Skull Gaiden 2: Absolute Freeze

Thanks to Cleopatra's teleportation function, Salia and Ken had arrived at their destination.

"Okay, we're here." Salia said as she and Ken jumped to the ground below.

Ken shivers as he felt how cold it was.

"Man...they weren't kidding. This place is definitely chilly." Ken said as he rubbed his hands on his arms.

"Which is all the more reason we need to find the source of this." Salia said as she brought out a tracking device that Salamandinay had given her to locate the said source of this abnormal drop in temperature.

She then started to point the device in different directions to find the way to it.

"Are you sure you'll be okay in that outfit? If you want, I'll give you, my jacket." Ken offered.

"Found it." Salia said as she found a trail to the source. "It's this way."

Salia walks ahead of Ken.

"I'll take that as a no then." Ken said as he followed her.

Unknown to Ken and Salia is that someone was watching on top of a building.

"So they found the cold spot. Guess, I should greet them." He said as he left.

As Ken and Salia still continue to walk to the cold source, Ken was looking at the buildings around them. Like the ruins around the city of Aura's people, everything was in ruins and covered in vegetation.

"This place too huh?" Ken said which Salia overheard but chose to ignore it. "Yeah, in my world I went to Kyoto as a kid. It was an amazing city filled with historic landmarks and history, I was kind of hoping it would at least be the same here but sadly it's not."

Salia remained silent, and Ken started to feel nervous and uneasy about her silence wondering if she was still mad about that little accident they had.

"Okay look, if you're still mad about the whole breast thing, I'm sorry about that." Ken said which made Salia flinch. "But it wasn't on purpose, it was just a slip of the hand. Really-!"

Salia grabs onto Ken's collar making him turn to her showing him an angry face that was colored red.

"If you ever bring that up again or tell anyone, I'll end you!" Salia warned him, which frightened Ken as he raised his hands.

"Got it! Never again, I promise! Cross my heart or hope to die!" Ken told her.

"Good!" Salia said as she let go and walked away from Ken.

'And now I know how Tusk feels.' Ken thought before he followed behind her but in a distance. 'Kyoya, Hayate...If I ever see you guys again, I'LL KILL YOU!'

(Meanwhile)

"Achoo!" Kyoya sneezes as he and Sala are walking towards the source of Tokyo's cold spot.

"Kyoya, is something wrong?" Sala asked her beloved.

"I don't know." Kyoya said as he ran his finger under his nose. "I just have this feeling that someone was talking about me."

Sala blinks in confusion.

(Back with Ken and Salia)

Ken was still following Salia in a distance because Ken figured she was still mad at him.

'Come on, Ken, think! There has to be something that you can do to make up with her…' Ken thought as he tried to think of something.

"So...umm...I know this nice looking landmark nearby. Do you want to check it out?" Ken asked.

"Don't talk to me." Salia told him with an annoyed tone, and Ken lowered his head.

"Hai…" Ken mutters.

"Hold on." Salia said as she and Ken stopped walking as she noticed that her detector had found another cold spot. "There's another cold spot, it's small but close, and it's behind us."

"Behind us?" Ken said as he turned around and saw several ice spears heading towards them.

"Look out!" Ken said as he pushed Salia to the ground as they fell to the ground together. "Are you alright?"

"Y-Yes." Salia nodded.

"Well done on dodging that." They looked and saw the person who attacked them.

It was a Dopant, he was colored white with icy-blue ends and had ice crystal-like armor around his body, had a knight-like helmet on his head with a blue visor, and had sharp claws on the ends of his fingers.

"A Dopant...I should've guessed." Ken said as he and Salia stood up.

"That's right, and you may call me Freeze." The Dopant introduced himself.

"So I'm guessing you're a survivor of Foundation X?" Ken asked.

"You've guessed right." The Freeze Dopant answered as he fired ice needles at Ken and Salia.

They dodge his attack by rolling on the ground.

As Ken stands up he pulls out his Lost Driver and puts it on, and soon brings out his Skull Memory.

SKULL

"Henshin!" Ken said as he inserted his Memory into his Driver.

SKULL

Ken transforms into Skull.

Skull soon brings out his Magnum and charges at the Freeze Dopant as he fires at him, but the Freeze Dopant blocks his shots with a ice wall and Skull jumps over the wall and lands behind the Dopant and then punches and kicks at him but the Freeze Dopant easily parried and dodges his attacks before Skull manages to land a punch on his face which sends the Dopant to stumble backwards.

But the moment Skull punched the Dopant he felt his hand icy cold before he saw that the armor on his hand was frozen solid as it was incase in ice.

"What the hell?" Skull gasped in shock.

"Oh I'm sorry." The Freeze Dopant said as Skull turns back at him. "I probably should've warned you, I'm cold to the touch."

Seeing that touching the Freeze Dopant is a bad idea, Skull decided to keep his distance as he fired at the Dopant with his Magnum but the Dopant dodged his gunfire by sliding on an ice floor beneath his feet as he moved towards the Rider.

When the Freeze Dopant is close enough he grabs onto Skull's frozen hand and begins to freeze his entire arm in ice, and the intense cold gives Skull a burning pain as he groans and falls on his knees as the ice slowly begins to spread to his shoulder and chest.

"Oh man...not again…" Skull mutters in pain as this reminded him of that time when the Weather Dopant froze his armor.

Salia quickly drew out her gun and fired at the Dopant but her bullets bounced off of his body. The Freeze Dopant stops freezing Skull as he turns to her.

"Salia...What are you doing? Just get out of here!" Skull told her.

"And leave you behind and die? Forget it!" Salia said as she kept on firing at the Freeze Dopant.

"Annoying little bug." The Freeze Dopant said in annoyance as he lets go of Skull and turns at Salia to deal with her, but with his guard down Skull uses that chance to kick on the Dopant's legs to send him to the ground and kicks him again to send him rolling on it before he moves back to Salia.

"I see now...You draw his attention on purpose so that he'll be distracted while I break free...smart." Skull said.

"Well I wasn't going to stand by and let you die. How's your arm?" Salia asked.

"It's freezing cold...but I'll live." Skull answered.

"That was indeed clever." The Freeze Dopant said as he stood up. "But no one outsmarts twice, and lives to tell about it."

"Just why are you doing this? Kazu is dead, there's no reason for you to fight us anymore." Skull told him.

"That's where you're wrong. Well my master Kazu-sama is dead, I still carry on his will by taking revenge against you for his demise starting with this." The Freeze Dopant stated before Skull and Salia felt an earthquake and the ground shook beneath them.

"What the hell?" Skull said before they saw a giant device breaking beneath a few ruined buildings from afar.

The device was massive as it was flying in the sky and beneath it the device was unleashing snow and ice from large vents.

Salia then heard her detector beeping loudly before she pointed it at the large snow machine in the sky as it was reacting to its presence.

"Ken, that's it. The source of the cold spot." Salia said.

"Then I guess it's safe to assume that's your grand plan?" Skull asked the Freeze Dopant.

"You are correct. And soon this world will become a frozen wasteland. But thankfully you two won't live to see it." The Freeze Dopant said as he sent a blizzard at Skull and Salia.

"Look out!" Skull said as he pushed Salia out of the way from the blizzard, before he dodged it by rolling on the ground but fell on his chest as he couldn't move his leg, he turned to it and saw that it was frozen solid. "Now that's just great."

"And easy for me." The Freeze Dopant said as he walked to the down Rider.

Skull fired his Magnum at the Freeze Dopant as he sat up, but the Dopant blocked his shots using an ice shield.

"Ken!" Skull saw Salia running to him before she knelt down to him and used her knife to break the ice off of his leg. "Just hang on! I'll get you out of this!"

But the ice on his leg was too thick as she can only break off small fragments.

"Salia, it's no use! Just get out of here! You need to tell the others about this Dopant!" Skull said.

"No way! I'm leaving you here to die! I refuse to let anyone else die because of me!" Salia said as she remembers how Alektra died in front of her. "Never again!"

"Salia…" Skull mutters.

"Fine." Skull and Salia turn to the Freeze Dopant. "If that's what you want, then you'll die together."

The Freeze Dopant lifts up his finger and then conjures a giant ball of ice above it, and throws it at them.

"Salia!" Skull said as he grabbed onto Salia to shield her from the giant ball of ice as it hit on his back which exploded into icy mist and smaller rocks.

"Hmph...easy prey." The Freeze Dopant said as he turned around and left.

As the Freeze Dopant leaves, Skull's body is still seen buried under the ice rocks on top of him.

There you have it, I hope that you like it. Please review to tell me what you think.