King of Time Part 3

(NOTE: The following is an off-season collab that has no bearing on 2018 or 2019 RP. Special thanks to TheDeleter for writing Vince, Cornwind Evil for writing Dawn and TheRubyChao for writing Kaede.)

“Harold Kelman?”

The aged British man, former head of the Ministry of Joy, looked up from where he sat.

“Do I know you?” he asked.

The young man grinned. “Nope. But I know you. They say a lot about you in the history books.”

Kelman snorted. “Nothing good, I’ll be bound.”

“Yeah, they don’t talk much about the Smiler stuff. That was kinda whack. Still amazed a whole nation bought into Martian psychic therapy.”

“Amazing what you can sell if you package it right.” The old man laughed, but there was no humour in it.

The stranger took the seat next to him. He sat back easily, as if unconcerned with what was going on in the older man’s mind. There was a long pause as the duo stared at the opposite wall of the waiting room.

“...are you here to see someone?” Kelman asked.

“Nope, just passing through. You?”

Kelman stared. “That’s rather private, isn’t it?”

“Hey, I’m a chatty guy. I like to get to know people.”

A longer pause. And then Kelman heaved a huge sigh, looking more old and tired than ever.

“My daughter. She… developed some kind of viral infection. The doctors can’t seem to identify it, but she’s… very weak. I pay her a visit every day I can. But with my busy schedule, I fear that someday she might… slip away. When I’m not there to comfort her. Ironic, that my brother created Marmalization to ease pain, and yet now I can’t do anything for my own child.”

His voice became cracked, emotion leaking through. The stranger sucked in air through his teeth.

“Damn,” he remarked. “Heavy. No dad should have to see their kid go before them.”

“And you would know?” Harold’s tone was almost droll.

“No. But I’ve seen it happen again and again, where I come from. Children getting their lives cut short, right in front of the people who love them the most. It’s messed up. Imagine having to cradle the body of your own family when their only crime was being in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

Harold sighed, but offered no comment. There was an even longer silence.

“You care a lot for your daughter,” the stranger said.

“Obviously.” Another humourless laugh.

Then Kelman looked over at the stranger. And he sensed something seemed off when he saw the tiny smirk at the corner of the younger man’s mouth. But he was old, and couldn’t be sure. Ever since the Smiler incident, he’d gone a little paranoid, always looking over his shoulder…

“Would you save her yourself, if you could?” asked the stranger.

The sense of wrongness grew.

“...more than anything.”

Then the stranger turned to him and looked him dead in the eye.

“Harold Kelman. History says that your daughter dies in a week, from the Bugster Virus. But I’ve come to change that. I can give you the power to save your daughter and make things right. In return, I need you to do something for me. Think of it as equivalent exchange - I scratch your back, you scratch mine. There’s a lot at stake, Harold Kelman, and I wouldn’t come to you if I didn’t think you weren’t the man who could do this.”

The former head of the Ministry felt very much like a cornered canary before the cat strikes.

“Do what?” he asked.

The stranger pulled something from his pocket.
 

“Save the future.”

King of Time Part 2

(NOTE: The following is an off-season collab that has no bearing on 2018 and 2019 RP. Special thanks to TheDeleter for writing Vince and Cornwind Evil for writing Dawn.) 

~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.

Morons vs Wild 2: The Wildening

WARNING: The following post contains material that certain readers may find upsetting. Reader discretion is advised.

-------ASH'S WORLD-------

The whole thing started when Sam, walking through the forest near Oriam, was pounced upon by a giant spider.

"AAARGH SHIT FUCK BALLS," he screamed as the thing tackled him off his feet, winding all eight legs tightly around his body and pinning his arms against his sides. The swearing continued as he hit the ground, and went on as he jerked his head this way and that, barely dodging the sharp, slavering fangs that kept missing his face by mere millimetres. Sheer panic prevented him from remembering he could have just set himself on fire to escape this predicament, and thus he spent a good half a minute writhing and kicking in the dirt, the spider's weight keeping from rolling upright.

Of course, his salior talk served as the perfect beacon to anyone close by.

"HOLD ON, SAM!"

Sam didn't even see who was approaching until Erdrick had already been driven through the spider's body, the point poking him in the chest by accident. The beast shrieked, convulsed for a moment, and then went limp, the legs losing their grip around the Uberman's body as the life rapidly went out of it. The moment he felt that happening, Sam flexed his arms, pushing the limbs away from him, and threw the corpse of the creature off as he scrambled to his feet, letting off one last torrent of expletives as he went.

Then something grabbed his arm, and he screamed, picturing some worse animal-

"Sam, SAM."

That was Ash's voice. Even in the midst of a heart attack, Sam would know it anywhere.

"It's fine, we're here. It's deader than dead."

And there was Erdrick - his mother's voice, of course, which was still weird, but soothing enough for Sam to get a grip on himself. Whilst he babbled to a stop, gasping for air and clutching his chest, the other man knelt down and produced something akin to a small towel as he began cleaning the foul, pale ichor off of Erdrick's blade. It took some time for the former Destined Hero to get his breath back and put the past events in proper seqence, so he could find the right questions to ask about what just happened.

Thankfully, only one came to mind.

"...what was that?!" he nearly shrieked, pointing at the dead spider.

Hail to the King (Part 4)

Sam's day had, in a nutshell, gone down the drain.

It had started out okay, really. Christine, as part of the plan to gather more members of the 44, had drawn up a map and told him to basically meander down a path whilst the others split up in search of more help. The reason she'd given was that they would be able to quickly gather forces, supplies and more, whilst Sam, who didn't really know the land at all, would just head to the place where they would all meet up and act as a signpost. Then they would all just head back to where they were needed and get ready to kick the Magpies out.

Sam was fine with that - meandering was something he'd done a lot, back in his home world. Often, he and his troupe would do just that, wandering between villages and looking for problems to solve when the Kingsguard wasn't badgering him to kill the latest maniacal warlord or whatever. And one of the nice things about meandering was that it didn't require life-or-death decisions or unnecessary pain. Nobody tried to randomly attack you

Or so he thought, until the quintet of strangers jumped him when passing by some ruins.

The first thing he knew about it was when a massive slab of concrete came hurtling out of nowhere at him. He didn't even question it at the time, but with the benefit of hindsight, he had to wonder just how it got here - he wasn't even aware there was anyone who knew how to make concrete! Regardless, he let his reflexes do the talking, pulling out the Grandius and swinging before he had time to even think about what exactly he was doing, or how ridiculous it was going to look. Thankfully, the latter never even crossed his mind - if it did, he probably would have been reduced to a jammy paste on the floor.

Long story short, he cut the concrete in half, and let the two halves crash to the ground on either side of him. Standard procedure - he'd done it enough times in his career that he'd got it down pat. Now, all he had to do was to find the guy responsible and lecture him about proper concrete-throwing safety, so he wouldn't have to do it again. Maybe it'd be just some big, dumb brute, like a minotaur or giant, who had been playing stepping stones. Or maybe it'd be some megalomaniac idiot testing his new concrete-throwing weapon - wouldn't be the first time.

So when the man dressed in the Kevlar-paneled bodysuit stepped forward, he was somewhat disappointing.

The man didn't look like much, in all honesty. Close-cropped brown hair, angular face and green eyes presented a rather plain appearance. All that really stood out about him was the way the ground seemed to quiver beneath his feet as he walked, as well as what he was wearing. And once again, hindsight kicked him in the butt as, only a few moments later, would he recognize the insignia of the spread-winged, two-headed crow-like bird upon the chestplate of the outfit. Really, it had not been one of Sam's days for quick thinking.

"Sorry about that," said the stranger as he came into view. "I wasn't really aiming for you."

"Well, I should hope not," Sam retorted as he straightened up. "You don't just throw concrete about like-"

"No," responded the man, patiently. "That was meant to be the signal. But my throwing's not so good, you see."

Quite Contrary, Faceless

It had started like any other day. Daniel was in the living room, enthused by Top Gear reruns on the grounds that there was nothing better to watch that day. Robbie, having completed his homework for the day, was engaging Crusoe in the morning newspaper's Sudoku challenges, although the not-a-cat had more than once complained about how easy the challenges were. And Carol was putting out the garbage - technically it was Daniel's turn, but he'd done it for two weeks and had complained vehemently about it, as was his style.

So here she was, lifting the lid of the bin and wrinkling her nose at the awful smells within. Ugh, there was a whole medley of stuff in here - the takeaway pizza from last night, that lasagne she couldn't finish, bits of fish, the piri piri sauce Daniel had taken one bite of and ran screaming from the room... Someday, they were going to give that bin a proper wash-out. But for now, the technopath concentrated on throwing the bag in and shutting the lid, pushing it down a bit to help it fit properly.

It occurred to her, at that moment, that the bird feeders needed refilling. They'd been brought recently, and Robbie enjoyed looking out of the back window and watching starlings, blackbirds and more gather around them and peck away at the seed within. So instead of heading straight back indoors, Carol turned around and headed down the side path, down to modest back garden that saw the brunt of the spring sun. The feeder hung by a wire on the fence at the other side of the garden, and the redhead had to cross the whole length of the grass so she could reach the feeder and unhook it.

Then she made the mistake of looking over the back fence.

At first, she thought it was just another one of the scraggly trees, lined up in neat rows in the field beyond. But she blinked, and it had moved forward by several meters, and then her brain began to register several things in a mad, cold rush of terror. Firstly, it wasn't even the same moss-dotted brownish-green colour as the other trees trees - only white and black, with a hint of red. Secondly, it was still moving, in a wobbly, foot-dragging and arm-swinging fashion that suggested it was too top-heavy for it's own good.

Third, it was moving right towards her.

Hail to the King (Part 3)

~PORT BLACKSAND~

Sam had never seen Star Wars before. The only reason he knew it existed was because the people he associated with often referenced it, usually in a dumb in-jokey way that he wasn't really parlay to. So therefore, he only knew about Mos Eisley being a thing because he had heard that one quote over and over, and had no real idea of what it looked like.

Port Blacksand, he reckoned, was close.

"There's a joke about scum and villainy somewhere," he muttered as he strolled down the grime-ridden streets. He wouldn't have been far-off in making that joke - the general look of the town, even from a distance, was a shifty, side-eyed one that kept an eye out for the cops as it filched someone's wallet, and up close it was no better. Gruff-voiced men and rasp-voiced women hollered out their wares from side corners and crannies, half the populace seemed to stare at the floor or cover their faces as they walked and the smell of damp and poorly-cooked food hang like a foul perfume over the place. The only mercy Sam could find was that nobody seemed inclined to look at him, and when they did they usually gave him a wide berth.

It might have had something to do with Walter trotting by his side, though. It would seem that having a Leowolf - that is, a canine now the size of a lion - next to you was a good way to carve out a decent personal space. A good metre or so of thin air around Sam had gone practically unmolested, and the former Destined Hero had the impression that this was more to do with the wolf than anything about himself. Mind you, brightly-coloured clothing was something of a target for stares in a place like this.

It hadn't felt like long before a nose pushed itself into his leg, and Walter gave a whining bark to indicate that Sam should look at something. He did, and found that they were now approaching a tavern, which looked so ashamed of it's shabby appearance it seemed to by trying to hide itself between all the other buildings on the street. A forlorn, knife-hacked and torch-burned sign swung above the door, and the blond-haired swordsman couldn't help but snort at the faded name etched into the wood "NOBODY INN". At least the place had a sense of humour.

"You thirsty, big guy?" he asked Walter, knowing his guess was not far off.

The wolf replied with a short yap and a mad wagging of the tail.

"Alright," chuckled Sam as he tousled the wolf's furry head. "We'll stop for a drink, and then maybe ask for directions."

The two promptly changed course, and their first obstacle came in the form of a man built like a diseased gorilla, who stepped between them and the comforting warmth of the tavern on the instant they crossed the threshold. His mere appearance turned nearly every head in the bar - it seemed people were accustomed to the routine scuffles that their bouncer got into.

"Fuck off," were his first words, growled out like an industrial meat grinder.

Sam groaned, already familiar with this kind of scenario. "Look," he tried, "I'm not here to cause trouble. I just want-"

"Fuck off, I said," repeated the bouncer, stepping forward. "We don't serve your lot here, with your poncy outfits and too many belts. And take your mutt with you, or else I'll-"

Sam didn't even have to say anything. If there was one thing he knew Walter hated more than anything, it was being called a mutt, mongrel or any sort of pejorative relating to his breeding. A blur of silver-grey shot up from his left, there was a thump and the bouncer collapsed to the floor, half-dazed and clutching his own forehead. And then, in case that wasn't hilarious enough, the Leowolf casually trotted over to the prone juggernaut and sat on him as though he were a cushion from his bed back home.

This set every table in the tavern at a roar at once. It must have been the funniest thing they'd seen all week.

"Thank you, thank you!" Sam laughed back and waved as he stepped into the building. "He does headstands, too!" Which probably wasn't true, but he could smell that half of them were already pissed out of their minds, so anything would prolong the hilarity. And as they lapped it up like monkeys at feeding time, he took the time to check the medallion from Victoria, just in case it had any clues as to-

Huh. It was blinking rather brightly. That meant somebody from the Forty-Four, that group of heroes Sam had needed to seek out to try and deal with the Magpies, was in this very building. But where...?

Sam looked up.

Hail To The King (Part 2)

Fire is the test of gold; adversity, of strong men.
- Seneca the Younger, De Providentia, 5, 9.

Sam had wondered why on earth a place would be called 'Megan's Woe'. 'Woe' wasn't exactly a word he associated with historical place-names, especially concerning military leaders or great battles. 'Triumph' was a good, solid name that could be depended on, conjuring images of conquest and celebration in his mind. 'Folly' was also good, and spoke of madness and stubbornness in the face of impossible odds and crippling setbacks. As adjectives go, 'woe' was kind of overtly poetic, and lacked the powerful dramatic impact the former two did.

Arriving there, though, he could easily see how the name would apply.

"Fucking hell..." the blond swordsman muttered under his breath as he took in the scenery. It wasn't exactly picturesque - certainly not in the traditional sense. Mostly consisting of volcanic rock, the landscape was occasionally punctuated with spurts of superheated water from geysers dotted about the place, topped with wispy plumes of gas leaking from cracks in the earth. The crowning centerpiece of it all, impaled on a massive rocky spire and surrounded by plumes of erupting lava, was what might have been a luxury yacht of some kind but was now a burnt, blackened shell of its former glory. All-in-all, not the ideal vacation spot.

At least it's better than Blackpool, said the inner Nicodemus, but Sam was too busy trying to breathe to laugh at that one. The Grandius had screamed it's head off about the level of poisonous gases in the area before he'd gotten within earshot of the place, and thus he'd had to take out and clean the MantraTech Personal Air Filter he carried with him. He barely used it since the one time he'd had to delve into a poison-filled mine to rescue some workers, but it somehow still worked as well as ever despite the neglect, filtering out all the awful toxins and replacing them with soothing, clean air. At least he wouldn't choke to death here.

But then there were the other, more obvious dangers to deal with. The heat, for instance, was something awful - you couldn't just fry an egg on these rocks, you could cook a three-course dinner! Then the water spurting out of the ground was also an obvious problem, as it would be full of nasty bacteria and viruses as well as being hot enough to remove the skin. And to say nothing of the constant volcanic eruptions going on...

Which is why we left Walter behind, Sam's brain reminded him. This place, apparently the site of a major magical battle in this world's history, wasn't really between them and the next village they had to go to, but he'd been about it being close to their route and had advised them to steer clear of it. Sam would have liked to mention that it was pretty hard to do that when he didn't know where the place was, and his suspicions proved to be right when the grass abruptly died beneath his feet. So he'd left Walter behind with the others whilst he went out and scoured the area for trouble.

It was a decision he was regretting already. In fact, as he leaped away from another blast of superheated gas, he was considering just ditching the exploration and-

"YOU!"

Perdition

The following is a collab with Cornwind Evil. He devised the main story framework, I took care of the writing. Enjoy!

-------

Sometimes, you think you know a person. You think you know their likes, their dislikes and their odd quirks that make them the unique individual they are. You hug them when they cry, you laugh when they tell you embarrassing stories of high school. You congratulate and scold them when the the comes to do so, you are there when they need you and not there when they don't. And then comes the moment when, out of the blue, they say or do something that completely changes your perspective on them and forces you to re-draw your mental picture of them, like opening packet of Digestives to find every third one is a Jaffa Cake.

Carol had her second moment when she saw the six-shooter Sine kept in a locked box.

She knew it was cursed the moment her "partner" opened it up. The hissing voices had hit her like a shot of whiskey hits the stomach, with the exact amount of unpleasant churning. The urge to simply reach out and grab it sat like a fat toad in the back of her mind, yet the rest of it was screaming in silent terror loud enough to prevent that from happening. What the technopath found the most unnerving, however, was the fact that, despite everything her head was screaming at her, the thing in front of her looked like a prop from a Lone Ranger set - almost innocuous, despite being... well, a gun.

Blinking, she looked up at Sine, and saw the grim seriousness on her face. Oh, dear. It was going to be one of those things.

"Carol... Do you remember what happened a week ago?"

Carol gulped, ignoring the metaphorical snakes in her gullet. "Yeah... That didn't go so well, did it?"

That had been the first moment.