//------------------------------// // Chapter 4: Let's Ride // Story: Kamen Rider EqG // by BioniclesaurKing4t2 //------------------------------// Let’s Ride ɘbiЯ ƨ‘ƚɘ⅃ It was getting to be evening, too late to call a full meeting, but news of what happened just couldn’t wait. The news media itself, however, could wait. Forever. This case had officially rocketed past what the public wants to admit is possible and into the realm of the strangeness that usually finds its way to Canterlot High. Continuing on her way home from before the ordeal, Rainbow Dash sent a group text briefly describing her encounter. Even before they should’ve been able to read it all, there was an explosion of responses. “A robotic horse?” “A giant spider?” “An awesome finishing move?” “Common Rider Cavalier?” “Dagnabit, autocorrect!” She assured them that she’d tell all tomorrow when she had complete use of hand waving and sound effects. Rainbow Dash put her phone away and kept walking. It had been one week to the day since they’d started their “half-boiled” investigation last Tuesday, and already they were getting more results than they could’ve hoped for. Speaking of more…ping. Rainbow took her phone out again to see another new message, but this one not part of the group message. “Ah, so that’s where you’ve been.” She stopped. Ahhg, of course, how could she have—she kicked into a jog as she headed home. When she reached the end of her block, she saw Sunset standing shoulder against a lamppost. Sunset looked up as Rainbow Dash ran over to her. “There’s no need to rush,” Sunset said, “I could’ve waited.” “Sorry,” Rainbow said, “totally forgot—” “Are you kidding?” Sunset cut her off, pushing off from the lamppost. “I would’ve stood out here all night if that’s what you were up to the whole time.” The two turned and headed down the street to Rainbow’s house. “So,” Sunset said, “since I’m early…” “Sorry, no previews,” Rainbow Dash replied, “I’m still finalizing the script.” Sunset chuckled. “Just as long as you remember the limits that ‘based on a true story’ is meant to cover.” Suddenly the whistling ringing returned to Rainbow Dash’s ears. She stopped and looked around. She thought she saw several scattered reflections briefly flash by across a few of the house windows, maybe from something big and flying, but it was gone too fast to get a good look. Almost immediately, the whistling ring faded away again. She couldn’t tell how, but something felt different about this one. Sunset saw her stop and looked back. “Another one?” she asked. Rainbow nodded. “It’s late, and if it’s something important, I’m sure our friendly neighborhood Kamen Rider will take care of it. I mean, unless you’re dragged ‘across the mirrors’ again, what could you even do about it, right?” “Yeah, you’re right,” Rainbow said with a sigh, turning back and walking on. “On my own, what can I do?” The two proceeded to and entered Rainbow’s house, stopping as they found her mother standing around just inside as if waiting for them. “I’m going to assume you have a good reason for being late and leave it at that,” Firefly said to her daughter before seeing Sunset. “Oh hey Sunset, missed you last week. Heard you showed up on Tuesday but didn’t stay.” “Uh…,” Sunset said awkwardly. Rainbow Dash silently walked past them. “Yeah, I had other things.” “Too bad,” Firefly said. “Well, the standard accommodations are all prepared, as per usual.” She gestured in a general direction. “I hope you enjoy your stay. Her other friends are never over this often.” “Heh,” said Sunset, “I’d imagine not.” Just one more goal, and the championship was theirs. Rainbow Dash was dribbling the soccer ball up the field. Not just a schoolyard field, this was the big time, a field that you almost couldn’t see to the other end of, a field that was… kinda darker than she’d thought it had been… and quieter. Still running, she glanced up from the ball to see the stands empty of spectators, the floodlights off, and even the field void of other players of either team. Okay, this was mildly— “Outta my way!” shouted a voice as an orange streak slipped past her, stealing the ball and tripping her to the ground. “Hey, what gives?” she snapped, pushing herself back up and turning to look behind her. She saw someone in an orange uniform, contrasting the blue of her own outfit, standing with her foot on the ball. Though she was facing away, Rainbow immediately recognized her former friend from summer camp. “Gilda? What’d you do that for?” Gilda looked back at her with a passively condescending stare. “If you have power,” she said, “use it.” Rainbow Dash was about to say something back before Gilda’s outline suddenly became wrapped in an orange glow. A pair of brown eagle wings and a tan lion’s tail sprouted and grew, and her white hair became more feather-like, all in a manner similar to ponying up. Rainbow looked on in surprise, but Gilda simply smirked and turned away again, drawing back her right leg and kicking the soccer ball. On impact, there was a burst of flames, and the ball shot off across the field as a fiery streak back towards the other goal. Rainbow Dash immediately jumped up and raced after it, somehow feeling doing that was more important than worrying about Gilda’s transformation. “This is way out of your league!” she heard Gilda call from behind her as the ball seemed to dip over the curvature of the ground and out of sight in front of her. “You’ll never catch up!” Gilda was right, she was losing it, and… No. But nothing, just no. She was Rainbow Dash, and something like this wasn’t about to best her! She felt a sudden surge from inside as she was wrapped in a light blue glow, sprouting a pair of pony ears, pegasus wings, and her hair extending to end in a pony’s tail. And simply because she decided to, she blazed to the other end of the field in a rainbow streak. Stopping at the goal, she turned back and saw the faint glow of the flaming soccer ball begin to reach over the curve of the ground. “Do you really think you can make a difference?” echoed Gilda’s voice from behind the ball. A light blue aura appeared around Rainbow and she floated up. “I do,” Rainbow Dash said, looking up with a fiery passion. “And I will!” Streams of the blue aura snaked around her and channeled down into her right foot. The flaming orange streak of the ball blazed into view and raced at her, reaching her within a sec—she threw her foot out in a kick. Her foot hit the ball with a burst of light, bringing it to an immediate halt, but the ball kept pushing forward. The two opposing forces held fast for seconds on end, before Rainbow gave another push and sent the ball catapulting away in a new rainbow-trailing blue aura. Gilda stood watching with crossed arms as the blue streak flew back across the field, releasing a burst of aura that spun around and formed itself into a pair of wings, a set of talons, and a beaked head with earlike feather projections. Gilda smirked. The spectral projection grew backwards to gain a full body with a pair of legs and tail, and with a flap of its wings, threw its head forward and let out a loud echoing screech… Rainbow Dash awoke to the darkness of her room, the screeched slowly fading from her ears. Some dream, huh? She turned over and went back to sleep. A slight whistling ring flowed through the room as the outside windows of her house shimmered and warped. Each reflected a scattered fragment of the image of a large teal and dark gray winged shape flying by, letting out a screech as it passed. * * * The Next Day Classes had just let out for lunch, and Rainbow Dash was heading to the cafeteria to relay the full story of her close encounter of the robospider kind to the others. Since last night, she’d come up with a few more adjectives to make use of, and probably invented a new word or two. As she walked by a line of lockers, she saw Flash Sentry standing by an open locker and talking on his cell phone. “But I’m telling you,” he said, “she’d be perfect for it, she…he-hello?” He looked at the phone. “Drat, lost the signal again.” “Really?” Dash said, fishing out her own phone. Flash quickly turned but stopped when he saw it was her. “’Cause I’ve got full bars in here.” “Oh, you do?” he responded. “Huh, must be a different provider, then.” Dash glanced over. “Don’t they all use the same cell towers?” she more stated than asked. “Makes you wonder why they can charge differently.” “Ah,” Flash said. “Probably just my phone, then.” Rainbow Dash shrugged before turning to walk on. “They’re built to break so you have to buy a new one,” she called over her shoulder as Flash tried dialing again, shaking the phone when it apparently didn’t work. * * * Location: Evil A figure stood in the darkness, swiping his hand to scroll a holographic screen through a multitude of views around the city. Then one caught his attention. In a building-surrounded courtyard, several silver legs stuck out of a large cloud of accumulating darkness. “My, my,” the figure mused, “these toys are more resilient than I expected. I’m impressed.” * * * Well, she’d told her tale and her friends had of course been impressed by the epic of heroic struggle and sweet victory. Heck, a few of the other students had even slid their chairs closer to listen in. They probably thought it was a fanfiction or something she was working on, and someone asked where she was posting it so they could read more. She’d had to say that the rest was still unwritten to satisfy them. So yeah, an overall success. Hey, with this reaction, maybe she would write it down. It was the end of the school day, and Rainbow Dash was walking out the front door of the school with the other students, when suddenly she heard the whistling ringing again. She stopped. Wait…, she thought suspiciously. This time it felt different again. She looked around, seeing a familiar image reflected in one of the school’s glass front doors. She stepped over to the side to let the rest of the students file out and get out of earshot. “Heh,” she said, turning to the reflection and crossing her arms smugly. “Look who’s following who now.” Kamen Rider Cavalier stared back at her. “You’re not leaving this matter alone,” he said, “your point is made.” Rainbow Dash paused. “That’s right,” she said, trying in vain to keep her smug tone. She was a bit surprised that he was suddenly agreeing with her. What could that…? “You’re also marked,” he continued, “and they will come again. You might as well be ready.” She was about to ask the predictable ‘ready for what’ question, but before she could, the glass door warped again and Cavalier’s reflection disappeared…and the door stayed warped, a ripple pattern perpetually emulating from the center. She stood still a second, glancing around. The coast was clear. And the warped surface probably wasn’t a mistake. So…why was she hesitating? She reached out her hand as she stepped over to the door. Her hand passed right into the rippling surface, feeling slightly cold, almost like water except not wet. Well, she thought, here goes. She stepped forward into the reflection— An invisible force pushed or pulled her through a square tunnel of silvery glass panes at high speed, zooming forward as if on a track until—she lurched forward into a dark room, stumbling to a stop. She looked up and around. The room had no windows, and a single hanging ceiling lamp shone a spotlight down onto a table in the center of the room. Behind her there was a tall wall-mounted mirror. One door was on the far wall. She couldn’t really see much else. Oh, except the streaks of light reflected on Cavalier’s metal armor as he stood off to the side over there. “What, you living in your mom’s basement?” she said. “Ha, fuuunnyyyy,” he replied. “I’m renting.” Rainbow Dash took another look around the room, this time seeing something sitting on the table previously obscured by the bright light. She walked over to get a better look, finding it to be a light blue rectangular object. She reached down to pick it up. “Well?” Cavalier asked, making her stop. He stepped away from the wall closer to the light. “Do you think you’re ready? That you have what it will take?” “For what?” she asked, looking over. He tapped the indigo block held at the front of his silver belt. Rainbow looked back at the object on the table, realizing that it was the same thing, also noticing that it lacked any gold symbol at the center. Maybe that was step two? Then her mind caught up. Wait, really? Was this actually…? She was sure this wasn’t a dream, right? “Me?” she asked, looking back to him. “Just like that?” “You come highly recommended,” he replied. “Recommended?” she repeated in surprise. “Wait, by who?” But Cavalier only stood silently. Rainbow Dash again turned back to the…thing that had to have a name. She pointed at it and looked over to ask— “Advent Deck,” Cavalier said. Rainbow Dash again turned back to the Advent Deck, reaching down and snatching it off the table. She held it up to look it over. A surge of light blue electricity ran across its surface and jumped to her hands, fading just as she flinched. Pretending that no one saw that, she examined the Deck. It was basically a thin light blue block with a thumb-sized gap on one end, revealing the purple back of a card; the “front” of the Deck was also decorated in its corners by the silver silhouettes of four small claw-looking hooks. She grabbed the card and slid it out: it had a charcoal grey border around the square image of a blank gray flash, a gold circle in the top left corner next to the word “Contract” under a row of seven vertical gold bars. “That’s your Contract Card,” Cavalier explained. “It’s how you contract with an Advent Beast and gain your power to be a Kamen Rider.” “Advent Beast?” Rainbow Dash asked. “Remember Caballkhan?” Cavalier said. Rainbow’s memory showed her Cavalier’s mechanical horse rearing up in front of her with loud metallic whinny. She nodded. “Your Advent Beast is your partner in battle,” he continued. “However strong you are simply using their power through your deck, Beast and Rider working together are always stronger.” “So, what kind of creature would this get me?” Rainbow asked, looking at the card. “One chosen to fit you,” he replied. “It may have even tried sizing you up already.” The screech from Rainbow Dash’s dream echoed back into her head for a second. But that made her think of something else. “Wait, what about that spider thing? It wasn’t one of those red guys at all. It and your horse…there’s a connection between them, isn’t there? There’s gotta be.” “Dogs versus wolves,” stated Cavalier. “Advent Beasts are made from those Mirror Monsters who can be tamed.” “Again,” she said, crossing her arms at him, “by who?” Cavalier again remained silent. So, he wasn’t eager to name his sources. No matter, she’d get that later. “What about what those ‘Mirror Monsters’, as you say, are after? Why are those red guys trying to grab people? And how about that spider? I mean, I’m pretty sure I almost got eaten, but…” Cavalier remained silent but looked over. He sighed. “Did you hear on the news a few weeks ago?” he finally said. “About the missing person?” “I guessed that that might be connected to this somehow,” she said, uncrossing her arms and shifting to her other foot. “Think it was somewhere in the upper lef…no, I moved it to the middle right of my conspiracy board. Or was it the lower middle?” “That was the first attack in this world,” he continued, “and my first response. The only one I didn’t show up to soon enough.” “In this world?” she repeated, attention perking. “So, they were attacking another world first? Where? Was someone else fighting them there?” Cavalier gave a silent, “Ahhg,” and turned off to the side. “They’re trying to capture people,” he said, “let’s leave it at that. Besides…,” he tilted his head back to her, “is that really what you’re most eager to find out?” Rainbow Dash paused. She looked back to the Advent Deck and Contract Card in her hands. Oh, this guy’s good. A giddy grin crawled onto her face. She held the Contract Card high, seconds later hearing the whistling ring. She turned to the mirror she’d arrived through to see it warping and the reflection be replaced by a slowly swirling stormy vortex. Something flew back and forth within the vortex, approaching and slowing to look through the mirror like a window at her: a mechanical gryphon, covered in metal feathers of shiny gunmetal gray, with metallic teal feathers on its chest, the leading edges of its wings, the tuft at the end of its lion tail, and otherwise speckled across its body, its large eagle beak a gleaming gold, a pair of earlike points atop its head, and beady yellow eyes staring back at her as she stared at it. Though she’d never seen it before, it looked familiar to her. Like meeting an old friend for the first time. She looked to Cavalier. “Anything special to say?” she asked. “Y’know, any cheesy lines for a dramatic pose or something?” He gave a silent sigh of amusement. “‘Kamen Rider’.” “Easy enough,” Rainbow Dash replied. Facing the mirror, she held the Contract Card out towards it, the gray haze pictured on it beginning to reflect the stormy vortex and Advent Beast in front of it. The gunmetal and teal gryphon beat its wings to center itself in the mirror, crouching in midair as if preparing to pounce. “Let’s do this,” said Rainbow Dash. “Kamen Rider!” The gryphon leapt forward, its bear-sized body warping out from the mirror with a screech and spreading its wings out their full 20-foot span—an ‘objects in mirror are larger than they appear’ warning would’ve been nice!—and dove down at her. On reflex, she quickly aimed the Contract Card up at it. As its body passed by the card, it was turned transparent, its outline flying at and being absorbed into her: head, talons, wings, legs, tail. The Contract Card started glowing, and she turned it around to see. The grey blur swirled as the image of the gryphon flying forward and screeching in front of a storm cloud background emerged; in a thin black bar just below the image, a row of five small rectangles appeared reaching from the left side to the middle of the bar, transitioning left to right from yellow into orange, the corresponding number “5000” under the red word “Attack” appearing in the small gray box at the lower right of the card; the gold circle in the upper left morphed into the front-on silhouette of a gryphon face, beak tip at the bottom and ears pointing up; and the word “Contract” faded away, being replaced by the beast’s name, “Aquileo”. Rainbow’s vision blurred, and the room around her seemed to disappear into a black void. Another screech sounded as a spectral projection of Aquileo’s wings flared open behind her, wrapping around and momentarily encasing her before disappearing in a flash; both her hands were empty, and the Deck now sat in a silver belt around her waist. On the Deck, a line of yellow electricity ran up the center, expanding out into Aquileo’s golden gryphon emblem; the Deck moved backwards into a void within the belt, a light blue light shining from behind it, and began flipping over backwards rapidly, a whirring sound rising, as the gold emblem became all that was visible among the blur of motion. A light blue energy sphere and pair of equator rings shot out from the belt and formed a shell around Rainbow; the rings rotated opposite directions past an ‘X’ and into a vertical, continuing on while the circular energy layers within them now printed onto her a suit of armor. The rings reached their original equator positions and the energy shell burst out and dissipated. The room returned to her view. Rainbow Dash swayed a step and looked down to check her footing. Then she looked up at the mirror. She was standing clad in a similar arrangement of armor to Cavalier, presumably a standard Kamen Rider design template: she wore a dark-colored tough rubbery undersuit, perhaps a dark grayish blue or teal; her torso bore a bright cyan chest plate with angled gunmetal strips arranged like three stacked upside down ‘V’s, the top point at her neck and a triangle of silver within the smallest and lowest one; from the chest plate’s shoulder pads stuck out sets of three-clawed eagle talons reaching out and down over her shoulders; hollow silver knobs were placed just below her knees, elbows, and shoulders, on the sides of her belt, and she turned to see three more in a wide V-pattern on her back; she had gunmetal-bordered cyan forearm cuffs and shin guards, and on her left forearm was strapped a cyan armament resembling an eagle’s leg, a set of three gunmetal claws pointing forward; her smooth helmet was cyan with a pair of gryphon ear prongs at the top front; a two-part silver facemask was attached onto the front of her helmet, the main part covering her eyes with separated groupings of horizontal slits, its top corners reaching up onto the ear prongs, and the overlaid second part, centered over the lower middle of the other part and covered by a third set of horizontal slits, being shaped like the outline of a beak and reaching from her nose to her chin. “I hope you like it,” Cavalier said, “…Kamen Rider Talon.” “Sleek,” Rainbow Dash admired, looking down over the armor. She would’ve complained about wanting to name herself, but ‘Talon’ was probably better than she could’ve come up with on the spot anyhow. “Do I get my own transforming motorcycle, too?” “Do you already have your own regular one?” he replied. Rainbow dropped her shoulders in disappointment. “So, what can this armor do?” she asked, raising an arm to examine it. “Does it…let me travel at light speed?” She slapped her palm against the hollow knob on the right side of her belt and took a slight crouch, waiting as if expecting something to happen. “Nnno,” Cavalier answered. Rainbow stood back up and dropped her arms indignantly. “But it does let you travel between any two mirror surfaces.” “And things like windows,” she commented, remembering the several recent times she’d fallen through them. “How ’bout polished metal?” “Rule of thumb, if you can see yourself in it—,” Cavalier started to explain, but was cut off as a whistling ringing filled their ears. “Looks like I’ll have to pick up the rest on the fly!” Rainbow Dash said. She ran up to the mirror but stopped. She reached out her hand at it hesitantly. “Uh, how do I know if…” Cavalier walked right past her and warped through the mirror. After a moment’s pause and a shrug of, “eh, what the heck?”, she charged forward and—heard a shrill whooshing, stopping a moment later to find herself standing in a wide silvery glass tunnel. In front of her was a pair of thin two-wheeled silver vehicles with long domed roof covers sitting up and open. Cavalier was getting into one of them. “What?” he said, looking over. “I never actually said you wouldn’t get your own ’cycle.” Rainbow stepped over to the empty one. “Not as stylish as I would’ve liked.” “Maybe not,” he replied, “but Advent Cycles still get the job done.” “Y’know, just putting ‘Advent’ in front of normal words doesn’t make—,” she started, but the roof cover of Cavalier’s cycle came down and closed. She sat in the red seat of the Advent Cycle and grabbed the handlebar setup in front of her. A pair of silver clips jumped out from behind the seat and latched onto the hollow silver knobs on the sides of her belt before the seat lowered and the roof cover descended. The cover was mostly comprised of a pair of tinted windows. “Now remember,” said Cavalier’s voice over some sort of intercom inside the Cycle, “there are two ways of going through a mirror. One just takes you to the corresponding mirror in the Mirror World. The other takes you here, to the Mirror Plane, which you can use to, with a delay for travel time, access any other mirror out there. It’s really all down to personal preference in the moment.” Cavalier’s Cycle’s engine revved and it took off down the glassy tunnel. “Mirror World isn’t much better than Advent insert-word-here!” Rainbow called after him as she sped her own Cycle after him. Crafty Crate overlooked the site. Former location of “Paradise something”. Estates, probably. Now it was being made into a parking lot, paved with this nifty new ‘thirsty concrete’, capable of absorbing gallons upon gallons of rainwater to reduce flooding from runoff. Heh, the things people were coming up with nowadays. He turned and looked back to the street. That big yellow taxi van was still there. Was this supposed to be another one of those protestors about the loss of the Estates? That last one had been rather handy with a lock pick. He walked over anyway to tell them that this was a no parking zone, leaning over and looking in through the passenger window only to find it empty. He didn’t see what was lurking in the window’s reflection. Crafty stood back up and took a step away, when suddenly the window and door of the taxi warped and a net of glue-like web shot out and grabbed him. Feeling a tug back to the taxi, he pulled forward, but when he looked back he didn’t see anyone or anything that might be holding him. Calculating logistics didn’t faze him. This, however, was panic inducing. The invisible force continued to pull him back, and with his arms pinned to his sides, he was beginning to lose his footing… A window across the street warped and an armored Rainbow Dash jumped out. She saw the man struggling against the visible-to-her webbing and ran over. She grabbed him and tried pulling him away, but the web was too strong to pull against and kept dragging him towards the warped reflection. Then the claws on her left arm’s eagle talon armament grew out six inches. Hey, she thought, it’s like that comic book guy, the Badger was it? She swiped with the claws and severed the web. The end of it shot back into the taxi’s window as Crafty fell to his knees; cut off from the monster that made it, the web glue wrapped around him faded into visibility. Well, there goes this outfit, he sighed, not that it’s any different from the rest of ’em. Crafty Crate looked up to get a better look at his savior. “Here,” Rainbow Dash said, “let me—” “Aaah!” he shouted. “A monster!” “Monster?” Rainbow said in confusion. “Me? How do you…? I’m shaped like a person. I’m speaking. I’m covered in metal”—she hit her helmet with her palms for emphasis—“plates”—and again. “Why would you have any reason to think that I’m a monster instead of someone in a suit of armor?” Crafty paused to reassess the situation. “Aah!” he shouted. “A freak in armor!” His arms still bound, he jumped to his feet and stumbled away, leaving Rainbow holding out her arms with palms facing up in shocked confusion. “I…how…wha?” she stuttered. Cavalier walked up behind her, staring after Crafty. “Memorable first impression,” he commented. “Hey,” she said, “it’s not my fault that the first guy I run into is the”—she turned after the fleeing construction worker and shouted—“only person who doesn’t watch the news, apparently!” Rainbow Dash heard the whistling ring again. She looked at the taxi window and saw a large dark and blurry form in its reflection quickly retreating. Cavalier ran past her and warped into the reflection. She charged forward as well. All the way through, all the way through, all the way through… A shrill whoosh passed her ears—before she jumped out and landed in the Mirror World. Still not feeling as alien as a parallel realm would be expected to. She ran up to Cavalier, who had stopped, and looked forward to see the monster turning to face them. It had the bronze body and silver legs of the Dispider, but a waist-up bronze humanoid body was now attached onto where the Dispider’s head had been. It had three red hexagonal crystals on its chest, bulky pincer claw hands, and a dull silver head with trios of hexagonal plates for eyes. As the light glinted off of them, its silver parts also appeared to briefly take on a greenish hue. “Whoa,” said Rainbow, “is that the same spider thing as last time? I thought you destroyed it.” “Drat, I knew I missed a step,” Cavalier mumbled. “After destroying bigger monsters, you have to do something about their energy, otherwise they’ll just reconstitute.” He looked to see Rainbow staring at him with arms crossed. “Hey,” he said defensively, “it was the first time I’d faced something other than one of those minions.” “Well now it’s back with a vengeance,” she remarked. “I mean, look at that thing! It’s a centaur now! Well, spider-centaur…censpider? Spidertaur?” “Drider,” Cavalier corrected. “Gezunheit.” Cavalier silently shook his head. “Let’s just squash it for good this time.” “Yeah!” Rainbow shouted, gripping a fist. She took one step forward before stopping. “Um, wait, how do I get a sword?” The Remodeled Dispider turned again and shot out a gray ropelike web strand that quickly snaked over to and coiled around Cavalier’s torso, the Rider only having the chance to toss up his arms around him a second before it constricted and pulled him off his feet towards the Dispider. {Here we go.} Having caught the web with his forearms, he pushed them up over his head so the web no longer surrounded him and tried to quickly slide his arms back out before it could tighten again, but he hit the ground from the tug and the rope web pulled and snared his right arm. It wasn’t sticky, but it had wrapped over itself with a tight grip and wasn’t about to let go. The Dispider hooked the web with one of its back legs and dragged Cavalier over closer, trying to spear him with its other legs, but the Rider quickly rolled underneath it. He then looked over to see Rainbow Dash still standing on the sidelines. “What are you waiting for?” he called. “You ran in even without armor last time!” “At least I had a weapon then!” she called back. “Right now all I got’s this,” she raised her left arm with the eagle talon attachment, “and it’s not gonna cut it. No pun intended.” The Remodeled Dispider skittered sideways to try and step on Cavalier, but he hastily crawled sideways in turn, keeping under it. “What do you think your deck of cards is for?” he took the chance to say. “How?” Rainbow responded. With enough slack on the web to maneuver, Cavalier reached to the horseshoe-bearing armament on his own left arm and pulled the right arc open, taking a card from his Advent Deck and sliding it into the slot pulled out under the horseshoe’s arc. He pushed the arc back in as he leapt, tucked, and rolled out from under the Dispider to in front of it. Sword Vent He rolled up to a knee and pulled the web around his arm taught. “Use your slotter!” he shouted as a glowing sword fell from the sky and severed through the web strand before embedding its tip in the ground. Shaking the web off, he ran over and grabbed the sword as the Dispider approached. It reached down for him with its centaur-body’s pincer clamps but he jumped up and flipped over it, slashing it while passing overhead, and landing on its back. “Wait, what’s a slotter?” Dash asked. Cavalier mumbled to himself, “If you hadn’t asked so many other questions…” He called, “That thing on your left arm, it’ll slide open somehow!” He turned and swiped his sword at the Dispider torso’s back, but he’d given it the chance to recover and it turned to meet him, catching the blade in one of its pincer clamp claws. Rainbow looked to her eagle leg apparatus, grabbing it and pushing and pulling it back and forth; it slid back on a track with a brief mechanical whir to reveal a small shallow rectangular tray. “Okay,” she said, awaiting further instruction. Cavalier was struggling with both his hands to free the sword from the grip of the Dispider’s pincer. “Now take out any Advent Card!” he continued to call. “They’re in the Deck, if you forgot!” The Remodeled Dispider pulled on the sword, swinging Cavalier around off its back and onto the ground in front of it. Rainbow reached down and put a finger on the edge of the top card, sliding it out of the Deck with a deep whooshing sound. The card was an earthen orange with the image of a pair of crossed cyan eagle talon gauntlets over a light blue cyclone swirl background, reading Strike Vent across the top and Attack 2000 in the lower corner. “Cool sound effect,” she commented. She looked up. “Now what?” The Remodeled Dispider dropped Cavalier’s sword and threw its arms out to the side, shooting a burst of large spines from the red crystal hexagons on its chest. Cavalier dove and tumbled sideways to avoid the barrage, sliding another card into his slotter. He rolled to a stop and turned to her. “I’d expect it to be pretty self explanatory after this!” he called in annoyance. “Card in slot, close the cover!” He swung his right arm out and back in again to slam his own slotter closed for added emphasis. Guard Vent Rainbow set the card in her slotter’s tray with what sounded like another mechanical whir. She paused. “Okay, seriously? Do you have sound effects for everything?” Cavalier held up the round shield with the gold horseshoe decoration around its rim strapped to his left forearm up and crouched down as the Remodeled Dispider shot another wave of spines, impaling into the ground and bouncing off of the shield with loud metal clangs. “Any day now!” he called. Rainbow pushed the slotter cover back forward to cover over the card in the tray with yet another sci-fi tech sound as the claws on the eagle talon briefly flashed. Strike Vent “Now heads up and hands up!” Cavalier called. “Huh?” she said before look up and seeing a pair of glowing objects spinning down at her. “Whoa!” She quickly ducked and held up her arms in defense. As the objects reached her, there was a flash, and she looked up to see them attached to her arms: a pair of elbow-length cyan gauntlets shaped like eagle or gryphon foreclaws, each bearing three upper claws and a lower claw in a fixed arrangement; her hands were gripping a bar inside each gauntlet to hold them, and there was only a cover past the wrist along their lower edges leaving the tops open, probably so they wouldn’t interfere with the placement of her slotter. “Whooooooaaaaaa,” she said, looking them over. “Now this I can work with.” The Remodeled Dispider approached the indigo Rider as he backed away behind his shield. Suddenly a second Rider ran in from the left and swiped its front left leg out from under it. It tried to steady itself, but the cyan Rider sped over and swiped its from right leg away as well, dropping its front end to the ground. The new Rider slashed at its body torso with a set of metal claws. It reached out and grabbed the Rider’s shoulders with its pincer claws, standing back up and lifting them off the ground, but they slashed at its elbows making it drop them. Hitting the ground, Rainbow Dash dove forward and rolled under the Remodeled Dispider. More cramped down here than it looked. Barely being able to rise to a kneel, she slashed her talon gauntlets across the Dispider’s underside. A second later it leapt into the air, landing a distance away and turning to shoot another web, this one like a chain. Rainbow quickly held up her gauntlets in defense, and the chain web smacked into them, the force of the hit knocking her back and to the ground. The gauntlets glowed slightly before shattering away into nothing. Rainbow stood back up and opened her slotter again, pulling out the next card in her Deck: cyan, with the image of a pair of shiny metal bird wings attached to pack at the center over a background of white cloud swirl streaks against blackness, Attack 2000, Wing Vent. She stared at the name for a second. “Don’t tell me…,” she said before setting the card in the slotter tray and sliding the cover closed. Wing Vent A screech came from the sky as Aquileo flew overhead, a glowing mass dropping from his back with a flash. The mass tumbled down and attached onto Rainbow Dash’s back, a set of tabs hooking into the trio of silver knobs. A pair of large metal wings extended out from behind her. “You. Are. Kidding me,” she said. “Awesome! And no music or magic needed.” The wings were constructed of a gridwork of overlapping gunmetal gray metal scales placed as and resembling feathers, connected on the undersides with a network of wire struts. At a thought, every scale slid slightly out from under the one above it, and the wings as a whole grew and extended. As the Remodeled Dispider turned back around to her, Rainbow ran forward and jumped, and with one flap of her metal wings was sent soaring over to the Dispider to deliver a flying kick straight to its chest, knocking it back a step. As she dropped to the ground, she leaned her right shoulder forward, and the right wing swung in and slashed the Dispider’s torso with its razor edge as sparks flew. Landing, she threw her left shoulder forward, the left wing swinging in and extending, the metal scales sliding so far apart that a checkerboard pattern of gaps appeared between them, its notched razor edge slicing across the Dispider’s torso and left leg with another spray of sparks. The Remodeled Dispider threw its arms out again, unleashing another barrage of spines from the red hexagons on its chest. After the mere idea of defense formed in Rainbow’s mind, the wings retracted back so every point was at least two overlapped scales thick and crossed in front of her. The spines pelted the wings but bounced off with loud metal clangs; however, Rainbow was still sent stumbling back from the force of the impacts, her off-balance weight with the top-heavy wing pack, and the fact that she could only see up and down with the wings closed like this. Arc Vent A gold horseshoe flew in and exploded on the Remodeled Dispider’s chest, stopping the spine salvo and sending it back a step. Rainbow opened the wings again and dropped their tips to the ground to steady herself. Balance. Improve. Cavalier stepped up to her and held up a card showing his Horse symbol over an indigo starburst. “You have one, too,” he said before sliding it into his slotter and closing it. Final Vent Caballkhan ran in from the sidelines as a pair of glowing objects fell from the sky. Cavalier jumped onto the passing steed and caught his shield and lance as Caballkhan charged the Remodeled Dispider. Rainbow slid out another card: deep red, image of the gold Gryphon symbol on her Deck over a light blue starburst background, Attack 6000, Final Vent. She’d ask later how the card you wanted to use was always the next one in line. The Remodeled Dispider stood up as Caballkhan approached and threw its arms out again to fire another barrage of spines, but the exploding horseshoe had cracked the red crystal hexagons on its chest and it couldn’t use the attack. Cavalier’s lance speared into it and pushed it back across the ground, sparks flying as its legs tried to hold their ground. Rainbow put the card into the slotter tray and slid the cover closed. Final Vent The pack and wings on her back glowed slightly before shattering away, and Rainbow heard another screech from behind her. She turned to see Aquileo flying in with open claws. The gryphon grabbed her arms and kicked off the ground, pulling her up into the air. Again, a bit of warning would’ve been appreciated! But why wasn’t she more scared about being dragged into the sky by a big robot beast? It was almost like…she already knew what would happen next, she just couldn’t tell you if you’d asked. Aquileo flew up and arced over backwards in what would’ve made for a good roller coaster track, looping down to a ground-level approach on Cavalier and the Dispider. The Remodeled Dispider had skid Caballkhan to a stop, but the horse rose to its hind legs as Cavalier lifted his lance, pulling the impaled Dispider up off the ground. These monsters were mere animated shells around energy, he’d been told, that’s why something as big as this had been so agile, and why it was also this light. Not getting too concerned at the apparent affront to physics in front of her, Rainbow tensed because something told her that—Aquileo swung her back before throwing her forward at full speed—yep, something like would happen. Rushing in at her target, almost as if still being actively propelled, Rainbow leaned back and found her right foot naturally extend out for a kick, left knee bending in and arms out sideways with 90-degree elbows. Cavalier hoisted and held the Remodeled Dispider high, an energy pulse shooting up the lance. Rainbow was closing quickly. Thirty feet, twenty, ten. She let out a shout of, “See ya!” Her kick hit the Remodeled Dispider, breaking its spider body clean from the torso. The energy pulse hit the torso segment, and both parts of the Dispider exploded, scattering charred debris. After the kick, Rainbow all but dropped from the air and landed with a skid on her right foot, left knee and toes, and left hand. She looked down at odd silver knob on her left knee. “Ah, so that’s how those get used.” A flash came from the biggest pile of flaming debris sitting in front of her, and a glowing yellow ball of energy rose up from it. Aquileo flew up to and through it, absorbing it in a flash. Another flash came from the debris scattered in front of Caballkhan, and a smaller ball of energy floated up before absorbing into the horse’s chest. Cavalier looked down and over at Rainbow. “Not bad,” he said. “Once you actually started.” Rainbow Dash turned and crossed her arms at him. He shrugged back. Rainbow and Cavalier had returned to his “Base”. She’d been talked through how to de-armor, light blue glows traveling across the outlines of her armor’s plating before a vertical disk shot out around her, splitting left and right to remove the Kamen Rider Talon armor from her as the Deck spontaneously returned to her pocket…somehow. Now, it seemed she was being read the Terms & Conditions agreement of being a Kamen Rider. “And remember,” Cavalier told her, “you can’t tell any of your friends about this. The secrecy of this matter is vital.” “Loyal to the end, I won’t tell a soul,” she said, saluting to show ‘she got it’. She turned and approached the mirror. It warped, a look and sound she was still getting used to, and she stepped through—being sent through a glass tunnel back towards a mirror surface she was sure would have no obvious connection to the one she’d left from. Really sneaky, there. Cavalier stood and stared at the mirror after she’d left. The mirror warped again, and in faded the reflection of a black figure, chest and legs lined with thin pale orange stripes, small antennae over a shiny black bug-eye visor, a boxy silver armament over their right wrist, and a silver buckle with an orange circle in the middle. The figure looked to Cavalier. “They’ll all know everything before the end of the day,” said the Advent Master, “won’t they?” “I’d be surprised if they didn’t,” Cavalier replied. Next time, on “Kamen Rider EqG”… “You seriously think that it’s him?” asked Applejack flatly. “That was a pretty odd phone call he was having,” Rainbow’s voice said from another scene as she peeked around a corner of the school hallway at Flash Sentry. “Su-spiii-cious.” The whistling ringing echoed in Rainbow’s head. “Wait,” she said to herself, “that’s not just close, it’s…here.” From an unseen force, locker doors down the row were being torn off of the wall one by one in a line leading right towards Flash. Double Vision Also, coming soon… A figure in all black sat on his black motorcycle in the street, waiting. The metallic blue Zenobiter ran out of the alley half a block in front of him. He raised an indigo Advent Deck. Suddenly a black and magenta Kamen Rider with green bug eyes and a white stripe across their chest ran out of the alley after the Zenobiter. “What the?” the figure muttered as he lowered the Deck. The Zenobiter ran across street and jumped through a storefront window. The new Rider ran up to the window and rammed right into it, stumbling back. The figure chuckled. “Amateur.” The new Rider sighed, flipping open the white square above his sword’s hilt and whipping out a card with a revving sound. “No matter,” he said, tossing the card down into his white belt buckle. Kamen Rider × Kamen Rider: EqG & Decade