It had taken them about twenty minutes to accept that they had lost their opponent, something that was growing more and more annoying with every time that happened. Nonetheless, with the help of the rest of Oceans team, they had made sure that everyone that was involved in the incident was accounted for and was sent to the new MRG headquarters, with an exception for Sunset who was taken to the local hospital, even if her injurious didn’t seem that severe.
The girls had been found still sitting in the backroom, while the two brothers were found hiding inside a broom closet and toilet respectively and needed a good amount of convincing that the Corrupted had disappeared before they are even thought about leaving their respective hiding places. All in all, something that keeps the exhausted Riders on their toes.
On their way back to the headquarters Ocean and Phoenix were discussing today's events in her car, both of them entirely spent. “Remember me to never go shopping with you ever again,” he groaned, to witch Ocean simply responded with rolling her eyes.
“Oh, and you believe I’m that bad when I go shopping? Trust me, if you think that was bad, you should go shopping with my sister. Add her extreme excitement and energy to that time spend shopping, and you have yourself a living nightmare,” a pained expression only selling her horrible memories of the experience even more.
“Oh, you have not seen true horror until you watched Thunder inspect mushrooms for five minutes, each. He forced me to go with him shopping for the pizzeria once, and it took us the entire day to finish. The guy has issues I tell you.”
“Seems to run in the family,” she added, chuckling a little bit.
“Haha, very funny,” Phoenix sarcastically retorted.
“So, what do you think? What actually happened back there? Do you think it’s one of them or someone else?” All the previously build up atmosphere was snuffed out in an instance as Ocean uttered those words, leaving Phoenix speechless and unable to answer. “Phoenix. Did you hear me?”
“Yeah, yeah, I did. I don’t know. Could be both,” shrugging with both his shoulders he looked to her, she just sighed in return.
“Oh, come on, you have to have an opinion on this. I know you think since I’m the government agent that this is my part and you are not wrong, but after all this time I hoped you would at least catch up on something. The Director is someone who doesn’t tolerate something like only being good for one thing. So don’t give this crap with ‘I don’t know’! Tell me what you think,” she replied with ever increasing aggravation.
“What do I care what she thinks. I-“
“Don’t give me that. You already made her mad; continuing to do so is just making everything harder for yourself. Why don’t you just give in this one time?” Her last sentence was spoken with such a mixture of annoyance and desperation that it was almost painful to listen too.
“Ok, fine, I’ll humor you. But don’t expect anything out of that, this is your thing after all. So, I think the guy in the back, what was his name again?”
“Flam.”
“Yeah, yeah, that one is our Corrupted. The monster came from the backroom after all, and he was completely alone. And they were already pretty sketchy after all. Just seems like the most logical conclusion,” he finished all why shrugging his shoulder repeatedly.
“And you are sure of that?” She asked him with a certain undertone. “What about the possibility that he is telling the truth? That someone else came in and attacked him out of nowhere?”
“I-“
“And why would he even attack in the first place? What is his reason for turning into a Corrupted after the artifact has only been used normally?” She continued, not even leaving him any chance to even finish his sentence.
“That could-“
“And don’t forget-“
“Ok, ok, I get it!” This time it was Ocean who had been interrupted by her partner, leaving her in a bit surprised for a moment. “I’m wrong and have missed parts, big deal. This isn’t my job anyway. I’m here to beat up those monsters not find out who they are and how to figure out what their deal is. This is what they have you for, so why are you asking me? I’m just an idiot with a magical belt!” His voice grew louder and louder with every word he spoke, culminating into a frustrated scream that was quite unpleasant for the ears.
“I know, and I never said you were wrong. I know that you are mostly the muscle in this partnership, I get that, but if you never even think about it how are you going to make a good decision at the right moment. You need the full picture, or you are more than useless out there. And I can’t just always give you the answers,” she calmly explained, seemingly not even phased by his outburst right now.
“And why can’t this be how it works. You are far better at making decisions than me. You once even said that I would be best at following orders, ok, with my own style, but still. Now you want me to make my own decisions? Make up your mind!” His frustration showed no signs of calming down, instead only grew bigger.
“Yes, I said that and still think that is true. Your,” she was searching for the right words for a moment. “unique way of thinking most often than not leads to the best outcome and is not threatened when unexpected things happen. Still, if you don’t want to think for yourself why withhold your Magic Discs from us?”
“Because I don’t trust you. Well at least the MRG.”
“Ok, I get that, but why then do you think following my decisions blindly is such a good idea if you don’t trust us. Even if you claim that you trust me personally, I still work for the MRG, and with every fight, we get closer to finishing the analysis on your Discs. So tell me, why do you think following me is such a good idea?” Now she was starting to get more and pushier and to the point, tightening her grip on the steering wheel as she spoke.
“I- You know-“
“No, I don’t. You keep claiming that you just want to live your life on your own and don’t want to be bossed around by everyone. But you just willingly give the controller away again. You burst out against people that boss you around but let me decide anything without question?” Her voice just grows more intense as she continued, letting Phoenix shifts his gaze towards the floor of the car.
“That is different, you-“ He weakly tried to reply only to be interrupted again.
“No, it’s not different. I get that you trust my judgment, and I’m glad that you do, but you are just giving the control of your life away again and this time willingly. If you want that, ok, then give me the data on your Magic Discs. What do you care what we might do with them? You just gave up your responsibility to me, didn’t you?”
This was the line that finally broke through to him. “No, I would still be responsible since my actions made what the MRG wanted possible,” he weakly replied, still staring at the floor.
“Exactly! So stop trying to shove your responsibility on me or anyone else for the matter. You want to be the smith of your own life, then be it, with everything that comes with it!” In the corners of her eyes, she saw that he quietly nodded, his expression still not as upbeat as usual. “So, what do you say about a few interrogations? After that, you can tell me what you think about this case again and this time actually put some effort into it. I’m sure you’ll get it.” She casually bumped him into the shoulder, an action that prompted a weak smile from him.
>-------<A>-------<
It was already late in the night, and Ocean was still interrogating the last of the twins, Flim. Flam had been down for over an hour now, and she was still not down with Flam. As interesting as the conversation was to hear it was starting to get a bit boring. Flam was trying his hardest to avoid any answer possible and even the ones he did give were so wordy and dragged on for ages that it was frustrating to figure out what he even wanted to say. With every passing sentence, he started to believe the girls more and more that the man was a scam artist of the highest caliber, would at least fit this blabbermouth.
After the umpteenth speech of his, Phoenix was about to slam his head against the wall in frustration as the door to the side room opened, a relaxed-looking Shining Armor walking into the room, a paper bag in his one hand and a cup of coffee in his other. Phoenix sighed in relief at the sight of the officer. Finally, someone to talk to that was not to focus on his work, like the rest of the man in the room.
“Oh, hey look, someone to talk to,” he greeted the man with relief in his voice.
He in return simply raised his eyebrow and examined the Rider carefully. After a short, while his expression softened a bit, placed the bag on one of the tables in front of them, grabbed one plain sugar donut from inside it and was about to take a bite as he said: “Second one is for you by the way.”
Phoenix stared at him for a moment only to quickly grab into the bag and pull out the second donut. “Thanks,” he quickly added shortly before biting into the sugary goodness only to stop after the first bit and stare back at the officer. “Why?”
“Why not?” He merely shrugged in return.
“You know why. You can’t stand me, so why bring me something?”
“Because I thought you would be happy? I don’t know, just to be nice, I guess,” he replied still somewhat confused. This got a chuckle out of Phoenix, to the displeasure of Shining. “But I might not get you another one if you find this so funny.”
“Sorry, sorry. Didn’t want to insult you. It’s just that it doesn’t really fit your ‘disliking of me’ stick,” he absentmindedly replied while staring at his donut.
“Things can change. And I still have to work together with you, so being nice will just help me in the long run,” he sheepishly replied, rubbing the back of his head while speaking.
“Hey Shining, do you think I can be a good hero?” Phoenix asked, staring through the window into the next room where Ocean was still interrogating the shop owner.
“What? That does come out of nowhere. Since when do you care about my opinion anyway?” He just shrugged in return. “Ok, if you want. Sure you can and to be honest you aren’t doing a terrible job at it. You tried to actually improve and train. I saw one of your training sessions with Ocean,” this sported a quick glance from Phoenix and a small smirk in return from Shining. “Still a lot to learn, but you are improving. You actually try to improve and better yourself on your own accords, that is more than I thought when I met you the first time.”
“And another question, what do you think is more important, following orders or making your own decisions?” He asked the officer with a look that was strangely serious for the Rider.
With a raised eyebrow he encountered: “Well, it depends on the situation. If you are under the lead of someone else you should primarily follow orders, but you have to know when to say no and make your own decisions. If you can’t do that you will never make it, you have to know what to do at any point in time as quick as you need to. Otherwise, you are going to fail in the end. Someone that can’t decide for themselves will never succeed.”
Both of them remained quiet for a few moments until Phoenix turned around to the officer and smiled at him only to add: “Thanks. You are right, you and Ocean both are right. I have to make my own decisions. Otherwise, I’ll never be the hero this city deserves.” With a heartfelt bit, he swallowed the next part of his donut. “What would I do without friends like you?” He added, his mouth still filled with the remains of the donut, making it quite hard to understand what he was saying.
Shining nearly choked on his own donut as he heard the last part. Still coughing heavily he replied in utter shock: “What- Friend? Since when?”
Phoenix just shrugged and just added: “I don’t know, but it feels right. But if you don’t-“
“Oh, no, no. It just, out of the blue I would say.” He awkwardly retorted, trying to avoid eye contact with Phoenix. “That does however not mean that I’ll stop bugging you when you fuck up, and I’m sure I will have ample opportunity for it.”
In a mixture of sighing and chuckling, Phoenix simply said in return: “Bummer, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. Would be way too boring if that would change.”
Before either of them could continue their conversation as the door to the little side room was slammed open, in the doorframe standing Ocean and she looked terrible. Her arms were hanging limply at her side, her back was hunched over, and her expression was that of complete exhaustion. She slowly dragged her body across the room, all the eyes on her, but no one dared to even make the slightest sound. As she finally reached a chair she slumped down on it in an instant, her head landing softly on the table next to her and a loud and pained groan escaped her through.
“That bad?” Phoenix asked with a raised eyebrow, carefully eying her from a distance.
“That bad? That bad!? Are you shitting me? This day was awful! Dragging myself through this stupid shopping district and investigating every stupid stone was already awful! Then comes the fight, ok, still manageable. But I call it quits when you add four hours of interrogation on top of that with two of the worst witnesses I have ever seen. No, I had enough! I’m done for today!” She nearly screamed, her voice sounding pained and utterly exhausted like she was about to start sleeping right then and there.
“Ok, that bad. Got it.” He carefully stepped closer to her, his half-finished donut in his hand. “Here, how about a little snack that you-“ He was unable to continue as the donut was yanked from his hand and disappeared seconds later in her mouth. “Wow, it is that bad. Was it at least worth it? Got something out of them?”
It was uncanny how fast she had swallowed the small little donut, but she was already speaking normally again. “Oh, believe me, they gave me information. So much information, but at the same time so much nothing. You remember when Applejack called them con artists?” He nodded in return. “I can see it now, never going to doubt that for a second ever again. These two have that written all over them. You want something true from them? Be prepared to sit there for hours to get it out of them, slowly, painfully. This was one of the worst interrogations of my life, and I had to do it two times in a row. You know, I thought torture was illegal, but apparently not, because this was torture of the highest caliber.”
“Ouch, wow. If they can break you, then they have to be awful. You need something else like coffee or-“
“No, no, I just need my peace and quiet for the rest of the day. But before that, I think I can tell you what I got out of them. Claim to have no idea where the Corrupted came from. Say they never heard about anything magical in the neighborhood. All that crap. I got pretty much nothing incriminating out of them. So, what is your opinion on the matter? Did, or did they not do it?” She looked over to him, an excited look on her face, mixed in with all the exhaustion.
“Well, even if you have nothing to really fuel my suspicions, but I think that Flam guy is our Corrupted, but his brother is in on it,” Phoenix replied with newfound determination.
“Oh, and what lets you think that?” She asked him, eying him carefully. “I hope it is not just random guessing.”
“Nah, not really. I might not know a lot about investigations and so on, but one thing I sure know is how siblings act. I listened to you talk with them a bit and from what I could hear out is that both know more than they let on to believe. My bet is on them abusing the magical artifact, for sure!”
Ocean smiled back at him, proudly looking him over. “See, you can do it. By the way, agree with you. These two are hiding something, and I have a plan to figure this out, just have to pull a few strings to get this figured out. Might actually help on some other fronts as well.” She slowly stood up from her chair and walked towards the door again.
“You really don’t do slow, do you?” He asked with a smirk on his lips.
“Nah, that is just not my style. By the way, I’ll pick you up tomorrow. We are going to pay these two another visit.” She was about to close the door again as she turned around one last time and added: “By the way, thanks for the donut Phoenix. That was exactly what I needed.”
He just rubbed the back of his neck and replied with a cheery: “No problem.” While he spoke, his face turned a deeper shade of red, something she couldn’t even notice since she had closed the door quickly after his reply, Shining just snickered at him. “Oh, shut it!” But that only increased the amusement of the officer even more.
>-------<A>-------<
“I don’t like this, I don’t like this one bit,” Pinecone said in his usual serious tone, all while staring ocean directly in the eyes, something Phoenix couldn’t hold up for more than five seconds when she looked as determined as now.
“I second that,” he quickly added, only to receive one of Oceans annoyed looks.
“I know, I know, I get it, but she is by far the best one to fool them.” This was followed by a dismissive grunt from Pinecone. “They know Phoenix and me already and that I’m one of the Kamen Riders as well. And you don’t really strike me as someone that is that good at acting,” he remained as stoic as ever. “Exactly! So, your sister really fits the best for the situation.”
“And any of your officers? Wouldn’t they work better than an untrained outsider?” He dryly replied.
“Theoretically, but we are dealing with scam artists here, they have a tendency to smell any cop that comes near them in any way shape or form.”
“They didn’t notice you,” Phoenix added.
“Hey, are you on my side or his?” She hissed back at him, Phoenix just grinning back at him. “Anyway, not like she is in any danger with three Riders around anyway, now is she? And you get something out of this as well, so just trust me on this; your sister is not in any danger.”
“Fine, but no cheating, is that clear? When this is done, you tell me when another Corrupted appears. I don’t want to be surprised when another one of them appears again.” His expression hadn’t changed the entire time he had spoken, still freaking Phoenix out, just a little bit.
“So, can we start or does anyone have any suggestions left?” Looking around one last time, no one seemed to have anything to add, so she pushed something in her ear and continued: “Ok, everything is ready; the only thing left is you. So, are you ready?”
“You can count on that! Oh, I can’t believe I’m actually helping the Kamen Riders, oh and my brother as well. Yay,” she squealed back at her, something Oceans ear was none too pleased about. “Sorry,” she sheepishly added. “Ok, I’ll go in.” With that Emerald removed her finger from her ear and casually happily walked over to the shop, the three others and Shining Armor were meanwhile cramped into one of the vans o the MRG, observing everything from a camera on Emerald's clothing and the microphone in her ear.
All of them heard the door open, followed by the ringing of a bell and quickly by the melodic voices of the two shop owners greeting her. “Welcome to Flim and Flam's Everything Under the Sun Emporium!”
“How may we help you today? Want to sell something?”
The other brother seamlessly continued where the other had stopped. “Or are you interested in buying something? Like this vintage clock?” He quickly grabbed an old wooden clock from the wall and basically shoved it in her face. “It would look fantastic with your hair.”
“Or how about this wonderful instrument?” The other brother had in the meantime taken a guitar off the wall and was now presenting it to her. It was quite the beautiful piece, covered in flame stickers, but not why she was here.
“Actually, I wanted to sell this,” she held out a dark green crystal on a pendant, an old family heirloom of her family that had been in their possession for generations. “My brother is a real stick in the mud and doesn’t want me to have a job and also doesn’t want to give me more money, my hands are kinda tied, so, how much?” She looked as expectantly at the two of them as she could. The two brothers gave each other a look of poor glee for a second before returning to their previous expression.
Meanwhile, Pinecone was grumbling a bit. “Pah, she is doing this on purpose to annoy me. But I tell you this is never going to work on me. Never!”
“Sure and the earth is flat. You are really not a good liar man.” The only thing even vaguely similar to an answer he received was an angry look from him, something Phoenix secretly enjoyed quite a bit.
“Would you two knock it off? We are not here so you can hiss at each other. I don’t want to miss our signal thanks to your bickering.” Both of them just grumbled and refused to look at each other. “Children!”
Meanwhile, something had happened in the pawn shop. Seven other customers had entered the shop, customers Ocean immediately recognized. “Oh, damn my luck. Why now?” The seven girls caught the attention of the two brothers right away and to say that they were not pleased was an understatement, something that seemed to be something the two sides could agree on.
“Oh, it’s you again and this time with the whole band. What do you want? We already told you that your junk is worthless.” Flam said, annoyance in his voice. “I mean, we already told you what your ‘treasures’ are worth, and we won’t change our opinion on the matter. So would you be so kind and leave our establishment, we have actual customers to take care of.”
AJ was fuming but was able to keep her aggression down enough to not make a scene. “Ah just wanted to take something Ah forgot last time. It might be still back there if ya excuse me.” She was about to walk past them as Flim stopped her dead in her tracks.
“Yeah, I’m sorry that you seemed to have lost something, but we aren’t letting you run around in the back of the shop unsupervised, you understand.”
“Why can’t one of you just help her search? I’m sure that could work,” Sunset added, not wanting this to break out into a fight just yet.
“We don’t have time to babysit any of you. I’m sorry, but we can’t help you. If we find anything we will let you know, but right now we are busy, and I’m sure this lovely lady here would not be too pleased when you start to search for your lost things when we talk business. So if you would be so kind and-“
He was interrupted by Emerald who merely smiled at them and said. “Actually, I have no problem with them searching for their lost things. I wouldn’t want them to go back empty-handed. So if that would be ok, they can come with us. I’m sure they are going to be as quiet as humanly possible.” The seven girls smiled back at her and nodded quickly. “Then this is set, you can come as well.”
“Ok, fine, but only two of you. The room is a way to small for all of you anyways,” Flim said and lead the three of them towards the back of the shop.
“Thank ya,” AJ added.
“No problem. I’m always glad to help. I hope you find what you are looking for. What is it anyway?”
“Ah, nothing special, just an old necklace. Ah wanted to know the price of it so we could sell it, but seemed Ah forgot it yesterday,” she returned, while Sunset was walking right next to her.
While the three girls had been talking Ocean had noticed something peculiar. “Did you see that as well?” She asked, to the confusion of her two partners. “The vase! The one next to the counter?”
“Yeah, what is about it?” Phoenix asked, still somewhat puzzled by her reaction.
“It’s the same as yesterday. Exactly the same.”
“So what? Maybe they had two?” He just shrugged, to the annoyance of Ocean.
“Pretty sure they have no other one, not with that reaction he had as it was destroyed. It was so loud that even the girls came back from the- That’s it! I got it. That was intentional, I’m sure of it. They lured the girls back out so they could do- something back there.” She was now in top gear, completely filled with energy it was almost contagious. She quickly activated her communicator and said to Emerald. “They are going to try to get you out of there through something, maybe a vase shattering. If that happens, leave, but come back right away, I want to see what they are trying.”
Meanwhile, Emerald had sat down with the man and was discussing the pendant and how much it would be worth. Flim was currently holding it in his hands and was examining it with a magnifying glass, making interesting noises as he continued. The two girls were meanwhile looking all over the floor for the necklace. Almost simultaneously the AJ cried out, and a loud crashing sound could be heard from outside, followed by Flam's frantic screaming over what a disaster this was.
“Got it!” Aj screamed in return, the three girls leaving to see what was going out outside, only for Emerald to return seconds later to see Flim standing over her pendant with a strange glowing medallion in his hand. It had a red, blue and white coloring and looked somewhat like a water drop. As she watched she noticed that another pendant slowly started to form next to hers.
“Hey! What are you doing there,” she screamed out, to the utter shock of Ocean and the rest. Flim jumped away from the table in shock as he stared at her, she confidently standing there, pointing at him. That was when a blinding light emitting from the medallion made it impossible to see what was transpiring on the other side.
“I think this is our sign! Let’s go!” Ocean in return said and quickly pushed the button oh her belt buckle, while Phoenix and Pinecone put on their own Drivers. All there jumped out of the van that had been parked and inserted their transformation devices into the Drivers.
\ MAGIC DISC DETECTED! /
\ SCANNING CHARGE! /
\ UNLEASHE THE MONSTER! /
“Henshin!” They all screamed in unison.
\ FLAME DISC ACTIVATED! /
\ 50, 80, 100! THUNDER CHARGE! /
\ AWAKEN: MANTICORE! /
The entire alley was consumed in colorful lights as the tree Riders transformed, only subsiding as it revealed their armored forms, standing next to each other. Truly a sight to behold. Alchemy needed to Charge who nodded back in return, and they started to run towards their destination.
At the same time, Emerald quickly realized the gravity of her mistake, quickly turning on the spot and storming back the was she had just come. Moments later the screaming girl ran through the shop, straight towards the door the Corrupted quickly following behind her, to the utter shock of everyone in the room. After she had pulled the door open and had escaped into the streets the door shattered into a thousand pieces, one part slicing across her ankle, letting her fall to the ground, the Corrupted standing right behind her.
“You, why couldn’t you be fooled like the rest of these imbeciles? Why? It’s not that hard. Hear commotion happening in the other room and go over there. This worked every time, but no little miss smartass here is too clever for that. You know what you might have caused here?” The monster was towering over her, pulling his fist back, ready slam it into her as something flew past them and wrapped itself around his fist. Not even one second later the Corrupted was pulled away from her and thrown into one of the parking cars, landing next to him was Monster staring at him with his unmoving eyes.
“I told you to be careful!” He bellowed back at her, not letting his gaze from the monster for even a second.
“Sorry,” she screamed back, trying not to look too embarrassed.
“Now, back to you. I would normally tell you to quite it since you have no chance of winning and I have no interest in drawing this out, but you attacked someone I care deeply about, so you are in for a beating you will never forget.” Wasting no more time he pulled his whip back and let it come down on Nineteen, who in return unleashed a massive cloud of smoke, covering the entire street and shop before barely slipping away from Monster’s attack.
Alchemy and Charge had just reached the doors of the shop as the smoke enveloped them as well, making it nearly impossible to even see anything more than five meters away from them. “Damit, he is trying to get away again!” She hissed in frustration, quickly letting her hand move to one of the other Chargers on her belt. Before she could grab onto the desired item, she heard something from behind, and with a quick dodge, escaped the attack of the Corrupted that had run up behind her and swung its fist down where she had just stood mere moments ago.
“Alchemy, look out!” She screamed at him as she evaded the next strike of her opponent. “Nineteen copied himself again!”
“Got it,” he quickly replied while punching the monster straight in the face, letting it tumble backward into the mist.
“You will never win against me here. I’m in my element!” It’s voice echoing through the smoke all around them.
“Hey, Alchemy, you think you can handle him here? I would like to help out our new friend, get him to appreciate our help,” she asked the other Rider while shooting one of the attacking copies directly in the head, letting it evaporate into mist.
“Sure, take care of that grump. This will be a piece of cake, and even if it gets hard, I still have my trump card,” he replied while blocking the attack of one of the clones and followed up with a swift kick to the head, the thing evaporating on impact.
While the two of them were fighting the copies of the Corrupted Monster ha lost his target and had spread out his wings ready to launch into the air. As he was about to ascend as a stream of boiling water, hit him right in the chest, sending him flying. As he disappeared into the mist he however quickly managed to stabilize himself with his wings and shot through the fog into the bright sky, revealing the utter chaos of smoke and haze that filled the streets under him. That was when he started to flap his wings up and down, faster, ever faster, until a mighty wind wised through the streets, taking the smoke with it and revealing what was going on down below.
He could see a group of three Corrupted where he had stood mere moments ago, as well as a group of five that had surrounded the two other Riders, or at least Alchemy, Charge was meanwhile heading for his opponents. To his relieve, Emerald was nowhere to be seen, the only thing out of the ordinary were the girls that were carefully staring through the door of the shop. “Let’s finish this shall we?” He muttered to himself as he picked one of the medals from his belt and switched it with his current one.
\ AWAKEN: DRAGON! /
The ethereal dragon emerged from his Driver and consumed him, just like the manticore had done before and clad him in his Dragon Armor, complete with his Dragon Ax in hand. Without warning he rocketed towards the ground, swinging his ax and decapitated one of the copies just as Charge punched through the other one, both Riders coming to a stop right before the last one. In a panic, it started to summon new ones, only for Charge and Monster to quickly stomp them down whenever they appeared.
“I’ll take care of the copies, you can finish of the real deal! Understood?” She screamed over to Monster, who was currently slamming his ax into the skull of one of the moist clones.
“Sure!” Without even waiting any further he charged towards the Corrupted, bringing his ax down on him and slashing it across its chest, letting the familiar sparks fly through the air. As Nineteen stumbled backward, Monster continued with another slash, letting the strange jester cry out in pain and with one last slash across the chest of the monster send it flying into the middle of the street. “Time to end this farce.” While he spoke, he opened and closed the two parts of his Driver again.
\_DRAGON! /
The ethereal dragon emerged again from the Driver and headed for his feet, while this was happening he was running towards the Corrupted. The moment the dragon reached him he jumped into the air, straight towards his target, spreading his feet while doing so. As he was about to reach Nineteen the dragon appeared again, or to be more precise his head, forming around the two legs, his feet becoming the jaws of the beast and with immense force, he smashed them together, consuming the Corrupted within a giant explosion. When everything settled down again, it revealed Film, laying there unconscious, the medallion laying next to him.
“Good job! This should take care of everything, shouldn’t it,” Charge said in relieve as she walked up to Monster who in return just grunted and pointed towards Alchemy who was still fighting the mist clones. “What? But he went down. How can that be?”
As both of them looked at the scene before them with confusion Alchemy was trying his hardest to gain the upper hand over the situation. “You know what? Screw it, I’m done playing with you!” As he spoke, he punched the closed copy through the stomach and quickly removed his current Magic Disc only to replace it with his new one.
\ WATER DISC ACTIVATED! /
As he spun, the Disc water started to form around him in a whirlwind, second later disappearing around the area and revealing his new armor. He now was clad in a dark blue, his golden ornaments only enhancing the majesty of the color. His shoulder pads had taken on the characteristics of waves and his horns as well. Alchemy quickly removed the disc again, and it started to glow in blue light.
\ Water Disc Attack Mode! /
\ Wave Trident! /
A new weapon had formed in his hands, a dark blue trident with gold ornaments. At the point where the hilt meat the rest of the weapon that leads to the ends the Water disc was mounted. “Well, let's have some fun, shall we?” He thrust his weapon forward, impaling one of the copies and quickly swinging his weapon at the next one, letting it evaporate into nothingness as well.
As the copies kept on swarming towards him, the apparent original trying his hardest to keep up the overwhelming force of his creations. For every copy Alchemy struck down another one took its place. It had gotten so bad that they were now completely surrounding the Rider, who was getting slightly annoyed by the whole thing. Before they could finally overrun him, he plunged his trident into the concrete and let a large seal appear under his feet.
“Well, let’s see if your cheap copies can take a bit of water.” With a loud snapping of his fingers, he spun the Disc again, letting his weapon and the seal beneath him glow in bright blue. “Abyssal Whirlpool!”
The seal under his feet suddenly transformed into a massive vortex of water, dragging in everything it could grab ahold of and crushing it between in its center, all besides the real Corrupted. He was just pushed around, as painful as it may be. As Alchemy ended his attack, the vortex sends the Corrupted flying towards the middle of the street where he landed face first on the hard concrete. “Your run ends here Joker because I will keep on moving forward towards a bright future and you are in my way!”
“Joker, you used the powers that were bestowed upon you to attack others and scam them. 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 returned his weapon into its original form, reattached it to its Driver and spun it again.
\ Water Disc Maximum Power! /
“Tide Breaker!” Behind him, another magical seal appeared in the air, and as he jumped forward, it turned into a fountain of water, shooting directly at his opponent. As the Rider reached his opponent, a devastating kick sent the monster flying after it was consumed by an explosion, leaving only Flam behind, laying on the floor like his brother, completely unconscious, the exact same artifact like his brother had.
“Hey Charge, cache!” He threw the strange medallion over to Charge who quickly caught it and took a good look at it.
“Well, I think Ivory is going to have a field day with this one. Thanks!” She moved over to Monster who was about to leave. “And thank you for your help. We couldn't have done it without you.”
“Not a big deal. But don’t forget your end of the deal, understood?”
“Crystal,” she replied immediately, watching the third Rider turn around and leave in search of his sister. “That went actually better than expected.”
“So, everything they did will be undone now?” Alchemy asked, tilting his head a bit as he looked at Charge through his mask.
“Yeah, pretty much. This is going to cause a commotion I tell you,” she sighed in return, already wondering how many people had been scammed by these two.
“Well, better than living a lie,” Applejack added as she and the other girls were walking up to them, both Riders turning their head towards the new rivals. “Now they can’t trick honest people anymore.”
“Well, that is certainly one way of looking at it, and I kinda agree with you,” Alchemy added. “You girls are really good at getting into trouble,” he chuckled, the girls returning the gesture. “Seeya girls!” He said, waved his hand and walked back towards the van, Charge right behind him, also saying goodbye to the girls.
>-------<A>-------<
A few hours later in one of Canterlot Cities noblest restaurant, ‘The Elysium’ a bulky man in a black suit, grey skin, and black hair was sitting on a table with a skinny man with lightish orange skin, blue hair and a blue suit who looked not too pleased with his companion.
“It’s a shame that you failed. But this won't be a problem, won't it?” The skinny man said, a disturbingly chilling tone in his voice that would let every ordinary man shiver in fear.
“Of course not. We always deliver on our end of the bargain. I will ensure that our best man will retrieve the package as soon as possible, of course without any further costs,” the mountain of a man replied with his deep voice after taking a sip from his wine.
“Good. Then take this,” he handed the grey man a silver suitcase, the man taking it carefully and putting it next to him on the ground. “A present from our partner, to make sure everything works out perfectly fine this time. I don’t expect any further complications.”
“Understood. You will have the artifact as soon as possible, that is a promise, and I have never broken a promise.”
“Perfekt. And don’t disappoint our partner again. You know their stands on failure, don’t you?” The skinny man slowly looked over towards the muscular man, staring him dead into the eyes without even blinking once.
“Failure is not acceptable!” He replied without even a second of silence.
“Exactly! Remember that!”
“I will!”
The serious expression of the skinny man quickly faded, and he added in a far more friendly tone: “Good after that is clear, I can’t await our meal. If it is truly as good as everyone says it is, this will be a wonderful evening.”
The muscular man remained as serious a before, not even a single smile crossed his lips. “It is, we hold yourself to the highest standards in all aspects of our business. On a successful mission!”
“On a successful mission!” He replied both clung their wine glasses together their food arrived.