Kamen Rider Tarock, Re-Dealt – Reading Five: Shift Runner
Previously, disillusioned student Liss Decker found herself in possession of an artifact that gave her the ability to transform into Tarock, a warrior with incredible strength and powers. And by doing so, was soon under attack by hostile beings called the Mythos, who were invading another world called the Sphere but who had begun to appear on Earth as well. Liss was approached by a pair of immortals whose kind had inspired the tarot, and asked to become their champion against the Mythos, even though others of their kind might not be so welcoming. Given another card, and with it new powers, Liss agreed to think it over…
The TV spilled an eerie light over Paige's living room as the comedy block faded into the evening news. Kelly looked over from the edge of the couch and gave an irritated glance to Liss where she sat on the floor, but Liss ignored it. Two days before she would've had the same reaction to someone telling her a story about knights, giant spiders and vampires who could turn into obnoxious vice principals.
A somber-faced anchor addressed his viewers, "Our top story tonight concerns Samuel Archer High School, which was the site of a disaster this afternoon only hours before its vice principal was found murdered in his home. Police are declining to comment on the nature of the attack on the school at present, but students and faculty say they felt the building shaking as if it was being bombed. Others also describe attackers diving through second-floor windows."
Kelly looked disparagingly over at Paige. "You've seen Liss fighting these 'monsters,' then?" she asked.
Paige looked back. "I've seen enough, and landing right in the middle of trouble is just like my little sister. Besides, she's finally found something she's passionate about, and I don't think I'm prepared to tell a wizard he's wrong." A soft smile formed on Liss's face. That kind of thing was why Paige was the only member of her family she didn't mind talking to anymore.
"That's IT?!" Kelly exploded. "She's found something she's PASSIONATE about? Monsters?! Here, give me that magic…thing of yours!"
"Are you-" Liss protested, but Paige held up a hand.
"Let her try it, Liss," Paige said, and with an indignant look up at Kelly, Liss pulled out the Fate Driver and the new card and handed them to Kelly. She pressed the Fate Driver against her waist, but no belt strap shot out and clicked into the other side as it had when Liss had used it. She pushed the card into the slot on top, but the top stuck out, refusing to stay inside no matter how long Kelly held it down.
"What now?" Kelly asked.
"I don't know. It just happened when I put the card in before," Liss said. Kelly gave her an incredulous look, then handed took them back, and Liss put the buckle on herself the belt obligingly looped around her waist and clicked into place. She loaded the green card, and this time it stayed in.
"Pentacles Suit!" the Fate Driver said, and her increasingly familiar black undersuit formed around her before a green outline traveled down her body, a sheet of thick green armor solidified all over her, along with Y-like crest on her forehead, unlike her previous form where the armor was concentrated her mask, torso, forearms and boots.
Liss left a speechless Kelly to walk into the bathroom and stare at her reflection for a long time in the mirror. It seemed a weird thing to do, but she'd never really looked at herself in the suit before. Having a monster intent on killing her tended to hog her attention, she was finding. "So this is what it looks like…" she mumbled, noticing more how she felt in it than what she saw in the mirror.
With the red armor she'd felt stronger and faster than she ever had, and she was sure she was already ahead of anyone in her age bracket in either department. This time she only felt stronger, but a lot more than she had with the other suit. Would all of them have different specialties, once she'd found them? Or rather, when Shardak had told her where to find the other cards?
Paige knocked on the door frame, interrupting her. "I'm only letting you stay so that if any monsters show up, you can kill 'em, got it?" she said. "But seriously, get some sleep. We're starting first thing in the morning and you're crazy if you think I'm starting without you."
"Hey, Paige? Thanks. I really mean it." The green card ejected from the buckle and into her hand, switching her back to normal.
"I know, kid. I know. But I mean it too, get some sleep. And kill any monsters that show up, got it? And do it quiet, I been up all day."
Liss gave a quick nod. "I will!...Wait, what?"
It was barely 6:45 when the blare of the morning news stirred Liss from her sleep on the living room couch. She helped—with prodding—to make breakfast, and only burned the eggs a little. The sun was just peeking out when they arrived at the garage. Liss was immediately set to work making a pot of coffee as Paige wheeled the bike onto the center of her workspace and got out her tools.
Over the next couple hours the two of them cleaned, checked, mended and replaced parts and systems, but Liss's hands were black inside the first two minutes.
"Hey, Liss?" Paige asked after a while.
"Yeah? Want me to start her up?"
"No, but I want you to think about something," Paige replied, and ignored Liss's groan. "I know what I said to Kelly, but…Is this what you want out of life? Going to some weird other planet you don't know anything about and fighting monsters? And really think about it, don't just say yes."
"I think it's too late to back out," Liss answered.
Paige threw down her rag in frustration. "Damn it, Liss-"
But Liss raised a hand for a reprieve. "I'm saying that because I have already thought about it. And I'm serious, I do think it's too late for me to back out. The monsters already hunted me down twice, right? Unless I go on frigging TV about it, they'll probably still think I have the stuff and come after me again trying to get it. And if I don't have it, I'm gonna get killed. That enough thinking for you?"
Paige nodded, but added, "And what about the rest of us? What if they think to come after mom and dad, or me and Kelly? So they can get you in a position where you can't fight back?"
"They could've done that before now, but they didn't. They always came straight for me," Liss answered. "It doesn't seem like that's how they work. If I go to this other place and make some noise to let people know that's where I am, that's probably where they'll come to find me."
"Mmmmhmmm," Paige mumbled dubiously, then held up her empty coffee mug. "Refill."
Grumbling lightly, Liss got up to refill Paige's mug, then her own. She dipped into the bag of sugar, only to find it empty.
"Paige! We're out of sugar," Liss called.
"Then quit eating it straight out of the bag."
"I'm going to get more! Be right back!" Liss said and dashed out the door, leaving the mugs on the counter.
As she ran down to the little market on the next block over, Liss's steps slowed as she realized something. Who knew if they had markets or sugar or coffee on the Sphere. Or showers. Or tex-mex food. What about money? What would she do for that?
But no, she thought. There would be differences, but she'd adapt. After all, there had been a time when she wasn't snapping back at her parents and ditching school, and she was getting by okay…
As she walked up to the store there was a petite blonde woman in a grubby coat and jeans blocking the door with her arms while a small group of shoppers tried to edge around her. Suddenly a little boy and his mother pushed against the door to the left and managed to force their way past the woman who fell halfway out the door. The other shoppers hurried out before she could get back up. "Hey, wait…! I still have some questions!" she wailed as she watched her former captives run for their lives. Her face brightened as she saw Liss looking down at her. "You! I bet you know something about what happened at the school yesterday!"
"And who the hell are you?"
"Someone looking for the truth of that story! Someone willing to believe in the fantastic!"
"That would've been a lot more impressive if you weren't laying on the ground," Liss pointed out. The lady got up, dusted herself off and suddenly a business seemed to appear in her hand as if by magic. After everything she'd seen the last few days, Liss backed off a step out of instinct.
"What? It won't bite you."
"Lady, you were the one talking about 'the fantastic' a second ago."
The woman pressed the card into Liss's hand, and Liss glanced down at it, not eager to take her eyes off any weirdoes after what she'd seen. "Sue Gand, American Graphic. 555-555-8439. Um, great?"
"I'm here checking out the attack on the school yesterday," Sue explained.
"I don't go to school," Liss said, then tried to give the card back and get inside the market as fast as she could. Sue went after her.
"Oh yeah? Haven't heard anything about what happened? Got some people saying there were monsters there. One was like a giant bat," Sue pressed, trying to get a reaction from Liss. "A couple people even said they saw some kind of superhero in red and black fight it off."
"Sounds like they put something funny in the mystery meat yesterday," Liss mumbled, grabbing a box of sugar packets. She hurried to the front, where the man behind the register looked up nervously as Sue continued to follow after Liss.
"How amusing. Mind if I quote you on that?" she asked.
"Look, lady? Maybe you should talk to actual witnesses instead of some random person buying sugar," Liss suggested, threw some bills at the cashier and bolted with her precious cargo. She was around the corner before anyone could've seen her, practically flying down an alley and going around another until she joined up with one of the first routes she'd taught herself to lose someone tailing her. Through a crack in the side of a brick wall and then up the wall, into the second story window of the old shoe factory. Then onto the roof if that old metal ladder was still holding, which it did even though brick dust showered from where it was bolted to the top of the crumbling wall. Last time she'd use that one, Liss thought, and realized it was probably true in more ways than one.
As soon as she was up to the top, it was an easy jump to the next roof, and from there—
"Hey! You with the sugar!"
Liss looked down in surprise and saw Sue looking up at her and waving. She was expecting to see a triumphant smirk on her pursuer's face for spotting her, but instead Sue was looking up at her with eyes narrowed slightly in irritation. "I need to talk to you!" Sue yelled.
"Get lost, lady!" Liss yelled back and jumped to the next roof. The next was a short hop from that, and then she jumped onto the top of the pile of junk cars in the little scrapyard behind the building. She jumped to the hood of the car underneath, then to the ground and pushed aside the loose fence plank she'd found there. A quick glance around showed her Sue was nowhere in sight, and after a two-block sprint down to the dry concrete riverbed that bisected town, the coast still looked to be clear.
Liss slid down the side and ran into a drainage outlet that hadn't tasted water in years. She waited for a few minutes and saw Sue run by on street level, and to her annoyance stopped and looked around. Then Sue bent down and peered into the tunnel where Liss was hiding. "Hey, I just want to ask a few questions, Liss!"
It was plain to see this was getting her nowhere, so Liss stepped out into the open and climbed to the street. "Where'd you hear that name?" she demanded, wanting to know just why she was worth all this attention.
"From a young man whose mind you absolutely blew when you turned into a superhero in front of him," Sue answered. "He didn't miss a thing in describing you, either. He must've been looking VERY hard."
Well, that explained it all, didn't it? Even when he wasn't around, Ben Corland couldn't resist making life hell for her. And in saving his life from a gang of monsters, all she'd done was give him the biggest excuse he'd ever have to do that. "Look, lady-" Liss started to say, but was interrupted as Sue's pocket started to ring and she dug out a scuffed smart phone.
"What is it, Alex? I'm talking to the key witness here." Sue said in exasperation. "I KNOW it's a long way from Rittersburg, and I KNOW how much gas costs these days, but you know better than to write off a monster sighting."
Liss was about to bolt with her pursuer handily distracted, but all of a sudden she sank to her knees, but was only barely aware of the fact with her very mind seeming to go numb with cold. There was a thick white haze over everything she looked at, and her ears buzzed harshly.
The buzzing slowly seemed to condense, and Liss stiffened in terror as she felt a tiny secondary presence in her mind. Through the haze, could feel it calling out to something powerful and alien nearby. Something that was calling back. Something vastly, PAINFULLY more powerful than any of the strange beings she'd yet encountered.
Thankfully the haze and the yearning for contact in the back of her mind were already fading, but what was that? Was it the full experience of the cold sensation she felt right before running into a Mythos or Arcanum? Whatever the answer, it would need to wait. She was probably about to land in big trouble.
"I'll tell you why, you hired me because the last lady to have this beat quit. And you can tell Troy I don't believe that's his real name, too. Hey…kid, you all right?" Sue asked. When Liss looked around feverishly without answering, she said into her phone. "Hey Alex, a lead just fell in my lap. Gotta go." She put the phone away and looked down at Liss again. "Seriously kid, what's up?"
"Something's here," Liss croaked. "Something really, really strong."
"So you're admitting to everything," Sue said, but didn't press the point and started to survey the area. "Hey!" she said suddenly, and pointed. Liss followed her finger and saw someone in a dirty black robe shuffling up the canal. They took another two steps and fell forward.
Sue and Liss jumped the guardrail and slid down to the bottom of the canal, but Sue was the first by the stranger's side. "Hey, are you okay? Do you need a doctor?"
The person in the robe raised her head to look at them, and they could see the thin, dirt-smudged face of a girl about Liss's age. Her dark hair was tangled and her gray eyes bleary. She made a futile attempt to get back up, and they saw her legs and feet were bare, and marked by scrapes and bruises. "I am…lost," she choked out in a dry voice.
"Lost? Where are you going? Maybe we can help," Sue offered.
"Don't volunteer me like that," Liss grunted.
"Why not? You're supposed to be some kind of superhero, right? Isn't that what they do?"
Liss was about to snipe back, but wasn't that what Shardak asked her to be? Did that mean the goodness of her heart had to be why she said yes to the powers of Tarock, though? The girl shook her head then, and said, "No, I am…Lost. That is…me."
"Okay, then…Lost," Sue replied. "Are you okay? Do you need some kind of help?"
"I must find her. She calls to me," Lost answered, then managed to get up and limp closer to Liss. "She calls to me…"
"I don't call you," Liss said. Lost lurched closer and held out her hand, a looking of longing on her face, and Liss braced herself as she started to feel cold again, but then it stopped and Lost's face fell.
"You aren't her…!" she said in shocked disappointment.
"Who, Lost? Who calls to you?" Sue pressed.
"Watch out, it's her!" Liss yelled.
"What's her?" Sue asked.
"She's the thing I sensed just now!"
Lost's turned an incandescent black and she clutched her head. "She calls to me," Lost wailed. "She says terrible, terrible things…but it's the only way to stop the SOUNDS!"
A jet of a black liquid spewed from Lost's mouth, then curved upward into the sky, covering it with a thick black cloud. Thunder cracked and heavy rain started to fall. Sue looked over at Liss to ask what was going on, but Liss had already thrown her box of sugar aside and locked the Fate Drive around her waist and was slapping her new green card inside.
"Pentacles Suit!"
As soon as the thick green armor solidified, Liss was stomping toward Lost. The rain picked up almost as if in response to her intended attack on in its creator and turned to sharp fragments of sleet that pelted against Liss's body. Sue screamed and went diving into the nearest sewage outlet for cover.
More of the dark rain was puddling in front of Lost, but as Liss looked closer it wasn't just making a puddle it was making a pile, like some kind of slime, that was already starting to quiver. Liss jumped forward to restrain Lost but the slime suddenly shot up and blocked her, and batted her aside with a thick rubbery arm. By the time Liss had gotten back up it had shaped itself into a towering creature roughly the shape of a person, but covered in chitin armor that was a poisonous yellow in color. Instead of hands it had scissor-like claws, each a foot from tip to wrist. A multitude of tiny beady eyes were lodged in its face above a pair of clacking mandibles, and a long tail with a curved stinger waved back and forth above its head.
"Bane of the hunter, Scorpio, arise," Lost croaked hoarsely, barely understandable over the rain. "No…stop putting them in my head…please…!"
Liss climbed to her feet. She'd only been winded by the monster's punch, but she was still sore in a lot of places from the beating she'd taken in her last fight. At least this time it wasn't some twelve-foot behemoth in her way.
The monster sprang and Liss jumped back. Not as far as she'd been able with the other set of armor, but nearly twenty feet beyond the impact of its attack was okay by her, though. Flecks of concrete from the bottom of the riverbed bounced off her mask from the force of the monster's attack…he could probably do a lot of damage if he got the chance.
But this time, she had an advantage. Thanks to Jack's parting gift, this time she already knew what she could.
Liss passed her hand in front of the Fate Driver and light flashed from the dome. "Arms of Fate! Gran Crusher!" A warhammer with a two foot-long head stamped on the face with a five-pointed star, a pentacle, appeared. She grasped the haft with both hands, and the monster clacked its pincers at her. Then in a blur of motion it grabbed for her neck with one, but Liss ducked just in time and swung her hammer, connecting with its side and knocking it back a few steps. Scorpio screeched then threw itself at her, claws outstretched.
Its claws closed around the haft of the Gran Crusher, Liss holding it out to block them from getting to her neck. Liss kicked Scorpio hard on in the side and knocked it off balance for the second it took her to roll onto her back and fling Scorpio with the superior strength this form gave her to land thirty feet away, green ichor seeping from its wound. Lost screamed and managed to get up and sprint up away from the fight.
"Wait!" shouted Liss, who wanted a few answers herself. She crouched and jumped to overtake Lost, but as she cleared the rock spikes suddenly Scorpio clamped one pincer around her ankle and she crashed back down. Scorpio dashed after Lost itself, and she screamed and fell again. As it got close, instead of attacking Scorpio turned and fixed its beady eyes on Liss, clacking its claws threateningly.
Liss gripped the Gran Crusher. So she'd have to go through the monster to get to Lost. Well, that was okay by her.
She jumped forward and shoulder-checked Scorpio in the chest. In the second it was vulnerable she spun and smashed her hammer into the side of Scorpio's head, and it jerked violently to one side. The Gran Crusher went up to deal another blow, but suddenly Scorpio lunged forward and pinned her forearms with his pincers and then its tail snaked forward and buried its stinger in the armor on her chest.
Liss struggled to break free, but as she did she noticed a feeling of heat where the stinger was embedded even with the icy rain that was still beating down. Desperately Liss kicked at Scorpio's stomach trying to force it off, the sharp sides of its claws cutting into her wrists. The heat grew and focused on a single tiny point, and Liss was sure it was just about to finish cutting through her armor. She headbutted Scorpio as hard as she could, slicing one eye open on her forehead's sharpened crest, and it hissed and let go of her wrists as it staggered back, and she grabbed its tail and yanked out the stinger before it could go any deeper. Scorpio whipped it out of her hand before she could snap it off.
The hole in her armor from where Scorpio had pierced it was actually smoking, and that was all Liss needed to go on the offensive before it had a chance to attack her again. She slammed one foot into its chest, staggering it, then landed a running jump-kick sending Scorpio flying into the air and over the rim of the canal. She jumped after him, raising the Gran Crusher above her head for the death blow, but without warning Scorpio rolled onto his back and then his arms extended out ten feet and grabbed her by the ankles, and she slammed straight down onto the street. The impact only knocked the wind out of her, but the Gran Crusher slid out of her reach.
Scorpio looked like some kind of demon as it loomed over her against the darkened sky, its tail whipping back and forth before stopping over one shoulder. A jet of hissing green venom shot out at her, and Liss grabbed the bladed bracelet from her belt. "Calamity! Pent Defender!" said her belt as she scraped her arm against the ground. The bracelet glowed for a second and then a circular hunk of rock came loose from the ground and stuck to it, looking like a shield, with the lines of a five-pointed star etched into the surface. The venom splattered against it and hissed as it melted away the shield, but it only lasted a second before losing its strength and the rock still held.
Quickly Liss released the shield. "Pent Attacker!" said her belt, and the shield shot out and collided with Scorpio. Its head jerked back and she was able to wriggle free of its claws, and grab her hammer.
"Woe! Terra Bind!" Long arms formed from dirt and asphalt reached out of the ground and seized Scorpio by its ankles and shoulders. It struggled, but already Liss was crouched and launched herself into the air.
"Calamity! Edifice Cracker!" Her first glowed with green power and she punched the monster with all the awesome strength this form provided, sending out a shockwave that shook the walls of the canal. The monster screamed, and exploded into blue-green slime.
With her enemy taken care of, Liss looked around to try to find Lost and saw her scrambling helplessly to crawl up the slippery side of the riverbed. For a second their eyes met, and Lost gaped at her in terror. "Wait, I just want-" Liss called, but it was too late. Lost had started to turn transparent and in a faded away completely.
"Damn it," Liss said, and sighed. The rain kept beating down, and splattered icily against her undersuit through the hole Scorpio had burnt through her armor. As she tried to figure out what to do next, the black cloud covering the sky started to turn gray and the pelting rain weakened. Seemed as if killing Scorpio had killed the power behind the storm, or maybe Lost leaving. As she considered the possibilities, something happened that made Liss freeze where she stood.
The rain she could feel on her suit was flowing downward. Not dripping off, flowing. The black water, or whatever it was, that had gathered into puddles was flowing over cracks and debris toward the pile of slime that was all that was left of Scorpio. It quivered and started to roll together and harden again. Liss brought the Gran Crusher up and slammed it into the growing mass but an arm formed itself out of one side and batted her aside.
Stars filled Liss's vision for a few seconds. The ground trembled and she desperately shook her head to clear her vision, and didn't like what she saw. Scorpio had been reborn, but not as a cross between a person and a scorpion. Now it was just a huge arachnid, almost sixteen feet from end to end. It turned to face her and she found herself looking into an eye the size of her entire head.
Scorpio's tail shot at Liss, who jumped back just before it could smash her into the street. She charged forward and swung at an eye with the Gran Crusher but Scorpio seized her around the middle with one claw and slammed her through a brick wall. It closed around her trying to chop her in two, and she heard a scream of terror as she smashed the Gran Crusher into the point where the pincers met and they flexed just enough for her to drop to the ground. It was only then she realized that scream had been hers.
She sprinted in an arc toward Scorpio's side to attack again, but its tail whipped around and sprayed a jet of acid toward her. Liss jumped out of the way and landed on the bridge crossing the canal, and ran for all she was worth across it just before Scorpio's tail lashed out and crushed it right behind her. This thing was too much for her the way things stood. She needed an edge…and knew where to find it, if it was ready.
Scorpio clacked its mandibles angrily at her, and Liss crouched and jumped as far as this form would let her before a claw shattered the ground where she'd been.
The door to the garage almost came right off its hinges. "Is it ready?"
"Where the hell have you been, Liss? We were supposed to do this togeth…what's with your voice? Oh shit, did you run into another one of those monsters out there?" Paige demanded.
"Yeah! Is it ready?" Liss asked again, dashing over to the bike and swinging her leg over to mount it. Then she tried to kick-start the engine, which only sputtered pitifully. She tried it again, and again only got a sputter from it. Liss snarled in frustration and was about to get off and just kick it, but as she did her body temperature seemed to rise, and then the heat flowed out through her hands, into the bike.
The engine roared to life, and a white glow spread over the rest of it. Within a few seconds it had solidified into thick metal plates all over the bike, colored pure black but with dark green stripes along the bottom of the plates. The headlight under the fairing had become a dark green. The light hadn't even worked the one time they'd gotten the bike to start at all.
The garage door clanked open as Paige lifted it up for Liss. "Did you know it would do that?" she shouted over the engine.
"Kind of!" Liss answered, smiling behind her mask. "Jack said there was something stylish I could use…these magic guys make you guess at everything, huh?"
"You'll have to tell me how you know that when you get back."
That made Liss bite her lip. "I don't know if I can come back right after this…I got a lead on where the monsters come from and I gotta chase it down as fast as I can."
Paige just nodded when she heard that, her face totally neutral. Liss squirmed a little in her seat. Somehow it was worth than if Paige had been angry with her answer. "Well then, guess you gotta do what you gotta do," Paige said. "Just come back and let me know what happens, okay? You're still my dumb little sister, and I worry."
"I will, don't worry!" Liss called before she revved the bike one more time and shot out of the garage like a missile. As she sped through the streets back to where she'd left Scorpio, Liss was turning hard enough the side of her boot almost brushed the ground. She expected if she looked back she'd be leaving flames in her wake.
A bike this cool didn't deserve to be thought of as just "her bike." If it could change like she could, and she'd be going back and forth from Earth to that weird other world on it, what about…Shift Runner? Yeah, she liked the sound of that…
Scorpio was still on the street running by the riverbed, but a few of the old brick buildings nearby had been flattened by the angry monster. The hissing of Scorpio's acid venom reached her ears as she shot past a few. Liss hefted her hammer and rested it against her shoulder as she came up behind her enemy.
It was about to fire off another jet of its acid when Liss stood up and smashed the back of Scorpio's tail with the Gran Crusher. The blue-green ichor coated her weapon, and Liss glanced over her shoulder to see Scorpio clack its claws angrily and scramble after her. Chunks of rocks were knocked off the edge of the road by its pounding legs and tumbled down into the riverbed.
Liss leaned hard and the bike crashed through the old chain link fence on the edge of the riverbed. Scorpio jumped and landed in front of her, splaying its legs and claws so it blocked almost the entire span in front of her. Its tail oozed green blood from where she'd attacked it, but still it sprayed a plume of its venom at her, and followed as she swerved to avoid it. Small droplets struck her and the bike's armor, but she ignored it as she got close enough to her enemy to strike back.
Liss pulled back hard on the handlebars, popping a wheelie. "Calamity! Earth Needle!" said the belt, and she let the bike fall back on two wheels, and as it did there was a resounding boom and rock spikes twice the size of the ones she'd managed before erupted from the ground under Scorpio, impaling it in seven places. It screamed and wriggled to free itself, reaching out to try to snatch Liss as she sped by, missing by only a foot. Sighing in relief, she stopped and turned around again a hundred feet away.
Scorpio had lifted itself off the spikes and turned to charge Liss. She drove right at it as fast as she could with only one hand on the handlebars, whirling the Gran Crusher like a windmill with the other. The head glowed brighter with each rotation until it was a blazing golden wheel beside Liss. When she and Scorpio were hardly ten feet away, her belt said, "Dire Fate! Riding Impact!" and threw the Gran Crusher.
The hammer shot like a streak of light and sliced into Scorpio's face. The monster didn't even cry out before slumping forward, lifeless, and melting into blue slush that turned into a blue vapor that was immediately carried away on the wind.
Liss pulled her bike to a stop and looked around, at the gray sky and the jagged remnants of brick walls from Scorpio's rampage. She was about to leave her familiar world behind. Who knew what the rest of the Sphere was like, or how the people would react to her, or when she'd be back again?
But no, she'd made up her mind. Liss turned around and looked up the riverbed. "Okay, Fate Driver," she said, feeling only a little self-conscious. "I don't know if you can hear me or how this works, but take me to the Sphere." She gunned the motor and was about to take off when a voice called out.
"That was amazing, kid!" Sue called, finally crawling out of her hiding spot. "Got time to pose for a couple pictures?!"
Liss sighed behind her mask, not in the mood for more people demanding things of her, and started to motor away. She'd been expecting to have to hit a certain speed before she jumped to the Sphere, but right away an opening of bright white light appeared in front of her. She passed through it and was drifting through the void outside the tiered world of the Sphere.
"Okay," Liss said, "take me to Lost."
The bike quivered for a second then stopped, and continued to drift slowly forward.
"Okay, then…take me to Shardak's hideout," Liss tried. It seemed like the words hadn't even left her mouth before the motorcycle turned sharply and started picking up speed, and Liss held tight onto the handlebars, afraid of what might happen if she fell off before getting inside. A second later the wall of the Sphere parted around her like water and the bike cruised to a stop just on the edge of some low, barren hills.
A wind whistled by, and Liss looked around at the brown hills with only a couple of stunted trees decorating their crests. She really was in another world now.
And she was on her own.
Suddenly she heard a snort, and saw she wasn't sitting on a motorcycle anymore…
Next time on Kamen Rider Tarock, Re-Dealt…
Shardak: A girl who created a Mythos? This is strange indeed…
(Liss walks through a village of wooden huts and dirty tents, attracting strange looks)
Female Voice: Come to me, come to me and we will destroy the Sphere!
(A bird-like monster wrecks a row of huts as it flies by at high speed)
Liss: Looks like it's time to start building my rep around here.
(In her Pentacles form Liss rides a clockwork horse into battle)
Narrator: Your fate is in your hands.
Here we see what appears to be the source of the Mythos monsters. What exactly is Lost, and who calls out to her? Someone pretty scary, it seems. Also seen is the power some Mythos monsters will have to come back to life as something even bigger and meaner. The isn't quite the trope from Sentai; something along the size of Inner Phantoms from Kamen Rider Wizard, or Evolved Inves from Gaim is more along the lines of what I have in mind when it says "giant" in this story. Usually.
In this chapter I ruin one of my better earlier works for some people with the introduction of Sue, but one of the big problems I had with the original KR Tarock was it didn't have a good cast of characters. Hopefully I can improve on that this time around.
I'm sure we all know the tradition some rider shows have of basing their first two monsters on a spider and a bat. As you can see, I took it one step farther with Scorpio. He's based on the scorpion who killed Orion the hunter, hence Lost's announcement when he finishes forming. I promise I won't be copying Shocker from start to finish.
Thanks for reading!