Disclaimer: I own nothing about Sailor Moon or Kamen Rider. I only own my original character.
Fourth Step – That Man, Endymion
Katsuo had to admit that the scenery around here really reminded him of Rural Japan.
There was a crisp blue sky, a lengthy dirt road and an occasional greeting exchanged with people who passed him by on the way to work on crops or other agricultural tasks that need to be done. As Mercury had predicted, he seemed to be able to move along fine without anyone noticing where he truly came from. His wardrobe was kept simple with a blue top, a black vest and pants and simple brown shoes which allowed him to blend in with the scenery. His vest had deep enough pockets to conceal his communicator and the Disguise Pen he would pass on to the Princess.
The boy found it a bit strange though how so many people could easily rally behind Beryl in the original source material. Did she have that much charisma? Or was it a simple use of her dark magic to do a mass brainwashing? Surely, there would have been some form of resistance somewhere or at least someone who should have stopped to think about things for a moment. Then again, controlling the masses can be easy if the proper propaganda tools were applied to appeal to the emotions in their hearts.
He shook his head to try not to think about it. A glance at his communicator showed that he had been jogging for about twenty eight minutes so he should be able to spot the couple from his current position soon. Just as he finished climbing that last hill, his eyes were able to spot the large lake and see the couple at the other side. While Princess Serenity was enjoying the sensation of the Earth's clean water and the shore's soil against her bare feet, Prince Endymion sat by the side simply watching her.
His appearance was pretty much a textbook definition of Prince Charming with short black hair, a strong masculine face with no trace of facial hair and deep blue eyes. His attire consisted of a deep blue royal military uniform along with black armour decorated with silver highlights covering his upper chest and shins. His cape hung from the shoulder pads while his sword rested at the left side of his hip.
As he got closer, Princess Serenity noticed his presence and waved at him. "Katsuo-kun, over here!"
He made his way over before speaking in a neutral tone. "I'm glad to see you safe and sound-"
"Of course I would be safe! I'm here with Endymion-sama after all!"
Good grief, that dazzling smile of hers was really throwing Katsuo off guard. But he had to stay firm and explain the situation properly so she would understand that it's time to go. "That may be the case but you did worry many people, including your bodyguards, back at the Moon Kingdom because of your unscheduled visit to Earth."
Her good mood fell a little upon hearing that. "But I wanted to see Endymion-sama so badly! And I bet that he felt the same way too!"
"Well, there are processes in place that should be followed to avoid further damaging the relations between our people," said Endymion, being a voice of reason. "You should make an attempt to follow them so that you don't cause trouble for others."
This caused the Moon Princess to pout cutely. "Aren't you supposed to be declaring that you wouldn't be able to function properly if you didn't see me soon?"
The dark haired young man merely laughed while the young boy sighed before he shifted position to show proper respect to the Prince of Earth. "I thank you for looking after the Princess while she was here, Prince Endymion."
"There's no need to thank me, Togashi Katsuo."
"You know me?" asked the boy in surprise.
"Princess Serenity has told me much about you this afternoon," explained the Prince while the Princess went to retrieve her shoes. "She has also informed me about the circumstances which brought you to the Moon Kingdom and the condition she found you in. I can only imagine how stressful that experience must have been."
"Indeed but Queen Serenity has kindly extended her hospitality and allowed me to stay at the Moon Palace. I'm doing what I can to repay that kindness which is why I'm here to act as Princess Serenity's escort back to the teleportation site where the Senshi are waiting." Katsuo reached into his vest pocket and produced the Disguise Pen. "Princess, you'll need this."
She reluctantly took it, not too happy at having to accept that today's date had come to an end. "Katsuo-kun, we'll leave in one minute."
"What do you need one minute for?"
"For one last cuddle with Endymion-sama!" explained the blonde Princess as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.
Katsuo fought the urge to groan. "I'll give you fifteen seconds. We can't afford to spend too much time lingering here."
"Thirty seconds! And I'm not budging on that!" came her counteroffer.
Wow, she really was aggressive when it came to her Prince. Then again, he did see evidence of that extreme side before when he and his sister did a Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon marathon earlier in the summer. That Princess Sailor Moon was seriously scary when it came to trying to reunite with Endymion. "Thirty seconds it is."
After giving a squeal of delight, Princess Serenity moved over to wrap herself around her man while Endymion merely shot a look of apology towards Katsuo before returning the embrace. As for the boy, he reached for his communicator and was about to make a call to update his status to the others when he heard a distinct noise.
SCHWIIIIIIING
'This noise… I know I heard this before.' He glanced back at the couple, wondering if they heard the same noise as well but they were lost in their own little world.
"Mmmmm… I can just spend forever in your arms like this, Endymion-sama," mumbled Princess Serenity.
'Where is it coming from?' His memory finally served him as it finally recognized the sound's origin. It was during one of the early episodes of Decade where Tsukasa had entered a world to become a lawyer or something. Lawsuits were decided with Rider battles in a Mirror World which can only be entered through reflective surfaces that were conceivably large enough for a human to fit through. And the only large reflective surface in the area was the lake.
Just as Katsuo realized that, a blur erupted from the lake, aiming itself at Princess Serenity. Without thinking about it, the boy rushed forward on autopilot in order to stop the attacker. The next thing he knew, he was flying in the air thanks to a powerful blow which collided against his chest. The last thought that passed through his mind before he blacked out was that he was pretty sure that attack shattered a part of his rib cage since it seriously hurt trying to breathe for those seconds.
"KATSUO-KUN!" While the Moon Princess broke off to tend to the boy, Endymion turned to face the attacker who landed on his feet. He was dressed similarly to the Prince with a deep blue leather bodysuit and silver armour covering the upper torso and shins. The main differences though were that the attacker had no cape and instead wore a silver buckle around his waist with the centre portion showing a golden bat against a black surface. His face was also completely concealed with a helmet and a silver striped visor which also had two pointed edges at the end that resembled ears on the top of a bat. His left hand carried a rapier in a reverse grip with the black handle guard decorated in a similar fashion to the bat.
"By my authority as the Prince of Earth, I demand that you identify yourself!" There was no answer from the mysterious knight. He merely tried to go after the Princess again but Endymion would have none of that and blocked his path. This finally caused the knight to begin attacking the Prince who merely guarded or dodged the various kicks and the rapier stabs that came his way.
While the Prince kept the attacker at bay, Princess Serenity reached the injured Katsuo. With her left hand placed on his chest to apply healing magic to repair his ribs, her right hand reached for the dropped communicator. She first activated the distress signal back to the palace so that her mother would know that there is trouble afoot. Then she opened a channel hoping to reach one of her Senshi. "This is Princess Serenity! Someone please respond!"
An image of Sailor Venus then popped up on the small screen in the right hand corner of the communicator. "Your Highness, this is Venus. What's the situation?"
"I was attacked earlier and Katsuo-kun got hurt protecting me! Endymion-sama's holding off the attacker for now but there could be other enemies! Please come quickly!" Her blood went cold though when she heard the sounds of battle at the other end. "What's going on back there?!"
"GAH! What's with that guy?! He's so hard to keep an eye on!" That was the voice of Sailor Mars voicing her frustration.
"He's using his natural form to blend in with the forest and make it harder to track him. Mars, you must not use your Fire Soul here unless you seriously want to damage the Moon Kingdom's relationship with the people of Earth." With that cool delivery, that could only be Sailor Mercury saying those words. "The good news is that I was able to pick up a possible weak point. If we can destroy that silver armlet on his left arm, that should weaken him substantially."
"Leave that to me!" boasted Jupiter.
"As you can hear, we're under attack ourselves but we have things under control. As soon as we finish up here-" The blonde Senshi was cut off by a warning from Mercury.
"Venus, watch out!"
The Princess saw the shocked face of her bodyguard before an unknown male voice shouted out the name of an attack technique.
"DAI SETSUDAN!"
That was the last thing she heard as the screen went static. She felt quite shaken at this turn of events but she managed to keep her composure by focusing on her task of healing the boy. Thanks to her efforts, he slowly came to consciousness. "W-what's happening?"
"Stay still," instructed the Princess. "You took a major hit earlier so I need to concentrate if I'm going to fix you up properly, Katsuo-kun."
The pain was slowly subsiding. It still hurt trying to breathe but compared to his initial experience from a few minutes earlier, it was more bearable. He did look over to the shore where Endymion and the other figure were locked in combat. 'Kamen Rider Knight?! But… why?'
The last exchange of blows between the combatants ended with Knight landing a solid kick against the Prince's chest armour and sending him to the ground but rather than simply crashing, Endymion angled his body so he could roll on the ground for a bit and get on his feet quickly. When he did get to his feet, his right hand held several red roses, the iconic weapon linked to Tuxedo Kamen.
He threw them towards Knight who was ready to bat them aside with his rapier. Instead of that happening, the roses detonated as soon as they got in a certain range, dealing some minor damage and sending him backwards on the sand. Four more roses showed up in Endymion's right hand before he tossed them at his opponent. This time, Knight moved swiftly to avoid them but realized only two had been sent directly his way while the other two were aimed at the ground, landing right in front of his path.
"That guy predicted Knight's path…?" Katsuo was seriously surprised as the roses exploded again, putting Knight airborne and landing in a few feet away in front of the Prince on his back.
"Endymion-sama possesses a strong connection with the Earth and has considerably strong psychic abilities. This type of precognition comes naturally to him and makes him difficult to defeat on the battlefield," said the Princess, more than happy to gush over her Prince.
Meanwhile, Endymion prepared to end the fight and thrust out his open left palm at the enemy before unleashing a blast of energy from it.
Katsuo recognized the form that the energy took. He remembered seeing that attack in the manga as part of Takara's argument with him that that Mamoru was seriously underused in the anime. If what he saw was correct, then Prince Endymion can perform Tuxedo La Smoking Bomber without needing to get into a stance to focus his energy and yell out the attack name as he performs it.
As shocking as it is, what shocked Katsuo even further is Kamen Rider Knight moving to open the guard of his blade to reveal the card reader and slip in a freshly drawn card from the deck in the centre of his buckle. 'Advent cards?!'
GUARD VENT
Upon that card activating, a cape formed around Kamen Rider Knight before he draped it over himself. Even though the energy blast from Endymion connected for a successful hit, there was virtually no damage thanks to the cape which greatly surprised the Prince of Earth. "What sorcery is this?"
"Wouldn't you like to know? But that was a good attack plan you had back there." While Katsuo tried to determine if that voice belonged to the original Kamen Rider Knight or the AU version, the enemy merely got up and dismissed the cape before reaching for another card from his deck and slid it into the card reader.
SWORD VENT
The rapier was sheathed and a screech was heard in the air before a new melee weapon dropped into Kamen Rider Knight's hands which resembled a large black lance. "Draw your sword and show me more of your power as the Prince of Earth!"
"So what's happening out there?"
Acuto tilted his odd looking head in Beryl's direction. "Shouldn't you be able to view things with your own crystal ball or staff or whatever it is that you use?"
The red haired sorceress snorted once. "My scrying ability works if I have a familiar directly under my control on the field. I won't be able to see what those soldiers of yours are doing!"
"Is that so? Very well then…" The optics on his mask flashed yellow as he received updates. "Amazon is engaging those four bodyguards. Even though he has the field advantage in the forest, they are not going down so easily. As expected of the Sailor Senshi."
"And the Moon Princess? How did the attack go on her?" asked Beryl anxiously.
"I had thought she was alone on Earth but she has some company. One appears to be a village boy while the other is a warrior who identified himself as the Prince of Earth," reported Acuto.
"Endymion?! How is this possible? He shouldn't be out there at this hour!" If there was one thing Beryl prided herself on, it was how she meticulously memorized the Prince's daily schedule. At this time, he would normally be overseeing a military exercise with some of his men. The fact that he went to go see the Moon Princess as soon as she landed cemented two conclusions in Beryl's mind:
The Moon Princess is a bad influence on the Prince, clouding his thoughts and causing him to turn his back on his duties.
The King must be seriously senile to allow his son and the heir to the Throne to go off like that.
In any case, it was clear to Beryl that the current King must step down and a new King put into place to better protect the Earth's interests. Endymion has the qualifications but needs a suitable wife in order to stay focused and lead the people to a new age of prosperity. As far as the sorceress was concerned, only she had the qualifications to keep the Future King on track.
"So how do you want to deal with that Prince and that village boy?" Acuto's question snapped Beryl back to reality.
"The Prince is to be unharmed. Just get him away from the area and unable to interfere. As for that village boy… if he doesn't get in the way of your warrior's mission, there's no reason to harm him. If he does choose to interfere, kill him. We can place the blame on the Moon Princess for that somehow."
"Kekekeke!" The amused cackle from the Ganbarider echoed throughout the small workshop. "Well, isn't that an interesting way of handling things? Alright… we'll do this your way!"
"What is this? Is your skill with the blade truly that poor?!" While Knight continued to press the attack with his summoned weapon, Katsuo frowned a bit at seeing Endymion having trouble with defense, causing his black armour to show some signs of scratches and cracks.
'This is odd. I would have figured he would be better with a sword.' Then another thought came to the boy as he spotted the look on the Prince's face in extreme concentration, not showing a single sign of distress. 'Could he be focusing on something else which is taking away his attention from the fight?'
"I have you now!" shouted the dark blue knight.
"Who has who, I wonder?" In a flash, runes flared around Endymion's sword before he brought it up to meet the weapon of his enemy. As soon as the powerful blow made contact with the other weapon, the summoned weapon from Knight's Sword Vent card was shattered. In addition, Endymion's counterattack retained momentum to strike Knight's chest armour, causing sparks to fly and the Rider to tumble back.
"Yes! As expected of Endymion-sama!" exclaimed Princess Serenity, briefly slipping into the role of a cheerleader while the enemy slowly got to his feet.
"I see… you were occupied preparing your special technique to the point of being willing to take some damage on your armour to finalize your move. Very well done…" He trailed off for a moment as if getting mentally distracted by something.
"Surrender now. You know that you cannot defeat me," stated Endymion coolly.
"Honestly, I would have liked to conclude this properly…" Knight drew his rapier again and opened the weapon's guard before grabbing another card from his buckle and inserting it in. "… but I must put business first."
ADVENT
And before the Prince of Earth could react, Darkwing swooped in at its maximum speed of 900 kilometers per hour and snatched Endymion, taking him away to places unknown. That only left Knight, Katsuo and the Princess in the area. The boy quickly got up to his feet, ready to fight the enemy. The healing magic had repaired most of the damage from the earlier blow with the only lingering pain being some chest spasms. Nothing he couldn't handle though.
Serenity was able to pick up his intentions much to her alarm. "Katsuo-kun, you mustn't!"
"I'm not letting anything happen to you," replied the boy, keeping himself steady.
"I'm only interested in the girl. Step aside and I won't harm you," said Knight in a calm tone.
"That's not happening!" Katsuo was then forced to move as Knight closed the distance in an attempt to attack him in the same area that the Rider had hit earlier. He managed to graze the boy a bit but it was enough to cause the spasms to hinder him again. Deciding not to press things for now, the Rider got back into a neutral position.
"Tell me something. What is it that drives you to fight for her? Money? Political power? Love? You're out of luck on that third one though since she already has a Prince Charming."
"What are you talking about?!" growled the boy.
"All humans have desires. That's why they fight," said the Rider, echoing a certain Kanzaki Shiro's words. "To achieve a feeling of self-satisfaction. So don't tell me that you don't have any desires."
"It may be true that I have desires but desires don't have to be purely selfish!" shot back Katsuo which caught Knight off guard.
"What?"
"People can also possess selfless desires to help someone in need! You don't have to step over others in order to obtain that sense of self-satisfaction! But since you're so damn curious about the reason I fight, it boils down to one simple desire: the desire to do the right thing!"
"Punk, who do you think you are?"
Just as Knight asked that question, a sphere of light suddenly appeared in front of Katsuo with Princess Serenity recognizing the magical signature. "That's Mother's spell! She must have responded to the distress call!"
Once the light died down, Katsuo found his right hand carrying the Diendriver, freshly built from the laboratory of the Moon Palace's engineering team. His left hand held one single card which caused Knight to let out a small gasp of surprise. "That's…!"
The boy merely brought up the Diendriver and proudly displayed the Diend card with his left hand. "As that man would say… I'm just a passing through Kamen Rider! Remember that!"
Without hesitating, he slipped the card into the Driver before sliding out the end of the barrel.
KAMEN RIDE!
As the standby siren started playing, Knight tried to rush Katsuo but the youth simply aimed the gun towards him and yelled a single word…
"Henshin!"
… Before he pulled the trigger, firing several blue projectiles which smashed into the enemy Rider.
DIEND!
They didn't do too much damage but their main purpose was to provide distraction and cover while the transformation was completed. When Knight looked up again, he saw that the boy was now clad in a black bodysuit with cyan patches on his sides with gold lines on him. He also had bulky upper armor shaped like the lines of a bar code and a cyan helmet with cyan lines on his lens.
"The soldier that protects irreplaceable treasures, Kamen Rider Diend has arrived!"
It's official. When an 'In the name of the Moon' speech comes naturally to him, it's a definite sign that he's in the Sailor Moon universe.
TO BE CONTINUED…
So here we show off some of Endymion's badass credentials, reveal Acuto's summoned Riders and get to Katsuo's first henshin and the beginning of his debut battle. And yeah, you can clearly see the cues where 'Parallel World' and 'Fight in the Man' would get played if this got shot as a real episode.
Quick questions for you all: How many stolen Rider cards should Acuto have in his possession? Who would be among those stolen cards? I don't want there to be too many and create a 'Rider of the Week' scenario. I only need a few decent ones to create interesting battles or contribute to plot development so let me know who can do that.
Even though there were signs of positive reception earlier, I'm pretty disappointed that the last chapter only got 2 reviews. So I'll likely put this on break again and work on other things unless a good number of reviews flow in.