There is a tale some ponies tell… of a long time ago. According to ancient texts dating back to the founding of Equestria, there was a time that the Earth ponies suffered a famine. Creatures said to be minions of Discord had infested the land, terrorising the ponies and leaving the earth barren and unable to support life. Crops began to fail, trees rotted from the inside out, and a thick noxious fog covered the landscape, preventing the Pegasi or Unicorns to come to their aid.
One day, a mysterious pony clad in armor and bearing the symbol of an orange appeared before the desperate villagers, flowers blooming wherever he stepped. "Children of Equestria, fate smiles upon you," he called out, holding up what appeared to be a lock. Suddenly a bright green light shone down on the ground, and miraculously, the land sprung to life. Dead trees bore fruit, dry dusty fields yielded golden crops, and the water was clean and pure once more.The armored warrior then set out to vanquish the beasts that plagued the land, driving them back into the darkness forever. His mission complete, he held up the lock again and disappeared into the light that replenished the earth.
Since then, Earth ponies commemorate this noble deed by holding a harvest festival where farmers from all over Equestria come together to share their bountiful harvest with everyone. A young filly is often chosen to be the Harvest Maiden to represent the ancient Earth ponies. Taking part in a ritual where she must step into the garden, said to be created where the warrior last stood before his departure, and place an offering on an altar, thanking him for driving away the pestilence. The very lock that he held resides within the altar, as if waiting for something…
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“‘And the hero who used it… was never seen again...’ Okay AJ I get you have traditions… but this just seems… fake,” a blue pegasus mare with a rainbow mane and magenta eyes exclaimed.
“Oh yea, like you never told fake stories before,” the orange earth pony with a blonde mane, green eyes, and stetson responded.
“Yea yea yea… look Applejack, I’m one for a good story, but does anypony know if this hero is real or not? And if he is, why hasn’t he ever come back to prove he’s real?”
“Fer all you know he wants to remain hidden and doesn’t want others to know he’s real,” Applejack, the earth pony, responded.
The pegasus groaned, and looked at the book containing the tale again. “Has anypony beyond this ‘shrine filly’ ever gone into the shrine, AJ?”
“Except fer some ol’ stallion or mare who takes care o’ the shrine, no,” AJ answered.
“Is it forbidden or someth-”
“Rainbow Dash, I understand you have a lot of questions, but Ah’m already behind schedule preparing for the ceremony,” Applejack told the pegasus as she pointed to the orchard in which the entire Apple family, and nearly every Earth pony in Ponyville came to help prepare for the ceremony, “Now if ya don’t mind, could ya please wait until sometime after the ceremony takes place?”
The pegasus, Rainbow Dash, groaned annoyed, and then flew off into the night sky, but landed and began to walk, not noticing something begin to take shape elsewhere.
Not much after Dash returned home, she was bored out of her wits, her mind stuck on the story AJ told her earlier.
"Okay you… hero, if you are real… at least show up on the holiday made just for you,” she dared, knowing he wasn't able to hear her.
“Forget it… I’m going to bed…” she muttered, getting under her covers and falling asleep.
At that same time, in the Castle of the Royal Sisters, something odd happened. In the back of the castle, a strange giant zipper appeared before opening, revealing a way into a strange forest. Appearing from this portal was a unicorn pony-like figure appeared from it, wearing a white, gold, and black bodysuit, his helmet bearing resemblance to a samurai kabuto/helmet, and his armor bore resemblance of a green melon with the orange cantaloupe covering his shoulder, the same orange appearing for his visor.
“Perfect. I’ve arrived in this sekai… now to find that lock… and destroy it,” the figure growled before walking off, obviously not too used to his quadrupedal stance, "Oh right, forgot about the body change that comes with this world…”
So he decided to get re-acquainted with his body.
The following day, was the day of the ceremony, and all the Earth Ponies had gathered, and thus the ceremony was soon to begin. And so, ponies took their hard worked crops, and put them at the foot of the temple, and not a morsel was eaten from these baskets. Then, came the critical moment, selecting the filly to take the offerings into the shrine of this particular armored pony. This pony ended up being Applejack’s younger sister, a yellow filly with a red mane, amber eyes, and a large pink bow by the name of Applebloom. As such, Applebloom was dressed with a particular white dress meant for the filly of this occasion. Then, she took the baskets with offering and walked it over to the shrine which showed it was very old, with some edges being covered in moss, not much light going in, and there in the center was a statue of the hero, and below that was a sort of lock and a belt buckle. The lock itself being silver with a black arm and the front having the image of an orange with the code “LS-07” on it. The buckle was somewhat simple with a very very dark blue color, sliver trim, a silver knife handle with a yellow blade, and a faceplate that showed the profile of a samurai/shogun-themed helmet, though it looked rather faded.
Applebloom placed the baskets upon the altar below these strange artifacts before stepping back and kneeling before the statue.
“Oh great hero, who’s might hath saved our kin, please taketh these offerings, in assurance and gratitude for what thou hast done and to show your efforts were not in vain,” Applebloom began, “We are still eternally… eternally… uh…”
She paused and looked at some notecards she wrote, before hearing some sort of an odd sound, and then appeared some weird looking monsters. There were at least three of them, and they had a bipedal stance, somewhat hunched over, had a grayish body shell to them making them resemble insects with either a blue, red, or green main body. They also had hands with five clawed fingers, terrifying faces and odd growls.
“AH!” Applebloom screamed in fear, as she rushed out as fast as she could, leaving the items unguarded.
“Something’s happening!” Applebloom shouted as she ran down, two of the monsters following her.
“What in tarnation are those?!” Applejack gasped as the ponies began to panic.
“Oh my gosh…” a new voice spoke, as magic held out a book, which was held in a hot pink aura cast by a lavender alicorn with violet eyes, and a dark blue mane with purple and pink streaks in it. “Those are the same monsters described in the tale surrounding this date.”
“What?” both Dash and AJ gawked.
“Applejack, didn’t you say the armored pony you honor on this day of the year fought of some creatures like these?” the alicorn asked AJ.
“Yea, that’s true Twilight. But those monsters have never appeared again after their defeat and… where’s Dash?” Applejack asked, seeing the pegasus had gone missing.
“That’s weird… I don’t know,” the alicorn, Twilight, admitted. They then both looked up and saw a rainbow streak heading for the inner sanctum of the temple.
“Hey you freaks! I don’t know who you are, but you’re not gonna be messing today up!” Dash shouted to the creatures.
The creatures all turned to look at Dash before one of them pulled a pretty scary move as it’s face seemed to split apart, revealing another scarier face underneath that made it look like it was gonna eat her for a second.
“Leave her. She must have connections with the people here,” a voice spoke, stopping the monster. “So, you’ve seen my handy work little pony. I am, Kamen Rider Zangetsu-Shin.”
“Kamen… what? ...I’m sorry, but I never heard of you before,” Dash told the Kamen Rider, “And besides… you don’t look anything like the pony the Earth ponies speak of here. ...And you look ridiculous.”
“I figured you’d never heard of me. I have come to this temple with a simple request. Hand over the buckle and the lock, and I shall leave peacefully. But… if you don’t, my Inves… well let’s just say they’ll do some pretty terrible things to both you and your fellow ponies,” Zangetsu-Shin informed Dash.
She looked around at the damage caused to the temple, but couldn’t see the source of the voice, light was starting to seep into the area, and Dash could see the items. ‘What do I do? If I let him have the items, Applejack will never forgive me. But if I don’t, he’s gonna kill everypony with these monsters, these… Inves-whatevers. Think Dash, think!’
She then saw there was something by the fruits, the mock versions of the two items made for practice. An idea began to form in Dash’s mind, as she picked up the mock versions, but quickly used her tail to retrieve the real deals. “Okay, you win, you can take these items,” she sighed.
“Thank you for your cooperation,” Zangetsu-Shin replied, taking the items Dash handed to him before examining the Lock and odd buckle, which was different from the one he had (around his waist or neck), which was a red buckle of sorts that had some straw-like devices in it, and it had a lock in it, which was transparent blue for the most part, except for the orange center of the image that popped out of the green rind.
Dash slipped out in a hurry, as Zangetsu-Shin smirked at the items. “Oh, by the way, about sending my Inves out… this was simply a way to get others to clear this area.”
“Okay, sure whatever,” Dash responded, as she left, and Zangetsu-Shin put the fakes down, before arming himself with a sort of weapon, which looked like some sort of red and silver bow with an arrow tip set at the end.
“Goodbye forever, Kazuraba Kota,” he smirked, as he used his magic to pull back on the arrow’s fire section, and then he let it go.
This resulted in the lock and buckle exploding upon impact. However, he saw something was off, and he picked up what remained of the lock, seeing there was no color in it period. He growled angrily, and shouted “Get that pegasus!”
The monsters, Inves, screeched before rushing out of the temple.
Hearing the screeching, Dash looked back and saw the creatures were chasing her and scaring the other ponies.
“Uh oh,” she gulped.
She tried to keep the other ponies safe, while holding the items close to her, knowing that Zangetsu-Shin wouldn’t rest until he got his filthy hooves on them.
“Rainbow!” she suddenly heard Applejack call out to her as she looked down at her friend, “What in tarnation did you do, anyhow?!”
“I’m trying to protect those items from the sacred hero!” Dash insisted.
“What?! Why’re you even removing them from the shrine?! Those’re improtant!”
“That guy’s trying to destroy them! Would you rather they be moved and kept safe, or stay there and be destroyed?!”
“Guy? What guy are you talking about?” AJ demanded to know until Dash barely avoided some blasted aimed at her, forcing her and AJ to look over and see Zangetsu-Shin.
“That guy!” Dash answered before zooming off, but she was shot out of the sky by a blast of magical energy, injuring one of her wings, and causing her to crash land, she was unharmed, and so were the items, the buckle falling onto her, and the side of it regained it’s color, and changed a little bit, instead of the flatter human face for the helmet, it was stretched out to reveal it to be more pony-like, and to top it off, a belt formed from it in a bright yellow color, connecting the buckle to her waist, “What the?!”
“What in the world?” AJ gawked, as the monsters ran past the two of them, and glared at Rainbow Dash.
Then, much to Dash's shock, Zangetsu-Shin, who proved to be the white and gold melon armored unicorn, approached her, his body indicating he was more than irked at what happened.
"Give that item to me, and I'll consider letting you live!" he snapped at Dash who looked at the buckle, and then at the fallen lock.
"...Let me ask... Why do you want to destroy these so badly? These objects are a symbol of the hope for ponies all over Equestria, and you are willing to take away that hope by destroying these things?!" Dash demanded to know.
"It's not about the purpose they serve in this world, it's the purpose it serves in my own. And for my enemy to finally be gone forever, that Sengoku Driver and Orange Lockseed MUST be destroyed!" Zangetsu-Shin snapped as Dash managed to grab the Orange Lockseed before somehow standing back up.
"You're willing to sacrifice our world and it's hope just so you can satisfy a vendetta against an old enemy who's probably long gone?! ...Sorry, but I'm not gonna give these to you for anything. In fact, even if I don't know how, I'll use these to protect my friends!" Dash snapped.
She glared at the Rider, who only scoffed at her, and Dash growled, before (somehow) unlocking the Lockseed.
=ORANGE!=
What happened next surprised most of the other ponies in the area as a zipper portal appeared above Dash, forming a circular one as an orange-like object lowered from it. Zangetsu-Shin growled angrily as Dash saw his Driver, and loaded in the Lockseed into the one on her waist.
=LOCK ON!=
Then, a standby jingle that sounded similar to a feudal era Japanese riff began to play.
"Uh...ok, now what do I do?" Dash wondered before her eyes turned to her Driver's knife, and then while she struggled to reach it, she managed to slice the lock open, revealing one one side the orange slice and the other had some sort of weapon.
=SEIYA!=
Dash looked up at the orange above her as it suddenly plopped over her head, causing a navy blue and gold bodysuit to form over her.
=ORANGE ARMS! HANAMICHI ON STAGE!=
"Okay, what's going on now?!" Dash asked despite her head in the orange.
Suddenly, her head was donned in a blue helmet with a silver mouthpiece and a golden horn that was like that of a shogun's helmet, and resembled the face on her driver's faceplate. Then, an orange slice fell on her, forming the look of the visor, with it looking like an orange slice. Then, the orange opened up forming shogun/samurai-like armor, complete with an orange slice sword held by her tail.
"Eh... EH?!" Dash gawked as the other ponies stared at her, taking in her appearance.
"No way... Dash is...?!" AJ gawked, her jaw almost on the ground with shock.
“Oh no…” Zangetsu-Shin gawked.