~THE TEAPOT~
It had taken one or two more explanations from Vince and Kouta before Dawn understood what was needed of her. And then her eyes lit up with curiosity.
“Well, well. An original Rider. We're moving up in the world.” Her eyes flickered as she scanned the Space-Time Driver, which was lying on top of the work table. “Right at the start of his calling, too. For better or for worse.”
Kouta did not look any less out of place or in the loop than he had at the start. It was kind of crazy, how quickly he’d gone from kicking a future cop in the face to being very confused. He’d only barely grasped that Dawn was an android - not that Vince’s explanation had helped much.
“...I'm sorry,” he said, “am I supposed to understand any of this? Because I feel like I should, but I'm not.”
Dawn fixed him with a look.
“What do you know about Kamen Riders, Mr Tokiwa? Appropriate name, by the way.”
“Some parents can be so cruel.” Vince, standing off to the side, watched the proceedings with mild disinterest.
Kouta shrugged.” Didn't the news come up with that term? I think it's kinda silly. Why not just call them "Masked" Riders instead of shoving some random Japanese in there?”
“Ever heard of a contronym, Mr. Tokiwa? It's a word that means both what it means and its opposite. Take the word bolt. It can be used in sentences to denote securing AND fleeing.” Dawn picked up the driver and turned it over. “My point is, language is weird and you never know what quirks are gonna stick despite themselves. So, that's all you know? News reports?”
“Pretty much. Um…” Kouta scratched his head. “They wear weird belts and they fight monsters?”
“Basically yes. At the core, each Rider is a sort of greater 'immune response' to a large problem. The Gaim Riders, for example, were a way to keep an invasive alternate dimension from consuming our planet. Vince here, however, is NOT the Ex-Aid that was called to deal with the danger Ex-Aid was tasked to stop. That was a man named Emu Hojo. He succeeded, and the mantle moved on to Vince. He is, for lack of a better term, a copy.”
Vince rolled his eyes. "Ow, my self-esteem."
Dawn ignored him. “My son is not the original Build. I borrowed an original Rider's powers briefly myself for a time. It's gotten easier over the years, probably as the ease of Riders copying each other's powers grew. Your attacker copied the abilities of Shinnosuke Tomari, Kamen Rider Drive, who was a good guy, not a would be assassin.
“But you, Mr Tokiwa?” She fixed Tokiwa with another look. “You are the chosen original of the Rider Mantle called Zi-O. Your great task, whatever it may be, lies ahead. That also means you haven't begun to fully understand and increase your power, but that's fine, we'll compensate.”
There was a pause.
“...okay, then?” Kouta looked even more lost than before.
"Don't worry, you'll figure it out,” remarked Vince from the corner. “I did."
“Trust me,” put in Dawn as she set the Driver down. “If Vince can fumble his way into being a worthy heir… but I digress.”
"You're killing me here. Don't get no respect."
Again, Dawn ignored the peanut gallery. “So. You are being targeted by some time cop who wants to kill you because you turn into someone bad. You maniacs. You blew it up…” she muttered, rolling her eyes.
Kouta nodded. “That pretty much sums him up. He was wearing a weird belt like mine, too. Although Vince's store copied his belt to make mine, so maybe it should be the other way around?” He looked at the Driver. It continued to sit there and provide no answers.
“Or it summoned the belt you were meant to have, having seen an example of belts that would be based on yours in the future.”
Dawn was met with a blank stare of incomprehension.
“...Look, we're dealing with time travel. I'll use Vince's best tool here, pop culture. Have you seen the original Terminator?”
“Saw it on Netflix one time with some friends from school,” the boy affirmed.
"You know how every movie after the first made the time travel make no sense?" chipped in Vince.
Dawn nodded. “Even the first didn't unless you use the slotting theory.”
Kouta shrugged. “Yeah, I thought things got kinda silly after the first one. Though I did kinda like Kristanna Loken in T3.” Vince raised an eyebrow, but said nothing.
“Okay. Machines blow up world. Man named John Connor rises up to lead humanity. Computers send assassin back in time to erase Connor. Connor sends soldier back. Said soldier knows of Connor's mother and is in fact in love with her from afar. Soldier sleeps with Connor's mother, conceiving Connor. Connor knew this and sent him back to create himself. But how can something that hasn't happened yet define itself?”
“...my head hurts,” the teen complained.
“The answer is, before the time travel, another man conceived John Connor. Via time travel, that father was changed to the soldier. He was 'slotted into’ events that already occurred. Same with your belt. The store 'slotted in' for whatever was supposed to happen, and considering we're dealing with time travel, may have both already happened and is yet to happen.”
Dawn turned back to her workbench and fiddled with something. The Clear Driver. It had been opened up quite thoroughly to make sure the Store hadn’t damaged it, and had only just been put back together again.
“My point is,” she continued, “this is complicated. Why would a so called policeman of time, then, be trying such a hammer and nail solution to a future problem? There's another factor of time travel that often has to happen. I call it 'stepping outside'. Anyone who time travels will not be affected by whatever changes they cause. Because otherwise, we have the "If he kills you and prevents Emperor Zi-O, then that Emperor never existed, but it has to exist so he has a reason to go back in time, so if he removes his reason, etc etc."
“Yeah, I understand that bit.” Kouta seemed to be trailing off. A classic symptom of Words.txt. He turned to Vince, who shrugged and mouthed ‘just nod, kid’. Not the best advice.
“This isn't something to do lightly. You can literally erase your whole world and replace it with something completely different. In fact, it's just a terrible solution in general. You'd have to be insane, a nihilist, an idiot, or a pawn…”
There was an even longer pause.
”...so if you're done with the words I don't understand, could you maybe look at these and see how they work?” Kouta thrust out two small objects. One was the watch he’d used to transform into Zi-O - white and black, with the Rider’s mask depicted on the face. The other was jet black, with no design.
Dawn took the watches from him and looked at them. She turned her attentions to the Zi-O watch.
“Henshin?” she tried.
And then she was promptly engulfed in an electrical blast that made Kouta yell and leap back like a startled cat. Even Vince flinched.
When the light died down, Dawn was looking particilarly singed. Her hair stood on end like a bottlebrush, and her body was gently smoking.
“...yes,” she surmised, as if nothing had happened. “That would be your core transformation device…”
“Now I’m scared to touch it!” cried Kouta, eyes wide.
“It's not going to do that to you. I'm more interested in this blank one.” Dawn set the Zi-O watch down and began to fiddle with the blank one. “What is this....a yet to be forged key to a lock perhaps...?”
Kouta, seeming to calm down, approached and watch her work.
“I dunno,” he remarked, “I just happen to have some of these on my arms when I transform. I think this one's got the bezel pointing the other way...?”
Dawn twisted the bezel. It turned out the boy was correct, the arrow on that watch pointing a different direction to the one on the Zi-O watch.
“...I need to see your belt. As in, henshin yourself.
“See?” she added when, despite the boy jumping back, nothing happened. “It didn't zap me when I just said henshin. Or now. You need intent.”
A pause.
And then, hesitantly, Kouta took the watch.
“...alright, then.”
He turned the watch bezel, forming the face and presses the button. The watch lit up, and a voice bellowed out from the device.
ZI-O!
He plugged the watch into the belt and taps the button on the top. The belt tilted to one side, and an ominous ticking noise started up. Vince shook his head and muttered something about how melodramatic those things were getting.
Kouta blinked as he tried to remember what to do.
"Um... Henshin?"
He span the belt, which rotated a full anti-clockwise revolution before clicking back to a stop.
RIDER TIME!
KAMEN RIDER ZI-O!
And in an almost prerequisite flash of light, a spinning of gears and digital bleeping, the armour formed. Looking the same as it had when Kouta had gone toe-to-toe with Geiz.
Vince examined it critically.
“You look like a walking watch,” he remarked.
“Says the guy who had pink spiky hair,” Kouta shot back.
“Hey, don’t diss the hair.”
Dawn wasn’t paying attention to the banter. She was looking at the driver.
“...yeah,” she confirmed. “Two slots. Guess you should just put this in and see what happens.”
She handed Kouta the black watch. He slotted it into the other side of the Driver, then repeated the same actions previously. The Driver span and clicked back.
But nothing happened. Not even a noise.
“...I dunno what I expected,” sighed Kouta, shoulders sagging. Already a Rider, and he still couldn’t figure out his own gimmick item? Things seemed hopeless on top of weird.
"Man, imagine what it could have been." That was Vince again.
“...maybe it's a matter of need,” mused Dawn. “Or trigger...hey Vince, take a look at it.”
"Sure.” Vince came over just as Kouta unplugged the watch from his belt. The new Rider tossed it to the old one, who caught it and looked at it.
"What's the time, I wonder?" he remarked.
Out of nowhere, a ticking noise began from within the device. Ominous, slow, every tick like a hammer on iron.
“That's... new!” squeaked Kouta.
"...Time to go fuck myself, I guess,” said Vince, eyes wide and holding the thing at arm’s length.
“Please don't be crude in front of the OG R, Vince,” sighed Dawn as if scolding a little kid.
Vince glared at her. "I do what I want. Video Games."
“Hey, I swear! Sometimes. Not a lot. But I-”
And then the watch flared into life. Green and pink pixels swirled around it, and the ticking sped up until it sounded more like a heartbeat. And, almost predictably, a voice boomed out from within.
"Level Up! The Rider who uses video games to fight is..."
The light died down.
"EX-AID!"
There was an even longer, more awkward silence. It was broken by Kouta making a noise that sounded a lot like ‘whaaaaaa?’, but nobody responded to that.
“...I got nothing.” Vince seemed genuinely shocked as he handed the new Ex-Aid watch back. Kouta strapped it to his arm, although warily, as though afraid it would explode.
“Evidentally,” Dawn observed. “it needs input to change. Hand me another one.”
“I’d rather not,” whined Kouta. But he handed a second blank watch to Dawn. She looked at as though trying to bore a hole in it.
“...Bottle.”
Again, the watch started ticking.
“Stop it!” Kouta, in full armour, was backing away and casting his head around for an exit. It looked ridiculous. “I'm freaking out over here!”
Dawn ignored him. “Rabbit. Tank.”
The ticking grew faster.
Vince chipped in. "Best Match?"
Another flash of light. This time, accompanied by a vortex of blue and red liquid, shimmering as it seemed to be absorbed into the watch from thin air.
“Best Match! The Genius Rider who transforms with Bottles is..."
"BUILD!"
It was then that Kouta decided he’d had enough.
“Can we not do any more of that today?” he asked, walking up to Dawn and snatching the watch away. She made no move to reprimand him as he holstered it and quickly transformed back to his usual self. Vince almost snickered at how much the kid looked like a startled puppy. His hair was also a complete mess - the helmet did not agree with the brown mop he had in place of a hairstyle.
Dawn, however, was looking at Kouta almost admiringly.
“...Congratulations, Zi-O. You're a Legacy Rider. You're EXTRA special. Those blank watches, I suspect, let you access past Riders. Like Geiz did. Slot them in to the empty space to access their powers, I'd suspect."
Kouta stared at her, then at the watches on his arms.
“...Yeah, not gonna do that right now. Too much weirdness already.” he looked back at her. “But yeah, you said he was using… Drive? Whoever that was. Did that guy ever meet the Kobbers?”
“No, but-”
“Hey, guys?”
Vince was staring at the television Dawn had set up in one corner of the room. His brow was furrowed in confusion.
“...Build doesn’t eat people, right?” he asked.
Dawn blinked. “No. Why would you imply my son-?”
Vince pointed at the red-and-blue shape on the screen.
“Then what the fuck is that?”
---
“Police officerrr…”
The eyes blinked behind the lenses. It looked down at the bottles clutched in both hands.
“Reporterrr…”
Disappointment. The creature shoved the bottles into a handbag it had taken, hung loosely from one arm.
“Not a Best Maaatch…” it lisped, shoulders sagged.
It looked around at the discarded video camera and the fallen bicycle. Not useful. It needed more. Needed to find the Best Matches.
Somewhere in the back of its head, the screech of tires echoed. It shook and slapped itself, trying to chase the… memory away. It had to keep moving. It was Kamen Rider Build, and Build looked for Best Matches. With a groan, it began to walk away, mouth working and body armor clicking like beetle footsteps. Where to go next? It remembered the mall. There would be many people there. People with Best Matches.
Sometimes, Dawn talked a lot.
And sometimes she just showed up in All-Clear Mode and tried to blow people away with a bunch of guns, in a setup that might have been reminiscent of a collection of firearms placed on a battleship.
Dawn didn’t wait for the dust of the explosions to clear, switching to her chainsword and revving it up.
Then it jammed.
“....This is what happens when you don’t clean your equipment…” Dawn didn’t bother trying to get it started again, instead pulling the chainsaw blade off to reveal a secondary blade…
A fist hit her in the chest and sent her sprawling, with only a gloved hand preventing her from completely falling over.
“Hell of a left hook he’s got there,” Vince commented dryly, fully transformed and eyes locked on the staggering parody of Build. It was looking at them with something close to awe. It’s lower jaw worked as it tried to speak.
“Begin… experrriment!”
It flourished an arm, fingers twisted, trying to imitate the real Build’s signature pose. Then it reached into the handbag, bottles rattling.
“Uh, kid?”
“...oh, yeah!” That was Kouta, his voice a mouse-squeak behind the mask of Zi-O. He quickly reached into thin air and yanked out his signature weapon.
EDGE OF TIME! GUN!
Quickly, he took aim and fired, trying to knock the bottles out of the monster’s hands. The creature flinched, dropping both, and dug in the bag for more.
“Get the bag!”
Kouta quickly flicked his weapon to the other mode - SWORD! - and dashed forward. The swing he made at the fake Build was wild and clumsy, but it was aimed for the straps of the bag, at the very least. The bag fell away, spilling too many bottles for comfort to the floor, but the creature was already-
“Oh, gross,” muttered Vince as the monster shoved both bottles into its maw, swallowing them whole.
Sprinter! Fencer! Best Match!
Kouta met a sword coming the other way, the fake Build’s thick fingers wrapped around the hilt of a rapier. The creature’s eyes were lit up behind the lenses welded over its face.
Kouta hesitated. But he drew his weapon back and swung anyway, for lack of any better ideas. The blow was parried, and he yelped as he barely twisted out of the way of the thrust that came at him. He tried to strike downwards, but the monster suddenly blurred, and then it was standing behind him. Two slashes ripped across his back, and he staggered forwards with a cry, nearly slipping on the spilled bottles.
A thrust caught him, and he went down in a plume of dust.
Which is when Dawn slashed the fake Build. Hard. How hard? The street got ripped up from the wind impact of the blow.
It got her some sparks and a stagger.
“Damn it. Some sort of blunting…” This time Dawn caught the fist. “No.”
Dawn might have, for whatever reason, been unable to do any real damage. But she could still use the weakened ground and a judo slam to literally smash the fake Build headfirst into the street, burying him up to his waist.
“This is YOUR fight, kid! You’re the only one who can do damage! I’m going to deal with these.” Dawn moved to grab up the Bottles: maybe what was done could be reversed…
Kouta got to his feet. His hand fumbled on his weapon, nearly dropping it. Gasps of panic were coming from his mouth. Adrenaline was rushing through his body and making it hard to think properly. What to do, he only had a small window of time before...
Then an idea came to him.
He plucked the Build watch from it’s holster on his arm. He looked between it and the monster pulling itself out of the earth, as if his mind was racing to make a connection.
“That thing… It looks like…”
He didn’t wait any longer. He twisted the bezel and hit the button.
BUILD!
“Stop messing around with that!” hollered Vince. “She said attack, so-!”
The next thing Vince knew, Zi-O had jammed the new Watch into his Driver and span it.
ARMOR TIME!
Something - a lance of green - shot out of the top of the belt. It spread and wavered up and down, like a scanner, forming a 3D image. It looked vaguely like Build, but for the massive bottles that formed the shoulders and the drill for one arm. It struck a pose - the same one Build often did, not the crooked parody the monster had tried.
Kouta stared.
“...what?”
And then the armour flew apart and, ignoring the yelps of fright, clamped onto Zi-O.
BEST MATCH! BUI~IIIIILD!
Vince stared. “...Huh. Neat.”
The fake Build stared at the transformed Zi-O, and then raised its sword, approaching slowly and unsure of what it was fighting. Zi-O seemed to suddenly realize that the monster was now free. And he lashed out with the drill. He didn’t really have any ideas of what might happen when he did. In all likelihood, he probably expected the same as the last time he tried anything.
So when the strike blazed an angry red mark on the fake Build’s armour and made it scream and stumble backwards, he was as surprised as anyone.
“Holy shit!” he cried.
“Well, that worked!” hollered Vince. “Keep doing it!”
The fake Build hissed and came back at him. This time, Zi-O waited until it swung, then parried the blow and struck again. This time, the blue bottle on one shoulder flashed, and when the drill struck the sound of a cannon went off. A burst of energy came from the tip, throwing the monster backwards to sprawl in the dust again. Zi-O chased after it as it struggled to rose-
The red bottle flashed. And suddenly, Zi-O was pinning the monster by the shoulder to a tree.
He started, and shook his head. “What the-?!”
A foot to the gut made him stagger away, the tip of his weapon yanking from the monster’s shoulder. Black ooze poured from the wound.
“No!” the monster screamed. “Me… Buuuuild! Me real Build! You not Beeeest Match!”
“Somehow,” snapped Zi-O, “I don’t think the real Build turns people into science experiments! Vince!”
“Got you.”
Hammer swinging, Vince harried the monster. It didn’t stagger, screaming and flailing with his sword at him, but he wasn’t looking to do real damage. He was buying time for Kouta to do his thing.
Which Kouta did, very quickly.
FINISH TIME! BUILD!
The air crackled. Equations suddenly appeared in the air. Or, at least, words.
“Science bit goes here.”
“I learned this in fourth grade!”
“Number X Number = Something.”
“Math is hard! D:”
Vince shook his head. “Well, that ain’t right-”
VOLTECH… TIME BREAK!
Kouta leaped into the air. The bottles on his shoulders glowed, and a dotted line suddenly appeared between him and the fake Build. The monster saw it too late, shoving Vince aside and leaping at him with a shriek of fury.
Drill-first and screaming, Kamen Rider Zi-O plunged his weapon into the monster’s midsection, tearing through the armour and the skin beneath.
The monster detonated with a howl.
Kouta landed on both feet with a gasp, lost his footing and faceplanted. But behind him, the body of another person hit the floor at about the same time. He didn’t look any older than Kouta did. Probably just a year or two older. But from the clothes he was wearing, he was clearly a sports person - perhaps a track runner or athlete. He didn’t move.
“...did I get him?” Kouta’s voice was muffled.
“You fucking got him, alright.” Vince ran over to help the collapsed person. “Uh, well done. Good job. Let me just… get this guy to the hospital. I have a lot of questions and not many answers right now.”
---
"Oh. That didn't go well."
The little girl watching from the top of the hill stared as the three Riders left the scene.
Then she shrugged.
"Oh, well. We can just try the hospital next time~!"
And off she skipped.
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