Kamen Rider Tarock, Re-Dealt – Reading Nineteen: By the Horns
So far on Kamen Rider Tarock, Re-Dealt…
Delinquent Liss Decker found herself caught between combatants from a strange alternate world called the Sphere, and afterward found herself with the ability to transform into Tarock, a warrior of awesome powers. Tarock's creator, a mystical immortal being called an Arancum, asked Liss to become a champion for his people, who were being plagued by the reappearance of monstrous beings they call the Mythos. Mainly seeing an escape from her oppressive everyday life, Liss agreed.
Many battles followed, testing Liss's fortitude but also giving her the chance to gain powerful allies such as some of the Arcana, immortal creatures who inspired the Tarot deck, and Ben Corland, her ex-boyfriend who can change into Vaga, a powerful warrior form of his own. However, some Arcana automatically consider Liss a menace because the first Tarock was responsible for the death of one of their number.
After her last few battles Liss was able to recover a girl who only refers to herself as Lost, and is the source of the Mythos monsters. Directed to the Inverted Sage, a reclusive Arcanum who might be the only one able to tell Liss how to cure Lost of her affliction, they journey deep into the wilds of the Sphere, hoping to find a solution.
Meanwhile, Ben accompanies Liss, having been warned that she may be turning into something dark and dangerous…
"HEARTSEEKER!"
Vaga's spear glowed with blinding green power as he stabbed it into the body of wolf-like monster that he knew beyond a doubt had been chosen to remind him of his unsettling fight with Saal. He refused to think on it. Already it was dissolving into blue smoke, rising into the air to join with the thick cloud that was all that was left of the other horror.
A few seconds later Tarock approached, her red Swords armor adorned with a few tears from her own fight. She kneeled by the girl in the tattered black robe whose body had finally stopped quivering from vomiting up the black ooze that had created their attackers. "Are you okay, Lost?" Tarock asked.
"I'll be all right in a second, I think," Lost said with a hacking cough but smiled at her two armored saviors. Her face showed much more color than when she'd first been rescued from a dungeon back on their own world, Earth.
"Guess that proves we need someone to stay up and keep watch," Vaga said, reverting to ordinary Ben.
The red Card of Swords jumped into Tarock's hand from her Driver and she changed back into Liss. "I'll take care of that," she said.
"You don't have to do that all the time, Liss," Ben said, trying not to sound like he had any reason to try to stop her. He had a feeling trying that might only earn him a punch in the face if he pushed it. "You're tough. You've proved it plenty of times. Starving yourself for sleep doesn't prove that too."
She gave him a slightly annoyed look and found a rock to sit on that gave a good view of the open area around their campsite. "I'm fine," she insisted. "I'm getting used to this, and part of that's getting by fine with less sleep. You don't have to baby me."
"I'm just trying to help," Ben said.
"I know," Liss said more gently. "But keeping Lost safe until we find this sage guy's the important thing. And I've been training for it harder, and I can get by on less sleep."
He didn't reply, trying not to tip her off to how close he was trying to watch her. He wouldn't have minded watching her normally, but that afternoon he'd talk to Master Shardak who'd warned him of strange changes happening to Liss. How she could stick to solid surfaces. How she'd used an extremely powerful attack in an area where people had gotten hurt from being too close when she'd unleashed that kind of power. How he was already sure she'd been able to stay up all night and showed no signs of weakness the next day.
But was there another reason than all the hard training she and her kung-fu teacher had been doing? He'd been warned that Liss might be changing into some kind of monster, and being able to go without sleep seemed like the kind of thing a monster would be able to do. Inwardly, Ben sighed. This had seemed so simple when he'd found the Arcana looking for a new champion. Finally have a reason to let Liss keep him around. Instead, they were saying he might have to take her out too…
If she was going to do something suspicious, though, it wasn't going to be when Ben was staring right at her. "Well, before you get settled in I'll do one of those, watcha call 'em, perimeter sweeps." He twisted the top of his pocket flashlight to switch it on and set off into the trees. Waiting until the glimmer of their campfire was obscured by the trees, Ben pulled out a pair of Wild Cards in each hand. A push of energy and a glittering moth took flight. A snake uncoiled and dropped from his hand while the beetle flew into the darkness, and the small turtle pulled itself into its shell and rolled out of sight to keep watch over Liss.
As they went off to spy, Ben gave a sigh louder than he meant to. He shone the flashlight down on the Vay Brace, the green jewel in it glowing with a soft light of its own before the flashlight even reached it. He'd accepted it, let them graft it to his arm so he'd be strong enough to keep up with Liss when she went around beating up on monsters. Now he was spying on her because Shardak was afraid something was wrong with her, something that'd make her uncaring about attacking an enemy with helpless people nearby.
It wasn't supposed to be like this.
Ben wandered a little deeper into the woods so his search would be believably long. He was thinking so intently about how out of control, he didn't hear the crackle of something creeping through dry grass until it was right behind him. The change card was in his hand in an instant, but then the air around him seemed to stretch for a second, and then Ben wasn't standing in a darkened forest.
A roaring wind whipped by and Ben had to dig his feet into the ground and lean against it or he would've been blown right off the edge of a stony plateau. It was hard to tell in the descending night, but he was sure the drop must've been at least a hundred feet.
The wind let up after just a few seconds, but even before it had Ben saw he wasn't alone. There were three figures there staring at him, one a tall woman with long wavy hair that disappeared against the silhouette of the flowing dress she wore, and the second a huge cat-like creature that stared holes in him with two rows of yellow eyes. The last one Ben couldn't even describe, because he swore that with every second it changed into a completely new shape. A cube, a pyramid, a net rustling in the wind, a potato-shaped clump of tiny rectangular mirrors, then a flat twirling star-shape. He noticed the different shapes, but they flowed into each other so smoothly he somehow couldn't notice the changes taking place.
"What do you want?" Ben demanded.
"Calm yourself, Ben," the woman said, herself perfectly calm. "You are among friends, and you'll be wanting as many of those as you can find." Ben expected the cat-creature to growl at him for emphasis, but instead it just stared at him, awaiting his reaction.
He left the card in his pocket and let his arm hang by his side. "Who are you guys?" he asked, still guardedly.
"I am Leone," the woman said.
"And I am called Master Segic," said a weird reverberating boice in Ben's head. And just as he knew the shape was changing without being able to see the changes, he knew it was the owner of the voice. "Jack asked us to see if we could aid."
"You want to help us fight?" Ben asked, not sure whether to be glad at the offer or annoyed he'd have to fight even harder to get Liss to notice what he could do.
But the woman smiled and shook her head. "I cast off violence except in the greatest need." She patted the cat-creature on the head.
"Nor do I battle. I have become the vessel of other powers," said Master Segic. "But I am always nearby, always working. Rarely noticed, rarely acknowledged."
Ben sighed in irritation. "If all you guys are gonna do is talk to me in stupid riddles, just send me back now, okay?"
"Before we do," Leone replied, "Think hard on something. What are you fighting for?"
"To help Liss," Ben answered immediately.
Leone gave him a neutral look, while Segic drifted around Ben, a feeling of curiosity touching at the edge of Ben's mind. "Ah, but is that help she wants?" Master Segic's voice reverberated in Ben's mind again. "Help she needs? Or is it a need on the part of another? Truly young man, so much is at stake in what promises to reshape your world as much as ours. Do you truly wish make your stake so small?"
"You must understand, Ben," Leone said gently. "We've done our best to guide this world for ages. So long some of us have forgotten our purposes, to the danger of those we protect. But our time may soon be up, and those who choose to wield power in the world to come would be well advised to know why, and make sure never to forget…"
"I just want to help Liss," Ben insisted. "Isn't that enough?"
A second passed, and Master Segic continued as if they hadn't heard Ben at all. "She is an agent of change, for herself as well as many others whether she either likes or realizes it. As are you, Ben Corland, by demanding the powers you wield. Such is the nature of power."
He was about to retort with something about what the hell they knew about his situation, but then for just a second he saw the lifeless body of Saal lying in front of him. He had been a fearsome wolf monster, and Ben had saved the lives of a number of veteran soldiers by killing him. But they'd known Saal before he'd become a monster, and however necessary it had been at the time, Ben had still taken the life of a human being.
He'd done it because he wanted to help Liss. To fight amazing battles of his own so she'd notice what he could do, and…
…and that was a childish, selfish, short-sighted reason to demand a part to play in this as he had.
And it was one he wasn't going to let go. It was a miracle he'd gotten Jack to let him be Vaga, and not an opportunity he had any intention of giving up; Liss was only just starting to acknowledge what he could do in a fight. These two didn't like it, or thought he was some kind of idiot for not seeing the universe as clearly as they did, that was their tough shit.
Besides, it was regular people being getting caught in the middle of all this, not people—or whatever—with magic powers to protect themselves. He and Liss were fighting monsters and cutting the problem off at the source. What were these guys doing but talking to him in stupid riddles?
"If this is as helpful as you guys are gonna be, just send me back, okay?" Ben sighed. "I have actual things to do."
"Yes, you do," Leone said, her smile shining against the night. "Great, great things. Simply walk that way and you'll find your way back to your friends." She pointed with one finger and Ben turned and walked away in the direction she indicated. He could feel the air stretching around him, then he was gone. But just before he disappeared, he failed to notice a small piece of Master Segic break off and slip inside his jacket.
Leone waited a minute as if concerned Ben might hear what she said next. "I influenced him…but was it right?"
Master Segic turned into a long ribbon of a silvery liquid that seemed to form itself into a question mark for a second before becoming a rippling orb. "What is for the best and what is right are not always one and the same," he replied. "It is our duty to guide, and you have planted a seed of something greater in his mind. Now we must leave it to see if it can blossom on its own."
The next day was suspiciously quiet as they followed the special moth that was leading them to the Arcanum who could—hopefully—answer the question of how to stop Lost from creating anymore monsters. After that, it would just be a matter of finding the White Lady and hunting down the Mythos still out there.
The day started out gray and by the time Lost had struggled off Shift Runner for them to break for lunch, fog was closing in around them for all sides. Ben started unloading his grill but Liss waved her hand for him to stop.
"We're only stopping for a minute," she said. "No time to waste."
"You sure?" Ben asked. "It's getting pretty chilly. Something warm would help take the edge off."
"This isn't a camping trip," Liss reminded him, and dug into Shift Runner's saddlebag for a cold biscuit she sank her teeth into and tossed another to Lost.
Resignedly Ben put it away and dug some cold rations out of his own pack. He watched Liss take a seat and listlessly dig into her meal. Lost sat down next to Liss, pulling her robe closer around herself with a shiver. Even though he'd dismissed the Arcana and their warnings last night, he suddenly couldn't help thinking of their words now. How much was at stake, and what their reasons were for joining such a fight.
"So…what is it, then, Liss?" Ben asked.
She gave him a bemused look. "What's what?"
"You said this isn't a camping trip. So what is it? Us going around saving people and killing monsters and everything. You must think something of how Shardak and Jack want us to be acting like those Japanese superheroes and inspiring people to fight and all that stuff."
Lost leaned closer and looked Liss in the face. "Is that true? Did they ask you to do that?"
"Yeah, they did," Liss answered. She shrugged. "I don't know. I told you why I was doing this. To prove I'm strong enough to handle something this big."
"Don't all people want to be heroes?" Lost asked, tilting her head. "Some of the people who helped me talked about that…about how they thought they'd be heroes by joining the army after the monsters started attacking." She looked at her feet and sighed.
Liss finished off the biscuit and went for another. "Knock it off," she said. "You don't want to puke up monsters any more than anybody else wants you to. That's why we're gonna go figure out how to stop it."
"Y'know, Liss," Ben said, "If you really wanted to prove how tough you are from this, you probably wouldn't be in such a hurry to be done, you know? You'd want to see how big the monsters can get and what it takes to beat 'em down."
"Maybe if they weren't coming from her," Liss said, pointing at Lost. "I'm sick of people saying I'm nothing, but it's gotta be even worse having people thinking you're some kind of resource or some shit for them to use. I'm not letting people get away with doing that kind of shit to someone, not after what it was like for me."
"Whoa!" Ben said with a laugh. "Sounds like we got us a real Robin Hood-type here after all."
"Is that good?" Lost asked, innocently.
"Most people think so," Ben said, and Liss glared at him. "And what's so wrong about people thinking of you like that?"
Liss sighed. "I don't want everybody staring at me and…and crowding up my life with all that garbage."
"Maybe not," Lost suggested, "but maybe it's what they need."
Liss swallowed the food in her mouth and put the half-eaten food back into Shift Runner's saddlebag. "Let's get going," she said. "The sooner this is over the better."
"That doesn't make any sense with what you said before," Ben pointed out.
"Let's go!" Liss repeated. She swung herself into Shift Runner's saddle and turned to help Lost up behind her. Ben rode behind them, thinking of Liss's outburst.
She would use her powers to keep people from being exploited, but didn't want people relying on her for that kind of thing? Except that really wasn't how it worked. If you fought hard for something you became a symbol. A symbol of what, though, that was determined by any number of things.
He wondered about the people who saw Liss fight as Tarock and thought things were getting better, what they'd think knew her reason for why she was doing it and what kind of person she was when the armor went away. After what he'd just heard, Ben wondered if even he knew.
Or if Liss herself knew.
As they traveled on, the fog started rolling in even thicker. Within an hour they were completely engulfed in a roiling white cloud, with other objects just dark outlines against the banks of fog. Liss ordered them to slow down to avoid stumbling into some kind of trap.
The faint green glimmer of the moth guiding them stayed in sight even as their surroundings disappeared, but stayed directly ahead and in trying to keep from losing it against the wall of white Shift Runner bumped into a few large rocks and mounds of earth. Suddenly Shift Runner bumped into something that sounded like a stack of bricks toppling over, followed by the creaking and snapping of wood as something collapsed a few feet away from the metal horse.
"What was that?" Lost whispered, clinging to Liss.
"A house caving in," Liss said. "This used to be a town."
"You think there's still anyone here?" asked Lost.
"Probably not if that's all it took to knock down one of their houses," Ben said.
They kept going, slower now to avoid another accident. After another few minutes of slow trudging Liss gasped and clutched her arm. Lost squealed in surprise suddenly, clutching her head with one hand and holding onto Liss for support with the other.
"What's wrong?" Ben asked in alarm.
"Something's near," Lost answered him, her voice quavering. "Something very powerful. And it knows we're here."
"Let's go!" Liss cried, and Shift Runner whinnied and galloped forward after the light of the Wild Card guiding them. Shift Runner crashed into a hunk of standing masonry and pelted Liss's leg with hunks of brick but she gritted her teeth and held on. Little more than a second later she leaned back in surprise as something suddenly appeared out of the fog, shaped like a person waving their arms in distress.
Shift Runner reared up, and she had to grab Lost by the waist to keep her from falling off. "Help!" a girl screamed in front of the and Liss leaned over, spotting a scrawny teenage girl, her blonde hair caked with dirt and her clothes in tatters. She looked like she'd been driven from society only a little behind Lost herself. "I don't know who you are," she wailed, "but please help us! The Mythos caught us, and the others are still back there! I think they're going to try to turn us into them!"
Liss looked back at the others, then slowly swung herself out of Shift Runner's saddle. "You guys wait for me here," she said.
"Shouldn't we go with you?" Ben asked. "Strength in numbers."
"We need to get her where she's going," Liss replied, indicating Lost. "That's the most important thing. Besides, I'm the strongest and I've been doing this longer. If anybody runs any risks, it should be me."
"I know how strong you are," Ben said, a trace of envy creeping into his voice, but he stayed in the saddle.
"Then what are you worried about?" Liss replied. She turned to the girl and said, "Show me where your friends are…if we can find it in all this fog."
The two of them vanished into the fog, with Lost shivering and pulling her robe tighter around her. Ben looked around, even though he knew how pointless it would be with so much fog, just making sure he could keep the glimmer of their guide in sight.
"If I'm worried, maybe it's about something that won't scream in your face before it tries to kill you," Ben muttered. As soon as he was sure Liss wasn't looking, he took out a pair of Wild Cards—a moth and one of the new horned bug ones Shardak had given him—gave them that push of power that brought them to life, and the crystalline spies flew off after Liss.
The girl led Liss around barely visible obstacles for a minute before she started to slow down, but the fog was so thick Liss couldn't tell and bumped into her, nearly bowling her over.
"You sure this is the way?" Liss asked, knowing how easily this could be a trap. The cold on her arm reacted to Mythos with actual powers even if they could disguise themselves, but the Changelings, the lesser faceless kind, could turn themselves into anyone. And either they were so good at that or their powers were so weak, even Liss's monster-detecting sense didn't seem to work on them.
"A little," the girl admitted. "The fog wasn't this thick when I ran, and I was running as fast as I could…"
"Look…what do I call you?" Liss asked.
"Meo."
"Okay, Meo. What kind of monsters were they? How many of them did you see?"
The girl shivered and took a step closer to Liss. "There was a big gray bull monster…he was the one who destroyed our town, and some of those white ones who can change themselves into other people. And there was one who was all red, with long fangs and wings like a bat…he flew away after they captured those of us who were still alive," she explained, her voice unsteady.
Liss put a hand on her shoulder. "Look, I'll take care of that monster, don't worry."
But Meo scoffed, "Take care of the monster? I just want to save my friends, who do you think-"
She stopped talking as she heard a loud snorting nearby. Another came a second later, louder and closer. Something stone crumbled. Then a dark shark came looming out of the fog. Meo screamed, and Liss attached her Fate Driver.
"Swords Suit!" As soon as her red armor had solidifiedTarock's sword was instantly in her hand and with both hands she slashed at the attacker's midriff, the tip of the blade skittering off rock-like skin and doing no damage. Something came flying out of the fog and swatted her aside. She crashed through a wall and scrambled to her feet just in time to hear an angry bellow and something coming thundering toward her and crashed through what was left of the wall. Something long and sharp like a bull's horn slashed against her side and sent her flying again.
Tarock landed on her head and skidded a few meters but held onto the hilt of her sword with all her might. She was even slower getting up after the second hit, even though she could already hear the monster charging her again through the ringing in her ears. She raised Skycalibur and gathered her strength.
"Woe! Bladestorm!" She swung her sword in a wide arc and a flurry of glowing swords and daggers shot from the path it left at the monster. She saw them fly and explode against the dark shape, not slowing it down at all.
"Calamity! Thunder Lash!" Tarock's lightning whip cracked and landed right between her attacker's horns. There was a bovine howl but it kept on coming. This time she was ready and jumped high, out of the monster's path. As soon as she came down she heard it stomping around and coming at her again.
"Dire Fate! Final Ascend!" Skycalibur charged with Tarock's power and she raised it high above her head. As the dark shape barreled toward her once again she brought it down to split the ground at her feet. A tornado erupted from the ground and swept the monster up inside it as it whirled higher and higher. The fog was whipped away too, revealing the remains of a destroyed town, the dirt everywhere marked by the tracks of inhuman feet.
Meo looked up in awe at Tarock from where she'd lain cowering, then at the dark shape still whirling about trapped in the tornado. Small pieces were torn off by the winds, but they were dying down again and the monster still looked mostly intact. A second later and he would fall back to earth.
"Are you okay?" Meo asked uncertainly.
"He hit me pretty good a couple times," Tarock grunted shaking out her shoulders. "But I had to keep him from thinking I was dangerous until I could do that and get rid of the fog."
Meo gaped at Tarock. "You were letting him plow into you over and over?"
"Yeah," Tarock answered simply. She held up her green card, the Card of Pentacles. "Now…time to go to work," Tarock said as she loaded it.
"Pentacles Suit!" Her red armor shattered and a green card drifted down over her undersuit, encasing it in thick green armor and a feeling of overwhelming power filled her limbs.
The tornado had spun itself out and the Mythos crashed back down fifty feet away, and for the first time Tarock could see him clearly. It was a huge gray-skinned man with a head of dirty yellow hair, but the face of a bull with horns nearly four feet long. This type was one she did think she'd seen before, something from Greek mythology, that one monster who was stuck in a maze or something like that. The Minotaur.
The monster threw his arms wide and bellowed, a vibration Tarock could feel even through her heaviest armor. His muscles rippled and then he lowered his head and charged Tarock again. This time she planted her feet and held her arms ready to catch Minotaur, but suddenly waved a hand over the Royal Core on her belt.
"Coronation! Knight of Pentacles!" the Fate Driver cried out.
Just as the Minotaur plowed into Tarock and she grabbed his powerful shoulders, grinding him to a stop while he kept straining against her strength. Immediately behind him appeared a heavyset man in thick green medieval armor, wielding a warhammer. Knight smashed his weapon into Minotaur's unprotected shoulders, causing the monster to bellow in spin and whirl around to face this new opponent.
Tarock threaded her fingers together and formed one double fist that she clubbed into the bloody blue spot between Minotaur's shoulders. He cried out again and turned to look at Tarock then back at Knight before the green warrior could bury the head of his hammer in the monster's back again. Minotaur whipped toward Knight and dealt him a terrible punch that made him flicker for a second.
But in that second Tarock jumped and smashed her heel into Minotaur's head between his horns. The monster reeled for a second, long enough for Knight to recover and ram his armored shoulder into Minotaur's stomach and drag him ten feet before finally knocking the giant bull-man down.
She considered calling up her weapon but realized a weird feeling was coming over her she recognized as that battle-lust she'd felt when she fought Nuckelavee. Why did she need to bother arming herself? Minotaur was strong, but she was even stronger. Why not show it?
She didn't notice the cold on her arm turning into a harsh itch.
"Calamity! Temblor Punch!" Tarock's fist flashed and slammed into Minotaur's back, sending him flying. He crashed through the ruins of a house, and had just gotten his bearings when Knight came plummeting down at him, warhammer raised. Minotaur grabbed the haft of his attacker's weapon and lifted Knight off the ground then easily flipped him through the air and onto his armored back. Tarock lunged at the monster with her fists but with surprising speed for his size, Minotaur jumped away from her attack. Then he came charging at Tarock and raked his spear-like horns across her armor and knocked her tumbling.
Meo screamed, and Tarock imagined it had to do with the warm, oozing feeling in her side where the pain was the sharpest. But the itch on her arm blazed with an intensity even hotter and she just clenched her fists and jumped back to her feet. She'd only been flexing her muscles, but if this monster thought he'd seen everything she could do, well…she'd show him just how wrong he was.
The Minotaur bellowed and pounded his giant fists on the ground, knocking Meo and Knight down with a powerful tremor, while Tarock struggled to keep her footing. But the Fate Driver cried out "Calamity! Earth Needle!" Tarock stomped her foot and a mass of crisscrossing stone spikes erupted from the ground around Minotaur, piercing his body and sending sparks and blue gore into the air.
"The ground's mine!" Tarock yelled. Her hammer, the Gran Crusher, flashed into being in her hands. "And now I'm gonna put you in it!" For a second the left lens of her mask bulged and turned a dark, poisonous green and thin wiry hairs were jabbing out of the armor on her left forearm…
"Dire Fate! Grand Impact!" announced the Fate Driver as bolts of green energy crackled around the head of the Gran Crusher. Minotaur struggled against the rocky spikes holding him fast but Tarock jumped and brought her glowing hammer down on top of him. It cleaved through the monster's body with a rush of blue smoke in the air the only thing to mark his demise.
Meo fell onto her knees as the battle ended. "Unbelievable…so much power…"
"Not bad, huh?" Tarock asked proudly.
"I had no idea there was a new Tarock!" Meo gaped. "I'm sorry, if only I'd-"
"Stop it," Tarock said, almost a growl. She could feel a sudden surge of power, and looked toward it to see a glowing crystal rising out of the mass of stone spikes where Tarock had trapped the monster. "Get back!" she yelled.
And just in time. A huge gray bull, fifteen feet at the shoulder at least, formed around the crystal and came crashing to the ground snapping the stone spikes like toothpicks. It bellowed once, then charged Meo and Tarock.
Ben clenched the reins of his metal mount as the sounds of battle grew even louder. Finally he threw them down, drawing a confused look from Air Talon, and jumped off, whipping out his transformation card.
"That's it, I'm going after her!" he declared.
"Don't you think Liss can take of herself?" Lost interrupted him, quickly but quietly.
"That's not the point," Ben retorted. "Shardak thinks there's something wrong with Liss…that the reason she's showing powers she never had before is something's growing inside her and she might do something…bad. I shouldn't have let her go by herself in the first place."
"I did sense some of the darkness in her before," Loss replied.
"The what?"
"The darkness," she answered him. "What I vomit up, and those monsters to life from."
Ben stared holes in her. "You knew? The whole time?!" He sighed and rubbed at his forehead in exasperation, then looked up at the sky to see if the Wild Cards he sent were on their way back yet. As detestable as he found it to have to send them in the first place. "You knew, and you didn't say anything?"
Lost shrank back, unable to meet Ben's eyes. "I thought you knew. I thought Liss knew…I thought she had it under control. She's so strong, she's beaten everything she's faced. I didn't think it'd be a problem for her…I didn't even think the darkness could hurt people by itself. Only if it turned into monsters."
Ben prepared to say something sharp to put her in her place for thinking something so dangerous could only be dangerous one specific way, but he stopped himself. Her name said it all: lost. She didn't know where she came from or why she gave life to the Mythos the way she did. She had no understanding of the world beyond what she'd seen in that short time her memory encompassed. Lost was an innocent; how would she know how "the darkness" worked, or that someone strong enough could or couldn't master it?
"I'm sorry," Ben sighed. "I'm just worried about Liss. I'm supposed to watch her and make sure she's okay, but I'm here and she's running around beating on monsters-"
Lost looked at Ben slack-jawed, seeming abashed. "Then it's my fault?" she asked, her voice quavering.
"Not on purpose," Ben answered her. "But nobody really knows anything about the monsters, it seems like. I guess I just wish somebody did." He sighed. "It wasn't supposed to be like this. I was supposed to help Liss fight. Now they're saying I might have to fight her instead, if they're right about something being wrong."
An endless minute passed as the sounds of battle raged even louder. Then Lost smiled. "You're a hero too, sounds like," she said.
"What?"
"You want to help Liss, right?" Lost said, smiling a bit wider. "But if you have to stand against her to keep people safe, you'd do it."
Ben sighed and looked away from her. "I don't know."
But Lost's smile didn't dim at all. "It doesn't seem easy to me. The things you and Liss are willing to do. I spent all my time running away from monsters before I met the two of you, because it seemed like there wasn't anything else I could do.
"But Liss…she said she saw a chance to fight back. Now the Arcana want her to be an example of that for everyone. It even worked on you," she said, pointing straight at Ben and still smiling. "I still don't think I could do that. But you two jumped right into this. You're risking your lives even though you're so young and there's so many to fight. That sounds like the kind of thing a hero would do."
Ben stared at her for a minute, then wondered just how much of an innocent Lost might really have been.
Tarock shoved Meo out of the way and ran in the other direction to draw the monster bull's attention. To her relief the giant bull came rushing after her, even though she knew she had no hope of outrunning him for long in Pentacles Form. But she didn't have any intention of running.
Instead she pressed her hand to the Royal Core. "Coronation! Ace of Pentacles!"
Knight's form flickered and turned into a cluster of green crystal shards that flowed through the air toward Tarock and gathered around her right hand, which held the Gran Crusher. They melded together with it and formed a hammer with a head twice as big and a haft nearly that much longer. The five-pointed star on the front had had been turned into a razor-sharp half-foot-high grille that looked sure to embed itself into the skin of anything hit with it.
She turned to face the giant bull, and jumped high into the air. The monster kept thundering toward her but Tarock swung her weapon and smashed it right into the base of one horn.
The bull bellowed with pain and Tarock jumped off his head. He turned and charged Tarock again, but this time she dug in her heels, held out her arms and blocked his charge with a grunt. The monster screamed in anger and tossed his head trying to break free from Tarock's hold on his jaw. She held on, gathering her power for her final attack.
"Ace High! Earthsplitter!" cried the Fate Driver. Tarock shoved the bull away and raised her gauntlet, which flashed with green power. He stomped toward her again but she yelled and swung her weapon at him with all her awesome strength, connecting with the side of the bull's head.
A huge crack curling at the edges with green power formed on the bull's cheek, and started spreading backward along its body. It bellowed in pain and tried to trample Tarock but she swung and smashed her weapon into his face on the other side making a new glowing crack. As the monster thrashed around in pain Tarock retreated to a safe distance.
The cracks her blows had created tore along the bull's sides and bacl until they crisscrossed its entire body seconds later. His body split along the crack down his spine and then the rest started to falls away, already dissolving into blue smoke. The bull had time for one last angry bellow before he was gone completely in a blue haze.
The Card of Pentacles ejected into Tarock's hand and she flickered back into Liss Decker once again, the wiry black hairs sticking out from the back of her arm unnoticed as they receded into her skin again. Liss took a breath and closed her eyes for a moment to steady herself as the combat high that had fueled her minutes before started to fade. Maybe she'd only felt it the last couple times, she thought, but if this was what she could do in a fight if she felt it, let it come. That had been nothing compared to her fight with the Asura Mythos.
"Thank the heavens you came," Meo said, and Liss nearly jumped, having forgotten she was there.
"Don't thank anybody," Liss said. "You want to get anywhere, you have to grab life and tell it you're making the rules. The only destiny out there's the one you make for yourself."
"I'm hardly able to kill monsters," Meo pointed out.
Liss gave her a mild look of annoyance then answered, "Doesn't matter. Find something you're good at and make it yours. There's no one right way to be, you know. Maybe I'm good at this, but that doesn't mean it's the only thing worth being good at!"
Meo stared at Liss for a second, then smiled and nodded silently. Liss stood there a moment, confused herself at what she'd just said.
A while later Liss and Meo came down a hill to meet Ben and Lost, at the end of a small procession of other disheveled teens. Ben had a look of disappointment on his face as Liss returned, but hid it before she could notice.
"Looks like you could handle it after all, huh?" he said.
"Yeah," Liss said distantly. "But now what do we do? We'll have to take them back to Avalon or something, won't we?"
As she said that the green moth that'd been guiding them flew around Liss in urgent circles. It started flying off in one direction, then when it was about fifty feet away stopped and turned to face the group as if waiting.
"What's it doing?" Lost asked.
"Maybe it's saying we're almost to that Inverted Sage and we shouldn't turn around now," Liss suggested.
One of Meo's friends regarded her incredulously. "You're trying to find the Inverted Sage?"
Ben nodded with a smile. "Yeah, except Shardak is pretty sure we won't have to look too hard with that thing leading the way."
"But…," Meo said, "he doesn't talk to just anyone. Or that's what everyone's always said."
Liss hoisted herself into the saddle. "Don't have much choice," she said. "It's about keeping there from being any new monsters." She shot Lost a sidelong glance, deciding it best not to say anything about the part Lost played, unwilling though it was. They didn't need anybody making an attempt on Lost's life thinking that'd solve everything.
She turned to the youths she'd just saved. "What do you guys say? You want to help us get some answers out of the Sage?"
"If anybody can do that it's you, Liss," Meo beamed at her.
"Uh…thanks," Liss replied, but recovered quickly. "If everybody's up for it, let's head out before anymore monsters show up."
They started off across the plain, and at least now they could see where they were going as the green moth led them along. After a while one of the boys she'd saved tapped Liss on the leg and looked up at her.
"Do you think the Sage will know where my parents are? I'm so worried about them…" he asked.
Liss shrugged a little. "I don't know anything about this Sage except what Shardak said, and he didn't say a lot. I hope he can tell me how to stop more monsters from showing up, but I don't really know."
His face fell, like he'd been expecting Tarock to have all the answers too, even if she was probably only a year or two older than he was. "Look," she said, "a lot of shit's going down right now. Let's take care of the biggest problem first, then we'll see about fixing the other ones, okay?"
He smiled a little in response. "That sounds like the best idea," he conceded.
Shift Runner plodded along for a while longer and the sky turned darker in the strange way it did in the Sphere with no sun to indicate the time. Suddenly Liss felt a pair of skinny arms wrap around her from behind, and she turned slightly in the saddle to see Lost gently leaning against her back.
"It's all going to be all right, isn't it?" Lost asked, looking at Liss with the calmest expression Liss had ever seen on anyone's face.
"That's the plan," Liss replied, not knowing what else to say to such a question.
Lost smiled at that, and rested her cheek between Liss's shoulders.
She wasn't sure what to say about that either.
She heard them creeping through the brush long before the first of them entered her sight. The first was a tall grinning skeleton with a dagger of sharpened bone in each hand. A wolf-faced man with dark blue fur. Two pot-bellied ogres in tiger-striped loincloths, one with blue skin and the other colored a dark red. Others behind them she couldn't make out in the looming darkness.
The skeleton's eye sockets flashed and were filled with a burning red light. "Your time has come, Arcanum," a sharp, commanding female voice issued from the fleshless jaws. The other monsters spread out from behind him and surrounded her.
Her feline companion growled and tensed, but Leone patted him on the shoulder. "No," she said confidently. "Not just yet."
The large cat's eyes flashed yellow and he pounced, tackling one monster to the ground and shredding with his fearsome feline claws. The red and blue ogres rushed to their comrade's aid, their huge feet shaking the ground and making the sound of thunderclaps. The cat jumped again, ricocheting off the blue ogre and raking its hind claws against his chest in the process before rocketing into the red, starting to maul him and sending blue ooze flying before he'd even hit the ground.
The cat jumped to Leone's side, tensed and ready to spring into action again. "I cast off the bestial part of myself long ago," Leone said. "I gave up battle. But if it denies you what you seek, then I will gladly battle again."
In a flash the cat creature beside Leone was gone, and then Leone herself stood up, her body now covered in a thick pelt. She moved like a blur as zig-zagged through the monsters toward the skeleton who lashed out with surprising speed with its daggers and opened two trails of blood on her side. In the next second she smashed one massive paw into him and sent his bones flying, already disintegrating into blue smoke.
The twin ogres circled around Leone next, each wielding a spiked iron club. They swung them at Leone at the same time, but she held out her arms and caught the giant weapons on her hands. Blood seeped from between her fingers where the spikes dug in. Leone pushed them further and further away from her, growling in rage. All at once she ducked and lunged at another monster, and the ogres suddenly met no resistance and fell on their faces.
Leone came flying at a monster with the face and scales of a snake but the shape of a man. She growled and held her claws outstretched to rend him apart, but he held up a carved wooden rod with the head of a cobra on the end and hissed a quick series of words. Leone slammed into him and raised a claw, then gasped in pain and looked to see the fur falling from her arm and the flesh beneath starting to shrivel. Before she could recover from her shock and press her attack another Mythos slithered up behind her and bound her completely in vines.
The snake-man stared Leon in the face and seemed to grin before his eyes turned the blazing red of the skeleton's, and the commanding voice female voice issued from his mouth.
"You gave up battle, cast off your power…power belongs in the hands of those who know how to use it," said the voice. Then the snake-man extended his hand and a geyser of black slime ripped from his palm and down Leone's throat.
Next time on Kamen Rider Tarock, Re-Dealt.
Ben: I'm still worried about Liss…
(Three Changelings walk up to Liss outside a small stone building with candles burning in the windows. Her left eye flashes green and her left arm turns black with long stiff hairs growing from the back.)
Lost: Maybe the Sage can help her too.
(Ven and Donis enter the office of Carl Stanford, who greets them with a warm smile,)
Stanford: Together, I'm confident we can change the world!
(Out of their armor, Ven and Donis share an embrace)
Ven: I think we might finally be finding a place…
Narrator: Your fate is in your hands.