Hello. My name is Bon Bon. I'm a private detective. Nice to meet you.Running a private practice, work can be… inconsistent at times. Naturally, I have to supplement. If you ever met me, you'd think I just ran a small-time sweet shop. And I do – baking just comes naturally to me, so it's an easily maintainable cover. "Bon Bon's Bonbons", selling delicious candy bonbons, with free samples served in glass dish bonbons, all run by me, Bon Bon. Insert overused movie reference here (bwoooong). But you'll find my true business run out of the back. If you have a problem, if no one else can help, and if you can find me, then consider your case taken by me, the ace detective, only used by those who know or by those who hear. Or, admittedly, by those who can read the small sign in the front window. What? I've gotta advertise somehow.I've gotten all kinds of requests from the folks of this city. Sometimes, it was just a lost dog. But other times… it was a lost turtle. Tortoise, more accurately. Sure, I know what you're thinking: "Oh no, the tortoise escaped. Quick, check the front yard, maybe you'll catch it before it reaches the sidewalk." Well how was I supposed to know that this particular tortoise had some crazy propeller contraption strapped to its shell? That's when I figured out I really needed to invest in a helmet. At least I hadn't had to worry about paying for a haircut that month.But for sure my biggest case ever, or at least my biggest case yet, whether I knew it or not, was sitting right in front of me.
“Alright, let’s start with the easy part again,” Bon Bon said with another sigh, resting her chin in her hands and joining her fingertips at the bridge of her nose. She had beige skin and long blue and pink hair with curls at the ends. “How did you get inside my shop?”
Across the desk from her, a young woman around her age with pale green skin and minty blue-green hair with a white stripe at the edge sat in a wooden chair, back arched forward with legs crossed and arms folded in, looking off at an angle. “I don’t remember,” she said absently.
This “interesting character” was under interrogation. Or at least she would be if she were answering anything. Just last night, she had, seemingly out of nowhere, suddenly appeared in the basement of the building where Bon Bon’s detective agency was based—a room that had still been locked from the outside—with nothing on her but a locked silver briefcase. (And her clothes, of course—what were you thinking?) The alarm hadn’t gone off, and there was no sign of forced entry. And now she had the nerve to claim she didn’t know how she got in and, what was more, has no recollection, period.
“You don’t remember,” Bon Bon repeated as close to how she thought a psychiatrist would speak as she could. “Okay then, how about what you were doing in here?”
Her “guest” looked at something apparently interesting up on the ceiling. “I don’t remember,” she said again, with as little conviction as before.
“You’re not making this easy for either of us,” Bon Bon said, shutting her eyes for a second. Propping up her elbows, she laced her fingers into a net and rested her chin on it. “It’s a simple question: why were you here?”
“I don’t…,” the girl started to say yet again, but she stopped, looking back forward and staring through what was in front of her, instead seeing backwards, down into the deepest reaches of her mind. “It was something,” she said, for the first time sounding serious, “…something important.”
Progress? Bon Bon leaned forward with hope. “And what might this important thing have been?”
The girl paused for a second, thinking, eyes scrolling back and forth as if reading from something that was invisible to Bon Bon’s eyes. She finally spoke: “I don’t remember.”
Bon Bon’s head dropped through her finger net and hung over the desk. She grabbed the back of her head and started massaging it, letting out a long hissing breath. “Alright, then,” she said, flipping her head back up to attention. “How about we start with your name. I’d at least like to know who to lodge a formal complaint against—and don’t you dare say you don’t remember.”
Noticeably cut off from her default answer, the girl paused for a second. Then she reached into her pocket and pulled out a clear, slightly oversized green flash drive. She stared at it before hitting a button on its front. A sudden voice announced:
Lyra
“I…,” she said, looking up, “I think my name’s Lyra.”
Bon Bon had no reactions left.
* * *
Now, I know what you're thinking. Why not just drop her off at the nearest police station and be done with it? Well, the thought had crossed my mind, buuuut… I was a detective. And a true detective couldn't allow a mystery to stand unsolved before them. Nothing was taken, and this Lyra didn't seem dangerous, so there was no need to involve the police only for them to be equally stumped, not yet. No, I would solve this mystery first. I would solve… "The Mysteries of Lyra". That's a catchy title, no? Almost sounds like something else I've heard of before.Anyway, first things first: I had to find out who Lyra was. And who better to ask for help in this matter than the good people of Canterlot City...
The women who run the flower shop would surely see everything happening in the city.
“Nope, sorry.”
Okay, so not there. If Lyra was local, then the school might remember her.
“Doesn’t ring a bell.”
There’s gotta be something at the hospital.
“Wish I could help.”
This guy waiting for a cab?
“Whadda you askin’ me for?”
Random person she just ran into?
“Green, you say? Now that’s a rarity. And I don’t mean Rarity, she’s totally different.”
“Okay, thanks for your time,” sighed Bon Bon as she turned and walked away. Perhaps she had overestimated the good people of Canterlot City.
As she walked away, however, she didn’t notice the person she’d just talked to, a young woman with pale blue skin, pull out and flip open an oddly-shaped dark blue cellphone with unusual pale turquoise pieces on it. She raised it to her ear, looking after Bon Bon.
“It’s possible,” she said quietly. “I’ll have to look into it further. Maybe give her a test, something sure to reel her in…”
The sweet shop Bon Bon’s Bonbons was an inconspicuous establishment when viewed from the outside, a mere 1-story building with a sign over the front windows, nowhere near as extravagant nor well-traveled as the rival Sugarcube Corner, but that worked to Bon Bon’s advantage. Past the front wall presented to the street, the premises were deceptively expansive. Patrons would enter into the operational sweet shop with glass case displays and counters in front of a door on the left leading to the kitchen. But a second open archway on the right led deeper into the structure, bringing those in the know to her detective offices, bearing faded green walls with some black-and-white checkerboard patterns. She made carefully sure that she never attracted so much attention with the sweet shop that she would ever be too distracted from her detective agency caseload.
After returning from her failed escapade, Bon Bon had quickly noticed one difference from before she’d left: someone had taken the whole bowl of candy samples she’d left on the counter. “The sign said they were free,” Lyra had pointed out. Bon Bon let her have them. She had other things to worry about right now.
Bon Bon sat down at her desk in front of her typewriter, staring at it for inspiration. There had to be some way to find out who Lyra was. Hmm. Of course! She’d once met someone who claimed to know everyone in town. Where did she lose that contact info this time?
She opened a desk drawer and began shuffling through it. Moving a manila folder aside, she briefly caught a glimpse of something she didn’t recognize, but before fully processing it, she’d already tossed the folder back in, knocking the object further back into the drawer. She closed it and looked in the next one down, again not finding what she was looking for. She glanced back up at her desk in the process of leaning over to check drawers on the other side, catching sight of her Rolodex. Wow, way to go, detective.
She turned the dial, flipping through the cards to find the name while trying to remember what the name actually was. No, wait, she hadn’t listed that girl under her name, but the most memorable things about her. She checked under ‘E’. Ah-ha, there she was: under ‘E’ for “excitable”, “eager to help”, and “extremely overactive”. As she grabbed the card, the image of that object in the drawer flashed in her mind.
Bon Bon paused in surprise as the image faded. She shook her head, taking the card and looking around for the phone. It was probably on the shelf where it had always been after her desk had become too crowded, but the journey is half the adventure, and checking the most obvious place first just takes away that part of the fun. Eventually finding it right where she’d expected it was, she stared down at the card, but as she tried reading it, her mind was focusing elsewhere, on the unknown object from the drawer.
Deciding confidently to ignore the drawer and the object within, she slapped the card down next to the phone and walked right over to the drawer. At the corner of the desk, however, her foot caught on a silver briefcase. The thing that Lyra had with her when she’d ‘arrived’, Bon Bon recalled. I should probably see what’s inside; maybe it’ll help identify her… did I just think a semicolon?
She knelt down and picked up the briefcase, shaking it in her hands. Nothing sounded loose inside. She set it down again and gave it a look-over. It was an ordinary-looking briefcase, silver, rounded corners, and with a three-digit combination lock under the handle made by those dials that show one number at a time. Except this one used letters. Even though the dials didn’t look nearly big enough to have 26 sides to them, sure enough, she was able to scroll through the entire alphabet on one of them. Why not ask Lyra for the combination? Have you heard her answer to everything else?
Bon Bon turned the three dials to read “A-A-A” and pulled at the case; it didn’t budge. She turned the third dial once to read “A-A-B”, no luck, then to “A-A-C”, same result. After tossing a few numbers around on a calculator, she concluded there were seventeen and a half thousand possible combinations to this lock. She’d be here a while.
On a whim, she twisted the dials to try “O-O-O”; nothing. She gave an amused chuckle as the thought crossed her mind to see if “B-O-N” could possibly work. And her mind was suddenly back on the object in the drawer she needed to get back to. Wait, why do I need to get back to it? Yes, of course, maybe she could use it as a tool to help open the briefcase. Yeah, that made sense. Wait, how? Because it did, stop thinking.
Bon Bon slid back into her chair at the desk, opening the top drawer again. She pulled the top folder out and shuffled through what was left before grabbing what she immediately knew felt “right”. She pulled it out and held it in an open hand. It was a flash drive, clear beige, a tad larger than most, and had a small black and white picture in the middle that looked like a pair of wrapped candies stacked on top of each other like a 2-piece snowman, almost shaped into a capital ‘B’. Yes, this was it. This is what she was looking for. The thing that was calling her, almost as if by name…
Lyra walked past the empty arch doorway of the office, still munching on her “free samples”. She glanced over at Bon Bon, then noticed what she was holding in her hands and staring at with total focus. Deep inside her mind, something clicked. Before the candy bowl had hit the ground, Lyra had already raced over and snatched the flash drive from Bon Bon.
“Hey, what gives!? That’s mine, give it back!” Bon Bon said of the object she’d never seen before. She reached for it, but Lyra held it out away from her. She grabbed Lyra’s shoulder and tried reaching over to her hand, but Lyra ducked down to the floor and curled tight around the flash drive. Bon Bon knelt down, grabbing Lyra’s elbow and pulling, but Lyra tugged back and held firm, not even saying a word. This girl…
Bon Bon crouched down further to see Lyra’s face, and stopped short in shock. Lyra had an intense look in her eyes the likes of which Bon Bon had never seen before, not in anyone and especially not from the distracted demeanor of Lyra previously. Her mind was also beginning to realize that she didn’t even know why she wanted the flash drive so badly, even while she still did. With a sigh, she gave up.
“Fine, keep that thing, too!” Bon Bon huffed, standing back up. She turned and walked away, mumbling, “The sooner I get rid of you…”
After she’d left, Lyra remained curled on the floor. She was satisfied with the outcome, but didn’t know why.
It was that night, around ten or so. One particular door at the back of Bon Bon’s detective agency area led down to a curious space. The basement underneath her shop was a large open all-gray room with minimal lighting: two stories high, with the only flooring at the second level being a metal grating against two opposite walls connected by a catwalk bridge; down below against one wall was a large panel of camera feeds and a cushioned office chair. Bon Bon had no idea what the previous owner had designed it for, but it felt like it could either be a superhero cave or a fallout bunker. She barely used it as more than a conversation starter.
One feature that wasn’t usually present, however, was a large zipper running horizontal across one of the walls on the lower level. It had been here this morning, but having found Lyra on the upper level, Bon Bon never looked down here to see it. It was sitting zipped closed, but its teeth were only loosely meshed together.
The zipper rattled. A second later, a patch of it bulged out as if being pushed by something on the other side before several of the teeth split apart and a set of wooden claws poked through. The paw behind the claws pushed the lower lip down to the floor, zipping open the crack in both directions. A set of bark-brown jaws with spiked peg teeth emerged, and the creature they belonged to stepped out into the room.
Upstairs, Bon Bon was sitting up late in the dark of her office, thinking back over her ‘incident’ with Lyra.
Wow, what had that even been about? The heck got into me all of a sudden? She glanced down at the top drawer that now contained no objects of interest. The flash drive had risen back to the top of her mind a few times since, but she’d restrained herself from thinking much about it, calling that look of Lyra’s back into her mind when the urge to go retrieve it had resurfaced.
Suddenly, the sound of wooden crates sliding and toppling echoed up from the basement. Don’t tell me that’s Lyra again.
Bon Bon left the office and went over to the basement door in the next room, but found it locked from the upstairs again. Well, it wouldn’t be the first time she’s used that trick, Bon Bon though, unlocking the door and descending a short flight of stairs through a narrow cement hallway. She pushed the next door open and looked out into the basement from the second level grating.
“Is that you again, Lyra?” she called into the room. “What is it you’re trying…,” she trailed off as she scanned the basement but found no trace of the green girl. All she saw were the marker boards on the walls, the chair and screens below, and all the crates and boxes of stuff piled around. And there was a large wolf creature made of sticks, logs, and branches with glowing green eyes standing in the middle of the floor.
Wait, what?
The wooden wolf turned toward her voice and snarled. Bon Bon let out a scared whine as she turned back to the staircase and slammed the door behind her, but the door slammed so hard it bounced itself back open again. With one leap, the Timberwolf was in the open doorway and beginning to claw its way up the stairs behind her.
“I didn’t hear anything about this!” she screamed as she reached the top, spinning around the wood door as she shut and locked it. She leaned her back against it and slid down to the floor with a deep sigh.
Meanwhile, Lyra was sitting on an inflatable mattress Bon Bon had provided in a spare side room that wasn’t used for anything. She was holding her green flash drive in her hand while staring at the silver briefcase sitting across from her which she had no better idea how to open than Bon Bon did. She had a feeling whatever was inside was important, and wondered if it had something to do with why she’d made such a big deal about taking Bon Bon’s flash drive away. She looked down at her drive. If only she remembered what it even was. Or anything.
A howl from the Timberwolf suddenly pierced her thoughts, but before she could look up in surprise, her gaze snapped up forward as somewhere, deep in her mind, the sound triggered a spark, and a deeply hidden memory breached to the surface. She jumped up and grabbed the briefcase.
Bon Bon tilted her ear to the door, suspiciously hearing nothing. Then a set of wooden claws stabbed out through the door to the side of her head, tearing gouges down out of the wood as she jumped up. She backed over to the far wall as the Timberwolf rammed its head through the clawed part of the door, snapping its jaws but reaching nothing. As it pulled its head back in and stuck its leg through again to reach around, scratching up the floor, Lyra walked into the room through the archway to Bon Bon’s right.
“No, get away!” Bon Bon said, but Lyra only turned her head. She had that look again, and Bon Bon hushed up as the green girl held up the silver briefcase, spinning the dials to spell out the combination “L-B-X”. The locks clicked and the case opened, revealing a silver object with a red decoration looking like a backwards ‘J’ sitting in a foam alcove. She pulled out the object, slapping it onto the front of her waist as a black band shot around and connected into a belt, and set the case down again. Removing it from her pocket, she held up her green flash drive, clicking the button. {Lyre Effect}
Lyra
The door cracked in half with a ram from the Timberwolf, and Lyra slid the flash drive into the slot inside the neck of the backwards ‘J’ buckle with a small green flash. She pushed the apparatus out to the right at a 45-degree angle.
Lyra
—repeated the belt as a pale green script ‘L’ appeared in front of it, flipping down to be replaced by half of a gold lyre. In a flash, the symbol shot out a pair of green energy rings with green lightning bolts flashing inside them. As they grew as tall as Lyra, the rings burst apart into a cloud of debris that flew in and accumulated onto her.
Bon Bon stared in shock. It was too dark in the room to see more than a silhouette, but Lyra’s new covering reflected a shiny green, like a full body-fitting suit of armor, a pair of large eyes shining yellow under a set of V-shaped spines on her forehead. Lyra stood silently, glaring forward, an ominously imposing figure in the darkness. Could this really be the same girl that hadn’t known her own name earlier today? Could she really have this kind of power?
The door split apart as the Timberwolf landed in the room at last. It stared at the figure standing to challenge it, tall enough to look them in the eye, giving a snarl. Lyra stepped forward. Immediately a glow from the belt made her look down, and she saw a second red slot arm materialize onto the left side of the buckle. The two slots flipped themselves back up, and her armor coating faded to gray and shattered, falling off and disappearing. She stood in surprise for a second, Bon Bon looking on in confusion.
“Well that was anticlimactic,” Lyra whispered to herself.
The Timberwolf pounced at her, but she ducked left, its claws only knocking the case sliding across the floor. It hit the far wall, standing up on its spine and spinning to a stop. Then the bottom of the case fell open to reveal a second compartment. Sitting inside was another belt, this one already with two slots.
Seeing the second belt, the other half of the incomplete memory rose to the surface. Now it was all clear. Ignoring the Timberwolf that was raising its claws at her, Lyra dashed over to the case. As the Timberwolf ran at her, she grabbed onto the belt, pushing the case down to close the top cover, and threw her arm back, keeping hold of the belt and letting the case slide across the floor. The Timberwolf stepped right on the sleek case and its leg slipped out from under it, sending the case towards the back wall as the wolf crashed to the floor.
Lyra rushed over to Bon Bon, pushing the belt onto her waist before she could react, a strap looping around left and clicking onto the right side of the belt. She grabbed Bon Bon’s hand and pushed something into it. Confused, Bon Bon opened her fingers: it was the beige flash drive Lyra had snatched from her earlier.
“This?” Bon Bon asked. “B-but didn’t you…earlier—”
Lyra cut her off, staring urgently into her eyes, “Do you have the courage to ride with the devil?”
Bon Bon didn’t know how to answer, but before she could ask for clarification, the flash drive in Lyra’s belt glowed green and disappeared into strips of green code, rematerializing in the right slot of her own belt. The look in Lyra’s eyes faded and she leaned off to the side, falling unconscious. Bon Bon grabbed her but could only slow her descent.
“Lyra?” Bon Bon said, patting Lyra’s shoulder. “Lyra, wake up, this is no time to…”
Bon Bon looked up to see the Timberwolf back on its feet, staring her down. This was it. No questions could help, no answers mattered but one. Do you have the courage? To be honest, she had no other options than to just go for it and hope for the best. Standing tall and holding the beige flash drive, she felt for and pressed the button. A voice announced:
BonBon
She paused in shock at it saying her name. Is that what the ‘B’ meant? Her? It had told her it was special. It really was like it was made just…for…her…
Bon Bon shook the thoughts aside again and slammed the drive into the belt’s left slot with a blue and pink flash. She tried pushing the slots out like Lyra had, but they wouldn’t budge. The Timberwolf snarled and crouched, preparing to strike. Taking a closer look at the belt, Bon Bon saw that the green flash drive was sitting up higher than the beige one and pushed it down, triggering a green flash. The slots easily tilted outward, the belt calling out:
Lyra BonBon
A script green ‘L’ and beige ‘B’ with blue and pink outlines appeared in front of the belt, the ‘L’ sliding down and being replaced by an image of half a gold lyre, and the ‘B’ sliding up and being replaced by an image of half of a trio of blue-and-yellow-wrapped pieces of candy. The images shot out a green ring and a blue and pink ring both with colored lightning shooting around inside them, and after growing as tall as her, burst apart into a cloud of debris. Bon Bon watched frozen as the debris accumulated itself onto her, connecting like precut puzzle pieces into another sleek suit of body-fitting armor, the eyes flashing on to signal the transformation’s completion. She stared at the armor. It looked like stacks of smooth metal V-shaped bands with accordion-looking rubber joints. While her right arm, and indeed entire right half, was the same shiny green she’d seen on Lyra, her left half, split right down the middle, was a far paler, non-shiny color; in this darkness, she could only guess at beige. Wrist and ankle bands were pale on her right side and dark on her left, but again, it was dark. Seeing the light from the suit’s eyes faintly illuminating the room, she saw that the right eye was again yellow, while the left eye was blue. Okay, she thought, I guess this is just what happens when… whatever that was happens.
Having paused at the lightshow, the Timberwolf was done waiting. It lunged forward at Bon Bon, but she instinctively kicked up with her left leg, catching it in the throat in midair. She spun around right and kicked it in the face with the sole of her right foot, knocking it to the side. Landing, Bon Bon paused in surprised delight. She’d only imagined that she could do that before.
“I knew it had to work somehow,” said a voice as the suit’s right eye flashed on and off with each word.
“Whoa, who’s there?” Bon Bon said in surprise, looking over right where it sounded like it had come from.
“Calm down,” the familiar voice continued, right eye flashing, “it’s me. I’m in your mind.”
“Lyra?” Bon Bon said, looking over at Lyra’s unconscious body. Just go with it, Bon Bon. “How is you being in my mind supposed to be calming?”
“On your right!” Lyra’s voice shouted.
There was a flash as an energy construct of a blue-and-yellow wrapped candy appeared over Bon Bon’s left fist, and she turned to the right with a punch, the wrapping falling off to reveal a foot-wide gray ball that she rammed into the open jaws of the pouncing Timberwolf, jolting it to a stop. Bon Bon pulled her hand out of the now-solidified ball, sandy powder falling out with it. The Timberwolf hobbled backwards, muffled growling escaping its mouth as it tried to keep its head aloft with the heavy object lodged in its jaws.
Bon Bon took a closer look at the gray ball as the Timberwolf tried clawing at it. “Is that a cement jawbreaker?” she asked. She looked down at her armored hand. “I never knew I was that good at making candy.”
“That’s your Memory’s power,” Lyra said.
“Memory?” Bon Bon said in confusion.
“And here’s mine,” continued Lyra.
Bon Bon’s right arm flicked its wrist, completely out of her control, and its palm started glowing green. She realized it had to be Lyra, what with her in her mind and her right half green, as the hand traced a rough U-shape in a streak of green energy, the right end reaching higher than the left. A gold lyre materialized from the green trace, and Bon Bon reached her left hand out to grab it by the shorter side, spinning it around and resting it in her arm. Lyra brushed her (Bon Bon’s right side was basically Lyra’s now) fingers across the lyre’s strings, playing some notes but also making a faint green energy ring appear on the lyre. She brushed back and forth, playing a melody as the ring grew brighter and stretched narrower forwards and backward, collapsing to an oval then a line, now looking like an arrow sitting on a bow.
The Timberwolf raised it head high and slammed its jaws down onto the floor, splintering them and smashing the cement jawbreaker apart. It stood back up, lower jaw still resting on the floor, but in a green glow the wooden jaw rose back up and reconnected, lost teeth floating back into place. It let out a growl and raised it right paw to lunge forward again.
Before it could leave the ground, Bon Bon pointed the lyre forward and Lyra swiped her hand back across its strings, firing the green energy arrow. It buried itself in the Timberwolf’s chest, the creature freezing as the arrow’s green glow faded. The Timberwolf moaned as a pulsing sound rose, then with a flash it burst apart as if it were a balloon popping, leaving behind a faint white cloud as strips of moss and dead leaves rained down to the floor.
Bon Bon’s arms dropped to her sides as she stepped back and leaned against the wall, dropping the lyre; it faded and disappeared before it could hit the ground. She looked down at the red belt and the flash drives it held. She was too stunned and exhausted to be excited right now. Taking the obvious path, she pushed the slots back up vertical. A second later, the suit’s colors faded to gray and it shattered and disintegrated off of her, Lyra’s flash drive disappearing into strips of green code. It reappeared back sitting loosely in the right slot of Lyra’s belt, and she stirred again, leaning up.
“What was that?” Bon Bon asked. “What just happened?”
“Of course,” Lyra said in realization, “it’s us.” She looked up at Bon Bon. “We’re Double.”
Bon Bon looked over to her. “We’re what?”
* * *
So what did I do next? After the wooden wolf and the flash drive belt and the transformation? I did what I always do to clear my mind and collect my thoughts. I pulled out my typewriter.
Bon Bon stopped typing. Sitting in the dark office, she glanced over at the hanging wall clock, the hands showing just past three. She gave a long sigh.
She was letting Lyra stay in the spare room for as long as she needed. Lyra clearly didn’t know any place to go otherwise, and after helping her through an ordeal like that without being asked, she wasn’t about to be ungrateful.
Down in the basement, the zipper slowly pulled itself back closed, completely this time, a pulse of light running across it as it faded away, leaving only the wall.
Bon Bon looked over to the red belt and clear beige flash drive sitting on her desk. After using the belt, she hadn’t felt any more nagging compulsions, but she had a feeling that she hadn’t seen the end of these crazy flash drives. The rest may still be unwritten, but there was no denying that this was only chapter one. She jumped down a line and kept typing.
My name is Bon Bon. I'm a private detective. And these are my stories.
L B _ _ _ _
Next Case:
“Where are you going?” Lyra asked.
“Didn’t I tell you?” Bon Bon replied. “I’m a detective.”
They’d called it “the Slowdown”, Bon Bon recalled to herself, walking up to the building. She suddenly felt like she ran into an invisible wall of air as the scene around her came to an abrupt standstill.
As the device whirred to life, the ceiling lights began flickering on and off and the walls started shaking, prompting several of the people sitting around Bon Bon to jump to their feet in panic.
“You don’t even know what mystery you’re trying to solve,” said the man in the brown overcoat. “That’s where we’re different. I know exactly what I’m solving.”
A Matter of T
* * *
Here is what I dream, for “Lyra-Bon Bon Extreme”…
“What were you doing in my shop?” Bon Bon asked.
The Timberwolf growled as it stepped closer.
“I don’t remember,” Lyra answered.
“The power of time is mine,” said the man in the brown coat, “and it will obey ME!”
“I’m the only one,” a woman holding a bowstring said as a melody played, “who deserves this fame.”
A green energy arrow hit a crystal monster, causing barely a scratch.
“I’m getting reminded of this story,” said Bon Bon as she backed away, “about a bird and a mountain, counting out eternity.”
Right half brown, Kamen Rider Double flipped an hourglass on a handle and it spun upside down. Something sped forward, Double leaning back to avoid lightning-fast swipes and jabs from an opponent glowing with a rainbow aura.
“Police are still baffled by a string of robberies of priceless artifacts from museums across the city,” reported a newswoman.
“And you’re oh, so good,” said the green dollar sign monster as it approached the man. “And you’re oh, so fine.” Contempt rose in its voice. “And you’re oh, so healthy in your body and your mind.”
“Howdy, class.”
Looking at an image of a red-violet skinned woman on a TV screen in a dark warehouse, Bon Bon reached over and flipped on the light switch. A deep yet high-pitched maniacal laughter echoed through the building.
A blue skinned woman sat in the corner of a white padded room. “Beware, Rider,” she mumbled. “Beware the People With No Names.”
LuckyClover
“That Memory,” Lyra said as the Memory sank into the man’s arm, “i-it’s not…right…” Gray outlines appeared over the man’s face, and he morphed into a silvery gray monster with a pair of long straight horns pointing outward from its head. It raised its right hand with a giant pair of claws and approached.
Maximum Drive
A shiny light blue-armored Rider jumped, feet trailing electricity, and kicked into a large projection of a snowflake, the projection spinning and folding into a pointed funnel around their feet.
In a dark alley, a cloud of flames accumulated into the form of a flaming tire in front of a black figure with glowing orange seeping from cracked rings across their body. The tire spun and flew backwards, attaching over the figure’s chest diagonally down from their left shoulder, spinning to a stop. A pair of headlights flashed on as the figure’s eyes.
Standing By
A barrage of blue laser blasts flew past the light blue Rider and hit the approaching monster.
Complete
A black Rider with white zigzags bordering and covering their armor punched forward, shattering a round blue magic seal and sending a purple-cloaked figure stumbling back.
A pair of red robotic birds flew overhead, dropping to Bon Bon and Lyra a yellow Memory and some gadget that looked like a brownish gray animal skull. Lyra held up the gadget and a Memory flipped down from the “skull’s” neck.
A black figure covered in white ribcages approached a lavender-skinned girl in an alley.
“Spike!” the girl shouted, tossing a small green object forward. The object honked twice as a set of lights flashed, a miniature roadway appearing in midair beneath it.
A trio of figures stood on a building’s rooftop. They pushed the solo right slots of their belts outward.
Mysterious
Purple ‘M’ emblems spun in front of their belts, debris from purple energy rings accumulating onto them as purple Rider suits with dark blue masks and capes and purple hats, pairs of light blue eyes flashing.
The steaming red and gray figure held the red and yellow sun-shaped disk armament on their left wrist in place, glowing yellow-orange cracks beginning to run from it up their arm and across their chest.
Gi-Gi-Gi-Giga Drive
“Be warned,” the two voices of Kamen Rider Double said in unison. “We settle things two,” they held up two fingers, then pointed forward with one, “…on one.”