//------------------------------//
// Chapter 8: Five Diffraction Minima 
// Story: Kamen Rider EqG 
// by BioniclesaurKing4t2 
//------------------------------//


Five Diffraction Minima  ɒminiM noiƚɔɒɿʇʇiᗡ ɘviᖷ



Three Days Later, Thursday
Location: nearby }gfHw</>X---Ø{

It was close to evening, the sky orange from the setting sun.  A monster alarm was ringing, and Kamen Rider Vault was running along a street in the Mirror World.
It had been a few days since that big triple appearance, and not a single monster had shown itself since.  Although she thought that should’ve made everyone even more suspicious, the rest of her friends were apparently unavailable right now.  Looks like she was on her own.  At least Rainbow Dash had the excuse of being tired out by soccer practice.
She skidded to a stop, looking around.  “Now where’d you get off to?” Applejack asked herself.  The monster had already run once, and it was fast.
Out the corner of her eye she spotted a purple blur leap up onto a nearby roof and dash away.  She gave chase again.  The figure hopped from roof to roof before dropping down between a pair of buildings.  She jumped in front of the alley in a ready stance, but didn’t see anything resembling a Mirror Monster, just standard alley fare.
Applejack took a deep breath.  She sprung open the vertical slotter tray on her belt and took out a card before slowly creeping into the alley.  No big sound effects just yet.
The alley seemed quiet and still, but she could feel something else was here.  Looking around…there!  An extra shadow behind a dumpster.  Slowly stepping closer as quietly as possible, she began to hear a scratchy breathing.  She put the card into the tray, preparing to close it right when…
An explosion next to her threw all plans out of her head.  Something grabbed her shoulders and wrenched her around, a yellow monster shrieking in her face before pushing her to the ground.  A purple blur leapt over her from behind, and by the time she shook herself back into focus, both monsters had vanished.
She jumped back up and grabbed the card she’d dropped, running out of the alley and scanning the street.  Nothing, and the alarm had also stopped.  Her racing heart started to slow down.  With a sigh, she closed the slotter tray and returned the card as she walked back up the street to her Advent Cycle.  Having arrived in a rush, she hadn’t noticed that she’d parked in front of a pizza place.
“Huh,” she said.  “Don’t remember seein’ this place on our side.”
But she didn’t have time to worry about that; she was expecting company.  She got back in the Cycle and kicked off, turning it around and warping through the front window of the pizzeria.  A few seconds later, one of the inside curtains was pulled open.


* * *


A red sports car pulled up at the farmhouse.  Rarity gathered up her fencing gear from the seat and opened the door, but stopped, feet hovering, and hesitantly looking around at the dirt driveway.  “Don’t you ever clean up around here?”
“It is a farm,” Applejack pointed out, walking up from the farmhouse.
“I know, but still,” Rarity replied, stepping out.  “Oh, whatever happened to your regular house in the neighborhood?”
“Termites.  We’re out here for a few days.”
Sweetie Belle dashed past them over to Apple Bloom standing at the door, high-fiving before racing off into the expanse of the property.
“And I suppose it’s only coincidence,” Rarity commented, watching after them, “that you’re out here at the same time Sweetie Belle suggested we stay with you while our A/C’s out.”
“I’m sure,” Applejack said equally as sarcastically.
“Have fun, you two!” Rarity’s mother, Pearl, called from the car.  “We’ll get you from school tomorrow, hopefully it’ll be fixed by then.”
“Of course,” Rarity called back.
Her thickly moustache-ed father in a Hawaiian shirt, Magnum, put on his sunglasses and leaned his elbow out the window, taking out a phone.  “Higgins, we’re on,” he said.  A second later, he jerked the phone away at the response, then laughed at it, and the red car loudly sped back out of the driveway.
“Although I can’t see why a farmhouse would be any better,” Rarity added.  “Remind me again if you even have a hot water heater here.”
“It’s not like we don’t have basic amenities,” Applejack defended.  “One thing we don’t have here, however, is a hot water heater.”
“Oh, that’s…”
“Any machine that exists solely to heat water that’s already hot is just a waste of energy,” AJ added with a smirk.  “We do have a regular water heater, though.”
“Ha, ha,” Rarity said flatly.  They headed up to the farmhouse.  “I do hope it’s not too much trouble, though.”
“Nah, it ain’t no big deal.  Sunset’s over often enough.”
Rarity paused, whispering, “Here, too?”
“What was that?”
“Never mind, it’s nothing.”
A bell rang from inside.  “Soup’s on!” called Granny Smith’s voice.


Following a hearty and notably-themed dinner, the two girls made their way into Applejack’s room.
“Really?” Applejack huffed.  “‘There’s pieces of apple in the applesauce’?”
“I thought it was a valid criticism,” Rarity replied, arms crossed.
“Well what did you expect?” said Applejack.  “This stuff’s homemade with real apples, so sorry if industrial-grade equipment didn’t pulverize out every last speck of the very ingredient it’s named after.”
“I realize this is what I should’ve expected,” bemoaned Rarity, “and I’d never have you change the way you do things on my account.  Not that telling you to would help.”
Applejack was about to respond, but then there was a knock at the door.
“Don’t get too comfortable in there,” came Granny Smith, “yer both comin’ back out for family game night!”
There was a pause as Granny’s footsteps faded down the hall.
“Oh,” Rarity nervously mused.  “Family game night.  ‘Yay’…”
Applejack tilted her hat down over her face.  “Just bear with it.”


After much risk, many bankruptcies, feeding the hippos, trapping some mice, pursuing all trivia, connecting every four, sinking every battleship, finding that the meaning of life is to bop it, and everyone feeling sorry, the two girls finally escaped back to Applejack’s room.
“Competitive, much?” Applejack commented.
“It’s not my fault that I kept landing on your pieces,” replied Rarity.
“Not what I meant.”
“But I always play as the Top Hat.  Besides, you kept moving your ships around.”
“Well what else would they do if you keep shootin’ the water around ’em?  Havin’ to stay put isn’t fair.”
“What wasn’t fair was Granny Smith.”
“Yeah, but you didn’t have to call her a master at ‘useless knowledge’.”
“But what is trivia if not trivial?  That’s literally the name of it.”
“Hmph.”
“Hmph.”
The two set down and, ignoring each other, finished the last of the week’s homework, doing a bit of reading before soon just sitting silently to let the time pass.  It was getting really late by now.
Applejack gave a loud sigh.  “So,” she breached the silence, “I hear you’ve started a fencing class?”
Rarity glanced over.  “Better to know what you’re doing in a monster fight than merely acting like it, I found,” she replied, looking away again.
“Guessin’ that’s why you missed the alarm earlier.”
“Sorry, I was finally getting the hang of it,” Rarity admitted.
“Two funny things about it, though,” said Applejack.  Rarity glanced again.  “One, the monsters hid and fled instead of fightin’.  Two, I noticed a restaurant, a pizzeria, across the mirrors that I didn’t recognize.  I popped over to the same spot on this side and, lo and behold, it wasn’t the same building at all.  Instead, it was some kinda burger place.”
“With a pair of cat mascots?” Rarity asked, turning.  Applejack nodded.  “Sweetie Belle’s dragged us there a few times.  The food wasn’t all that great, and the mascots were a bit…”  She shivered.  “Especially that full-body canvas mannequin in the back.”
“Point is,” Applejack continued, pushing that mental image aside, “what gives about a mirror world not matchin’ up with the real world without a good reason?”
“It makes you wonder…,” Rarity mused, squinting.
“…what’s that good reason?” Applejack finished, returning the squint.
From out in the hall, a grandfather clock began to chime twelve times, the stroke of midnight.  The whistling ringing started up immediately, grabbing both their attentions.
“Truce?” Applejack asked.
“Truce,” Rarity replied, already adding their icons to the group text.  This was the first time this system would be field-tested.
In her bed, a half-awake Rainbow Dash listening to the monster alarm reached over to her nightstand to check her phone, saw the time, saw icons popping up, and planted it back facedown, retreating to sleep again.
Applejack and Rarity held their Advent Decks at the mirror on the back of the door, colored electricity forming their silver belts.
“Kamen Rider,” said Applejack, holding her Deck forward.
“Kamen Rider!” called Rarity, spinning her Deck up with a flourish of her wrist.
They clicked their Decks in, which slid back and spun, the spinning energy rings printing their armor onto them as dancing orange and purple lights peeked out from under the door into the hall.  As the lightshow ended, a muffled voice came from outside the door.
“You in there, sis?” said Apple Bloom.  “Granny says to keep it down if you’re gonna be up this…,” she peeked into the room, but saw no one there, “…late.”  After a moment, she shrugged and closed the door again.  “They’ll be quiet!” she called back to Granny Smith.  As she walked away, Apple Bloom shook her head and mumbled, “Sometimes I wonder what they always get up to.”
A pair of Advent Cycles raced through a glass hallway within the mirror plane, shooting up into view and expanding from flat reflections into full objects.  Elegrence, the large white egret Advent Beast, flew up to them from behind and cawed, following for a second before rising back up into the glass ceiling with a flash.


* * *


Time: 12:XX AM, 1st Night
Locatio-o-ˆ_Ω∂~ß"\#—åaaaaaaaa͖̖̭͈͇͈̠͛̀ͦ͛̍a̞̩̰͐̓ͮ̔̿̚a̮̹̾̂̄ã̃̔̓͐̌̌a̼̰ͧͣ̏̏ͦȧ̓͆a̹̾̆̋ͮͨa͋ͥͫ̾  ҉͎̹͎͕


The surface of a metal refrigerator door warped, a lone Advent Cycle shooting out and quickly skidding to a stop down the sink aisle of a dark restaurant kitchen.  The cover opened, and Rarity looked around as the seat rose.  Aside from the seat’s pistons, the room was silent.
“Huh?” she said.  “Why didn’t we arrive together?  We were in the same mirror tunnel.  Applejack?  Hello?”
The Cycle’s buckles unhooked from her belt, and Rarity jumped as they loudly clattered against the sides, echoing across the kitchen.  As she calmed her breathing, she stepped out and started to cautiously explore.  The heavy silence felt like it was pressuring her into staying equally quiet, lest she attract something’s attention.
In the dim grayscale, only silvery reflections seemed to provide light.  Dirty plates were stacked high on several counters, silver pans hung from racks, seeming to sway with each soft step, and one sink had nothing but spoons in it—truly, the cruelest of punishments to be given.  As she made her way through the aisles, however, something sitting on a shelf off to the side caught her attention: a large cupcake with pink icing, adorned with a candle and a pair of cartoon googly eyes.  It was facing right at her.
“Just as long as that thing doesn’t blink at me…,” she mumbled, staring back at it as she shuffled sideways to the door, making sure it didn’t turn after her.  Pausing at the double kitchen doors, the ones with no latch that swing both ways, she exited with a quick jump, watching the doors swing back and forth a few times before settling shut.  Once confident that nothing was following her out, she turned to the long dark hallway beyond and started cautiously down it, taking the first doorway on her right.  A few seconds later, some pots and pans clattered from the kitchen.
Elsewhere, another Advent Cycle warped out of an empty fire extinguisher case, racing down a long dark hallway with a strip of checkerboard pattern running along the center of the walls; it stopped short of a dead end.  Applejack stepped out onto the checkerboard floor, seeing paper cups and napkins littering the hall, star decorations hanging from strings, and kids’ drawings and pizza posters on the walls.
“This wouldn’t be the same place as earlier, could it?” she said.  Up ahead on the left, there was window by an open doorway.  As she went to investigate, a closet door back down the hall on the right cracked ajar unnoticed.
Through the doorway, Applejack found a small office room with another open doorway and window on the opposite side looking into the end of another hallway.  Odd.  To her left was a cluttered desk with a metal fan on it, and to her right was a swivel chair in front of another desk against the wall with an array of small blank monitors under a larger screen.  Stepping up, she tapped at a keyboard below the screens on a whim, and to her surprise, the monitors blinked on, each showing a different camera feed.
“This building has power?” she wondered aloud, looking around the office again.  “In the Mirror World?  Now why would that be, unless…?”
A phone rang, Applejack jolting to face the other desk in surprise.  Who was in the Mirror World to make phone calls?  After a second ring, it picked itself up.
“Uh, hello?” said a voice.  “Hello, hello!  Uh, let this recording be what is probably your first actual welcome to your new job as the night watchman here at Fffffr—(static).”  Applejack stared cautiously at the phone.  “Now, you may have heard some of the rumors about this place going around lately, but honestly, we’re the real victims, here.  Unfortunately, the power company doesn’t agree.  Y’see, they cut off electricity to this building from midnight until morning to keep us in check or something, but fear not, we have a set of large on-site generators that kick on when you clock in to start your shift, like you’ve just done.  Of course, they don’t have an awful lot of charge, so try not to run out of power before 6 AM.  Not that it would be bad, just… inconvenient is all.”
Applejack absorbed this as best she could.  “Does this mean people were livin’ in this world?  But why’s it so empty now?  Just how long ago was this left?”
“As you know,” the guy on the phone continued, “your job is to keep an eye on the premises and the animatronic mascots used at this location.  Okay, so I know this place may seem a bit big and scary at first, especially at night, so I went ahead and prepared for you… this {MAP} of the building.  It’s got all the rooms labeled, and it even shows you where every security camera is and what it can see, just in case you need to properly visualize where something you see on the monitors is relative to you… y’know, for some reason.  If you’re somehow familiar with the floor plans for our other locations, then take a good look here because this is not the same building.”
Applejack looked back to the monitors to see a boxy diagram with labeled cone-shaped camera views in the corner of the big screen.  Each monitor had labeled keys, and as she hit them, the big screen flipped through larger views of each of them, though they were all dark and somewhat staticy, one being completely static.  The phone guy kept talking, but she ignored him as she came across a dim and murky view showing a white armored Kamen Rider next to an empty stage in ‘Main Party Room 2’.  She looked across the buttons before finding and pressing one with a light bulb picture on it, a light on the camera coming on to illuminate the area it viewed.
Having been making her way through the dark as her eyes adjusted, Rarity turned in surprise to the sudden spotlight from above.
Applejack saw a microphone on the setup and hit a button at its base.
“Easy there, Rarity,” her voice came over the intercom, “it’s jus’ me.  I found some control room of sorts up here.  You come across anything interestin’ on your end?”
With a deep exhale, Rarity started, “As a matter of fact, I’ve discovered that this establishment is in the utmost state of disregard in the departments of cleanliness and—”
Watching through the camera, Applejack saw Rarity moving her arms a bit, but there was no sound.
“Sorry,” she said, “it looks like sound doesn’t come through this way.  I’ll just take that as…hold up.”
On the small monitors below, the screen that had been completely static, the Kitchen, had had its feed return.  However, the camera labeled to be watching the Central Hall just outside the kitchen had gone static instead.  A few seconds later, it cleared up, only for the main view down the Central Hall to go out.
Through the intercom, Applejack’s voice mumbled, “Hmm… that doesn’t look good.”
“Are you going to fill me in anytime soon?” Rarity called at the camera.
Applejack glanced back up to notice Rarity with her arms crossed, head tilted, and tapping her foot impatiently.  As she was looking away, the Central Hall’s feed came back, while the view of just inside Main Party Room 2 blanked.
“I got a camera blackout spot rollin’ through the place,” Applejack reported.  “I don’t know if it’s anythin’, but it’s gettin’ kinda close to—”
Rarity’s camera feed on the main screen went dead, replaced with “–Camera Disabled– Audio Only”.  Applejack ignored the irony that the feed never had audio in the first place as she switched off and back to it to no effect.
“Rarity?  Rarity!  You still ther—,” she let go of the intercom button.  “’Course she can’t answer.”  She pressed the button again.  “Your camera’s out.  If you can still hear me, go into another room so I can see you.”
“Oh, one more thing,” the phone guy continued from behind her.  “Due to the technicians explaining something about servos locking or, I dunno, a ‘nighttime free roaming mode’, the mascots may tend to…‘wander’ a bit after hours, which has, I’ll be honest, unnerved a few past employees.”  The hairs on Applejack’s neck rose.  “So just watch and make sure they don’t accidentally stumble through the front window or something, that would be bad.  For insurance reasons, of course, not… safety, or anything.”
W-walking animatronics?  That was ridiculous, right?  It had to be a joke.  But…could there really be something other than Mirror Monsters here?  Applejack pondered the thought for just a second.  Then she heard scratchy breathing behind her and froze.
Rarity stood in silent darkness after the light had suddenly shut off.  “Hello?” she called softly, looking around nervously.  “Applejack?”  She carefully slid a card into her slotter, ready to snap it shut with the slightest flinch.
“But remember,” the phone guy said, “these characters hold a special place in the hearts of children, and we need to show them a little respect, right?”
Applejack slowly turned her head to the right and looked out the dark and very open doorway she’d come through.  A hall light flickered and briefly revealed the form of a tall humanoid rabbit figure standing just beyond.  Instinct took over.  For some reason, the word ‘doors’ had been picked up by her subconscious.  Quickly glancing a pair of buttons next to the doorway labeled “Light” and “Door”, she kicked over and hit the Door button with her toe.  With a mechanical rolling, a solid metal door dropped from the ceiling and rushed towards the floor, but a pair of large indigo hands shot out of the darkness and caught the door in the middle of its descent, straining it to a stop. {Reach for the sky.}
Rarity slowly backed up, not noticing the shadowed silhouette behind her.  The large form reached around her and let out a loud shriek; on startled reflex, Rarity turned and jumped away, slamming her slotter closed.
Guard Vent
She caught the falling white shield and tried pointing it out at the—a large orange beak clamped around the small shield as its owner continued to shriek and shoved her back.
The indigo rabbit monster Lapispring slowly managed to bring the power door back up against the mechanism.  Lifting it high enough to peek inside at a slight crouch, Lapispring tilted his head into view and began a screech.
Brawl Vent
Standing in wait with a pair of paw-shaped metal boxing gloves, Applejack punched the monster solidly in the face with a blast of sparks and an echoing crunch that cut its screech short.  Its fingers slipped away immediately as it recoiled back into darkness, and the door slammed down shut.
“Now just stay put, stay safe, and I’ll talk to you tomorrow,” the phone guy finished.  “Good luck.”
Applejack saw that Rarity’s camera was still on static and traced out a path from the office to the Party Room on the map.  She turned and raced out the open opposite door and up the Right Hall.


With her shield wedged firmly in the shrieking monster’s open and toothy beak, Rarity was tugged along as it tried swinging her side to side, keeping her off-balance and pushing her back.  She didn’t want to lose track of the monster in this darkness by letting go, but what would she actually…?
Rarity was being forced back by the zipping and whipping of a pencil-thin bendable sword as she tried deflecting it with her own, but as she stepped off the mat, there was a whistle.
“You’re concentrating too much on your defense,” the instructor said.  “That’s why your defense eventually breaks.  You can’t let yourself get stuck in the same routine.  Choose to act…”
“…and break their rhythm,” she repeated from today’s fencing lesson, “by doing the unexpected.”
As the yellow chicken monster Chikaraves swung her head again, instead of resisting, Rarity went with it and farther, spinning and pulling the beast along its own momentum to stumble past her.  She twisted the shield to tilt its head and lead it back the other way, but Chikaraves simply lurched forward, the force nearly sending Rarity off her feet.  Rarity clung to the shield as Chikaraves lifted it up in her beak, bringing Rarity’s feet off the floor, the monster leaning back to try and reach its arms around to her.
With one last trick, Rarity hit the button on the shield’s handle, the array of purple spines springing out and stabbing through the monster’s beak.  A second later, a light blue energy bubble pulsed out, launching Rarity and her shield away from the monster as a stream of sparks snaked around from its jawline with a bloodcurdling caw.  In the light of the shield’s energy rim, she finally got a view of Chikaraves as it staggered back, its lower jaw split from its bulbous head the full way around and locked open, revealing a smaller second set of mechanical teeth inside.  Its body was also notably large and blocky for a Mirror Monster, and seemed to be made of padded casing segments instead of having a jagged metal form, but that wasn’t Rarity’s concern right now.  Retracting the spines with another button click, she dove behind the nearest table among the rows lining the room.
As Chikaraves shrieked again and began stomping around and searching, Rarity slipped under the table.  When it sounded like the monster was getting farther away, she began quietly crawling under the line of tables, hoping to find the door.  She instead found some small shape on the floor blocking her path.  She could almost make out a smooth pink dome, which tilted to the side with a curious squeak, when the candle atop the eyed cupcake staring inquisitively at her flickered to life and started burning down like a fuse.


“Rarity!” Applejack called, jogging into the room.  “You in here?”  She looked around in the darkness, the outlines of rows of tables with party hats lining down the centers barely visible.  This was the right room, wasn’t it?  She’d followed the hallway through the Central Hall to—darn it, she’d taken the left door instead of the right one, she was in the Party Room next door!  She turned to go back, but the sound of the door slamming shut echoed through the room.
She tensed, holding up her boxing gloves.  There was a soft whooshing sound, then something clamped onto her right arm from the darkness and yanked her face-to-face with a pair of glowing red eyes glaring out from a hollow abyss surrounded by dangling wires.  Lapispring screeched pure fury at her, nothing remaining of his face above his lower jaw.
She tried struggling against the monster’s vise grip, taking a swing at it again with her free arm.  It caught Brawl Vent in its large right hand in a hit that burst away the indigo padding, but the remaining robotic skeletal hand clamped down and squeezed, crushing dents into the metal glove.  The bent edges gouged into her hand.  Then it swung up and tossed her away, and she landed on a table that buckled at the impact.  With another whoosh, she caught a glimpse of it leaping through the air and down at her.


Rarity scrambled out from under the table, clattering chairs aside, and ran, the fuse-bearing Cupcake bouncing after her with the sound of a rubber squeaker.  It sprang itself with force right at her, but she turned and knocked it away with her shield.
The Cupcake flew into the grasp of Chikaraves before scurrying up to her left shoulder and cowering.  Chikaraves turned from looking at the Cupcake to glaring at Rarity, its fuse illuminating her white bib reading “Let’s Eat!”  Rarity took a breath and steadied herself.  The Cupcake squealed at her, Chikaraves giving a growling squawk.
Rarity took stance with her front foot pointed straight and back foot sideways, and raised her shield with a call of, “En garde, pret, allez!”
The Cupcake jumped out along Chikaraves’ right arm as she swung it forward, the Cupcake launching at Rarity again.
Rarity gave a lunge straight into the Cupcake, ramming it directly away with her shield as she extended her arm with a step forward with her front foot only, then stepping back into stance exactly as she’d practiced.  She smiled to herself.
Then the Cupcake was swept up in an invisible force and boomeranged back at her from midair, Rarity surprised but on instinct flicking the shield with her wrist to parry the Cupcake to the side.  Wow, she’d picked that up fast.  But the Cupcake only arced around and came in from another angle, Rarity quickly spinning to deflect it again, its candle now clearly shorter and still burning.  Then it came back in again.  And again.


Applejack quickly rolled aside as Lapispring stomped down and further splintered the table.  She jumped up to hit it with her remaining boxing glove, but it sprang back up and out of sight with minimal effort.  Looking up into the murky darkness seemingly negating the presence of a ceiling, Applejack prepared to meet Lapispring with a fist on its next pass.  It silently dropped down, but as she punched up at it, it swatted with its superior reach and knocked her aside, then retreated back to the darkness above.
Applejack groaned in frustration, hitting her gloves together to shatter them away.  She shook out her left hand and massaged it a bit; there would be a mark there tomorrow.  With only the slightest rush of air as warning, she dove aside to avoid Lapispring stomping down again, and it hissed and sprang up and away.  What to do?  Go after it with Spring Vent, or…no, wait…
She placed a card in her slotter and waited, standing still and listening.  A creak in the distance.  A whoosh silently approaching.  Three…two…one—she jumped back as Lapispring dropped in and slammed her slotter shut.  And it grabbed her arm again.
Pound Vent
The monster tried springing away with her, but she grabbed the arm that held hers as a whooshing came from above.  An orange sledgehammer fell spinning and slammed onto Lapispring’s left shoulder with a shredding sound amidst a shower of sparks, the monster vanishing back into the darkness with a bloodcurdling screech, its loose arm clattering to the ground.


Rarity had to spin every time to keep the Cupcake back on its invisible bungee cord, her foot placement quickly degrading to a stutter-step as she had to hold the shield in both hands with her arms tiring out, now swinging wide from the shoulders in an embarrassing performance.  The Cupcake cackled as it came in for another pass, its candle quickly burning away.  She slammed and sent it reeling, almost pulling herself off her feet, when an idea hit her.
As the Cupcake flew in again, she pointed the shield out at it and, waiting for the right moment, triggered the shield’s energy pulse again, pushing and holding the Cupcake away.  Squinting angrily, its base split open into a jagged mouth that tried gnawing at the fading barrier as it circled the bubble, Rarity taking this spare second to slot a card.
Splash Vent
The bubble faded and the Cupcake raced in again, but this time, several tendrils of water rose swirling from the ground at Rarity’s feet, weaving in a sphere around her.  The Cupcake rammed into one of the tendrils, getting held in place, and Rarity gave it a slight wave.  Then she pushed her open hand at it, a pair of tendrils snaking from behind her and spearing into it, carrying it away…and into the grasp of Chikaraves, the tendrils splashing away.  Chikaraves quickly turned the Cupcake up to face her.  Its weary eyes blinked open to meet her gaze.  Then they popped open wide.  Its fuse had run out.  It gave a guilty look.
The Cupcake’s explosion thrust Chikaraves’ arms aside as Rarity shielded her eyes from the flash.  She heard a mechanical moaning as the smoke cleared.  Chikaraves was swaying side to side, its arms seemingly locked pointing straight out, with only frayed wires where its hands had been.  Rarity remembered back to all the times when her parents would tell her to be careful when handling fireworks.  Seems they were right.


Applejack heard the explosion next door.  “Rarity!” she shouted, taking a step towards the door, but Lapispring crashed down in front of her and swiped her aside with the skeletal robot hand on its remaining arm, shooting back and away before kicking loudly off the far wall and soaring overhead.
Applejack tried following it on its new path as it sprang around madly, bouncing off the floor and walls, but had to roll aside as it sailed by and scratched tiles off the floor.  This had gotten out of hand.  Hmm, my Advent Beast had a good jump in the finisher.  She slotted the card.
Attack Vent
Emerging from the overly reflective floors, Hyperboxer jumped in, the kangaroo Advent Beast standing tall and looking around in the darkness.  Hyperboxer’s neck had a solid, unbending build, but at the top was a ball-and-socket joint, on which its head spun and tilted freely, letting it easily keep up with Lapispring’s rampage.
Choosing its moment, Hyperboxer leapt up just before Lapispring came in for an attack, bouncing sideways to get behind the rabid rabbit.  It trailed Lapispring as the two vaulted into and out of sight amid the darkness.  It was hard to follow from the ground.
Turning on instinct, Applejack saw as Lapispring sailed overhead, Hyperboxer springing up into view behind it.  It kicked aside the monster as it dropped past, Lapispring slamming into a squared support column in the Party Room dividing wall before sliding to the floor with a crash.  Hyperboxer landed in front of Lapispring as it tried to pull itself up, jumping back onto its tail and kicking out with both its feet.


Despite the new damage, Chikaraves gave a metallic shriek and charged at Rarity.  Rarity tried bringing up her shield into a defensive position, but her arms were too tired to hold it steady.  Then she heard a mirror warp.
With a mighty caw, her egret Advent Beast Elegrence burst from the reflection of the floor behind her, knocking several tables aside, and swooped down in front of her, a single flap of its wings blasting Chikaraves back in a flurry of feathers and crashing it into the front of the stage.  Elegrence stomped down and stood defensively in front of Rarity, flaring its wings, the slim purple feathers along its body springing out as spines into a pincushion, and screeching an angry cracking sound, snapping its beak loudly.  Being taller than a person while crouched, it was a formidable display.  Rarity dropped her arms with a heavy sigh.
Then something smashed through the wall, rolling up to the stage beside Chikaraves: an indigo rabbit monster missing its face and left arm.  Applejack stepped through the hole in the wall.
“Took you long enough,” Rarity called over.
“What?  Well sorry for bein’ held up,” Applejack replied indignantly.
“Think I found what was causing your camera problem.”
“I noticed.  No trouble, I assume?”
“No thanks to you.”
Chikaraves pushed to slide its back up the stage front and stand as Lapispring lifted itself to its feet, holding the stage to stay upright.  The monsters shrieked at the Riders.
“Oh, hush!” they shot back in unison, taking out cards.
Final Vent
Final Vent
Hyperboxer sprang up behind Applejack and grabbed her arms, thrusting her into the air before leaping up after her, while Elegrence flapped up and arced around the room as Rarity’s sword flew into her hand, spiraling water tendrils rising around her feet and lifting her up.  At the apex of Applejack’s launch, Hyperboxer came up behind her as Spring Vent boots attached to her feet, the kangaroo kicking her down and forward with knees bent and both feet flat together.  Rarity pointed her cone sword forward as Elegrence flew in behind her and, with a powerful flap of its wings, sent her shooting at the monsters, spinning sword first with water tendrils spiraling around her.
Lapispring tried springing up, but Applejack kicked out and hit it midair and it vanished in a backwards streak into a fireball, disintegrating from the air friction after the force of the impact.  Applejack flipped back and landed in a crouch as Rarity speared into Chikaraves, drilling through it and out its back as the monster exploded in a burst of fire and water, raining charred debris.  Rarity skidded to a stop on the stage, and the two Riders stood silently for a few seconds.
“Thank you for actually coming to my rescue after earlier,” Rarity sighed.
“What can I say?” said Applejack.  “Can’t live with ya, can’t live without ya.”
“I apologize for the attitude earlier,” Rarity said, “but honestly darling, complaining is my coping method, you should know that by now.  There’s a friendship lesson in there somewhere.  I think.”
“Better together?”
“Close enough.”
With a flash, a pair of energy balls floated up from the smoldering remnants of the monsters, the Advent Beasts hopping or flying by to absorb them.
“Wait,” Applejack said, “were these jus’ regular…?  But then what was all that about…?”
“All what?”
“Nothin’, never mind,” she said, but caught herself.  “Actually, very much mind, we need a group meeting tomorrow.”  She strutted towards the door.  “I think I’ve just blown the Mirror World mystery wide open.”
“Huh?” Rarity said, hastily hopping down from the stage to follow.  “Could you at least give me a sneak preview?”
Unseen by the Riders as they left, but in the Party Room next door, there were now two balloons floating on strings tied to seats at one of the tables, balloons that hadn’t been there when they’d arrived: one blue and one yellow.


* * *


Later that night, the mysterious figure walked the halls of the dark pizzeria, muttering to himself.
“Even when I force you to leave, you still come back here.  After all my effort, I expected more…but I’m inspired.”  He entered the Greeting Hall at the front of the establishment, walking past the row of hibernating arcade machines.  “This might be an unexpected obstacle, unless I can use it to my advantage.”
He turned to one of the large curtained front windows and pointed with a snap.
Behind the closed curtains, a reflection warped, and a slim metal hook reached around the edge of one, slowly drawing it open.  A pair of glowing white eyes peered out from the darkness.  A long red jaw lined with sharp teeth emerged from behind the curtain, slowly opening…





Next time, on “Kamen Rider EqG”…
2nd Night.
“I just want to be noticed…”
Reflections