//------------------------------// // A New Experiment // Story: Kamen Rider Build - The Deal of Faust // by BioniclesaurKing4t2 //------------------------------// The woman walked down an alley at night. No one else was around. Good. She looked around and sighed. Soon. With one hand, she pulled out a black handgun covered in silver tubes, with a yellow caution sticker on the side and a dropdown strut underneath he barrel; the Transteam Gun. With the other, a small bottle, translucent pale purple with a dark brownish red base and top, a small silver cap, and a silver emblem on the front sculpted like a front-on winged horse with a horn on its head. She shook the bottle several times and twisted the cap. “It begins,” she said to herself, and pushed the bottle up into the gun along the track of the dropdown like a rifle’s ammo magazine. Alicorn A pale purple image of the bottle’s emblem briefly appeared over the side of the gun before a looping dark techno tune played from it. The woman held the gun out. “Jouketsu,” she announced. Pulling the trigger, the gun poured out a stream of black smoke as she traced it down along her left then quickly across to the right at the bottom. The cloud expanded out and engulfed her. Mist Match Amidst the cloud, a red emblem flashed on, looking like the head and chest of a horned horse with spread wings and its forelegs curled out to the sides. Alicorn The emblem hummed off and on again as a smaller version of it flickered in just above it. Al-A-Alicorn Both emblems flared on brightly. Something clicked, and a whirring vacuum sound started up as the smoke was sucked into the top center of the cloud, clearing enough to reveal a slim silhouette. Fire Fireworks burst down from the top and out from the sides of the figure, the rest of the smoke crackling away in a cascade of fizzling sparks. The figure stood in a slightly off-white Transteam suit with heavy strapped boots. On their chest and face were a pair of sculpted blood red alicorn emblems; the larger one was mounted on a solid chest plate, and the faceplate one was translucent. From the top of their chest emblem, a pair of silver pipes snaked over their shoulders and fanned out sideways into a pair of small wing-like pipe arrays on their back. A thick, banded tube stuck out from their forehead, ending with a rounded pad, like they were using a retracted camera monopod as a horn. Red and black wires ran like veins from under the chest emblem around back, down their arms, and up over the top of their head. Up at the end of the alley, a pony ran into view, no doubt attracted by the sudden fanfare in the middle of the night. They stopped short upon seeing the figure. “Who are you?” they demanded, raising a hoof and lighting up their horn. The figure simply looked at them. “I am…,” she said in a distorted voice, “…Faust.” She held up the large Steam Blade dagger, with a red spoked wheel knob on the side. Kamen Rider Build, the briiiilliant physicist Sento Kiryu, is trying to prove Ryuga Banjou innocent of the murder of the infamous scientist Takumi Katsuragi by finding out the truth behind the incident. He was getting rather close to the answer, and has collected almost all of the Full Bottles needed for the Pandora Box, but what’s this? Where is Banjou? Hey, this isn’t the nascita café. This place isn’t even in Touto! I don’t think this is technically an episode, either. And why am I suddenly talking in English? What will happen now? Sento’s eyes opened to the bright sunlight of late morning. He must’ve slept in again. Birds were chirping nearby. That was nice. He was also propped up against a wall. Must’ve exhausted himself in the lab. Wait, the lab was underground, so where were the chirping birds coming from, not to mention the sunlight? He blinked as the image came into focus. Pale wooden houses with thatched roofs. Hang on, he was outside. He never went to sleep outside. In fact, the only time he’d ever woken up outside was when… “Eh!” he let out as the realization hit, shooting to his feet—which were clad in one red and one blue shoe—and looking around at the town he didn’t remember coming to. “Don’t tell me it happened again.” He patted the pockets of his beige coat, pulling out a pair of small bottles, red and blue. He breathed a sigh of relief and put them away. At least he had his equipment. A pair of ponies walked along nearby, one beige and one green with a horn. They stopped when they saw him and slowly backed away. The green one craned their head back over to look, but was dragged off. A second later, Sento did a double take. “Eh?” he said. Had he really just seen that? As he pondered this, a gray pony with wings led a pale violet horned pony and a small purple dragon over and pointed to him. The violet pony waved off the gray one and walked up to Sento. “Um, hello,” Starlight said. “Just one question…who are you?” There was a silent pause. Sento blinked. “Ehhhhh!?!” Starlight and Spike brought the new arrival to the castle, avoiding taking him through large crowds along the way. The “briiiilliant physicist Sento Kiryu” had managed to introduce himself after getting over the fact that they were a talking pony and a talking dragon, which were apparently big deals to him. “Is he from the Canterlot High world, you think?” Spike asked as the made their way down the hall. “If he came through the portal,” replied Starlight, “you’d expect he’d have been inside the castle instead of outside, and that he’d be a pony. We must somehow be dealing with another other world here.” “Humph,” Spike grunted, crossing his arms. “Perfect time for Twilight to disappear on us.” “So cool…,” came a voice. A short ways back up the hallway, Sento had stopped to look at the wall. Not something on the wall, just the wall. He scratched rapidly at his hair, a spurt of which had shot up, excitedly muttering, “The entirety of this crystalline structure is made of a single enormous, unnaturally perfect lattice. There’s not a single impurity to be found.” He looked over to them, pointing at the wall. “Hey, how did you make it like this?” “Uh…,” Starlight said, “magic.” “Oh,” Sento replied. He looked away and immediately turned back. “No, really, how’d you do it?” Starlight rolled her eyes. She levitated a stray apple from the kitchen over to her, zapping it with her horn to turn it into a pink teacup. “Magic,” she repeated. “Ohhh,” Sento said, turning back to wall. “Should I bring everypony else in?” Spike asked. “There’s no need for that,” replied Starlight. “In fact, this may well all just be Twilight’s doing. Some kind of test for me.” “I kinda doubt that.” “Even still,” Starlight said confidently, “in Twilight’s absence, I’ll show her that I can handle this situation alone.” They looked back to Sento to see him holding a large drill weapon, about to swing at the wall. “Aaag! Whoa, hold up!” Starlight called out. “What are you doing!?” Sento looked over at her like he wasn’t holding a large drill weapon. “I need to get a sample of this,” he said, nodding at the wall. “What? B-but you can’t just break the wall apart,” insisted Starlight. “Why not?” he asked. The drill started spinning. “You made it with magic, just repair it.” “Well, the uh…,” she stumbled, “the castle’s owner isn’t here to give you permission.” She gave a nervous smile. The drill slowed to a stop. “Eh, good point,” Sento said, lowering the weapon. Starlight let out a sigh of relief, then saw Spike staring at her. “What? It’s all I could think of.” “Not, ‘you just don’t’?” “He had a drill sword, did you want me to sound patronizing?” Sento took out a light blue bottle. “Probably not as good as this, anyway.” “Maybe I should stay here and watch him while you go fetch everyone,” Spike said. “Sounds good, yeah,” said Starlight. Rainbow Dash, Applejack, Fluttershy, Rarity, and Pinkie Pie had arrived, and surprisingly, nothing had spontaneously happened to progress the situation towards a resolution. Who would’ve guessed? “Yeah, and why’d ya call us all in, again?” asked Applejack. “I don’t know!” Starlight said. “But we can’t find Twilight, and more heads are better, so…nothing?” Applejack shook her head. “You’re the most qualified after Twilight,” said Pinkie, “so we’d be looking to you if we were in your horseshoes.” “Exactly,” poked in Rainbow, “because I’m lost here.” “How are you able to fly?” Sento asked, pulling out one of Rainbow’s wings. “Your wings don’t have enough surface area for your body size.” She snapped her wing away again. “Are your bones hollow? Or is it magic again?” “How am I even supposed to react to this guy?” she softly pleaded to the others. “Well, could you at least help me out while you’re all here?” Starlight continued. “After all, it’s not like there’s anything else going on right…now…,” she trailed off, cringing to add a pained, “and I said it.” Just then, a scream emanated from outside, and everypony turned, but Sento snapped to attention, his hair spurt folding down. Starlight smacked her forehead before following the others out the door. Outside, a few scattered ponies were running from a bulky bipedal figure stumbling around. It had thick mechanical black and silver plated legs and was covered in pale pink metal plates from the waist up. Three large white spiral drill heads with purple ridges were mounted directly onto its neck and shoulders, with smaller ones over its hands. A small purple crystal was embedded in the front of the ‘head’ drill. Only one of the observers knew what they were seeing. “Smash!” Sento called out in surprise. He whispered to himself, “They’re here, too?” “Smash?” Starlight asked. “Monsters made by human experimentation, get back,” he said, holding his arm out in front of the others. “Well, probably not human in this case, but still.” He raced out towards the Drill Smash, stopping a short distance from it and pulling out a black device before strapping it onto his waist, a yellow belt wrapping around him and clicking. The device had silver tubes running across the lower edge, a red-handled turn crank on the right side, one large and two small silver gears to the left of that, and a pair of open slots on the left half: the Build Driver. “Are you crazy?” Rainbow called, her and the others following him out. “What are you doing running out at that thing alone?” “No worries,” Sento said over his shoulder, taking out a pair of Full Bottles, red and blue. “I’m a professional.” He started shaking the Bottles, and an array of white-text physics equations written in midair floated from behind him out of nowhere. The Smash stopped as they drifted past it, curiously watching them go by and even reaching out at them. Sento twisted the Bottles’ caps and put them upside down in the open slots of the Driver, red in the right then blue in the left. Rabbit Tank Colored emblems of the sculpted fronts of the Bottles appeared in front of them, spinning in before an “R/T” projected out. Best Match! As the emblem spun back in, Sento turned the Driver’s crank, spinning the gears on the front as the large one flashed red and blue and making the Bottles’ contents pump up and down, the device giving off a cyclic clanging sound. Clear tubes extended out from the Bottles, reaching down then one heading backwards as a base appeared around him and colored liquid flowed through them, the tubes branching sideways at the front and back base edges before stretching up and forming a pair of frameworks in front of and behind him, connecting with three lines of tubes along the sides. New tubes appeared inside the frameworks, filling with red and blue liquid as they shaped themselves into armor suits on the die-cast punch cards. Sento stopped cranking as the tubes finished forming, all the liquid being pulled from the framework tubes into the inner ones, which solidified into armor. Are You Ready? “Henshin!” he shouted, holding his left arm out, before crossing his arms and throwing them down and out. The frameworks quickly slid in and connected over him, encasing him in the armor. The framework tubes retracted and the base disappeared as steam shot from the armor: a base black suit with shiny red and blue strips wrapped diagonally from upper left to lower right; red strips on his left leg, and covering his right arm, upper right chest, and the lower left side of his face; blue strips on his right leg, and covering his left arm, lower left chest, and the upper right side of his face. A white spring was on his lower left leg, and his right foot had a tank tread on it; a red spike and blue shaft pointed over his left shoulder; his left eye cover was a red rabbit face’s profile with the ear sticking out like a spike, and his right eye cover was a blue tank with the turret barrel sticking out like a spike. Kamen Rider Build, RabbitTank. Hagane no Moonsault! RabbitTank! Yaay! “The laws of victory have been set,” he said, sliding a finger up Tank’s eye cover strut before making a finger ‘O’ and flicking it. The ponies slowly stepped backwards up to the castle steps again. Unseen, the off-white suited Faust leaned against a wall just inside a nearby alleyway. She looked out at him. Sento leaned forward, the spring on his left leg contracting before launching him at the Drill Smash. He punched with his red right arm, knocking the Smash back a step. It swung at him, and he spring-jumped over it. The Smash’s lack of obvious eyes left it confused as to where he’d gone, but he gladly tapped it on the shoulder, and when it turned to him, he punched it again with his blue left arm and sent it back another few steps. It was a tad sturdier than some other Smash, however, and as he continued to pummel it, neither Rabbit nor Tank’s punches seemed to actually do much to it. The Smash swung at him again, and this time he stepped on its wrist to propel himself over it again. This time, however, it started up the drills on its hands and spun around with a right hook, catching Sento in the chest as he turned back to it. The hit sent him flying back with a burst of sparks and the sound of scraping metal. “You sure you’re up for this?” Rainbow called from the sidelines. “I’ve got it covered,” Sento replied, getting back up and removing the blue Tank Bottle. “In cases like this…” He took out a light blue Bottle and shook it, twisting the cap and sticking it in the Driver. Diamond He turned the crank a few times, the large gear flashing red and light blue. Are You Ready? “Build Up!” he called, shiny light blue armor flying in from the left and replacing the blue parts of his armor in a flash, a short horn tune playing. His left shoulder now bore a large cut diamond and his right eye cover was a cut diamond with a glint sticking out: RabbitDiamond. The Drill Smash ran up to him, hand drills spinning, and punched. Sento leaned his left side into the hit, and the drill rammed into the diamond on his shoulder. Sparks flew and metal scraped, but he didn’t move. The drill couldn’t catch, and its tip started sliding around the diamond as it spun, eventually jumping off. The Smash looked at its drill as it slowed to a stop. “That happen often?” Sento asked. The Smash swung the drill at Sento as it started up again, but he caught it in his left hand, holding the drill steady as it continued spinning and sparking uselessly. A pair of liquid-filled tubes extended from the Bottles in his Driver and reached over to his right, crossing and twining into the shape of a tall cone with a handle, condensing into the drill-bladed Drill Crusher sword. He grabbed it from midair and slashed the Smash with a spray of sparks, jabbing its chest to send it back. The Smash swung again, but Sento triggered the Crusher and intercepted the Smash’s attack, their spinning drills hitting and scraping for a second before bouncing apart. Sento kicked out his left leg, stamping onto the Smash’s chest but doing nothing to it. It looked at his foot in confusion. Then the leg’s spring contracted. The force of Rabbit’s jump propelled the Smash back instead, sending it tumbling over. Sento removed the Crusher’s drill and attached its tip into a hole on the front, turning the drill into a flaring gun barrel. He took out and shook the Tank Bottle, inserting it into a slot on the back of the Crusher as its emblem flashed over it. Ready, Go! He raised the Crusher at the Smash as it turned to him again. Vortech Break! He pulled the trigger, and an artillery-grade shot burst from the handheld cannon, the loose dirt around him jumping from the shockwave. An explosion knocked the Smash over again, but it wasn’t the type of explosion Sento was waiting for. “Not yet, eh?” he said. He removed the Bottle, tossing the Crusher aside and replacing Diamond with Tank before turning the crank and retaking his first form. RabbitTank! Yaay! As the Smash staggered to its feet, Sento turned the crank again. Ready, Go! “Just a moment,” he teased to it, turning and dashing a few steps away before stomping down and disappearing into a sudden rabbit hole. A pair of identical white-line curve graphs just like the equations sprung from the ground and snapped together into a single layer, trapping the Smash between them at the far end. A chunk of earth with Sento standing on it flew out of the rabbit hole and up the y-axis to the point y where the graph began. Vortech Finish! He leapt forward and kicked his blue right foot out, sliding up the hump of the curve before speeding down the trail-off at the Smash, the tank tread on his foot starting to race. As the Smash struggled, the three big drill heads on its head and shoulders started spinning. Yay! The kick hit the Smash, the tread grinding against it for a second before it erupted into an explosion of green flames, Sento flying past it and stomping onto the ground, skidding to a stop as the graph faded and the Smash was left lying on the ground. He took out a smooth, empty Bottle with a white cap and aimed it at the fallen Smash, and its form disintegrated and was pulled away into the Bottle, leaving behind a pony. “Twilight!” cried Starlight, racing over with the others as Twilight began to stir. “Huh?” Twilight moaned. “What happened?” “Wait, you mean you don’t remember being a big drill monster?” Rainbow said. “A what?” said Twilight. Sento twisted the cap closed, the Bottle now bulged and covered by a black spider web, filled with pink unpurified Smash essence. He looked over at the others as Pinkie cut through the conversations with a simple hug. No one could see it through the mask, but he always had to smile at the reunion part after saving people…er, ponies. Then he took a closer look as Twilight got up. “Hm?” he muttered. “Horn and wings? So…if there are already normal ponies, unicorns, and pegasi, then you would be…” Alicorn It took Sento a second to realize what he’d heard, and as he spun to face the source, he saw a white figure with a red face and chest aiming a rifle at him— Steam Shot Alicorn A red energy beam shot through the air and hit him, the explosion knocking him over. As he fell, his armor glowed and split apart off of him, fading away as he landed and every Full Bottle he’d been carrying spilled across the ground around him. As the ponies turned with a series of gasps, Twilight tried summoning her magic, but her horn only fizzled and her legs partly gave out. Faust lowered the Steam Rifle, raising her left hand as it glowed red, all of the Bottles gaining a red glow and lifting up. Realizing what would happen next, Sento reacted as fast as he could, rolling up and grabbing the nearest Bottle as the rest suddenly shot over to her. Faust looked across the 17 Bottles now floating around her, as if counting her spoils, but not betraying her reaction to them. The colored emblems, the pipes…now getting a proper look, Sento recognized the pattern of a Transteam suit. “And who are you, now?” he grunted, propping himself up with an elbow. The figure slowly looked to him as if annoyed he’d spoke. “Faust.” “Faust?” he repeated. “So, another one of Stalk and Rogue’s allies.” Faust tilted her head. “Who are they?” “Eh? Blood Stalk and Night Rogue. You know, part of Faust?” “Part of me? I think not.” “Wait, you…mean your name is Faust?” Faust gave a chuckle at Sento’s cluelessness. “Stay out of this,” she warned, before a burst of smoke poured from the pipes making up her wings and horn, covering over both her and the collection of Bottles. The smoke cloud wrapped in on itself, rising and vanishing with a shimmer. Well, this was a predicament, Sento thought to himself. At least he managed to grab one Full Bottle. He opened his hand to look, and his heart sank. It was the Unpurified Bottle he’d just gotten off the Smash. Useless. “Thiiiis is the worst,” he moaned, dropping his head.