Kamen Rider Gr3en Sneak Preview #5: Catch a Tiger · 3:13pm Apr 1st, 2018
To celebrate the anniversary of a day I've long tried associating with this story and to give the promise that more actual chapters are coming “soon”, here's another minisode.
Preview #1: Round Zero
Preview #2: Struggle
Preview #3: The Warrior in Darkness
Preview #4: Guardians of the Pinto
Preview #5: Catch a Tiger
Preview #6: Be Careful What You Dream Of
10,000 years ago…
Galaxy wandered cautiously through the forest, adorned in her lime green Kouma armor borrowing her friend Mimic’s power. How long had she been here? Time felt to have lost its meaning.
Recently, the red unicorn had been spending more and more time transformed, usually in Mimic Form to nab an opponent’s ability first thing. Sometimes she forgot the last time she’d had a breath of fresh air without her mask on. The simple feeling of not being trapped in a shell. But this is what she’d signed up for as an Undead.
A dry leaf crunched.
Galaxy sprang back, turning to the sound as she skidded the landing. Casually leaning back against a nearby tree, an Undead chuckled to herself. She was a bipedal orange tiger monster with black pants and spiky gunmetal shoulder pads, her black metal right forearm bearing an array of snaggly hook claws. She wore a black mask with saber tooth fangs and had a pale orange mohawk. “My, my, how jumpy,” she taunted.
Category Queen, Galaxy thought. If these guys are active, our numbers must be getting low. Prepare for the toughest fight yet! Her lime green horn split open into three slivers and glowed. A blue square projection showing a pair of tiger heads around a diagonal line flew off of the Tiger Undead and absorbed into Galaxy’s horn, which then snapped back together.
“Another thief?” mused the Undead, watching curiously. “You’ll meet the same fate, Category Two.” She raised her metal arm and clicked her claws together.
Galaxy figured they were referring to having defeated Thief Chameleon, the Category Ten. She’d have to reach deep into her bag of tricks for this one. Her horn split back open, glowed, and spat out another blue square, this one showing a set of jaws with a pair of spiky vines around it, which then absorbed into her armor.
Bio
Galaxy threw her foreleg forward, and it stretched out at Tiger, but she jumped aside. As Tiger stood back up, however, vines snaked in across the ground and ensnared her legs. Growling, she began slicing at the vines.
Speedy, go! Galaxy thought, her horn glowing orange, followed with a hum by the large stone and upper left tab on her silver tiara. She held her right hoof out to the left. “Henshin!”
“Hmm?” Tiger said as she stopped cutting the vines. “A lower Category that speaks?”
“Surprised?” asked Galaxy, holding her pose.
“And intrigued,” Tiger replied. “However, I shall concern myself with that later.”
Galaxy threw her hoof straight across and out to the right. There was a high-pitched pulsing noise as a surge of energy turned her lime green armor orange, her eye covers, horn, and mane and tail save the white curls following suit. Her horn split open again as she crouched down, spreading out her hooves. On the ground beneath her, an orange Big Dipper constellation symbol glowed, spinning and blurring into a spiral as it absorbed into her hooves.
She blurred forward at speed, repeated images of herself trailing behind, and smashed past Tiger with a spray of sparks, each afterimage giving another hit. The rapid-fire tore Tiger free from the vines and brought her to the ground, but she was back up by the time Galaxy turned to check.
“It will take more than your array of weak powers to—,” Tiger started, but sets of green claws latched onto her arms from behind, the sounds of scuttling and hissing suddenly welling up. She turned to see her new attackers as best she could: a pair of black bipedal insect monsters with roach heads and green claws, a group of several others waiting behind them. Galaxy looked around, seeing that easily a dozen more had surrounded them without a sound.
Oh, no, Galaxy thought, feeling her body start to freeze up. Not them. Darkroaches, rogue wanderers of the Battle Fight landscape who would swarm any Undead they came across. It seemed her luck had run out. Undead never escaped when cornered by Darkroaches.
“Agents of Joker!” Tiger shouted as she pulled an arm free and swatted a Darkroach aside. The rest of the group behind her pounced her to the ground at once. “Of all the ways to lose,” she grunted. Looking to Galaxy, she said, “If you have any intelligence, then leave now.”
But still finding herself frozen, Galaxy was helpless as a pair of Darkroaches jumped in and grabbed her, hissing in her ears as they tried wrestling her down. Galaxy watched as Tiger roared and sprang up, breaking free from the Darkroach pile and charging at her, swinging her metal claws…
…to rake across the two Darkroaches holding her. With shocked screeches, the Darkroaches collapsed in orange flashes, dissolving into puddles of green slime. Galaxy stumbled back from Tiger. Had another competitor just…helped her?
“You’re here fighting for your species,” Tiger said. “You shouldn’t lose to something that stands to gain nothing by winning.”
The Darkroaches were back on Tiger a second later, now joined by a few of the watchers whose numbers had doubled since last check. Galaxy backed away from them, enjoying the few extra seconds they were leaving her alone in.
Then she stopped.
She didn’t know why she stopped. Oh, wait. Yes she did.
You’re up, Fizzy. “Henshin!” She held her right hoof out left, then threw it out right. Her horn glowed teal, shifting her armor and tiara stone as well. She crouched and her horn split open, a teal Big Dipper spinning and absorbing into her hooves.
Galaxy leapt forward, a mass of foaming bubbles amassing onto her right hoof, and punched. A wave of bubbles burst from her hoof, sweeping over and pulling the Darkroaches off of Tiger. The Roaches fell to the ground, flashing orange and dissolving into green slime. Tiger looked up at her.
“My thoughts exactly, I guess,” Galaxy said. Tiger nodded, pushing herself up again.
The two stood back to back as the Darkroach swarm seemed to multiply from the darkness around them. Tiger raised her metal claws.
“The champion of death will never be allowed to win,” she said. “No warriors will lose today.”
“Let me go first,” Galaxy whispered. “When I move, duck.”
The Darkroach horde swarmed in, and Galaxy jumped up, Tiger ducking down as she spun and swung her forelegs around her, a spiral of small bubbles flying out and into the crowd. As she dropped back to the ground, her horn glowed teal and split open, and with a stomp, the bubbles rapidly expanded into a wall of foam that caught the first wave of Roaches up inside it.
Tiger gave an amused chuckle before slashing the nearest Darkroach. Every bubble in the foam wall popped at once, accompanied by the orange flashes of defeated Roaches. The next wave had paused in momentary shock, but mindlessly swarmed in a second later. Tiger raced into the group with speed and claws, slashing down three before one managed to grab onto her, slowing her down. As other Darkroaches turned to Tiger, Galaxy changed back to Mimic Form. Her horn split open, and a blue square showing a tortoise with a shell made of rocks came out; she pushed it over to Tiger, and it absorbed into her.
Rock
A Darkroach tried stabbing Tiger with its claws, but they were stopped on a bumpy layer of projected rocks with a crunch. Tiger hit back and sent it flying, flashing orange in midair. She scraped her metal claws over the rocky protection on her left arm before plowing through the gathering Roaches.
As Galaxy turned to more Darkroaches closing in, she summoned a blue square from her horn showing a deer with an array of large blade-like antlers before it absorbed into her armor.
Thunder
She raised a hoof, and lightning bolts shot down among the Darkroaches, frying several of them in orange flashes and sending most of the outer ones retreating back into the shadows. Unaffected by the lightning, Tiger cut down the final few Roaches around her. The remaining stragglers hissed and made for Galaxy.
She summoned another blue square, this one showing a zebra splitting into its white- and black-striped halves. As it floated in the air, her horn glowed red and switched into her primary and self-powered dark pink Galaxy Form. Her horn split open as she crouched down, a dark pink Big Dipper appearing below her and spinning into her hooves, before jumping up and absorbing the blue square.
Gemini
As she flipped around, she slid sideways in the air as another her slid the other way, the two Galaxys bringing their flaming back hooves up and streaking forward into the Darkroach crowd, each hitting several before reaching the ground with a pair of fiery bursts. The flames swept through the crowd, knocking them down. As the smoke cleared, only one Galaxy remained, and the moaning Darkroaches flashed orange before dissolving into green slime, vanishing for good.
Tiger watched the rock layer fade off of her before turning and walking away.
“Where are you going?” Galaxy asked, bringing to mind her list of mimicked powers again just in case.
Tiger stopped. “This battle has been made null and void by the Darkroaches’ interference,” she said over her shoulder, “and I cannot simply turn on one I have just fought beside. I am certain we shall meet each other again, and we shall finish our fight then. But to be sure,” she turned to Galaxy, “do not mistake my intentions of following the rules of an honorable battle as friendliness. When next we meet, I shall fight with all the ferocity of the race that sent me.”
Under the mask, Galaxy smiled. Her horn glowed red, and her armor faded off of her. She took a long, deep breath of fresh air. “Well so will I,” she said.
