I do not own Xenoblade Chronicles X or Kamen Rider. Those rights belong to Monolith Soft and Toei respectively.

New Los Angeles. The place humans now call home on the planet known as Mira, after Earth was destroyed long ago by alien warfare in 2054. Mira was filled with dangerous creatures, and housed other hostile alien races who continue to fight the humans. Despite the odds, the humans have been successfully adapting to the planets' many environments in their pursuit of finding the Lifehold core on the planet, a supercomputer that houses the consciousness of every human on Mira as they control android bodies known as mimeosomes through said consciousness.

It is early morning now as a young man approaches a large terminal, and scrolls through the digital tablet. This young man was known as Cross, an amnesiac newer recruit to New LA's military organization known as B.L.A.D.E. Although a bit reckless, he typically gets the job done and is a force to be reckoned with on the battlefield. Right now, he was looking to do a couple of new missions.

"Let's see…" Cross said to himself, mentally "Weapon testing, tyrant hunting, item collection…. Basic stuff." Cross frowned

It's not like Cross hated these kinds of assignments, they just did not interest them and he found them to be menial tasks. Well, except for tyrant hunting, but those require a lot of preparation to complete. One mission, however, caught his eye.

"Masked Rider Project…. A special project that will allow BLADEs to access high grade equipment that bolsters their combat abilities, all with just a simple device. If interested, ask Eleonora for more information." Cross smiled "This should be interesting."

Cross tapped the screen and accepted the mission. Afterwards, he made his way over to Eleonora, who manages the missions, to get more details on the mission.

"Hey Elenora." Cross greeted.

"Hello Cross." Eleonora greeted back with a smile

"I'm interested in the 'Masked Rider Project' mission. Could I get more information on that?"

"Oh, that mission. Certainly. It was recently put up by some of the inventors from Candid & Credible, in order to test new kinds of armor they were developing. The leader inventor is Ubara. I can give them a call saying that you're interested in helping test their equipment."

"Sounds like a plan." Cross affirmed.

"Great. I'll go ahead and give them the call. You can find them at the Outfitter's Test Hangar over in the Industrial District." said Eleonora

"Gotcha. Thanks." Cross said, as he made his way over there.

After walking around inside the hangar, Cross eventually found a group of Ma-non huddled in a room, surrounded by parts and incomplete gear. One of them approached the amnesiac.

"Are you Cross?" asked the Ma-non.

"Yeah. Are you Ubara?" Cross asked.

"No, I am Ryiac. Ubara is currently working on one of Rider armors. Follow me."

Ryiac and Cross made their way to the back of the room, where they found Ubara using a blowtorch on a kitbash of metal.

"Ubara, the person Eleonora was talking about is here." said Ryiac.

"Give me one moment." Ubara responded, before turning off the blowtorch and placing it on the table. "You are Cross, yes?" Ubara removed his goggles. "I am Ubara, leading inventor of the Masked Rider project. Pleasure to meet you." Ubara extended his hand.

"Likewise." Cross shook the extended hand. "So what kind of work do you do for this project?"

"Are you familiar with 'Masked Rider', by chance?" Ubara said.

"Nope." said Cross

"Ah, or how about 'Kamen Rider', as other people call it."

Cross shook his head.

"Well, as I was told by a human once, it is a Japanese children's show about humans dressed in bug suits fighting against humans in plastic monster suits. At first I thought the idea was silly, until a couple of Ma-non and I said down and watched a couple episodes of the show." Ubara recalled "We were enthralled by the action and the designs of the suits, and I had the idea that we could develop armor based on the suits from the show and make their abilities reality as well!" Ubara motioned Cross to look around the room "As you can see, we have several planned designs already outlined and work on some of them has already begun."

Cross looked around the room and saw several suit designs and blueprints plastered everywhere in the room. He saw a design for a red suited bug armor, one with a knight faceplate, another based on a bat, one with a rocket shaped helmet, and many more. Some of them looked rather silly, but Cross knew that Candid & Credible could make some pretty good armor with decent battle traits.

"In particular, we have done much work on the suits from Kamen Rider Kabuto. And we would like you to test some of our armor. And you will be paid handsomely for your efforts."

Cross nodded "Alright, I'm in. Where's the armor?"

"One moment." Ubara said, before going to another part of the room and picking something up from one of the tables. "Here is it. The Kabuto zecter." Ubara said as he returned to show Cross...

A toy beetle.

"...that's the armor?" Cross questioned.

"Yes." Ubara said, before remembering another detail "Oh, I forgot the mention! The armor is embedded in this transformation device. It's called a Zecter. Once you use it, you will automatically be transformed with the new armor equipped through nanotechnology. To take off the armor, just deactivate the transformation device."

"I see." Cross responded as he picked up the toy beetle to examine it.

"This is what your armor will look like." Ubara showed Cross images of the Kabuto armor plastered on the wall" There is both a masked form and a rider form. The masked form has incredible defense, but is rather slow. The rider form can move faster, but has less defense. It can also access Clock Up and Rider Kick."

The masked form featured black leather pants with bulky silver/red armor covering the body and arms. The helmet was silver with a large blue visor.

The rider form replaces the bulky armor for a smaller red armor that mainly covers the body. The helmet is also changed in that a long red horn splits the large blue visor with the silver encasing removed.

"Looks a little…. extra, don't you think?" Cross noted, not particularly keen on the latter design "Not to mention, that horn looks more like a liability than anything else."

"Well, that is part of the reason why you are testing the armor. To see if it is a liability or not" Ubara said bluntly

"I see…" Cross sighed.

"Now let's get to the instructions-"

"Ubara! Ubara!" A noise coming from one of the tables was heard. It was from Ubara's walkie talkie.

"Yes? Yes?" Ubara asked as he picked up the walkie talkie "Who is it?"

"It's Juquiv, sir! Someone just posted a new mission at the terminal! It says that the Water Purification Plant is currently under attack by suids and needs back up immediately!"

"And why are you contacting me about this?"

"I heard from Eleonora that someone accepted our Masked Rider Project. I was thinking we could use this mission to test one of our new armors and promote it to the public! If we get a good enough report, people will surely know about the effectiveness of our project armors and be interested in buying them!" Juquiv exclaimed.

"Hmm, I see. Very well then, accept that mission and I'll send our tester over to the Purification Plant." Ubara confirmed.

"Roger!"

Ubara turned to Cross, "Alright, so change of plans. To begin our test, I would like you to go and defeat those suids using the Kabuto zecter. And here is the belt that you will wear to activate the Zecter."

Cross nodded as he accepted the belt, "Gotcha. I'll be over there with my Skell ASAP."

"I'll send you the instructions on how to use the Zecter on your way. Good luck."

Kabuto Zecter in tow, Cross ran out of the Outfitter's Hangar into his Skell as he began to fly towards the destination.