustratingly low on some of the resources we need to make them properly. They would have been finished in time for the initial projected estimate for the arrival of my sister, but… Well, she wound up arriving sooner than expected, so they aren't quite ready yet.
"Can they be finished within the next few minutes?" Nushi asked, trying not to break down in hysterics.
No, practically the entire Hive engineering Corps replied.
Nushi started whimpering.
"If we don't have mecha, what are we supposed to do, fight that thing on foot?" Shin cried.
… Well… In a word… Yes.
Shin slumped. "That was a rhetorical question. Fuck."
"We are not completely without resources," Mibojin pointed out. "Shin, you have the ShinLiner. Ariel, you have a spell for this sort of situation, do you not?"
Ariel nodded, some of her panic fading. "I do. Not sure it'll be enough to take this thing on all by myself, but… I guess I can give it a try."
"You won't be all by yourself," Shin promised. "She's right, we also have the ShinLiner."
"And the rest of us will support you to the best of our ability," Nushi promised, taking a deep breath as she looked up at the rampaging monster. "Okay, this isn't going to be easy, but we may still have a chance. So let's show this thing what the buzz is all about!"
"Come, ShinLiner!" Shin roared.
The train's horn went off as it swooped down from the sky, its tracks briefly crossing the street they were on. It passed by them before arcing back into the air, and when it left, it took Shin with it.
Seated in the Machine ShinBird motorcycle in the time traveling train's cockpit, Shin commanded, "Cart, engage all weapon systems!"
"As you wish, master!" The gynoid replied.
As the ShinLiner circled the Centicolossus, the three cars trailing the engine unfolded into a mechanical bat, spider, and cobra. The bat shrieked, bombarding the giant monster with a sonic attack which caused it to writhe and screech in agony. The spider spat webbing between two skyscrapers, and the wailing monster tripped on the impediment and came crashing to the ground, toppling over buildings and shaking the earth. The cobra spat blasts of poison which reacted adversely to the slime coating the beast's flesh, chemical smoke rising into the air as the monster's skin started melting, causing it to scream even louder. The centipede heads growing from the giant's back hissed and lashed out at the train, but Shin expertly steered the vehicle around the snapping heads, firing laser blasts from the eyes of the engine car which lanced into the monster's mouths, causing them to howl and recoil.
"He's finding ways to damage the creature even with its slime covering," an impressed Mibojin noted.
"Way to go, Shin!" Ariel cheered. "Guess it's my turn, now!"
She raised her wand. "Maagi Magi Magika!"
She twirled, a magic circle passing over her as her body briefly changed into her true form, causing her to transform into a magnificent giant silvery-white five-tailed mechanical fox, her body covered in glowing magical runes and sigils, a butterfly mark embossed on her forehead and joints and a pair of small metal wings spreading from her back.
"Amazing," Nushi gushed, eyes wide.
"Do us next!" Goro encouraged.
"I can't," Ariel apologized, her voice loud but oddly mellifluous and rather gentle on the eardrums. "Weirdly enough, enlarging other people is usually a dark magic spell, and as a being of light, doing such magic is anathema."
"Really? That seems rather arbitrary," Mibojin complained.
Ariel shrugged. "Yeah, but… Look, who tends to be the one casting enlargement spells on others most of the time? Good guys or bad guys?"
"She has a point," Goro admitted reluctantly.
Ariel spread her tails. "In this form, my magic is at its peak. First, let's see if we can keep this fungus from spreading further! Gonga Gou Lujuna!"
The runes on her body lit up, and a shimmering curtain of light formed on the outskirts of Munich, spreading out to encircle the city. The spreading fungus slammed into the barrier and could go no further, something it clearly was not happy about given how it writhed furiously and continued fruitlessly tossing itself at the glowing wall.
"That should also keep any more monsters from coming through, if it's anything like the seal from before," Goro observed.
"Nice work!" Nushi congratulated the giant fox.
The mechanical kitsune smiled and winked at Nushi, who blushed. "Thanks, lovebug! Now, let's see if I can help Shin!"
She charged towards the Centicolossus, which had gotten back up and was furiously trying to hit the ShinLiner. One of the heads noticed her coming and hissed angrily. One of the monster's arms swiveled around and started firing bursts of fungus from its slime blaster, while the other one continued to try and hit the airborne Shin.
With astonishing nimbleness and grace for a robot her size, Ariel evaded the projectiles as she pranced and darted about like the animal she resembled, weaving through the streets and using buildings for cover, the skyscrapers collapsing as the fungal bullets enveloped them. Her form shimmered and split into five, multiple foxes zigzagging and crisscrossing at high speeds through the infested streets, leaving burning footprints in the fungus as they darted about.
The Centicolossus completely ignored all but one of the foxes, continuing to unload its slime blaster at a single Ariel, always seeming to know which one was the real one even when she switched places with one of her doubles.
This was hardly a surprise, given, as was demonstrated previously, whatever wavelength monsters of the Swarm saw on, they weren't fooled by illusions. One could easily believe that, given everything else that had happened, that fact had slipped Ariel's mind.
One would be mistaken.
"And now, for my next trick!" Ariel shouted, all of her tails lighting up at once.
Abruptly, the trails Ariel and her clones had traced throughout the city burst into Foxfire, forming a pattern of magical fire which generated a massive spell seal encompassing a sizable portion of Munich. All of the Centicolossus's heads looked around in dismay as the flames shot upwards, converged over the beast, and slammed down in a colossal pillar of mystical flame which utterly consumed the monster. Its earsplitting howls echoed across Munich and beyond.
"Damn," Shin grunted as his train circled the flaming column, impressed. "Not bad, rookie."
Ariel chuckled, practically glowing with pride, and took a bow alongside her clones. "I am glad you were entertained-"
Without warning, two giant centipedes erupted from the buildings on either side of her, screaming like the damned. Ariel barely managed to get off a startled "What-" before the centipedes wrapped themselves around her and lifted her off the ground, her metal legs and tails flailing helplessly.
The fungus before her trembled, and the Centicolossus burst out of the ground, screeching triumphantly. Steam was rising from its partially burnt body, the remnants of its slime armor flaking off its form, its extra heads buried in the ground, hence the source of the tendrils suspending Ariel. The monster roared in the horrified fox's face, giving her a very good look down its many gullets as its baleful eyes bore into hers.
Her eyes widened in fright as the beast raised its arms, preparing to fire its slime blasters point-blank in her face…
"Buzz! BUZZ! BUZZING CHARGE!"
Two streaks, one red and one yellow, crossed diagonally through the air in front of the Centicolossus, doing a three-point landing on the ground on either side of the monster, sword and Shuriken extended at Nushi and Mibojin's sides. There was a pause, and then the tendrils feeding into the slime blasters ruptured, spraying fungal goo all over the place.
As the Centicolossus reeled back, Goro, standing atop a building at the far end of the street across from the monster, pulled the trigger on his gun, firing a fully-charged blue energy bullet which shot through the air like an azure laser and pierced the eye set in the mouth of the primary head, causing it to explode in a burst of blue flames.
Ariel laughed, impressed and more than a little relieved. "Wow! Nice save, you guys! Top marks for the dramatic timing!"
"A squad always has each other's backs," Goro proclaimed, sighting the down the barrel of his gun for another shot.
"Especially a back as fine as yours!" Nushi cried.
Everyone stared at her.
She winced. "Yeah, I knew that was terrible the instant I said it. I should leave the flirting to you."
"Probably a good idea," Ariel agreed. She grunted and wriggled about, the tentacles wrapped around her having loosened their grip somewhat, but not enough for her to break free. "Now, if someone could do something about this…"
"Got you covered!"
Horn blaring, the ShinLiner swooped down and rammed into the mouth on the center of Centicolossus's chest at full speed, tearing through it and blasting out the other side, destroying part of the fake shell on its back in the process. The centipede monster howled in agony, slime and fungus gushing from the gaping hole in its chest, and pulled back its tendrils, causing the buildings they had come through to collapse and dropping Ariel back on the ground with an earth-shaking thud.
"Thanks, Shin!" She called gratefully.
Inside the ShinLiner, Shin grimaced as his windshield wipers failed to remove the Centicolossus guts covering the front windows, the emergency lights and sirens in the cockpit flashed and blared rather obnoxiously, and Cart started passive-aggressively listing all the systems his stunt had just fried. "No problem! Just, um, don't expect me to do that sort of thing too often in the future. Worked out a lot better in my head than it did in reality…"
"Well, this next trick should work no problem!" Ariel bragged, crouching low to the ground before leaping into the air. Her tails ignited and she started spinning in place, transforming into an oversized wheel burning with magical fire. She shot towards the Centicolossus, which managed to catch her in its claws just before she could slam into it, hissing as her flames lapped against its skin. The beast took a few steps back as it struggled to hold her at bay, its claws starting to crack and get worn away, its arms faltering as she came closer and closer to smashing into it…
When suddenly, there was a scream of agony which echoed through the city and the Buzzing. Ariel was flung away from the monster, slamming into a skyscraper hard enough to topple it over. A great cloud of dust and spores rose up from where she fell.
"ARIEL!" Nushi cried.
"Ugh…" Ariel gasped as she struggled to pull herself up, only to falter and collapse back on the ground. "What… What is… Happening…"
She glanced down. To her astonishment and horror, a hole had been bored into her chest, and black veins were spreading throughout her body from it, causing her to feel weaker by the second. "Poison? But… How…"
Nushi started to rush for the fox, only for Mibojin to grab her by the shoulder and stop her in place. "There's nothing you can do for her right now."
Nushi knew this. Of course she did.
That didn't stop her from shaking off the ninja's hand and continuing, until abruptly, Goro said something that stopped her in her tracks. "Your Majesty, are Centicolossuses SUPPOSED to have stingers?"
Nushi didn't need to wheel about to see what Goro was looking at – she could see through his eyes easily enough – but old habits and muscle memory led to her turning around anyway. Sure enough, a large, barbed stinger dripping with white ichor was sticking out of the hole in the Centicollosus's chest Shin had made.
"What the… ShellSlimer didn't have a stinger," Nushi murmured, alarmed.
It's Centicolossi, Apista corrected him. And no, they shouldn't. Not unless…
The Queen didn't get to finish her sentence, as the "unless" became very evident when the stinger wiggled about, retracted back into the hole… And then the Centicollosus's torso started wriggling and deforming, much to everyone's horror and disgust. A pair of claws reached out from inside the hole and pushed on the sides, widening it and allowing a hideous wasp-like head to emerge, dripping with viscera. The head was soon followed by more claws, wings, a thorax, and a lengthy metasoma terminating in the stinger that had wounded Ariel.
Within moments, the creature managed to pull itself fully from the Centicollosus's chest, the giant monster strangely no worse off considering another giant monster had just crawled out of its body. This new creature was about two thirds as tall as the Centicollosus and resembled a malformed humanoid wasp, mold covering its limbs, mushrooms sprouting from its head and hunched back, tattered wings occasionally buzzing. Its stinger dragged along the ground behind it, all the fungus it touched withering and dying from the potency of whatever poison it was secreting. It had two long, thick arms with massive claws which it knuckled against the ground as it walked, giving it a rather lopsided gait, and a much smaller set of arms held close to its thorax with much finer serrated claws like knives. Instead of two large compound eyes, it had several smaller ones dotting its face in no clear pattern, and when it opened its mandibles to shriek, half its head split open as well, offering them a decidedly unpleasant look down its gullet.
"The hell is that?!" Shin cried in disbelief, still circling overhead.
It's just as I feared… That's a Gigasp! Apista cried. It's a smaller breed of Bugoliath, but no less deadly. They're parasites which incubate inside of larger monsters that emerge from their hosts when they have reached maturation. If they grow inside other life forms, they devour them from within, but if they are incubated within another Bugoliath, they have a more symbiotic relationship and work together to take down prey.
"Like a giant parasite wasp," Nushi murmured, both revolted and fascinated.
"I'm guessing they're also extremely poisonous?" Ariel asked weakly, more and more black veins snaking their way through her body.
No, that's new.
"Ariel, don't you have an antivenom spell or something you can use?" Nushi asked desperately.
Ariel panted, ivory ichor dripping from her jaws. "Having a little trouble concentrating enough to cast a spell. Maybe if I just… Closed my eyes for a minute…"
Her eyelids flickered, nodding off.
"No! You have to stay awake!" Nushi cried.
"Not the least of which because we are in the middle of a battle, and right now you're an easy target!" Mibojin pointed out as the Gigasp shrieked and surged across the ground towards the prone fox, its oversized forearms occasionally lifting it off the ground so that its wings could give it a bit of an extra speed boost.
"Oh no you don't! Hang on, I'm coming!" Shin roared, breaking away from the Centicollosus and flying towards the Gigasp, all weapons blazing.
Shin, wait! Apista cried. Wherever there is one Gigasp, there is always-
Without warning, the false shell on the Centicollosus's back erupted, a second Gigasp pulling itself free, spreading its wings, and launching into the air, soaring right towards the ShinLiner.
Its twin!
The Gigasp landed on top of the train and started clawing and biting at it, causing the vehicle to start careening out of control.
"Would have been nice to know that sooner!" Shin grunted as he wrestled with the controls, more alarms blaring throughout the train as the cockpit shook. "Activating countermeasures!"
The hull of the ShinLiner lit up as billions of volts of electricity coursed through it and into the body of the Gigasp, causing it to convulse and shriek in agony, letting go of the train and launching back into the air. Shin immediately capitalized on this moment of weakness and unloaded his weapons on the giant insect, blasting its underbelly with sonic bursts to disorient it, webbing which gummed up its wings and caused it to start falling, and toxic spit which started eating through its carapace as it tumbled towards the ground.
Shin left. "Yeah! See how YOU like getting poisoned-"
"LOOK OUT!" Everyone screamed through the Buzzing.
But it was too late. The Centicollosus, despite being gravely wounded and disgorging the two giant monsters, demonstrated itself to be far from out of the game, when, without warning, one of the monster's limbs shot out, extending just as ShellSlimer's had, and slammed into the side of the ShinLiner, knocking it out of the sky.
Shin cried out as the train started tumbling end over end, the cockpit rotating entirely on its axis several times a second, and he had to struggle very hard not to throw up in his helmet. The train's safety features kicked in, and the front of the engine car opened up as his Machine ShinBird was ejected at high velocity.
Shin's years of professional motorcycling kicked in, and he gunned the motor, aiming for the side of a toppled building, tilting at just the right angle to create a ramp he could ride down to safety. All of his muscles tensed, he landed on the surface of the skyscraper, nearly skipping off the fungus covering it and falling to his death, but quickly shifted his center of mass to account for it, and started riding down the side of the building, gradually pressing on the brakes to keep from spinning out and crashing when he got to the bottom…
And suddenly a giant centipede burst out right in front of him. Swearing, he quickly veered to the side, the bike leaning so far over he was only millimeters away from scraping his body against the fungus-covered ground, and just barely managed to avoid crashing into it.
And that's when more giant centipedes erupted from the sides of the building, lashing out and trying to knock him off the bike. Roaring angrily, he summoned his ax and started swiping it furiously through the air, striking at any centipede which tried to ram into them while also frantically steering his bike around the other centipedes which kept trying to form obstacles in his path.
Even the world's greatest motorcyclist would have difficulty surviving this… But Shin wasn't just a motorcyclist, he was a Kamen Rider!
"Cart, are you all right?" He called the gynoid as he continued his descent, managing to lop off the fangs of a centipede which tried to swallow him whole.
"I'm all right, master!" Cart replied, and out of the corner of his eye he could see his attendant gently drifting through the air, dangling from a parachute that had emerged from her left hand. "As soon as I land, I will locate and repair the ShinLiner! It shouldn't take long."
Off in the distance, the ShinLiner crashed to the ground. There was a troublingly large explosion.
"… Well, it may take a little while," Cart admitted.
Shin groaned. "Yeah, story of my life."
Meanwhile, the other Gigasp was almost upon Ariel, who had almost passed out, her breathing shallow. The beast screeched in triumph, raising one of its massive claws back to cave in her vulpine skull…
"Buzz! BUZZ! BUZZING CHARGE!"
A blue energy blast and a yellow Shuriken shot through the air and struck the Gigasp in the head, putting out two of its eyes and causing it to reel back, shrieking in agony. Goro, standing atop a nearby building, continued peppering the monster with energy shots, while Mibojin appeared in a puff of smoke, ripped her Shuriken out of the monster's eye, split it back into its component blades, and started slicing into its cranium, dashing back and forth as the enraged and pain-maddened Gigasp tried to swat her off with one of its huge claws.
Meanwhile, Nushi raced over to Ariel and started hitting her on the snout. "Ariel! Ariel, wake up!"
The giant mechanical fox groaned and managed to open her eyes a crack. "Mmf.. Nushi?"
"Yes! It's me, your lovebug!" Nushi said frantically. "… Wow, that sounded weird for me to say out loud."
Ariel tried to laugh… Only to start choking, spitting up more ichor, much of it laced with darkness. "Lovebug… Don't feel too good…"
"I know you don't," Nushi acknowledged, placing a hand on the surprisingly warm metal surface of her face and projecting as much love and hope and fear as she could into her friend. "But you have to hold on. You can't die here. You haven't won your first battle, you haven't saved the world, you haven't gone on a date with me-"
"That… An invitation?"Ariel grunted, struggling to stay awake.
"I promise, if you pull through, not only will we have a date, we can even get to third base!" Nushi promised.
That actually startled Ariel most of the way awake. "Whoa! Don't say things like that, Nushi! I'm not that kind of girl!"
"Ariel, I've seen inside your head. We both know you're exactly that kind of girl," Nushi replied flatly.
Ariel shook her head, or tried to. "Not… Not with the ones I really like…"
Nushi said nothing. She didn't need to. Both of them could hear/smell/feel/taste what was running through her mind at that.
"You have to get up," she said finally. She nodded at the MagiPhone, which was hovering nearby, still streaming. "I think you just hit a world record for views. All of your fans around the world are praying for you. I'm pretty sure your entire family is on their way here now-"
Ariel's eyes widened in alarm at this. "My family?! No! They can't…ugh… They can't come here! They'll just… Get themselves hurt…"
"Then we have to stop this before anyone else tries to get involved," Nushi told her. "Come on, Ariel. You're the most amazing magician I've ever met-"
"I'm the only magician you've ever met-"
"So I know you're not going to let a little poison put an end to your career as a world-class performer and hero before it's really gotten started!" Nushi insisted. "You are Ariel Ozu, the Heavenly Saint Stargel, scion of the most powerful magical family in the world! There is nothing you can't accomplish!"
"… Heh. Well, when you put it like that," Ariel grunted, managing a smile. "It would be churlish of me to disappoint my audience, wouldn't it?"
She closed her eyes, mustering her power, and, with a great deal of effort, murmured a spell under her breath.
Her body convulsed, and Nushi quickly dove out of the way as the giant mechanical fox vomited a torrential mass of black gunk which splattered all over the ground, the noxious poison immediately killing all the fungus in front of her and releasing toxic smoke into the air which made Nushi's eyes water and her head spin even through her helmet.
As she coughed up the last of the poison, Ariel sighed in relief, the black veins fading away. She closed her eyes and, in a flash of light, reverted back to her original form, and Nushi darted forward to catch her before she could collapse and potentially fall right into the bubbling pool of poison she just expelled from her body.
"I knew you could do it," Nushi said proudly, hugging the fox to her body and showering her with more love and relief.
"I had to," Ariel replied, hugging her back. "I couldn't be late to our first date, now could I?"
Awww, Philia and a sizable portion of the Hive cooed.
"How sickeningly adorable. I'm almost sorry to ruin this moment."
Startled, the two women looked up just in time to see Mibojin and Goro get flung to the ground at their feet, landing hard enough to create indents in the thick carpet of fungus covering the ground. "Guys!"
"Sorry… Girls…" Goro coughed, struggling to get up.
"She is… Too strong…" Mibojin wheezed, managing to pull herself up on her knees, but was having difficulty getting any further.
Nushi blinked. "She? Then…"
"That's right!"
The Centicollosus and Gigasp loomed over them, the familiar voice of Queen Parasitica booming from their mouthparts. "You didn't think my little pets were acting solely on their own volition, did you? I have been controlling them all along, just as I do every other member of the Swarm."
The two giant monsters chuckled, the reverberations from their laughter rattling the ground and buildings. "I must admit, all of you have put up a better fight than I expected from a group of mammals. Still, this is the end of the line-"
"That's where you're wrong, witch! Shin Sentai Break!"
Shin, still riding the Machine ShinBird, launched off the top of a nearby building, green energy engulfing the motorcycle as he rocketed towards the Centicollosus…
When suddenly, the second Gigasp, wings still bound up by the webbing from the ShinLiner, burst from the side of a building just as he passed in front of it, shooting right towards him, head splitting apart to catch him in its jaws. Crying out in alarm, he quickly jumped off his motorcycle just before the Gigasp could gobble him up, the Machine ShinBird vanishing down its throat.
As Shin fell out of the air, screaming and flailing, Goro rushed over to catch him, only to nearly be flattened when the grasshopper man landed on him. "You really need to start dieting," the soldier wheezed.
"This is all muscle and you know it!" Shin retorted.
"A valiant, but futile effort. What, precisely, did you think your primitive vehicle was going to do?" Parasitica sneered as the second Gigasp landed on the other side of the Centicollosus and reared up to its full height, chittering wickedly at the heroes.
"I'll admit, I was hoping I'd get the big one," Shin admitted, hopping out of a very relieved Goro's arms. "But I'll take what I can get."
"What do you-"
And that's when the second Gigasp's head exploded.
"WHAT?!" A livid Parasitica shrieked as the giant beast collapsed, hitting the ground hard enough to nearly knock everyone off their feet.
Shin grinned under his helmet. "When I realized I was about to get eaten, I triggered the Machine ShinBird's self-destruct. The explosion wouldn't have been strong enough to take them out if it had hit one of your pets… But for it to go off inside? I'd say I couldn't have planned it better, but that would be a lie. I was hoping you would do something like that the whole time!"
"Way to go, Shin!" Ariel whooped.
"A masterful strategy," Mibojin agreed.
"Not bad," Parasitica admitted. "You actually managed to take down one of my Fungigases. You have exceeded my expectations once again. One question, though.
"You're out of vehicles or giant mecha to throw at my pets. What, precisely, are you going to do now?"
There was a pause. "That… Is a very good question," Shin admitted.
"Your Majesty, I don't suppose those new mecha are ready yet?" Goro asked anxiously, even though he already knew the answer.
No, she replied sorrowfully. I'm sorry. This is my fault. I should never have sent you out untrained and unready. I should've found you sooner, I should've… It was a mistake to dispatch you by yourselves, I'm going to send every last drone and soldier we have-
"Your Majesty, no!" Nushi protested. "You're going to need them to protect Hive City!"
If you fall here, Hive City is doomed regardless! Apista practically screamed at her. I can't… I'm sorry, I can't lose another team…
"Will they get here in time?" Mibojin asked.
We're coming as fast as we can, Hive City's entire assembled military (inexperienced, underpowered, and desperately unready) replied, already en route. If you can just hold out a little longer…
Goro looked up bleakly at the two giant monsters looming over them. "I'm not sure we can hold out that long."
"You know, maybe my family should come, after all," Ariel admitted anxiously. "I'm not sure I see a way out of this, guys, and I don't think the barrier I set up is going to last much longer, considering how much energy that poison took out of me."
Indeed, the shimmering curtain she had used to establish the new quarantine zone was already flickering, the fungus hungrily lapping against it, eager to spread out and consume the world beyond.
"There's one thing we can do," Nushi suggested, raising her sword. "Weapons, combine! Form Buzz Bomber!"
She held her sword out before her. Goro pulled the grip of his gun back 90 degrees and placed it on top of the sword's handle, the ant legs on the sides of the gun lowering to lock it in place. Ariel inserted her wand into the gun barrel, and Mibojin slid her Shuriken over the point of the sword so that the wand was poking out between two of the blades. Shin held his ax beneath the combined weapon parts, which fit neatly into a groove running down the length of the ax.
Nushi gripped the combined weapon by the shaft of the ax and fit a finger into the trigger of Goro's gun as everyone else grabbed onto her shoulders. She started squeezing the trigger, causing all of the microprocessors on the weapons and on their helmets to light up.
"Buzz! BUZZ! BUZZING OVERCHARGE!"
"Finsecting move: Buzzing Cannon-"
Abruptly, a centipede erupted from the ground beneath their feet, sending them flying. They impacted the ground hard, flashes of colored light engulfing them as they were knocked out of Henshin, and were it not for the still-active vaccine spell, the fungus covering everything would probably have consumed them then and there.
NO! Apista cried.
Parasitica laughed. "What was that? Did you seriously think I was just going to stand there and do nothing while you charged up your strongest attack?"
"… Pretty much, yeah," Shin groaned from where he lay on top of a car.
"That's what you're supposed to do," Ariel complained petulantly as she lay face-down in the fungus, waiting for her entire body to stop hurting. "Honestly, have you read the Sentai villain handbook at all?"
"… There's a handbook?"Parasitica asked, confused.
"No, but there SHOULD be!" Ariel whined.
"Why did we think this would work? This was a terrible idea," Mibojin grunted.
"Made sense at the time," Nushi mumbled, struggling to lever herself up on her arms, only to slip on the fungus and fall back to the ground.
Both Fungigases shrugged. "Well, you thought wrong. And now, you are defeated. No powers. No weapons. No vehicles or mecha. Nobody is coming to help you, and even if they are, they'll never get here in time. You have been completely and utterly defeated, mammals. All that is left for you to do is die.
"However, I will admit you have proved more resourceful than expected, and there is a chance you might still find a way out of this. As such, here is what I propose: surrender, and I shall kill you swiftly, but I promise on my daughter's life that I will not defile your corpses or turn you into trophies like your predecessors. You were led astray by my foolish and cowardly sister, and did not bring this fate upon yourselves. In addition, I guarantee that the same mercy shall be extended to your friends and loved ones. They shall die free, and be spared induction into the Swarm."
"What sort of deal is that?" Nushi protested. "If we refuse, you'll kill us anyway!"
"I will," Parasitica agreed. "But it will be much more… Unpleasant."
The two giants stretched out their hands. "So. What shall it be?"
The Bugrangers, exhausted and broken, didn't even need to exchange glances or share thoughts on the Buzzing. They already knew their answer.
"We will not yield," Nushi said defiantly.
Parasitica sighed in irritation. "Of course you won't. Why make things easy for yourselves when you can make life more difficult for everyone around you?" The Centicollosus gestured an appendage in frustration. "What exactly do you think you'll achieve by refusing me? You've lost. This petty act of defiance serves no purpose whatsoever!"
"That's where you're wrong," Goro said stubbornly.
"It serves the purpose of denying you the satisfaction of seeing us give in," Shin agreed.
"As a Shinobi, I have never feared death," Mibojin said grimly. "If I am to die this day, then I will die with my honor intact."
"My family has always taught me that courage is the source of our magic," Ariel declared proudly. "I may be defeated, but I am not broken! I do not fear you, or the end you threaten us with! If I fall, I assure you that my family will make you pay for it a millionfold!"
"All my life, my father has taught me to never give in, no matter what," Nushi said fiercely. "I only failed in that one time, and it is something I shall regret for the rest of my life. I shall never surrender, even if it's hopeless."
"We swore an oath to serve and protect Apista, the only queen that matters," Goro added sternly. "We will never bend the knee, to you or anyone else!"
"Well said!" Formic announced in approval.
"All of you truly have the hearts of champions," Lepidoptera chimed in.
"Even if this is the end for you, you have fought as bravely as any of your forebears," Manti said with pride.
"I regret that we won't get the chance to see how much further you could go," Caelifer lamented. "Because I can already tell that the lot of you have what it takes to be among the greatest champions we've ever been paired with."
"All of you should get as far away from here as you can," Nushi told the Divine Insects. "You need to find new champions to take up the fight."
"We will not leave you," Coccinella insisted. "We were forced to abandon your predecessors, something we will always regret. We will NOT do that again."
"You don't need to worry about us, anyway," Formic promised. "We can survive a lot worse than the wrath of a Bugoliath. We've had worse."
Nushi smiled, tears in her eyes. "Thank you… All of you. I'm glad to have met you all, my dear friends."
Resolute, she glared up at the giant insects. "Okay, Parasitica! Do your worst! Because none of us are backing down!"
"Yeah!" Her teammates shouted.
… All of you… You truly are worthy, Apista whispered in awe, the resolve of the five heroes blazing brilliantly through the Buzzing, drawing attention to themselves from insects on the other side of the universe. I am honored to have met you.
"As are we,"the Divine Insects agreed.
AND WE LOOK FORWARD TO KNOWING THEM,five strange voices boomed throughout the Buzzing, surprising everyone.
What… Who said that?! Apista stammered, startled. Your minds, I… I do not know you!
YOU ARE ABOUT TO. IT IS TIME.
Unaware of this mysterious conversation, Parasitica snarled angrily. "What heroic nonsense. Prepare to die."
The Centicollosus and Gigasp prepared to finish the defiant but defenseless heroes…
Unaware that, around the world, five sets of gigantic compound eyes were lighting up, their owners stirring from their dreamless slumber.
The long wait was over. It was time to wake up and serve the Hive once more.