A clear blue sky. Peaceful, beautiful, full of potential and freedom. Mirroring it this cyan marvel is a city. Empty, quiet, full of ruin. As grey clouds darken the ocean blue above, a mother and her child rush through the city streets. Leaping over debris, dodging the old knocked-over bin. They are like gazelle fleeing from a stalking lioness.
The mother is ahead. She drags her child behind her by their hand, pulling them forward with heavy breaths and face soaked with sweat and tears. The child while being pulled forward, can't help themself by looking back. In the growing distance, their eyes fixate on an alleyway.
The mother's grip on her child breaks, with their hand slipping through their fingers. The child stops running and stands in place, their focus never leaving the alley.
Their mother's head snaps back the second they lose their grip on the kid. She grabs their arm again and tries pulling but the kid stands there like a post in cement.
She grabs her son by the arms and tries to get his attention. "Come on, sweetheart, keep up with me. We're almost there," she tries to keep her wits, wanting to encourage her son to keep moving, even with the stress climbing up on her.
But the child kept looking back at the dark alleyway they had just come from. "Mommy, what about Daddy?" The child's voice is trembling. Their mother can feel them trying to nudge her back where they came from, "We can't leave him."
She tries to put on a brave face. She strokes the back of their hair, trying to calm them down as they turn their head, "Daddy stayed behind to give us a chance. Please, we have to keep running to the checkpoint, darling."
The child's eyes filled with tears as he struggles to understand, "But... but he'll catch up with us later, right?"
Faced with genuine sadness in her son's eyes, she does her best to smile before lying to him, "Yes. He'll be with us soon. We just need to get some help first. Okay?"
Seemingly satisfied with that answer, the child puts up no resistance to their mother. She takes their hand again and starts pulling them away again.
The pair don't get far before they see someone, a man, just turning the corner. While they have their back to the mother and child, the former finds comfort upon seeing them in the army uniform. Thinking they must be from the military checkpoint that they are searching for, the mother pulls her son towards them, calling out to the man for help.
"Please, sir! Are you with the checkpoint search party?" She says while out of breath, barely able to keep herself standing upright as she addresses them.
The child however feels discomfort from the soldier. The soldier is paler than the average person, even for someone labeled as a shut-in. Their skin is grey, sickly grey. The child's eyes fall on an injury on their arm, "Mommy?" he says with fainted breath, trying to pull their mother away from them.
The solider turns around, showing their face to the pair. The mother looks on in horror at seeing the same pale grey face, and red eyes that overcame her husband. The zombie hisses at the woman and child like a cornered animal.
The mother grabs their child and pulls them back as more zombies come out of hiding. Another is dressed in full army uniform, while the rest appear to be former civilians like her and her son.
Before they can grab her, she quickly picks up her son and tries to run. The zombies give chase. While fairly fast like a regular human, they are only slowed down by their stumble, drunk way of moving.
Hiding their face in their mother's chest, the child peaks out of the corner of their eye, and spots something, "Daddy?" Hearing their words, the mother looks forward to finding her husband coming out of the alleyway, stumbling towards her with a small horde of zombies on his heel.
She's forced to stop. Both sides are blocked off by the on-coming horde. Paralysed in fear, she falls to her knees, cradling her son in her arms. Looking down at her son, she grabs a nearby broken pipe to use as a weapon. With tears streaming from her face, she prepares to take on the horde if it means her son gets another minute of life.
The man that was once her husband charges forward, being the closest between them while more start to swarm around the mother and child. She hesitates to swing her weapon against the zombie with the face of the man she loves. There's a split second where she blinks, and the zombies come down on her.
Cutting through the wind with a sharp woosh in the breeze, the zombies that tried to grab her are gone, replaced with puddles of foam on the ground. Opening her eyes, she sees a man standing between her and her zombified husband. The zombie latches onto the man's arm as they try to sink their teeth into his flesh. Yet, they don't even break the sink.
The remaining zombies stand there in awe. In the piranha pond, if you can't find a piranha, there's a shark.
"I'm sorry. I wasn't fast enough to get here in time. Please, forgive me," the man says, his voice deep and stoic, while his words hang with sorrow and regret. This man is Takeshi Hongo.
As the zombie husband attempts to break through their arm, Takeshi hits back with a roundhouse kick. The force sends the zombie flying, stripping them away from the family. They smack into one of the buildings, before collapsing on the floor. They groan in pain before their body dissolves, turning to foam before just a puddle.
The zombie's attention is now solely on Takeshi. He mushes the mother and child away, gesturing to one of the cars parked on the pavement.
Takeshi stands in the middle of the road, all eyes are on him as he opens his jacket, revealing a belt around his waist. He strikes a pose, bringing his left arm in while his right crosses his chest. He slowly waves his arm in the air, like cutting the wind. "Rider…," he switches arms, pulling the right one in, and crossing his chest with the left, "Henshin!"
As if as a battle cry, the remaining zombies come at him, but he leaps into the air, missing all of them as his body transforms. The wind powers the turbine fan in his belt. A bright light covers his body before becoming his new form, a black suit with light blue paddled armour, with a mask resembling that of a grasshopper.
Coming back down to earth, he slams his fist into the ground. The resulting shockwave made by his incredible strength knocks the undead back. With the zombies scattered, he's able to take them on in smaller doses.
The soldier zombies are the first to get back up. Takeshi punches one of them in the face, knocking them into a daze that makes them stumble. He catches the arms of the other and twists one of them, turning its back to him. Unleashing a barrage of punches into their back, his last one sends it soaring into the remaining undead, covering them in foam. He finishes off the first soldier zombie by grabbing them by the collar and kicking them into the sky.
With just the civilian zombies remaining, he engages them first. Using his martial arts abilities, he disorients the horde, spreading them out and making them easy to pick off. Using a spin kick like before, he fires one into a neighboring building, before grabbing one by the back of the collar and slamming them into the ground. One of them grabs him by the shoulders and tries to bite him, but the teeth can barely get past the suit. Grabbing their arms, Takeshi spins them around, using their body to beat off the remaining horde.
The soldier zombie comes back to the ground with a hard thud as the last of their comrades is turned to foam. To Takeshi's surprise, the soldier gets back up. He watches it closely as he turns to face him. The jacket is torn from the landing, so as it opens, it reveals a black shirt with a very familiar bird standing on top of the earth.
"Shocker!" Takeshi clenches his fist at the revelation that this soldier is related to the organization that caused this. Takeshi comes running straight for the zombie, closing the distance between them, the coming wind fuels his belt before he leaps into the air, "Rider Kick!" With his foot extended, he kicks the solider back, sending them away from the street. Instead of turning to form, the soldier zombie explodes in a ball of fire.
As Takeshi ponders the appearance of Shocker, he turns back to one of the cars on the pavement. He walks over to it and knocks on the window. Slowly, the mother and her child lift their heads to show that they are fine.
A small group of soldiers appears from behind the corner having noticed the explosion from another street away. "Is anybody there?" One of them calls out before seeing Takeshi standing by the car.
Takeshi points to the vehicle, "These two are tired, and require assistance. Please take them to the checkpoint for extraction." The soldiers follow his word and come running to the car as he opens the door, helping the family out from the backseat.
The child looks up at him with wonder in his eyes before hugging him, "Thank you!"
Takeshi pats their head before kneeling down to be on their level, "You've got a strong mother. Be sure to be strong for her too, okay?"
Takeshi slowly walks away from the car, handing the civilians to the soldiers, still wearing the suit, still keeping their mask on.
As the child waves goodbye to Takeshi as he walks off into the distance, the mother asks the million-dollar question, "Who is that man?"
One of the soldiers salutes the lone hero, it's clear from their eyes the respect they have for him, "That…is Kamen Rider."