Kamen Rider Gr3en Sneak Preview #3: The Warrior in Darkness · 5:53pm Jan 23rd, 2016
The third and final Kamen Rider Gr3en preview, this one finally introducing the primary Rider…’s armor, and revealing the story’s namesake for those who can follow hints.
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
Several weeks ago…
Nighttime in the city. Paradise, it was called. Lately, however, it had been anything but. A crisis had slipped into these familiar surroundings, indiscriminately targeting lives. But with their new power, this menace would be put to an end…tonight.
A lone pony stood just outside the chain-link fence of a construction site, a young stallion, barely past a colt, with a pale yellow coat, a short and spiky pale greenish blue mane, and a 4-pointed yellow star cutie mark. What he was looking upon had him furious. It had found another victim.
Feeling his rage flaring up inside him, he let it take over, just like they’d taught him. Teeth grit, his breathing sped, and a shadowy outline appeared over his face. This was the last time. Never again would it take another. Not after…
The pony let out a shout of anger. Covered in a glow of light, he morphed shape, rising to a bipedal stance and growing a head taller. The light faded, and there stood a silvery gray figure with the head of a horned horse’s integrated onto a knight’s helmet, another pair of horned horse heads adorning his shoulders, with a horseshoe decoration at the center of his chest. He ran forward and leapt the fence in a single bound.
In the construction site, a whiter gray figure with a pair of long fanglike spikes sticking from its face and a corded ponytail snaking from the top of its head stumbled to its knees. Before it could get up, a pair of hooves grabbed its shoulders from behind, pulled it back, and threw it to the side. As it tried steadying itself again, the shadow of a pony jumped up into the light, lunging at it, and delivering a punch that launched it back into a pile of wooden planks, breaking half of them. Its punching arm still extended, the pony figure stood a near silhouette against the lone illumination of moonlight, covered with shining silver and blue metal armor plates, and with glowing orange eyes and three spines atop head.
“Look out, Patch, there’s another one!” called Clover from the sidelines.
The armored figure looked over at her, the short pink mane hanging from the back of its helmet swinging, before turning back to see the charging horse monster as a sword appeared in its hand in a flash of light.
It reached her in a second and swung its sword down with full force, but Patch, assisted by her suit’s reflexes, leapt back to the left, and the sword slammed the ground with a burst of sparks. She reached back and clicked her right hoof’s glove onto the side of the handle of the Scorpion pistol attached to the armor’s right leg, whipping it around forward as a recording of Bright Eyes’ voice called out inside her helmet, “G-M-Zero-One, active!”
She quickly opened fire, but after only two shots the horse monster swung its sword sideways and knocked the Scorpion out of her grip. “G-M-Zero-One loss,” came the recording of Bright Eyes. How often must she have predicted that happening to have included it on the automated battle track?
“Wanna play rough, do ya?” Patch taunted the Orphnoch. Eradicating these monsters had been their sole mission for some time now, ever since…
The Orphnoch rushed at her, but she jumped back again, clicking something on her belt and holding her right hoof out sideways, power building. It raised its sword, but Patch jumped forward and punched, missing as it took a sudden step back. She quickly clicked the belt again as the Orphnoch swung down. Almost fully under the suit’s power, she flung herself around and kicked out with her hind legs, connecting with a flash of light, and sending the Orphnoch skidding back on its feet.
The Orphnoch with the snake fangs on its face rolled sideways off the debris pile to the ground. It crawled a few steps before making it to its feet and staggering away.
“The first guy’s making a run for it,” called Clover, a violet earth mare with a pink mane, “I’m after him!”
Clover ran off along a parallel path through the unfinished cement shells soon to become proper buildings. Patch turned in that direction, but the horse Orphnoch stepped between them. Patch tensed in preparation, but the Orphnoch only stood there. It was trying to let the other one escape, she’d bet.
She tried steadying her breathing, letting her heart slow down, but not too much. The Orphnoch continued to stand there, sword in hand, just staring at her. She glanced over at the GM-01 Scorpion lying on the ground a short distance away before quickly looking back to the Orphnoch. What was it waiting for?
Then the Orphnoch’s shadow began glowing teal, and it shrank and morphed into the form of the young stallion. Then the shadow spoke. “You ponies are the reason she’s gone,” it said. “I thought you were her friends. How could you have done that to my sister!”
Huh? Patch thought in surprise. What was it talking about? The shadow’s colors were obscured, the whole thing was teal…but that voice. It couldn’t. “Wait. Y-you’re…”
The Orphnoch lunged forward and swung its sword down. On the suit’s reflex, Patch ducked down and reached her right foreleg back, the sword again hitting the ground, but the Orphnoch quickly swung it back up, clipping the suit with a spray of sparks and yanking Patch up to her hind legs. Bright Eyes’ recorded voice called out, “Chest unit—,” but the Orphnoch’s sword continued to arc over, down, then back up—
Both of them stopped.
In a teal-tinted x-ray view was a pony’s ribcage and their beating heart. Beating. Beat. Beat. The glowing silhouette of an arrowhead sword stabbed upward, slipping just below and behind the heart. The lowest tip of the heart started spitting light blue sparks.
Patch wrapped her left foreleg over the blade in her chest to prop herself up. Well, this was a setback, she thought. Heh, only she could try to be funny at a time like this. Her foreleg was shaking. Great, here come the shock symptoms. But not just that. The sword was shaking. She looked down to see the hand holding the sword shaking. She quickly looked over at the shadow and saw the pony’s face stunned stiff, as if surprised or even horrified at what he had just seen himself do.
An Orphnoch acting like this…but this was amazing! Maybe he wasn’t all gone yet, after all. Maybe there was still a chance to convince—there was a click as something unhooked from the right side of her belt. Huh? What was…, then she realized, her right arm was still reaching back. No, wait—!
The right arm of the suit swung around and up, Bright Eyes’ voice calling, “G-S-Zero-Three, active!” The blade that was folded underneath the apparatus her hoof had strapped into flipped up and started humming, slicing up through the Orphnoch’s sword like wet sand with a burst of sparks. Patch’s arm was pulled along as the suit pulled left and then swung the blade back over to the right, dragging it across the Orphnoch’s gut with a long spray of sparks. The Orphnoch fell back as the two halves of its sword burst into blue flame and shattered into dust. Patch fell forward and caught herself with her left hoof, GS-03 Destroyer held out to the right.
She shook her head, eyes squinted shut and teeth grit. Of all the times for the AI… She struggled not to cough, as she was already short of breath. That was her one chance to save this. The Orphnoch lay on its back, pushing itself forward as it clutched its stomach, blue flames leaking from the long gash.
“Y-you’ve…,” Patch panted, finding it hard to sound benevolent in her armor’s current stance, “got it wrong, we…” But the young stallion in the Orphnoch’s shadow projection wasn’t listening, only glaring at her, his notions confirmed and rage justified. The shadow reverted to its original shape and stopped glowing, the Orphnoch struggling to its feet and staggering away. “…didn’t…,” she breathed futilely after it, “…it wasn’t…our…” The Destroyer’s blade began to flip back down, but Patch tossed the weapon to the ground half-closed. She grabbed at her wound, the slice having been sealed by the sword’s flaming disintegration. “Ahhg…ohhhh, that hurts when you have nothing else to be distracted by. I can only imagine the adrenaline wearing off.”
Clover came back around from behind an unfinished wall. “I tried following the Orphnoch, but it got awa…Patch!”
