Kamen Rider: Myth

Short story I wrote while trying to fix the last part of The More Things Change. Not pony related, so I couldn't post it, but I really liked it. It's from a quick fight scene I wrote for Grace that evolved into an original Rider. Enjoy!

I wish I knew where my suit came from.

It's a dark green, with skintight grey and black armor made to fade into the background. I can feel the suit against my skin, it's magic flowing through my bones, and I'll never get tired of that feeling of pure speed I feel when I'm morphed. I rely on it every day to keep me alive, and yet I know nothing about it. It just sort of... appears, when I activate my powers. Every time I ask, it gets pushed aside by the simple declaration of: it's magic, don't worry. Which is just so... ignorant. It's not supernatural. Anything you can see can be studied, and is therefore subject to the laws of science and not some mere superstition. That's not to say I don't believe in magic; only a fool ignores evidence when it's literally right in front of them. But that doesn't mean it's impossible to figure why or how it's doing... whatever it is it's doing.

Granted, a fight isn't perhaps the best place to worry about stuff like that.

I leap in the air, just enough to clear the monster's blow. My feet briefly touch the thing's arm before pushing off of it and into the air again, flipping over its head and twisting to strike before it can turn. It roars as my long dagger stabs into it's back. It spins, trying to see me, but I'm moving again before it can catch sight of me again.

It's a troll, just like the million others I've turned back before they can destroy my city. It's twice as tall as I am, towering over the landscape. It's thick skin is impervious to any weapons that aren't backed with magic, and it's strength can cleave rocks in two. It's not very smart, and honestly, my powers make it more of a nuisance than anything else. But I learned the hard way not to underestimate an opponent. When Tofee...

After the kid was...

After losing a particular battle, I vowed to be ready for anything. That meant treating this thing seriously. It could technically still kill me while I'm in this form, and even though we're on the outskirts of Greystone City, it was possible that someone can get caught in the fight.

I reach down to my belt and flip open the decorative M symbol on the front. Hidden underneath is a deck of cards, held in place by a thin strip of metal. With practiced ease I draw three cards and place them on the small board mounted to my forearm. They light up as the magic infuses them, flying in the air in front of me. The images held on the cards, two knights that would have looked human if they still had heads and a small fairy, begin to shift and move. The fairy card hovers in front of me as the two headless knights break out of their cards and charge the troll.

The summoned creatures aren't truly alive, as far as I can tell. They'll respond to my thoughts, but don't do to anything I don't tell them too. They can't fight for me in any useful capacity; I only use them for support and to run interference while I transform.

The fairy card slowly begins to drift apart and flow over me. People have described my transformations like I was dissolving into a cloud of energy, then reforming as a new creature. I never noticed. It's a fairly quick process, and I supposed it would have to be. Anything that took an excessive amount of time wouldn't be any use in a fight. My cards shouldn't be as useful as they are; did I always draw the card I needed because the magic somehow knows in advance which ones I need? Does it read my mind? How does it shuffle the deck?

I shake myself free of these thoughts and take a step forwards. My new body is short, a mere two feet tall even in the adjusted armor. I lightly hop in the air, buzzing above the monster as it finishes off my assistants and turn back towards me. They'd managed to wound the creature, and it's moving even slower than it had been. I lean forwards, allowing my body to drift towards the beast and present an irresistible target. The troll did the only thing it knew how to do; charge.

A single hard flap is all I need to direct a magical updraft strong enough to flip me over the monster again. Spinning in the air, I throw a bolt of lightning at the dagger I'd stuck in its back, sending electricity coursing straight into its heart. It falls to its knees, and I hit it again. It screams in pain. I slowly decreased the power, giving it a moment to catch its breath, but it just begins to heal itself and stand to attack me again. I growl. It doesn't understand mercy; it followed the laws of the jungle. It doesn't understand mercy.

Closing my eyes, I reach out and feel the flow of heat and cold around the thing. It's alive with energy, the warmth of life flowing around it with irrepressible power. As gently as I could, I reached out to the warmth, and yank it back.

It cries out in pain as ice spreads across its body with unnatural swiftness, holding it in place. I gasped as the heat, needing to go somewhere, nearly strikes me out of the air. I condense it in front of me as best as I can, forming a glowing ball of fire larger than my body. The troll roars again, slowly pulling itself loose. Even without leverage, it'll be free of the ice in mere moments.

I kick the fireball as hard as I could, smashing it right through the creature. It explodes with a huge boom that blew out the windows all down the street and knocks me out of the air. There's barely anything left of it, just some pieces of a skeleton and the scent of burning flesh. It made me gag the first time I'd done this, but I barely notice it now. I cast aside the cards I'd played. Now that I'd used them, they'd lost their power. I'll need to track down and scan a different set of creatures to get them back. I kneel down to examine what was left of the monster.

Trolls are animals, like most of the creatures that threaten my city. Most of the inhabitants of the Green Realm have learned not to mess around on Earth anymore. That just left the animals, and-

Slowly, the thing began to take a shape. It did so with the utmost reluctance, like the universe was forcing it into something comprehensible. It was vaguely humanoid, and made from purple smoke. It was slowly darkening into a real purple, not that weird eldritch shade it had been a second ago that didn't look a like a real color at all. The cloud monster flowed forwards, forming the shape of a hammer and swinging with incredible-

I take a deep breath, pushing such thoughts away.

The troll was just an animal, but even though I knew mourning it was kinda stupid, a part of me couldn't help but feel sorry for what I'd done to the thing. I'd set out to be a protector, a sentry standing guard over both the Green Realm and Greystone City. I hadn't wanted to become a hunter, but I did. And what actually worried me the most was how… how it didn't worry me at all. I'd kill several trolls this week, not to mention all the other monsters that wandered through. I wouldn't even be thinking about this now if I hadn't had that fight with Hunter earlier in the week.

It was one of the speaking races, a Kelpie that knew him from his past. She'd found a way to kill him, something I hadn't even thought possible. He's already a gun-slinging skeleton. Where do you go from there? He's also got a whole set of problems that seem to bug only me, like how does he talk without lips or a tongue? How does he see anything?

This incident actually answered some of my questions about him. Most of the rest of his body is in some kind of pocket dimension. The magic connects the two, keeping Hunter alive and binding his skeleton together in lieu of flesh. The Kelpie, Eileen, had found an Artifact that could jam that connection long enough for him to die permanently. She was a brutal opponent, but we were ultimately victorious.

And then he'd shot her in the face.

I put him through a wall without thinking. How could he? She'd been defeated, she was going to face justice and he'd...

He threw it in my face. I'd killed before too, and not just animals. When I started doing this, I was a kid. I'm still a kid in the eye's of some. And by now I'm a…

I'm just not.

Everyday I fight monsters that could level the entire city if I wasn't there. It's easy to gloss over, but if I hadn't found the Deck of Myths, humanity wouldn't have any way of defending themselves.

Ourselves.

...It is still ourselves, right?

I snatch my dagger from the crater and turn away from the smoking corpse. I take slow, measured breaths as I climbed on my ATV. It was only an animal, I tell myself. I can't take chances again.

Instead of gunning the engine, I rested my head against the handlebars for a moment. I hadn't wanted any of this. I wasn't the one who decided to explore the haunted woods, but I was the one who found the Deck. I didn't want to fight a war, I was just the only person who could use the Deck. I didn't know why that was, or how it could be changing me. I just wanted all of this to end.

Some days... I stop and really think about just quitting. Leaving the Green Realm behind, and getting my life back while I still can. I fight beings that have been mistaken for demi-gods. The normal monsters I tear through would be horror movie monsters if I hadn't been 'lucky' enough to find the Deck. I'm still in high school. Why did I keep going?"

"Help me!"

OH FOR PETES SAKE REALLY NOW WHAT

I very calmly and in a gentle manner step off the four-wheeler, approaching one of the suburban homes that the troll had crashed into. There's just some cosmetic damage, it's not about to fall in and nothing's on fire. The shout had come from somewhere in the back, in what I was guessing was the kitchen. It sounded young, a kid that was six, maybe seven years old. There wasn't a car in the driveway, had he been left home alone?

The boy is hiding very poorly in the closet. He gasps when he saw me enter, and pulled back a little more. I didn't blame him. I didn't have the best reputation.

I kneel, putting myself on his level. "Are you hurt?"

The boy holds perfectly still.

I sigh. "Freezing doesn't help if the thing that you fear can see you. There's not a lot you could do at your size, honestly. The best thing would be to grab something pointy so when they got close-"

The boy pulls back even more. It's incredibly annoying; why don't people ever want to think about things? They just get afraid and stop. It's always just screaming and running. That doesn't work every-time, and it just means someone else has to deal with the monster. It's lazy at best, and cowardly at worst.

I sigh again. He's a six year old. Don't traumatize him. "It's okay," I say gently. "I won't come closer if you don't want me to."

The boy remained frozen. Because that had worked so well thus far.

"I know what people say about me," I say slowly, "and it's not true. I didn't bring the monsters here. I'm just trying to stop them. I'm the hero."

Am I? The links between the Green Realm and Earth weren't my fault, but the other people who'd had the Deck of Myths hadn't been forced to let everyone else know about them. They'd done such a good job defending others that humanity had remained unaware of their existence. Of course, none of the previous Myths had ever tried to help the people of the Green Realm, either. Should I have stayed on Earth? Should I have taken the Deck at all?

I kneel for what feels like hours for the boy to come out, but he never did. He just stayed in the closet, peeking through the crack in the door at me. When I hear a car down the road, I decided to leave before I was blamed for anything else again. I stand in one smooth motion, heading back to where my ATV was parked. Another day saved, another monster dead with no end in sight. I had no idea how to stop the Black King, no idea what Infinity Inc. was even doing, and no idea where to even start. I was stuck treading water, just trying to keep from drowning with no idea which way to swim.

"Did you kill the monster?

I looked back. The boy was still in the closet, he'd pulled back after asking the question.

"Yes," I say quietly. "It's gone."

The boy didn't say anything else. He didn't thank me. He probably thought I was going to sacrifice him in a pagan ritual, like most of the city did.

But he was alive. And that wasn't going to change for a very long time. Not if I could do anything about it.