Tales of the Amalgam'verse: Hero · 12:39am Apr 6th, 2022
Proofed by Lance-Omikron
Idea refined by DiverseInterest47, Faith-Wolff, and GodzillaWolf
Artwork by ZeroViks
================
The air was strangely warm for this time of the year, the eve of winter. That was the observation he made standing on the precipice of the balcony that overlooked the megatropolis. Hiroshi Fujoka knocked back another swig of Dr. Pepper, letting the cool contrast with the damp heat that lingered in the air. He was a powerfully built man, which was to be expected given all his years in martial arts and stunt work. That and plenty of other physical work as well as attention to his appearance for any acting roles indicated that his progression into middle-age would come pretty gracefully as he cusped closer to 40. Still, without the actor in some iconic attire or displaying some distinctive heroic persona in his mannerisms, he blended right in with the crowds and frankly enjoyed that from time to time.
Him not being the center of attention meant that Hiroshi could better focus his own attention on other things. His concerns were less with the relatively minor acting job he had just gotten done over at Toei, but with the crowds themselves.
The great many people fleeing the city made perfect sense, especially with Hiroshi catching himself casting a wary glance at the ocean every now and then for a sign. From his vantage point near the tram terminal, he could very easily see the packed roadways feeding out of the city. Cars lined up lane to lane, front to bumper and all occupied. There had to be a few thousand people in just a quarter of a kilometer of road. All trying to get away.
In some ways Hiroshi didn't know what to make of the multitudes of other people not leaving. After all, he was in the very same group, if partially because he couldn't schedule fast enough to depart. Or at least that was the excuse he gave himself.
He contemplated it for a time, looking about and noting that a good majority of the people waiting for the train were on the younger side. No old timers, at least by his metric at the edge of middle-aged, in sight.
Hiroshi shrugged, inwardly concluding perhaps those old enough to vividly remember the night from decades ago could recall what happened last time. The logic seemed sound. What did that mean for the younger generations? Were they sticking around because they had a lot of faith in the fantastic contraptions of their era? Those machines Hiroshi could also see as the only vehicles rolling down the highways heading towards the city interior.
Or were they just a bunch of dumb kids who wanted to see what was approaching? Like some macabre anticipation for Santa Claus?
Hiroshi shrugged as the train pulled into the station and he got up to approach the open doors amongst others. If he couldn't quite guess what was keeping all of them, Fujoka wasn't even sure if he could answer the question for just himself.
He absent-mindedly looked at the four persons taking a seat across from him, all of them clearly enjoying their being some leg room on the train for once. Three young men and... Hiroshi perked up slightly.
"You can take a picture if you really want to, I'm pretty used to it," the woman, the woman with pure white hair contrasting with slate gray skin, snickered with a cheeky grin. The dark veins visible underneath her skin pulsed every passing moment. She hooked an arm around one of the men with her, clearly not at all minding public signs of affection were not all that common.
"Just remember I've already staked my claim on this stunner," she keened jovially.
Complete disregard for public displays was apparent even more when she wasn't at all shy about pecking the individual next to her on the cheek, causing the rather ordinary looking Japanese man to stammer and blush. Whatever was coming out of his mouth was near incoherent, but Hiroshi was able to put two and two together pretty quick when he glimpsed identical rings on their fingers.
"Forgive them," the rather tall and skinny built man next to the couple shrugged, clearly exhausted after having been around the love birds too long.
The fourth individual, in between the other two men in height and having his face framed with wide glasses beneath a bowl-cut hair style, leaned in to cast his voice a little better.
"Asuka and Yuji over there are still on their honeymoon."
"They've been in their honeymoon phase for the last year, I think they need to have something looked at," the tall man behind him deadpanned behind his friend.
"They certainly seem quite smitten," Hiroshi chuckled with a shrug, "And you are?"
"Shiro, Shiro Miyasaka," bowlcut noted before motioning backwards with a thumb, "Grinch over there is Katagiri… Hey, this might sound weird but do I know you from somewhere? You look familiar but I can't really place your face."
Hiroshi continued to play it cool and took another swig of his soda, "You could say I've been on television a few times. You might have seen me in a few things… Though usually any aliens I was able to share a room with were just the stunt crew in costumes."
The Mysterian woman, Asuka apparently, though it was a bit of an oddity hearing such a relatively normal name for one of them, snickered. Ever since they’d landed decades ago and the conflict was sorted out, many had integrated into human society though they still typically bore the number based names their race; Xilians, used.
"You all don't seem as quiet as most people on trains around here are. I take it you're not from Tokyo?" Hiroshi hummed, "What brings you to this fine city this evening?"
"We were in town to see an old professor of ours, Dr. Hiyashida at the institute. Word is the government tapped him for some project and we were able to catch the train ride in at a good rate," Shiro quipped happily, completely nonchalant about the situation.
"Uh…huh…" Hiroshi puzzled with some hidden stupor, "Well, I was just too late to catch the rides out. It does make me wonder though…"
If some of these young people had a death wish, but frankly he didn't verbalize that much as part of his mind did to him.
"Wonder what?" Katagiri groaned as he rubbed at the space between his eyes at the bridge of his nose, looking much more tired than anyone else in the group.
"What's their reason?" Hiroshi huffed with a nod of his head.
The four followed his line of sight and indicated motion, turning around just as the train was crossing the roadways in an overpass. The route out of the metropolis was still packed with cars and inching along. The path into the city proper however was not entirely voided. The military convoy had already moved in, making the singular motorcycle zipping down the road at what had to be far above legal speed very obvious. The fact they had to be wearing some very large coat that was flapping in the air behind them was not lost on Hiroshi, parts of his mind passively recollecting to a few prior incidents of his.
Whoever was on that thing was in a hurry, and wasn’t caring much for safety as a coat like that could get easily caught in the tires. Phantom pains of a past crash moved up and down Hiroshi's legs as he watched the motorcyclist depart and the train began rolling in full.
The vehicle sped along, heading into the direction of the twilight horizon as night started to approach. The gigantic, towering grandeur of the Sunshine 60 Tower dead ahead but kilometers off.
==============
Aki Shindo passively tapped away at the reception desk computer. Still dutiful on work even with a skeleton crew remaining at headquarters. They were virtually the only group left in the district that the Sunshine 60 across the street typically made quite bustling, having taken up most of the floors after changing shop here from Kyoto. Brand new computers still needed to be broken in, but there was ample time to do so. Getting the peace and quiet to have work done made her almost grateful for what was driving most of the populace from the city.
No other businesses to share space with, quieter work hours, and getting a front row seat when the other department's latest creations got the most theatrical exhibition testing in the world. Their stocks were about to go through the roof after tonight, a cherry on top of work and a show.
The quiet made her very privy to the buzzing alert starting to sound from one of the perimeter alarms. The pop-up display of the CCTV cameras briefly flashed with sparks and a large blur shooting out of frame.
Aki pursed her lips.
Something had just blown through the outer gate.
Before she could wonder if one of the idiots in the self-defense force had accidentally driven a tank onto their property, another alarm went off for the secondary perimeter. A glimpse of the screen showed the checkpoint gate snapped in half so recently the stopping arm that would go over the road was still airborne and the guard was on the ground.
There was a very quiet buzzing audible through the microphone. One that became in tandem with a very loud roaring of an overclocked engine starting to come into the airspace around her ears. Aki looked up and her eyes widened at a growing dim light visible through the glassy front door past the desk and lobby. A luminous cyclopean eye of a flood light starting to grow in size. The telltale engine roar accompanying it indicated a motorcycle. One barreling straight at the front door without any sign of stopping.
Her hand darted under the desk and hit several silent alarms, before ripping off the cover and closing a button and smashing her fist into it.
Outside, the road leading up to the front door was perforated. Parts of the pavement swiveled away to reveal a battery of holes, the voids quickly filled by erupting spikes similar to those seen at military bases. Packed closely together in several spots, approach to the front would be impossible head on without tires being shredded and axles ripped out.
The motorcyclist maintained their approach undaunted. They barreled straight up the obstacle, until the very last moment. A quick diversion onto the curb and an upswell where the ground sloped upwards for some grassy decorations was exploited. Skillful maneuvering of the front tire was made before popping it off the ground in a wheelie. The motorcycle went airborne, jumping over the spikes and arcing through the air to make for the front.
Aki swore as she ducked behind the desk, a fantastic crash drowning out even the triggered audible alarms. The motorcycle, a very large and modified rig, came through the glass unimpeded, crashing onto its side as the rider climbed off the seat and rode the sparking mass into the lobby.
Armed security summoned earlier was very prompt, doors kicked open and assault rifle fire nearly blasting Shindo's ears out as it bounced around the interior. Hiding underneath her desk and trying to cover her ears, Aki squeezed one eye open despite her mind yelling at her not to glimpse the grisly sight.
Only it wasn't a bullet-perforated body before her, spewing blood and viscera across the lobby floor. The rider, obscured by a large helmet and thick overcoat, was gradually standing back up. Aki's stupor, perhaps pondering if the security forces were somehow missing every shot, only intensified when the telltale jerks and fraying of the coat were visible. They were very clearly getting shot, multiple times at close range, and yet there wasn't any blood. In fact aside from twitching slightly to indicate the impact of the bullets, they weren't even reacting.
Just standing still under a hail of lead.
An object bounced across the floor, rolling close and stopping virtually directly beneath Aki's nose. Amongst the shattered glass from the door, a crumpled bullet lay before her.
The intruder did not remain idle for long. In a snap of motion, they lunged down and grabbed their motorcycle by the chassis. Metal snapped and audibly shrieked, and the mind did not want to comprehend that such noise was being caused by their fingers crushing the piping in a tight grip.
They whirled around, picking up the entire motorcycle with one arm and hurling it across the room. Gags and gasps cried out as the gunshots stopped abruptly, along with a deafening crash and crumble against the wall.
Aki Shindo's mind became nothing but white noise. It had broken, the typically very stoic woman shivering in a cold sweat of primal fear. All she could do was stare at the floor and hold herself, looking at the broken glass and crumpled bullets as a shadow passed over the floor. There was a crunch, glass shards shattering under foot. Then another one. Then another one.
Footsteps.
Footsteps coming right towards the desk. Through the blaring of the security alarms and the frantic chatter of the armed personnel audible through the radios, she could hear the thing approaching. Every primal impulse of terror was acting off at once, and yet she couldn't take her eyes off the floor. Not as the shadow overcast her knees. Not as blood started gushing across the floor from the direction of where several people had been before an entire motorcycle got thrown into them.
She couldn't lift her head, she couldn't run, she could barely even breathe. Much less try and pick up the gun secured underneath the desk, for what good it would do.
She didn't even know motion again until it exploded into her sight. A hand shot underneath the desk, and that was the best descriptor for it given the decidedly inhuman appearance. Poking out of frayed, thick gloves that had been ripped apart by bullets, greenish plating was visible. The tips erupted in large claws that had no trouble at all stabbing right through the polished marble making up her shelter and workspace.
The desk was lifted away, terrifyingly easy.
There was a hiss, possibly something of a dismissive sneer.
============
Goro Shindo had been one of the first of security to scramble the moment the front desk sounded all of the alarms. The fact it just so happened to be his cousin that threw them on was extra incentive. And yet the knots in his stomach would not stop roiling, despite the man having been scouted out of the JSDF specifically in the hopes of action. He had been anticipating maybe some work abroad, not here in Tokyo though.
"Caught off guard" could begin to characterize what he was feeling at the moment. Complete chaos was a better descriptor however. The radio was a complete mess of reports about what was attacking them, and at first he thought it had to have been some miscommunication that people on multiple floors were reporting the intruder or that there had to be more than one. But that confusion was quickly put to rest when he charged down a corridor only to see a gaping hole in the floor like something had literally come bursting out by jumping upwards from one level to the next. An entryway that apparently entailed a lot of things given he could see what looked like the shattered remains of a marble desk sticking partially out of the opening.
Were those claw marks?!
He shook his head and tried to focus only on what was ahead. Rubble and blood spatters were everywhere, and it took a lot of nerve to just keep his legs pumping as he jumped the gap and ran down the hallway with his rifle in hand.
The radio at his side shrieked, "14th floor! 14th floor! Hostile is on the south side and moving rapidly north! Incendiary unit engaging!"
Incendiary WHAT NOW?! Was somebody seriously using a flamethrower indoors?! Granted he wouldn't doubt for a moment this whole place was fireproofed given who was in charge, but everything about his training back at the self-defense Force said that sort of option was insane in an enclosed space!
He nevertheless ran up the stairwell taking him from the 13th floor to the 14th. And nonetheless to his complete shock, he could very audibly hear the fiery roar of napalm going off behind the door leading to the fourteenth floor. Goro was very relieved that he had an oxygen mask on.
The roaring however very abruptly stopped, and there was a shattering of glass. Looking at the direction of the noise, Goro glimpsed a flaming mass go flying out a window in a tumble. Before any chance of thinking it was the attacker however, his hopes were very soundly dashed when the sight of a Crisis Control Security uniform was very briefly visible before literally going up in flames. The flamethrower itself looked bent in half even before it hit the ground.
Sheer confusion or robotic muscle memory from military training was probably the only reason he still had the gall to look out the doorway leading into the fourteenth floor. The entire hallway was charred, with bits of loose rubble still on fire. There was a round object in the middle of the floor, the epicenter of the cone of black char the flamethrower must have created. Burnt and warped by the heat, it nonetheless looked very vaguely like a motorcycle helmet with the top removed where it wasn’t slagged.
Movement caught his eye and Goro looked down the hallway to catch sight of more flames. These ones were moving, upright, animate in form and motion. A flaming shape close to that of a man stormed down the hallway, ignoring multiple bullets fired upon them from another hall.
Goro was completely dumbstruck. Frozen in place as the vaguely human-shaped wrecking ball braced like a sprinter, before kicking off the ground in a combination of a rushing run and springing leap from each leg. They fired themselves across the entire span of the building hallway in the space of a second, the animate cannon shot smashing into several armed security guards. Multiple hundreds of pounds of human bodies were violently thrown backwards off their feet and through a doorway, crushing them all instantly. The flaming entity, most of the fires smothered down from moving so quickly, seemed to look upwards. Springing upwards the same way they had pounced, they shot through the floor and entered the level above. Already there were sounds of more gunfire, small explosions, and walls crumbling.
The ceiling above Goro cracked and something dripped onto his face after trickling through it.
The warm blood dripping onto his mask snapped him out of his stupor just in time to actually hear what was coming through the radio with any coherency.
"Enemy sighted, rocket ordinance armed- Danger close, danger close!"
Danger close, a term meaning explosive ordinance was being used regardless of who might be close by.
If Goro thought firing a flamethrower inside was absolute insanity replacing rationale in the face of… whatever it was that was attacking them, there was no word at all to describe someone deciding it was justified to fire a rocket launcher in an enclosed space.
His body reacted on impulse and he threw himself down the stairwell while tucking into a ball. Everything went black just as the explosion ragdolled his body.
==============
The body twitched in spasms even if the head was missing. Where it had been, the broken, twisted remains of a still-smoking rocket launcher impaled the corpse into the wall like a thumbtack holding up paper. The corpse twitched and curled, in a manner not unlike a dead insect.
Insect…
That was a fitting word to think of right now. Some scattered pieces of the mind reminded them that the dead mass of meat in front of them was once a person. That, in principle, should have made them matter for something.
Cold spite tore such thoughtful consideration away.
They used to be human too, and that didn't stop others from taking all consideration for them away…
Insect…
There were no more security forces coming at them right now. Maybe some of them had wisely decided to not throw their lives away. Maybe they were just lost and not able to find them right now with all the chaos… Or maybe CCI security were all dead because they had already killed all of them.
They'd stopped keeping track of how many lives they’d taken a while ago. Nobody ever kept track of their life either.
Standing at the edge of the room, with a wall full of windows looking out into the cityscape, the monster was finally alone. The room was dark, all the lights destroyed, and yet they could still see clear as day. They could look out onto the city and see colors that had no word to call them, eyes able to pick up spectrums of light beyond that of a person. With their new perception they could virtually see through walls, mentally visualize vibrations like a sonar, and detect others by means that there were no human words to comprehend or describe.
And yet they would give anything to not be standing right here, to go back to being blind to so many ways of seeing the world through mere human eyes.
A hand was brought up to their face, a glimmering piece of metal that had been preciously guarded against attack up until now. That explosion had damaged part of it, and yet they could still discern the wording written on it. Half-destroyed from the rocket launcher, a small metal plate glimmered in the low light. Only a few words survived.
Shin S-----, --ale
10/03/196-
Type O
The medical name tag was all they had left to help remind them of their own name. The past, their past, had been mostly scrubbed away. Memory that remained specific prior to the operations was vague. Aside from a disapproving father, a sense of having everything decided for them, they were just a random nobody. Just a face in a crowd. Tonight was the very first time Shin could remember themself feeling any conviction of the strongest sense.
Dim red eyes looked out onto the cityscape, trying to recollect. With effort, memories of a life bygone, with only the perception of a human, returned.
An argument with their father, a wish ungranted and blocked while something else was decided for them. Such frustrations and anger were remarkably mundane, even if their manner of venting off the stress was atypical for one of their designation. One that father certainly disapproved of.
The rush of speed, roar of an engine, and wavering pull of gravity offered on the back of a speeding motocross bike. Ducking down and sensing the world at a pace a human naturally shouldn't have. It was one so exhilarating… all the twists, turns, racing around corners and bracing just before they achieved a large jump.
The track was empty at this hour, and truth be told they shouldn't have actually even been there at the time. But the old timer who maintained the track had been entertaining their interests for years in secret. And if Shin were going to be barred from these sensations ever coming here again, they were going to try and go out with one last achievement.
The big ramp typically meant for engines twice as strong as the one they usually used. Engines just like the one of the bike they had... borrowed, for the occasion. If done right, the ramp would bless them with almost five seconds of flight. They had done it wrong earlier once because they were too cautious and the hospital trip was the very reason their father would never allow them to do it again. Do any of this again, any of these unrefined things.
But Shin could understand their past failure at the jump, they’d simply used the wrong bike. It wasn't their problem, it was the machine’s. It had been cowardly to try and use something they were more familiar with, one of the more moderate speed and powered models Shin was familiar with, but the stronger models that had the power to get the job done. They would not be a coward ever again, especially if this was their last chance to be brave.
They rocketed forward, ascended the peak of the ramp and went airborne. The divine embrace lasted four and a half seconds. That half second at the end that followed however, was when Shin felt the handlebars jerk aside uncharacteristically on touchdown.
In the millisecond by millisecond perception, they might have blamed themselves at first. It was only in hindsight, and that strange way of perceiving things where some details may not be known initially, that Shin might have glimpsed the onlooker. That they might have heard the crack of a gunshot right before the bullet smashed through the front tire assembly.
They were more concerned about hitting the ground face first at multiple dozens of kilometers per hour.
============
Light was the only thing seen at first with the next memory. In a brief instant Shin might have thought it the hereafter. Any possible pleasantries about some benevolent force out there taking them were quickly put aside when the light was obscured by a bispeckled face and flood of pain ripping through a broken body. A swarthy old man with frayed gray hair, mouthing something inaudible through the ringing of dimly returning hearing.
Every sensation was fading in and out at a chaos with no particular order to them. The blinding lights, the sterile smell, muffled rumblings that might have been voices, feeling their body but not feeling anything at the same time. All while they were completely paralyzed.
Sometimes they would see the swarthy man again. He was still mouthing something, but the details of their voice were just as obscured as the details of their face in blurry vision. It seemed like forever before they could actually coherently piece together what they were saying. The doctor, at least they got the odd sense that they were a doctor, was getting desperate once their patient was being carted away down a long hall.
"Save-"
"Your life-"
"Accident-"
"Operation-"
"Consent-"
"Permission"
"Life-"
"Do we have-"
"permission to-"
"save your life?!"
A pathetic, painful croak must have come from their body, primal fear ripping through them. They didn't know what was going on, but they didn't want to die. The swarthy man tried to smile and nod honestly, kindly. There was a dim tactile sense of their hand being held assuringly by someone bound and determined to save their life.
============
The next thing they could remember was their own heartbeat, indicated by a pulse monitor. Their vision was spiraling, new colors and sensations coming to sight that couldn't comprehend them at first. Half of their vision was like this, the other was blurry and distorted. And yet it was only the damaged eye Shin could actually blink. Their unblinking eye on the left, despite their neck being immobile, was able to see all around. The room was very tall, twice as much as it was wide.
The swarthy man, somehow they knew it was him as some kind of doctor immediately, had his back to them and was talking into something that projected their voice. High above, looking down like Caesar in their Colosseum, a man stood in a sharp two-piece suit. There was an uncanny sense, familiarity perhaps. He seemed to be the only one being addressed directly by the doctor, and yet… he wasn't alone.
Barely visible through their wavering vision, someone else was in the booth with him, someone unnaturally tall and skinny. The outline looked like they were garbed in a strangely archaic attire, a sort of military long coat from decades ago. They were there when perceived by the left eye, but the right eye’s vision, when it wasn't so blurry as to be blind, offered nothing.
The doctor, increasingly clearly not Japanese given his complexion and accent, continued on, "Biological and cybernetic implants are… holding. Tissue rejection was initially a concern but has been nullified with gene therapy… let the logs know that the M Nebeulan genome is useful as a buffer agent to avoid organ failure from Xilian augmentation but.. side effects are noticeable and self-evident. Means of reversing them I'm still working as hard as I can to amend."
The tall figure, who still appeared by present and absent depending on which eye was the one looking, seemed to lean over slightly for a moment or two. They seemed to whisper something to their company, before the sharply-dressed man touched a microphone on his lapel.
"Inconsequential. Continue the process," the suited man said plainly. It was only now apparent to the test subject that there was something familiar about the suited man.
"But-" the doctor protested.
"Continue. The process."
They’d lost consciousness again, but not before glimpsing their own left arm. Unrecognizable given the green plating starting to erupt from regions the skin was sloughing off.
============
The next burst of memory and consciousness came with immobility. Cold metal against the limbs, restraints bolted Shin to a table.
“Recording for the logs,” it was the voice of the suited man, closer now and in the same room but out of line of sight. Even so, Shin could well notice how their field of vision was much wider than it should have been, now that the left and right eye matched.
This was the first time they truly began to see into spectrums beyond that of a person blessed with normality. Colors beyond description or name, wavelengths and flows so many were ignorant to.
“The physical modifications are at this point complete. No rejection of either the cybernetic components or spliced genes has been detected. Old, useless tissue is sloughing off, like the pupa shed during metamorphosis. We're ready to begin with the mental conditioning. After that, the project can be labeled a success,” the oddly familiar man continued, still out of sight but with a sense that he was standing very close to Shin on the left, “The Successor to Humanity Created by Kaijin Research, a success.”
Whom he was addressing however, was not the good doctor.
“Project SHCKR, “Shocker”… How theatrical. With the knowledge gained, I expect production to be increased multiple times over,” another presence, another voice said. The tone was unnaturally deep, and yet seemed to lack a distinct direction, “Many more will need to be raised to achieve the eventual fate for Tokyo.”
“We’ve already begun work on the next model, Great Leader. The results will speak for themselves within the week.”
Shin couldn’t move, couldn’t jostle themselves free. But sensations were coming through to their body via a twinging at their brow. Shin couldn’t place any of these detected sensations as smell, touch, sight, hearing, or even taste; but they set their adrenaline into overdrive. Sheer primal fear, urged on by the uncanny feeling of something that was, for lack of any better terms, pure evil as a threat in its truest form in their proximity.
They felt some of their body begin to twitch and respond to command with warmed nerves. Fingers twitched and shuddered, spurring an audible hum from the suited man. Suddenly the restraints went taut, metal creaking and groaning to hold ankles and wrists still as Shin finally detected their body reacting in full to their will.
Shin tried to say something, speak, roar, or scream. The hissing, gargling wheeze that initially came out barely resembled words and stopped them cold. In that same instant, something latched onto their face. Colors and wavelengths unknown to human eyes were blinding, detecting forces otherwise invisible. Someone’s hand was on their face, unnaturally long fingers clutching their head.
“Director, I do not wish to exert myself,” the deep tone noted calmly. The accent was very distinct, but Shin couldn’t place it. It didn’t sound foreign, but the inflection was definitely not Japanese. “You are too useful to me to lose so haphazardly if the subject were to get loose.”
“Yes, Great Leader.”
They were forced back down onto the table, mind blanking. Something was simultaneously stabbed into their arm at a place that lacked the thick armor plating atop the limb. A cold shot through their arm and into the body as the atypical hand kept them pinned down. Soon enough, even with their vision altered, it started to blur.
The hand lifted away, and something wet was pulled off with it. There was no pain, leaving the quickly fading Shin without much awareness as to what it was initially. But against the glare of the bright lights above, they caught a few details. A white glove, turning over to reveal a pentagram on the back, held a floppy mass of tissue. Two eye holes and a piece for a nose were glimpsed, and Shin saw familiarity in their own face.
Their eyes were transfixed on their own visage, even as two faces loomed over them. One was the suited man, much closer now as his glasses caught a large glint from the overhead lights. The other, much taller and more of an outline, was wearing a uniform cap of some sort. They were looking at what lay before them, something without Shin’s face and yet whole.
“The Eve of the-” the suited man started, but hearing was dulled out by white noise.
The tranquilizers had kicked in and Shin lost consciousness despite trying to scream. The vacant holes between their eyelids emptily stared back.
============
Once again, the swarthy doctor seemed to have their voice as a catalyst for bringing their patient to consciousness. This time they were shouting. This time the man in the suit was in the room with them. And this time there was an uncanny sense the test subject in the room with them was all but bolted down to the table.
"This?! This is not a success!" The doctor yelled whilst pointing at them, "I haven't helped anyone! I have violated them, violated nature!"
The suited man, with his uncanny and somehow reviled sense of familiarity, was dismissive, "You sound very dismissive of your own creation, doctor."
"I didn't create anything, the other departments told me the procedure would put someone back together. I was trying to save a life, not bastardize it!"
"So you think you’re Doctor Frankenstein now? Abhorrent to the great thing you've enabled? Is that it?" The suited man said with a huff.
That familiarity was keen with how he was more visible now than before. He was a remarkably ordinary looking man, one that could have been passed on the street a million times without concern. Short buzz cut hair with a light speckling of gray at the fringes of his ears, and extremely thin glasses on top of his nose. The only thing noteworthy really was the white scarf visible underneath the suit.
"What in God's name, in any name could any of this be for?!" The doctor cried, clearly exasperated.
"CCI was established to better humanity's technology and armament. We've been building better aircraft, medicine, vehicles, and equipment for decades," the suited man shrugged casually and crossed his arms, "This is the atomic age after all. Cold war might become hot any moment now, and the SHCKR project is ready for it. If we are going to spend so much time trying to create super planes like the X that can resist the bombs and radiation, we need to improve everything that goes into them. Including the people…. You should be proud, doctor. It's not every man that gets to surpass his creator in building a better Adam and Eve."
============
It had to be some short time later, based on how frantic the doctor still looked; exactly like the last vision. He was rapidly mashing at the control console, implementing dozens of inputs before finally having the sense to pick up the computer and smash it onto the ground.
They felt the sense of weight return, restraints undone and glimpsed the doctor pulling out what looked like IV drips. What had been stabbed into their arm before was visible now. The drip bags had the words "Caution: High Yield Tranquilizer" written on it with a picture of an elephant. There was a sense of heaviness when their feet touched the ground, like the body didn't remember how to stand up.
The doctor was holding them up by the middle, his frayed gray hairs standing up on end. They staggered out of the room and into the hallways filled with blaring alarms. Nothing was audible besides them, even with the doctor seemingly shouting as loud as he could. It was like some audible frequencies couldn't yet be acknowledged without the brain fully aware.
Out several doors, out a gate, and finally out of the building. The night sky was alien and eerie, now that both eyes matched in unblinking gaze. Sound came roaring back into fullness with a crash.
A gunshot.
The doctor went slack, and they both fell over. His limp body occupied a large portion of their vision. Dark red spattered out of lips, eyes behind cracked glasses trembling with tears. There was something in his hand, something pushed into theirs.
His trembling hand tapped at a chitin covered chest, just where the heart would be. He couldn't speak, the multiple bullet holes staining his lab coat red at the chest spoke of punctured lungs filled with fluid. He still tapped at their chest intently, eyes tearing up. All he did was mouth the words.
‘I'm sorry. Run.’
He went limp in Shin’s arms, the bloody hand falling to the ground.
Bullets pinged off Shin’s hide, movement finally becoming coordinated as they held the body of someone they didn't even know the name of. Life didn't come with easy labels. Muscles trembled and tensed, the tranquilizers being burned off more and more by the second.
Holding the body of someone who had just died in their arms, shaking legs finally righted themselves. Claws dug into concrete as a back arched. The noise that came out of them, from parting mandibles, could never possibly be taken as human despite being a scream.
With security forces drawing closer, and a glimpse of a tall figure on a rooftop watching, their body finally reacted in full. A single leap carried both monster and creator dozens of meters over the fencing and into a canal to be swept downstream.
============
They’d come here to kill anyone who might have been responsible for what happened to them. All this bloodshed, all this conviction; for revenge. They’d been a nobody, and now they were a monster. The worst monster of this century. A human life, something previously so precious to them, could be snuffed out like an..
Compound eyes looked back at them from the reflection in the window. Eyes that bore no tear ducts, and so they could never cry. The chitin-coated armor, twitching antennae erupting from their brow, and mandibles clicking into place as jaws.
Insect…
Their head slowly lowered, a very human motion of helplessness on someone made to surpass humanity. This city, it had to have housed millions of people. Most of them were no doubt nobodies, nothing remarkable or unique to them in the end other than the chance to be human and amongst them. If they were no longer capable of being human, but only knew the sensibilities of a human life, what was the point of living?
What was even their plan if they managed to kill every last person involved in this project “Shocker” or CCI? Keep killing? Kill every last person they met? If not because of jealousy for them, but because that was what monsters did?
They trembled, slouching forward and putting their forehead to the glass as their forearm braced against it; the motion of just pushing it against the window caused the spines lining their arm to slice into the glass and crack it.
They had all of these abilities, senses, and strengths… and right now they wanted nothing more than the ability to shed a tear. But if creation or evolution decreed man could not see colors unknown with their gaze, then CCI had decreed their eyes would never cry.
All those people outside in the city… unknown of their blessing and how they were envied.
A tremor coursed up their legs. A brow they no longer had furrowed.
A second tremor came, and this wasn’t from their doing.
The building shook, parked cars in the streets sounding alarms at getting jostled. Sirens like an air raid was going on sounded off, filling the sky with melodious wailing.
Another tremor, so strong it fractured the glass.
A kilometer away, Hiroshi paused as the train suddenly lost power and stalled out on the tracks halfway across a road. Various voices in company to him sounded off, many gawking and pointing in the direction of Tokyo bay.
An attack helicopter flew past the window the monster was standing in, unloading multiple anti-tank missiles and salvos of machine gun fire down a main street. The reverberations of its armaments echoing down the streets. The chopper pitched up and away, banking upwards to avoid crashing into the top of a building. The aftermath of its attack reverberated in the hot night air.
A tremor came again all the same, accompanying growth lights and colors beyond definition alongside a sea of azure blue. The blinding torrent that came forth would have been blinding had new eyes not gazed upon it. Burning wrath swept across the air, swinging upwards in an arc to carve through several buildings. Mountains of steel and glass shattered, avalanches of rubble ensuing that rained upon the ground. The smiting subsided, but the light did not recede; instead replaced by the burning wreckage of the chopper spiraling down in a billowing corpse of a machine.
The craft hit the ground hard, leaving a smoking ruin in its wake to wreath the skyline beyond the window.
Seconds ticked by as another tremor rumbled the building, clashing with the air raid siren for power over the world of sound.
Shin thought themselves a monster, a force that made humans feeble and minuscule in comparison. It seemed just as fate decided to give them a horrific chance to experience such an existence, it also decreed even that label would be feeble by comparison.
An animate mountain stepped forward again, engendering another rumbling footstep, as it stepped onto the street just beyond the window. Through the smoke and haze, fangs taller than Shin was passed into visibility. The world was engulfed by a single eye, which swallowed up the full span of the window as to cast Shin inside the width of the pupil alone. It was something Shin had only seen in the history books. A walking, living hurricane of a calamity from decades ago seemingly back from the dead.
This was Tokyo, the year was 1984, and giants roamed the earth again.
Godzilla’s thundering roar continued to echo through Shin’s mind, even long after the titanic beast of the apocalypse moved on.
Eyes beheld the cityscape beyond, perhaps only now fully privy to all the lights still on within the city and all of the sirens going off. There were so many people still here. So many lives this monstrous abomination might destroy in spans and numbers far greater than Shin could possibly comprehend. This enormity was to them as they were to ants. Burn them to ash in its breath, rip their homes down with a swipe of the arm. Trample crowds underfoot by the thousands, stomp on them like…
Insects…
Shin found themself looking at the medical tags, the last remainder of their old life and only gift given by someone who’d given their life for it. They could practically feel the phantom sensation of the dying doctor’s fingers on their chest in a specific place. It was strange, that such an impact could be felt, and they didn’t even know the name of the Good Samaritan.
Shin, their name, could mean a lot of things. ‘Truth’, ‘New’, ‘Advance’, ‘Progress’.. But it could also mean something else. The meaning their mother and father had picked in specific, as unusual as the name was for them, by miraculous chance matched up poignantly. The place the dying good samaritan touched ached in recognition, like it was beating for the first time in a long time. Shin, it could also mean ‘heart’.
They looked up, up to the higher offices were the officials no doubt were. Perhaps the tall man and the suited man they came here to kill most of all. All in the service of revenge for a stolen human life.
Looking out to Tokyo instead, at all the thousands of human lives, something else hereunto unknown called out to them. Flashes of explosions and Godzilla’s azure wrath showed across their face one last time, and resolve was steeled. Shin’s still very human heart continued to beat, pleading the body of a monster into action.
They’d thought chancing that stunt jump on an unfamiliar bike was their last chance to be brave. They’d been wrong. This was their last chance.
The medical tag tossed up and caught in the hand as they stepped away from the table, and was left on a table to be collected later.
============
Goro Shindo limped and crawled their way down the stairwell and into the main lobby, gagging as he winced from pains of fractured ribs stabbing at him with every breath. Crawling atop a pile of broken rubble that looked like it had once been a motorcycle, Goro had to take his helmet off just to see straight. One eye was closed by swelling and his visor was spiderwebbed by fractures, an aftermath of the explosion of using ordinance indoors.
A woman was still on her knees in the lobby, surrounded by broken glass and blood, one he recognized.
“A-ki… Ak-i!” he called out, unable to force his breath out beyond a huff. Every time he yelled it was stopped by his broken ribs.
He tried to crawl over the rubble, but his muscles gave out. The rubble creaked and groaned, sloshing forward and poised to throw him off. He cried out and tried to brace, seeing broken glass on the floor barreling at his face. Goro tried to cover his face, when his entire momentum shifted.
Held by his kevlar and uniform, Goro was carefully caught and carried across the lobby. Through his hazy vision he glimpsed taloned feet on the edge of his vision. Glass was kicked aside to clear space on the floor, before he was turned down and set down next to a near catatonic Aki. When he saw his rescuer, he wanted to scream; and yet the air wouldn’t leave his chest.
Compound red eyes stared back blankly. The body resembled a human in shape, but an insect in how there was green chitin covering most of the form before him. The build was both lean and muscular, androgynous in how it belied no masculinity or femininity in any particular measure. The mandibles and antenna gave a vague grasshopper-like look, augmented by the large claws erupting from every digit. He and Aki, who’d finally snapped from their horrified stupor. The cousins clung to one another, backing away across the floor.
The horrific entity, Shin, turned around and began to walk away. The cousins remained where they were, in both awe and horror as they were left alone.
Aki watched the humanoid abomination depart, stopping only at the doorway and putting a clawed hand on the frame. The sound it made… it took a moment for her and Goro to understand it just spoke, in a very distorted woman’s voice.
“Leave, find shelter or get out of Tokyo…”
============
Shin broke into the CCI garage and suited up. A motorcycle was hotwired, and the exit cleared. Privy of having used them to slash through the wiring, a set of thick red welding gloves were taken to cover up the claws, lest they have to handle something or someone. A look into their reflection, at her horrifying visage, once again reminded her of how she currently looked. A reflection of unfamiliarity that would no doubt terrify any who might see her. She had to cover her face if she was to get close to anyone. A sobered hand once again ran over smooth chitin and jagged mandibles, the hard lenses of compound eyes.
The motorcycle helmet wasn’t an option, it was too small and it would break if she removed the top like she had her old one. The stiff antenna jutting out of her head wouldn’t allow her to just wear it. Left briefly confused as to what to do, or to just cut and go without, something caught her eyes.
A long, red scarf; probably someone’s winter attire. She wasn’t sure why it grabbed her focus so much other than some very dim recollection from what scattered pieces of her childhood she could remember. She watched someone, some hero, wear a scarf like this. This article of clothing might have even been memorabilia for all she knew. Shin knew not who it was she remembered, but the memory was strong enough to fight through even the scattering and fracturing subjected to her mind. Maybe she wore one while riding as a tribute, maybe she’d gotten into motocross from something she once watched as a kid.
Or maybe she was just trying to convince herself about going into the fray in the middle of a monster attack… Still, the scarf did its job when she wrapped it around her neck and lower face. In low light, someone might mistake her chitin-covered head as a helmet or mask. Staring at her reflection for only a moment and swallowing the deep, cold terror under the warmth of the scarf, Shin steeled her resolve.
Another tremor rattled the building and she sprung to action, intent to keep every scrap of humanity she had left. No more waiting around, if she were to die tonight, it would be as a human; not a monster.
Revving up a stolen motorbike, the masked rider rode off into the cityscape as Godzilla marched forward in the background. It was like watching a mountain get up and walk, crumbling hundreds of tons of concrete like matchwood and detonating gas lines with every step to engender an explosion. There was no possibility she could stop it, as the rider gazed upon the nuclear beast of the apocalypse with a mix of awe and horror.
The flap of the red scarf around her neck and the phantom sensations of the doctor's dying hand at her heart were a godsend for resolve. Shin focused on the road, revving the motorbike to a new gear and twisting to the accelerator to coax it on at a blurring speed. Pushing the throttle to its limits to go down the dark streets. She couldn't stop such a force of a nature, but she could try to get ahead of the titan and help anyone she could. That, was what heroes did. And if she was going to be denied her life and her humanity, she wouldn't let go of what she had left...
End of Part 1 of 2
That was one interesting story, Tarb. Love the cameo of Hiroshi.
Finished. And this was an entertaining read throughout. It is certainly an unusual choice for the Main Rider here to be a woman, but not one I oppose. The cameo of Fujioka was a pleasant surprise. And I like the set-up with the scenario here. Overall, I'm interested to see where this one goes.
Kamen rider meets Godzilla yes just yes
I am sad that this is the event that gives Asuka radiation poisoning and eventually leads to her death. I am happy that Shin decided to try to save as many lives as possible.
A surprise, but a welcome one to be sure. The cameo from Fujioka-san was a wonderful thing and the fact that two of my favorite Japanese media franchises are finally crossing over (seriously, Toho, Toei, get on that sh
t) is wonderful. The decision to make Shin a woman is definitely a different take, especially given the history of female Riders. I've said in the past that Shin.....wasn't my favorite Rider due to the movie being fairly mediocre, but the decision to use Shin makes sense for the aesthetic of the Amalgam'verse. Overall, an enjoyable special. Can't wait to see what happens.
Kamen Rider Shin?! And Godzilla?! Awesome! Shin's actually a major character in my own tokusatsu series, and I plan for a crossover with Godzilla in a later episode!
Damn this is cool
Wasn't expecting this one. Can't wait to see how shin's mission plays out and how much more of her past comes to light.