Kamen Rider Gr3en Sneak Preview #1: Round Zero · 8:41pm Sep 5th, 2015
As I continue my struggle against a new school year to make progress on the next chapters of “Kamen Rider EqG” (longest chapter yet) and “The Pony Prisoner”, here's a prequel clip to help introduce my upcoming story, “Kamen Rider Gr3en”. Just setting the stage with a little history...
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 trotted through a rolling empty field surrounded by trees, the moon partly lighting the scene. Bleak landscapes like this comprised virtually the entire battle realm, and it felt like it was night at least eighty percent of the time, but by no means all in a row. Suddenly, a bright rainbow glow came from within the nearby forest, a shining object appearing in the sky. There goes another one, she thought, before hearing a mass of scuttling. She froze. It was them.
The dark pink unicorn quickly ducked down behind the closest ridge. The sounds of scuttling and hissing drew closer. She was sure they would find her. They relentlessly hunted those like her, and fighting back only awarded the risk of being defeated. Many had lost out because of them. The horde of snarling and hissing drew closer, sounding like it was almost right beside her. And then it was silent. She waited, and the silence continued. Ever so slowly, she peeked over the ridge. Nothing. Through shadows they arrived, and like shadows they vanished. She turned her head as something else got her attention. A faint glimmer of golden light had begun spilling over the horizon. For however long it would last, it was daytime. Not wanting to be caught out in the open when visible, Galaxy took to the forest.
She strolled along the edge of the ridge of a long, shallow ditch, trying to glean a brief moment of calm. It wasn't easy. Even in the daylight, which mere minutes in already gave the feel of late afternoon, the battle realm just felt...off. Not helping was the feeling of paranoia towards encountering the others, which was admittedly perhaps one’s best resource here. Even a seemingly innocuous forest path like this was eerie. What was she thinking? She had to get a grip on herself. Sometimes she felt like she couldn’t even trust the—something grabbed her leg from behind and pulled her off her hooves, throwing her over the side of the ditch. She half-rolled, half-slid across a layer of dead leaves to the bottom.
Uhg, even the trees, she thought before jumping to her hooves. A figure jumped down from a tree branch and landed in the ditch a short distance in front of her. It was a spiky black bipedal figure whose shoulders and right arm were wrapped in green vines with red thorns. It stood, staring at her. She knew what it was. She knew what it was after. What it wore as a belt, she wore as a necklace: a gray metal buckle of a pair of snakes eating each other surrounding a “UD”. They had both made the commitment to fight for their species—it for the plants, her for the Pinto—for the winner to inherit the world. But a world of just plants wasn't something she was too keen on.
Galaxy took a crouched battle stance and stared it down with her red gemstone eyes. The plant monster seemed amused. It probably didn’t expect much from a Category Two. How mistaken it could have been. She may be little, but she had Magic.
Galaxy’s spiraled horn began glowing bright magenta, and with a hum, a clear triangular shape expanded onto her forehead, solidifying into a silver tiara with sides sloping up into a single upward spike at the center and bearing a large round, clear stone surrounded by four triangular tabs. She held her right hoof over out to her left, and her horn began glowing a lime green. The lower left tab on the tiara began glowing green, as did the central stone with a hum.
“Henshin!” Galaxy shouted, throwing her arm across straight out to the right. There was a high-pitched pulsing noise as a silvery-transparent coating expanded up from her hoof up her arm and over her entire body and head, solidifying into a black suit with lime green armor plates, a silver patch over her muzzle, and large round green eye covers, a surge of energy turning the red and pink curls of her mane and tail lime green but leaving the white curls white. The pulsing noise stopped at a peak, and all glowing faded, leaving her horn lime green as well.
The plant monster looked at its opponent’s new form. Without hesitation, it snarled and whipped its right arm forward, sending thorny vines reaching for her, but she jumped back away from the attack. Then, as if it were made of three slices, the two sides of her horn split away from the center, rotating from the base like a pair of scissors, and the splayed horn began glowing green. A transparent blue square bordering an image of something with thorny whips and large jaws suddenly flew from the plant monster over to Galaxy, absorbing into her horn before it snapped back shut. The monster looked up with shock.
“Thanks for the new power,” said Galaxy. And thank you Mimic for that power, she added to herself. “I’ll save this for later. But for now...” Her horn started glowing magenta again, joined by the upper right tab on the tiara and then the central stone with a hum. The plant monster lashed its thorny vines at her again, but in the blink of an eye the lime green plates of her armor had morphed into dark pink plates of a slightly different arrangement, her eyes, mane, and tail also flashing to dark pink. Galaxy threw out her left hoof as the vines reached her, knocking them back with a small burst of flames on impact.
The monster retracted its vines with a shriek of pain and frustration. It looked up again to see Galaxy crouched, her horn again splayed open, and standing on a glowing magenta symbol of the Big Dipper constellation that began spinning, blurring into a spiral, and absorbing into her hooves. What was she? It was five Categories above her, but it only had one skill, one attack, one strategy. It wasn't equipped for an opponent like this.
It threw its thorny vines again, but Galaxy jumped up over them, flipping over forward in midair, and with a shout, bringing down a kick towards it. The kick hit it in the chest with a burst of flames, sending it flying back and on fire. The plant monster hit the ground with a fiery explosion, while Galaxy twisted in midair as she came down, planting her front hooves before bringing down her back left, keeping her smoking back right hoof curled off the ground. It just needed a few seconds to cool down.
Behind her, the charred plant monster groaned, struggling to raise an arm. Then there was a metallic click. Its belt buckle had split open, separating the two hungry snakes and revealing a red “7” with a pair of red heart symbols placed above and below it. Suddenly a rainbow glow appeared in the sky above the scene. Galaxy turned to look as a twisted silver monolith floating between the trees over the plant monster began untwisting itself. Another one down. She was beginning to think she could actually do this.
