~EARTH ZF-025, WORLD OF BUILD~
The Teapot.
The security of the Cosine family's facilities and homes were notoriously easy to break. This was perhaps due to arrogance on the behalf of the family - because everything they made was of the most advanced and esoteric technology they could find, they assumed it couldn't be broken. Or maybe they were just negligent in their own security measures. In this case, however, the Teapot had long been abandoned - the original owners had long since moved, having found better and more secure places to do their work in. If they even remembered the place existed
It meant that Night Rogue and his company easily hacked their way through the security lock, turned off the cameras and got inside without setting off a single alarm.
They'd emerged into the Teapot unscathed and unchallenged, the Guardians and the Smash behind them. But they were wise enough to know that even now, victory was not immediately assured. Most of the time, break-in's had been foiled because the villain felt the need to announce themselves, or make an attempt to blackmail or coerce the person within into doing their bidding. This gave the victim the chance to muster a response, usually in the form of automated turrets or their own powers - if the agressor was lucky. If they weren't, it meant the Kobbers raining down upon their heads like a thunderstorm of angry fists, swords, guns and lightning bolts.
Night Rogue did not announce himself. There was no worth in wasting the breath to do so. He merely shot the lock straight off the door leading into the rest of the building, kicked it open and walked onward, his assembled squadron following behind. Blood Stalk, seemingly deliberately, brought up the rear - the excuse he gave was that he wanted to avoid any surprise attacks from the rear, although it seemed half-harted even by his own standards. Rogue knew he was lying, and Stalk knew that he knew, and thus they were all content together.
Reaching a junction between corridors, he turned to address his troops. The Guardians, about twelve in total, stood impassive, awaiting their next order like the soldiers they had originally been programmed to be. But the six huge, hulking Smash amongst them were milling about impatiently, letting off the deep, rolling growls a tiger gives before it smacks somebody in the head and caves their skull in. They were rapidly losing interest - and unless they found it again, then the nearest object or person was going to suffer for it.
Thankfully, Rogue knew what to do about that.
"Secure this base," he rumbled. "Form perimiters around the main research laboratory - nobody gets in or out unless it's me. Recover anything electronic you can find, and destroy anything that isn't. Then erase all traces from her servers. I don't want that wretched family tracing this back to us. And if anything related to the Doctor's work or Project: Build comes up, you bring it to me. Understand?"
The Guardians nodded their assent and marched off, the Smash close behind. Some of them, however, stuck with Rogue, standing to attention and guns at the ready. These were his personal guard, those programmed to defend him with their operational lives and ensure his safety. They would stick with him no matter what other orders they were given, which was a plus for Rogue - less chance of him getting surprised or penned by a canny enemy.
Blood Stalk emerged from among them, idly swinging his blade.
"Leave nothing to chance, do you?" he drawled.
"I've played the game of war for long enough," was the reply. "You pick up a few tricks on the way. Now, follow me - I've a score to settle, first thing."
With all that said, Rogue turned his back on his supposed ally, the metal of his armour glinting from the overhead lights and began to march. His stride was one with purpose, every step showing the silent, stoic determination of a soldier carrying out his duty. Obediently, his Guardians followed, weapons holstered in case of sudden accident - even with the security down, they were prepared.
Behind them, Stalk chuckled as he realized what was going to happen.
"Oh, this is gonna be good..."
-------
Dawn Cosineau, inside her laboratory, knew what was happening. She knew that the security had been taken down, that an invader was spreading through her base. And she knew who was responsible. But she knew enough that resistance would be futile at this point, that there was nobody she could reasonably expect to aid her in this instance. And she was long past the point of fighting, herself.
So when her door slid open behind her, she didn't turn around. She merely stood and stared ahead, pretending to read the formulae and calculations on the wall.
"You're here," she said, simply.
"As you knew I would be." Night Rogue remained in the doorway, not approaching any further. He knew enough about the Cosine family to be wary. Behind him, his Guardians took up defensive positions, ready just in case of further surprises, although Rogue did not count on them to be much help. Experience had taught him not to rely on something that had the general durability of a cardboard box in a hurricane.
"...mother and her family are gone. The healers, you've already taken care of. Where else would you strike next?" Dawn didn't turn around, so Rogue never got to see the expression on her face at that moment. He imagined that it was as flat and resigned to her fate as her voice sounded - it made him feel a little more superior, insofar as he could feel anything to any extreme degree.
"You are quite the tactician, yourself," he observed - her guesses had been quite educated. "I wonder you didn't accept when the offer was on the table."
The android shook her head. "I told you why before, Rogue."
"A pity. We could have used someone of your scientific mind."
A pause. And then Dawn turned around, and it was clear that this was not the Dawn the Kobbers of our universe would have known. Somehow, the illusion of aging or something very like it had taken hold - the face seemed thinner and pinched, the skin somewhat wrinkled in places, the hair thinning around the temples and forehead. Parts that had been worn down by time had never been replaced, and the result culminated to make the android seem ten years older than she really was. The absence of the rest of the Cosine family, wherever they had gone, had clearly hit her hard.
"I know what you're planning," she said. "And I know you need resources from the other universe to complete it. It won't work. There are Kobbers in that world, too. They will oppose you."
"Then I will kill them." Rogue said it in the same way that one might say the sky was blue.
"The Magpies thought that, too. And look what happened to them."
Rogue shook his head. "A poor example, Dawn Cosineau. The Magpies were a mafia trying to become a dictatorship. Infants trying to sprint before they could even crawl. I'm a product of war and science, not some jumped-up don with a god complex. I've fought Kobbers before - and killed them, which is far more than I can say for Godfather."
"You don't need to tell me." Dawn's voice took on an edge, albeit slight. "The way you took out the healers first... and those who could repair the mechanical among us. You guessed, or perhaps deduced, what it would take to defeat us. I know exactly what you are capable of."
"And I will do it again," droned Rogue, matter-of-factly. "If they oppose me in that world, I will kill them just like I killed them before. Only this time, I know what it takes to stop you from coming back and seeking revenge - the one obstacle that made every other invader flounder and die against you. Your kind are remarkably tricky to put down, I will say that. But I know every trick you have now, Cosine, and none of them work. Not against me."
A long pause that might as well have been a Mexican standoff. Rogue kept the gun aimed right at Dawn's forehead - the one place, he knew, that would put her down for good. The one mistake these machines kept making was modelling themselves on the human body plan. A body plan with the most hilariously obvious weak points in natural biology. He'd fought against rats that hadn't been so easy to kill as a human being. It was easy enough to do it, once you figured out how.
"...fine."
Rogue's head tilted, imperceptibly. "Come again?"
Dawn seemed to stand taller, eyes set with a defiant pride. "You want this? The satisfaction of putting down one of the invincible Kobbers? The one who could be a match for you in intelligence, strategy, scientific knowledge? I'll give that to you. But I know you're a better man than you say you are - or at least, once upon a time, you used to be a better man. And I want to see if there's still anything of that man left underneath that mask."
She took two steps forward. Night Rogue didn't move.
"I've no reason why I shouldn't simply upload my conciousness to a new body, or to the mainframe in this base. But I know you. I know what you've become, and what you do when you're angered. Who you hurt on the way. So let me show you something."
She lifted her arm, and light fountained from the palm of her hand. Like the bloom of some exotic flower, it opened outwards, petals of solid light splaying out to show the picture within. At first, the picture was faint and blurred, and the bat-masked warrior had to squint a little behind his visor to see it. But then the picture cleared, and the invader did a double-take at what he saw - Dawn, but younger and fresher-faced, as she used to be. And scampering around her feet were four figures, figures that squealed and cheered and tugged on her coat and...
"...children?"
"Mine." Dawn flicked the hologram off. "Not from this world. The other one - the one you want to invade. I can take anything you can throw at me, I can accept death... but not them. Not my children. They're not from my world, but I see how the other me feels and responds when they are around... and I know she would be as furious as me if you trained that gun on them. So give me your word that you will harm not even a hair upon them, and I will go quietly. No tricks. You win."
For the longest time, Night Rogue was silent. He looked away, and clicked his tongue once or twice as he thought, the sounds like gunshots in the silent laboratory. The opportunity was right there, in front of him, but something nagged in the back of his head. A voice he hadn't heard for a long time, a voice that stayed his finger from just pulling the trigger there and then, stopped him from ending it right that moment...
When he next spoke, his voice was softer, less bold.
"I'm a lot of things, Dawn Cosineau. A soldier. A scientist. A man who has done a lot of things some might call terrible. And I do them because I have a vision in my head, and I will chase that vision with my dying breath. People will say I am a monster, but I am beyond caring at this point - war is war, and evils such as mine are neccesary. But though I have killed many and sent many more to die in agony without second thought... there are some things that are beneath even me. Some crimes that should never be committed. And I promise you this if nothing else - above all other things..."
He looked back at Dawn.
"I'm a man of my word."
A wry smirk.
"I knew that."
BANG.
Dawn Cosineau, daughter of Sine and neice to Carol Parthan and Cauren Trost, slumped dead.
In this universe, at least.
Night Rogue looked at the body for several minutes. He said nothing. What he thought, if he thought at all, was a mystery. Then he turned to the doorway and made a motion with his hand, and the Guardians stepped forward into the room. Already knowing what they should do, they began to search the lab, not even registering the crumpled, deactivated android as they pushed aside test tubes and rifled through papers, searching for what their programming had told them to hunt down. Rogue watched from the doorway, intent that they should miss nothing.
And then he realized somebody was missing.
"The hell is Stalk doing...?"
-------
"Five feet high and three feet wide,
No-one's ever eaten the whole thing and survived!
It comes with a bucket of ranch on the side!
It's the Ultimate Sandwich - dear God!
The Ultimate Sandwich - oh, shit!"
Of all the songs Blood Stalk could have been singing as he strutted down the corridor of the Teapot, this had to be the least appropriate.
But then again, Stalk was not like most people. To the casual observer, he appeared to have no respect for dramatic flair, no tendency to give things ironic names based on mythological figures and no concept of what was appropriate for a situation. He seemed to do whatever he pleased, regardless of wherever it made sense or not - but with a confidence that meant he could easily get away with it. He could have been singing the theme to some kid's cartoon and nobody would dare to question it, because he would be singing it with gusto.
Not that anyone was there to question his choice of musical accompaniment. He was on his own - which was how he liked it. Night Rogue might have insisted on a full backup of Guardians with Smash support, but Stalk wasn't obligated to take it. If that bat-masked weirdo was so paranoid that he needed the crutch, that was his own look-out and nobody else's. And even if he wasn't, he only did it because he played everything by the book. He made the speeches, he made the plans and he took no chances with anything. Everything that bat-masked monster did was textbook, designed to give him the best chance of victory whilst leaving no doubt of his intentions.
Stalk, meanwhile, thought that was a load of shit. Where was the fun in playing it safe, in sticking to all the cliché's and flicking through the dog-eared notes of yesteryear because they were the guarunteed options? What was wrong with a little randomness to make things exciting, a little daring to add spice? Let that goose-stepping idiot prance about with his pretentions to a higher calling - he wasn't fooling anyone. As far as Stalk concerned, the way he was doing it now - slipping off when the scenario was playing before you got boring - was much more fun.
Besides, it meant he could sing weird songs like this out loud.
"It's taste could drive a lesser man insane,
Served on wheatbread made from thirty-thousand seperate grains!
It was made by a demon in his-"
He stopped singing, and in fact stopped his swaggering altogether. Because he'd come to a door. It was an unassuming door, looking like every other door that was in this little bunker - grey steel in two pieces that snapped together. But it was unmarked and, the last time he checked, did not appear on the schematics of the base. And that meant it was either a decoy to throw people off... or something interesting.
Blood Stalk liked interesting.
"Hell-ooooo~," he muttered to himself, and approached.
The door had no keypad on it, unlike most of the other doors in this base. Stalk assumed that this was a security measure - even the greatest criminal mind wouldn't be able to crack a combination that didn't exist. And the door wasn't ordinary steel, either; as far as Stalk could tell, it was some kind of alloy mixed with a hint of some foreign alien stuff that the Cosines were very fond of. The upper half of the door was actually in two seperate rows - like the jaws some ancient predator, the lower half slid between them, forming a triple-layered barrier between the room and anything that might want to break in.
It was all very clever and ingenious, except for one thing.
ICE STEAM!
Whoever made it didn't plan for Blood Stalk
The blade pierced through the first layer of the door, and the surge of icy mist that burst forth did the rest. The cobra-masked man waited patiently until the last crackles and snaps of flash-freezing metal died away, noting the cracks that formed along the metallic surface. Then he pulled the weapon free of the frost-covered door, took a step or two back, paused for effect...
"HUTTAH!"
...and then lashed out with a foot.
The now-brittle steel splintered instantly, and the door flew apart in icy shards that crashed and clattered across the floor and into walls. Stalk waited until the echoes had died down, then dropped his fighting pose and permitted himself a chuckle as he entered the room. It was amazing how some people could build the finest machines in the world, and yet somehow completely forget about heat and cold, the most insidious killer of mechanical things. All it took was for one part to splinter from the cold or bend from the heat.
The room, now full of frozen metal bits, looked to be some kind of fancy server room or archive. Stalk could tell because of the monolithic computer towers lined up against the walls, the filing cabinets awkwardly sandwiched between them. On the far wall, a gap in the monotonous rows of pale grey and jet black blocks revealed a screen embedded in the wall - no doubt the means by which one interacted with the terminals. And underneath that was a panel - a panel, Stalk knew, that hid the keypad and USB ports that he was after.
Stalk hadn't been lying when he said that he knew where the files were kept. He just hadn't stated where, specifically, they were. There was no way he was going to give that bat-masked moron the satisfaction of getting to those files first - especially the electronic ones. It was true that the paper ones were more sensitive, more prone to destruction or accident, and thus more valuable in the long run. But the cobra-masked figure, with his usual sharp and deductive wit, had reckoned there was something hidden away within the electronic ones, something that their original creator would have deliberately left out of the paper ones just in case.
And Stalk wanted to get to them before Rogue did.
Something long, segmented and vaguely snake-like slid out from Stalk's left wrist as he approached the terminal. It waved about for a moment, like a severed jungle vine in a light breeze, then reached over and hooked itself into the small, oblong slot that served as the keyhole. A few wiggles and clicks later, and the flat metal sheet swung open, exposing the rows of keys and ports that it had concealed from the prying eye of the intruder. With a self-satisfied grunt, the masked warrior reached over and began typing furiously at the keys with both hands, fingers blurring with speed that made the eyes water to follow.
The security protocols flared into life immediately - but it was old stuff, reversed-engineered ICE from when Haas-Bioroid had made their claim to the Kuwahawi islands. And Stalk, slotting another tendril into a USB port, knew every trick to a successful run off the top of his head. One by one, the digital barriers rose and fell, crumbling before the viruses and counter-programs that they encountered, and Stalk almost had to laugh at how easily they went down,. How the Cosines expected to keep their files hidden behind obsolete, yet-to-be-updated junk like this was beyond him.
It didn't take long for the files he wanted to come up. And then, trying to resist the "kid in a candy store" feeling he was getting, he double-clicked the first one he saw.
~PROJECT: SCLASH~
by Thomas Light, PHD
Approved by Sine Cosine and Celestia Cannicco
"Jackpot," cackled Stalk, rubbing his hands together.
But in truth, he was a little bit disappointed with how effortlessly he'd pulled this off. This was a little too easy, considering the reputation the Cosine family had, if he had to be honest. Rogue's little drama club act had at least been vaguely interesting - this had hardly been mentally stimluating. What he needed, he reasoned as he pulled out the USB stick, was a little something to spice the night up. Something unexpected and out of left field...
And then he heard the crash, followed by the gunfire.
Beneath the mask... he smiled.
Not smirked, or grinned. Smiled.
"Well, well... Looks like this night won't be a complete downer, after all."
Pausing only to plug the USB stick in, he strolled out of the room.
-------
Most people, when confronted with the murder of a family member with the murderer still in front of them, tend to do one of several things. They could go into shock and freeze, too numb with the horror to really react to what has happened. They could run towards the body and try to rouse them in the hopes that their is a chance of saving them. They could scream hysterically, or break down into tears of fright and despair at what has happened.
Vent Light, aka Kamen Rider Build, did none of those.
The Passionate Breeze! RoseCopter!
YEEEAAAH!
Instead, he simply brought the thorn-covered fist of his Rose half into Night Rogue's face.
Rogue had probably been expecting any of the former options, and thus had not been prepared for the cold, focused response that he got instead. The impact threw the masked man backwards across the room, slamming into the desk and crumpling it beneath his body. Test tubes, beakers and other scientific apparati flew everywhere to shatter against walls and floor, and Rogue gave a grunt as he dropped to one knee, hand gripping his gun like a life-line in the midst of the chaos.
The Guardians had already formed up around him, ready to protect their commander from the intruder as programmed. It took them a mere half-second to get a bead on the target, and then their machine guns were spraying bullets in a cacophony of light and metallic, rattling bangs. But they had never encountered a real Kamen Rider before, and thus did not know, as Rogue already did, that he had ways to counter the most common kind of projectile one could face in that particular superhero career. And this was proven when he suddenly drew the propellor-like construct from his back and held it out in front of him, the blades whirring to life like an oversized fan.
A series of pinging noises filled the air, and the Guardians collapsed in sparking heaps, hit by their own riccocheting bullets.
But that had given Rogue the time he'd needed to recover. And before Build could retract his weapon, the man had gotten to his feet and fired off three rounds from his gun. The first one bounced off the blades even as they slowed down. The second whistled by the Kamen Rider's head, forcing him to juke sideways to avoid it - right into the path of the third one. It hit him in the stomach and forced him to stagger back, doubling over and dropping the Batrotor Blade to the floor in his pain.
Seeing his chance, Rogue dashed forward, arm raised to bring his gun down like a bludgeon. But his enemy's disadvantage was momentary, and as the weapon was swung Build managed to bring his right arm up to block it. There was a teriffic clang as the gun impacted with the thorny arm guard, and sparks flew as metal grated on metal in a bid to overcome the other. For a moment the two struggled against each other, bodies tense with effort and anticipation of the next blow.
"I did not expect you here, Build," Rogue growled. "A sore miscalculation on my part, I admit."
"You killed my family," Build hissed.
"And now I get to kill you, too-"
Too late, did Rogue notice the throny vines entangling his wrist and weapon. With a wrench of his own arm, Build yanked the other fighter off balance, the gun flying from his grasp to clatter to the floor as he staggered. It was then followed by two more blows - one to the solar plexus, making him cough, and another to the temple to knock his senses reeling. And then a foot lashed out and knocked him flying back again, this time smalling into a wall with enough force to bash a considerable dent into the metal. There was a very good reason most Kobbers in this universe stood back when a Rider fight happened.
Build only paused to pick up the Batrotor Blade, and then paced towards his fallen opponent, who hissed and struggled to rise. Everything he did at this moment was calm, collected and precise - which, for those who knew him, was more worrying than any amount of shouting or screaming. Sine was famous for her rage when confronted with serious offenses to her person, whilst Dawn grew quietly black before lashing out with sudden, shocking retaliation. When somebody pissed Vent Light off, he remembered the face or voice, locked onto it like a bloodhound and followed the offense to it's source. And when he got there, it stopped being an offense very shortly afterwards.
It looked to be the case for Night Rogue at this moment.
"How many?" Build's voice was a whisper as he pointed the blade of his fallen enemy. "How many more have to die before you're satisfied? Until you get what you want?"
Rogue paused as he had paused from Dawn's demand. Except this time, it wasn't from surprise or indecision, it was from the pain of recovering his footing and the effort of stopping his head from swimming. Perhaps, mentally, he was cursing himself for underestimating Build once again - a mistake that, somehow, he had repeatedly made during their frequent encounters. But he remained defiant even as he struggled to stand, and his masked face twisted upwards to face his enemy, a cold and steely contempt radiating from him despite his position.
"War is war," he retorted. "There will always be casualties. And those who chose to be my enemies will become casualties eventually. You are naive to think otherwise, Build."
"But it wasn't enough to steal my father's ideas," hissed Build. "You had to drag everything about him and around me into the dirt and stamp on it, too. And then you formed Faust, and the Smash followed - God knows how many of those turned out to be failures, or lost their memories, but it's not like you ever cared. And the Kobbers just didn't fit into your little world view, either, did they? Not into the little regime you've got in your head."
The rider's grip tightened on his weapon. The blade was dangerously close to Rogue's neck.
"When are you going to stop this, Rogue? When does it end?"
The response was not one he'd been expecting.
ELECTRIC STEAM!
Build gasped as he felt something cold and hard hit him in the stomach and heard the undersuit rip, followed by a brief lance of pain that radiated from the impact point. And then his armour sparked and hissed smoke from the joints as the voltage ran rapant through his entire body, causing his limbs to jerk and spasm like a broken puppet on a fishing line. Too agonized to speak, he looked back at Rogue and saw the hand clutching the Steam Blade, the end of it embedded in his stomach, reddish-black fluid trickling over it.
"When I have won," came Night Rogue's triumphant voice.
The blade was withdrawn, and Build gasped again as he staggered back, one hand clutching the fresh wound. But then the butt of the blade was hammered into his skull, and he went sprawling on all fours with a cry, head swimming and senses reeling. A hand then gripped him by the back of the neck, and he was hauled roughly upright by his attacker, only to receive a foot to the chest that knocked him off his feet and sent him flying backwards, much as he had sent his opponent flying before. He hit the wall back-first, the breath knocked from his body with the "OOF!" that escaped him, and he would have slumped to the floor had the same hand not grasped him by the throat and pinned him to the metal.
Night Rogue's face leered out through the haze in his vision, like the visage of some terrible creature from the dark recesses of a nightmare.
"And when I have won," he continued, "there will be no need for people like you. No more vigilantes running around with magic belts claiming to know right from wrong. No more god-slaying swordsmen with delusions of heroism, or sentient concepts dragged down by empathy, or robots with too much free will than they deserve. I will usher in a new age for the world, an age where every nation has the power to defend itself from the alien, the psychopath, the monster and the outsider. I will make Kamen Riders, and by extension the Kobbers, completely obsolete, and I will-"
WAKE UP!
Rogue turned his head only slightly in response to the noise. But it was turned enough so that the armoured foot he didn't expect hit him square in the face.
-------
And this is what Stalk saw when he came around the corner, accompanied by two Smash.
Build, on both knees, clutching his stomach and gasping.
Rogue, half-dazed in a heap on the floor, mask still smoking from the attack.
And standing over him...
VINCENT SIMMONS of EARTH ZF-025
is
KAMEN RIDER KIVA
This is the greatest vampire of All Time.
ReplyDeleteMe vs The Ultimate Sandwich, FITE YER MATES YEEEAAAAAHHH
ReplyDeleteThis is the greatest not-Twilight of All Time.
ReplyDelete