//------------------------------//
// Danger, Socks, and the Mysterious Armor 
// Story: Kamen Rider Gr3en 
// by BioniclesaurKing4t2 
//------------------------------//

Her world was darkness now.
Minty pushed the borrowed wheelbarrow through the dark streets, the armor’s pieces jangling against each other with every cobblestone bump.  She didn’t know why she was bringing the pieces home, she just did.
She piled the pieces in a corner before lying in bed.  She didn’t dream that night.  She just lay there in a black void, feeling every second tick by one by one.
The next morning, she figured it wouldn’t be good to just leave the armor out in plain view.  Closing up the chest shell, she rested a lampshade on its shoulders.  No one will notice.  She tossed the stray limb pieces into her sock drawer to be forever hidden, staring into the helmet’s eyes for a second before setting it inside and closing the drawer.
She took another look around her room.  Everything seemed dreary and drained of color, just a collection of tinted grays.  She sighed.  Even after the thrill of living was gone, life went on.  She’d have to go on with it.  Life as usual.  Ha.
As soon as she stepped outside, however, her eyes were assaulted by bright and happy colors.  The pink houses, purple stone roads, every color of flower on plants almost glowing green, and sparkles on half of it.  A group of ponies walked by, laughing at something one of them had said.  What was all this for?  How dare the world stay bright and cheerful after last night.  Oh right, that’s not how it worked.
Minty wandered around aimlessly, getting waves but not waving back, soon stopping as she realized she was back where it had happened.  She’d have expected the colors to have dulled themselves here, at least.  But nope, there was no difference from the rest of the town.  Two smiling ponies walked right over the spot Patch had been thrown to, and they didn’t even flinch.  How can they still be happy?  That’s right, they don’t know what happened here last…they don’t know?
Her ears rang as she remembered the rocket flying right over her head and hitting the stone monster.  She’d gone deaf for a second after that.  But then how…?  She looked at the ponies milling around her, going about their daily business of just being happy and without care, just as they always do.  Exactly as they always do.  She now realized the one thing that had been bugging her most about their lack of reactions.
“Did no one hear that?” Minty asked herself, looking around again.  “Seriously?”
Despite her best efforts to remain sullen forever, confusion at this conundrum had broken her concentration, and she quickly found the colorful happiness of town to be contagious, soon finding herself wanting breakfast like she always did.  Cotton Candy’s parlor always had something good.
Crash!
Minty yelped and dove to the ground.
“Whoops,” came a voice from a second story balcony.  Minty’s eyes shot over to a broken flowerpot nearby, and a wave of relief came over her.  Then she looked around at the other ponies nearby.  Somepony glanced at her, but shrugged and kept walking.  Luckily, the whole town was already used to the clumsy and ditzy Minty doing this kind of thing, so nopony would take particular notice.  Their seeming lack of concern was…well, in this case it was welcoming.  No way was she going to try and explain what had happened.
Arriving at Cotton Candy’s parlor, a pink building at the edge of the lake next to town and with a dock out back, she found it as full of ponies as ever, clustered around assorted small round tables.  Cotton Candy herself was behind the counter next to the door, a pink mare with a bubblegum pink and blue mane, and smiled to Minty as she entered.  Minty did her best to mimic a smile back.  After a pause, Cotton Candy not-so-casually turned away to something behind her suddenly requiring her attention.  Yeah, Minty would’ve done the same.  As she walked in, a few of the patrons looked her way, but all but one looked away again.
“There you are, Minty!” called a pink-sounding voice.  At a table in the middle was her best friend Pinkie Pie, bright and giddy as always.  Ah yes, Minty thought as she joined her, if anything could get her out of this mood, it was mere proximity to Pinkie Pie.  “You missed sharing the first muffin of the day with me like usual, so I just ate it myself.”  Or not.
“Oh,” Minty sighed, “sorry.”
“Yeah, I was surprised, too,” said Sweetberry, the dark red mare waitress with a purple and green mane, as she swung around to their table.  “Y’know, it was even getting past its sweetness perfection time range, and she was still gonna let it sit out waiting for you, but I convinced her about my rule number five, ‘you don’t waste good’, because boy was this muffin a good one, Triple Treat made sure of it.”
“I think she gets the picture,” said Star Dasher from the table next to theirs.
“Right you are,” Sweetberry agreed, turning to the purple mare with a pink and silver striped mane.  “Another starfait?”
“Yeah, sure…,” Star Dasher feigned.  “I just can’t get enough, it’s like an undying hunger inside of me…”  Sweetberry was already slinking away.  Star Dasher leaned over to their table.  “Sometime the same old can get tiring, can’t it, Minty?”
Minty was staring off at nothing.  Pinkie tapped her arm.  “Huh?  Oh…I kinda like it when nothing changes.  Changing something, especially something big can be…a bit much.  Like your world’s suddenly been shattered.”
There was a pause.
“Uh, I just meant the menu,” Star Dasher said.  “But yeah, I hear that sentiment a lot around here.”
“Here you go, enjoy, wave for a refill!” said Sweetberry as she swept by, dropping off the star-shaped confection almost by sleight of hoof before sliding towards another table.  “Sparkleworks, I know those checkers are cookies, but you’ll never finish the game properly if you keep eating them.”
“Well,” Star Dasher said as she turned to her plate and clapped her hooves together, “itadakimasu.”
Pinkie and Minty sat for a few seconds in silence.  “Don’t take this the wrong way,” Pinkie brought up, “but you seem to be a bit off this morning.  For instance, you haven’t once had a random awkward giggle.  You’ve usually done that five times by now.”
“Oh,” said Minty, forcing an, “Eh-he-he…”
Pinkie stared at her a second.  “That one was the wrong kind of awkward.”
“I, uh…,” Minty sighed, “guess I must not have gotten much sleep last night, probably just a bit tired.  Yeah, that’s it, totally…is.  It, that is.”
Pinkie muttered to herself, “And now she’s acting a bit more Minty than usual.”
“Speaking of which,” Minty added, “did anyone happen to say they heard anything last night?  Anything unusual?  Loud?”
The surrounding conversation hushed and eyes turned to her.  A few of the other ponies looked between each other.  “What’d you do this time?” asked Star Dasher.
“Huh?  Nothing!” Minty snapped.  “I didn’t…”  But as she spoke, she realized how true her words were.  She saw the horse monster punching the suit, then Patch standing before her, trying to smile before fading to gray.  “I didn’t do anything.”
“If you say so,” Star Dasher said, she and the rest of the patrons turning back to their own tables.
“That went well,” Minty groaned.
“Don’t let it bother you,” Pinkie said.  “Well, I actually have something I need to do today.”  She got up.  “Order a new muffin if you want, all for you.”  She left her friend at the table, Minty propping her cheeks in her hooves and staring off again.  Sweetberry rose up behind her, but got the impression and slid silently away again.
After a few minutes, Minty found herself turned to look out the window.  Outside, there walked by a purple mare with a pink and purple mane and a magenta flower over her ear and a small blue dragon.  The dragon drifted behind a bit and leaned to try and snatch something from the ground, but Wysteria reached back and grabbed his other arm.
“Now now, Spike,” she said, “we’re trying to keep that dragon greeed of yours under control, remember?”
Ah yes, it was their resident “Princess” Wysteria and her “royal” assistant Spike.  Long story short, she’d found a glowing flower Spike had been sleeping under for centuries in a cavern underneath the castle, and her touching it first had automatically made her into Ponyville’s princess.  She didn’t like the restrictions or class division of being royalty, so she’d made everypony in town into princesses so no one would feel the need to treat her differently.  Yeah.  Minty couldn’t have made this up if she’d wanted to.
That’s when she noticed a group of patrons milling their way to the door consisting of Applejack, Loop-De-La, Toola-Roola, and Sunny Daze.  Sunny dipped her sunglasses and waved to somepony still in the diner.
“Ooh, that’s my cue!” Sweetberry said as she noticed, winding her way over.
“Have fun,” Cotton Candy waved from the counter.
“What’s this about?” Minty asked as Sweetberry passed by.
“Oh, we’re having an exercise day out by the park,” Sweetberry said.  “You want in?”
“Nah, I’m not really feeling up to it,” said Minty.  “Besides, I’ve got something else on my mind.”
“Your loss,” Sweetberry shrugged, heading out with the others.
Minty returned to idle staring, but noticed the table next to her suddenly empty. She looked back to see Star Dasher sneaking out the door, following the others at a distanced pace, but brushed it off.  She’s probably just another member of the group.  Still, it motivated her to leave, too.  There was somepony she had to talk to.


To solve the “puzzler” of the incredibly loud rocket explosion that didn’t draw attention, Minty went for a hunt.  She was on the lookout for a white mare with a purple mane that had a yellow then a magenta stripe in the front, and a magenta-above and purple-below tail with a thin yellow strand.
Is that her by the flowerbed?  No, that’s Blossomforth.  Hold on, the pony carrying water bottles… no, sunglasses, that’s Sunny Daze.  And there’s Daffidazey outside the boutique.  Don’t tell me I’ll see Candy Cane next, I’m finding every white-coated pony in town except… there!  She finally spotted the clue to clinch it: the cutie mark of a magnifying glass over a large yellow puzzle piece.
“Puzzlemint!” Minty called out.
Puzzlemint stopped and turned to her.  “Ah, Minty,” she said.  “Jolly good day, isn’t it?”
“Hey Puzzlemint,” Minty said, “I’ve got a real stumper and only you can probably help figure it out.”
Immediately intrigued, Puzzlemint trotted over to her.  “A real stumper, you say?” she said.
“Yeah, but I’m not sure if it’s something even you’d be able to get.”
“Please, Minty,” Puzzlemint brushed off, “I’m a level 50 puzzle gamer, of course I’ll get it.  Let’s hear this perfect puzzle you’ve got for me, then.”
“How do I ask this?” Minty mumbled.  “If a tree falls in the forest,” she started, making up the metaphor as she went, “and everyone is around to hear it, but no one does…then what happened?”
Puzzlemint paused a second.  “No kidding, that is a puzzler,” she said finally.  She looked down and thought for a few seconds.  “Could they possibly have all been deaf?”
“No, I wouldn’t think so,” Minty replied.  “They were hearing just fine before and after.”
“Oh.  Is this a trick question, then?  Did the tree actually hit the ground when it fell, or something?”
“It definitely hit the ground hard.”
“Hmm, well…wait, do you even know that there is an answer?”
“I’d say there has to be.”
“And there wasn’t some other noise drowning it out?”
“What’s this we’re discussing?” another mare asked, walking up in between them.  It was Wondermint, also white, with a purple and pink striped mane and tail, and a cutie mark of three leaves pointing out from an actual pink gemstone.  Self-proclaimed as Puzzlemint’s nemesis, she was always popping up to try and solve the puzzle master’s puzzles first.  “Whatever it is, I’m sure I could have it solved long before she could.”
“I don’t think so,” Puzzlemint said, having long since lost her amusement of this rivalry.  “Besides, this is my puzzle.”
“Not even letting me hear it?” Wondermint taunted.  “A sure sign you know I’d get it first.”
Puzzlemint looked past her at Minty again.  “Could they have all been asleep at the time?”
Wondermint paused, the smirk fading from her face.  She glanced at Puzzlemint then to Minty.
“It was a big tree,” Minty replied, joining in in ignoring Wondermint.
“A deep sleep, then?” Puzzlemint bounced back.
“No, seriously,” Wondermint insisted impatiently, “what is this you’re talking about?”
“Well, that’s the only answer I’ve got,” shrugged Puzzlemint.
Minty sighed.  “Never mind, then,” she said, turning away.  “I’m sure it must’ve been a trick question after all.”  She walked away, no closer to understanding anything.
“I’ll only ask once again,” Wondermint said to Puzzlemint with an edge of sharpness, “tell me—”
“Sorry, but I’m declaring victory and leaving,” Puzzlemint cut her off, turning and trotting off.  “Ta ta.”
Wondermint stood where she was, looking back and forth between the two ponies with suspicion.  On her cutie mark, a rainbow glimmer passed over the jewel in the center.


* * *


It was now that night.  With no hope of understanding the events of last night, Minty was again considering just ignoring it all and trying to pretend it had never happened.  Just going along with the bliss of the town would be easy, and was attractive enough.
Minty lay on her bed on top of the covers, waiting for sleep and listening to a violin play the same note again and again.
Huh, Minty thought.  Now who nearby plays violin?  Wait, that’s not outside, it’s—
She pulled open her sock drawer and the violin got louder.  The suit’s mask was staring back at her, and as she picked it up, she realized that the tune was coming from inside it.  It could only mean one thing.  Every hero needs a signal.
Minty was out and wandering the empty town in the darkness before she knew it.  Just last night there had been something as crazy as a monster roaming—in quiet peaceful Ponyville of all places.  What else could be here so soon?  Better question, what did she expect to do about it?
The streetlights were again nonfunctional, but in the light of the moon an odd shadow slid along the ground at the edge of an alley up ahead.  She tiptoed up to edge, but stepped on a dry leaf and the shadow flinched.  As she went to look around the corner, she ran face-first into Star Dasher and the two jumped back, the yellow jewel in Star’s large star cutie mark shimmering.
“How are—Minty, what?” Star Dasher stuttered.
“Oh, it’s just you,” Minty said, sighing in relief.
“Yeah.  What else would I be?  What would even be out here?  You’re not scared of the dark, are you?”
“What?  Oh, no, dark is fine, it’s the stuff that sneaks into my way when I can’t see it that…,” Minty nervously rambled as Star Dasher simply stared.  “Actually, now that you mention it, there may actually be something out here—just maybe.  And maybe it would maybe be best to just go back inside right about now.”  Yep, not suspicious at all.
“On a night like this?” Star Dasher said coyly, looking up at the moon.  “And what are you doing out here, then?”
“I, uh…talking to you, to…tell you to maybe just stay inside tonight?”  Minty gave a nervous smile.


Minty shut her door.  Ahhg, so stupid!  What did she think she was doing?  If that hadn’t just been Star Dasher around that corner, then what?
“Well,” she sighed, “at least it was easy enough getting her back inside.  Good thing that’s ov—”
The violin music began to play again.
“What?  Oh good grief, is there someone else out there?” she sighed.  “I thought the streets were usually empty at night.”
Venturing back outside again, she combed the streets again to find no other ponies.  What was that disembodied violin so insistent about?  She stepped around a house onto a side street and stopped a gasp with her hoof.  Wandering down the path away from her was a black bipedal figure with a spiny back, shiny orange stained glass arms, and a thick curved spike on each foot.
Hearing a slight noise, the monster turned to look, revealing a star-shaped ring of five heads on its chest surrounding a circular array of needle teeth, shards of colored glass making their faces and speckling its body, the detailing on its design resembling a gothic-style wrought iron fence.  Seeing the street empty, it turned back and walked on.
Minty was plastered against the hidden side of the house, confident her heartbeat was shaking the building.  There was no more avoiding it.  She’d been trying to ignore the obvious fact.  Patch had been hanging around Ponyville for a reason.  Now she was gone, but that reason was still here.  And also…“We coulda used you.”
Accept it, she told herself.  A crisis has slipped into your familiar surroundings.  Who will rise to the occasion but you? {Individual-System}


The Seastar Fangire stood outside the house of one Toola-Roola, local painter, and the most delicious-looking athlete of the day.  It inhaled deeply with a slurp.
It waved a clawed hand in front of the house.  In the sky, a blood red hue glinted across the surface of the moon, and an invisible red layer draping over the house was briefly illuminated before disappearing in a wisp of smoke.  The Fangire rubbed its hands together and took a step forward.  Then a rock hit its back, hard, sending it stumbling forward a step or two.  It turned back and saw a figure in a blue and silver metal armor suit standing across the street, orange bulb eyes shining.
Inside the armor, Minty was still surprised she was doing this.  At the same time, thoughts such as, “Wow, this suit has some arm,” and, “This one’s a bit more colorful than the other guy,” were jumping into her mind.  She shook her head to dispel them.  This wasn’t the time.
Splintered images of an unidentifiable pony’s face appeared across the many stained glass shards covering Seastar’s body.  “Oh?” the images said in a warped and grated voice.  “Back again, are we?”
Again? thought Minty.  Did Patch fight this same monster before?  The fact that Patch clearly hadn’t beaten it wasn’t reassuring.  She took what she thought to be a battle stance.  “Stay away from Toola!” she shouted, muffled by the helmet.
Seastar gave a blood-chilling howling cackle and charged.  Still getting used to moving in the armor, but finding it easily capable of moving with her almost on its own, she ran to meet it.  She tried swinging at it, but it grabbed her arm mid-punch and pulled her chestplate into its flared and pointed wrist cover—which the armor actually absorbed most of the impact of…most—before swinging and tossing her up the street.
Okay, she thought as she got back up, that hurt a bit more.
Seastar cackled again.  “You don’t fight quite the same as you used to,” it taunted.  “I wonder…are you still the same pony in there?  I can’t taste you anymore.”
Minty’s ears rebelled upon hearing that, her stomach trying to follow.  W-wh… what the heck!?!
“Let me try for another bite.  Itadakimasu…”
Seastar summoned a pair of long, ghostly red fangs floating in front of it.  They turned to Minty and shot forward, Minty jumping back as they impaled into the ground.  Patch had said she “never got the tip out”.  Well, those would definitely have a tip.
The fangs pulled themselves out of the ground and flew at Minty again.  This time she dove left, the fangs hitting the dirt.  They rose again, chasing her around the street, Minty jumping, leaping, and sidestepping back and forth as they constantly poked and stabbed in and out at the ground around her hooves.
“Hehehe…,” Seastar chuckled.  “Dance…”
Even with the suit helping, all of this dodging was beginning to tire Minty out; she had to do something soon.  As she pulled her hoof back from the next fang stabbing at her, it wedged itself in the ground only inches away.  Now!  She threw her hoof back to where it had been, catching the retracting fang and smashing it against the ground.  It shattered into glass shards that faded away, Minty grinning as Seastar suddenly grabbed at a point on its ring of teeth.  Her specialty of breaking things was finally being put to good use.
The other fang drew back and shot directly at her, but the helmet’s display pointed her attention to it, as it just about reached her, she swung a hoof across and broke it in half, leaning her head to the side as the tip flew past.  Seastar hissed as it clutched at its teeth.
“Ohh-ho-ho-ho,” it seethed, “and just when I thought you might be my flavor.”
Deciding she didn’t want to get too close to it, Minty reached around and clicked her hoof onto the small gun attached to the armor’s outer right thigh, unhooking it and swinging it into position.  A female voice within the helmet said, “G-M-Zero-One, active!”
“Huh?” Minty said, looking to both sides.  “Who said that?”
Seastar charged her again, so she dropped the question and shot down the street at it.  The first recoil kicked her hoof back and the bullet zinged off the cobblestone at Seastar’s feet.  She jolted the gun back into position, but the motion set it off again, kicking it to the side, a runaway loop of this sending a hail sparking around Seastar and stopping it.  Minty quickly let go before she hit a house, the gun clattering to the ground.
Seastar growled and slipped aside between a pair of houses.  Minty picked up the gun again, a popup on the helmet’s display reporting 14 bullets remaining.  “That doesn’t seem like a good number,” she muttered, clicking it back onto her thigh so she had all hooves to walk with.
She followed the monster’s path to the next street over, but found it empty.  The night was as still and silent as ever.  The violin had stopped playing after she’d taken the helmet to the battle, and now things were feeling too quiet.  Keeping a keen eye out, she slowly crept up the street.
Now with half a moment’s respite, a thought rose in her mind about why no one was running outside to investigate the, again, very loud gunshots.  “A deep sleep, then?” Puzzlemint had suggested.  Well, if that ghostly red sheet covering Toola’s house had meant anything…
In a shimmer, Seastar suddenly reappeared up the street in front of her and shot a blast of lighting from its circular mouth, knocking her back and to the ground with a shock.  The armor gave a slight spasm from the jolt, the undersuit squeezing tighter all over.  While she struggled against the suit to stand up, Seastar strolled over to her.  As she had just managed to get her legs under her, it kicked her in the gut with its large spike-toe and she dropped to the ground again.  It picked her up by the collar and drop-kicked her away, cackling.
Minty pushed through the pain to stand up again.  She could just hear everypony telling her how bad an idea this was, as always.  Ha, but hearing them would mean she made it to tomorrow.  Funny motivation to have.  The armor’s belt beeped and a light on it flashed red.  The voice from before spoke again.  “Battery at less than one percent.  You have thirty seconds!”
“Oh, now that’s just sweet,” Minty muttered.  She looked down to the belt, tilting it up to see the nearly empty red bar light better, but some control on it clicked.
“All power diverting to right arm,” the voice said.  “You’ve got one last swing to finish this.”
“What?  No, I-I didn’t mean to do that!  Oh…”
“Trouble with the suit?” taunted Seastar, stroking its claw-like nails.  “I can fix that.”  It charged at her, arms spread wide.
Her right arm began to feel tingly as the undersuit’s sleeve hummed and vibrated as power built.  This was her only chance.  As Seastar closed in, she threw herself to meet it, punching with everything she and the suit had.  With a kick, Seastar leapt up and disappeared over her, her left hoof catching her on the ground.  Her heart stopped.
I missed.  Tell me I didn’t just miss.
Seastar stuck the landing behind her, spinning to finally have its fill after so long.  Neither it nor Minty counted on what happened next.
The armor took over, using its left arm as a pivot to tow Minty with it as it spun her around to continue the momentum of the punch, swinging her hoof into the Seastar Fangire’s gut with a flash on impact.  Seastar froze, its fragmented face images showing shock before fading.  The stunned Minty watched as Seastar’s body crusted over with a rainbow aura.  A second later it shattered, splintering into a thousand pieces and sending glass slivers clanking off the armor.  A ball of multicolored light floated where Seastar had once stood, rising up into the sky and vanishing over a rooftop.
Minty finally started realizing what had just happened.  “I…I did it,” she said giving her first big smile of the day, though you couldn’t see it through the mask.  “Ha!  I actually did it!  Woo!”
The armor beeped once again.  “Zero percent power,” said the voice.  “Goodbye.”
With a whir, the suit shut off, all of a sudden dropping its full weight onto Minty, her punching arm collapsing.
“Oh no,” she said.  The weight tilted her sideways and she fell to the street with a clatter of metal.  “Great,” she moaned, immobile.  “Just great.  Um…help?”


Having found the emergency release switch on the belt, Minty pushed the armor pieces in the same borrowed wheelbarrow as last time.
“Uhhg,” she grunted.  “This suit is so much heavier when it doesn’t carry itself.”





Soon to be seen on “Kamen Rider Gr3en”…
A pink mare with a yellow mane turned back from a doorway where a pile of gray dust sat, looking to a group of five other ponies.  “Well,” she said solemnly, “I guess that’s decided.”
A figure in a blue armor suit with a silver chestplate leapt with a punch at a white Orphnoch with clawed gauntlets.
There was no monster in sight, but as a blood-curdling sound poured into her ears, Patch spun around before stopping in shock at what she saw.  “Starlight!”
The Horse Orphnoch ran forward as a sword appeared in its hand with a flash.
Tales of a Paradise Lost