//------------------------------// // Power to Terror // Story: Kamen Rider Gr3en // by BioniclesaurKing4t2 //------------------------------// Coconut Grove flapped her way through the island’s forest, dust red with a purple and green mane, a purple tail, and two coconuts for a cutie mark. Most other pegasi would’ve been too afraid to venture this far from the beach. Coconut wasn’t most pegasi. Butterfly Island had been a paradise for as long as she could remember. It was a tropical island shaped like a butterfly, with sandy beaches along the entire border, forests running across the inland regions of the lobes of both wings, sandbars trailing from the tips of the slimmer lower lobes, a lagoon at the center of the body beneath a perpetual rainbow’s arc, and a large yellow and purple butterfly statue by the island’s head, below which a waterfall fell into the central lagoon. There had never been any real danger—no dangerous animals, not even very many bad storms, and once you learned to fly, not even the high cliff faces were an issue. It was the perfect hideaway for their largely reclusive race of winged ponies. But then… It had started as presumed rumors, just some prank that somepony was sticking to a bit too much to try and frighten the rest of us. And then more ponies just decided to join in? Some part of the forest “had gone weird”, they’d say. Now, everypony had been quick to dismiss all that, but never quite brave enough to investigate and prove it. Until n—achhfff. Yeah, the only danger she’d found so far regarded allergies to these spore clouds. She’d already been planning to look into the claims beforehoof, but hearing about Thistle’s close call, it had just gotten her more pumped. After all, everyone on the island had heard that noise, it wasn’t that big of a place. Speaking of which… Coconut Grove stopped in midair and looked around. She didn’t remember the island feeling this big before. Had she been going in circles, or was the interior of the forest somehow bigger than the outside? Oh heck, it was high noon, she’d probably gotten turned around a few times by trying to use the sun as a reference. Her navigating skills admittedly weren’t as great as she usually claimed. Besides, this wandering had let her find…whatever this stuff was. She hovered over for a closer look at some curious additions to the normal underbrush: some sticks with oddly large cotton balls on the ends, a large pumpkin-shaped flower bud, and some odd purple…curled shell plant? Was this the “going weird” that she’d heard of? If so, she alone on Butterfly Island would be disappointed at how tame it was. Hey, if this was it, then maybe she’d be able to convince Island Delight to actually join her next time. A pair of ghost-white bipedal creatures wandered their way slowly through the forest. “Urrur. Uruh-uruh. Urrerur.” They were following something. “Uruh-uruh-uruh…” Over there. There was a small clearing, still roofed by tree branches, with a small spring on the far side. A dull red pegasus was drinking from it, facing away. The figures crept up to the edge of the underbrush across the clearing behind it. “Urrur. Urhrerer.” Coconut Grove lifted her head and wiped the water off her lips. Now, she thought, back to business. She had a feeling there had to be something more to the forest’s mystery than just some new exotic plants, and it wasn’t about to find itself. One of the white figures tilted its head back and spat forward, shooting a white dart from its mouth across the clearing. “Aig—,” Coconut let out at a brief sharp pain on the back of her neck and reached up to it. “Okay, so maybe there are some bugs, too.” She turned left and started walking towards the trees. She opened her wings to take flight, but all of a sudden they felt sore, as if she’d been using them all day. Then her legs and neck started feeling sore too, and she reached a hoof back up to rub her neck again. The moment she touched her neck, she felt something sliding beneath her skin. She froze as she felt it sliding up the side of her face, and her blood ran cold when she also felt it in her limbs and wings. Silk strands suddenly burst from her ears, hooves, and wingtips, shooting up into the canopy before she felt herself pulled from the ground like a marionette on strings. She took a sharp breath and held it to keep from crying. The points where the silk had burst from were red and bleeding, and it felt like metal spikes had been stabbed into her hooftips and were slowly being bent. They were also pulling from an anchor point all the way up past her limbs, and she felt them moving and pulling along every inch. Getting your wing feathers caught on a branch had nothing on this. Her ascent jolted to a stop, giving each strand a tug. That was better than a pinch to prove this wasn’t a dream. What had done this to her? There were no nasty plants or whatnot on Butterfly Island that did this, and what kind of animal could…unless… Hearing rustling below her, Coconut tilted her head down, pulling on the strands in her ears—owwwwwch, nope. She pushed down and brought her legs closer together, giving the strands in her ears enough slack to look into the clearing below. Yep, that was tearing some skin by her hooves. What she saw didn’t make things any better. Two pale white bipedal figures walked swaying out of the trees, staring up at her. They had faded gray shoulder covers, sheaths over the backs of their hands that ended with dull bronze rings, and a small gel dome atop their heads with two metal chelicerae around their mouths. The one on their left had a cluster of silk strands stretching from its mouth up towards the treetops, probably connected to the other ends of the ones coming from her. “Erhrerer. Urrur. Uruh-uruh-uruh…” So this was it. This was the secret of the forest. It was full of pony-eating monsters. “Heeeey!” she shouted into the forest, partly trying to maximize range over conveying terror. “Heeey, somepony! Heeeelp!” But nobody came. Oh, who was she kidding? She knew no help was coming. Pegasi didn’t fight, they hid. If anyone had been close enough to hear her, the only direction they’d be running was away. She relaxed all her muscles and hung down, limbs splaying out wide like a snowflake, savoring the sharp pain in her hooves and ears as the last she would feel. “Urrur. Erhrer.” Something was whizzing along the forest floor at high speed, stirring up the underbrush in its wake, leaning and ducking around tree trunks left and right. It stared with intense focus as it approached its target. “If you things would like to…” she said, trying to sound threatening, “take one last chance to change your minds…” She heard them continuing to mutter and groan, stepping closer; she closed her eyes tighter. “…Please?” “Urur, urrur, ur—” A streaking light blue blur shot out of the forest and slashed across the clearing, passing between the white monsters. A burst of sparks erupted from the one with the silk as it flew over left. “Hrehhhrer!” Coconut suddenly felt herself drop down as the monster released the silk strands, but jerked to a stop again as the strands snagged themselves on the branches above, the round of sharp pains jolting her back to attention. She knew something had happened down below. Again pulling against the strands in her ears, she tilted her head to look. There was a new arrival on scene at the edge of the clearing, crouched against a set of large tree roots, raising and lowering its whole body as it breathed in a panting snarl. {Armour Zone} The creature was of vaguely equine shape, but much leaner than their admittedly pudgy builds. Its seemingly furless skin was a uniform dull dust blue and looked unnaturally stiff. Spread horizontal at its sides was a pair of dull silver wings with sharp, almost metallic-looking feathers—wings far larger than a regular pegasus’. It had a red pony’s tail several times longer than any Coconut had seen that draped over the tree roots behind it, and a red and yellow pony mane, both of which were unkempt, oily, and scraggly to the point of looking like they were covered in barbs. Minus the mane, its head looked almost like a dragon’s, with no visible ears, but a pair of shiny wide flat crests sticking back that resembled a pincer, black speck eyes set deep in grooves between its brow and cheeks, and a rubbery gray cover over its muzzle with vertical ridges. A guttural hiss escaped from beneath the cover. “Ur, hrur, hrerur.” With only a flinch, the blue creature shot over to the white monster, a Sheerghost, that was still standing, swiping at it with sharp, pointed hooves, sending sprays of white gel flying; the startled Sheerghost could only stumble backwards at the onslaught. The blue creature threw a pointed right hoof forward, hitting the Sheerghost in its open mouth, a mess of moving metal parts with up-and-down pincers at the sides. The Sheerghost grabbed onto the creature’s forearm in response, biting down hard on its hoof. The creature gave a screech, swiping up with its free hoof to knock the Sheerghost loose with another spray of white gel, spinning left to slice its razor wing across the Sheerghost, a shower of sparks raining off the wing from the contact, and leaving a huge gash across it as it stumbled back. The Sheerghost swayed on its feet until it steadied itself, white fluid leaking from the scrapes and gashes on its body. “Hrererur.” The creature leapt into the Sheerghost to tackle it, but the Sheerghost grabbed it, trying to bite it again. The creature pushed its arm off, dropping down and slipping between its legs. Before the Sheerghost could turn around, a red tail wrapped around it several times, the creature pulling its tail quickly and spinning the Sheerghost, sending out a spray of white gel. It stumbled spinning around, white liquid dripping from each of its many scratches, before it finally fell backwards. “Bergeba.” Hitting the ground, the Sheerghost melted into a white puddle of goo that quickly started evaporating into a white cloud. In the 30 seconds since the fight had started, the first Sheerghost had gotten back to its feet and turned towards the blue creature. “Urhrur. Erhrerer!” It shot a bundle of silk strands from its mouth that wrapped and tangled themselves around the creature’s neck. The creature slowly turned its head to glare. The Sheerghost grabbed the strands and pulled; the creature turned to its opponent and dug its pointed hooves into the ground, locking itself in place against the Sheerghost’s tugging. A pair of up-curved spikes grew out from its heels just above its back hooves. It sprung itself up, diving over lightning fast and flipping forward, bringing the spikes down just inside the Sheerghost’s shoulders. “Ehrereh!” The creature dove forward again and kicked its legs back and up; its spikes tore out through the Sheerghost’s shoulders as the monster was launched away, the silk strands severing on the creature’s razor wing as it landed. The Sheerghost flew spinning high across the clearing, hitting a tree trunk and splattering into a spray of white goo. A white cloud evaporated from it. Hearing something swaying above it, the victorious blue creature turned and looked up to see Coconut hanging there. Coconut had hoped it wouldn’t notice her. She tried struggling against the silk strands again—Even if it fought for the right, this third monster isn’t going to be eating me any more then the first two!—but moving only made things hurt more. The creature suddenly darted upwards, and Coconut didn’t have the chance to close her eyes before it had flown right past her. A second later, she realized she was falling, her silk strands having been cut by the creature’s flyby. Her wings kicked into action, each flap swinging the silk threads protruding from their tips and tugging along their full length, painfully easing her down to the ground. Coconut quickly shot her head around to catch the creature as it came by for another pass, but she didn’t see it. After standing on guard for over a minute, she realized she was alone. “I-it just left?” she asked aloud. “But then why did it attack the others? It had to have been after me, right? Did something else that wasn’t really there spook it off? If so, I’m the luckiest pegasus in history, but…then why did it cut me free as it flew away?” Then a thought hit her. “Could it be…? It knew it was saving me?” The forest of a former paradise was now filled with carnivorous and hungry monsters, and though the prospect of a monster fighting to protect them in the face of this was an intriguing one, there was a more pressing matter at the moment. Coconut looked down at her hooves, wondering what to do about the silk strands still trailing from them. She bit onto the one on her right hoof and gave it a tug—wincing, she immediately let go, holding still for a few seconds as the nerve endings up her hoof and arm settled down. “Nnnnope…,” she hissed in a whisper. A light blue pegasus with a dark magenta and golden yellow mane and a dark magenta tail, both disheveled, stood on an empty beach at the edge of a tidal pool, looking down at their reflection. Thistle Whistle stared into her own green eyes, feeling cheated by finding nothing more there. She felt there had to be something else there. Something that was not herself. There was a pain in her right hoof. It had been cut by something, and she dipped it into the water. A cloud of some dark green liquid began billowing away from it. Thistle had no idea what that liquid was or how it got there. Then she noticed she had a loop of thick silk strands wrapped around her neck, a short tail hanging down from it. Fluttering in the seaside breeze, it looked like a white scarf. She didn’t know how that got there either. “W-what’s happening to me?” she squeaked, giving a rightfully nervous signature whistle. “Wwhhwww.” Soon to be seen, on “Kamen Rider Gr3en”… “I think I’m starting to remember,” Thistle muttered to herself. Thistle wandered through a forest with a soap-bubble sky, hearing something nearby. Several big-clawed blue and gray creatures with shell-like gray humpbacks started wandering over towards her. Along a vine on a tree trunk hung several red bulb fruit with purple petals dangling below them. Thistle Kamen Rider: Prologue