He didn’t know what had happened; the only thing that was still present in his mind was an immense pain and a following darkness. Now a bright light was blinding him, making it impossible to see where he was. As he tried to shield himself from the agonizing light with his hands they suddenly stopped shortly after he started to move them. Consecutive attempts yielded the same result; he just couldn’t raise his hands.
After the third attempt, he started to feel that there was something around his wrists. He carefully tugged at them again, it felled like some sort of leather, preventing him from moving his hands. His breath started to speed up and grow uneven. But before he started to wildly tug on the things that held him secure he managed to calm himself down again, still, this entire situation was more than a little uncomfortable for him.
After he had regained his composure again, at least for the most part, he noticed that he was lying on something soft. His wrists were chained to the side of the soft thing, probably a bed. It didn’t take him long to figure out that his feet had also been incapacitated, both also chained to the bed. After a few more moments the light in the room finally started to get bearable.
While still painful to look around he could make out that he was in a plain white room with green curtains separating the room into smaller parts. On the opposite side of the room stood another bed, empty. As he looked down at him he could make out that he wore some lime green clothes, something that looked like an overly large painter smock. Next to him stood a strange beeping machine with a monitor. All of this didn’t make any sense.
The moment the confusion had set in a stinging pain went through his whole body, forcing out a pained grown of him. While this was happening the machine that was standing next to him increased in frequency and volume. He hadn’t noticed it until now, but his chest was arching like crazy, only increasing in intensity as time went by. Every second the pain only increased, like someone was slowly carving away his flesh, layer by layer.
After what seemed like an eternity a door he could not see was slammed open, letting everything in the room shake, some things even threatening to fall over. “Where is this idiot?” A voice shouted out to him, a voice he would recognize everywhere. And indeed seconds later his brother was charging towards him, only coming to screeching halt centimeters before his bed.
Before he could even make any attempted to ask him what was going on here he was cut short by him: “You are the biggest idiot I have ever seen! How can you do this to me? You know how worried I was about you? No, of course not! You… You… I’m, glad you are ok.” The expression of his brother was a mixture of relive and anger.
After a few seconds of stunned silence, Phoenix just chuckled and relaxed a bit, letting his head sink back into the pillow behind his back. “Don’t worry, I’m fine. And will be even better when I actually pummel this stupid Corrupted into submission. Just untie me and I will get right on that.”
But nothing happened and just silence filled the room. After about a minute of Thunder avoiding the looks of his brother who still was laying there awaiting him to reply, he weakly replied: “No! No, I will not do that, not before someone else had a little talk with you.” Right on cue Ocean stepped in sight of the strapped down Rider, a cold and determent look on her face.
Without saying a single word she walked right towards him, eyes not even for a second breaking contact with his. “He… Hey Ocean, nice to see you. I heard you wanted to talk with…” He was cut short rather rudely by her with a hard slap to the face, Phoenix out of shock just tugging at his restraints again.
“Oww, what was that for? You know that it is not a good idea to hit someone in a hospital bed.” Was all he could muster as he stared at them in confusion while his cheek stung like it had just been hit by a truck. He increased his efforts to break free from his restraints, tugging ever harder at them.
While Phoenix was trying his hardest to get out of the restraints that kept him bound to the bed Ocean just remained calm, early calm. She spoke no word and just stared at him with her cold expression; it only caused Phoenix to struggle even harder.
“I just have one question for you. When was the last time you slept? And getting knocked out by a Corrupted doesn't count.” He was about to reply as she added: “And don’t even think about lying to me, I know when you do.” She was not loud, she was not aggressive but she still sounded threatening, so much so that Phoenix stopped any attempt at breaking free from his restraints and instead just stared at her. With every passing second, the situation just got more and more uncomfortable.
It took him an entire minute to even get a single word out, all while Ocean just kept staring at him with that look that seemed to get right through him and into his thoughts. “I… You know… You remember the day we, you know, investigated that murder?” She just nodded, without breaking eye contact for even a moment. “Well, yeah, basically since then.” The embarrassment was unbearable, his head was steaming and the worst part she still had his eyes in some sort of hypnosis, or at least it felt like it. He could just not look away from her, try as hard as he wanted.
“Wait, what do you mean you haven’t slept since Saturday? That is one hundred and twenty hours? How could he not sleep for so long, he didn’t seem very sleepy and exhausted, wouldn’t that be the case?” Thunder interrupted their little staring contest, to the relive of Phoenix. A look of confusion was written on his face as he stared at the two.
Ocean was the first to break the silence as she coldly replied. “Well, if his Driver functions similarly to mine, I think that should not be a problem. Whenever I change the Charger and transform into another form my energy is to a certain extent restored, minor wounds and general energy. That way you can jump into the battle at least somewhat refreshed. I have the suspicion that Phoenix here just used this little trick outside of battle to skip sleeping.”
He just sighed in return and let himself slump back into the bed. “Yeah, that is pretty much what happened. I used the Discs to regain my energy and skip sleeping. I was always in top form, why wouldn’t I use that. I could get more training done that way. I thought it would be wrong if I wouldn’t do that. And no one could notice since I was top fit. It is perfect; I can actually catch up to you when I work more.” A smile of pure joy crept onto his face as he went on. But as he saw Oceans disapproving frown it evaporated as quickly as it had appeared.
“Oh, Phoenix.” Her sigh was not one filled with disappointment like he had expected, but one filled with pity. “You know there are more reason why we actually sleep then just restoring energy? Only because you don’t have to worry about lack of energy doesn’t mean you can simply skip sleeping.”
Phoenix just looked at her confused. “What do you mean? What else is sleep for besides resting and recharging your batteries?”
“Well, you are right. It is to ‘recharge your batteries’, but that does not only mean that you restore your body to full energy. It also is so that your brain can process what happened to you. You need to sleep so you don’t go insane and the Discs can’t help you with that, trust me. I have seen it happen time and time again. If you don’t sleep enough you started to get easily distracted. Your mind doesn't work like it is supposed to and it gets harder for you to think. And if you stay awake for even longer you even start to hallucinate. There is more to sleep then simple replenishing your energy.”
Phoenix just lay there, stunned, his mind searching for any excuse he could find to tell her she was wrong. “I… You know… That doesn't mean that that happened to me. Magic might take care of that as well. I didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary.”
She just sighed. “You know how often I heard the ‘I didn't notice anything’- an excuse. Too often to keep track of it. Like I said, I have seen this time and time again and you hit every symptom that was not caused by lack of energy. Ever since Monday, you have been slow on the uptake and extremely absentminded. Add to that that you started to function sloppier and sloppier on the battlefield. And judging from what officer Armor told me it was even worse in your fight with Sixteen. You can't fool me.”
“I… I… Wait, Shining was at the festival? Where? I did not see him.”
“I send him there since you forgot your phone. He came in right as the attack started, he saw the whole thing, just couldn’t get to you thanks to the battle. He saw everything. But that doesn't matter right now; we are talking about your reckless behavior, not about officer Armor.“ Phoenix shifted nervously in the bed; well as good as he could at least. “You wanted to train more so you could protect them better didn’t you?” Without even waiting for any kind of answer she continued. “But what you did was the exacted opposite. You endangered civilians because you did not care about your wellbeing and didn’t simply ask me. I would have trained you. But no, you acted without consoling me and without knowing the full contexed and endangered civilians with your recklessness.”
“I… I…”
“I wasn’t done. You ignored any help I offered you. I tried to help you, but no, you just ignore me. I actually thought you were starting to trust me, but apparently no, you don’t. I don’t even know why I didn’t tell mother about all of this. Right now I don’t know if we shouldn’t just confiscate your Driver and give it to someone more capable who can use it responsibly,” she continued her tirade, still with that cold and confident tone, mixed with a bit of disappointment.
“Wait, what do you mean with ‘didn’t tell my mother’?” He asked in confusion.
Ocean just sighed and continued. “She has just come to the city today. She wanted to see you, that was the reason I sent officer Armor to get you. She doesn't think you have it in you to be a Kamen Rider. Right now I don’t know why, but I didn’t tell her about your little stunt here. She only knows that a Corrupted got the better of you, so right now you can still keep your Driver. But if you don’t learn from this, it is gone faster than you can say ‘Ups’. Did I make myself clear?”
Phoenix simply nodded, letting his gaze drift down towards the floor. After a few minutes of awkward silence, Ocean spoke up again. ”Good, I think we are done here. Why don’t we let you catch some sleep?” She gestured Thunder towards the exit, who in return looked back at his brother one last time, sighed and slowly trotted towards the door. Right behind him was Ocean, who, as she turned off the light and closed the door simply added: “Sleep tight.”
>-------<A>-------<
It had been a few hours had passed since Ocean and Thunder had left the room and left him alone in the dark. Well, it was almost completely dark, only the light of the machine next to him eliminated the room. He hadn’t managed to get a second of sleep since then. Whenever he closed his eyes for a bit a feeling was nagging on the back of his head telling him that he could spend his time way better. Added to this was the fact that the images of Alkahest victims kept appearing in his mind constantly, nagging on him how he failed them.
He was starting to get restless and about to start tugging on his restrained again as he heard the door slowly opening and closing again. The tension in the room started to rise again, growing with every footstep he heard that was coming closer and closer towards him. He was about to scream for help as someone stepped into the light of the monitor revealing officer Armor. “Puh, it’s only you. And I thought I might have a problem.” As far as he could tell with the limited light Shining just raised his eyebrow. “So, let me guess, come to gloat and proclaimed ‘told you so’? Come on, let’s get this over with.”
To his surprise, the officer just remained silent, snatched a chair that was standing on a table just out of sight, placed it right next to the bed and set down. He continued to play silent as he crossed his arms and stared at him, making this whole thing somewhat awkward.
After what felt like an eternity he finally spoke up. “So, you haven’t slept in five days so you could train more?”
“Yeah, pretty much. Come on; tell me how stupid I was so I can be alone again?” He replied in a dismissive tone.
“Oh, you are stupid and an idiot and don’t think everything through…”
“Yeah, yeah, I get it. I’m the inexperienced and stupid idiot. Someone else should have been Alchemy. I know, I know. It is like you are a broken record,” he scoffed.
“If you would be so friendly and let me finish. Like I said, you are stupid and an idiot and don’t think everything through, but in the end, you at least did it for the right reasons.”
Now Phoenix was confused, had he just said that he did something right, at least in some way? “Wait, wait, what? Did you just say something positive about me?”
Shining chuckled in return. “Oh, don’t think that is going to become the norm. I just have to give credit where credit is due. You wanted to help and protected, so you decided that you would need to train more, that is good. Means you are not just sitting around all day and expected things to magically work out. But the fact that you sacrifice sleep for that, even if you are not physically affected is really stupid. Add to that that you didn’t even ask any of us to help you and you have the recipe for a disaster. So, why did you do this? I have a suspicion, but I want to hear it from you.”
Phoenix was stunned, he couldn’t reply for a few moments so out of left field was all of this. After he had gathered his thought he weakly replied: “Ok, I’ll tell you. But promise me, don’t mock me for this.” Shining nodded in return. “The reason I did this was basically all due to the fact that I saw Paint Brushes corps. It made me angry and discussed. I couldn’t sleep that night and decided to look for Alkahest and with the Magic Discs avoid any problems that would lack sleep cause. Didn’t find him, obviously, so I did it again next night and this time… this time I found him and he destroyed me. He murdered that man right in front of me and I couldn’t stop him even in the slightest. I… I just couldn’t let this happen again.”
“Like I already said, there is no shame in admitting the fact that a corpse affected you. I know what you mean. I can get consumed by it as well, but I have friends that can snap me out of it. But you, you just ignored these people. You carried that burden yourself without any kind of reason. Trust me; no one will think less of you simply because you ask for help.”
He just nodded in return. Shining was about to stand up again and leave he heard Phoenix speak up again. “Thanks.”
Shining replied with a soft chuckle and: “Don’t worry about it. But just so you know don’t expect this to turn into a regular thing.”
A smile crept onto Phoenix’s face as he replied: “Figured as much. Oh, by the way, there is something I still haven’t told Ocean about since she left me here. You know, there was one of the friends of your sister next to me at one point during the fight. Why she didn’t flee is beyond me but there was something else that was just strange. At one point in the fight, she stuck her head out so she could get a glimpse at the monster and the Corrupted saw her. His reaction was rather interesting. He said something along the lines of ‘there you are’. I think our friend might have been looking for her.”
In an instant Shining’s posture had changed, while he had been quite relaxed up until now he was now rushing towards the exit and without even any kind of goodbye had left the room, leaving a rather taken aback Phoenix behind. “A little goodbye would have been nice,” he muttered to himself as he kept staring at the closed door. That was when his eyes started to get heavy and he slowly drifted into a peaceful sleep.
>-------<A>-------<
It was the last day of the festival and three days had passed since the last attack on it. Still, this had not discouraged people from rebuilding and at least enjoys one last day of it. Under the eager attended was one special student of CHS, Pinkie Pie. Even after what had happened last time she was still eager to attend the rest of the festival, one monster attack would not ruin her fun that was for certain.
As she walked through an alleyway her necklace bounced up and down thanks to her energetic way of walking. The alley was empty, except for her, apparently, not many people know of this shortcut. As she was casually walked through the alley she could hear footsteps coming from behind. As she looked back she spotted a girl with lime green skin and blond hair. She wore a shirt and skirt consisting out of a wild array of colors. Pinkie knew the girl, she was another student of CHS, her name was Party Animal. She enjoyed party nearly as much as Pinkie herself did. In an instant Pinkie had rushed over to the girl and now was grinning directly at her.
“Hey Party Animal, are you also going to the festival? Oh, we could go together that would be so fun!” The girl just looked with contempt at her, Pinkie just looks back in her best-confused expression possible. “Did I do something wrong? Did I miss your birthday? Oh no, that has to be it! I’m so sorry!”
“Shut up!” She barked back, shoving Pinkie back a few feet. “Goodness, you are so annoying. No, you didn’t forget it, you threw the best party I have ever seen,” she almost growled at Pinkie. “Your parties are always the best, no competition.”
“Aww, thank you. I’m just doing it to make people happy.”
“I said shut up! You know, because your parties are always so good no one asks me to host one for once. You even held one for me on my birthday, the one time where I could finally host a party again, I even had everything already ready, but you, you ruined everything. My parties just can’t compete with yours! I once actually got to hold parties and not just attend them!”
Pinkie had taken a few steps back out of shock. “I… I’m sorry; I didn’t know you liked party planning as much as me. Why didn’t you say anything, we could have planned one together. There is nothing better than having fun with friends. How about we plan the next one…” But she was cut short by Party Animal, who was only fuming more.
“Enough! You had your chance, but you threw it away. Now you will pay!” She quickly draws a Knife from her pocket, one that had a quite peculiar form; it almost looked like a needle, at least the blade. Within moments she was consumed by a bright red light that made it quite hard to see. Right at the moment, the light began to subside Pinkie threw something at the monster. It was a bunch of sprinkles. The moment they hid the body of the newly formed Corrupted they exploded into a pink cloud, letting the monster grunt out.
While the Corrupted was blinded Pinkie was rushing towards the end of the alleyway as something fell down next to her. “I’ll take it from here. Good work!” With that Charged boosted towards the Corrupted who right now had managed to finally regain his vision. The first thing she saw was a red fist smashing her right into the face, letting sail right into the next wall and ultimately through it. She landed rather unceremoniously in an empty warehouse; only the empty shelves were still standing.
As she was about to stand up again and rush towards the giant hole in the wall Charge was already charging at her with her engines. The only thing she could do right now was to shield herself from the impact by crossing her arms in front of her like a shield. And not a second too late as Charge slammed her fist right at her, letting her slide back a few steps. As Charge dashed forward to deliver her next blow Sixteen finally managed to go on the offensive.
The Corrupted was about to counter with her claws, which would deal a massive blow to her as something stopped her mid attack, one of Charges batons had halted the attack. And within another second the Corrupted was slammed in the chest with the other baton, trembling backward a few steps.
“You! You are just getting in my way, like that other costumed freak I pummeled into the ground a few days ago. I warn you, if she gets away thanks to you, you will regret it!” The Corrupted growled at her.
“Good, that is exactly where I should be!” She retorted and started to swing her batons again. Sixteen, on the other hand, was not just standing there and simply countered with her own blades, letting the Corrupted and the Rider trade blows for a while. Both were unwilling to budge even an inch. When one lost ground it didn’t take long for them to retaliate and in return force their opponents back.
After they had traded blows again, which ended in a stalemate, just like countless times before Sixteen growled at Charge: “Why? Why are standing in my way? You don’t know how annoying this girl can be. When she is gone everything will be fine again and I can finally host parties like before. Everything will be like it was before she took my place. Everything will be good again.” Sixteen was about to charge towards her opponent again as a loud flick could be heard echoing through the warehouse.
“Hey Blady, you really need to stop living in the past. You will lose sight of what is in front of you,” a voice boomed through the room, the Corrupted stopped dead in his tracks and frantically looked around the room for the origin of the new voice. “Really, killing a girl just she makes better parties than you is really petty. Why not ask for help or just try harder. Surely murder is not the best option here.”
“Show yourself so I can smash your head in you know-it-all!” She growled back into the room, all while still frantically looking for the newcomer.
“Sure, just let me give you one last piece of advice. If you let yourself get consumed by what happened you will never be ready to face what will come next. That is why I will keep moving forward towards a bright future!” With that Alchemy threw his shield, it bouncing off a wall and hitting the Corrupted right in the face, letting her tumble backward. Like usual the shield bounced back and was caught by Alchemy who was just now stepping out of the shadows.
“Oh, it’s only you. And I thought someone actually dangerous was here. This should be easy.”
“If you think so, you are welcome to try, but I have to warn you. I’m properly rested,” he jokingly replied, Charge just chuckled.
That was enough to get the Corrupted fuming and she charged towards the new Rider in the room. Completely missing the fact that Charge was still next to her. Before she could even get halfway towards him she was hit in the back with both of Charge’s batons slamming down on her, basically cementing her into the ground.
She didn’t even have any chance to react as Alchemy’s shield came rushing towards her and her face. Like a wet sack of flour, she was thrown through the air and crashed into one of the shelves that promptly crashed down on top of her. “Uh, you are so going to regret this!”
“Highly doubt it.” Charge dryly replied as she unloaded her Charge Magnum on the Corrupted, who in return cried out in pain. “You should notice that you are completely outmatched. Surender and we will make this as pleasant as it can be.”
“Screw you! I will never surrender to the likes of you. I will again become the best party planner in all of Canterlot City!” She started to laugh uncontrollably as she stood up again, parts of the shelf falling off of her. In an instant she had slashed with her claws into the air, unleashing one of her energy attacks on the two Riders.
Alchemy was the first to react and rushed in front of Charge, covering them bot with his shield. While he was pushed back by the sheer force of the attack, it was still not enough to force him of his two feet. The moment the attack had gone by Charge jumped over her partner and rocketed directly for the Corrupted, slamming her into the wall again with a devastating punch to her gut.
And right afterward Alchemy had caught up to the two and grabbed their opponent at the neck. With a swift motion, he threw the girl back out of the hole she had been thrown inside. She rolled on the hard asphalt outside for a while, her senses completely scrambled. She didn’t even know where up and where down where.
“Blady, you used the powers that were bestowed upon you to attack other people and destroy public property and tried to murder an innocent young girl. By the magic that was bestowed upon me, I deem you unworthy of your powers and will now take them from you!” While he spoke he slowly walked outside the huge hole in the wall and towards the beaten and battered Corrupted. With a satisfied motion, he started to spin his Disc the moment he stepped close enough towards the girl.
\ Earth Disc Maximum Power! /
Like before orange energy was starting to gather into his right foot, he jumped up and started a continues front-flip. As he started to descend towards the Corrupted he stretched out his right leg and at the moment of the contact slammed it down hard on the Corrupted. A massive explosion consumed the Alleyway and made seeing anything basically impossible. As the dust had settled down there stood the girl again, her legs shaking, but still conscious. Next to her the strange knife.
He carefully stepped closer to the girl, she kept her eyes on him and slowly staggered backward, nearly falling over when she was caught by Pinkie. “Gotcha!” With a confused look Party Animal looked up towards the bouncy pink girl that had just saved her from a rather hard fall. “Are you ok?” She smiled at her with the most sincere smile he had ever seen.
“Why? Why did you catch me? I wanted to kill you.” She croaked out weakly, staring at her in disbelief.
“Oh silly, because you are my friend. Why wouldn’t I help you?” Words failed the girl and instead tears started to form in the corner of her eyes. “Sorry that I didn't notice how much you love organizing parties. If you would have told me I would have asked for your help.”
This was the last straw for Party Animal, she broke out into tears that dripped down her cheeks.”I’m sorry, I’m so sorry! I hope you can forgive me. And I would love to plan a party with you Pinkie.” It didn’t take much longer after that until she drifted into unconsciousness.
Meanwhile, Charge had joined them and inspected the artifact carefully. She then tossed it over to Alchemy who managed to catch it. “Take it, this shouldn’t be anything we have encountered before.”
“Got it.” And with that, he pulled out his Flame Disc and started to absorb the magical energy from the artifact. When he was finished and the knife had reverted back to a normal one an orange orb of energy emerged from it and flew off towards the horizon.
“Hey, thanks for giving me my necklace back and that I could help you,” Pinkie basically screamed at them, still holding the unconscious girl in her arms. “Tell me when we can do this again.” The bright smile on her lips just grows ever bigger with every passing second.
“I don’t think this is such a good…” Alchemy was about to say as he was interrupted by Charge.
“We will make sure to call you when we need your help again,” she added, to the utter bafflement of Alchemy.
After the rest of the Ocean’s team had arrived and she turned back into her normal outfit both Riders were standing a few meters away from the two girls, enough so they could not be heard. Alchemy was staring at her in disbelief, at least as good as he could with the helmet still on. She just chuckled a bit and replied with a simple: “Gets her off my back for a while. I have no intent to call her for anything for now anyway.” That made more sense to him and he quickly nodded.
A few moments of silence followed, they were only interrupted by Alchemy speaking up again. “I’m sorry. I fucked up, again. I should have just asked for help.”
After a few more moments of silence Ocean started to smile. “Well, at least you are learning. Maybe we can still make a respectable hero out of you.”
Both just chuckled in return when suddenly seemingly out of nothing Pinkie poped in from behind them. “Oh, are you having a bonding moment? Can I join in?”
Both jumped back a few steps thanks to the sudden intrusion of one pink smiling girl and simultaneous both of them shouted back at her.
"Pinkie!”
“Pinkie!”
The girl in question just started to laugh back at them. It didn’t take long before all three were laughing.