The cost of Desire

Chapter 1: The return of the king

Flames, that's all Zen could see as the smoke rose into the sky in front of him. Five bodies lying on the pavement in front of him, charred to a crisp. To most these bodies would be unidentifiable, but for him, he knew them all too well, the large one to the left was his father, the one beside it his mother. Just a bit away was his older brother's corpses, and to the right of that where his two older sister's bodies. It was a stupid mistake, an accident. He knew he wasn't the one truly responsible no that person was standing on the opposite side of the flames looking at him. The crow earl, something that shouldn't exist, it was just a villain he made up for his book, an arch rival for his hero like the joker is for Batman, Lex Luthor for Superman and the goblin for spiderman. But then he appeared and taunted Zen kept mentioning how he needed to be empty before his journey began. The fire was not the first attack the crow earl did. No that was about a month ago when he killed his mother right in front of him. over the month the crow earl proceeded to kill of the rest of his relatives one by one, leaving them in various mangled states for Zen to find, with various message written near the bodies about random things that seemed to just be there to taunt and make Him feel worse. Nearly every message had the words desire, kingship, emptiness and journey pop up in them in some form. The fire was his final attack, the corpses of his family brought here and his last reaming living relatives his sisters burnt alive with the corpses of his entire extended family. Normally one would be filled with rage or anger and swearing revenge towards the cause. But for Zen he was never one for things like that, well except for a few times his anger got the better of him. But this time, he couldn't feel anything. His mind was overloaded with thoughts of blaming himself and plans to just end his life. His family were so much more than some stupid lazy kid like himself who spent more time on a computer then with them. He let out a hollow laugh as he thought back to all the times they asked if he would join them to watch some movie in the evening, but he would refuse and instead spend time on his own in his room reading various stories and other things that boy do in private. He also felt that he never got the saying you never know what you had until you lose it, truly until now.

In this moment as his own self-depreciation continued to grow the Crow earl walked over dropping several items at Zen's feet.

"You'll be needing these, I'd like to just break you and make you snap right now but for now you must stay on the edge just a step away from falling as I have so much more planned for you, after all it's bad if I just skip to the end after all the journey is the most important part after all" The crow earl said as he let out a maddening laugh as he walked away.

With a slow movement, Zen glanced down at the items left behind by the monster and to his surprise they where Kamen rider toys. The first was the driver of one of his favourite riders Kamen rider OOO, along with what looked like a modified medal holder. With some effort, he opened the book and found it contained a mostly complete set of tree for all the medals that have been released, though there was only one of each of the shocker, imagine and rider medals. Next to the holder lay the birth driver and buster, and next to that lay the IXA driver from Kamen rider kiva and a bag pack. Inside the bag pack was a pack of underpants and some of his things form his bedrooms such as his ds, a key chain push of twilight sparkle forms my little pony, and what appeared to be users manuals for the birth driver and Ixa Knuckle . With a sad smirk, Zen packed the items, knowing that while the crow earl wants him to suffer these items might work as some kind of aid, if not then at least he could pass a few hours messing with the drivers.

A short while later the firefighters came and put out the fire. Shortly after the firefighters where done, he was taken into custody by the police and was interrogated, or by this time giving an update on the killer seeing as all the crow earls' previous murders had him as the first discoverer of the body somehow. He kind of gave up caring at this point, once he given his report he was let go and was set up in a nearby spare apartment so that they could easily reach him if they had any more questions and that he had somewhere to sleep for the night.

After settling in, he pulled up some Kamen rider fanfiction to read and began messing with the ooo driver as he tried to think about what had happened over the past month. With a sigh, he sat up and walked towards a Mirror which was long enough that his whole body was reflected in it. He saw his messy dark brown hair, his square shaped glasses sitting in front of his brown eyes, he was wearing his black full metal alchemist t-shirt which he had gotten from qwerty with a transmutation circle made up of symbols from the show printed on it. He also had on a pair of black sweatpants. He also noted his figure which was a bit thinner than before due to him not eating very much the past few days and going for several runs to clear his head though it didn't help that most of those walks ended up with him finding another corpse of a family member. Taking the ooo driver from the table, he put it on his waist. He Then dug out the medal holder and picked out a red, green and yellow medal the three medals which made up ooos default form. The medals all had a golden ring on the outer edge, and each depicted a different animal on it. The Red medal showed a hawk, the green a grasshopper and the yellow a tiger's face. "He wants me to break and fall into Despair, but they wouldn't want me to live a life like or be consumed by revenge; they would want me to move own to continue my path of life. But every time I try to move forward, I can't help but fall to my own self-deprecation. But there is no path for me to follow, I have no way to stop that monster from continuing to ruin my life. But I won't let him win maybe I can be like Eiji and the other riders, my own happiness no longer exists and will probably to even try and create as long as the crow earl exist, but maybe I could just reach out and help others instead" he muttered as he looked at the medals in his hands. "It'll be a start; I hope that they can be happy wherever they ended up. Tomorrow morning will be my first step. But first one scan for good luck" Zen said as he took the medals and slotted them into the belt, a strange glow began to emit from them and the bag. Before he could react, he was engulfed in a bright flash of light and him along with the bag where gone.

Meanwhile, in a dark forest in another world, two figures rushed through the dense foliage towards some unknown destination. The first had tri-coloured hair which was stripped violet, pale gold and rose. From her head, a small horn-like protrusion was present along with a pair of small horse ears, on her back a pair of pink wings sat folded up and a tail of similar coloration swayed behind her. On the back of her hands where a pair of marks showing a crystal heart. She was dressed in a torn dress and was running for her life. Beside her was a slightly younger girl with a mixture of dark blue and violet hair. She to had a horn like protrusion and a tail which matched her hair simlar to the other woman but lacked a pair wings of her own. She was dressed in similary tattereted and worn clothing. On her hands where a six-pointed purple star with smaller stars surrounding it.

"Quickly Cadence those monsters are gaining on us, there should be a river just on the other side of the forest, we just need to reach there and were home free," The younger girl said as she tried to help cadence keep running.

"I know Twilight, but I don't know if we can outrun them, I suggest we find somewhere to hide and let them pass before continuing." Cadence suggested.

It was at this moment a strange glow caught both girls' eyes drawing them towards a nearby cave. Without, a second thought both ran for the cave both feeling that it is their best bet. As they ran in the found that the cave slowly changed to something more Pony made then a natural cave structure. As they walked deeper, the cave began to turn into some kind of chamber with a large door at the end. On the walls either side of the door where depictions of armoured warriors themed after various animals. Fighting against some kind of monsters which looked like they were wrapped in bandages.

Both girls looked at the image curiously, a look of recognition came across both of their faces when they looked at the monsters, but the warriors were unknown to them. "Maybe we can hide behind the door" Twilight suggested as she walked towards the door. As she touched the door, she felt a bolt of energy pass through her and then heard a voice in her head.

"you of pure heart, please make use of the power hidden within to protect. But be warned if the one who wields the power is consumed by their desires then destructions is all that awaits this world."

Shortly after the voice finished the doors creaked open revealing a large chamber. All along the walls where more depictions of the warriors from outside, six on one side and seven on the other. Below each image was a small self which showed held a small rectangle box, each one was a different colour and had a gold emblem on the top. On the back wall showed another warrior this one was tricoloured with a red head, a yellow body and green legs. All around it where circle made up of what looked like coins all in varying colours with three of each colour. There where coloured red, blue, green, orange, purple, grey, and several other colours of a similar shade. Below the image sat a large stone coffin. Curiously Twilight walked towards the coffin almost like she was in a trance, not noticing Cadence shouting at her. Upon climbing up the altar which the coffin sat on, she found that on the lid was a rectangular object which was at an angle. Drawn to it she shifted it so that it was straight. As it clicked into black cracks began to form in the coffin, and a glowing light began to seep through. Then the coffin exploded knocking Twilight to the ground blinding her and Cadence as the light filled the room.

As the light dimmed they where both made witness a strange sight. Where the coffin once sat now lay a pile of silver coins, and in its centre, a young man stood his features hidden in shadows created by the remaining light. All around him coloured coins like the ones depicted on the mural behind rose and began to circle him. Twilight noted that there where several more medals then are shown on the mural. The coins each began to glow and then one by one shot into the man, though he didn't seem to notice. Once the last coin entered him he bent down and picked up an object, Twilight recognising it as the item she turned just moments ago. With a small movement, he placed the object on his waist. The stone fell off like an animal shedding its skin revealing a mainly black body with blue highlights. The boy looked at the entrance and let out a sigh. The girls both turned and saw standing just meters away from where their pursuers. There were ten in total, the bulk where mummy-like creatures which matched to those shown on the walls outside the chamber, the leader, however, looked like some kind of humanoid praying mantis.

The mantis looked past the girls and straight at the man. "You have core medals, give them to me now" it yelled.

"I don't take orders from Gara monsters, he didn't make these medals and they are mine, to use for protecting this world. I may only have a few minutes left, but that's more than enough to finish off a weak yummy like you" the man said. He opened him his palm with a small jerk, and a trio of medals appeared from them. They where coloured red, yellow and green. Without another word, he slotted them into the belt and knocked it sideways. He then reached to his side and took a circular object which was attached to the belt that had formed when he put on the driver. With a single motion, he moved the object over the driver.

"Henshin" he shouted

"TAKA! TORA! BATTA! TaToBa"

(Cue Tighten up and regret nothing)

As the belt sung out larger versions of the coins began to spin around the man in the form of three rings. Two of the rings rotated around him horizontally around his head and legs. The one going around his head spun to the right while the one going around legs spun to the left. The third ring was instead vertical and spinning downwards. The continued this until each one stopped on a different coin. The one around the head stopped on a replica of the red medal which sat on the driver, while the vertical one stopped on a replica of the yellow coin and the last ring stopped on a replica of the green coin. The three coins images moved out from his body and began to overlap. Once they were completely overlapped the image change to now show a golden circle with three distinct images, on the top part was a red hawk, with the centre part showed a yellow tiger and the bottom part showed a green grasshopper. The image then flew back slamming into the man's chest becoming a solid piece of armour which then had light spread out from it and over the rest of the body completely covering him in light before bursting apart.

As the light flew off, it revealed the man now in a mainly black suit of armour, with a red faceplate which looked like a hawk with green eyes. He had a pair of yellow gauntlets with a pair of claws folded back over the arm, and the legs had green boots which reached up to the knees before becoming green lines which connected back to the image on the chest.

Both Twilight and Cadence looked in awe at the transformation. Though both realised that he looked exactly the same as the mural on the wall.

"Get those cores for Lord Sombra," The mantis monster said as the mummy looking creatures rushed forward.

"you'll have to do better than using Gara's pathetic waste yummies to beat me, like acutally learning how to fight" the man said as the middle section of the chest glowed, and the light then travelled from it and into the arms causing the claws to extend out. The man quickly moved through the monsters slashing them with the claws. As he reached the other side, the creates all exploded leaving behind half coins.

"Now it's time for you to go," the man said as he took out a second green medal swapping it with the yellow one in the belt. With a quick scan, his body changed now having a green middle section with two sword-like protrusions coming off the edge of his arms. The centre of the chest where the tiger image once was now showing a green praying mantis. The creature charged forward and began to swap blows with the man. Though they seemed equally matched a well-trained eye could see that the man had gotten several attacks through. With a large swipe of the blade on his left hand, he knocked the monster back. He took the scanner in hand again and ran it over the belt.

"Scanning Charge!"

The belt announced as the man crouched down with the green legs glowing before jumping up to ceiling beneath him a trio of rings appeared forming a diagonal path towards the monster. Extending his right leg out the man shoot through the rings and into the monster landing behind the monster as it exploded into a large pile of silver coins.

(End music)

Both girls were speechless as what they had just witnessed. But both quickly got back their wits as the man undid his transformation and took a seat on the stairs which lead up to where the coffin had been.

"Who are you?" Twilight asked looking at the man.

She could now clearly see his appearance. He had dark purple hair and golden eyes, unlike her and cadence he didn't have ears like theirs on top of his head instead he had strange looking ears on the sides of his head. He wore a black t-shirt with a strange design like some kind of alchemy circle and a pair of black sweatpants. Though she wouldn't say it out loud twilight also found him quite handsome. He also looked a few years older than her and about a year older then Cadence

"I am just a spirit borrowing a body before I pass on, but if you require a name, you can call me Allister for now. As I mentioned, I don't have much time, so I need to say a few things. First, take care of the true owner of this body he has a hard journey ahead of him, he will need you to help keep him on the right path as he is now I fear that he could easily be consumed by the abyss even with the aid of the fossil. Second, I will leave him some of my memories so that you can understand more about those things I just fought and be able to find the ones who can use the real version of decks on the wall. Lastly under this alter is a secret room which contains several tomes about the armour I just used as well as the ones provided by the decks, they will hopefully allow those that use them make full use of the armours abilities and weapons. To access it simply have the boy present the driver to the indentation on the wall just below the mural…. It seems that my time here is at its end" Allister said with a sad smile as the golden colour slowly began to fade from his eyes leaving behind brown eyes and his hair also shifted into a dark brown colour. His face turned younger now looking around the same age as Twilight.

"Wait why are you trusting us with this kind of power?" Twilight asked.

"Because I have faith in my friends and the magic our bond had, after all Loyalty, Laughter, Generosity, Honesty, Kindness and Magic made it all complete you were all my very best friends." Allister said as the final part of the gold and purple disappeared leaving only brown. The boy's eyelids then flickered for a moment before he let out a small groan.

"What the F-ing hell just happened and why do I feel like I just ran a marathon…oh yeah, the ghost of a dead king used my bodies to fight waste yummies and a mantis yummy. … that should disturbed me far more then it is" he muttered before his eyes caught sight of Twilight just a few feet from him.

"Hi," he said slowly looking at her in confusion.

"Hi, I'm Twilight Sparkle I don't suppose you remember anything that just happened?" She asked. Though unnoticed to her a look of recognition flashed in the boy's eye.

"Sort of just give me a moment the kings set of memory is coming in and is causing my mind to act a bit weird, and you can call me Zen" he replied as began to rub his temple.

After a few minutes, he stopped and let out a sigh. "I'm fine now, so what now?" Zen asked as he looked at the two girls.

"I say we check out the secret room, I think it will help us in the long run and there might be information on a secrete entrance we can use to get out of here without running into another squad of Sombra's men" she replied.

"I'm okay with that, what about you?" he asked looking at the other girl.

"I'm fine with that and you can call me Cadence" she replied with a kind smile.

"Okay, though first I suggest we collect the Cell medals," Zen said as he got up off the steps and moved to the pile of cell medals, though he tripped slightly and knocked one of the decks to the ground. As soon as the deck touched the ground a light filled the room, and a holographic image of an old man with a white beard appeared.

"My lord Allister if you see this or if your Soul Heir has arrived as I predicted and is watching this I want to inform you that the decks are replicas which will allow you to find your knights who have chosen to put themselves in stasis until they are needed using the advent void safety feature. These replica decks will allow you to enter temples created to hold each rider in stasis. Though I must make note that the advent master deck along with the temple keys which are the fake decks are required to unseal each rider. Though it saddens me to say this Lance, Alice and Michael fell while they did not have their decks, so they are no longer with us, though their decks are currently in possession of Drake holder of the Wing knight deck. I wish you luck also if you are the Soul Heir I have left the instructions on how to use the master advent deck to assign new users to the free decks." The hologram explained his face faded with a sorrowful expression.

As the hologram shut off the three were left speechless though tears fell from Zen's eye with flecks of gold visible in them.

"Zen why are you crying?" Twilight asked as she noticed the tears.

"Those three where good friends of Allister's and I think the memories I got from him are causing me to feel what he would've felt in this situation. They were his family, they all where," Zen explained as he wiped away the tears glancing to the murals on the walls.

Twilight nodded in understanding. They made quick work of collecting the keys to locate the real decks and put them into Zen's bag which was now laying where the coffin once stood. They then quickly gathered up the cell medals and put them in some sacks Zen found in his bag.

"Why are you being so careful with those and what are they you called them cell medals right?" Twilight asked as she noticed the medals.

"Yeah, they are what are used to create monsters known as yummies which you saw Allister fight and destroy, and they can also be used to create the other creatures you saw used known as Waste yummies" Zen explained.

"How do they do that?" Twilight questioned.

"I'll answer that after we cleared out the hidden room and have a safe place to rest, right now we don't know if there are any more of them in the area and I'm currently drained form Allister using the belt, that thing takes a physical toll on the user after each use and until I get used to it I probably can only transform once or twice before being too tired to fight anymore. Now on to more important matters, where you are searching for this place or where you are heading somewhere else?" Zen asked as he began to inspect the wall at the back of the altar for the place he was supposed to present the belt.

"No, we found it while we were trying to make our escape from Sombra's forces, we got a lucky break with Sombra visiting an ally for a period of time and using the magic we manage to save up we broke out of our cells" Twilight explained to him.

"I see, when I tell you more about the medals you can tell me about what the world is like right now, also I think I found where I'm supposed to present the belt" he said as he pointed towards a marking on the all which was a set of three circles overlapping looking like an infinity with an extra loop added on. Deciding to test it he raised the driver to the wall and as it became level with the markings a light shone out and scanned the driver. A few seconds later a loud rumbling sound echoed throughout the Chamber. They looked around the room and saw that at the centre of the altar a part of the floor had retracted revealing a stone staircase leading downwards.

With that, the three headed down the newly revealed steps. After a few short minutes of walking down, they found themselves in what looked like a small study of some kind. The walls were filled with several diagrams which Zen noticed one looked similar to the ooos medal tree released with the Complete selection ooos driver. Though several others seemed to depict the various ooos forms and combinations. On another wall was a similar diagram to the ooos medal tree but instead showing the various advent deck emblems along with depictions of the different riders. On the other side of the wall where several tomes stacked on top of each other, beside them where three strange bat looking statues which were familiar to Zen. As they entered Twilight rushed over and began to look through the tomes, cadence looked at the depictions of the riders, and she felt drawn to a depiction of a white rider.

Zen, however, was drawn to the bat statues which were hanging from a bar resting just above the desk. The first bat had a dark crimson and black body, the next bat had a black and gold body and the final one who was slightly smaller than the other two had a mainly white body. He knew they were familiar, but Zen couldn't figure out exactly why as his curiosity grew he poked the middle bat gently. In a blink of an eye, the bat sprung to life followed shortly after by the other two stirring. Their sudden movement caused Zen to stumble back landing on his but, his hand catching Twilight as he fell bringing her to the ground with him.

"Ow," they both muttered as they looked up to find the three bat-like creatures.

"He looks like the king, but his eyes are different," the white bat said as she flew into Zen's face to get a better look.

"Stand back child, I believe he might be the one Ebulon called the soul heir. Our oath still stands, also boy what is your name?" The crimson bat said as he flew down to Zen.

"Zen, and are you guys Kivats?" Zen asked as he remembered the companion of kiva who granted him his armour.

"So, you know of us, that's good. I look forward to working with you though before you ask neither you nor the purple haired one will be able to use us safely and the tri coloured could probably only last at least two more extra uses before suffering a similar fate. Though I do have something to pass on to you" the crimson bat said as he produced a translucent whistle like object with a castle design and a dragon head sticking out of it. Zen knew what this was it was the Castle Dorian fuestle which was used by Kiva to summon the castle dragon, but what made the double take was that his knowledge didn't come from his memory of the show but one of the memories of the king.

"Thank you, is there anything else here of note we should take to keep safe?" Zen asked as he and Twilight stood up.

"No, other then the diagrams and tomes ever another important piece was stored along with the rest of our clan in castle Dorian, including a weapon Ebulon was developing for the king should he return" The crimson bat replied.

"I see, by the way, what should I call you?" Zen asked.

"You may call me Yami, my son the golden one is known simply as Kivat and my daughter you can call Kiva-la" Yami said as gestured to the other two bats.

"I see, I'll go grab my bag and we can pack this stuff up," Zen said as he left the room leaving the two girls and the bats to talk.

Once back in the chamber Zen let out a sigh as he looked at the cell medal sacks. He did a quick look around, and once he was sure he was alone, he held out his hand towards one of them to test something. At first, nothing happened, but all the coins began to rise and fly toward Zen. The minute any of them touched his body, there was a silver glow, and they disappeared inside his body. As the last medal entered his body his vision flickered to a distorted view before turning back to normal.

"To think I've become a greeed. Though at this point I don't think there is that much a difference I barely feel anything anymore, so losing my sense will not cause a difference that much my goal will remain the same I will reach out my hand to help others, I have to keeping moving forward for them" he sighed as he walked over to his bag and picked it up, as he did a small note fell out. Curious he picked it up suspecting it to just be the Crow Earl taunting him again.

'Dear Zen,

First off, I'm not the crow earl, that bastard is just a necessary evil I wish I could kill. I am someone you know off, but I'll get to that later. But first, you didn't create -. The reason you know of it is because you are - and I'll leave the rest to when I can meet you in person. As some repayment I made it so the bag will have infinite storage similar to an inventory in video games, all you need to do is put an item in and it will be stored than to remove an item just think of it, and it will be brought to the opening. The journey ahead of you will be hard, and I know right now you are in a state where you could easily fall, despite being the wrong power just remember to hold on to your hope.

Yours singerly -z.'

As he read he noticed that parts of the letter were seemingly erased by something leaving blank most of what he assumed was the important information except for a bit about the bag.

"At least the bag will be useful, though I wonder who Z is and what didn't I create" he murmured as he picked up the bag and went back down to the others. After packing away the tomes and diagrams, the group climbed back up and left the chamber. The Kivats guided them to a hidden dock. At the dock was a simple boat which would take them to a hidden settlement which will give the shelter for a few nights. With that the group rode a boat into the unknown.