Kamen Rider EqG

Chapters

Chapter 2: See Clearly Now
Chapter 3: Along the Watchtower
Chapter 4: Let's Ride
Chapter 5: Double Vision
Chapter 6: Supernumerary Hues
Chapter 7: Chromatic Dispersion
Chapter 8: Five Diffraction Minima
Chapter 9: Reflections
Chapter 10: Warped Image
Chapter 11: Shattered
Chapter 12: Critical Angle
Chapter 13: Real or Virtual?
Chapter 14: Total Internal Reflection
Chapter 1: The Hero of Canterlot High

Chapter 2: See Clearly Now

See Clearly Now woИ ylɿɒɘlƆ ɘɘƧ

One Day Later

It was late, and Sugar Cube Corner was closing for the night. Among the last of the patrons to leave were Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy, who had spent the past several hours on a study session.

“And then a group of populations makes…,” Fluttershy offered as the two walked down the sidewalk.

“A community,” Rainbow Dash responded, trying to remember what order the level names progressed in. She’d tried matching them with the ideal starting lineup of players on various school sports teams, but this was one time that having a repeating list of her again and again hadn’t been much help, so she’d settled with just using brute mental strength to hold them in the right order without any fluffy tricks. “And then adding in all the nonliving stuff from the surrounding environment makes the total ecosystem.”

“That’s right,” said Fluttershy. “I just know that you’ll ace that ecology exam.”

“Heh, B-plus maybe,” Rainbow Dash said, “and only because I’m learning from the class’s top student.”

Fluttershy blushed. “Oh, I don’t think I’d go that far…”

“Are you kidding me?” Rainbow Dash said, folding her arms behind her head. “I snuck a look at the teacher’s grade sheet—you’re best in the class. Heck, you’re best out of all of the ecology classes this semester.”

“Oh,” Fluttershy said, “well then I guess you could say that…wait, you did what?” Rainbow Dash only started chuckling in response.

As the two girls had walked, one thing they might have noticed was that they’d passed several large storefront windows. One thing they didn’t notice, however, was that the reflective surface of the one they’d just passed had begun to ripple outwards from the center. And as the ripples radiated across the window’s surface, the silhouette of a humanoid figure faded into view.

The figure was slightly crouched over, and had a large X-shaped object strapped to its back. It turned its head right and looked after them, taking a step forward. Its left arm and leg phased through the rippling glass surface before it stuck its head out, crouching lower before stepping out fully. The figure was black with plates of dull red armor strapped to the front of its body and legs and the backs of its arms. Its face had a red armor plate on it with a black forehead and gold lower jaw. The Gelnewt slowly stepped after them.

Suddenly Fluttershy stopped in her tracks with a faint gasp. Rainbow Dash stopped a few steps later and looked back.

“Oh, come on, I was joking when I said that I’d looked at the grade sheet,” Dash said, “but I’m sure that you’re…Fluttershy?”

Fluttershy turned around and looked back the direction they’d come from. The Gelnewt stopped. It tilted its head side to side as it watched her staring in its direction. But only in its direction. From her perspective, the street was dark, maybe a bit eerie, but, most importantly, empty.

“Hey,” Rainbow Dash said, walking back to Fluttershy. “Is everything all right?”

“Huh?” Fluttershy said, just realizing she was being addressed. “Y-yeah, I just thought I…n-never mind.”

Fluttershy turned and walked past Rainbow Dash in the direction they were going before. Rainbow Dash turned to follow, but had a sudden suspicious feeling and turned to face back up the sidewalk again. She didn’t know it, but the Gelnewt had advanced towards them to the point that she was staring it right in the face, mere inches away. It had paused again, and was now silently waiting for her to turn and keep walking.

Her internal “bad feeling about this”-o-meter holding steady at high alert, Rainbow Dash slowly turned back forward, keeping a suspicious gaze out of the corner of her eye as she followed after Fluttershy. The Gelnewt again advanced, unseen.

Also unseen, was how the window of the store the girls were about to pass began rippling. A second Gelnewt faded into view in the window’s reflection, if it had been visible, that is. It nodded at the first Gelnewt as Fluttershy was about to step into parallel with the window, and the first nodded back.

Suddenly, Rainbow Dash felt something grab onto her arms and pull back.

“What the—hey!” she shouted. She immediately pulled forward and tried turning to see who was gonna get it, but she couldn’t see any hands grabbing her arms. “Huh?” She lurched forward, but she felt whatever it was start to pull her back again, so she let it. Elbow first.

“Aig—,” she let out as her elbow collided with something with a clunk. She grabbed her right elbow, sure she’d hit her funny bone, before hearing a clatter and thump behind her. She turned around, but only saw an empty sidewalk. “What the?” Then a thought hit her. She took a step forward and kicked. Her foot hit something solid. Great, she thought, now I’ve gotta admit to AJ that she so totally called it.

“Rainbow Dash!” Fluttershy screamed.

Rainbow Dash looked back and saw Fluttershy struggling against another invisible force pulling her towards the storefront window. Without a second thought, she charged forward, shoulder out, aiming for the area just behind Fluttershy. She rammed into something invisible, pushing it back…right into the window. Rainbow snapped her eyes shut a second before the expected impact, but instead of shattering glass, she felt the wind from running disappear.

She slowly opened her eyes, and was utterly shocked at the sight. She was looking down a long clear tunnel between two walls of what appeared to be slightly angled silvery glass boxes forming a 3D grid-like framework. The whole thing was shimmering, glinting with light reflected almost infinitely.

Her eyes were quickly drawn to the silhouette fading into view in front of her. Now fully visible, she was greeted by the face and form of the Gelnewt. It snarled at Rainbow Dash, making her pull back with surprise.

Wait, she thought, this is it? Her look of surprise quickly faded to one of being unimpressed, then she promptly punched it in the face.

Taken off guard, the Gelnewt made a muffled sound of pain as it slowly floated back, beginning to flail as it quickly gained speed and was pulled down the glass tunnel. Rainbow Dash watched as it disappeared in a flash at what was presumably the other end. Now, she just had to figure out a way to get—suddenly she felt a tug on her left ankle and was pulled backwards. She heard a screeching whooshing sound as everything became a streaking silver blur, and the next thing she knew, she tumbled to the hard sidewalk.

“O-oh my,” came Fluttershy’s voice, “I hope I didn’t hurt you.”

Rainbow Dash shook her head a bit, then opened her eyes wide and blinked to clear her vision, the blurry image of Fluttershy kneeling down next to her coming onto focus. She quickly sat up and looked over to where she’d been attacked, seeing the first Gelnewt. She saw that it had a large X-shaped probable weapon strapped to its back…and that the weapon was laying flat against the ground, making it rather difficult for the struggling Gelnewt to stand back up.

“You just went right into the window,” Fluttershy continued. “And through it! I tried catching you, but all I got was your ankle, and—”

“Come on,” Rainbow Dash said, grabbing Fluttershy’s arm and jumping to her feet. “I’ll explain later, but right now we have to get to—,” she started to pull Fluttershy away from the Gelnewt, but stopped as something down the street caught her attention, “…to…” She stared until she knew her eyes weren’t deceiving her. “Hey,” she said. “Hey! It’s you!”

Standing on the street corner a block away was a figure clad in a suit of armor: a helmet, a large chest plate, shoulder pads, forearm cuffs, a belt, and shin guards. In silence, he began walking over to their location. As he approached, he passed under a streetlight, revealing the majority of the armor’s plating to be a dark blue-violet indigo, with thin gold borders around the shoulder pads and the left and right half torso plates, and worn over a black undersuit. The helmet bore over the eyes a diamond-shaped silver plate with a vertical ridge down the center and sets of horizontal slits on each side. Strapped to his left forearm was some armament with a flat surface featuring a golden horseshoe, the tips pointing back up his arm, with a gold symbol resembling a front-on view of a horse’s head placed inside the arc of the horseshoe. The belt shone silver, with a rectangular indigo object, featuring the same gold horse head shape and four small silver horseshoes arranged around the corners, in place of a buckle. He also had a pair of oddly placed hollow silver knobs on his knees.

As the Armored Hero reached them, Rainbow Dash didn’t know what to say. So she said something anyway. “The news is trying to say you’re a fake, but I’ve been betting you were real all along.”

The Armored Hero stopped, looking at her. He probably hadn’t expected to be addressed in such a calm manner given the situation.

“Lucky you, then,” he said to her in a voice muffled by the helmet before turning his head to the Gelnewt struggling to stand up. “Get to safety. I’ll—”

“Ah-right!” cheered Rainbow Dash as she started leading a still-shocked Fluttershy away from the scene again. “Teach those gold-faced things a lesson for me!”

As they left, the Armored Hero turned his head to follow them. “Gold face?” he said to himself. “Wait, can she—”

Just then, the downed Gelnewt kicked its legs out to spring itself up and to its feet again. The Armored Hero turned back to see it lunge forward, and blocked a downward chop with his left arm, turning and kicking it square in the gut with his right foot. As the Gelnewt staggered back, he reached over to the apparatus on his left forearm.

Meanwhile, as Rainbow Dash led Fluttershy away from the battle with her left hand, her right hand was aiming her phone back at the fight, camera recording.

The window next to the Hero rippled and the second Gelnewt jumped back out of it, the Hero turning and swiping left with a shiny object in his right hand.

* * *

The Next Day

“And now we’re back live at the ORE News Desk for this update to recent breaking news,” said the Channel 13 newswoman. “Almost as if in response to doubts raised by this network, a new report claims that the unseen attackers the Armored Hero has been fighting off are indeed unseen, somehow being invisible to our eyes.”

The feed cut to a recording from a handheld field camera of another newsperson and two teenage girls.

“Yes, I know how convenient it all sounds,” said the girl with brightly colored rainbow hair, “but it’s true, I’m telling you! Why am I telling you, anyway? You’re just gonna brush it off as another layer in you hoax theory. You could at least run with it to get more viewers on the nightly news. ‘Invisible’ will spark more interest than ‘hoax’.”

The feed returned to the newswoman.

“After just three reported sightings over a span of two whole weeks,” she continued, “the most recent two events have occurred only two days apart. Could this sudden jump in frequency be a sign that more numerous and more constant sightings will be made in the near future? Or has this been the rate of occurrence all along, and just not all cases have been reported? News and police stations across the city have already begun getting new witnesses coming forward, claiming previously unreported encounters with the Armored Hero. Police are advising that, due to the sudden surge in media exposure of cases such as these, any influx of reports like this is bound to include some number of falsifications.”

“A’right you two yahoos, here’s the deal,” said Detective Danny Haygan of the Canterlot Police Department. He was sitting at a metal table across from two high school boys in a dimly lit interrogation room (not dimly lit because he was trying to intimidate a suspect, but because the station’s budget just couldn’t afford new light bulbs). “This,” he said as he slid a piece of paper across the table, “is the guy we’re lookin’ for.” On it were two sketches of the Armored Hero, one in a fighting stance and one a close-up on his head and torso armor. “I don’t know what cardboard boxes you were using for your ‘suit’, but it’s way too square and the paint job’s wrong. He’s not even the right height.”

“B-but it is real!” pleaded Snips, sitting across from the detective. “Just watch the video again.”

“I did,” the detective sighed, “but I’m starting to think that you two didn’t.”

Detective Haygan reached over to a small old-looking portable TV sitting off on the side of the table and pushed a button under the screen. A bit of static jumped across the dark glass square before an image appeared: it was daytime in the city park, with a few sparse trees in the background. Standing in center frame was someone indeed clad in spray-painted cardboard boxes, wearing what appeared to be a small metal trash bin over their head. They stood looking around before stepping forward and punching at the empty air, then holding their arms up in a boxer’s defensive stance. They punched forward a few more times before kicking at a spot about a foot and a half off the ground, waving their arms a bit to regain their balance. They grabbed up an armful of air in a chokehold before repeatedly punching at it to inconsistent depths. They then took a step back before leaning over backwards in a vain attempt at a real-time simulation of a slow motion Matrix dodge. They stood back up again.

“Are we done yet?” asked a muffled voice as the fake Armored Hero turned to look at the camera.

“Don’t break character, keep going!” came what was clearly Snips’s voice from offscreen.

“What the—Snaaaiils!” shouted the Snips sitting at the table, turning to the other boy. “I told you to edit that part out!”

“I thought you were saying that you’d do it,” Snails responded.

“I don’t know how to do that!” said Snips.

“And you though I did?” said Snails.

“Out, both of you,” Detective Haygan said, resting his forehead into his fingertips with his elbows on the table and closing his eyes. “Quit wasting my time.”

* * *

“I don’t think I’ve ever missed a full day of school before,” Fluttershy said as she and Rainbow Dash walked up to Pinkie’s house.

“Hey,” Rainbow Dash said, “at least you had a good reason, and with your spotless record they almost wouldn’t notice. I’m not sure I want to know what they’ll think I was doing.”

“I just didn’t think it would take so long,” Fluttershy responded. “It’s like they wouldn’t let us leave.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Rainbow Dash said as she knocked on and immediately opened the front door. “The media just wants to know as many details as it can get so it can report something totally different, and the police want to know so they can decide what things to try and keep the media from accidentally being right about.”

Passing through the living room, she waved over at Maud, who probably didn’t notice them, before continuing on to Pinkie’s room, the door to which was sitting ajar. Inside, they found the other four members of their group, who looked up as they entered. Rainbow Dash closed the door behind them to block out attentive ears. She didn’t think Maud would be trying to listen, but she could never tell.

“So,” Applejack said, standing up and crossing her arms, “we saw you on the news. Did you enjoy your fifteen seconds of fame?”

“I really liked your ‘its face hurt my elbow’ comment,” Pinkie said. The others looked at her. “What? I did.”

“She actually left out quite a lot,” spoke up Fluttershy, “like the entire part about going into the window.”

“You fell through a window?” Rarity said with surprise.

“Not through,” Rainbow Dash spoke up, “into, as in literally inside of. It was like the portal to Twilight’s world!”

Sunset looked up upon hearing this. “But just on some ordinary window?” she asked to clarify.

“Mm-hm,” Fluttershy nodded. “It was just the one in front of one of the shops near Sugar Cube Corner. Are you sure that the base of the statue is the portal’s only connection point?”

“Positive,” Sunset replied, “there’s no other way to travel between this world and Equestria. If that wasn’t the case, my ultimatum at the Fall Formal would’ve been meaningless. Whatever this was, it must’ve been something different.”

“So, tell us,” Pinkie said, turning back to Rainbow Dash, “what did Wonderland look like?” Rainbow gave her a confused look. “Y’know…‘through the looking glass’ and all that? Geez, it isn’t that obscure, is it?”

“Oh,” said Rainbow Dash. “Hmm, not sure how to describe it. Kinda like the inside of a glass maze? It was just a square tunnel, though. I’m sure ‘Wonderland’ was all the way on the other side. But more about that later. Right now, we have our first real clue in our ‘half-boiled’ investigation, and it could be a case-breaker. We’ve now got our own video of the Armored Hero in action.” She held up her phone.

“And how come the news didn’t say anything about this?” Sunset asked. “Are they just waiting for it to be authenticated like the last one, or…?”

“Nope,” Rainbow Dash replied. “They don’t know about it.”

“I’m tryin’ to think of a plan where that move makes sense,” Applejack said. A moment later she added, “Nope, nuthin’.”

“Yeah,” said Pinkie, “the ‘into the mirror’ part might be a bit much, but this new video could compound with the last one. Eventually there’d be too much footage to ignore.”

“You saw what they did with the last video,” Rainbow Dash said, gesturing with her thumb as if said last video was floating behind her, “they completely sidelined it. They may’ve even forgotten about it by now. More of the same wouldn’t do anything to convince them.”

“Nor would it help us any,” Sunset pointed out.

“Unless…,” Rainbow Dash hinted slyly.

Sunset looked up, then smirked. “Unless it’s more than just more of the same.”

Rainbow Dash handed the phone over without another word. Sunset immediately turned and opened her laptop, whipping out a USB cord and connecting the devices. Everyone gathered around the screen as Sunset opened the latest video file and hit play. As expected, the video was blurry, shaky, upside down, and had a distinct lack of red and black monsters with X-weapons on their backs. They watched a few seconds in silence.

“Well,” said Pinkie, “you’re certainly not winning an Academy Award for camera work, unless you’re going for the ‘found footage’ angle.” Rainbow Dash raised an eyebrow at her. “Okay, sorry then,” Pinkie said, throwing her arms up. “Uhg, why is everything I try saying today missing?”

“Well, she’s right, it isn’t the best,” Sunset said, pausing it on a “decent” shot of the Armored Hero. She stared at it for a second. “I’ll see what I can do.”

“A thought just occurred to me,” said Rarity. “That armor. It’s an interesting design, a tad bulky, and probably a complicated fit. It must take him ages to get it on properly.”

“And what does that have to do with anything?” Rainbow Dash said back.

“You were there, didn’t you ever think about it?” Rarity responded. “You were attacked by whatever, and then within a minute, he was there, in full armor. When do you think he had the time to put it all on between when he’d arrived and when he’d have to have somehow been alerted to the attack after it had begun?”

“Oh yeah, good point,” Rainbow Dash said, looking back at the screen. “I was totally about to bring that up.”

“Either he already had it on,” Rarity continued with a roll of her eyes, “meaning that he’s always wearing it, which would tend to stick out in a crowd, or, more likely, he has some method of ‘suiting up’ that only takes a few seconds. Could something like that be facilitated through some sort of magic? Sunset?”

“It’s entirely possible,” said Sunset, “and it might just connect back to that portal in the window. Personally,” she added, turning back to the screen, “that’s what’s got my interest.”

* * *

Late That Night

This was it, the championship was almost theirs. All Rainbow Dash had to do was make one more sliding kick for an epic—her ears were suddenly filled with a whistling ringing noise.

She slammed her hand down on her alarm clock, but the sound continued. She hit it a few more times without success before opening her eyes to see what was up.

“Huh?” Rainbow Dash mumbled. “Four a.m.?” she read off the display. She knew it wasn’t set to go off this early. “Then, what’s making that noise?” She sat up and listened closer. The noise sounded distant, like it was echoing from far away. Was it outside?

She got out of bed, walked over to the window, and pulled the blinds open, but before looking outside, her attention locked onto something closer. Her reflection. She stared at the faint image of herself on the window’s surface as the whistling ring continued, as she now realized, inside her head. The face of that thing and the glass tunnel flashed in her mind for a second.

“I wonder…,” she said, letting the blinds slide back closed.

The next morning, while preparing to race out the door for school by jogging in place, Rainbow Dash detoured to the narrow counter outside the open window gap in the kitchen wall that served as the household’s de facto dinner table and turned on the small TV sitting on the counter. She wanted to test her new theory, immediately muting the sound before lapping through the channels until landing on channel 13 for the morning news segment. She didn’t even have to wait.

“Oh, look at that,” her mother said, walking up behind her, “your new favorite celebrity is at it again.”

Though muted, the Top Stories tagline along the bottom of the screen clearly showed that the newswoman was discussing the latest sighting of the Armored Hero, a sighting which happened only early in the a.m. hours this morning.

“I knew it,” Rainbow Dash said softly.

“Oh?” said her mother affectionately, putting her hands on Rainbow’s shoulders from behind. “Has your conspiracy wall finally cracked the code to his appearances that you can now predict them?”

“Heh, something like that,” Rainbow Dash replied.

Her mother walked around into view; she had pink skin and blue hair styled very much like Rainbow Dash’s, which had served as Rainbow’s style inspiration. “So,” she said, “did something finally click from two nights ago, or was that actually a field test?”

“Um…,” Rainbow Dash started in surprise, “well, y’see—” Her mother gave a chuckle, and Rainbow couldn’t help smiling in turn. “The thing is…”

“Just don’t get in over your head,” her mother said, ruffling Rainbow’s hair. “Well, you’d better get going. Every day is a new chance to set a new land speed record, but it’s not something to have too much riding on.”

Rainbow Dash slowed her jog to a stop in front of Canterlot High’s front steps to check her watch. She snapped her fingers. A minute shy of a new record. She must be slipping. That’s when she heard it, now clearer than before from being fully awake. A low-pitched whistling that also seemed to be ringing, echoing from all around. She looked around to try and pinpoint it source, but the sound kept changing its direction of origin every second.

“You’ve gotta be kidding me,” she said to herself. “How often does this happen?”

That’s when she heard another ringing. The school bell. She quickly turned and ran up the steps and inside before she became too late to class.

Come lunchtime, and the six had finally accumulated, gathering at a cafeteria table. Rainbow Dash hadn’t wasted a second, and the discussion was already underway.

“And you’re figuring that’s how he knows when to respond and where?” Sunset asked.

“It’s gotta be,” replied Rainbow Dash. “I couldn’t really tell a direction it was coming from, but maybe I just don’t know how to listen to it right. Though from what I can tell, I’m gonna have a lot of practice.”

“Hmm, sounds like he must really be a busy guy if he needs to keep running off that often,” Pinkie added. “Can’t have too much of a life outside this, assuming it’s always the same person. Who knows, maybe the illusion of a single hero is perpetuated by a coordinated effort.”

Everyone paused for a moment after realizing and processing that Pinkie had used those big words correctly.

“Either way,” Sunset picked back up, “you must be thinking of how we can use this new sixth sense of yours to get closer to what’s going on, right?”

Rainbow Dash was about to respond, when she suddenly heard the whistling ring in her head again. This time, however, it was clearly coming from a general direction. The others noticed her pause and looked over eagerly. She gave a slight grin. “Hold that thought…”

Next time, on “Kamen Rider EqG”...

Rainbow Dash runs up to a storefront window and stares into the reflection. Overlaid from another scene, her voice says, “I’m gonna keep showing up to each and every one of these to bother you until you tell me something helpful.”

In the window’s reflection, the Armored Hero jumps his motorcycle up onto its front wheel and spins the bike, the back wheel knocking away a Gelnewt’s flying X-weapon.

“Congratulations,” says the Armored Hero’s voice. “By following me so much you’ve gotten their attention.” Sitting on his motorcycle, the Armored Hero throws a small object at a Gelnewt standing in front of him, and it explodes on impact. “Good luck losing it.”

A giant silver and bronze mechanical spider charges forward.
Along the Watchtower

Author's Note

~~Limited Time Offer~~ [Offer Expired, Poll Now Closed — Results Successful]: ~~The Armored Hero needs a name. Follow to~~ ~~this blog post~~ ~~to lend assistance.~~

Chapter 3: Along the Watchtower

Along the Watchtower ɿɘwoƚʜɔƚɒW ɘʜƚ ǫnolA

Rainbow Dash ran down the sidewalk. Naturally, she was in a hurry to get somewhere. Which time was the charm, again? Seventh? Close enough. Over the course of the weekend, she’d tried tracking down every monster alarm she’d heard. She hadn’t been able to find half of them, and the rest she’d only shown up to after the fact. But she’d been getting closer each time.

She came to a stop at a corner, listening closely for the direction of the whistling ring to decide her next turn. So she was getting a tad farther into the city than she knew the way back from; that’s what buses were for. She had a good feeling about this time. She went right.

She soon found herself at a T-intersection in the road, in front of an office-looking building with reflective glass panes for walls. If these monsters use mirrors, this place was just asking for trouble. The whistling ring was definitely coming from around here, but a bit more…in there! She saw them in the reflection, a pair of the black and red things that had attacked her and Fluttershy, walking up the street away from the building. That’s when she realized the monster alarm wasn’t the only sound she was hearing.

The growing growl of an approaching motorcycle came up behind her, and she saw a shadow in the reflection cut through the monsters without affecting them—it had to be on this side. She twisted around to the right as quick as she could, but the motor’s growl stayed behind her and a gust of wind rushed by as she turned, and she heard a whooshing sound behind her as she skidded to a stop facing away from the window. Oh, he’s good.

Speeding through a mirror-walled tunnel was the figure on the black motorcycle, wearing a black jacket and helmet as always. An indigo energy sphere with a glowing equator ring expanded from the figure’s belt, covering the entire motorcycle, before the equator split into a pair of rings that began rotating in opposite directions. They spun until they overlapped at a vertical orientation, continuing to spin, but now depositing a black suit with gold-bordered indigo armor plates onto the figure as they passed over him. The rings overlapped again at the sphere’s equator, and the sphere dissipated, leaving the figure in full armor. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, metal plates began expanding onto the motorcycle, covering over it with an exterior shell. The sides were covered with a row of pennant-shaped indigo plates like would adorn a jousting knight’s steed, a golden horseshoe folded out onto the back as a tailfin, a gold strip ran down the front fairing to the headlights, and a pair of silver triangles latched onto either side of the front wheel, adorned with horizontal slits like the armored figure’s helmet. The Armored Hero accelerated towards the end of the tunnel.

Rainbow Dash immediately turned back around to the window to try and watch the reflection.

Behind the mirrors, in a world with all the same buildings but devoid of people, a pair of Gelnewts walked along the city street. Suddenly an indigo-plated motorcycle flew from the glass of a building’s window and sped towards them. They turned to it, but the Armored Hero rammed the motorcycle into the one on the left, sending it flying backwards, before skidding the back of the bike around in a clockwise spin, hitting the other one and knocking it for several backwards somersaults. The motorcycle came to a stop facing the first Gelnewt.

The Hero reached over to the armament strapped to his left forearm, a thick black plate bearing on top a gold horseshoe, the outer edges of which hung slightly over the sides of the plate, around a gold horsehead silhouette symbol. He grabbed the rightside arc of the horseshoe and pulled; the right third of the horseshoe pivoted at its base, sliding out from inside the plate a covered tray that was attached to that segment of the horseshoe. He reached down to the indigo block held in the front of his belt, putting his finger on a patch of blue seen through a square hole on the right side and sliding out a card, holding it up. The card was dark purple, with the gold horsehead silhouette in the upper left corner and seven downward-pointing gold bars along the top of the card to the symbol’s right and above the words “Sword Vent”; the middle of the card bore the image of a knight’s broadsword with the crossguard of a gold horseshoe, tips pointing upward, and in the background was an arc of flaming purple smoke; below the image was a thin black bar with two yellow rectangular tabs at the left side; under this was a silver block, the left chunk filled with unreadably small text, and the right quarter featuring the red word “Attack” abover the number “2000”. He slid the card into the tray through a thin slot and pushed the side of the horseshoe closed to its original position, the horsehead symbol giving a brief golden flash.
Sword Vent

There was a flash in the sky above, and a glowing shape began falling towards towards the Hero, spinning as it went. He held out his right hand and caught it, the glow fading to reveal the sword pictured on the card. He revved the motorcycle’s engine as the Gelnewt in front of him began getting up, then sped forward to charge the Gelnewt, slashing it with the sword as he passed, sending off a spray of sparks and knocking the Gelnewt over again.

The second Gelnewt had also gotten up, and it reached over its shoulders to grab the giant X-shaped shuriken weapon from its back, holding it by one of its blades and throwing it, sending it flying and spinning horizontally at the Armored Hero.

The Armored Hero turned his head and saw it. He turned his motorcycle to the left and, using the front wheel as a pivot point, spun the bike around in a full circle, kicking the back wheel up into the air and knocking the shuriken away before planting the wheel back down, skidding a final half-turn to face the now unarmed Gelnewt.

He tossed his sword to his left hand, grabbing it handle-upwards by the horseshoe crossguard, before pulling the covered card tray back open and taking out another card from the deck in his belt. This one was blue-violet, with most of the same aesthetics of the first card, including a 2000 in the lower right corner, but with a different name and bearing the image of a gold horseshoe leaving a gold streak indicating a spinning flight path over a background of blue smoke. He slid the card in through the slot and pushed the tray back in.
Arc Vent

There was another flash in the sky, and a smaller glowing object dropped down. The Armored Hero shot his hand up and grabbed it, a golden horseshoe, bringing it down to eye level. Pulling back to the right, he swung his arm across and threw the horseshoe spinning through the air. The Gelnewt tried jumping out of the way, but the horseshoe hit it on the side, causing a spray of sparks, and sending it in a full turn while it fell.

The Gelnewt jumped back up and crouched menacingly at the Armored Hero, but he simply sat on his motorcycle. That’s when the spinning horseshoe’s flight slowed down and stopped before starting back to where it came from. It hit the Gelnewt’s shoulder from behind, flipping the unsuspecting Mirror Monster over forwards to land on its back as the horseshoe continued back to the Hero, right into his outstretched hand.

The Armored Hero stared down the horseshoe as if it was a sniper sight at the Gelnewt again struggling to its feet. He raised it over his shoulder, and as the Gelnewt looked up at him, he catapulted it forward. It flew directly at the Gelnewt and hit it in the chest, exploding on impact and knocking it back to the ground again. The Gelnewt started squirming as its outlines began glowing white and it dissipated into a cloud of smoke.

By now the first Gelnewt had gotten to its feet and taken out its own shuriken. It had seen how easily its comrade had lost its weapon, so it wasn’t about to make the same move.

The Armored Hero grabbed his sword in his right hand again and revved the motorcycle, speeding forward at the Gelnewt. They each pulled back their weapons. Just as he was passing, the Gelnewt swung its shuriken, but the Armored Hero sprung down his motorcycle’s kickstand and jumped into the air, flipping over the Gelnewt’s attack. The bike skidded to a stop as the Hero landed behind the Gelnewt and spun around, slashing it across the back. He spun until the Gelnewt was behind him again, and the Gelnewt began collapsing to its knees as it dissipated into smoke.

Back on the other side of the mirrors, Rainbow Dash knocked on the window. Feeling that he was being watched, the Armored Hero turned to the glass building. He saw Rainbow Dash in the reflection. When she noticed he’d seen her, she stopped knocking and started waving.

The Armored Hero sighed and shook his head. “Bad idea, there,” he said under his breath. He walked over to his motorcycle and got on. Flipping up the kickstand, he revved the engine.

Rainbow Dash stopped waving. What was he…? The Armored Hero sped forward at the window.

“Whoa!” Rainbow Dash let out as she ducked back. The Armored Hero warped into the window…

And then nothing happened. Rainbow Dash looked back up to find the reflection empty of any armored vigilantes on motorcycles. She turned and looked around to see if he was anywhere in sight. Nope, just the city. She thought she’d figured it out that the reflection world, almost certainly what was at the end of that glass tunnel she’d seen inside the window last week, was connected to this world only through the same windows in each place. Apparently, you could also go through one window and come out a different one. That sure complicated things.

Rainbow Dash gave a sigh and started walking back up the sidewalk. She took another look around at the city. Where would the nearest bus stop be?

The figure sat on his black motorcycle, looking around the corner of the office building as Rainbow Dash left. She was getting too close for her own good.

* * *

Later That Evening

“Standing by.”

“And now,” said Pinkie, “after four straight victories—one of them against me—Rainbow Dash is just one win away from being crowned the ultimate champion of the random old video games we found in a back closet somewhere, games so obscure that no one even knew they existed! Or at least we didn’t.” The girls were gathered back at Pinkie’s house to blow off steam to end the weekend, sitting in various manners in a rough cluster around her room’s TV with the gamebox hooked up. “Her final opponent,” Pinkie continued, “Sunset Shimmer. The game this time…,” Pinkie picked up the game disk’s empty case and read off the name, “something called ‘RaceLiner’, no space. Looks like it has trains on the cover.”

The TV showed, in decent-enough graphics, a desertscape under a rainbow-hued sky, with a pair of nondescript trains separated by a split screen: a green and black steam engine on the left, controlled by Rainbow Dash, and a white bullet train with a black roof on the right, controlled by Sunset.

“Ready to go!” the game announced as the words flashed onscreen. “Count, Zero!”

“Grammar much?” Sunset commented.

“Eh, it’s probably just a bad translation,” Rainbow Dash replied.

The camera views backed out and up from the trains, focusing on the region ahead of them, notably lacking train tracks. Then, sets of train track crossbeams began to pop up and unfold from the ground in front of the trains, a pair of rails shooting forward to extend over them as the trains jolted into movement. They coasted for a few seconds as the arrow controls hovered over them. The objective was simply: direct where the tracks are to spawn to lead your train around obstacles, a pair of icons moving up the border between the screens to display relative progress.

Sunset gave her train a speed boost to take the lead, only to see the first obstacle, a cartoonish rock formation that couldn’t possibly remain standing, rush in from the horizon. She turned the newly forming track hard to the right, but as the train took the turn, it screeched as it tilted over to its left, the edges of her side of the screen flashing red.

“It could’ve told you that you could derail yourself,” Sunset huffed as her train rocked back onto the tracks, now with a flashing arrow over it pointing left to tell her what direction she was supposed to be going. Her progress icon stopped moving as Rainbow’s took the lead.

Rainbow Dash’s train instead encountered a field of cacti, where she zigzagged to weave around each one individually as if it would give her bonus points.

“Careful, Dash,” Pinkie spoke up, “you’re going too wide. That train track-looking bar on top steadily running down makes it look like if you use up too much track, you’ll run out before the level’s over.”

“I know what I’m doing,” Rainbow Dash responded without listening.

Both trains soon approached a massive stone wall with a narrow canyon entrance carved into it. At least, the wall on Rainbow Dash’s screen had the canyon entrance, as Sunset realized that her first turn had put her too far to the right, and so turned back left and accelerated to compensate. The green engine rolled into the canyon, but Sunset’s train was in the middle of another sharp turn to avoid hitting the wall that gave her a red warning flash when she saw the entrance quickly approaching. She calculated that trying to turn in while this close to the wall would cause her train to fall off the track for sure, and she didn’t have time to make an arc left to give herself a wider turn, so she just let the entrance fly by. Another flashing arrow told her to turn right as she rolled along the side of the infinitely-stretching wall.

The canyon had less room to navigate, but also fewer obstacles, and Rainbow Dash barely had to turn to avoid them.

“Five for five, here I come,” said Rainbow Dash, leaning back. “There’s no way Sunset can win now, so just call it. I’ll let the boiler cool down and just coast to victory.”

Sunset gave a disappointed look…and then smirked. She started hitting controls in what seemed to be a random order, the train jerking back and forth from slight turns and turn-backs.

“If you just want to crash and give up, go ahead,” Rainbow said, seeing the bullet train’s jolting. Suddenly, several red and white rings appeared in front of Sunset’s train, and the number sequence “555-913-333” typed itself onto the screen.

“Complete,” the game announced, and as the bullet train sped through the rings, the front section of the front car separated into panels that folded back, revealing a pair of long orange windows. The train’s whistle howled, and the spawning point of the tracks began rising into air, leading the train up into the sky. Sunset then turned it right to pass over the top of the wall, hitting the accelerator several times and rocketing forward.

“What the?” Rainbow Dash stammered, staring at Sunset’s side of the screen. “Okay, that’s it, hold up. How did you do that?”

Sunset smiled. “Like I’d tell you.”

The green and black steam engine continued forward, exiting the canyon into another open desert space, this time with a large suspension bridge across a giant canyon cut into the ground crossing the screen in the distance. However, as the player supposed to be steering it wasn’t looking at this side of the screen, it plowed headfirst into a large boulder and exploded.

“And like it would help you now,” Sunset added. Rainbow Dash looked back at her screen to see the words “Game Over” in front of a looped replay of the crash from different angles.

“What? No!” she exclaimed. “Oh, come on!”

Applejack high-fived Sunset for a successful victory over Rainbow Dash.

“Ah, so that would explain why the cover showed the white train with orange front windows,” Pinkie said, taking a closer look at the case, also seeing that the green train was shown with a pair of yellow bull horns on the front that had been absent from the version Rainbow had controlled.

“No fair,” Rainbow Dash said to a smug Sunset, “you distracted me!”

“You’ve done worse,” Applejack interjected.

Rainbow Dash turned her head to Applejack. “Oh, so you’re the one who put her up to this.” She squinted. “Sokka.” {Japanese: ‘I see.’}

Rainbow Dash and Applejack locked stares. Not wanting things to escalate further, Pinkie pulled out her new smartphone to try and diffuse the situation.

“Well, that was fun. What now?” she said with forced eagerness, sliding over to the two. “Anyone wanna try to beat my high score on Fruit Samurai?” Pinkie held up the phone between them, its screen showing an orange with a padlock loop over it. She tapped the orange with her thumb, and the front half flipped down on a set of hinges to reveal the orange’s sliced center, a start menu popping out of it. Rainbow Dash and Applejack, however, were unaffected. “I, uh, think the new chainsaw expansion pack is out,” she added in mild desperation. “Mythbusters approved?”

A beep came from Sunset’s laptop, sitting on the corner of the bed.

“Ah, the rendering’s done,” Sunset said, jumping up to go to it. “Right on time.”

Rainbow and AJ glanced over before turning back to each other. Rainbow Dash said, “This isn’t over.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Applejack replied casually.

The group took positions gathered around Sunset’s laptop as she opened a new video file.

“Okay,” Sunset said to introduce the video, “so I took the video that Rainbow Dash got of the Armored Hero, turned it right side up, then went to each frame one at a time and moved them around on a larger background so that the Hero is in the center of the playback footage while the borders jump around. Why the news doesn’t already do this to bystander videos before showing them so that they’re actually watchable is beyond me.”

“I hope I’m not pressing too far,” Rarity said, “but if you knew how to do all of this digital finesse, how come when you tried framing Twilight for destroying the Fall Formal, your method of choice was a printer and a pair of scissors?”

“Same as why I kept my old journal, I’d bet,” Sunset said with a sigh. “Deep down, I knew I didn’t want it to work.”

Sunset hit play on the video. The playback wasn’t flawless, blurred streaks occasionally shot in a general direction from every well-lit point to indicate that the phone had bounced with every step Rainbow Dash had taken, but it was much easier to look at one point on the screen and see the key point of focus. The Armored Hero stood still looking in the direction of the camera for a second before turning his head to look to the right side of the screen and throwing his left arm up to block something. He turned and kicked out with his right foot before reaching for something on his left wrist, then down to his belt, seeming to pull something out before moving it to the thing on his wrist. A golden glow suddenly fell from the top of the screen, and when he caught it, the glow faded, revealing the glint of a curved golden object.

“Yeah, I saw him do that through the window earlier,” Rainbow Dash added. “It was some sort of exploding…boomerang thing. He also has a sword.”

The Armored Hero suddenly turned to the window beside him and slashed the object to the left, sending a spray of sparks flying from a point in midair. Then retracing the same path with a rightward swing, threw the object to the right. A spray of sparks shot from a point in midair before the object flew out of view, then came flying back into view, a second spray of sparks coming from the same point, and being caught in the Armored Hero’s waiting hand. Throughout this, he had been getting smaller in the picture as Rainbow Dash had gotten farther away, and now disappeared as she had turned a corner. Sunset stopped the video.

“And that’s it,” she said. The group members both stood and sat in silence. Sunset looked around to each of them, some of them looking back and some looking at others. “Okay, since I have the journal, I’ll be the one to ask what we’re all thinking,” Sunset said. “Do we ask Twilight for help on this one?”

“It couldn’t hurt,” said Pinkie.

“We have been relyin’ on her a lot,” said Applejack.

“We wouldn’t want to be too much of a bother,” said Fluttershy.

“How exactly would she help in this situation?” asked Rarity.

“I’m getting the feeling that this one isn’t actually magic-related at all,” said Rainbow Dash. “I mean, going into the mirror didn’t feel at all like ponying-up. It was a lot more…‘manufactured’, if that makes sense.”

Sunset processed what the others had said. “Well if these things use mirrors, we can’t be too careful about them stumbling across the portal, even if it is off at the time. Twilight would definitely need to know, at the very least. Hmm…” She looked over at her bag in the corner. Rarity, who was nearest, reached over and grabbed it, handing it to Rainbow Dash, who handed it to Sunset. Sunset fished out the magic journal and a pen, opening the book to a blank page. “I’ll tell her what we know, but I’ll make it clear that she doesn’t need to show up just yet. The portal being open at all might not be a good thing.” She put pen to paper. “ ‘Dear Princess Twilight…’ ”

* * *

The Next Day

Rainbow Dash jogged down the street, heading for Canterlot High. She was at least two stops ahead of the bus, a respectable pace. That’s when she heard the whistling ring. She skidded to a halt and looked around, listening for the source. She took a glance at her watch. She had time. She took off after it.

After a few wrong turns and a dead end, Rainbow Dash found herself entering a back alley. The first thing she heard was impacting metal, and she turned to her right to see the Armored Hero give a Gelnewt one last sword slash before it fell to the ground and evaporated into smoke along with two others lying nearby, leaving her and the Hero alone in the alley.

The Armored Hero stepped his extended right foot back to stand tall and take a deep breath. Then he glanced towards the sound of footsteps to see Rainbow Dash running over to him. He let out his breath as a sighing groan as he dropped his shoulders and tilted his head back while turning away.

“What’s going on here, huh?” Dash said as she slowed to a stop. “What are these things, what to they want, and how can I help?”

The Armored Hero raised a palm-up open left hand but dropped it. “You can start by not following me,” he said over his shoulder.

“Not an option,” said Rainbow Dash. “My friends and I need to know this.” The Armored Hero started walking around her. “Ever since I got dragged into that window,” she continued, “I can hear this whistling sound that tells me whenever those things are up to something, an early warning system I’m betting you’ve got too, so I just know that you’ll be there to stop them.”

“So?” said the Armored Hero, continuing his circle.

Rainbow Dash gave a sinister grin. “I’m gonna keep showing up to each and every one of these to bother you until you tell me something helpful.”

The Armored Hero stopped walking. He turned to look at her. “Not an option,” he quoted back.

“Hey,” she started, “you can’t just—” The Armored Hero took a step away and warped through the screens of a pile of old TVs sitting along the alley wall. Rainbow Dash dropped her arms. “Or, maybe you can.”

She glanced down at her watch. She slapped her hand over it in shock and took off again.

In a dark, clearly evil room somewhere, a holographic screen showed these events unfolding. After the girl ran away, the screen rewound to replay the part of her and the armored figure after the Gelnewts had been defeated. A pair of perpendicular lines swept in and intersected over the armored figure’s belt buckle, but flashed red. Something about it just kept blocking any attempt to trace it. The playback continued as the armored figure left, and the girl turned to leav—the image froze. It zoomed in on the girl.

“I recognize a familiar face when I see one,” said the sinister voice of a figure standing in the darkness, “and you’ve been popping up everywhere. It’s starting to get annoying.”

The figure snapped his fingers, and with a ripple effect transition, the image shifted to a recording of the girl’s first run-in with the Gelnewts. The figure watched as she threw her elbow back and knocked the Gelnewt behind her over.

“The standard welcome party didn’t seem to work the first time,” he observed. “I guess I’ll need to try something a bit…more.”

* * *

After school, the group met in the music room, though band practice was now becoming more of a cover story for their meetings than anything else.

“I didn’t have a chance to say this before,” Sunset said upon entering, taking her journal from her backpack, “because it just came in in the middle of last period—heck, I haven’t even read it yet—but we got a response from Twilight.” She flipped through to the page as the others dropped their stuff and gathered around.

Dear Sunset and Friends,

While I don’t immediately recognize the description of the phenomenon nor the monsters causing it, and my initial search has revealed nothing, I’ll consult my more advanced sources and get back to you again as soon as I can. Oh, and don’t worry. Since this book was how I activated the portal the last time, my using it for our correspondence has kept it out of the mechanism since I got back. The portal won’t be opening any time soon.

Always here for you guys,

Twilight Sparkle.

“Hmm,” Sunset mumbled, staring at the page, “that last part was a bit…overconfident, might have to get back to her about that.”

“So,” spoke up Applejack, “looks like we’re on our own for now, huh?”

“Or for longer,” said Sunset, looking up. “Well, Rainbow Dash, you did say you didn’t think this was magic-related. If you’re right, that might mean there’s just nothing there for her to find.”

“Then until we hear something more,” said Pinkie, “I guess in the meantime we’d better work on our mugic power just in case.”

Sunset looked over and stared. “Mugic?” she asked flatly.

“Yep,” Pinkie said, “magic through music. ‘Mugic’.” The others joined Sunset in staring at her. “What, never heard of Chaotic?” She shrugged. “Shame.”

“But…,” Rarity said hesitantly, “how much good would that actually do?”

“You’re right,” Pinkie said, thinking, “the same old stuff might not be enough anymore. So if we’re still gonna use the power of pure sound, we’ll just have to be a bit more…proactive.” Pinkie stepped her left foot back and took a fighting stance with her drumsticks. Standing in an empty dark expanse, she was clad in a shiny pink suit with silver shoulder straps and dark pink gloves, thin pink branches reaching in from the sides of a black face cover, and a pair of short silver spikes on her head resembling her ponied-up ears. The drumsticks in her hands were thickened and painted pink, with transparent pink clubbed ends.

From the distance, the spectral form of an orange Siren monster flew at her. She unclipped a disk bearing her cutie mark form her belt and threw it at the Siren, the disk adhering to the glowing red gem on its chest and spinning, expanding into a large shield. Pinkie raised her club drumsticks above her head. As the Siren reached her, she swung the drumsticks down and hit the shield, a pink shockwave washing over the Siren.

The Siren stopped immediately, stunned by the hit. Pinkie raised the drumsticks again and tapped them together once. After a second’s pause she brought the left one down onto the shield, and another pink shockwave spread over the Siren, then the right one, and another shockwave, then the left again, then the right. Left, right, left, right, left, right.

NKI

The Siren moaned as shockwave after shockwave spread over it. Pinkie beat left, right, left, then a one-two with right as she spun the left drumstick around, finger in a silver ring on the handle, and then started a rapid drumming left-right-left-right. The Siren let out a shrill hiss as cracks in it began reaching out from the edges of the shield.

PINKI

Left-right-left-right-both-both. Pinkie paused drumming and spun both drumsticks in her hands, drawing back to the left for a final double-hit, but Rainbow Dash grabbed her wrist before she could swing.

Pinkie looked around. Some of the others had noticeably backed away to a safer distance. Rainbow Dash let go and Pinkie stood back up to a normal stance, smiling innocently. “Heh, heh. Sorry.”

Knowing she would ultimately have missed nothing important, Applejack had ignored that blatant reference sequence to contemplate the new comment. “If I’m gettin’ her drift right,” she said, steering the conversation back on topic, “then I’d have to say I’m with Rarity on this one. Sure, we just need to play a few notes to pony up, but against the Sirens we needed to all be together in a full song before we could make anything of an offensive.”

“My point exactly,” Rarity said. “However powerful friendship through music may be, even with for instance a portable speaker system, I’m fairly sure those monsters would have more than enough time to attack us or just escape before we could even get a tune going.”

“Yeah, you have a point,” Pinkie relented, “and that would really only work if we all carried our instruments with us 24/7 wherever we went, which could be a tad tough for some of us.” She glanced over at her full drum set. Ten instruments at once was no problem for a few hours or so, but not all day every day.

“And I still don’t know how magic actually works in this world,” said Sunset. “If I did, maybe I could come up with some way we could use it to fight those monsters without needing our instruments. But as it is now, if we’re away from an amplifier, then I can’t say there’s much we can do.” She sighed. “At all, even,” she added under her breath.

“Not to mention,” Applejack added, “only Rainbow Dash can even see them.”

Having stepped back over to the wall, Rainbow Dash gave an audible sigh that almost sounded of relief. She looked up to see the others looking over at her.

“Heh, guess I was just waiting for someone else to bring all that up,” she said. “I didn’t want this to come out of nowhere. I…I think maybe we should put the band on hold until this window monster situation gets dealt with.” There was a second’s pause.

“Wait, really?” Applejack said with surprise. “I didn’t mean we needed to end the Rainbooms, just that it’s not the best way to fight those monsters.”

“Yeah,” said Pinkie, “why give up on something fun just because it’s not productive? That’s the whole point of fun things!”

“But we don’t even seem to use band time for the band anymore,” spoke up Fluttershy, “we’re kind of just hogging this room for a few hours every day. Principal Celestia only let us use this room for band purposes, after all. If we’re not doing that, we should probably let someone else have it.”

Rainbow Dash motioned at Fluttershy. “My arguments make themselves. The band isn’t helping against the monsters, and it would be wasting valuable time if we were even actually doing it when we were supposed to be.”

“Well, you did start this yourself,” Applejack sighed, “so I guess you can end it at any time, too. Guess I’d better go tell Principal Celestia about ‘musical differences’ or somethin’.”

“But if not the band, then what?” Sunset asked. “How do you even know there’s anything we can do? The Armored Hero is already on the case, maybe we should just let him handle it.”

“I don’t know that part yet,” admitted Rainbow Dash, “but I’m sure we’ll find an answer. We’re sitting right there on the edge of something, something big, and with our reputation, I’m sure it’ll just be a matter of time before the solution falls right in front of us. Right?” The others remained silent. “Liiittle bit a’ confidence here, guys.”

* * *

The Next Day

Rainbow Dash walked down the sidewalk on her way back from school, passing by a row of storefront windows. For once, she wasn’t in a hurry to be somewhere. Usually she’d have had somewhere to be right now, but not since yesterday. She wondered if it had really been the best idea to put the band on hold like—suddenly the whistling ringing sound filled her head again.

Shoving the thought away, she stopped and looked around, trying to judge direction. This one was close, the closest yet. So close, it could almost be…she turned and looked at the window next to her and saw herself in the reflection. Wearing a white scarf.

She glanced down, only confirming that she didn’t think she’d been wearing a scarf. She looked back up at her reflection to still see the scarf there. Cautiously, she reached up to her neck to try grabbing at it, but she saw her reflection’s hands go right through it. Now that she took a closer look, though, the scarf seemed to be made of silk. Spider web silk. And it didn’t just hang down. No, the end of it seemed to stretch out into the air over to…

To a rippling point on the window.

Rainbow Dash froze for only a moment. She grabbed frantically at her neck, but the silk web noose was still intangible. Then the web pulled taut, starting to pull her closer to the window. She braced her foot against the bottom edge of the window and leaned back, trying to swipe at the air where the strand seemed to be, but it again refused to be solid.

“No no no no no no no—”

A sudden tug from the web pulled her forward and into the window—a shrill whooshing noise attacked her ears as her vision was replaced by blurry silver streaks, quickly being replaced by near-epilepsy-inducing flashes all around, like looking through a subway train’s window while it’s speeding past the lights along the sides of the tunnel. She knew this had to be the tunnel of silvery glass boxes she’d seen the first time, now just at high speed, but only being ‘kinda sure’ about where it led to wasn’t the best comfor—

Rainbow Dash fell onto the concrete sidewalk. As the spinning in her head subsided, she looked up to see the same skyline she’d been looking at just a moment ago. Okay then, she was on the other side of the mirrors, she figured. Strange. It didn’t feel as ‘otherworldly’ as she’d expected it to b—she was suddenly reminded of her web noose as it pulled taut again and started dragging her backwards.

She grabbed at the loop of now-solid web to keep from being strangled as she was dragged on her back at high speed along the sidewalk, then suddenly around a sharp corner, sending her turning over, the sound of something very large skittering at other end of web. Shade covered over her from the shadow of a building as the pulling stopped and she rolled around, coming to a stop facing the direction she’d been being pulled.

She looked around to see a roundish courtyard area shaded by buildings close on each side. Then she looked in front of her. Turning around towards her, the source of the web, was a giant bronze mechanical spider with bronze-jointed silver legs, a silver hoop at the base of each leg, and that was almost tall enough to look you in the eye. Speaking of which, its eyes were a few empty hexagonal holes in its face, a pair of folded mandibles sitting below them. Patches of similar hexagonal holes were scattered over its body. Yeah, she’d rather not have looked.

The Dispider charged forward and pounced at her. With no time to get up and run, Rainbow Dash kicked up her legs. The soles of her feet caught the Dispider’s neck like a baseball glove, but its head continued at her, so she grabbed it mandibles, barely pushing it to a stop as it screeched at her, a foot from her face. It took a step forward, only pushing her back and not getting any closer, but her knees weren’t at a strong angle, and she could only hold it back for so long. Then she took a closer look at its mandibles. Those edges looked sharp enough.

“Chew on this!” she shouted, letting go with her right hand to grab the web rope still connecting them. It took this lessened resistance to push closer, but Rainbow Dash quickly wrapped the web around the joint in its mandible and grabbed it again, slipping her right foot off its neck before giving it a sharp knee in the throat. Its head jumped up and forward, pushing against her grip on its left mandible and slicing the web like a pair of scissors. The severed end drifted down and landed beside her head.

She pushed the Dispider’s head over to the left as she rolled right, jumping to her feet and taking off. The Dispider turned and grabbed at her with its left front leg, but she was out of reach, and it only impaled a hole into the concrete. It quickly took off after her.

As Rainbow Dash ran from the Dispider, her mind was also racing. Okay, so this was happening, what now? Where to go, how to lose this thing? Did it even matter? She couldn’t escape the reflection world, right? At least, she didn’t know how—What was taking the Armored Hero so long to show up! I mean, this was like, his job, wasn’t it?

Rainbow Dash looked over her shoulder if only to see how much the Dispider was gaining on her. How was something that big moving that fast? Was it hollow or something? She looked back forward only to see a dark horse standing in front of her rear up and flail its front hooves.

“Whoa!” Rainbow Dash let out as she leaned back and skidded underneath the horse, its golden horseshoes a second later smashing the Dispider in the face with a burst of sparks, knocking it back. The horse flailed its hooves again and let out a loud, metallic neigh, slamming them down to the ground between the Dispider and Rainbow Dash with another spit of sparks before giving a metallic snort with a shake of its head.

Now seemingly being guarded by it, Rainbow Dash took her chance to get a closer look at the horse. Like the Dispider, it also seemed mechanical, its body being covered in gold-bordered indigo armor plates resembling the decorative coverings draped over horses of medieval times. Its head was black and adorned with closely spaced metallic purple strips, glowing orange eyes peeking through, and its legs were black and silver metal. Rainbow Dash would’ve wondered where this robotic horse came from, but she’d just been pulled through a mirror by a giant robotic spider, so she was in full-on ‘just go with it’ mode. Oh, and the Dispider was getting back to its feet.
Sword Vent

Rainbow Dash jumped at the sudden disembodied voice. “Who’s ther—?”

A figure leapt down from the top of one of the surrounding buildings, a glowing object flying down beside him. He landed on the Dispider’s back and caught the object, which stopped glowing to reveal itself as a sword with a gold horseshoe as the guard. Well it’s about time he got here.

The Armored Hero raised the sword and prepared to stab it down into the Dispider, but the the spider shot a thick web strand backwards, snagging the wall of the building behind it and, grabbing the thread with its hind legs, yanked itself back and out from under the Hero. He fell to the ground as the Dispider skidded to a stop before racing back forward again.

The Armored Hero looked up at it, shouting, “Caballkhan!”

The mechanical horse in front of Rainbow Dash ran into the battle with a metallic neigh and cut in front of the Dispider. The Dispider stopped immediately and backed around to its right; Caballkhan cantered left to keep in front of it, each hoof-tap causing a spark. The Dispider lunged forward, but Caballkhan jumped back and spun around, delivering a powerful kick and sending the Dispider flying back before skidding across the ground with a spray of sparks, trying to use its legs to bring itself to a stop, and slamming into one of the buildings when it failed.

Rainbow Dash ran over to the Armored Hero as he got back up. “Are you okay?”

“Congratulations,” he replied without looking over. “By following me around so much, you’ve gotten their attention. Good luck losing it now.”

“Hey, I was just trying to he—,” but before she could finish, he’d rushed off at the Dispider.

The Dispider pried itself from its crater in the wall and landed on its legs with a thud, standing up tall again as the Armored Hero reached it. He wound back to swing, but the Dispider shot its front legs forward, forcing him to turn his sword flatside to deflect them. Holding the sword’s handle in his right hand and its guard in his left, the Armored Hero stepped back to allow the Dispider to lunge closer before stepping back forward and thrusting the sword forward under the power of both arms, stabbing the blade into the Dispider’s face.

The Dispider jolted and sprung back, the Hero’s two-point grip keeping the sword firmly in his hands as the monster dislodged itself.

“Try doing that by just holding the handle, movies,” he said under his breath, looking down at his hands’ placements. Then the Dispider’s harpoon-hooked silver leg hit his hands in a swipe from the left, sending the sword flying. He looked up at the Dispider. “Ow,” he scolded, shaking his stinging hands.

The sword clattered to the ground and slid across the pavement, skidding to a stop just in front of Rainbow Dash’s feet. She looked down and stared at it.

Well, there it was. The reason she was so into this mystery in the first place. The very thing, the very goal, that kept her going day in and day out. A way to help.
Arc Vent

She looked up to see the Armored Hero jump back while throwing one and then another gold horseshoe, the projectiles taking arcing paths before curving around and hitting the Dispider and exploding, one in the side, then in the face, forcing it back a step.

Rainbow Dash looked over at Caballkhan standing nearby; the mechanical horse looked back at her and snorted. She looked down at the sword again. Was it really a decision? She grabbed it and charged.

The Armored Hero jumped at the Dispider and threw his foot out in a kick, but was intercepted in midair by one of its legs and knocked flying back. He landed on both feet and a hand, and then a figure rushed past him. He quickly turned. “No, wait!”

Rainbow Dash ran up to the Dispider. She was gonna…yeah, that would help. What was she gonna—

The Dispider raised its left leg and stabbed it down, but Rainbow Dash came to a sudden complete stop and the leg hit the ground just in front of her. The Dispider threw the same leg forward to knock her back, but the sudden thought of a player from an opposing soccer team made Rainbow Dash instinctively spin and jump to the right, the leg flying harmlessly past her. Stop right there. Okay, even she was surprised that worked. But since it did…

She looked up to see the Dispider pulling the leg back at her, but she sidestepped it to the left, then jumped forward to avoid another leg swinging in from the side. The Dispider flailed and stabbed its legs this way and that, trying to back away in the process, but Rainbow Dash had been dreaming through how to outplay entire teams on her own, and she was easily weaving through its onslaught, moving closer with every step.

The Dispider backed up until it reached the building behind it. It reared up and prepared to bring all four of its front legs down at once, but Rainbow Dash seemingly just now remembered she was holding a sword. She jumped forward and to the right as its spearpoint legs shot down, swinging the blade up over her head, realizing just how heavy it was, and letting it all but slice down under its own weight. Just as its legs slammed into the ground, the sword hit its mark and cleaved off the Dispider’s front two left legs with a spray of sparks. The legs collapsed limp to the ground.

Hey, it kinda did look dark and hollow inside. That’s what Rainbow Dash would’ve thought, if she’d been looking at anything other than the sword. “Whoa, I…,” she looked up the blade to her hands, “I did it. I actually did it, I…”

A moaning sound drew her attention back to the world around her. She looked up to see the Dispider drawing back its right front leg. It shot the leg forward at her.

“Yi—!” She swung the sword up in front of her, it taking the hit but the force still sending her flying back, the world rushing forward away from her. She liked flying around on her ponied-up wings; she didn’t like this type of airborne. Still, she knew she’d like it even less when she came down for a land—

Her back slammed into something solid that let out a mechanical whinny, followed by a series of sparking taps as it staggered sideways to slow her down. Rainbow’s feet hit the ground and quickly started stepping back to keep pace with Caballkhan, slowly easing her to a stop. She dropped the sword’s tip to the ground and leaned on in, her quivering legs slowly getting their strength back. She looked up at Caballkhan, who gave a nod. She reached over and patted its shoulder.

Looking on, the Armored Hero sighed in relief. That could’ve gone sideways too easily. But since it didn’t…

He turned to look back at the Dispider. It was trying its best to crawl forward with two fewer legs on one side than usual. This thing was tough, but probably in as vulnerable a position as it was going to get. Now was the time. He grabbed the gold horseshoe on his left wrist’s armament and pulled open the card slotter, then slid a card out of the deck in his belt, staring at it a second. Deep red border, showing his gold Horse symbol over an indigo starburst background, and with an Attack of 5000.

“I guess this is what’s meant for the big ones,” he said, looking up at the Dispider again, which was slowly but surely dragging itself closer. He slid the card into the slot and pushed the cover closed.
Final Vent

Behind Rainbow Dash, Caballkhan gave a loud neigh and charged around her, heading towards the Armored Hero. As Caballkhan passed him, he leapt up and landed on its back. A pair of glowing objects fell from the sky, a large disk and a thin rod. The Hero held up his arms: the disk attached onto his left arm as a round indigo shield, four feet across, bearing the gold Horse symbol in the center and with a gold horseshoe stretched around it as the border, the tabs at the ends sticking out from the rim; the pole flew into his right hand as a jousting lance, its length covered in long indigo and gold bands.

The staggering Dispider reared as best it could as Caballkhan closed in, throwing its right legs into the air—the Armored Hero thrust the lance forward, landing its tip at the base of the Dispider’s neck and pushing it back as Caballkhan continued charging. The Dispider frantically clawed at the ground, only rising sprays of sparks as it was forced backwards at the building behind it. The Armored Hero raised the lance, lifting the Dispider off the ground, as a pulse of energy gathered at the handle and shot up it. Caballkhan stamped its front hooves down and stopped as the Hero thrust the lance forward again, the Dispider ramming its back flat into the building as the energy pulse hit it. The Dispider burst into a fiery explosion, Caballkhan rearing and flailing its hooves with a loud mechanical neigh as charred debris fragments rained down.

Caballkhan stamped down and snorted. Rainbow Dash looked on at the scene, the Armored Hero a knight atop a robotic medieval steed, blackened flaming chunks scattered across the ground around him and a clearing smoke cloud against the wall in front of him. He turned to look to her; Caballkhan took a step back from the wall.

“The Armored Hero is just a name the news came up with,” he said to her. After a stunt like that, he figured she’d earned this much. “I’m called a Kamen Rider. Kamen Rider Cavalier.”

“Uh,” she stammered, “R-rainbow Dash.” She would later claim the stuttering was because of having just witnessing pure awesomeness, but in reality she was still a bit shaken from the Dispider’s hit.

Unseen by her, however, Cavalier’s head tipped up slightly upon hearing her name. “Is that so…,” he mumbled inaudibly. He turned to look in the direction she’d been dragged here from. “We should probably get you back across the mirrors,” he said as he steered Caballkhan around that way, who started off down the path. Rainbow Dash glanced down at the sword she was leaning on before just letting it drop and following, her legs taking a few wobbly steps before fully recovering.

“So that’s what you call it?” she commented, running up alongside them.

“Don’t push your luck.”

They reached the street and continued on, but back in the courtyard, something was happening. Amidst the last of the flaming debris up against the wall, there was a flash, and a glowing ball of energy floated up from it. It hung in midair for a minute or so before slowly drifting back down. As it descended, stray dust in the air began moving towards it, followed by powdered charcoal on the ground, coalescing onto the energy ball, faster and faster. The nearest chunks of debris then began moving in its direction…

Next time, on “Kamen Rider EqG”…

“Well?” said the voice in the dark room. “Do you think you’re ready?” A single light shone onto a table. “That you have what it will take?”

In the spotlight, an object sat on the table.

“For what?” asked Rainbow Dash’s voice.

The object on the table was a light blue Advent Deck.
Let’s Ride

Also, coming soon…

A Mirror Monster with jagged, dull metallic blue armor tumbled into the alleyway. The Zenobiter sprung back to its feet, the pair of long antennae hanging over the back of its head swinging, and snarled at the figure standing near the alley’s entrance.

“Not used to being seen, are you?” said the figure. “I can help with that.” He held an object in his left hand up to the right: it was a white belt buckle with a clear circle in the middle and silver handles on each end, somewhat resembling a camera. “No one will see you again,” he said, shaking his head slightly. He slapped the buckle against his waist and a belt sprung around from the left side, attaching on the right. He held up a card in his right hand, holding it low by the sides and facing it towards the Zenobiter. “Henshin.” He flipped the card around in his hand.
The World of EqG

Author's Note

3, 4, 6, 12, 15, 16, 21, 22, 23, 25, 27, 28.

Ooh, numbers. I wonder what they could mean…

Chapter 4: Let's Ride

Let’s Ride ɘbiЯ ƨ‘ƚɘ⅃

It was getting to be evening, too late to call a full meeting, but news of what happened just couldn’t wait. The news media itself, however, could wait. Forever. This case had officially rocketed past what the public wants to admit is possible and into the realm of the strangeness that usually finds its way to Canterlot High.

Continuing on her way home from before the ordeal, Rainbow Dash sent a group text briefly describing her encounter. Even before they should’ve been able to read it all, there was an explosion of responses.

“A robotic horse?”

“A giant spider?”

“An awesome finishing move?”

“Common Rider Cavalier?”

“Dagnabit, autocorrect!”

She assured them that she’d tell all tomorrow when she had complete use of hand waving and sound effects.

Rainbow Dash put her phone away and kept walking. It had been one week to the day since they’d started their “half-boiled” investigation last Tuesday, and already they were getting more results than they could’ve hoped for. Speaking of more…ping.

Rainbow took her phone out again to see another new message, but this one not part of the group message. “Ah, so that’s where you’ve been.”

She stopped. Ahhg, of course, how could she have—she kicked into a jog as she headed home. When she reached the end of her block, she saw Sunset standing shoulder against a lamppost. Sunset looked up as Rainbow Dash ran over to her.

“There’s no need to rush,” Sunset said, “I could’ve waited.”

“Sorry,” Rainbow said, “totally forgot—”

“Are you kidding?” Sunset cut her off, pushing off from the lamppost. “I would’ve stood out here all night if that’s what you were up to the whole time.” The two turned and headed down the street to Rainbow’s house. “So,” Sunset said, “since I’m early…”

“Sorry, no previews,” Rainbow Dash replied, “I’m still finalizing the script.”

Sunset chuckled. “Just as long as you remember the limits that ‘based on a true story’ is meant to cover.”

Suddenly the whistling ringing returned to Rainbow Dash’s ears. She stopped and looked around. She thought she saw several scattered reflections briefly flash by across a few of the house windows, maybe from something big and flying, but it was gone too fast to get a good look. Almost immediately, the whistling ring faded away again. She couldn’t tell how, but something felt different about this one.

Sunset saw her stop and looked back. “Another one?” she asked. Rainbow nodded. “It’s late, and if it’s something important, I’m sure our friendly neighborhood Kamen Rider will take care of it. I mean, unless you’re dragged ‘across the mirrors’ again, what could you even do about it, right?”

“Yeah, you’re right,” Rainbow said with a sigh, turning back and walking on. “On my own, what can I do?”

The two proceeded to and entered Rainbow’s house, stopping as they found her mother standing around just inside as if waiting for them.

“I’m going to assume you have a good reason for being late and leave it at that,” Firefly said to her daughter before seeing Sunset. “Oh hey Sunset, missed you last week. Heard you showed up on Tuesday but didn’t stay.”

“Uh…,” Sunset said awkwardly. Rainbow Dash silently walked past them. “Yeah, I had other things.”

“Too bad,” Firefly said. “Well, the standard accommodations are all prepared, as per usual.” She gestured in a general direction. “I hope you enjoy your stay. Her other friends are never over this often.”

“Heh,” said Sunset, “I’d imagine not.”

Just one more goal, and the championship was theirs. Rainbow Dash was dribbling the soccer ball up the field. Not just a schoolyard field, this was the big time, a field that you almost couldn’t see to the other end of, a field that was… kinda darker than she’d thought it had been… and quieter. Still running, she glanced up from the ball to see the stands empty of spectators, the floodlights off, and even the field void of other players of either team. Okay, this was mildly—

“Outta my way!” shouted a voice as an orange streak slipped past her, stealing the ball and tripping her to the ground.

“Hey, what gives?” she snapped, pushing herself back up and turning to look behind her. She saw someone in an orange uniform, contrasting the blue of her own outfit, standing with her foot on the ball. Though she was facing away, Rainbow immediately recognized her former friend from summer camp. “Gilda? What’d you do that for?”

Gilda looked back at her with a passively condescending stare. “If you have power,” she said, “use it.”

Rainbow Dash was about to say something back before Gilda’s outline suddenly became wrapped in an orange glow. A pair of brown eagle wings and a tan lion’s tail sprouted and grew, and her white hair became more feather-like, all in a manner similar to ponying up. Rainbow looked on in surprise, but Gilda simply smirked and turned away again, drawing back her right leg and kicking the soccer ball. On impact, there was a burst of flames, and the ball shot off across the field as a fiery streak back towards the other goal. Rainbow Dash immediately jumped up and raced after it, somehow feeling doing that was more important than worrying about Gilda’s transformation.

“This is way out of your league!” she heard Gilda call from behind her as the ball seemed to dip over the curvature of the ground and out of sight in front of her. “You’ll never catch up!”

Gilda was right, she was losing it, and…

No.

But nothing, just no. She was Rainbow Dash, and something like this wasn’t about to best her! She felt a sudden surge from inside as she was wrapped in a light blue glow, sprouting a pair of pony ears, pegasus wings, and her hair extending to end in a pony’s tail. And simply because she decided to, she blazed to the other end of the field in a rainbow streak. Stopping at the goal, she turned back and saw the faint glow of the flaming soccer ball begin to reach over the curve of the ground.

“Do you really think you can make a difference?” echoed Gilda’s voice from behind the ball.

A light blue aura appeared around Rainbow and she floated up. “I do,” Rainbow Dash said, looking up with a fiery passion. “And I will!”

Streams of the blue aura snaked around her and channeled down into her right foot. The flaming orange streak of the ball blazed into view and raced at her, reaching her within a sec—she threw her foot out in a kick. Her foot hit the ball with a burst of light, bringing it to an immediate halt, but the ball kept pushing forward. The two opposing forces held fast for seconds on end, before Rainbow gave another push and sent the ball catapulting away in a new rainbow-trailing blue aura.

Gilda stood watching with crossed arms as the blue streak flew back across the field, releasing a burst of aura that spun around and formed itself into a pair of wings, a set of talons, and a beaked head with earlike feather projections. Gilda smirked. The spectral projection grew backwards to gain a full body with a pair of legs and tail, and with a flap of its wings, threw its head forward and let out a loud echoing screech…

Rainbow Dash awoke to the darkness of her room, the screeched slowly fading from her ears. Some dream, huh? She turned over and went back to sleep.

A slight whistling ring flowed through the room as the outside windows of her house shimmered and warped. Each reflected a scattered fragment of the image of a large teal and dark gray winged shape flying by, letting out a screech as it passed.

* * *

The Next Day

Classes had just let out for lunch, and Rainbow Dash was heading to the cafeteria to relay the full story of her close encounter of the robospider kind to the others. Since last night, she’d come up with a few more adjectives to make use of, and probably invented a new word or two.

As she walked by a line of lockers, she saw Flash Sentry standing by an open locker and talking on his cell phone.

“But I’m telling you,” he said, “she’d be perfect for it, she…he-hello?” He looked at the phone. “Drat, lost the signal again.”

“Really?” Dash said, fishing out her own phone. Flash quickly turned but stopped when he saw it was her. “’Cause I’ve got full bars in here.”

“Oh, you do?” he responded. “Huh, must be a different provider, then.”

Dash glanced over. “Don’t they all use the same cell towers?” she more stated than asked. “Makes you wonder why they can charge differently.”

“Ah,” Flash said. “Probably just my phone, then.”

Rainbow Dash shrugged before turning to walk on. “They’re built to break so you have to buy a new one,” she called over her shoulder as Flash tried dialing again, shaking the phone when it apparently didn’t work.

* * *

Location: Evil

A figure stood in the darkness, swiping his hand to scroll a holographic screen through a multitude of views around the city. Then one caught his attention. In a building-surrounded courtyard, several silver legs stuck out of a large cloud of accumulating darkness.

“My, my,” the figure mused, “these toys are more resilient than I expected. I’m impressed.”

* * *

Well, she’d told her tale and her friends had of course been impressed by the epic of heroic struggle and sweet victory. Heck, a few of the other students had even slid their chairs closer to listen in. They probably thought it was a fanfiction or something she was working on, and someone asked where she was posting it so they could read more. She’d had to say that the rest was still unwritten to satisfy them. So yeah, an overall success. Hey, with this reaction, maybe she would write it down.

It was the end of the school day, and Rainbow Dash was walking out the front door of the school with the other students, when suddenly she heard the whistling ringing again. She stopped. Wait…, she thought suspiciously. This time it felt different again. She looked around, seeing a familiar image reflected in one of the school’s glass front doors. She stepped over to the side to let the rest of the students file out and get out of earshot.

“Heh,” she said, turning to the reflection and crossing her arms smugly. “Look who’s following who now.”

Kamen Rider Cavalier stared back at her. “You’re not leaving this matter alone,” he said, “your point is made.”

Rainbow Dash paused. “That’s right,” she said, trying in vain to keep her smug tone. She was a bit surprised that he was suddenly agreeing with her. What could that…?

“You’re also marked,” he continued, “and they will come again. You might as well be ready.”

She was about to ask the predictable ‘ready for what’ question, but before she could, the glass door warped again and Cavalier’s reflection disappeared…and the door stayed warped, a ripple pattern perpetually emulating from the center. She stood still a second, glancing around. The coast was clear. And the warped surface probably wasn’t a mistake. So…why was she hesitating?

She reached out her hand as she stepped over to the door. Her hand passed right into the rippling surface, feeling slightly cold, almost like water except not wet. Well, she thought, here goes. She stepped forward into the reflection—

An invisible force pushed or pulled her through a square tunnel of silvery glass panes at high speed, zooming forward as if on a track until—she lurched forward into a dark room, stumbling to a stop.

She looked up and around. The room had no windows, and a single hanging ceiling lamp shone a spotlight down onto a table in the center of the room. Behind her there was a tall wall-mounted mirror. One door was on the far wall. She couldn’t really see much else. Oh, except the streaks of light reflected on Cavalier’s metal armor as he stood off to the side over there.

“What, you living in your mom’s basement?” she said.

“Ha, fuuunnyyyy,” he replied. “I’m renting.”

Rainbow Dash took another look around the room, this time seeing something sitting on the table previously obscured by the bright light. She walked over to get a better look, finding it to be a light blue rectangular object. She reached down to pick it up.

“Well?” Cavalier asked, making her stop. He stepped away from the wall closer to the light. “Do you think you’re ready? That you have what it will take?”

“For what?” she asked, looking over. He tapped the indigo block held at the front of his silver belt. Rainbow looked back at the object on the table, realizing that it was the same thing, also noticing that it lacked any gold symbol at the center. Maybe that was step two? Then her mind caught up. Wait, really? Was this actually…? She was sure this wasn’t a dream, right? “Me?” she asked, looking back to him. “Just like that?”

“You come highly recommended,” he replied.

“Recommended?” she repeated in surprise. “Wait, by who?” But Cavalier only stood silently.

Rainbow Dash again turned back to the…thing that had to have a name. She pointed at it and looked over to ask—

“Advent Deck,” Cavalier said.

Rainbow Dash again turned back to the Advent Deck, reaching down and snatching it off the table. She held it up to look it over. A surge of light blue electricity ran across its surface and jumped to her hands, fading just as she flinched. Pretending that no one saw that, she examined the Deck. It was basically a thin light blue block with a thumb-sized gap on one end, revealing the purple back of a card; the “front” of the Deck was also decorated in its corners by the silver silhouettes of four small claw-looking hooks. She grabbed the card and slid it out: it had a charcoal grey border around the square image of a blank gray flash, a gold circle in the top left corner next to the word “Contract” under a row of seven vertical gold bars.

“That’s your Contract Card,” Cavalier explained. “It’s how you contract with an Advent Beast and gain your power to be a Kamen Rider.”

“Advent Beast?” Rainbow Dash asked.

“Remember Caballkhan?” Cavalier said. Rainbow’s memory showed her Cavalier’s mechanical horse rearing up in front of her with loud metallic whinny. She nodded. “Your Advent Beast is your partner in battle,” he continued. “However strong you are simply using their power through your deck, Beast and Rider working together are always stronger.”

“So, what kind of creature would this get me?” Rainbow asked, looking at the card.

“One chosen to fit you,” he replied. “It may have even tried sizing you up already.”

The screech from Rainbow Dash’s dream echoed back into her head for a second. But that made her think of something else. “Wait, what about that spider thing? It wasn’t one of those red guys at all. It and your horse…there’s a connection between them, isn’t there? There’s gotta be.”

“Dogs versus wolves,” stated Cavalier. “Advent Beasts are made from those Mirror Monsters who can be tamed.”

“Again,” she said, crossing her arms at him, “by who?” Cavalier again remained silent. So, he wasn’t eager to name his sources. No matter, she’d get that later. “What about what those ‘Mirror Monsters’, as you say, are after? Why are those red guys trying to grab people? And how about that spider? I mean, I’m pretty sure I almost got eaten, but…”

Cavalier remained silent but looked over. He sighed. “Did you hear on the news a few weeks ago?” he finally said. “About the missing person?”

“I guessed that that might be connected to this somehow,” she said, uncrossing her arms and shifting to her other foot. “Think it was somewhere in the upper lef…no, I moved it to the middle right of my conspiracy board. Or was it the lower middle?”

“That was the first attack in this world,” he continued, “and my first response. The only one I didn’t show up to soon enough.”

“In this world?” she repeated, attention perking. “So, they were attacking another world first? Where? Was someone else fighting them there?”

Cavalier gave a silent, “Ahhg,” and turned off to the side. “They’re trying to capture people,” he said, “let’s leave it at that. Besides…,” he tilted his head back to her, “is that really what you’re most eager to find out?”

Rainbow Dash paused. She looked back to the Advent Deck and Contract Card in her hands. Oh, this guy’s good. A giddy grin crawled onto her face. She held the Contract Card high, seconds later hearing the whistling ring. She turned to the mirror she’d arrived through to see it warping and the reflection be replaced by a slowly swirling stormy vortex. Something flew back and forth within the vortex, approaching and slowing to look through the mirror like a window at her: a mechanical gryphon, covered in metal feathers of shiny gunmetal gray, with metallic teal feathers on its chest, the leading edges of its wings, the tuft at the end of its lion tail, and otherwise speckled across its body, its large eagle beak a gleaming gold, a pair of earlike points atop its head, and beady yellow eyes staring back at her as she stared at it. Though she’d never seen it before, it looked familiar to her. Like meeting an old friend for the first time.

She looked to Cavalier. “Anything special to say?” she asked. “Y’know, any cheesy lines for a dramatic pose or something?”

He gave a silent sigh of amusement. “‘Kamen Rider’.”

“Easy enough,” Rainbow Dash replied. Facing the mirror, she held the Contract Card out towards it, the gray haze pictured on it beginning to reflect the stormy vortex and Advent Beast in front of it. The gunmetal and teal gryphon beat its wings to center itself in the mirror, crouching in midair as if preparing to pounce. “Let’s do this,” said Rainbow Dash. “Kamen Rider!”

The gryphon leapt forward, its bear-sized body warping out from the mirror with a screech and spreading its wings out their full 20-foot span—an ‘objects in mirror are larger than they appear’ warning would’ve been nice!—and dove down at her. On reflex, she quickly aimed the Contract Card up at it. As its body passed by the card, it was turned transparent, its outline flying at and being absorbed into her: head, talons, wings, legs, tail.

The Contract Card started glowing, and she turned it around to see. The grey blur swirled as the image of the gryphon flying forward and screeching in front of a storm cloud background emerged; in a thin black bar just below the image, a row of five small rectangles appeared reaching from the left side to the middle of the bar, transitioning left to right from yellow into orange, the corresponding number “5000” under the red word “Attack” appearing in the small gray box at the lower right of the card; the gold circle in the upper left morphed into the front-on silhouette of a gryphon face, beak tip at the bottom and ears pointing up; and the word “Contract” faded away, being replaced by the beast’s name, “Aquileo”.

Rainbow’s vision blurred, and the room around her seemed to disappear into a black void. Another screech sounded as a spectral projection of Aquileo’s wings flared open behind her, wrapping around and momentarily encasing her before disappearing in a flash; both her hands were empty, and the Deck now sat in a silver belt around her waist. On the Deck, a line of yellow electricity ran up the center, expanding out into Aquileo’s golden gryphon emblem; the Deck moved backwards into a void within the belt, a light blue light shining from behind it, and began flipping over backwards rapidly, a whirring sound rising, as the gold emblem became all that was visible among the blur of motion. A light blue energy sphere and pair of equator rings shot out from the belt and formed a shell around Rainbow; the rings rotated opposite directions past an ‘X’ and into a vertical, continuing on while the circular energy layers within them now printed onto her a suit of armor. The rings reached their original equator positions and the energy shell burst out and dissipated. The room returned to her view.

Rainbow Dash swayed a step and looked down to check her footing. Then she looked up at the mirror. She was standing clad in a similar arrangement of armor to Cavalier, presumably a standard Kamen Rider design template: she wore a dark-colored tough rubbery undersuit, perhaps a dark grayish blue or teal; her torso bore a bright cyan chest plate with angled gunmetal strips arranged like three stacked upside down ‘V’s, the top point at her neck and a triangle of silver within the smallest and lowest one; from the chest plate’s shoulder pads stuck out sets of three-clawed eagle talons reaching out and down over her shoulders; hollow silver knobs were placed just below her knees, elbows, and shoulders, on the sides of her belt, and she turned to see three more in a wide V-pattern on her back; she had gunmetal-bordered cyan forearm cuffs and shin guards, and on her left forearm was strapped a cyan armament resembling an eagle’s leg, a set of three gunmetal claws pointing forward; her smooth helmet was cyan with a pair of gryphon ear prongs at the top front; a two-part silver facemask was attached onto the front of her helmet, the main part covering her eyes with separated groupings of horizontal slits, its top corners reaching up onto the ear prongs, and the overlaid second part, centered over the lower middle of the other part and covered by a third set of horizontal slits, being shaped like the outline of a beak and reaching from her nose to her chin.

“I hope you like it,” Cavalier said, “…Kamen Rider Talon.”

“Sleek,” Rainbow Dash admired, looking down over the armor. She would’ve complained about wanting to name herself, but ‘Talon’ was probably better than she could’ve come up with on the spot anyhow. “Do I get my own transforming motorcycle, too?”

“Do you already have your own regular one?” he replied. Rainbow dropped her shoulders in disappointment.

“So, what can this armor do?” she asked, raising an arm to examine it. “Does it…let me travel at light speed?” She slapped her palm against the hollow knob on the right side of her belt and took a slight crouch, waiting as if expecting something to happen.

“Nnno,” Cavalier answered. Rainbow stood back up and dropped her arms indignantly. “But it does let you travel between any two mirror surfaces.”

“And things like windows,” she commented, remembering the several recent times she’d fallen through them. “How ’bout polished metal?”

“Rule of thumb, if you can see yourself in it—,” Cavalier started to explain, but was cut off as a whistling ringing filled their ears.

“Looks like I’ll have to pick up the rest on the fly!” Rainbow Dash said. She ran up to the mirror but stopped. She reached out her hand at it hesitantly. “Uh, how do I know if…” Cavalier walked right past her and warped through the mirror. After a moment’s pause and a shrug of, “eh, what the heck?”, she charged forward and—heard a shrill whooshing, stopping a moment later to find herself standing in a wide silvery glass tunnel. In front of her was a pair of thin two-wheeled silver vehicles with long domed roof covers sitting up and open. Cavalier was getting into one of them.

“What?” he said, looking over. “I never actually said you wouldn’t get your own ’cycle.”

Rainbow stepped over to the empty one. “Not as stylish as I would’ve liked.”

“Maybe not,” he replied, “but Advent Cycles still get the job done.”

“Y’know, just putting ‘Advent’ in front of normal words doesn’t make—,” she started, but the roof cover of Cavalier’s cycle came down and closed. She sat in the red seat of the Advent Cycle and grabbed the handlebar setup in front of her. A pair of silver clips jumped out from behind the seat and latched onto the hollow silver knobs on the sides of her belt before the seat lowered and the roof cover descended. The cover was mostly comprised of a pair of tinted windows.

“Now remember,” said Cavalier’s voice over some sort of intercom inside the Cycle, “there are two ways of going through a mirror. One just takes you to the corresponding mirror in the Mirror World. The other takes you here, to the Mirror Plane, which you can use to, with a delay for travel time, access any other mirror out there. It’s really all down to personal preference in the moment.” Cavalier’s Cycle’s engine revved and it took off down the glassy tunnel.

“Mirror World isn’t much better than Advent insert-word-here!” Rainbow called after him as she sped her own Cycle after him.

Crafty Crate overlooked the site. Former location of “Paradise something”. Estates, probably. Now it was being made into a parking lot, paved with this nifty new ‘thirsty concrete’, capable of absorbing gallons upon gallons of rainwater to reduce flooding from runoff. Heh, the things people were coming up with nowadays.

He turned and looked back to the street. That big yellow taxi van was still there. Was this supposed to be another one of those protestors about the loss of the Estates? That last one had been rather handy with a lock pick. He walked over anyway to tell them that this was a no parking zone, leaning over and looking in through the passenger window only to find it empty. He didn’t see what was lurking in the window’s reflection.

Crafty stood back up and took a step away, when suddenly the window and door of the taxi warped and a net of glue-like web shot out and grabbed him. Feeling a tug back to the taxi, he pulled forward, but when he looked back he didn’t see anyone or anything that might be holding him. Calculating logistics didn’t faze him. This, however, was panic inducing. The invisible force continued to pull him back, and with his arms pinned to his sides, he was beginning to lose his footing…

A window across the street warped and an armored Rainbow Dash jumped out. She saw the man struggling against the visible-to-her webbing and ran over. She grabbed him and tried pulling him away, but the web was too strong to pull against and kept dragging him towards the warped reflection. Then the claws on her left arm’s eagle talon armament grew out six inches. Hey, she thought, it’s like that comic book guy, the Badger was it? She swiped with the claws and severed the web.

The end of it shot back into the taxi’s window as Crafty fell to his knees; cut off from the monster that made it, the web glue wrapped around him faded into visibility. Well, there goes this outfit, he sighed, not that it’s any different from the rest of ’em. Crafty Crate looked up to get a better look at his savior.

“Here,” Rainbow Dash said, “let me—”

“Aaah!” he shouted. “A monster!”

“Monster?” Rainbow said in confusion. “Me? How do you…? I’m shaped like a person. I’m speaking. I’m covered in metal”—she hit her helmet with her palms for emphasis—“plates”—and again. “Why would you have any reason to think that I’m a monster instead of someone in a suit of armor?”

Crafty paused to reassess the situation. “Aah!” he shouted. “A freak in armor!” His arms still bound, he jumped to his feet and stumbled away, leaving Rainbow holding out her arms with palms facing up in shocked confusion.

“I…how…wha?” she stuttered.

Cavalier walked up behind her, staring after Crafty. “Memorable first impression,” he commented.

“Hey,” she said, “it’s not my fault that the first guy I run into is the”—she turned after the fleeing construction worker and shouted—“only person who doesn’t watch the news, apparently!”

Rainbow Dash heard the whistling ring again. She looked at the taxi window and saw a large dark and blurry form in its reflection quickly retreating. Cavalier ran past her and warped into the reflection. She charged forward as well. All the way through, all the way through, all the way through…

A shrill whoosh passed her ears—before she jumped out and landed in the Mirror World. Still not feeling as alien as a parallel realm would be expected to. She ran up to Cavalier, who had stopped, and looked forward to see the monster turning to face them. It had the bronze body and silver legs of the Dispider, but a waist-up bronze humanoid body was now attached onto where the Dispider’s head had been. It had three red hexagonal crystals on its chest, bulky pincer claw hands, and a dull silver head with trios of hexagonal plates for eyes. As the light glinted off of them, its silver parts also appeared to briefly take on a greenish hue.

“Whoa,” said Rainbow, “is that the same spider thing as last time? I thought you destroyed it.”

“Drat, I knew I missed a step,” Cavalier mumbled. “After destroying bigger monsters, you have to do something about their energy, otherwise they’ll just reconstitute.” He looked to see Rainbow staring at him with arms crossed. “Hey,” he said defensively, “it was the first time I’d faced something other than one of those minions.”

“Well now it’s back with a vengeance,” she remarked. “I mean, look at that thing! It’s a centaur now! Well, spider-centaur…censpider? Spidertaur?”

“Drider,” Cavalier corrected.

“Gezunheit.”

Cavalier silently shook his head. “Let’s just squash it for good this time.”

“Yeah!” Rainbow shouted, gripping a fist. She took one step forward before stopping. “Um, wait, how do I get a sword?”

The Remodeled Dispider turned again and shot out a gray ropelike web strand that quickly snaked over to and coiled around Cavalier’s torso, the Rider only having the chance to toss up his arms around him a second before it constricted and pulled him off his feet towards the Dispider. {Here we go.}

Having caught the web with his forearms, he pushed them up over his head so the web no longer surrounded him and tried to quickly slide his arms back out before it could tighten again, but he hit the ground from the tug and the rope web pulled and snared his right arm. It wasn’t sticky, but it had wrapped over itself with a tight grip and wasn’t about to let go.

The Dispider hooked the web with one of its back legs and dragged Cavalier over closer, trying to spear him with its other legs, but the Rider quickly rolled underneath it. He then looked over to see Rainbow Dash still standing on the sidelines.

“What are you waiting for?” he called. “You ran in even without armor last time!”

“At least I had a weapon then!” she called back. “Right now all I got’s this,” she raised her left arm with the eagle talon attachment, “and it’s not gonna cut it. No pun intended.”

The Remodeled Dispider skittered sideways to try and step on Cavalier, but he hastily crawled sideways in turn, keeping under it. “What do you think your deck of cards is for?” he took the chance to say.

“How?” Rainbow responded.

With enough slack on the web to maneuver, Cavalier reached to the horseshoe-bearing armament on his own left arm and pulled the right arc open, taking a card from his Advent Deck and sliding it into the slot pulled out under the horseshoe’s arc. He pushed the arc back in as he leapt, tucked, and rolled out from under the Dispider to in front of it.
Sword Vent

He rolled up to a knee and pulled the web around his arm taught. “Use your slotter!” he shouted as a glowing sword fell from the sky and severed through the web strand before embedding its tip in the ground. Shaking the web off, he ran over and grabbed the sword as the Dispider approached. It reached down for him with its centaur-body’s pincer clamps but he jumped up and flipped over it, slashing it while passing overhead, and landing on its back.

“Wait, what’s a slotter?” Dash asked.

Cavalier mumbled to himself, “If you hadn’t asked so many other questions…” He called, “That thing on your left arm, it’ll slide open somehow!” He turned and swiped his sword at the Dispider torso’s back, but he’d given it the chance to recover and it turned to meet him, catching the blade in one of its pincer clamp claws.

Rainbow looked to her eagle leg apparatus, grabbing it and pushing and pulling it back and forth; it slid back on a track with a brief mechanical whir to reveal a small shallow rectangular tray.

“Okay,” she said, awaiting further instruction.

Cavalier was struggling with both his hands to free the sword from the grip of the Dispider’s pincer. “Now take out any Advent Card!” he continued to call. “They’re in the Deck, if you forgot!” The Remodeled Dispider pulled on the sword, swinging Cavalier around off its back and onto the ground in front of it.

Rainbow reached down and put a finger on the edge of the top card, sliding it out of the Deck with a deep whooshing sound. The card was an earthen orange with the image of a pair of crossed cyan eagle talon gauntlets over a light blue cyclone swirl background, reading Strike Vent across the top and Attack 2000 in the lower corner.

“Cool sound effect,” she commented. She looked up. “Now what?”

The Remodeled Dispider dropped Cavalier’s sword and threw its arms out to the side, shooting a burst of large spines from the red crystal hexagons on its chest. Cavalier dove and tumbled sideways to avoid the barrage, sliding another card into his slotter. He rolled to a stop and turned to her.

“I’d expect it to be pretty self explanatory after this!” he called in annoyance. “Card in slot, close the cover!” He swung his right arm out and back in again to slam his own slotter closed for added emphasis.
Guard Vent

Rainbow set the card in her slotter’s tray with what sounded like another mechanical whir. She paused. “Okay, seriously? Do you have sound effects for everything?”

Cavalier held up the round shield with the gold horseshoe decoration around its rim strapped to his left forearm up and crouched down as the Remodeled Dispider shot another wave of spines, impaling into the ground and bouncing off of the shield with loud metal clangs.

“Any day now!” he called.

Rainbow pushed the slotter cover back forward to cover over the card in the tray with yet another sci-fi tech sound as the claws on the eagle talon briefly flashed.
Strike Vent

“Now heads up and hands up!” Cavalier called.

“Huh?” she said before look up and seeing a pair of glowing objects spinning down at her. “Whoa!” She quickly ducked and held up her arms in defense. As the objects reached her, there was a flash, and she looked up to see them attached to her arms: a pair of elbow-length cyan gauntlets shaped like eagle or gryphon foreclaws, each bearing three upper claws and a lower claw in a fixed arrangement; her hands were gripping a bar inside each gauntlet to hold them, and there was only a cover past the wrist along their lower edges leaving the tops open, probably so they wouldn’t interfere with the placement of her slotter. “Whooooooaaaaaa,” she said, looking them over. “Now this I can work with.”

The Remodeled Dispider approached the indigo Rider as he backed away behind his shield. Suddenly a second Rider ran in from the left and swiped its front left leg out from under it. It tried to steady itself, but the cyan Rider sped over and swiped its from right leg away as well, dropping its front end to the ground. The new Rider slashed at its body torso with a set of metal claws. It reached out and grabbed the Rider’s shoulders with its pincer claws, standing back up and lifting them off the ground, but they slashed at its elbows making it drop them.

Hitting the ground, Rainbow Dash dove forward and rolled under the Remodeled Dispider. More cramped down here than it looked. Barely being able to rise to a kneel, she slashed her talon gauntlets across the Dispider’s underside. A second later it leapt into the air, landing a distance away and turning to shoot another web, this one like a chain. Rainbow quickly held up her gauntlets in defense, and the chain web smacked into them, the force of the hit knocking her back and to the ground. The gauntlets glowed slightly before shattering away into nothing.

Rainbow stood back up and opened her slotter again, pulling out the next card in her Deck: cyan, with the image of a pair of shiny metal bird wings attached to pack at the center over a background of white cloud swirl streaks against blackness, Attack 2000, Wing Vent.

She stared at the name for a second. “Don’t tell me…,” she said before setting the card in the slotter tray and sliding the cover closed.
Wing Vent

A screech came from the sky as Aquileo flew overhead, a glowing mass dropping from his back with a flash. The mass tumbled down and attached onto Rainbow Dash’s back, a set of tabs hooking into the trio of silver knobs. A pair of large metal wings extended out from behind her.

“You. Are. Kidding me,” she said. “Awesome! And no music or magic needed.” The wings were constructed of a gridwork of overlapping gunmetal gray metal scales placed as and resembling feathers, connected on the undersides with a network of wire struts. At a thought, every scale slid slightly out from under the one above it, and the wings as a whole grew and extended.

As the Remodeled Dispider turned back around to her, Rainbow ran forward and jumped, and with one flap of her metal wings was sent soaring over to the Dispider to deliver a flying kick straight to its chest, knocking it back a step. As she dropped to the ground, she leaned her right shoulder forward, and the right wing swung in and slashed the Dispider’s torso with its razor edge as sparks flew. Landing, she threw her left shoulder forward, the left wing swinging in and extending, the metal scales sliding so far apart that a checkerboard pattern of gaps appeared between them, its notched razor edge slicing across the Dispider’s torso and left leg with another spray of sparks.

The Remodeled Dispider threw its arms out again, unleashing another barrage of spines from the red hexagons on its chest. After the mere idea of defense formed in Rainbow’s mind, the wings retracted back so every point was at least two overlapped scales thick and crossed in front of her. The spines pelted the wings but bounced off with loud metal clangs; however, Rainbow was still sent stumbling back from the force of the impacts, her off-balance weight with the top-heavy wing pack, and the fact that she could only see up and down with the wings closed like this.
Arc Vent

A gold horseshoe flew in and exploded on the Remodeled Dispider’s chest, stopping the spine salvo and sending it back a step.

Rainbow opened the wings again and dropped their tips to the ground to steady herself. Balance. Improve.

Cavalier stepped up to her and held up a card showing his Horse symbol over an indigo starburst. “You have one, too,” he said before sliding it into his slotter and closing it.
Final Vent

Caballkhan ran in from the sidelines as a pair of glowing objects fell from the sky. Cavalier jumped onto the passing steed and caught his shield and lance as Caballkhan charged the Remodeled Dispider.

Rainbow slid out another card: deep red, image of the gold Gryphon symbol on her Deck over a light blue starburst background, Attack 6000, Final Vent. She’d ask later how the card you wanted to use was always the next one in line.

The Remodeled Dispider stood up as Caballkhan approached and threw its arms out again to fire another barrage of spines, but the exploding horseshoe had cracked the red crystal hexagons on its chest and it couldn’t use the attack. Cavalier’s lance speared into it and pushed it back across the ground, sparks flying as its legs tried to hold their ground.

Rainbow put the card into the slotter tray and slid the cover closed.
Final Vent

The pack and wings on her back glowed slightly before shattering away, and Rainbow heard another screech from behind her. She turned to see Aquileo flying in with open claws. The gryphon grabbed her arms and kicked off the ground, pulling her up into the air. Again, a bit of warning would’ve been appreciated! But why wasn’t she more scared about being dragged into the sky by a big robot beast? It was almost like…she already knew what would happen next, she just couldn’t tell you if you’d asked. Aquileo flew up and arced over backwards in what would’ve made for a good roller coaster track, looping down to a ground-level approach on Cavalier and the Dispider.

The Remodeled Dispider had skid Caballkhan to a stop, but the horse rose to its hind legs as Cavalier lifted his lance, pulling the impaled Dispider up off the ground. These monsters were mere animated shells around energy, he’d been told, that’s why something as big as this had been so agile, and why it was also this light.

Not getting too concerned at the apparent affront to physics in front of her, Rainbow tensed because something told her that—Aquileo swung her back before throwing her forward at full speed—yep, something like would happen. Rushing in at her target, almost as if still being actively propelled, Rainbow leaned back and found her right foot naturally extend out for a kick, left knee bending in and arms out sideways with 90-degree elbows.

Cavalier hoisted and held the Remodeled Dispider high, an energy pulse shooting up the lance.

Rainbow was closing quickly. Thirty feet, twenty, ten. She let out a shout of, “See ya!”

Her kick hit the Remodeled Dispider, breaking its spider body clean from the torso. The energy pulse hit the torso segment, and both parts of the Dispider exploded, scattering charred debris.

After the kick, Rainbow all but dropped from the air and landed with a skid on her right foot, left knee and toes, and left hand. She looked down at odd silver knob on her left knee. “Ah, so that’s how those get used.”

A flash came from the biggest pile of flaming debris sitting in front of her, and a glowing yellow ball of energy rose up from it. Aquileo flew up to and through it, absorbing it in a flash. Another flash came from the debris scattered in front of Caballkhan, and a smaller ball of energy floated up before absorbing into the horse’s chest.

Cavalier looked down and over at Rainbow. “Not bad,” he said. “Once you actually started.”

Rainbow Dash turned and crossed her arms at him. He shrugged back.

Rainbow and Cavalier had returned to his “Base”. She’d been talked through how to de-armor, light blue glows traveling across the outlines of her armor’s plating before a vertical disk shot out around her, splitting left and right to remove the Kamen Rider Talon armor from her as the Deck spontaneously returned to her pocket…somehow. Now, it seemed she was being read the Terms & Conditions agreement of being a Kamen Rider.

“And remember,” Cavalier told her, “you can’t tell any of your friends about this. The secrecy of this matter is vital.”

“Loyal to the end, I won’t tell a soul,” she said, saluting to show ‘she got it’. She turned and approached the mirror. It warped, a look and sound she was still getting used to, and she stepped through—being sent through a glass tunnel back towards a mirror surface she was sure would have no obvious connection to the one she’d left from. Really sneaky, there.

Cavalier stood and stared at the mirror after she’d left. The mirror warped again, and in faded the reflection of a black figure, chest and legs lined with thin pale orange stripes, small antennae over a shiny black bug-eye visor, a boxy silver armament over their right wrist, and a silver buckle with an orange circle in the middle. The figure looked to Cavalier.

“They’ll all know everything before the end of the day,” said the Advent Master, “won’t they?”

“I’d be surprised if they didn’t,” Cavalier replied.

Next time, on “Kamen Rider EqG”…

“You seriously think that it’s him?” asked Applejack flatly.

“That was a pretty odd phone call he was having,” Rainbow’s voice said from another scene as she peeked around a corner of the school hallway at Flash Sentry. “Su-spiii-cious.”

The whistling ringing echoed in Rainbow’s head. “Wait,” she said to herself, “that’s not just close, it’s…here.”

From an unseen force, locker doors down the row were being torn off of the wall one by one in a line leading right towards Flash.
Double Vision

Also, coming soon…

A figure in all black sat on his black motorcycle in the street, waiting. The metallic blue Zenobiter ran out of the alley half a block in front of him. He raised an indigo Advent Deck.

Suddenly a black and magenta Kamen Rider with green bug eyes and a white stripe across their chest ran out of the alley after the Zenobiter.

“What the?” the figure muttered as he lowered the Deck.

The Zenobiter ran across street and jumped through a storefront window. The new Rider ran up to the window and rammed right into it, stumbling back.

The figure chuckled. “Amateur.”

The new Rider sighed, flipping open the white square above his sword’s hilt and whipping out a card with a revving sound. “No matter,” he said, tossing the card down into his white belt buckle.
Kamen Rider × Kamen Rider: EqG & Decade

Author's Note

So, what’d you all think of me linking an insert theme for the battle? Should I continue?

Chapter 5: Double Vision

Double Vision noiƨiV ɘlduoᗡ

The Next Day, Thursday

In an empty hallway of Canterlot High, the small window on a classroom door warped, and a figure jumped out of it. They stood up, glancing up and down the hall, before looking down at an object in their hand.

“Hah,” said Rainbow Dash, tapping her Advent Deck with her finger, “never be late to class again.”

The window warped again, and she turned to see the image of Cavalier fade into view.

“You kept it a secret, right?” he asked.

“Totally,” Rainbow said, leaning back and crossing her arms. “Didn’t breath a word of it. They never suspected a thing.” She smiled proudly.

Cavalier stared at her silently.

Rainbow briefly glanced off to the side.

Cavalier continued to stare.

Rainbow’s smile faded into a look of feigned innocence.

“How long?” he asked.

Rainbow dropped her smile and her arms with an exhaling sigh. “Five minutes,” she admitted.

“After you met up with them.”

Rainbow opened her mouth to respond, but she stopped. She raised a curled finger to her chin in thought for a second. “Is there such a thing as ‘negative time’?” she asked.

Cavalier nodded while turning to the side. “Good thing that was part of the plan.”

Rainbow looked up. “Wait, what? You mean you didn’t even…? Then why did you—” Cavalier’s image faded away. “Hey, wait!”

Rainbow Dash cut herself off and quickly glanced around to make sure no one had seen that. One of the nerd kids with purple skin and a yellow shirt had walked in from other end of hall and was standing there. He stared at her.

“What’re you lookin’ at?” she snapped.

The student beat a hasty retreat.

“While we were away,” said the ORE newswoman, “our camera crew managed to catch up with the witness from the latest Armored Hero event. Though it happened late yesterday afternoon, it wasn’t reported until this morning. We now go live to the scene.”

“Why did I wait?” said Crafty Crate in a cutaway to a handheld news camera. “If you gotta know, I was waiting to see if the drycleaner could get that web glue off of my shirt. The answer was no, by the way, and whoever did this owes me a new shirt. Yeah, no, but that’s the thing, it wasn’t that Armored Hero you’ve been parading. No, cops showed me a sketch of the guy, and I’ll tell you what I told them, it’s not the same person, there’s two of ’em now and this one was a girl. It’s probably just some obsessed fan cosplayer, or it’s become a new LARPing trend. Hmm? How do I know what that is? Ehm… no comment.”

“Due to a minor situation,” the woman continued back in the newsroom, “our normal weather reporter, Misty Breeze, is temporarily unavailable. Now for her substitute, Paula Haze, here with the weekend forecast.”

“Start preparing for a wet weekend,” said Paula as the feed switched to the weather screen, “as a giant storm will be brewing over Canterlot City in the coming days. There’s gonna be lightning, thunder, and dangerously high winds…”

“So, he had you pegged from the get-go, eh?” commented Applejack as Rainbow Dash crossed her arms. It was lunchtime, and five of them were continuing their discussion from last night about Rainbow’s sudden induction into the Kamen Rider Hall of Fame after their initial surprise had worn off, though now with the added incident from just this morning. Meanwhile, Pinkie Pie was sitting at the end of the group rapidly tapping on her phone screen.

“And here I thought I ‘exuded a sense of trustfulness’,” Rainbow said with feigned grace. “Didn’t Twilight say I was supposed to be Loyalty?”

“The Equestrian you is, at least,” Sunset added, looking over the Talon Deck. “But you’re right, how does it knows which card to have on top?” Rainbow sighed. They’d lost her. “It’d have to be some sort of psychological field reader,” Sunset continued muttering, tapping the gryphon symbol, “but I don’t know how it would work without magic…”

“Why would he tell me to keep a secret he didn’t want me to keep?” Rainbow asked aloud to herself.

“Here’s an idea,” offered Applejack. “What if he wanted you to tell us, so he told you not to to make sure that you would? Reverse psychology an’ all.”

“Come now, darling,” Rarity said, “that would be needlessly complicated.”

“But how could he just assume that I wouldn’t keep the secret from you guys?” Rainbow said with a tinge of frustration. “I mean, sure, I was never going to, but why would he think that? I just can’t leave that alone. I had this feeling that kept me following the story of the Armored Hero in the first place, and that same feeling is telling me to keep pressing this detail.”

“Have you ever considered just askin’ him?” Applejack suggested.

“If you ever met him,” Rainbow replied, “you’d be able to tell that he’s treating me with a ‘need to know’ approach. I tried asking him things before, all he gave me was stuff about how to be a Kamen Rider, what to do to summon a weapon, practical things only. He’d never tell me why or something like that.”

“Well whatever it was,” said Rarity, “he knew what you were going to do. Do you think that could have been because…he knows you? Directly?”

Rainbow paused, then looked up as if something had clicked. “Now that you mention it,” she said, leaning in closer, “I’ve always kinda had this idea—”

Rainbow suddenly hushed up. She watched over her shoulder out of the corner of her eye as Flash Sentry walked past the table. Applejack raised an eyebrow.

“You seriously think that it’s him?” she asked in a hush. “Not that I can’t maybe see that as possible, but isn’t it more likely that Cavalier is one of the any number of people in the city, maybe…that we don’t know? It’s not like every event in the universe is gonna revolve around us.”

“What are you talking about?” Rainbow said. “Of course it’s gonna end up being someone we know. The universe may not revolve around us, but the weirdness of this school certainly does, and this Kamen Rider business is close enough to follow the same rule.”

Applejack sighed. “And you’re sure you aren’t just sayin’ that because Flash is the only guy you know well enough to have enough of a reason to actually suspect?”

Rainbow raised a finger to object, but paused. “I am not denying that,” she said.

“Yes!” Pinkie randomly blurted out. “My cupcakes have achieved sentience!” The others, even Sunset, immediately turned to look her direction, as did a few other students at the next table over. She glanced up at them. “What? It’s Cupcake Clicker, the most addicting game ever.” She looked back down at her phone and started tapping again. “Just half a quadrillion more cupcakes and I can get another Baking Dungeon, and then three more achievements will unlock caramel icing, and that’s loads of bonus points with all of my candle upgrade—this game is consuming my li-hi-hiiiife.”

Ignoring that obvious cry for help, the others slowly turned back to their own discussion.

“Remember Flash back in Sugar Cube Corner,” Rainbow said, “the day the news first showed the Armored Hero on video?”

“Nope,” said AJ casually.

“Well I do,” Rainbow continued, “and…I don’t know, just something about it. The way he said that, his general vibe. And then I’m just saying, but that was a pretty odd phone call he was having yesterday. ‘But I’m telling you’,” she mimicked, “ ‘she’d be perfect for it,’ and then only hours later, I get drafted into being a Kamen Rider? Su-spiii-cious.”

“There are plenty of reasonable explanations behind him sayin’ that,” replied Applejack.

“Name one,” Rainbow dared.

“Maybe he’s got a sister he’s tryin’ to help get a job interview,” Applejack offered.

“Or if not a sister,” said Rarity, “then maybe a cousin.”

“And if not a job,” Pinkie said without looking up from her phone, “then maybe a role in a stage play.”

“O…kay,” Rainbow said, counting on her fingers, “name a fifth one, then.”

Directly across from Sunset, Fluttershy had been half-listening, her attention focused instead on Aquileo’s Attack Vent card, which she was holding and looking over.

“Um, about this Aquileo,” she spoke up, prompting the others to turn. “Did he seem friendly at all? I might like to meet a majestic-looking creature like this, not that I’d be able to see him.”

Sunset glanced up at Fluttershy, but her eyes were drawn instead to the water bottle sitting on the table between them, and the ripples running across its side. The faint image of an eared eagle head looked out, tilting back and forth as it stared at Fluttershy, inching closer.

“Um,” Sunset said, “you might want to be careful about holding that card near reflective surfaces.”

“Hmm?” Fluttershy looked over. “What do you mean, what’s happening?”

Sunset pointed at the water bottle. “You mean you can’t—”

“Wait,” interrupted Rainbow Dash. “Sunset, you can see it too?”

“Yeah, I guess,” Sunset answered, “but I don’t know…” She paused, remembering what she was holding. “Hang on a second.” She slowly set the Advent Deck down on the table took her hand away from it. The image and rippling faded from view. She glanced back at Rainbow. “Is it still happening?”

Rainbow Dash nodded; by now even Pinkie had looked over. Sunset lowered her hand back down onto the Deck. She didn’t need to tell the others for them to know she could see it again.

The six stared silently between each other for a second, collectively echoing an understood “Whoa”.

Sunset looked back at the Deck. “I have gotta know how this isn’t magic,” she whispered.

Applejack turned to Rainbow. “What exactly did you say ‘Kamen Rider’ meant, again?”

“I…don’t actually know,” Rainbow Dash answered.

Fluttershy looked back at water bottle, still holding the card. She smiled and waved into the reflection. Unseen by her, Aquileo tilted his head again and nodded, flicking his ears.

* * *

Location: Evil

The figure stood in the darkness, again swiping through multiple views from around the city on his holographic screen, intently focusing on each image before passing to the next.

“It has to be here somewhere,” he mumbled. “What did it look like, again?” He flipped to the next view, again not finding something. He was about to swipe left again, but stopped. “I’m going to need a closer set of eyes.”

He held his arm out to the right and snapped his fingers, and a Gelnewt stepped forth from the reflection of a large round mirror beside him.

* * *

Shortly after school, and Rainbow Dash was at soccer practice, standing at the end of the line for a practice activity run with hoops and cones and all that good stuff. She always volunteered to go last because, as she often proved true, she had “the performance to end the show”. She’d had to miss last Thursday’s practice because she and Fluttershy had been held up with the news station and police department surrounding their first run-in with the Mirror Monsters, but she was determined to make up for lost time this week.

Naturally, the obvious dilemma came to mind. Why did she break up the Rainbooms if she was still going to continue with the soccer team? Wasn’t that just ruining her friends’ fun while still keeping some for herself? She invoked a technicality. Part of why she’d disbanded the band…no pun intended—was because they’d reached the point of no longer using band practice time for the band. But this was different, because she actually used soccer practice time for soccer. Even if she spent half the time waiting around. Soooooo boring.

“So,” she said to the boy standing in line in front of her, faded red skin with pale blue hair, “is archery too easy for you or are you just an overachiever?”

“Huh?” he asked. Then he looked down at the bow-and-arrow pin on his uniform. “Oh. Ha, very funny. No, actually I’m just trying to stay well-trained. Soccer practice is a good way to keep in shape for what I—”

“Sonic Arrow!” Coach Spitfire called from field. The boy pointed with his thumb and silently nodded to the field before running out for his go at the practice course. Now it was only Rainbow left in line. She clapped and rubbed her hands together in preparation. Just a few more—

The whistling ringing rose up in her ears, and in her mind, she could almost sense a roadmap to its source. It wasn’t far. She quickly glanced around the immediate area, seeing a tall mirror propped against one of the stands off to her left. A Gelnewt wandered slowly through the reflection, looking around.

‘Because she actually used soccer practice time for soccer.’ She had literally just thought those words a minute ago. Why, world? Why?

That aside, the fact that one of these monsters was so close to the school was something that couldn’t be left alone. It didn’t matter if it was here after her or not, she had to deal with it right now. She reached and slid her Advent Deck halfway out of her uniform pocket—

“Rainbow Dash!” called Coach Spitfire. Rainbow looked back to the field in surprise. Oh, wasn’t this just the classic hero’s dilemma? Which life would get priority, hero or civilian? Should the audience like their star character for their choices just yet? Would this be a telling sign of the ever-predictable character arc to come? No, not her, she would not fall victim to such an overused trope. If only both choices’ paths weren’t already their own separate tropes. What option did that even leave her with to be original? “Rainbow Dash?” repeated Spitfire.

Rainbow looked back down at her Deck and silently moaned. There was no winning, was there? Then she noticed a stray soccer ball sitting on the ground in front of her. She glanced over to the mirror with the Gelnewt, then back to the ball. Giving the Deck a bit of a squeeze, she casually stepped forward, then swiftly kicked the ball with the inside of her right foot, lines of light blue electricity jumping from her foot to the ball as it flew off to the left, warped through the mirror, and flew and hit the Gelnewt in the face. The monster promptly flipped over backwards and landed on the ground, feet in the air. It struggled back and forth, but like its friends earlier, the large X-weapon on its back had trapped it on the ground.

Rainbow Dash smirked as she slipped her Deck back into her pocket and ran out onto the field.

Less than a minute later, Kamen Rider Talon leapt out of the other side of the mirror armed with a pair of eagle-talon gauntlets, running out into the Mirror World’s CHS soccer field. Rainbow Dash slowed and spun around, scanning from corner to corner. The Gelnewt was nowhere to be seen.

* * *

After about an hour of standing around in the Mirror Plane in her Talon armor, Rainbow heard the motor of an approaching Advent Cycle. As it neared her it slowed, easing to a stop in front of her. The cover lifted up and back, and Cavalier looked up at her.

“Didn’t realize I had an appointment,” he commented.

“You didn’t happen to catch a red minion around the school recently, did you?” she asked as the seat raised and he stepped out.

“Why, did you lose one?” he asked in return.

“I thought I stunned him,” she said, following as he walked past her, “but he disappeared before I could get back to dealing with him.”

“Texting while fighting?”

Rainbow stopped and crossed her arms. “I was doing other things before this, y’know. They didn’t just go away yesterday.”

Cavalier paused a moment to look back at her before walking on and through the mirror wall in front of them. Rainbow blinked and slowly tiptoed reaching forward. Swaying a bit, she stepped her feet a bit farther apart to steady herself as she glanced back at the Cycles for a reference point. A reflective silver wall in a reflective silver environment where you could barely tell there was a floor at all really messed with the depth perception. Like a hall of mirrors, it was easy to enter, but forget one turn you made and we’ll see you again in a few days.

Another step and her hand disappeared into a ripple in midair. She looked around the edges for some visual indication of the wall. Okay, so there was an outline… of sorts. She almost had this down. She stepped forward through the wall and past the brief shrill whoosh—and into the Rider’s base. There was a bit more ambient light than last time, but only to see a few dark boxy silhouettes along the walls and another table or two.

“Something else?” Cavalier asked over his shoulder, noticing her.

Okay, this was her chance. She was gonna have to channel all of her sly detective wit and skill to maneuver through the discussion carefully enough so as to extract the information she was looking for without him catching on to her goal.

“What’s your secret identity?” Rainbow Dash asked. She felt her subconscious slap her on the forehead with a sandal. Real smooth there, Dash, he’ll never suspect what you’re after. Half-boiled for sure.

“Wow,” Cavalier said flatly after a pause, “really?”

“Uhg, fair enough,” she sighed. “Well, instead, how about some more details on the Mirror World? What sort of a place is it? Why does it exist? Because to me it seems like it’s just there to be empty. Convenient for battles, but…”

“Isn’t that enough?” he asked.

“Come on, we’re dying to know something.”

Cavalier paused. Then he turned back to her and said with a hint of amusement, “I’ve gotta have something that keeps you coming back for more.”

Rainbow had run out of exasperated reactions, so she gave a silent mash-up of all of them. “Alright then,” she said, “just so I can say this conversation accomplished something, here’s a question that came up recently. What does ‘Kamen’ mean?”

“What, have you forgotten what’s ordinary already?”

“Nah, I dropped ‘common’ from my dictionary ages ago,” she replied. “I mean as in Kamen Rider. What’s the ‘Kamen’ part mean?”

Cavalier reached up and tapped his helmet. “Masked.”

“Oh,” she said. She paused before looking back up. “Wait, that’s it?”

* * *

The Next Day, Friday

“And now,” said the ORE newswoman, “Misty Breeze is back for an update on the weather forecast for this weekend.”

“Another reason why I should be the only one who does the weather around here,” said an annoyed Misty as the feed switched to her. “Forget everything that second-fiddle Paula Haze said yesterday. Not a single thing she told you about is going to happen! I have no idea what crazy other world she got any of it from…”

So she was no good at sneaky interrogations, that much was obvious. However, Rainbow Dash thought, maybe she could still sleuth up some truth by…wow that description sounded better before she’d put it into words. Maybe she could still find what she was after by using more “indirect” methods.

It was the brief gap before the last class of the day, and some of the students who’d skillfully juggled their free period were already leaving. Rainbow was doing her best to blend into the miniscule crowd, following a mild distance behind Flash Sentry. He was still her only guess as to who was under the masked Rider’s mask. She’d been keeping an eye on him all day, and though nothing had stood out yet, she was sure that he had to be acting a little off from usual; admittedly, perhaps just from the feeling of being watched, it’s always a hazard of observing. But there had to be something definitive somewhere. She just had to wait until there was another monster alarm. If she could gauge his reaction, or maybe even see him transf—

“Who are we stalking?” asked a sudden, decidedly pink-sounding voice. Dash jumped.

“Sssshhhhh!” she hissed, turning to find Pinkie Pie standing beside her, still tapping on her phone. “And I’m not stalking,” Rainbow added in a loud whisper, “I’m tailing him.”

Pinkie stopped tapping and thought a second. “That doesn’t sound better.”

“Uhhg,” Rainbow moaned with a facepalm. She turned back towards Flash.

“You’re reeeeeally convinced he’s the guy, huh?”

“Until I have proof for or against it,” Rainbow said, looking back to Pinkie again, “that’s my running theory.”

Pinkie looked down the hallway. “Um, your running theory is running away,” she said, pointing at Flash turning around the corner at the end. “Walking away, but stil—” Without a word, Dash took off after him, leaving Pinkie standing alone. After a second, she turned and walked away, going back to tapping on her phone. “Ooh, Cupcake Storm!” she said as she started rapidly tapping all over the screen.

Rainbow slid around the next corner but found Flash standing there as if waiting for her, arms crossed; she quickly skidded to a stop in the middle of the hall, whistling innocently.

“Something I can help you with?” Flash asked.

“Huh?” Dash said, trying to sound surprised. “Oh, hey…funny meeting you here.”

Flash gave an unconvinced stare. “Yeah, something’s up. Is there another sort of magical whatsits attacking the school again?”

“Whaaaat? Noooo…,” she said in the least convincing way humanly possible. “Why? Do you know of…one?”

Suddenly Rainbow’s ears were filled with an unmistakable whistling ringing, the mental roadmap to its source now coming in crystal clear. She looked in its direction, forgetting to check if Flash did too. Oh heck with that plan, stopping the monster was more important. “Okay, now that’s close,” she whispered to herself. “Wait, that’s not just close, it’s…,” she added, mentally looking closer before she stopped in shock, “…here.”

She took off down the hall all of thirty feet, turning around one last corner. A lone Gelnewt was slowly creeping through the locker rows down the thankfully empty hallway. How much to bet it was the same one as before?

“What’s it doing?” muttered Rainbow Dash.

“What’s what doing?” asked Flash. Rainbow turned to see that he’d followed her.

“Um, well…,” Rainbow started. Cavalier clearly hadn’t expected her to keep things a secret from her friends, but what about random other people? It seemed that Flash couldn’t see the monster…but was that just a ruse? What if Flash really was Cavalier and this was just a test? Oh, that would be so like the seemingly random old guy who later turned out to be the martial arts master you’d been looking for all along.

Her attention was drawn back to the Gelnewt as she noticed its attention had been drawn to them, Rainbow realizing that it had realized she’d realized it was there. She stepped forward, holding her arm out in front of Flash. “Your comment about the news way back then may have been a biiiit spot on,” she said back to him.

The Gelnewt took a step towards them, but Rainbow ran forward to meet it.

“Comment?” muttered Flash.

Rainbow jumped and kicked at the Gelnewt, but it grabbed her foot and pushed her flying back. She made a controlled tumble over backwards and landed in a crouch, reaching back to her pocket. She threw her left arm out forward, her Advent Deck sending light blue electricity from the silver claw symbols at the corners down her arm and to her waist. The electricity wrapped around and a silver belt materialized around from the back as she stood up, a large buckle with a square gap generating at the front. She threw her arm down to the side, pointing at the Gelnewt with her right hand. “Kamen Rider!” {Break out!}

She pushed the Deck into the gap in the buckle, the top and bottom edges clamping down onto it. It slid backwards into the void inside, a light blue light shining from behind it, and began repeatedly flipping over backwards with a whir, only the gold Gryphon symbol visible within the blur. A light blue energy sphere shot out from the belt, its equator splitting into a pair of rings that rotated past an ‘X’ and to a vertical, continuing while they now printed a suit of armor onto her. Reaching the equator again, the energy shell expanded and faded, leaving Rainbow Dash standing there as Kamen Rider Talon, bright cyan armor over a dark teal undersuit. The Gelnewt snarled in surprise, taking a step back.

“Okay,” said Flash from behind her, “well this is a new one for you.”

So she was bad at secret identities, too, Rainbow though, big whoop. One Gelnewt would be no trouble, she’d have this done before anyone else wandered by. Ah shoot, if only the rest of the girls were here to see this—she hadn’t had a safe chance yet to actually show them her new armor.

Her thoughts were interrupted by the Gelnewt charging her, but she kicked out and hit it in the chest to knock it stumbling back. She stepped forward to do a multi-hit punching move, but the first punch felt like she’d hit a rubber ball and sent the Gelnewt stumbling back again. She went forward and punched a second time, the hit seemingly bouncing it away again. Getting annoyed and still looking for a combo, she tried again, the third hit sending it farther up the hall still.

“No offense, but it just looks like you’re following a really bad training video,” Flash said from the sidelines, walking up closer along the left locker row.

Frustrated, Rainbow ran up at it again, but the Gelnewt reached over its head and pulled out its giant shuriken weapon, thrusting it forward and catching her between two of the X-prongs. She grabbed the weapon, but the Gelnewt swung it back and forth, pulling it free from her grip and then hitting her with the prongs in a spit of sparks and a metal clang. It swung at her again, and though a giant weapon like that should be easy to see coming and dodge, in a skinny hallway there’s really nowhere to dodge to, so as she tried leaning back, the sheer reach of the shuriken knocked her crashing back into the lockers. Steadying herself, she hit one with the bottom of her fist.

“Shouldn’t this guy be easy to beat since he’s alone?” she muttered in frustration. “Dumb law of inverse ninjas.”

Rainbow looked up and saw as the Gelnewt stabbed one of the shuriken’s points into a locker, poking right through the metal door like paper, and then shoved off on the other prongs like a pirate ship’s wheel, sending the shuriken spinning down the row of lockers, tearing locker doors clean off down the line right towards her.

She quickly dove to the middle of the floor, but then looked back up and saw it spin past her and keep heading for Flash. He took a step back, but otherwise only stood there with a startled look.

If he’s actually not Cavalier, flashed through Rainbow’s mind, then he won’t know what’s coming at him! “Hey,” she called, jumping back up, “watch out!”

Suddenly, a small object whizzed past Rainbow Dash’s head from behind. A spinning glint of gold flew and hit the shuriken, in a flash knocking it off course and across the hall, where it bounced off the lockers on the opposite wall, then back across and off the first wall again before clattering to the ground, still spinning but skidding to a stop. The small gold object flew back past Rainbow again, and she turned to see the Gelnewt ducking out of its way, the object continuing before it was caught in a black suit-covered hand of a figure standing further up the hall. The object was a golden horseshoe, and the hand belonged to Kamen Rider Cavalier.

Cavalier looked down the hall at Rainbow and Flash. “New friend?”

Rainbow Dash looked at Cavalier, then back at Flash Sentry, then back to Cavalier again. Dang, she thought she’d had it.

“Hey,” said Flash, “isn’t that…?”

“Um,” Rainbow replied tentatively, “maybe?”

“Heh, why am I not surprised,” Flash said.

Caught between two Riders, the Gelnewt looked down. It saw a cracked but largely intact sheet mirror from inside someone’s locker door lying on the ground near its feet. Cavalier saw this too.

“Curse it—,” he muttered as he threw the horseshoe at the Gelnewt again, but the monster had already leapt forward and was sucked into the sheet mirror’s reflection, the spinning horseshoe flying past empty air before slowing and flying back to him as if on a spring.

Rainbow ran over to the mirror. “How did he fit through this?” she asked.

“The size of the reflection doesn’t matter, just that it’s there,” said Cavalier.

“If you say so,” Rainbow said, focusing on the doorway of the reflection and seeing its surface ripple. She took a hop forward and was sucked inside and through.

Cavalier looked over at Flash one more time, which Flash returned with a silent stare, before stepping towards the mirror and warping through it.

Principal Celestia came around the corner with a look of concern, finding only the gutted locker row and Flash standing there. “I heard a commotion,” she said, “what happened this time?”

“It…,” Flash said calmly, slowly shaking his head, “all happened so quickly…”

Outside the Mirror World’s Canterlot High School, one of the windows along the “arm” of the building reaching out from the right of the front door warped, the Gelnewt leaping out. It started running away, but stopped. It turned back to see the window still rippling, then ran forward at it again.

Rainbow had been able to tell immediately upon jumping in that the Gelnewt wasn’t just going straight through to the other side of the same mirror, but she was surprised to find herself not in the normal Mirror Plane, but some sort of slipstream, almost like a tunnel slide at a water park, which could only be redirecting her down the same path the monster had taken. She was launched out through the reflection on the other side—right into the path of the charging Gelnewt.

The Gelnewt rammed into her before she could react, knocking her back as she heard something else come through behind her, then slammed into it. She and Cavalier fell to the ground as the Gelnewt gave a grunt and turned to race away again.

Rainbow Dash sprang back to her feet. Oh, this guy was getting it now. She slid open her slotter and pulled out a card. A dark teal border around the image of a tornado emulating from a set of talons, Attack 1000: Blust Vent.

“Let’s see what this one does,” she said, setting it in the open tray, rolling her eyes at the accompanying sound effect. She slid the talon cover forward over the card.
Blast Vent

Wind began swirling around her right forearm, almost like a cast over it. The effect being obvious, she drew back like a pitcher and then threw her arm forward at the escaping Gelnewt, a swirling stream of wind shooting over her open hand. The Gelnewt glanced over its shoulder to see the horizontal tornado catch up to it, pushing it away faster and lifting it into their air. It turned back forward just in time to watch as it was rammed into the raised front legs of CHS’s stone horse statue, spinning it over backward as it fell to the ground, landing on its back. Light beams shone from it as it dissipated into a cloud of black smoke.

Rainbow dropped her arm with a sigh. Then something occurred to her. Wait…

She reached to her Advent Deck and pulled out the Blust Vent card again, already back and the next in line. Yep, as she’d thought, the card said “Blust Vent”, with a ‘u’. Well, ‘bluster’ did have a wind-relevant definition, but why did the slotter announce “Blast Vent” with an ‘a’? She shook her head and slid the card away again, glancing at the base of the statue. Then she did a double take.

She walked over to the statue, staring at it. Cavalier followed up behind her. He glanced over her shoulder.

“Didn’t think he hit it that hard,” Cavalier commented.

“Yeah, that…,” Rainbow replied, “don’t think that was me.”

The back face of the statue’s base was covered in an intertwined spider web pattern of cracks.

“Well, it probably happened a while ago,” he said after a second. “Why, is something wrong?”

“Uh…,” she hesitated, “not really, no.”

After standing around for another second, Cavalier turned and walked back towards the front of the school. “I’m gonna go pick up that invisible shuriken before someone trips on it,” he said back to her.

“Y-yeah…,” she replied, not actually having heard what he’d said. He probably noticed.

As she heard Cavalier warp through a glass door or something, Rainbow de-armored. Glowing light blue lines ran along the outlines of her armor plating, a large energy ring appearing hooped vertically along her profile, splitting down the middle into two rings and sliding out left and right, pulling the image of the armor off of her.

She stepped forward and kneeled down, running her fingers along the cracks in the stone surface.

“What happened?” she asked aloud to herself. She remembered back when Sunset had stood in front of their world’s statue with a hammer, threatening to swing it. “Duh, looks like someone smashed the portal. But why?” Her finger tracing reached the center of the web of cracks, and a thought hit her. The surface was covered in cracks, but other than that, it was almost perfectly level. If the stone had been hit with something, shouldn’t there be an impact crater? The realization dawned. She looked at the stone surface as if trying to see through it. “And on which end?”

Not wanting to be gone too long, Rainbow soon slipped out of the Mirror World through the school‘s glass doors, but as she started sneaking up the main hall, she heard them warp behind her. She turned to see Cavalier standing in the reflection.

“Off to tell your friends all about what happened this time?” he asked.

“You expected me not to?” she replied, walking back to the doors.

He shrugged in reply. “Just wanted to add something else to the report.”

“Oh?” Rainbow asked, tilting her head in intrigue. He was actually offering something without prodding?

“It’s time for the next stage,” he said. “Bring them all out front here tomorrow morning. Unless you want to think that being busy somewhere else would be more worth it.” He faded from the reflection.

Rainbow crossed her arms and stared at the blank glass door. “Okay, you’ve got my attention,” she said to herself.

* * *

That night, Rainbow Dash lay awake in bed. Of course she’d passed the message on to her friends, but right now she was thinking only about the cracked statue base. Did it really mean that the connection of the portal had been broken…in the Mirror World? Maybe that was just a sign that the Mirror World didn’t have any place for it to connect to. Then why did it need a sign for that? But what if it really had been…?

She turned over, hoping in vain that it would help her fall asleep. Instead, it only brought her Advent Deck into view, sitting on her bedside table. She had an idea, but knew there had to be a reason why she shouldn’t. She lay there for another minute trying to think of one. Oh what the heck, she wasn’t sleeping anyway. She threw off the covers, reaching over and grabbing the Deck.

Rainbow appeared unarmored in the reflection of the school’s glass doors, looking to confirm there was no one around before stepping out into the darkness. She couldn’t get the Mirror World’s statue out of her mind. But she wasn’t in the Mirror World. She slowly stepped forward towards the uncracked statue in front of her world’s school. Stopping right in front of it, she raised her hand.

“I wonder…,” she muttered, reaching forward. She held her open palm up to the stone surface and slowly pushed forward. The surface beneath her hand gave a white glow and rippled, letting her hand start to pass into—she quickly pulled her hand back in surprise.

She turned and glanced around, making sure that still nobody was there. She looked back at the statue base, slowly backing away before turning to leave.

Overhead, the moon slowly climbed higher into the sky.

Next time, on “Kamen Rider EqG”…

The silhouette of a warrior with a sword stood in a red glow.

The silhouette of a warrior with a large mallet stood in an orange glow.

The silhouette of a warrior with a sword and shield stood in a purple glow.

The silhouette of a warrior with fan-shaped gauntlets stood in a pink glow.

The silhouette of a warrior with butterfly wings stood in a yellow glow.

The silhouettes of all five warriors stood together in a palate of glows: red, orange, purple, pink, and yellow.
Supernumerary Hues

Also, coming soon…

A young man sat at a table in Sugar Cube Corner, a magenta camera hanging around his neck. He held up a card bearing a faded gray image.

“No,” he said, slapping it down onto table. He held up another. “No.” Slapping that card down, he held up a third. “Definitely no.” He slapped this card down too. “Well,” he said as he gathered up the cards again and took out a flat white plastic case, flipping it open, “looks like that guy isn’t a Rider we need to find.” He slid the cards away into the case. “Good.” He was about to close it, but paused. He slid out another card. “Although…,” he humored, noting the pictured ax-wielding figure’s diamond-shaped eye cover.
Kamen Rider × Kamen Rider: EqG & Decade
The World of EqG

Chapter 6: Supernumerary Hues

Supernumerary Hues ƨɘuH yɿɒɿɘmunɿɘquƧ

The Next Morning, Saturday

Sunset’s hand rested against the back surface of the base of CHS’s horse statue. Nothing was happening.

“It was open last night, I swear,” said Rainbow Dash.

The six were standing out front of the school in the late morning, as Cavalier had instructed them to. It was Saturday, so there was no one else there.

“And I have no reason to doubt you,” Sunset replied, “but it’s already closed again.”

“But it wasn’t supposed to be open yesterday, was it?” Rainbow asked.

Sunset took a second, lowering her hand. “It’s been a while since I stopped keeping track,” she said, still staring at the stone surface, “but I don’t think it’s the right time for it to be open again. Maybe Twilight forcing it to connect to help with the Sirens messed with the cycle. I’ll have to check with her before I can say more.”

Sitting back on the school’s steps, Applejack noticed Pinkie wasn’t tapping on her phone anymore. “So what happened to the game that was ‘consuming your life’?” she asked.

“Eh, it was taking too long, so I used a cheat code,” sighed Pinkie. “It ruined the fun.”

A familiar variation of the whistling ringing came into Rainbow’s ears, and she turned to see one of the glass doors warp, Cavalier appearing in the reflection. “He’s here.”

The other girls looked around. “We’ll have to take your word for it,” said Rarity.

As if in response, Cavalier stepped out of the glass. Though they turned with a nod or an “Ah”, he noted that no one jumped at his arrival. “Good benchmark,” he muttered to himself. He said aloud, “This way,” putting his hand through the reflection to hold the way open as they filed through.

They arrived in a lit room without windows and with one door off to the side. The walls were lined with filled shelves and a cluttered desk, and several tables sat around the room. The walls were a dull gray stone, but the frame of the doorway looked almost…crystal.

“The layout of the room is a bit messy and haphazard,” commented Rarity, absorbing the sight. “It clearly wasn’t planned out how it would be used all at the beginning.”

“Is that the only thing you can talk about?” Applejack said.

Rarity crossed her arms. “Well I know no one else is going to comment on it, so that means I have to.”

Applejack was about to reply, but instead silently rocked her head back and forth and then shrugged in agreement.

Rainbow slowly spun to look around the room, fingers held out in a rectangle frame like photographers and artists always do. She didn’t know what it was supposed to do, but it looked sophisticated. “Well, I think it’s the same room,” she mumbled, before the frame moved onto Cavalier. “So you’ve finally paid the electric bill, I see.”

Cavalier gave a humored sigh, shaking his head.

“So, Mr. Kamen Rider,” Pinkie said, stepping to the front, “are you gonna tell us what this is all about?”

“In a minute,” he replied. “We’re waiting for one more.”

A girl walked through an arched hallway with walls that looked cold and crystalline. -click- She passed by the odd person or two, but always looked down. -click- They never looked at her anyway. -click- In her hand, she held a small gold object with an angled silver top. -click- There was a gold spoiler fin shape on top, and she flicked it up and down with her thumb as she walked. -click- She came to a door. Room 401. Next to the door was a box mounted to the wall with an odd hole in it. -click- She took the object in her hand and and pushed the base of it into the hole.
Lock

Rainbow and the others looked over to the door upon hearing the odd voice.

The girl outside flipped the object’s switch down.
Lock Off

The locking mechanism clicked loudly, and the girl pulled the door open a crack, flipping switch back up and using it like handle to pull object from the lock slot.
Lock On

She pulled the door open and slipped in, letting it slowly shut and looking up to see all eyes in the room lock on her. She stopped, not sure why they were staring, or which gaze to try returning. The lock clicked loudly again behind her.

The silence ticked on.

“Um,” spoke up Fluttershy, “Twilight?”

At the door stood a girl with lavender skin and dark blue hair with a purple and pink stripe, and she did look very much like Twilight when she visited them through the Mirror Portal, however…

“Wait!” Pinkie said, jumping to the front of the group and spreading her arms in defense. “Hold on a second everyone, there’s something off about her this time.”

“Oh really?” Rarity said, rolling her eyes. “What tipped you off? Was it the hairstyle?”

“The clipboard?” added Applejack.

“The lab coat?” continued Rainbow.

“Or the fact that the Twilight we know would have told us if she was coming here,” Sunset finished.

“I was gonna say the glasses, but oh yeah, all that other stuff too, I guess,” Pinkie said, realizing like the others that this had to be the Twilight from their own world. “Wait, don’t you live in the city?” Pinkie asked, then nervously glanced around. “Don’t ask me how I know that.”

“Where do you think we are?” this Twilight asked as if they should’ve passed a sign on the way in.

“I dunno,” Pinkie joked, “looks like a basement.”

Twilight pushed her glasses back up in annoyance as she answered, “It’s a laboratory at Crystal Prep Academy that I’ve been granted sole access to.”

“And how do you know someone else won’t just wander in?” Pinkie pressed.

“Because other than traveling through mirrors,” Twilight said, holding up the gold and silver object, “I have the only key.”

Pinkie stared at it for a second. “That doesn’t look very much like a key.”

Twilight answered with a smirk, “Which means that no one will know how to pick the lock.”

“Ohhh,” Pinkie said, recognizing her own brand of genius. She clicked her tongue and pointed, “Gotcha.”

“I waited patiently until that exchange was over,” interrupted Rainbow, “but whoa, whoa, whoa, this is at Crystal Prep?”

Twilight turned to Rainbow. “The fact that that’s what you decide to focus on out of everything tells volumes about what you’ve dealt with previously. In particular, I’m curious about what happened before you came across the Mirror Monsters. I’ve been recording unusual energy readings all centering around Canterlot High, and—”

“Effective transition, there,” Rainbow whispered aloud.

Twilight fell silent and took a step back, pushing her glasses back up again.

Sunset quickly stepped up and pushed Rainbow aside with an, “I think I’ll handle this. If there are unusual energy readings, it would have to be because there’s a magic portal hidden at the school that leads to another world…”

As several minutes of explaining concluded, the girls had migrated to sitting at one or another of the tables.

Still standing off to the side, Cavalier looked to Rainbow. “And that’s why you were so interested in the cracked base of the statue?”

“Uh-huh,” she answered. “If the Mirror World is a copy or something, that might mean the Portal was a part that just couldn’t be copied so it broke. Maybe.”

“Yeah…,” he mumbled, turning aside, “…if…”

“I’ve noticed you’re taking this rather calmly,” Sunset said to Twilight.

Twilight sighed. “I’m already aware of monsters from another universe attacking through a world that’s behind every mirror. If you’re telling me that there’s also a magic portal somewhere that leads to another parallel-style world populated by a different intelligent species, then that’s surely intriguing, but the potential shock value was lost long ago.”

“Well, now that that’s all settled…,” Rainbow said, pointing to Cavalier. “Your turn. Mirror World, go.”

“How about just the Mirror Monsters,” he offered.

Rainbow crossed her arms, not surprised. “That could work too.”

“Up until not too long ago,” Cavalier explained, “a ruthless alien named General Xaviax of the planet Karsh was using the Mirror Monsters as soldiers to attack a world called Ventara. Ventara, however, was protected by the original team of twelve Kamen Riders.”

“Twelve?” said Rainbow. ”Isn’t a team that big a bit crowded?”

“They thought they’d won,” he continued, “but he tricked and defeated them, Ventara falling to him, before then turning his sights on a world reached through Ventara’s mirrors, called Earth. He gave the Riders’ Advent Decks to new users there who he tried manipulating to his whim, but some stragglers of the original team and their new allies managed to take back the Decks one by one and eventually return them to their rightful owners. The team restored, they confronted Xaviax and defeated him.”

“Then what are we waiting for?” Rainbow asked, jumping up. “Why don’t we go to wherever this Xaviax guy is hiding out and kick his sorry—”

“But it’s not Xaviax in control of the Mirror Monsters this time, that’s the point,” he said, “I just said he was defeated by the Ventaran Kamen Riders.”

“That doesn’t mean anything,” she brushed off. “Any time you ‘hero defeat’ someone,” adding air quotes, “they just come back a while later to—”

“He was vaporized.”

“Iiii stand corrected,” Rainbow Dash said, taking a step back and tossing her hands up. “Also. Yikes, hardcore.”

“He was cornered in his base,” Cavalier continued, “and the Riders combined the powers of their Final Vents into a concentrated blast, finally ending the war. That’s how we know someone else is controlling the Mirror Monsters this time, because they’re too coordinated to just be acting on their own. They don’t exactly ‘think’ very much.”

“We?” asked Sunset.

“One thing’s still bugging me,” Rainbow said. “Earlier, you said that my not being able to keep this a secret was ‘part of the plan’. What’s this plan, then?”

“To introduce them to the concept of the Mirror World and give them some time to think about it,” Cavalier said, “…before this.” He turned to the table at the center of the room that none of them had been observant enough to look at until now. Lined up on it were five colored Advent Decks lacking gold symbols.

“And then the rest of us are all just brought in at once,” she said, disappointed at the repetition of theatrics, but the others were still staring in surprise. “Where do you keep getting these from, anyway?” Rainbow took out her own Deck. “Who is recommending us? And what was their criteria, ‘recruit teenagers with attitude’?”

“The Advent Master made them,” Cavalier answered.

“Ah-ha!” she exclaimed, raising a finger. “That…doesn’t answer very many questions.”

“He was the leader of the Ventaran Riders and the one who invented their equipment,” he added. “May’ve forgot to mention that first.”

“Wait…,” Pinkie said, still staring at the Advent Decks, “…gaaasp! This means—mm-Mmmph-mm!” Applejack had quickly covered Pinkie’s mouth with her hat to save everyone’s ears.

“You’re making all of us Kamen Riders?” said Sunset.

“I’m offering you the opportunity, nothing more,” Cavalier clarified. “I’ll warn you that this is quite a commitment, and the choice is entirely up to you.” He glanced over towards Twilight. “It’s not something to go into half-heartedly.”

“Pardon me,” said Rarity, “but why would you assume us capable of fighting monsters? We’re hardly black belts.”

“The Decks themselves carry the skills needed to fight,” he said. “Just pick them up and they’ll pass on the knowledge.”

Dash looked up. “Wait, my Deck didn’t do that, did it?” She stepped closer to Cavalier. “All that fighting was from me, right?” She looked to her friends and back. “Yes, no?”

Ignoring her, the other girls walked over to the table and the five Decks: red, orange, purple, pink, and yellow.

“At least we don’t have to ask whose is whose,” said Rarity as Sunset and Pinkie picked up the red and pink Decks.

“How long has the Advent Master been planning this for?” Sunset asked, inspecting the Deck as red electricity jumped across it. Cavalier looked over at her. “Five presumably new Advent Decks in three days? Unless they’re as easy to make as paper airplanes, I doubt this is a new idea.”

“Ooh, I know this one,” Rainbow interjected. “The look tells all, it says, ‘that’s enough of an info dump for right now’. Am I right?”

Before Cavalier could find a way to respond without answering, a whistling ringing started up in everyone’s ears. Rainbow knew it well, but couldn’t help but silently chuckle at the confusion on her friends’ faces upon hearing it. “That’s what I’ve been hearing since I went into that window. C’mon guys, can you listen to it without getting fired up to do something about it?”

Applejack grabbed up the orange Deck. “Nope.”

“I always learn best from field work, anyway,” Sunset said.

“I like all my friends to be happy and smile,” Pinkie said, holding up her Deck in a clenched hand, “and everyone is my friend.” She squeezed it tighter, and pink electricity sparked across it and onto her hand. “This is for their smiles.”

“Dang,” Sunset whispered, “now I wish I’d thought of something more dramatic to say.”

Rarity picked up the purple Deck, but Fluttershy’s hand hesitated over the yellow one. Twilight stared at Fluttershy without turning. Fluttershy looked across her friends and, met with a series of nods, took the yellow Deck. Twilight sighed and looked away. Then Fluttershy almost dropped the Deck as yellow electricity jumped across it.

“I’m sure their Advent Beasts await,” Rainbow said to Cavalier, who nodded to the mirror they came through, already swirling with dark clouds. Grinning, she ran to the front and announced, “Like I do, but with your cards.” A series of confused looks followed.

“The one that says ‘Contract’,” added Cavalier, “should be first in line.”

“Right…,” Rainbow muttered as the others pulled out their Contract Cards. They stood around the mirror, seeing five beasts seeming to swim amongst the clouds. The beasts looked out of the reflection and each locked eyes with one of the girls. Rainbow held out her Deck as light blue electricity streamed from it to generate a silver belt, pulling it back and pointing forward with a call of, “Kamen Rider!” She slid the Deck into the belt’s slot and it was clamped in, sliding back and spinning before light blue energy rings and a sphere projected out, the rings spinning up and around, overlaying a teal suit with cyan armor plates onto her, the rings and sphere fading.

The five girls raised their cards to the mirror, each reflecting a different beast, and called in unison, “{Kamen Rider!}” The five beasts burst from the mirror at once and at the girls, each diving through their Contract Card and absorbing into them.

A humanoid red lion with a mane made of alternating gold strips and red vents pounced through Sunset’s card and into her, turning the world dark around her. An image of the lion rose up behind her and dropped down, and with a burst of flames, her Advent Deck was sitting in a silver belt. A line of sparks ran up the Deck and expanded into the golden emblem of a lion’s face with maw open. The Deck slid back and began spinning, projecting a red energy sphere with rings that spun up and around, overlaying a suit onto Sunset before fading. Her suit was dark gray with red armor plates arranged like Cavalier and Talon’s suits, and golden shoulder pads; a red lion’s head and upper jaw device with a red and gold mane was attached to her left forearm; her helmet was red with flared gold streaks on top and a slitted silver faceplate sculpted like a lion’s with a pair of canine teeth bordering an indented mouth cover.

“Kamen Rider Leona,” Cavalier said.

A metal orange kangaroo jumped feet-first through Applejack’s Contract Card and absorbed into her, turning the world dark around her. Its image leapt up behind her and stomped down, in a flash from a seismic wave her Advent Deck appearing in a silver belt. A line of sparks ran up it and expanded into the golden emblem of a full kangaroo staring forward with its tail curving up to its left and gaps for its arms and pouch. The Deck slid back and spun, projecting an orange energy sphere with rings that spun up and around, overlaying a suit onto Applejack before fading. Her suit was dark gray with orange armor plates; a second thick orange belt just above her silver one also bore the kangaroo symbol on a square button at the front; her shoulder pads were dark gray and had orange lines running down the front, resembling paws; her helmet was orange with a slitted silver faceplate bearing ear shapes tilted back across the top of the helmet.

“Kamen Rider Vault,” said Cavalier.

A large metal white egret with alternating white and purple wing feathers and purple feather streaks across its body flew beak-first through Rarity’s Contract Card and absorbed into her, turning the world dark around her. The egret’s image rose up and wrapped its wings around her from behind, and in a flurry of falling feathers, her Advent Deck was sitting in a silver belt. A line of sparks ran up it and expanded into the golden emblem of a crouched egret, its feet and beak aiming down and being arched by a pair of curves bearing spikes akin to the top of a wrought iron fence. The Deck slid back and spun, projecting a purple energy sphere with rings that spun up and around, overlaying a suit onto Rarity before fading. Her suit was plum purple with white armor plates; attached to her left forearm was a long white wing attachment stretching back from wrist to elbow, feathers alternating white and purple with a light blue diamond-shaped gem embedded at the base; her chestplate was an inverted white trapezoid speckled with purple spots, and her shoulder pads were long and sharp and pointed straight out; her helmet was white and bore a silver faceplate looking like a pair of bird wings reaching up from the bottom, slits running in a fan array to follow the feathers, and a long slim beak pointing down from the top.

“Kamen Rider Grace.”

A metal pink platypus with silver feet, tail, and a silver bill bearing a pair of pink racing stripes dove through Pinkie’s Contract Card, absorbing into her and turning the world dark around her. Its image sprang up behind her and spun forward to splash down, in a spray of water her Deck appearing in a silver belt. A line of sparks ran up it and expanded into the golden emblem of a platypus’s face and bill looking down, with its front webbed claws on either side. The Deck slid back and spun, projecting a pink energy sphere with rings that spun up and around, overlaying a suit onto Pinkie before fading. Her suit was light pink with silver armor plates; attached to her upper left leg was a pink platypus-shaped device latched on by its claws, facing up; her chestplate was a semicircular silver plate with pink spoke lines running from the center, and thin silver shoulder pads angled down over her shoulders; her helmet was light pink with the patchwork scaly pattern a platypus’s beaver-like tail sculpted on top, also with a slitted silver faceplate with a short bill-like visor above her eyes.

“Kamen Rider Dynamo.”

A metal butterfly with a segmented yellow body and large transparent pink wings flew at Fluttershy, but pulled up and arced over backwards before flying through her Contract Card, absorbing into her and turning the world dark around her. Its image floated up behind her and closed its wings around her, in a cloud of sparkling pink dust her Deck appearing in a silver belt. A line of sparks ran up it and expanded into the golden emblem of a butterfly’s profile, a point on each of its four wing segments. The Deck slid back and began spinning, projecting a yellow energy sphere with rings that spun up and around, overlaying a suit onto Fluttershy before fading. Her suit was pale yellow pink wrist and shin plates; a large butterfly-shaped shield was strapped to her left wrist, with a light blue body and transparent pink wings, head and antennae pointing up her arm; she had a silver chestplate with a pink hourglass shape in the middle, and additional silver pads were strapped onto her arms just below her shoulders in lieu of shoulder pads; her helmet was pale yellow with a large slitted silver faceplate shaped like a butterfly.

“And Kamen Rider Monarch,” Cavalier finished.

The five new Riders looked over their armor with a chorus of “ooh”s and “ahh”s.

“Heh, AJ got a kangaroo,” Rainbow taunted.

Applejack planted her foot. “I don’t want a single ‘Kangaroo Jack’ reference, y’hear?”

“Yes, platypus!” exclaimed Pinkie. “No other animal could fit me so perfectly.”

“There’s time for all this later,” Cavalier said, walking to the mirror as it began to warp. “Now is the time for putting your new powers to the test.”

“Alright, then. Let’s go, Kamen Riders!” Pinkie shouted, pumping her fist to the sky. “Anyone up for planning a group roll call?”

“And give the monsters an open invitation to attack you first?” spoke up Twilight from the side.

“Kinda rude,” Rainbow said, “but has a point.”

“Well fine,” sighed Pinkie, crossing her arms, “no roll call, then.” She glanced over at the blank wall and started thinking.

Cavalier walked through the mirror, Rainbow waving her arm for the others to follow. “Let’s ride.”

An empty city parking lot next to the street, shaded by the nearby buildings. A small swarm of Gelnewts prowled the lot, looking around. Standing at the center was a different monster, dark bronze with a silver chestplate, large perforated pads draping off its shoulders, a dull golden crescent knuckleduster on the back of each hand, and a cicada head with large lime green eyes and another perforated pad draped down its back: Sonora Boomer. It made a grated chittering sound as it strolled among the footsoldiers.

“Oh, little Riders,” mused the mysterious figure watching the area on a holographic screen from his dark hideout. “Come out, come out, wherever you are. I’ve got a surprise waiting for you.”

The Sonora Boomer hissed as it turned to the warping of several nearby windows, before a full row of seven Advent Cycles jumped out and touched down, skidding to a stop. Their covers raised and out stepped the full team of Kamen Riders.

“W-h-what!?” the figure stuttered. “Seven Riders? Oh, now that is just cheating. Only I’m allowed to do that!”

The Gelnewts moved to flank the Riders, the Sonora Boomer twitching as it snarled at them.

“Looks like you expanded the team just in time,” commented Sunset.

“Nah,” replied Cavalier, “this crowd is actually a bit disappointing.”

Pinkie stepped forward and pointed her thumb at herself. “Protectors of the right, defenders sworn to fight! Ha!” She turned back to the group. “See? There was enough time for a catchphrase.” {Time to fight!}

“You guys practice with the squints,” Rainbow said, rubbing her palms together, “let the experts handle this new creep.” She charged the Sonora Boomer and jumped to kick her shin at it, but it blocked with its crescent knuckleduster and shouted a chittering screech in her face. She and a nearby Gelnewt stumbled back, and the Sonora Boomer punched her in the chest, launching her skidding across the ground. The Gelnewts darted in, racing past her to the new Riders, ignoring Cavalier as he walked up to Rainbow.

“Interesting tactic, ‘expert’,” he said. “Trying to lull it into a false sense of confidence?”

“Oh, shut up.”

Cavalier turned to the Sonora Boomer and reached for his Deck but stopped and paused before giving a chuckle. He took out a card and held it up so Rainbow could only see the back, looking over his shoulder at her. “Watch the real expert at work.” He slotted the card and closed the horseshoe device.
Guard Vent

He held up his left arm as a circular shield bearing his gold Horse symbol and a gold horseshoe stretched around the border dropped from the sky. It flew down and latched onto his arm and he charged forward with it.

“Showoff!” Rainbow called after him.

Rarity and Applejack backed up to each other as a group of Gelnewts surrounded them.

“I can believe that the decks gave us fighting knowledge,” Rarity said, “but there’s a fine line between knowledge and actual skill.”

“Punch and kick,” said Applejack. “Sounds simple enough, what more is there?”

“It’s just that this isn’t the ideal time to be putting that to the test.”

“If you’re really that worried, then don’t think about it.” Applejack grabbed Rarity’s arm and spun her around to face a pair of Gelnewts rushing them. “Right punch!” she shouted, throwing her fist forward at one of them, Rarity quickly trying to mirror her action at the other. The hits collided, Rarity’s fist bringing the second Gelnewt to a stop, but AJ’s sending the first tumbling back. Rarity’s Gelnewt moaned.

“…Mind if we switch armor?” Rarity asked. The Gelnewt reached at her, but Applejack kicked out and knocked it away.

Sunset was grappling with a Gelnewt, managing to break her arms free of its grip and shove it back. Remembering Rainbow’s description of Advent Card usage, she looked closely at the lion head armament on her left forearm, noticing a set of sliding tracks along the sides of its face. She grabbed the red-and-gold striped mane and pushed it forward, the solid piece sliding over the lion’s eyes as the snout split open like a pair of scissors to reveal a card slot. The Gelnewt took its shuriken weapon off its back and swung, Sunset springing back out of the way. She pulled out a card and, briefly glimpsing the image of a sword over a red flame background, slid it into the slot and pulled the mane back into place, the snout halves snapping back together as the lion’s eyes flashed.
Sword Vent

With a flash in the sky above, a sword spun down. Sunset leapt forward at the Gelnewt, catching the sword in midair and bringing down, but the Gelnewt raised its shuriken and caught the strike. Sunset grabbed the sword’s hilt in both hands before realizing this gave her the least leverage at this close of quarters.

The Gelnewt pushed the shuriken closer, Sunset barely able to hold the shuriken or her own blade more than a few inches from her, too close for letting go of the sword to grab the Gelnewt’s weapon to work. The sword itself had a red hilt with a crossguard of a red and gold lion head similar to her slotter, a thin, lightly curved silver katana blade extending from its open mouth. Then its eyes flashed and a jet of flames shot from the mouth across the blade, turning the shuriken to ash and cleaving through the Gelnewt before Sunset even tried pushing harder. The Gelnewt stumbled back and dropped to its knees, a cloud of flames from the gash engulfing it and dissipating to leave nothing.

Sunset stared impressed at the sword as the flames died away. She looked up to see a pair of Gelnewts approaching, one throwing its shuriken. She quickly ducked and held up the sword, the shuriken slicing itself in half against it, and the halves clattering to the ground behind her. She stood back up and swiped the sword down to the side for dramatic effect, but a slash of fire jumped from the blade and flew over to the Gelnewts, bursting on the ground at their feet. Again surprised but taking every advantage, Sunset flicked the sword, another spurt of flames shooting from the lion head’s mouth and setting the blade on fire. She swung the sword left and right in front of her, sending a zigzagging trail of flame flying at the Gelnewts.

Pinkie slid her hand up the platypus armament attached to her left leg, hearing a click as she pushed on the silver bill; she let go and it popped open to reveal a card slot. Several Gelnewts were approaching.

“Alright,” she said, “time to face the danger of too much pink power.” She reached to her Deck. “Heart of the cards, guide me. I choose you!” She pulled the top card out and passed it to her left hand without looking at it, sliding it into the slot and snapping the bill shut, the platypus’s eyes flashing.
Cover Vent

Pinkie took a battle stance, ready for whatever effect the card would give her. She exploded in a burst of confetti and disappeared. The Gelnewts stopped and looked around for a sneak attack, but nothing happened. They turned to each other confused.

Pinkie blinked, finding herself standing in an empty alley. “Hello?” she called. She heard grunts, hits, and clangs a short distance away, following them and hoisting herself up to look over a fence, finding the battle. “Whoops,” she muttered. “Yeah, should probably…look at the card next time.” She tried pulling herself over the fence, but to no avail, kicking her legs in an attempt to run up it.

Cavalier grabbed the rim of his circular shield and pushed it forward, making it spin faster and faster until it ramped up to the speed of a buzz saw. He ran up to the Sonora Boomer as it ran at him, but stopped and held the spinning shield up horizontally, letting the monster run into it with a spray of sparks, a split second later the two tabs at the end of the horseshoe design spinning around and hitting it with a spark burst, sending it spinning and tumbling over to its right.

“And they said I couldn’t learn anything useful from BattleBots,” Cavalier said.

Sonora got back to its feet, still woozy, and Cavalier swung his shield at it again. It held up its crescent knuckledusters in defense, but the impact of the spinning shield knocked them clean off in a burst of sparks, leaving the tops of Sonora’s hands smoking.

“Whatever the style, whatever the angle…”

He jumped and kicked the dazed Sonora back a step, then jumped and spun around left, throwing his left arm back and up as Sonora was behind him, the shield’s tabs slamming Sonora in the chin, snapping its head up and sending it flying back, crashing to the ground as Cavalier touched down.

“…spinners are some frightening weapons.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Rainbow said standing on the sidelines. Hearing a chittering sound behind her, she turned in time to see a second Sonora Boomer punch her over.

A Gelnewt ran up to a fight but stopped, not reacting fast enough as another Gelnewt flew into it and knocked it over. Applejack turned and kicked another Gelnewt away, the monster sliding to a stop and evaporating into a black cloud. She was keeping the swarm back while Rarity stood looking at her equipment. One took a step towards Rarity, but AJ made a slight jump at it, the Gelnewt tripping over its feet attempting to retreat as the Gelnewts standing behind it took a good step back.

Taking her cue from Sunset, Rarity was trying to open the white and purple wing armament on her left forearm, tapping the light blue diamond before finding that the wing bent at the “elbow”, the back half with the tip swinging around to reveal an open card tray attached to its inner edge.

“How does this work,” she asked, reaching to her Deck, “it just gives you the card you want or something?” She pulled out a deep blue card with the image of a white shield and “Guard 2000” at the bottom corner.

Applejack leaned over to see the card. “Seems to fit with what you’re actin’ like you’re after.” She looked at her empty left arm, then down at the extra orange belt above her silver one, grabbing it to find something to trigger.

Rarity slid her card into the tray, swinging the outer wing half back into place as the card tray slid back under the feathers of the inner half and the blue diamond flashed.
Guard Vent

Her large white and purple egret Advent Beast flew from the roof of the building behind them, in a flash dropping down a glowing object; Rarity caught it by a handle at the back to find a small white shield shaped like a pair of wings curving down to form an arch, several evenly spaced thin purple feathers along the wings pointing out like wheel spokes, and a white egret head at the center of the front with a long gold beak pointing down. The shield was no more than a foot wide.

“Well a shield this small isn’t going to do very much good,” Rarity said.

Investigating the wide box at the front of the orange belt, Applejack pushed the large square button with her gold Kangaroo symbol on it, and a card tray popped up from the top of the box.

“Of course it does,” she sighed to herself. What’s a kangaroo motif without a pouch reference?

Rarity let out a yipe as two Gelnewts rushed her from the side opposite Applejack, turning the shield to them and looking away as she pressed the button she saw at the top of the handle. The thin purple feathers sprung out as spines along the top and sides of the rim, and the Gelnewts stopped in their tracks in caution, but nothing else happened. Rarity peeked to see them looking at the shield curiously. Then the eyes of the egret head on the shield flashed, and a light blue energy wave burst out and knocked the Gelnewts back.

Rarity looked up to see a screen of light blue energy running between the spines like a fan, effectively doubling the shield’s diameter. “Have at thee!” she shouted, running at the stunned Gelnewts and slashing at the one in front with the edges of the shield, the second one trying to back away.

Applejack slid out a yellow-orange card showing an orange sledgehammer with an odd head and “Attack 3000”, setting it into the vertical tray and pushing it back down, a pair of beads by the sides of the box flashing.
Pound Vent

In a flash, a large orange hammer object about as tall as her dropped down and she caught it with both hands. Its long handle was simple enough, but the mallet end looked like a pair of large paw feet with their soles pressed together, clamping the end of the handle between them.

One of a trio of Gelnewts pushed another towards her, and it unwillingly charged in as the other two followed. Applejack raised the sledgehammer above her head and swung it down like she was playing that carnival game, slamming it onto the ground right in front of the group, shockwaves from the impact bouncing them into the air and sending them flying past her.

Meanwhile, Pinkie crossed her arms and glared at the wall. She turned and strolled away, then turned back and ran at it.

Fluttershy pulled every card out of her Deck one by one as she backed away from a lone Gelnewt approaching her. Staring desperately at a six-card hand for an idea of what would work, her back ran into a wall. The Gelnewt pulled out its shuriken and swung it at her, but as she threw her arms up in defense, the butterfly shield on her left forearm blocked the shuriken. Letting out a gasp of encouragement, she pushed with the shield, swinging it left for the wing to slash the Gelnewt back with a spray of sparks. The swing also dislodged the front right wing segment of the shield (back left for the butterfly design itself), and it swung out forward on a hinge at the corner to reveal an extended card slot attached to the butterfly’s body that the wing had been sheathed over.

As the Gelnewt steadied itself, Fluttershy decided she didn’t have time to decide on a card, looking away and drawing one at random from the array. She slid it into the slot and pulled the wing segment back over it, clicking it into place.
Wing Vent

The Gelnewt pulled the shuriken back and charged, but a shadow fell over them as a large butterfly passed by overhead, in a flash dropping a pair of objects. They attached onto Fluttershy’s back as a pair of clear pink butterfly wings, and she jumped up as the Gelnewt’s shuriken embedded itself in the wall.

Fluttershy found herself floating about ten feet above the Gelnewt as it tried and failed to pull its weapon from the wall. It looked up and threw something at her, Fluttershy kicking off of the wall as a glob of green slime splattered where she’d just been. The Gelnewt pulled on the slime cord still tracing back to its hand and leapt up, grabbing onto the wall and reaching after her. She’d floated out over the middle of the battlefield, turning back to face it and accidentally spinning an extra time around in the process. Hoping her luck would hold, she grabbed another random card and slotted it.
Flutter Vent

Glowing pink butterflies faded in, floating in an arch around her as the Gelnewt tilted its head. A second later they turned to pink metal, shooting forward and strafing the wall, exploding on contact. Chunks of cement fell to the ground as a black cloud evaporated from the impact point.

Behind a group of Gelnewts that had seen their opponent disappear and not come back, Pinkie launched over the wall, flailing through the air before tumbling to the ground and springing back up like no one saw that.

“Okay,” she panted, “Riders have a boost to their jumping, good to know.”

The Gelnewts turned to the commotion and saw her, stepping forward. Pinkie pulled out a card and actually looked at it this time: gravel grey bearing the image of her silver and pink platypus Advent Beast, Pinkrhynch, Attack 3000.

“You’re up, platypus,” she said, slotting the card into the platypus contraption’s bill. “Impress me.”
Attack Vent

The Gelnewts tensed in preparation for her attack. Seconds passed. Confident in another dud, the center Gelnewt rolled its head back and stepped forward. And suddenly fell into the ground with a splash. Between the other Gelnewts was a silvery puddle of…mirror. A second later, the Gelnewt was catapulted out of the puddle by a large flat pink and silver checkered metal tail, flying and ramming into the wall of a nearby building. A pink and silver blur sprang from the puddle and spun around, knocking the other Gelnewts away before splashing back into the puddle. The pink head and silver bill of Pinkrhynch splashed up again, and he made an excited honking noise at Pinkie.

She smirked. “You pass.”
Strike Vent

Rainbow caught the gryphon talon gauntlets and ducked below the next swipe of the second Sonora Boomer, ramming her shoulder into it to shove it back. She swiped with a gauntlet, but Sonora caught it with a knuckleduster; it punched with its free hand, but she caught its knuckleduster in her free gauntlet. It pushed against her and she tried bracing her stance, but got an idea.

“Take this, insect!” she shouted. Talons firmly latched onto Sonora, she jumped up and stepped on its face, rapidly stomping it with each foot in turn, with the final hit kicking off and tearing her talons free in a rain of sparks, flipping over backwards to land as Sonora stumbled back.

In a ploy to defend itself, the first Sonora let loose another chittering screech at Cavalier. Straining through the noise, he spun up his shield again and swung his arm, throwing the shield humming with speed through the air. It cut through the sound and hit Sonora, grinding it with a shower of sparks before shooting up and knocking Sonora over. Cavalier watched the shield’s path and held up his left arm. A second later it dropped down, pushing Cavalier’s arm down as it latched back into place, spinning to a stop.

Sunset slashed through two more Gelnewts, the monsters disappearing into flames and smoke. Having cleared her immediate area, she passed her sword to her left hand in reverse grip, pulling out another card: medium gray with a gold circle in the upper left corner and no number, showing the image of a medieval sword floating in front of a trifold vanity mirror, a reflection of itself in each pane.

“Pack Vent?” she read. I wonder… She slotted it.
Pack Vent

The sword in her hand started glowing and six faded copies spun out in a circle before flying off in different directions. Six very specific directions.

Applejack was resting against the handle of her sledgehammer as Rarity swung her shield at the last few nervous Gelnewts around them, when glowing copies of Sunset’s sword flew into their hands and solidified with a fading ring. They looked at their new weapons in surprise.

A copy flew into Rainbow’s grip, shattering away her gauntlets in the process. As Cavalier raised his shield and prepared to attack his Sonora Boomer, a copy flew into his right hand.

Pinkie turned to see a copy fly up in front of her and grabbed it from the air, tipping it at Sunset with a call of, “Snap!”

As Fluttershy floated back to the ground, Wing Vent shattering away, a copy flew into her hands.

The Gelnewts around Rarity and Applejack backed farther away, AJ simply watching as Rarity chased after them with her new sword.

Pinkie spun in front of a Gelnewt, leaning sideways and pointing her sword at it. “Mind if I defeat you?” she taunted.

The Gelnewt snarled and took out its shuriken, raising it, but a spray of sparks came from its back and it collapsed into a cloud of flames to reveal Pinkie standing behind it. “Sorry, couldn’t hear ya!” said the second Pinkie.

The first Pinkie pulled out a card: green border, image of five Kamen Rider Dynamo helmets on a pale pink background with an X-shaped glint from the center helmet, Attack 1000.
Trick Vent

“Oh, I am gonna love this one,” she said.

The Gelnewt Pinkrhynch had catapulted into a wall got to its feet and swayed as it looked around for that infernal pink Rider, instead seeing a yellow one. Close enough. It growled as it stumbled at Fluttershy, Fluttershy taking a step back but stopping. She held up her sword and took a deep breath.

“Be brave,” she whispered to herself, “be brave, be brave, be brave, be—”

The Gelnewt lunged at her and she raised the sword, its blade flaming up, but as she brought it down she let go and shrank back. The loose flaming blade fell down through the Gelnewt, the monster collapsing into a cloud of flame. Fluttershy let out a sigh of relief.

Seeing the army of Gelnewts quickly diminishing, another thought occurred to Sunset, and she pulled out and checked another card.

Rainbow ran at Sonora and slammed her sword onto it, but the blade stopped, Sonora grabbing it and shoving back against her. Rainbow dug her heels in, but was slowly sliding backwards. Sonora let loose another chittering screech, but Rainbow only pushed back harder, the blade flaming up and bursting through Sonora as she ducked past it. Sonora screeched and exploded, a ball of energy floating up from the site, which Aquileo flew through to absorb.
Sword Vent

Cavalier caught his own sword in his left hand as he ran at the first Sonora, jumping up and kicking it in the chest. As he landed, he spun left, slashing both swords across it at once, stopping facing away in an epic pose as Sonora collapsed to the ground and exploded behind him. Its energy floated over to a waiting Caballkhan.

Sunset slid the card into her slotter but left it open, tossing her sword aside to clatter loudly on the ground. “Hey, mooks!” she called, holding up her left arm and putting her hand on the slotter’s lion mane. “Think you useless clowns can even take on an unarmed opponent?”

The dozen or so remaining Gelnewts crowding around Pinkie and dodging Rarity turned to Sunset, as did the other Riders. Dismissing their current adversaries, the Gelnewts rushed over to form a ring around her. Applejack took a step over before realizing she needed both hands for her sledgehammer and got caught up on which weapon to ditch.

“Sunset, what are you doing?” called Rainbow. She started to race over.

“Stay back, I got this,” Sunset called to stop her. “I hope,” she added under her breath. She looked around as the crowd of Gelnewts closed in, waiting for them all to pass a mentally drawn line. As the last one stepped over, she took a deep breath. “This worked in ‘The Last Starfighter’…” She pulled the lion mane down, snapping the slotter closed.
Sun Vent

Yellow and red energy began shining from her armor, quickly building up into a layer around her, the Gelnewts stopping in surprise and curiosity. Sunset crouched down before quickly standing up and throwing her right arm into the air, unleashing a blinding burst of yellow and red energy in the shape of her yin-yang sun cutie mark. The Gelnewts were blasted back, the closest ones vaporizing in midair, the others falling to the ground before disintegrating.

Sunset stood breathing deeply, looking around to find the pavement around her feet scorched black and the air still sweltering.

“Wowza,” Pinkie said, running over with the others.

Rainbow put her hand on Sunset’s shoulder. “Maybe read us in on your plan next time,” she chuckled.

In his dark base, the mysterious figure waved his hand to flip the screen away from the scene, turning away.

“Well, that just about exhausted my supply of expendables,” he sighed in frustration. “I’ll have to be more conservative from now on. But at least things promise to remain interesting.”

As the figured weighed his options for his next move, he heard a pittering sound. He turned back to the screen to see in its new feed that it was beginning to rain somewhere. He smiled.

Its location no longer a secret, the new Riders were led back to their base as Cavalier gave a brief tutorial on how to navigate in the Mirror Plane.

Standing around the lab, Pinkie held up her Attack Vent card.

“Well, Pinkrink,” she said, “I think this looks like the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”

Cavalier looked over her shoulder at the name on the card.

“Uh, its name is pronounced ‘Pinkrhynch’,” he said. {Pinkie said it “rih”nk sounding like “pink”; Cavalier said it “rai”nk sounding like “lie”.}

“Nope,” Pinkie shrugged off, “Pinkrink rhymes better, so that’s what I’m calling him.”

Cavalier shrugged and walked off.

“You know it’s a he?” asked Sunset.

“Well, duh,” Pinkie said, holding up a card labeled Spur Vent showing a webbed claw foot with a large hooked spur at the end. “Why else would he have venomous spurs on his feet? Only male platypusususes—platywhatsits have them.”

“Venomous spurs?” Applejack spoke up. “Land sakes, is every critter from Australia deadly in some way?”

Pinkie shrugged. “Why else would their motto be, ‘You better run, you better take cover’?”

“Don’t think that’s what it is,” Applejack said suspiciously.

“But isn’t it?” said Pinkie.

“Well, that about wraps things up for now,” Rainbow said, clapping her hands together. “Need me to show you the way back to the school from here?”

“Before you go, just one question,” said Twilight. Without turning, she pointed up at the wall, asking a flat, “What’s that?”

Rainbow looked up to see a poster hanging on the wall with their Advent Deck symbols on it: indigo Horse symbol at center; cyan Gryphon, orange Kangaroo, and pink Platypus symbols on right side; red Lion, purple Egret, and yellow Butterfly symbols on left; and the letters ‘KRC’ written in bold underneath them. The group all turned to Pinkie. She smiled nervously back at them.

“What?” she said. “It’s a poster for the Kamen Rider Club. Y’know…us?”

Twilight slowly arced her hand over to facepalm, pushing her glasses down her face. “When did you even…”

“I can…take it down.”

Next time, on “Kamen Rider EqG”…

A pair of wide hands ringed in suction cups grabbed the head of a large orange hammer mid-swing.

The whistling ringing echoed in their ears.

Talon and Cavalier stood in an alleyway as a blast erupted from the ground near their feet.

“It sounds like it’s comin’ from all over,” said Applejack.

Amidst a heavy downpour, a green and silver monster stood holding a pair of razor-barbed swords.

“Three different locations to be exact,” Cavalier said.

Fluttershy pushed open the door to room 401 before stopping with a surprised gasp.
Chromatic Dispersion

Also, available now…

“When two mirrors face each other, they reflect an infinite number of worlds. You have been following the events unfolding in one of these worlds. But what might have happened in another? Perhaps the other Rider story will tell you. Prepare for your journey through the worlds.”

A dark room. A set of chains rattled, and down from the ceiling descended a painted mural depicting the front of a school with the life-sized statue of a horse reared atop a pedestal. The mural gave a brief flash.
Kamen Rider × Kamen Rider: EqG & Decade
The World of EqG

Author's Note

Now available: Kamen Rider EqG: A Visual Guide - The Good Riders, a gallery of rough images I made for the new Rider suits.

Chapter 7: Chromatic Dispersion

Author's Note

Alternate Title: Riders on the Storm

Chapter 7: Chromatic Dispersion

Chromatic Dispersion noiƨɿɘqƨiᗡ ɔiƚɒmoɿʜƆ

It was a dark and stormy night, the sound of rain pounding hard everywhere but not a raindrop in sight. That wasn’t her concern, though.

Sunset hit the ground, her Kamen Rider Leona armor clanking against the asphalt. Sword in hand, she pushed herself up to look upon the mass of obscure shadowy shapes gathered before her. Sonora Boomer stood at the front, glowing green eyes on a dark silhouette, each monster past it growing nastier and blurrier. A demonic chorus of snarls and hisses writhed through the air.

Getting up to a knee, Sunset pulled a card out of her Advent Deck, but as she caught a glimpse of it, she hesitated. She’d been trying not to use this one, it was too risky, but it looked like she had no choice. She slid it into the slot and pushed the slotter’s lion mane back.
Attack Vent

A mirror surface appeared on the ground in front of her and a red humanoid figure with a lion’s head leapt out, roaring at the monsters. Pantheraleo, her Advent Beast. The mob of shadows shrieked at him, but he roared back louder, jets of flames slipping through the transparent red vents between the golden stripes of his mane.

Sunset took her chance to get back to her feet, but as she looked down to push off from the ground, a realization struck her. The chorus of growls and snarls continued as before, but though she knew that Pantheraleo was among the cacophony, she couldn’t tell which roar was his. The lion blended perfectly into the dissonance. Too perfectly.

As Sunset stood up and raised her sword to fight, Pantheraleo let his roar fade silent against the monsters’ hissing whispers. “Let’s go!” she called.

For a second, Pantheraleo didn’t move. Suddenly he spun and raked his claws across her torso, splintering the blade of her sword and sending her falling back again in a shower of sparks.

Pain and shock vied for her focus as she lay on the ground, her sword’s blade reduced to a five-inch severed stub with a smoking tip. She looked up at the towering Pantheraleo, the roiling wall of silhouettes seemingly chittering in amusement.

“Wh… what?” Sunset muttered. “Why are you doing this?”

“Why?” came a reply she knew was from Pantheraleo. Sunset held back a gasp as she recognized the new voice as her own, and yet… not. She knew who it was from.

Pantheraleo’s body suddenly erupted into flames. “Because you think I will,” continued the voice. The flames turned blue and burst away as a pair of wings flared open, and standing there now was Sunset’s red-skinned demon form from when she’d corrupted Twilight’s crown. The demon stared at her with her black pit eyes and gave a sly grin. “Now, what could have given you that idea?”

No, Sunset thought. What’s she doing here? Why again?

Demon Sunset raised her hands and quickly charged a large blue fireball, throwing it at Sunset, who quickly raised her arms to—

Sunset jolted awake in the dark room, breathing a sigh. She turned in her sleeping bag to look at her Advent Deck sitting on the floor beside her, instead finding herself looking into the eyes of the image of Pantheraleo on his Attack Vent card resting atop the Deck; he was in front of a mesh of fire on the dark gravelly card, Attack 5000. She froze. She hadn’t taken his card out.

Then she heard a variant of the whistling ringing she’d heard before. Her eyes were drawn to the framed picture of her and her friends sitting next to the Deck, and the glass cover that began to warp. Pantheraleo’s face moved into view in the reflection, staring at her.

She quickly reached out and slammed the picture down onto the floor, holding it down as the whistling ring slowly died away. She grabbed the Deck, returned the card, and slid out of the sleeping bag to toss the Deck into her open backpack propped against the wall. Doing that made a noise, and she heard a stir from elsewhere in the room, but luckily they didn’t wake up. She carefully slipped back into her sleeping bag, but kept the picture facedown just in case.

* * *

The Next Day, Sunday

“Who else’s got Strike Vent?” Rainbow Dash asked the crowd, holding up the orange-bordered card with a picture of her cyan metal eagle talon gauntlets, Attack 2000. The girls were gathered on and around Pinkie’s bed comparing Advent Cards in some mash-up of poker and go fish.

“Ooh,” piped Pinkie, “I do!” She held up her own orange card showing a pair of pink and silver metal webbed-claw gauntlets shaped vaguely like handheld paper fans, Attack 2000.

Rainbow and Pinkie looked around at the others. Sunset shook her head.

“That’s it?” Rainbow said.

“Apparently,” Pinkie responded. Applejack shrugged.

“Huh,” said Rainbow. “Something so generic, thought there’d be more.”

Sunset held up the dark purple card of her katana with a red and gold lion head crossguard. “How ’bout Sword Vent?”

“I’ve got that one,” said Rarity, holding up a dark purple card showing a straight conical beak-like sword that was gold on the front half and silver on the back half. “If only I’d known that sooner.”

“Mine’s stronger,” Sunset countered, tapping the Attack 3000 in the lower right corner of her card. Rarity looked at her own card to see it read only 2000.

“Well…,” Rarity said slowly, sifting through her other card, “what about Splash Vent?” She held up a seafoam green card with a group of four harpoon-tipped water tendrils.

“That looks like a burst of water, right?” asked Rainbow, fishing out another card. “A burst of wind’s close enough, Blast Vent.” She turned over her dark teal Blust Vent showing a tornado shooting from a set of talons. “Ignore the spelling.”

“Close enough? Hardly,” Rarity countered.

“Think I’ve got a winner,” Pinkie interjected, “Cover Vent.” She held out a magenta card showing the figure of her Rider armor dispersing into a cloud of multicolored confetti, no Attack number.

“Oh, I have one, too,” said Fluttershy, showing her own magenta card with her Rider armor dispersing into a cloud of pink butterflies. She held up another card, this one sky blue showing a pair of disconnected pink butterfly wings, Attack 1000. “Wing Vent?”

“Oh, come on!” cried out Rainbow, slapping down her own Wing Vent card in frustration, showing a set of silver eagle wings connected by a silver pack, Attack 2000. “That was supposed to be my ace in the hole.”

“Um, I did use it during that fight, remember?” said Fluttershy.

“Oh, um…I was distracted,” Rainbow replied sheepishly.

“Well,” said Sunset, “I think I have the winning hand with three unique cards.” She tossed them down in front of her one by one. “Sun…Burn…and Pack.” The cards were bright red with a glowing transparent spherical shell of yellow and red halves separated by a wavy border, Attack 2000; dark red-orange with her Rider armor covered in flames, Attack 2000; and medium gray with a medieval broadsword floating in front of a trifold vanity mirror display, each mirror reflecting the sword, no number.

“No fair,” said Rarity, laying down her cards like she was folding on a hand of poker. “I only have five cards, the rest of you all have six.”

“Hold up there, Sunset,” Applejack said. “Pound. Brawl. Quake.” Applejack lay down her own trio of cards: yellow-orange with an orange mallet made from a pair of kangaroo feet, Attack 3000; dull orange with a pair of orange, paw-shaped metal boxing gloves, Attack 2000; and brown with a set of violet shockwave rings over a patch of cracking ground, Attack 3000.

“Three and three, huh?” said Sunset, holding up a dark red card showing her gold lion symbol in front of a red starburst background, finger covering over the power. “War? Final Vent strength to decide?”

“No need,” Applejack said smugly. “All three of my cards have the kangaroo symbol in the corner, but only two of yours have the lion symbol. A trump card though it may be, Pack Vent just has a generic circle, and it’s got no points.”

Sunset took a look across the six cards, then up at Applejack. “Well played.”

Applejack held up another card. “Oh, also…” She placed a fourth card on her row of three: the pale orange Spring Vent, showing a pair of orange boots with springs stretching from the soles, Attack 1000. Sunset raised an eyebrow.

“Come on, AJ,” Rainbow said, “that’s the kind of play I’d make.” Applejack just shrugged. “So, now that AJ’s won at Advent Cards,” Rainbow addressed the group, “how are all of your new Rider powers treating you? Are they as awesome as they are for me?”

“You know it!” said Pinkie.

“After so long without my old unicorn magic,” Sunset said, “it feels relaxing to have a new outlet of power that I actually have control over. Even if I don’t quite understand how it works just yet.” She stared at her Deck as she turned it over in her hands. “Of course, these Advent Beasts are a bit…unconventional.”

“I’m still getting used to the idea, myself,” Rarity chimed in. “I figure one day it’ll catch up with me and I’ll understand just how crazy things have truly gotten this time, but I’m more than willing to press on until then.”

“Yeah, I agree,” Applejack added, “it’s a lot to take in. Honestly, I’m just ignorin’ how far off the ranch we’ve gone with this one. Makes it a heckuva lot easier.”

“Tell me about it,” Pinkie said. “With access through every reflection, various rooms are feeling a lot more ‘open’ all of a sudden.”

As the others carried off the conversation, Sunset wondered if she should press whether they shared her concerns, but before she could, a humming came from her backpack. Twilight had responded to what she’d sent after Rainbow had claimed the portal had been open. Sunset pulled out the journal and read starting with the end of her last message:

[…] I hope nothing managed to sneak through, though because they’re invisible, I don’t know if you’d have been able to tell.

Said Twilight,

Wait, you mean the portal was open? It hasn’t been nearly long enough yet since it last activated. Do you think my forcing it to open may have messed with the cycle? Even if I reset the cycle, the portal shouldn’t be opening on its own for quite a while, another 30 moons.

Sunset started to pen her reply.

Yes, 30 moons, just about a m

She stopped writing, a case-breaking realization dawning on her.

“Ohhhh…,” she moaned, dropping her forehead into her hands. “I. Am. An. Idiot.”

“What?” Rainbow asked, the others turning to her.

Sunset gave an exasperated sigh. “I don’t know if that old Starswirl the Bearded refused to change with the times, wanted to hide the Mirror’s true potential from those ‘unworthy’ of figuring it out, or just honestly didn’t realize that the definition had changed.”

“The definition of what?” asked Pinkie.

Sunset took a deep breath to compose herself. “The portal that connects here and Equestria is only open for three days once every thirty moons,” she laid out slowly, “do you remember me explaining that?”

“I remember not knowing what a moon was, but listening and nodding all the same,” Rainbow said.

“That’s just the point—‘what is a moon?’” Sunset explained. “In modern Equestria, a moon is a measure of time about a month long, roughly one lunar cycle of twenty-eight days or so. But it wasn’t always. Back well over a thousand years ago, before the initial rule of the Two Sisters, the term ‘moon’ stood for a period of only one night, the time the moon was in the sky once. That was obviously repetitive with the word ‘day’, and new moons were a can of worms, so they changed the definition of ‘moon’ into meaning a month. Shortly before leaving Equestria, I’d been looking at a bunch of old sources from before the switch, so I’d gotten into the habit of mentally translating ‘one moon’ to mean ‘one day’. When I read the lore of the Mirror Portal, I guess I just assumed that the moons it was talking about were the day-long ones without a second thought. It turns out I was right, but I never thought back to realize that I was the only one who had a reason to make that assumption! Twilight—heck, even Celestia—probably still thinks that it only opens once every two and a half years!”

“Which…means?” Rainbow asked, trying to piece together her ramblings.

“Which means,” snapped Sunset, “that the portal opens about thirty times more often than anyone else thinks it does!” She fished out a calendar from her backpack. “The pattern I followed without fail was every thirtieth day it would open for three days at a time, three days included in the thirty-day spans. It’s what I used to sneak back into Equestria a few times to find out that Twilight had become a princess, realized the Element of Magic crown had a new look that matched the Fall Formal crown, knew when she would be at the Crystal Empire so I could take it…I always wondered why there were almost never any guards at the portal—they didn’t know they needed to be there so often!”

Everyone watched as she began fervently scribbling on the calendar, muttering aloud to herself. “So, open Friday but closed Saturday means…thirty-one, thirty-two, thirty-three…if we started at Day 1 the day after Twilight left that one Sunday because one moon-in-the-sky had passed, then Day 30 was this past Wednesday, and that means…four Fridays from now.” She looked up at the others. “The portal’s opening again in another four weeks.”

“And you think we need to have all this wrapped up before then?” Rainbow asked.

Sunset gave another sigh. “It’s all mirrors. I don’t wanna risk it.”

Someone told me long ago…
There’s a calm before the storm. I know!
It’s been comin’ for some time…

* * *

The Next Day, Monday

Three men were running down a wooden hallway, racing towards something.

While running, the one in the middle took off his bifocal glasses, turning them upside down and jamming them onto the face of the man in front of him. His depth perception thrown out of whack by looking through the near-focus halves of the lenses when he needed far-focus, he stumbled and fell as the other two passed him.

The man in back slowly made his way up on the leader, only to be slapped in the face by a rubber swim fin on the other man’s hand, making him trip over his own feet and fall as well.

The last man standing came racing up to a door along the wall and grabbed the handle to skid himself to a stop. He grabbed the kite pin off his shirt, a string attached to it pulling a key out of his pocket, which he used to unlock the door. He pushed the door open and slipped inside as the other men caught up, slamming it shut as they tried forcing it open behind him.

The man looked around the room, reaching over and grabbing a long stick with a claw on the end of it from a nearby table. Clamping the door handle with the claw, he rested the stick across the door and up against the wall, preventing it from being pushed open. Taking the brief moments this bought him, he ran over and slid the nearby glass armonica (like a piano but with a sideways stack of glass bowls instead of keys) in front of the door to completely block it.

Brushing his hands in satisfaction, he reached into his pocket, took out a coin, and flipped it. Catching and examining the result, he leaned over and shouted, “Tails!” excitedly through the door to his colleagues.

All of the students in the class were staring at Pinkie Pie. Except Rainbow Dash, who was burying her face in her hands. At the front of the room, Professor Bill Neigh blinked.

“Iiiiiii’m rather sure Mr. Franklin had a better reason for assigning the electron’s charge as being negative,” said the stunned Professor.

Pinkie shrugged in response.

Being in the middle of a free period, Sunset sat on a bench in the intersection of CHS’s hallways. She stared at Pantheraleo’s card, a half-written journal letter to Twilight sitting open on her lap. She didn’t know how to finish it, or even if she should.

Using the power of a monster to fight another monster, the idea was just unheard of in Equestria. Just how much like the other Mirror Monsters was this one? Could she really trust it, or was it just cooperating for her help towards its own ends? And what ends would they be?

Something moved in her peripheral vision. She glanced over at the trophy display case and flinched as she saw Pantheraleo standing in the edge of the reflection. Upon being seen, he ducked out of view immediately, the whistling ringing Sunset hadn’t realized she’d been hearing fading away. As her heart slowed down again she sighed and turned her attention back to the journal.

“You sure you should have that out in the open?” asked a familiar voice. Sunset looked up to see Rarity standing next to her with a hall pass.

“What,” she replied, tilting Pantheraleo’s card, “you mean this ‘trading card out of a cereal box’?”

“You’re right, I guess it is meaningless unless someone already knows about it. But something is clearly troubling you.”

“Yeah,” Sunset moaned, “I just don’t know who’ll listen without saying I’m being silly about it.”

Rarity thought a second. “Tell you what, I’ll be back in a minute and we can discuss whatever it is. Okay?”

“Sure,” said Sunset. She sat around a few seconds after Rarity left, but then an idea dawned on her. She looked around to confirm the halls empty, then took out her Advent Deck and made for the trophy case.

Applejack yawned. Another day in school meant another day of boredom while sitting in Sadistics—sorry, Statistics class, she always got those two confused. It was just lotsa fancy mathematics to complicate things that should be simple. As far as she was concerned, “the chances of anything happenin’ is fifty percent—either it will or it won’t”. Unfortunately, that was never what the teacher was looking for.

“Well?” asked Miss Hackney, an older purple-skinned woman with a pin of a chalkboard whose content seemingly swapped between a ‘2’ and a ‘1+2’ each day (Applejack was convinced she was waiting for someone to point it out, but never felt up to it). It took her a second to realize the teacher was talking to her.

“Yes?” Applejack replied.

“What would you say the answer is?” Miss Hackney repeated, indicating the board covered in numbers and symbols.

“Uh…” Applejack glanced around the room. “Sparkline seems to know,” she said, pointing over her shoulder at a boy with dark orange skin and the pin of a red line graph, his hand raised nearly to the ceiling. “It’d be a shame not to ask him.”

A yellow-orange hand held the Leona Advent Deck out through the mirror, Sunset waiting a few seconds before stepping through. “Hello?” she called into the room.

Twilight turned away from her computer by the wall to see the new arrival to her lab. “Should I start an appointment book now, or after your next visit?” She turned back and kept typing. “Anything important?”

Sunset looked around to see that no one else was there. “I’m not sure if—”

“—I’m the expert you need?” Twilight cut in.

“No, it’s just…what are you doing?”

“Spoilers,” said Twilight.

Unseen, the mirror Sunset arrived through rippled again. “What seems to be the matter?” said an unfamiliar male voice.

Sunset turned back in surprise to see a blurry, warping black silhouette in the mirror behind a layer of ripples. Seeing it, Twilight started typing with more concentration.

“Who—?” Sunset tried asking.

“The Advent Master,” Twilight said.

“Oh,” Sunset said. She waved nervously. “Hi.” The silhouette nodded…she thinks. “Well…to be honest, I’m sort of having…not second thoughts, but…”—Twilight’s fingers stumbled, and she drummed the delete key before continuing—“more concerns. Not at becoming a Rider, but at the whole using a monster to fight a monster idea. I just don’t know if I’m comfortable with it.”

“Unsure if you can trust your Beast?” the Advent Master offered, as if the question was to be expected.

“Well, yeah. Do Advent Beasts often appear in dreams their Rider has?”

“They will usually attempt to test their contract holder through a dream, yes,” he responded.

Sunset sighed. “Then I think I just failed one. I dreamt I was fighting monsters when mine suddenly turned on me…saying he only did it because I expected him to, and invoking a more…regrettable decision I’ve made. How sure are you that our Beasts and wild Monsters are, as Cavalier put it, ‘dogs versus wolves’?”

“Xaviax made his monsters to be an army,” the Advent Master said. “I made mine to be battle partners. It can happen—” His blurry image warped in on itself and faded completely.

“Advent Master?” Sunset said.

“No, not again,” muttered Twilight. She typed furiously for a few more seconds before stopping and sighing. The empty mirror stopped rippling. Twilight braced for a barrage of questions on the matter, but none came. She glanced over her shoulder to see Sunset just standing by the mirror.

‘It can happen’, Sunset repeated in her mind. He was in the middle of saying something else, right? He wasn’t saying that an Advent Beast might actually…

Suddenly the whistling ringing filled her head, and she put a hand over her ear and looked around. Twilight managed not to.

Sunset looked at her Deck, wishing she’d gotten a better answer, before running through the mirror.

Rainbow looked up from her hands as she heard the whistling ringing. Showtime, and not a moment too soon. She looked over to Pinkie and the two nodded. However, looking that way also gave her a view out the door’s window, where she saw Sonic Arrow from soccer practice hurrying past. Huh.

She raised her hand. “I just remembered,” she said, “I need to be at a team meeting before soccer practice, so I’ve gotta leave a bit early today.”

“Um, okay,” said Bill Neigh. Rainbow headed to the door.

“And, uh,” Pinkie added, “I need to clear some of my stuff off the field before they need to use it.”

“If you must…,” said the professor. Pinkie quickly followed Rainbow.

“Oh,” said a random student, “and can I also—”

“Sit down!” Bill Neigh ordered.

“Yes, sir.”

Fluttershy was sitting in Cranky Doodle’s class when she heard the ringing.

She had to make an excuse to leave. Oh, but what should she say? She was bad on the spot like this, and she didn’t like lying to begin with. Okay, it should be something believable, but not too suspicious. Big enough to pull her away in the middle of class, but not so big that someone would try to follow up with asking her about it later. But should it be something she could use again later? Always having the same excuse was slightly better than always having a new excuse, right? And if not repeatable, it shouldn’t be something that could too perfectly fit with escaping another situation later on. She of course had to take into account whom she was giving the excuse to, and whether they would agree with it being serious enough. Oh, but none of this was helping her actually come up with the excuse. This was going nowhere, and neither, she realized, was she.

Rainbow walked past the room, glancing in to see Fluttershy still sitting inside. Fluttershy looked over to see her through the door’s window.

Rainbow gave her a stare and flared her eyes (“Come on!”), but Fluttershy barely managed a shrug in response (“How?”). Dash threw her arms up and then facepalmed (“Never mind!”) before walking away.

Rainbow and Pinkie met up with Rarity and Applejack on the school’s front steps. A second later, the glass doors warped and Sunset jumped out on the inside, saw she was on the wrong side, then came out to meet them.

“I wondered where you’d gone,” said Rarity.

“Yeah, it couldn’t wait, sorry,” Sunset replied.

Rarity scanned the group. “Where’s Fluttershy?”

“Still stuck in class,” said Rainbow. “With her, who knows how long it’ll take to get away.”

“Let’s just let her catch up on her own when she can,” Sunset said.

“Speakin’ of which,” said Applejack, “I don’t know if I’m just not used to it yet, but it sounds like that alarm ringing is comin’ from all over.”

“Actually, yeah,” said Rainbow, looking around, “I’m hearing it from everywhere, too.”

The door warped again, and the image of Cavalier appeared. “Three different locations to be exact,” he reported.

“Three?” repeated Rainbow. “Yikes. It’s like this is happening because there are suddenly so many Riders now.”

“That’s my bet, too,” Cavalier said.

“Then there’s no time to lose,” Sunset said. “We’re splitting up. You two, you two, us two.” She pointed at Rainbow and Cavalier, Applejack and Pinkie, and then Rarity and herself. As she pulled Rarity through the door next to him, Cavalier started to raise a finger, but dropped it with a defeated sigh.

The others raised their Decks at the glass doors, colored electricity reaching down and generating their belts. Rainbow pulled her Deck back and pointed forward, Applejack held hers in place, Pinkie spun around to the left and posed with her right hand up at her left shoulder, Rarity spun her Deck up with a flourish of her wrist, and Sunset held hers over by her right shoulder, tilting its right end up slightly.

“Kamen Rider!”

* * *

“And now,” said the ORE newswoman, “over to Misty Breeze with the weather. Misty?”

“What did I tell you?” Misty said. “Not a drop of water all weekend, and we’re expecting more of the same this week. Back over to you.”

“Thank you, Misty,” the newswoman said. “In other news—”

“Honestly,” Misty’s voice sneered from off-camera, “I don’t know why they even let that Paula Haze into the weather room in the first place, she wasn’t even good as the coffee girl…wait, is this thing still on?”

Rainbow, as Talon, and Cavalier exited a mirror propped against the side of a back alley. Rainbow turned back to the mirror.

“I put those all around the Mirror World for convenience,” Cavalier answered before she could ask.

Rainbow put her hand out and looked up. Rain was falling lightly from a barely cloudy sky: a fabled sun shower.

Elsewhere in the city, Applejack and Pinkie, as Vault and Dynamo, came out of a windowfront into a courtyard surrounded by tall buildings. The sky was overcast and it was drizzling.

“Good thing my Beast is aquatic,” Pinkie said.

“I don’t think it quite works like that,” Applejack said, putting her hand above her eyes to block the rain.

“You sure about that?” Pinkie replied. Applejack turned to see that Pinkie wasn’t blocking the rain with her hand, the platypus bill visor rim already doing it for her. Applejack rolled her eyes.

Sunset and Rarity, as Leona and Grace, stood under the cement roofing at the base of a lit parking garage, heavy rain pouring from a darkened sky beyond it.

“I just wanted to continue that talk we’d started,” Sunset said.

“Thought you found another way to handle it,” replied Rarity.

“Didn’t pan out.”

“Well, maybe later,” Rarity said, looking out at the rain. “I didn’t think it was raining like this anywhere in the city.”

“It wasn’t,” said Sunset, crossing her arms. “So, the Mirror World has its own weather, does it?” Thunder rumbled, and the rain turned to a torrential downpour.

“I get so many monsters for so many Riders,” Rainbow said, looking around the alley, “but doesn’t it feel odd? Monsters should be trying to kidnap people, right? But last time, and right now…”

“What people?” Cavalier finished.

“And we’ve been led directly into the Mirror World,” she continued, turning back to him. “I’m about ready to call this a—”

An explosion erupted between them. {You don’t realize.}

A figure suddenly leapt from the downpour at Sunset and Rarity. It swung a pair of swords at them, but they ducked under the slashes and kicked the figure past them. The metal figure staggered to a stop, turning back to them. It was a dull silver with sea green legs and chest featuring a wide open vent; its arms were made of stacks of spiked metal sharktooth triangles, it had a smooth shark head with its teeth forming another vent, and it carried two long barbed swords: Abyss Lasher.

“Looks like we’ve been graduated to facing the unique monsters,” said Sunset. “Ready?”

“I think I’d like to try out my own sword for this fight,” Rarity replied.

“Suit yourself.” The two slotted their cards.
Sword Vent
Sword Vent

In a flash, Sunset’s katana flew down to her from under the ceiling, while a new sword flew in from outside and landed in Rarity’s hand: the blade was a long and skinny cone split like a bird’s beak, the front half gold and the back half silver.

“Too bad for you, monster,” Sunset said, pulling out and slotting another card, “but this new challenge has gotten me all fired up!” If I can just power through this battle quickly…
Burn Vent

She held out her left hand, and a burst of flames from her lion head slotter’s mouth set her hand on fire. The flames tracked up her arm and then across her entire body, her armor now ablaze. She flicked her sword, the lion head guard spitting flames onto the blade as well.

Sunset charged the monster, slashing down at it. Abyss Lasher crossed its swords to meet hers, a pair of spike barbs clamping onto its blade, latching it in place mid-strike. Sunset tried pushing the flaming sword to no avail, even grabbing the hilt in both hands. Abyss Lasher then unleashed a torrent of water from the vents on its chest and mouth, pounding Sunset and extinguishing all of her flames with a burst of steam, sending her rolling across the ground up to the edge of the rain outside, her sword lying beside her.

Rarity ran over, offering a hand to get up. Sunset grumbled as she took it, “Fire, water, don’t say it.”

Abyss Lasher rushed over and slashed at them both, but the girls caught its swords with theirs. Sunset shoved Rarity to the side before ducking the opposite way, letting Abyss Lasher stumble forward another step and trapping it right between them. It looked from one to the other.

Sunset slashed at it, but it easily blocked the attack. Catching on to her strategy, Rarity stabbed at its back, but the sword was so heavy she only managed a poke. Abyss Lasher turned and swung at Rarity, and while she ducked below it, Sunset took the opportunity to slash it from behind. Abyss Lasher let out a snarl before spinning around with both swords held out, forcing to the two to back off.

“Hey, Pinkie,” said Applejack, “did you hear somethin’?”

“Huh, now that you mention it…”

A blue monster jumped in between Pinkie and Applejack, slamming the large end of a staff onto the ground at their feet. Pinkie spun away as Applejack grabbed the staff and immediately started grappling with the monster over it. Making a distorted moaning sound, it had blue tentacles running across its head, a gold beak on its forehead, a bright red ‘V’ on its metal chest, and pads ringed in suction cups over its hands: Wiskraken.

Pinkie pointed at it. “Protect this world together, defend what’s right forever!”

“How many a’ those do you have ready?” Applejack asked, still shoving with the monster.

“Nineteen and counting!” Pinkie answered proudly.

“Trap, trap, trap, totally called it was a trap!” Rainbow shouted, ducking down as another explosion came from next to them.

“Which way?” Cavalier asked, quickly looking around. A green laser bolt shot past them and blasted the ground, both of them rolling back to opposite walls behind alley debris, Rainbow behind a group of trashcans and Cavalier a stack of wooden pallets. Another laser blast hit between them.

They carefully peeked over their defenses to see a Monster standing up the alley. It was metallic olive green with spiked knees, a head with a shark fin on top and a giant vent mouth, and a hammerhead shark attachment on its chest with two cannon barrels and a pair of fins sticking out as handles: Abyss Hammer. Seeing them again, it grabbed the handles and shot a laser blast, the Riders ducking again as it hit a trashcan in front of the one Rainbow was hiding behind and sent its lid and contents sky-high and raining across the alley.

“Think we’re lucky the pros got the path with the big threat?” asked Rainbow.

“Thinking they put a big threat down every path,” Cavalier replied.

Fluttershy exited with everyone else as class let out, hurrying off to find a mirror surface in a secluded corner. Classrooms were emptying, but no telling if a club was gathering in one. Even the dead end hall with the faulty light probably wasn’t lonely enough. Then she came upon the bathrooms.

Slipping inside the girls’ bathroom, a quick scan showed all stall doors ajar. She stood at the large mirror over the sinks and took out her Advent Deck.

Then she heard a tap. What was that? Was it inside or out? Must’ve been out. But then there was a creak. Was someone coming in? No, that was nothing. What’s that beating!? Oh, her heart. Wait, was that water or just wind in her ears? The vents breathed. The pipes flowed. There were more footsteps from outside. Were they approaching or—

Fluttershy slipped back out into the hallway. Everywhere seemed too risky to transform. How did the others expect them all to manage it every time they heard a Monster alarm?

“Wait,” she said to herself. “I could probably just have slipped through the mirror and then transformed on the other side, right?”

She was about to go back, but then she noticed she was passing a dark room with its door sitting just open. A place like that was likely to be empty, right? Room 401. Just like Twilight’s lab over at Crystal Prep. Could it be a sign?

Beginning to slide her Deck back out, she quickly pushed the door in, but it jerked to a stop, a clattering and splash coming a second later.

“Augh, I just—,” said a man inside, who quickly switched to frustrated muttering. As a puddle of water seeped out from under the door, Fluttershy looked in around it to see a figure moving in the darkness.

“Oh, I’m sorry!” she said. “I didn’t know you were in here.”

“No, that…,” the man muttered before giving up for a sigh, righting his mopping cart behind the door. “Things always…”

Fluttershy looked down at her Deck, then at the janitor slowly trying to clean up the spill. She thought for a moment. Then she slid her Deck back into her pocket. “Here, let me help.”

As Applejack and Wiskraken wrested for the monster’s staff, Pinkie ran up and jumped to kick Wiskraken, but the back and forth of the two brought the staff’s end swinging in her direction, catching Pinkie in the side and knocking her from the air.

“Whoops, didn’t see ya—,” Applejack started saying, but Wiskraken used her distraction to spin and pull the staff from her grasp, coming around to hit her in the back and send her down beside Pinkie.

“I’m bright pink and shiny silver,” Pinkie said, spinning back to her feet, “I’m kinda hard to miss.”

She reached down to help Applejack up, but Applejack grabbed her arm and pulled her tumbling over her as Wiskraken swung its staff down where she’d been standing.

“Oof. Thanks, but a warning helps,” Pinkie complained.

“Does it?” Applejack queried.

Pinkie groaned. “Point taken, I’ll announce my attacks so the monster can prepare and dodge twenty seconds in advance. Happy?”

The Wiskraken raised its staff at them, but Applejack kicked out and hit its shin, sending it to a knee. “Close enough,” she said, jumping up and ramming it back. Wiskraken swung again, but Applejack ducked under the staff, grabbing the monster from behind. Wiskraken made its distorted moaning again as it struggled to break the hold.

Pinkie took her time to get back up, watching as the fight progressed. “Y’know,” she said, “that’s not quite the sound I heard before.” A distorted squibbering came from behind her. “Oh, that’s it. Wait.”

A blue pad ringed in suction cups latched onto her chest, a tendril reaching from it back over her left shoulder. With a lurch, it pulled her back.

Abyss Lasher swung its right sword out to catch Sunset’s as she tried another strike, then it looked the other way to swat Rarity’s sword away with its left as she tried whatever she was doing. It turned back to Sunset and heaved to push her sword away, raising its other sword to strike, but spinning around and swinging short of an approaching Rarity.

“Maybe it’d be easier if you switched to my sword?” Sunset asked as she tried another stab, but Abyss Lasher deflected it.

“It would be easier if I were better at swordplay in general,” Rarity replied, using both hands to lift and swing her beak sword down, managing to push Abyss Lasher’s right sword to the side but leaving herself wide open. Abyss Lasher instead thrusted at Sunset, forcing her to abandon a sneak attack and knock its sword down.

“Didn’t the Advent Deck auto-download the skill?” Sunset replied back, trying to spin the monster’s blade around to trick the sword out of its hand, but it swung up and out of the maneuver. It brought the sword back down, and she jumped back.

“Knowledge of what to do, yes,” Rarity clarified. “Muscle composure to use this particular sword, not so much. I’d wager the preloaded skills predated the formation of the sword and failed to account for its…girth. It’s almost more a lance than a—”

Rarity realized too late she’d given Abyss Lasher an opening, and it kicked her in the chest, sending her stumbling away. Sunset flamed up her sword again and tried jumping in, but Abyss Lasher swung around with both swords and knocked her over to the wall of rain beyond the overhead. It spread its arms wide and released fire hose-force water cannons from its mouth and chest, blasting her out into the downpour.

Sunset crashed to the ground amidst the sudden darkness as thunder rolled overhead. Her sword had gone out again. She tried reigniting it, but against the deluge it only fizzled, and she slammed it against the ground. I can do this without needing my Beast, I know I can. Trustworthy or not, if I don’t use it, I’ll never be risking it.

She got back up, the only landmark being the lights from under the overhang. Through the rain she could see the figures of Abyss Lasher and Rarity as it turned its full attention to her. Backing out towards the rain, Rarity tried poking with her sword again, but Abyss Lasher knocked it aside and slashed her down.

Sunset started back to help, but Abyss Lasher turned to her. It stepped into the rain, and then shot to the side in a blur, Sunset immediately losing track of it. She tried looking for it through the wall of water and saw a blur sliding across her view, then back again closer, then—

Reacting to a glint of silver, Sunset brought up her sword to stop a sharktooth blade, but it quickly pulled itself back into the falling background as another came out of the rain, catching her shoulder. She swung her sword, but another blade bit her arm, and as she tried bringing it back, the pair scissored and broke the blade off her sword, dragging sparks from her chest plate. As she flinched back a step in seeming slow motion, another slash came across her chest with a shower of sparks, then another back the other way, then a thrust that sent her to the ground.

Blast Vent

Rainbow jumped out from behind her cover and threw her right arm out, a swirling column of wind shooting forward from around her forearm and hitting Abyss Hammer square on. It tilted back a bit but stomped down to steady itself, leaning into the gale and standing firm. It held onto the fin handles and fired a barrage of lasers, hitting the ground all around Rainbow. The wind funnel dissipated and she dove back behind the trashcans.
Arc Vent

Cavalier jumped up and threw a golden horseshoe that hit Abyss Hammer in the shoulder and exploded. Abyss Hammer barely seemed to notice and fired back, Cavalier ducking again as splinters of charred pallet blasted off of his barrier.

“Well, this isn’t working,” Rainbow called over.

Cavalier looked back at the mirror they’d arrived through, then over at Abyss Hammer. Thinking a second, he slotted a card.
Guard Vent

In a flash, his horseshoe-wrapped shield dropped down from the sky spinning, but it was hit by a green laser bolt in midair a second later and flew end over end down the alley.

“Dang it,” he said.

“Your plan?” asked Rainbow.

“I need a distraction so I can make it to that mirror.”

“I get it,” Rainbow said, “sometimes it’s all too much to take and you need to let a girl handle things for you.”

There was a pause.

“I’ll be coming back,” Cavalier insisted.

“If you say so,” she joked, closing her slotter.
Wing Vent

Aquileo flew overhead, in a flash dropping a small panel mounted with two large silver wings. Abyss Hammer shot it, but the wings’ overlapping feather scales diluted the impact, only pushing the assembly back. Rainbow jumped up and into the middle of it, the pack latching onto her back armor at the three connection points. As she dropped down to the ground in the center of the alley, she closed the wings tightly to block the monster’s next shot, which almost knocked her off her feet, but she dropped to her knees and dug the wings’ edges into the pavement, locking her in place.

“That good enough?” she called. No response. The wings jolted as another shot hit them. “I’ll take that as a yes,” she said to herself.

She heard a mirror warp a short ways away, then an engine rev.

Pinkie was being spun around right while getting pulled back, the dark blue tendril coiling around her as she came closer to the squibbering noise. Suddenly, she stopped in the grasp of another monster like the first, but with flared tentacles on its head and a faded chest ‘V’, Bakraken.

“Oh, hi there,” she said. It squibbered in her face before shoving her back out spinning, unspooling the tendril attached at its left wrist. She was jerked to a stop at the end, the tendril stretching out before pulling her winding back into Bakraken’s grasp. “If you wanted to dance, you could’ve just asked,” she said, but Bakraken pushed her back out again, Pinkie rapidly stepping to try and stay on her feet.

Wiskraken brought its staff down, but Applejack hit the side with her elbow and it swung past her.

“I’d punch you in the face if I knew where yours was,” she said, popping up her second belt’s tray and pulling out a card, “so I’ll just settle for this.”
Pound Vent

She jumped back and caught a large orange sledgehammer falling from the sky, its head a pair of kangaroo feet set together. Wiskraken swung its staff at her again, but with one swing Applejack knocked the staff out of its grip and off to the sidelines, swinging back again and knocking Wiskraken back in a shower of sparks.

Pinkie sighed as she jerked to a stop again at the apogee of the yo-yo, but before getting pulled back and coiled up again, she pulled out a card. As Bakraken reeled her back in, she reached around and popped open the bill of the platypus device strapped to her leg, slotting the card.
Strike Vent

A pair of gauntlets resembling spread webbed feet with claws fell spinning from a pair of flashes as Pinkie approached the monster, attaching onto her hands on the final spin. She sliced through the tendril with one of the gauntlets, continuing the spin around and slashing Bakraken across the gut with both, sending it stumbling back and squibbering up a storm.

Applejack swung Pound Vent down at Wiskraken, but it grabbed the hammer’s end, the suction cups around its hand latching onto it. She tried pulling it away, but Wiskraken pulled back, the suction cups tightening their grip. Then an idea came to her. She pulled again, leaning back over her heels for maximum effect, Wiskraken pulling even harder in response. Then she let go.

Applejack fell back to the ground, letting Wiskraken pull itself over off its feet and crash down, too. It went to get back up, but found itself still holding the hammer’s end. It tugged its hands away, but they didn’t budge. Wiskraken moaned as it shook its hands and tried pulling them apart, but like a finger trap, its suction cups had pulled too tight and were stuck. Applejack casually rose to her feet and slotted another card.
Spring Vent

Wiskraken managed to get its feet under it as Applejack ran up, jumping and throwing a sideways kick as a pair of large orange boots on springs fell down to her. They attached onto her feet mid-jump, her left foot touching down and absorbing all of her momentum, the right one hitting and transferring it all to Wiskraken, the impact launching it back with enough force to tear its hands off of the hammer. The monster flew away as the hammer clattered down.

Sunset gasped before coughing, pushing herself up onto her side. Her chest plate and the tip of her broken sword were smoking, and the pouring rain running across her mask was distorting her vision. She looked up to see the dark silhouette of Abyss Lasher towering over her, raising its swords. This felt all too familiar.

That dream of hers was coming true, it its own way. The monster was different and there was actually rain now, but…there was rain.

At Abyss Lasher’s feet, a puddle of water sat shielded from the rain by the monster’s body, undisturbed enough to see a reflection. A very specific reflection staring back.

The puddle warped, and a red lion figure sprang from it behind Abyss Lasher, grabbing the monster with a piercing roar and dragging it back, the two fading into shapes amid the rain. Sunset lay there a second from shock. The shapes reached the overhang, so Sunset pushed herself up and hobbled after them, stumbling to her knees again at the edge.

Still grappling Abyss Lasher from behind, Pantheraleo roared again, flames spouting from the red vents running through its mane. In its struggle, Abyss Lasher jerked its head around a full 180, and spewed a blast of water in Pantheraleo’s face, dousing the flames and forcing him to let go and stagger away sputtering. Abyss Lasher grabbed its head and twisted it back around into place with a metallic squeal.

As Sunset pulled herself in from the rain, winded, Abyss Lasher turned to her with a guttural hiss.
Splash Vent

A group of water tendrils shot out of the downpour at Abyss Lasher, the monster turning to counter with another water blast, the two attacks hitting and stopping each other. Rarity stepped in from the rain where the tendrils had come from, holding her shoulder.

The next thing Sunset knew, Pantheraleo was crouched down next to her, reaching out. She flinched back, but he didn’t move. Remembering to breathe, she took a closer look, realizing that Pantheraleo wasn’t crouching, but kneeling, and his hands…paws…were palm-up. In a flash, a new copy of her sword appeared laying across them.

Sunset stared for a second. Pantheraleo tilted its gaze up to her.

He just saved me without being called. He was right there the whole time with this chivalrous…loyalty? She gave a smile. Silly Sunset, what were you so scared of?

She took the sword in reverse grip, nodding at Pantheraleo. It replied with a low grunt.
Guard Vent

Sunset turned to the light blue flash to see Rarity holding her shield with its extended energy rim against another of Abyss Lasher’s water blasts, her feet slowly sliding back.

“I require a slight assistance, Sunset,” Rarity cooed.

Sunset charged Abyss Lasher, igniting her sword. Cutting the water, it turned and raised its swords to meet her, but she jumped and spun left with a trailing fire slash. There was a burst of sparks and Abyss Lasher stumbled back, the top halves of its swords clattering to the ground as Sunset touched down.

She spun the sword around into a normal grip in her left hand to slash back to the right, then held it in both to slash left again, spraying sparks everywhere. Abyss Lasher staggered away, its torso smoking.

Sunset pushed her slotter open and held up a dark red card showing her gold Lion symbol over a red starburst background, Attack 6000. “I’ll finish this if you don’t mind.”

“Go right ahead,” Rarity said winded, leaning on her knees.

Sunset slid the card in. “Let’s go, big guy.” She pulled the slotter shut.
Final Vent

Pantheraleo walked up a distance behind her, fire beginning to spill from the vents in its mane, and it threw its arms wide with a roar. Flames burst from its head into the shape of a giant lion’s head with open jaws, flying forward. Sunset jumped up, the flaming head sweeping over her and dragging her along inside it, her sword igniting. She swiped it to draw an ‘X’ in front of her with its flame trail, then thrust it forward, sending the X out the lion’s mouth. Abyss Lasher let loose another water blast, but upon hitting the fire X the stream evaporated, the X stamping itself onto the monster’s chest.

As the flaming lion head reached Abyss Lasher, it opened its jaws wider, Sunset stabbing forward and impaling the monster through the center of the X. The lion head bit down, its form collapsing and forcing itself into Abyss Lasher through the stab before bursting back out again as Abyss Lasher exploded, debris flying, leaving Sunset standing there with her sword pointed forward. She tipped it down as she took a deep breath, the monster’s energy floating over to Pantheraleo. She turned to him, and he nodded back.

“Good job, you two,” sighed Rarity. “I’ll be better help next time, I swear.”

“I wonder what the others are up to,” Sunset said.

Rainbow looked over the edge of Wing Vent to see Cavalier speed past her on his Rider-morphed motorcycle, Caballkhan leaping over her head to join his charge. Abyss Hammer tried firing at them, but Caballkhan leapt over the first shot its way, and Cavalier snaked around the barrage that followed. He rode up a ramp of pallets as a pair of lasers hit it, causing a huge fireball behind him as he launched into the air. It probably looked even more dramatic from the front, Rainbow thought.

Caballkhan reached it first, leaping over it as Abyss Hammer turned to try and aim at it, but Cavalier rode in and kicked up his back wheel, spinning and smacking the monster in the back. Abyss Hammer turned back to him, but he accelerated and drove up its front as Caballkhan kicked its back, Cavalier flipping completely over and touching down, speeding forward to sweep out Abyss Hammer’s legs with his bike’s cowcatcher.

“Yes,” Rainbow muttered with a fist pump. She’d retracted Wing Vent to watch better.

Abyss Hammer pushed itself back up, grabbing at its cannon’s fin handles but missing.

“Gotta get back in on this,” Rainbow said, but then a shadow passed over her. She looked up to see Aquileo still circling overhead. On a thought, she pulled out another card, teal showing Aquileo reaching his talons out of the image, Attack 3000. “Haven’t tried this one yet,” she said, slotting it.
Drop Vent

As Cavalier revved his bike for another pass, Aquileo screeched and turned, diving right at Abyss Hammer and tackling it to the ground. He screeched and snapped at the struggling monster as he latched his talons onto it, kicking off and flying straight up high into the air before shoving it down. Abyss Hammer slammed chest-first into the ground, blasting apart on impact and sending flaming debris flying around. As its energy rose, Aquileo swooped by and absorbed it.

“Well…,” Rainbow said, “that’s OP.”

“I weakened it,” Cavalier said, looking away.

As Pinkie peeled the suction pad off her armor, Bakraken tossed out its other tendril, but swung it to slap her.

“We dance and then this?” Pinkie said. “We just met and already I’m getting mixed—hey!” She ducked as the suction pad swung by again. Bakraken kept the tendril swinging in a wide circle, swatting at Pinkie every time it came around again. She’d never get through like this. Unless…

She gave a whistle, and a pink and silver shape leapt from the sidelines with a honk. Pinkrhynch bit the tendril mid-swing and dove down into a mirror puddle that appeared below it, yanking Bakraken off its feet.

“And now,” Pinkie said, “the fin—” A nearby window warped, and two figures jumped out. “Yah! Who goes there?”

“See?” Sunset said to Rarity, “told you this was the way.”

“Oh, it’s just you,” Pinkie said. Rarity waved.

“Perfect timing,” Applejack said, taking out a card, “we’re just about all finished up here.”

Sunset looked at the Krakens as they struggled on the ground. “More water monsters?” she said to herself.

“I’ve got a gap in my attack with Pinkrink busy,” Pinkie said, pulling out a card, “anyone care to give an assist?” Bakraken pulled on its tendril, Pinkrhynch briefly surfacing before diving and tugging Bakraken back down.

“I’d like to say I accomplished something this outing,” said Rarity, sliding out a card and slotting it with the others.
Final Vent

Applejack faced Wiskraken as it staggered back to its feet, still swaying. A square mirror surface appeared on the ground behind her, the orange kangaroo Hyperboxer springing out of it before it shattered away, landing where it had been. Hyperboxer grabbed Applejack’s arms, tossing her straight up them leaping up after her. As Applejack reached the peak of the toss, Hyperboxer came up behind her; she brought up her feet, still clad in the Spring Vent boots, and Hyperboxer kicked her down at Wiskraken. She slammed it with a flat two-footed kick, Wiskraken disappearing backwards into a fireball as Applejack flipped backwards and landed in a crouch.
Splash Vent
Final Vent

“Bring ’im to me!” Pinkie called. She kicked up onto one foot and began spinning like a ballerina, her webbed gauntlets held out, and as she gained speed, she became like a spinning top with a giant buzz saw blade around the edge.

Water tendrils swirled in a sphere around Rarity as she raised her right arm; she threw it forward, and the tendrils shot out in a spiraling column, ramming Bakraken as it tried to stand up again and snapping its tendril, pushing it back into the waiting teeth of Pinkie’s attack.

As its back hit the spinning blade, there was a burst of sparks. A second later, more sparks sprayed, and then more, more and more often as the blade sped, each hit holding Bakraken in place, up until there was a constant shower. Then Bakraken exploded, the flames quickly getting sucked up into the vortex before dispersing. Pinkie dropped down to scrape her gauntlets across the ground and slow herself to a stop. Shaking her hands to make the gauntlets shatter away, she stood and stretched.

“Are you really not dizzy?” Sunset asked.

“You get used to it,” replied Pinkie.

The Kraken’s energies floated up, Hyperboxer and Pinkrhynch leaping up and absorbing them. Then the drizzle abated.

Sunset looked up. “Huh, didn’t notice it was raining here.” In the sky above, a rainbow was becoming visible through the clouds.

When it’s over, so they say…
It’ll rain a sunny day…

* * *

School would’ve been over by then, there was little point in returning. Instead, they met back up in Twilight’s lab.

“So that’s what it was all about,” Rarity said.

“The Equestrian era of reforming villains into allies came after my time,” Sunset continued. “I was the first example I ever saw of it. Knowing how tough it was from my side, I guess I just doubted if it would work in what appeared to be other cases, like Advent Beasts.”

“Huh,” Rainbow said, “guess I just went with it without thinking about that. More importantly, though, are two things.”

“First is the Mirror Monsters’ new behavior,” said Cavalier, stepping forward. “The swarm of minions followed by a group of unique monsters, neither appearing anywhere with people. Whoever’s directing them, I’d say it’s likely we’re their new targets of interest.”

“So if no one’s in danger, could we just not show up?” asked Pinkie.

“And leave them free reign?” Applejack commented. “Target or not, we’ll have to stop them, or else they might just choose one.”

“I was just saying,” Pinkie replied.

“And what’s the other thing?” Sunset asked.

“Has no one else noticed it yet?” Rainbow shot back. “Fluttershy still hasn’t shown up! She stalled so long, the battle’s ended, and now she probably just went home.”

“Perhaps it just wasn’t possible for her to leave where she was,” Rarity offered.

“And she knew the rest of us were already there,” added Applejack. “What can seven Riders do that six can’t?”

“But she’s still part of the team,” Rainbow said, “or she’s supposed to be.”

“Bit of a rule of thumb,” Pinkie piped in, “but when it comes to planning a party, you have to assume that everyone is gonna miss it for some reason and then plan around that. However likely it may be, expecting everyone to show up on time without contingencies is a setup for failure.”

“Yeah, that sounds about right,” Rainbow sighed. “All hands on deck for all calls is clearly gonna be more an inconvenience than anything else. How come it always looks so easy on TV?”

“Here’s an idea,” said Sunset. “Why don’t we all link up a group text conversation, and then any time there’s a Monster, anyone who can go does, and they tell the rest of us who’s on the job so we know if we need to try extra hard to get away.”

“Ooh, that could work,” Pinkie replied.

“Speaking of,” Rainbow said, “OG Rider boy’s been at every Monster scene since the beginning.” She turned to Cavalier. “I think it’s high time you took a break and let the rest of us shine on our own for a bit. Get back to that secret life you’re doing so much to hide.”

“Mandatory vacation, is it?” he said. “Well, since you’re twisting my arm so much about this…”

After he turned away, she squinted at him, recalling Sonic Arrow passing the classroom window. Soccer practice was Thursdays, he shouldn’t have been out of class. Big theory number two, go.

Location: [—_ -ˆ_--]

The mysterious figure walked between rows of tables in a large, dark room that was not his normal setting. Lines of party hats sat on speckled white tablecloths, but no joy was in the air. He stopped in front of a raised stage with three statuesque figures standing on it.

“Always a favorite,” he said with a grin. With a flourish, he added, “Let’s strike up the band.” He raised a glowing hand at the figures on stage and snapped.

Next time, on “Kamen Rider EqG”…

12:00 AM.

1st Night.

Can you survive…mechanical instinct?
Five Diffraction Minima

Chapter 8: Five Diffraction Minima

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.

Chapter 9: Reflections

Reflections ƨnoiƚɔɘlʇɘЯ

Some Time Ago

It was nighttime in a residential neighborhood. All was still and quiet, save the chirping of crickets and humming of A/C units. Halfway down the street stood 626 Reference Way, its driveway empty, but otherwise the same as its neighbors. Except for the crashing sounds coming from inside.

In through the busted door, a shadow-hidden figure was waltzing around the ransacked living room and tossing an armful of porcelain plates like Frisbees. After trying to land some on the coffee table and knock the end decoration off the bannister, he expertly sent the final plate to the far end of the room to help the flatscreen off its precarious perch on the mantle. He laid his hand on the back of the Welsh dresser next to him, and it tilted over forward, glass bowls and marble figurines diving off first before the double-decker bureau followed them to the ground with a satisfying smash.

Taking a deep breath, he stood tall and observed his work. With furniture upturned and valuables broken, random objects strewn this way and that, the room had become an utter mess, as if from a moment frozen during a maelstrom, future paths unclear, a state of total…turmoil. Perfection.

As he strolled to the door, he stopped, then turned to look into a nanny cam sitting on a shelf. The man had gray skin and slick, spiny black hair with off-white sides, and he grinned widely and waved, as the perspective zoomed out from the camera’s view to reveal it was playing on a small TV, sitting next to Detective Danny Haygan opposite an interrogation table from the man in the video.

The Detective paused the video and looked at the man. “Need I say more?”

Today

A man with gray skin and spiny black hair bustled into a large dim room, shoving aside a Gelnewt in his way that was looking curiously at a ghostly white monster inside a stasis pod. He waved a hand and a holographic screen appeared floating in front of him, then made a powerful swipe that sent the display scrolling rapidly through a number of perspectives until stopping on a view inside a pizzeria.

“Now,” the mysterious figure grumbled, “let’s hope this one doesn’t take as long.”

* * *

“But who would believe me?” the man said. “I wouldn’t believe it myself.”

“I see…,” said Fluttershy.

The Next Morning, Friday

Putting on her backpack with a bagel in her mouth, Rainbow Dash prepared to leave for school before glancing over at the small TV on the counter tuned to the ORE Morning News.

“And after a full week of no new reported sightings,” the newswoman said, “it appears as if the story of the enigmatic Armored Hero has finally come to a close.”

Rainbow gave a silent grunt. “Not by a long shot…,” she whispered as she headed for the door.

Unseen, Firefly was leaning against the wall behind a doorway to the next room, overhearing her daughter’s remark. She reached up to grasp her necklace cord, pulling up a red heart pendant. She held the pendant gently but tightly, staring at it.

Rainbow waved at Sonic Arrow through the window. He didn’t respond.

She knocked on the bathroom mirror at him. Nothing.

She even made silly faces at him though his water bottle. Not even a blink.

Then again, she was in the Mirror World the whole time. Neat trick though that you could stay in the Mirror Plane itself to look through reflective surfaces whose mirror doubles weren’t in the same places.

Rainbow groaned in annoyance as she slumped against her locker. Either Sonic Arrow had the best poker face on the planet, or he didn’t actually see her and this was just another busted theory of hers. Maybe Applejack was right when she’d suggested they didn’t already know Cavalier’s civilian persona. Wait, Applejack? Hadn’t she said she had some important news?

She glanced at a clock. Dang it, she was still in the Mirror World and hadn’t heard the lunch bell! She took off, hoping they hadn’t started the discussion without her.

Everyone at the lunch table was staring agape at Applejack. She had just told them about her discovery of the recorded call at the pizzeria last night.

“Wwwhhat?” Pinkie squeaked.

“Well…,” Rarity managed to say, “now I can see why you waited. I wouldn’t have been able to sleep if I’d known that last night.”

“Wwwhhat?” Pinkie repeated.

“You mean all this time it hasn’t just been empty all along?” Rainbow said, reaching for her forehead. “That just…”

“Wwwhhat?” Pinkie repeated again.

“Pinkie,” Applejack shot.

“Sorry,” Pinkie said, “but, wwwhhat!”

Fluttershy just remained silent.

“Okay, mind spinning,” Sunset said, holding out her hands as if to balance, “but this is big, so we need to focus again. Other that it even just being there, how many odd things have we found out about the Mirror World?”

“Well,” Rainbow started, “first there’s the portal that, other than there being no actual portal connected, is cracked without the stone looking like it was ever hit with anything.”

“Right,” Rarity followed, “then there was that time when it was pouring in the Mirror World but this world had had clear skies for days.”

“An’ now there’s that one of the buildings ain’t even the same between the two, and it actually had working electricity,” Applejack repeated. “And a phone message! The guy on the tape said the building had generators that only switched on when the console was activated, so there’s no tellin’ how long they might’ve been just sitting there.” As the others continued with their recap, Applejack turned away in thought. But I have an idea of a way to find out…

In his lair, the mysterious figure was flipping through projected screens as usual, but more mechanically, eyes scanning but his mind pondering something else, scratching at his wiry, off-white goatee by habit. He suddenly stopped in a moment of epiphany.

“It wouldn’t be so easy, would it?” he muttered to himself.

He flipped down and back through various screen views, landing on an interior shot of Canterlot High before going through one by one with renewed interest. He stopped when the view showed a figure he didn’t expect to see.

“Oh?” he mused. “When did you get back?”

Miss Hackney stood at the front of her Statistics class, finishing up the equation she was writing on the bored—sorry, board, she often got those two confused. In truth she was as interested in statistics as her students. It was almost the end of the day, she told herself, she wouldn’t have to deal with either of them for much longer. “Now, how about you, Applejack?” she asked, turning to the class. “Have you finally figured out how to…Applejack?”

At the Riders’ Crystal Prep base, Cavalier stepped through the mirror to find Applejack talking with Twilight. Immediately they fell silent and looked to him.

“…Yes?” he probed, not sure if he wanted an answer.

“Looky what she found,” Twilight coed with feigned excitement, immediately dropping the act and turning back to her computer.

He looked to Applejack as she walked over and held up a tape player, hitting the play button.

“Uh, hello?” a familiar voice said hesitantly. “Oh hi! You made it. S-see? I told ya you’d be fine—(click)”

“Souvenir?” Cavalier asked.

“From the Mirror World,” Applejack replied casually.

Cavalier stared back silently. Applejack tilted the tape player and gave half a smirk. Checkmate.

“Truth will out,” Twilight said without turning around.

Cavalier sighed internally. “It was before my time as a Rider.”

Late That Night

“It’s what he meant when he said that Ventara had fallen to Xaviax,” Applejack explained to the group, gathered again at Pinkie’s for a cover story sleepover, after it was finally late enough to discuss safely. “He didn’t just take over, he kidnapped the entire population and sent them to his own planet as a labor force to rebuild it after a war. It was left empty, just like our Mirror World.”

“So the new ringleader did the same thing right next door only a few months ago?” Rainbow said, pulling her knees to her chest as she sat on the floor. “That’s scary just to think about.”

“Welp,” Pinkie said, tossing up her hands and flopping back onto the bed, “Applejack wins play of the game today, twice over.”

“Everything that was just sitting around,” Rainbow continued, “someone had left it there as they were going about their day. I’m feeling sorry about all the sidewalks we’re scuffing up with battles all of a sudden.”

“Where did everyone go?” asked Sunset.

“He claims he and the Advent Master don’t know,” said Applejack. “Figurin’ out who’s responsible might help with that.”

“There aren’t too many places to hide a world’s worth of people,” Rarity pointed out.

No one seemed to have more to add until Pinkie piped up, “Does this mean Equestria would have its own mirror world with more ponies?”

“Oh, right, Equestria,” Sunset spoke up, pulling out her journal. “It almost doesn’t seem important anymore, but I got a response from Twilight.” The others settled in as she read aloud:

Dear Sunset,

I pondered your question if anything in Equestria might relate to or be responsible for the Mirror Monsters even after you explained their origins better. Not only did the Canterlot Archives not mention any noteworthy creature or artifact that could directly manipulate mirrors like that to work with the Monsters, but not even Discord knows of anyone from the archaic past who ever used a power similar… though he has had a few ideas since hearing about this that I’m not looking forward to finding out about. I’m sorry, but I just don’t think Equestrian knowledge will help you in this.

Cheering from the sidelines this time,

Twilight Sparkle

“Discord?” Pinkie spoke up. “You mean the school janitor’s someone important in Twilight’s world?”

“Yeah,” Sunset replied, “when I read his name, it got me thinking. Back in Equestria, Discord had been an ancient tyrant. He took over the kingdom with reality-warping powers that turned rhyme and reason upside down. The Royal Sisters stopped him with the Elements of Harmony about a thousand years before my time, but he was still kept as a stone statue in the Canterlot Sculpture Garden. Apparently I never picked up that something more had happened with him when I was sneaking back there and now he’s…helpful, or something? If everyone in Equestria has a parallel version in this world, it would only make sense that Discord would, too. Though like with the Princesses, the time scale is a different question…”

“Well if someone in one of our worlds is controlling the Mirror Monsters,” Applejack said, “this Discord fellow a’ yours certainly sounds like a candidate. Maybe ours ain’t too far off.”

“So suddenly we’re naming suspects?” Rarity commented.

“You have other leads to run down?” countered Applejack.

Pinkie scratched her chin before scooting over to her desk.

“Because I’ve only read about him,” Sunset joined back in, “he’s not my first assumption, but based on what I read, he may as well be the first assumption in everything. I guess I just never thought about him because this world didn’t have magic, so I didn’t expect any version of him here to be a threat.”

“Well if we’re so similar to the other us back in Twilight’s world,” Rainbow said, “then I’m willing to bet that if we both have a Discord, ours could be just as bad as theirs.”

“I’ll say,” Pinkie shot in while staring at her laptop. “He’s got a record, and not the musical kind. According to this neighborhood watch website, he’s out on probation!”

Everyone looked over at that. “And he was still hired by the school?” Rainbow asked.

“What’d he get arrested for?” asked Sunset.

“Not much,” Pinkie said. She dragged her finger across the screen to read, “Trespassing, breaking and entering, vandalism, destruction of property, grand destruction of property…”

“We seem to have very different definitions of ‘not much’,” Sunset replied, deciding an eye roll was too much effort.

“Well at least he didn’t hurt anybody,” Pinkie said. “He broke into an empty house.”

“Hang on,” Rarity spoke up, standing to lean closer to the screen. “I don’t know why I didn’t recognize him before. I remember my parents following that story on the news. Well, ‘follow’ and ‘news’ are overstatements, it was only mentioned once on CMZ as a novelty story because of the oddest part of it. They said he was also tried for burglary, but the charges didn’t stick because nothing of value had been taken.”

“So you’re sayin’ he broke in to someplace,” Applejack asked, “…just to break in?”

“And trash the place,” Pinkie clarified.

“That sure sounds like Discord from what I've heard of him,” Sunset commented.

“And the school still hired him,” Rainbow pressed. “Why am I the only one having a problem with that detail?”

“Maybe it was for good behavior?” offered Pinkie.

“Actually, it was part of the school’s reform program to give nonviolent offenders a second chance. He was selected by Principal Celestia personally.”

In the silence that followed, everyone slowly turned to Fluttershy.

“And you know this…how?” Rainbow asked.

“Oh, he told me,” she replied simply.

A longer silence followed.

Fluttershy looked around the group, confused by their reactions. “I ran into him this past Monday and we started talking. He’s actually a nice guy, so it just didn’t feel right hearing that he’d done all those things. It honestly sounded like you were describing a different person when you read all that stuff.”

“Monday?” Rainbow repeated. “Hold on. You mean that while we were fighting monsters that had been waiting to ambush us, you were chatting it up with our new prime suspect for who sent them?”

Fluttershy crossed her arms. “Well when you say it like that, it sounds so suspicious.”

“Tell me meeting him wasn’t the reason you couldn’t show up at the battles,” Rainbow stressed.

“Um…,” she hesitated, “it was more sort of…our collective faults?”

Rainbow slowly facepalmed. “Fluttershy…”

It was then that the girls heard the whistling ringing echo through their heads, immediately jumping to attention. Rarity looked over to the clock to see it was midnight.

“Don’t tell me they’re doing it again,” she moaned.

But as several of them reached for their Advent Decks, all of their phones got simultaneous text pings or buzzes. Rainbow checked hers to see a custom icon of Cavalier’s horse symbol with the message, “I got it.”

“Wait, he’s part of the network?” she asked. “We have a phone number for him?”

“Before you ask,” Sunset said, “I already tried back-tracing it. It’s a prepaid phone, there’s nothing to find about it.”

“Oh,” Rainbow sighed. “Wait, is it really that easy to do that, or did you just make that up?”

Sunset simply zipped her lips.

Time : 12:X– AM 2nd Night
Løçå†ˆø˜… ˇ˙´ Ôø¥ øƒ Ç®´å†ˆø˜

Inside a dark room lit by the moonlight coming in through several large windows with open curtains along one wall, one of the windows warped. A lone Advent Cycle sprang out and bounced to the ground, its speed almost immediately taking it out of the room through a narrow hallway where it slowed to a halt. The cover opened and Cavalier’s seat lifted him to observe the eye-level line of checkerboard running along both walls. As he got out and listened for signs of a monster nearby, he noticed the scribbled drawings pinned to the walls and stopped, pressing his eyes shut for a second.

“Not this place,” he mumbled to himself.

To start his search, he entered the pizzeria’s Main Party Room 1. It was dim, but enough moonlight filtered in from the hall to reveal shapes, and he noticed the large hole in its right wall that Hyperboxer had kicked open during last night’s battle.

“Huh, that’s new.”

“Dum-dee-dum-dum-dum…”

Cavalier instinctively swung around to the back left corner in a ready stance, already knowing where that echoing singing had to be coming from. A set of starry purple curtains hung around the small corner stage under the plank of wood bearing the name ‘Pirate Cove’. They were hanging slightly open and swaying. No, that was too easy.

Cautiously, he stepped as silently as he could in his Rider armor up to the ominously unassuming curtain and, bracing for anything, grabbed and threw it wide open. Pirate Cove was empty, save for a wooden signpost in the middle reading, “Sorry! Out of Order”. The top corner was bitten off. This thing was playing with him.

Taking another scan across the room to confirm nothing was hiding in plain sight, he slowly moved to the double doors to Parts and Services. Taking a deep breath, he grabbed the handles and paused. These handles didn’t twist nor did the doors latch, and he gently pulled to ease them open a crack—long red jaws burst from the darkness beyond with an earsplitting shriek trying to push the doors open, but he immediately slammed them shut again, barely keeping his footing.

The monster inside shoved and pounded against the metal doors, threatening to knock them of their hinges. Cavalier braced them with his shoulder as best he could, his feet constantly slipping on the slick tile floor as the ringing of metal scratching metal echoed inches from his ear. Not the best position to be in, but he could make it work. Somehow.

Suddenly the assault on the doors stopped and all fell silent. Cavalier sighed. At least this room was a dead end, but…wait. He leaned in to listen, hearing loudening footsteps quickly approaching. {1, 2, 3…}

Holding the doors shut with his left hand as best he could, he hastily slotted a card before—
Sword Vent

The doors burst open with a crash, knocking Cavalier over and sliding as a red humanoid fox monster dove over him, hitting the ground and tumbling into a table. A flash from above dropped a sword clattering to the ground in front of the doors. Cavalier scrambled to his feet as he slotted another card.
Guard Vent

The fox jerked itself upright, twisting to face the Rider as they caught their round shield on their left arm. The soft and worn red casing of Vulpatch hung over a dark metal skeleton of sorts that was already poking through in a few places, his single-piece mechanical feet fully exposed, with a metal hook gleaming in place of his right hand and a black eyepatch over his right eye.

Not wasting a moment, Vulpatch charged. Cavalier spun up his shield into a spinner weapon and held it out, Vulpatch running right into it and getting launched twisting off to the side in a burst of sparks, crashing to the ground; the impact had lurched his shield to a stop. Hmph, was this it? If the monster was that dumb, what was he worrying about before? He went to find his sword again.

Without missing a beat, however, Vulpatch hooked into the ground and reverse threw itself to its feet, in the same motion launching itself at Cavalier. He looked back just in time to partly spin his shield up again, but Vulpatch tackled onto it, grabbing the rim. His left hand was quickly shredded to the metal skeleton, but his hook dragged across the shield’s face, spits of sparks flying, and brought it to a stop.

Vulpatch snapped at Cavalier’s face over the shield with a harsh growl, its eyepatch popping up. Improvising, he detached the shield and kicked it away, trying to catch the monster off guard. Vulpatch was only forced a step back and simply dropped the shield. It leapt at Cavalier, who quickly ducked sideways letting Vulpatch loudly crash into a row of tables. Spotting the metal glint, he raced over and grabbed up his fallen sword, bringing it up to see Vulpatch already streaking at him again with a metallic shriek.

It was after midnight, but Discord was wide awake. Night seemed to call to him more, it felt more comforting, away from the light where things could be seen clear as day, things in his past he didn’t want seen. It was terrible for a job that started as early as his, but he needed this one to work.

His gray skin blended in with the paleness of everything else in the dim light, the scraggly off-white beard he’d shaved last week didn’t look so rough, and his black hair fading with age could better hide how unkempt it was.

As he thought again about what kept him up most nights, he found himself thinking back to when he’d recently told someone else who, for the first time ever, didn’t dismiss his words outright.

“I hope you don’t mind my asking,” Fluttershy had said during one of their conversations that week, “but why exactly were you mopping the floor in a totally dark room?”

“It’ll sound silly to you,” he replied, “but it was so I couldn’t see my reflection. It’s quicker than taping newspapers over everything.”

“What’s wrong with your reflection?”

“That’s the thing,” he sighed. “It feels like it’s… taunting me, or something. I don’t know how to describe it. I don’t even understand it. I just remember the times it felt like it was playing tricks with me.”

Fluttershy paused a moment. “What was it like?”

“It all started just after my conviction,” he recounted. “They had me on camera, but I knew I was never there, and then suddenly I’m seeing things that look real but turn out to be reflections and reflections that turn out to be real and I can’t tell the difference anymore. And at that point, can I really be sure I didn’t do all that? And if I didn’t, then why can I watch me doing it?”

“That sounds like an awful thing to go through. Someone faked evidence against a friend of mine once. If you think someone may have done that to you, you have to say something, even if it is this late.”

“But who would believe me? I wouldn’t believe it myself.”

“I see…,” Fluttershy said. “If it’s any consolation, I at least believe that the you I know wouldn’t do that.”

“Thank you,” he said. “I needed to hear that.”

Gripping the sword’s hilt and horseshoe crossguard, Cavalier took a step forward and thrust his blade out, Vulpatch charging into it with a blast of sparks from its gut. Cavalier swung sideways, sending Vulpatch away and tearing off part of its torso casing, revealing its lower spine through its stomach.

Somehow unfazed, Vulpatch immediately rushed at Cavalier again, the surprised Rider shouldering it back before raising his sword and bringing it down on the monster’s left shoulder, the spray of sparks revealing more of its endoskeleton. Now knowing better than to give it even a second, he swung again and raked across Vulpatch’s chest and right arm, ripping off more casing.

Vulpatch tried swinging its hook, but Cavalier dropped down and slashed its lower legs, stripping off their casing and knocking the monster to the ground. Surely that did something.

But the battered Vulpatch was already reaching at him again with its stripped metal hand. He swatted it away with his sword, retreating away to not get cornered against the wall. He glanced at the door out, but quickly dismissed the idea of facing this thing in the cramped hallway.

The instant he came back from his glance, Vulpatch was swinging its hook at him. He held his sword up for defense, but Vulpatch snagged the blade with its hook, in the same action twisting and pulling the hilt out of his grip, sending the sword flying across the room and clattering into the darkness.

Running purely on Advent Deck-downloaded reflexes, Cavalier leaned away from another hook swing, during this pulling open his slotter with the same hand motion that slid out a card, and kicked Vulpatch back another step to safely slot the card.
Arc Vent

Vulpatch lurched itself at Cavalier and swung its hook again as a golden horseshoe dropped from a flash above them, Cavalier’s hand and Vulpatch’s hook grabbing it at the same time. Vulpatch tore it out of Cavalier’s hand and sent it flying away, too, drawing back for another strike. But it heard the pulsing whoosh of the spinning horseshoe getting louder. Vulpatch’s head pivoted towards the sound, his jaws springing open in surprise as the golden boomerang flew at his face; he leapt up and bit it out of midair and it exploded, the force folding him to the ground.

Cavalier panted as he backed away, groaning as Vulpatch planted its feet and lifted itself back upright with a broken hissing screech. Its left ear and forehead were stripped to the robotic core, its eyepatch had melted open to reveal glowing white pinpricks where its eyes had been, and its jaw now hung unhinged, slapping shut with each motion.

“Do you ever stay down!” he shouted at it.

“You mean you actually believed him?” Rainbow groaned.

“Well, I didn’t not believe him,” Fluttershy said. “He sounded sincere, even if there was a lot of evidence against him.”

“Evidence?” Rarity repeated. “They had him on video, darling, I’m afraid I’ll have to side with Rainbow on this one. That’s not evidence, that’s proof.”

Pinkie called from the desk, “I could probably find it online if you wanted to see it for yourself.”

“But he said he was nervous about something in his reflection,” Fluttershy pointed out. “Don’t you think that could be relevant to all of this? That there was a side to the case the police didn’t know about? Couldn’t investigate?”

“Exactly!” Rainbow shot back. “He all but straight up told you he knew about the Mirror World. The rest could just be an act!”

“Monsters started following you around after you found out about the Mirror World,” said Fluttershy. “What if he’s another victim? Maybe he knows too much and doesn’t realize it. What he said clearly paints him on the receiving end of any mirror tricks.”

“That’s exactly what he would say if he knew we were the Riders to keep us off his trail,” Rainbow countered.

“Okay, now you’re getting ahead of the evidence,” said Rarity. “Could it just be he’s a paranoid ex-con whose Equestrian counterpart just so happened to be one of the most powerful magical beings to ever…okay, I see how this is sounding now. But it’s still all just speculation on our parts.”

“Speculation that rather conveniently falls into place, I’m just saying,” defended Rainbow.

“The last time speculation conveniently fell into place,” Fluttershy casually observed, “you were convinced Cavalier was Flash Sentry.”

Rainbow silently growled back.

“Look, it’s getting late and everyone’s a bit tired,” Sunset cut in before claws came out. “Let’s all just sleep on this and get back to it later.”

Rainbow sighed. “Yeah, fine, alright.”

As everyone maneuvered towards their sleeping bags for the night, a nagging thought drew Pinkie’s mind back to her phone.

Cavalier crashed onto a table at the far end of the room, breaking through it to the floor. He heard Vulpatch’s attacking shriek again as scratching metal footsteps rapidly closed in. He needed a new angle, he had to escape and regroup. But before he could act, the white pinprick eyes leered down at him as he was hoisted by the neck with a metal grasp, a hook scratching sparks from his chestplate to send him right back down.

In desperation he grabbed at anything, even just a piece of the broken table. His hand wrapped around something with a switch, and on reflex he aimed it at Vulpatch and clicked. The flashlight sent a blinding glare through the darkness, and Vulpatch recoiled with a harsh shout and froze stiff, its eyes blinking out.

Cavalier let himself go limp for a second and sighed. He didn’t care why that worked, but it did. He got up as quietly as he could and without bumping Vulpatch, keeping an eye on it as he slipped by, but as he turned for the door, the fox’s pinprick eyes slowly lit up again.

Turning at the slightest sound, Cavalier flashed the light again and caught Vulpatch inches away, crying another harsh shout and freezing again as it tried shielding its eyes. This was no good. Cavalier quickly scooted over one of the remaining tables and set the flashlight on it, keeping its light trained on Vulpatch.

Satisfied for the reprieve, he shuffled through the debris towards the door, noting the pair of balloons floating at one of the few tables not destroyed by two nights of battles but thinking nothing of them. He was more concerned with Caballkhan tripping over the tables or the monster’s kamikaze tackle avoiding his lance.

Unfortunately, the constant light was a bad idea to counter Vulpatch. The sudden bright flash had triggered an auto-restart, freezing him briefly, but prolonged exposure lost its potency and only served to push him into a new setting, his eye pinpricks beginning to sear up red. Cavalier was almost at the door when a shrill screech of rage stabbed his ears, turning to see the flaring red-eyed Vulpatch halfway here thundering across the room at—
Spur Vent

A pink and silver platypus monster leapt paddles wide with a screech from the sidelines, tackling onto Vulpatch and swinging its back feet up to stab it in the chest and back with its spurs.

Vulpatch shrieked and swung its hook, catching Pinkrhynch in the face and peeling him off. He tumbled to the floor, quickly scurrying to a mirror puddle appearing in front of him and diving in. Vulpatch staggered with a whine, swaying as a web of glowing pink cracks stemmed out from the spurs’ impact points, their immobilizing venom spreading. Finally, Cavalier thought, the chance he needed.
Final Vent

With no windows or mirrors about, a glass square appeared on the ground near Pirate Cove for Caballkhan to leap out of, shattering again as the steed landed. He charged as Cavalier leapt up into his saddle, shield and lance flying into his hands from a pair of overhead flashes.

Struggling against its growing paralysis, Vulpatch contorted painfully to face them, its head twisting sideways as it gave one last banshee cry before Cavalier’s lance impaled into its chest, shoving it down and dragging the monster’s back across the ground with a wake of sparks. Caballkhan reared up with a loud mechanical neigh, Cavalier hoisting the lance skyward as an energy pulse ran up it, hitting Vulpatch with an explosion that lit the room.

Dust and scraps rained as Caballkhan stamped back down. Cavalier turned to see Pinkie in her Dynamo armor leaning against the wall. “Thought I said I had it,” he called over.

“You were taking too long,” Pinkie replied, “we got worried.”

“How sweet,” said Cavalier. Then he added, “Thanks, by the way.”

“No problem!” Pinkie sent back with a thumbs-up. But she paused, snapping, “Dang it, I forgot a catchphrase this time.”

Cavalier looked around at the charred remnants of the monster, waiting for but not seeing any energy appearing like usual. “Must not be the kind to release energy,” he said. “Alright, let’s go. This place is spooky.”

“Oh?” Pinkie piped up. “Do I hear someone being scared?”

“No.”

* * *

Some Time Ago

In the interrogation room, Discord stared at the video in disbelief. As the image of him turned and grinned at the camera, he dropped his head into his shaking hands.

The Detective paused the video and turned to him. “What else can I say?”

Then came the bang of the judge’s gavel.

Next he knew, he was sitting alone on the cement bench of a holding cell, face in hands. He had just seen footage of himself committing a crime, but knew it couldn’t have been him. It wasn’t him…was it?

“I’m telling you, I never did that!” he whimpered aloud as if his case were still undecided. “That can’t be me on there.”

“Lemme guess,” said the guard leaning against the bars, “it was a one-armed man, right?” The guard’s walkie-talkie beeped, and he took it out while shuffling away.

“But it wasn’t me…,” Discord muttered. But who could look just like him?

He turned away from the bars, perhaps to convince himself he actually wasn’t here right now, only to freeze. Sitting at the other end of the bench, looking right back at him, was him. Another him.

His breathing turned shaky. This was a hallucination, right? How was that better? Some trick of the light, then? He moved his hands down to the bench. So did the other him. He stood up. So did the other him. He took a shaky step towards the other him. So did he.

Step by step he approached this doppelganger, reaching out as he did. Closer. Closer. It sure felt colder in here than before. Their hands were almost touching, both looking equally scared. Truth or madness, truth or madness. He pushed his hand forward.

And hit glass. It was a mirror at the end of the cell. His shaking hand smeared its fingerprints across the reflecting surface that was now clear to discern.

Discord turned away from the mirror, even more shaken than before, drawing short sharp breaths and covering his face with both hands to hide from the world, hide from himself. Bit by bit, he was losing his grasp, his safe reality. Why him. Why him?

Then his reflection stopped sobbing, lifting its head. It looked back over its shoulder, and its mouth stretched into a grin.

Now

In the Party Room, again unseen as the Riders left, the blue and yellow balloons tied to chairs were now joined by a third balloon on the next seat in line. Red.

At the center of the room, Vulpatch’s sizzling debris began to spark. A surge of voltage sprang out and condensed into a pulsing ball of yellowish energy. As if tugged by an invisible force, it slowly floated over to the side, drifting through the doors to Parts and Services, swirling black dust from across the room flowing to follow it. Then a humanoid metal framework sitting on the counter slipped off and fell into the pile, a bright flash shooting through the doors’ foggy circular windows.

What was left on the floor of Parts and Services appeared to be a vaguely connected mangled mess of black metallic limb segments attached with no rhyme or reason. A 3-jointed arm suddenly reached up out of the pile, its white hand shooting forward and grabbing the reader’s face

Next time, on “Kamen Rider EqG”…

3rd Night.

That one was always a bit…‘twitchy’.

“I am out for you. Take a bite out of you…”

“…the moment when my jaws…close down on you…”
Warped Image

Chapter 10: Warped Image

Warped Image ɘǫɒmI bɘqɿɒW

The Next Day, Saturday

Vinyl Scratch sat on a bench in the outdoor covered section of the mall, off to the side. She was tapping her foot and gently bobbing her head to the music streaming through her headphones. None of those tiny earbuds would do, only full coverage headsets could convey the soul-charging tunes and beats she relished in. Wow that sounded flowery.

Ignoring that distracting thought, Vinyl sank back into the music, not minding that the area was oddly empty for being a mall on the weekend. What she did mind was that the music was starting to sound off, before static rose up to interrupt it. Don’t tell her this pair was wearing out already.

When tapping the headphones did nothing, she pulled herself upright and took out the music pod to hit pause. Upon pressing the button, the screen glitched out and the headphones gave a sharp static squeal—she jerked them off her ears, quickly shutting the device off. She slouched back into the bench with a defeated sigh.

Then paused. Something wasn’t quite right, she could still…hear something. She checked the player’s screen. Yeah, it’s off. She glanced around. Okay, the emptiness of the mall was starting to be a bit disconcerting. And nothing that could be making that…

Gently, she lifted the headphones back up to her ears. As she brought them closer, a noise became audible. It was clearly some sort of garbled static, but as she listened…it almost sounded…she stiffened. Voices?

On the wall behind her, the 10-foot window warped, an image appearing of a black skeletal amalgam hanging upside down, staring out at her. It leaned away from the window, swinging back in for a glossy white fox head to warp through and swing up on a long and jointed metal neck, twisting and lunging down as its toothy jaws sprung open—

A window warped in the Mirror World, and an Advent Cycle flew out, zooming down the mall before skidding to a stop. Its cover opened and seat rose, Rainbow stepping out as Talon. She’d felt puzzle pieces starting to fall into place around this Discord fellow and it seemed like she wasn’t alone among the group. Now if only this new monster would be kind enough to just explain everything to them. Where was it, by the way?

The whistling ringing had died down, but as Rainbow looked around for a sign of it, she saw a broken pair of headphones lying at the corner of a building. She would’ve ignored them if they hadn’t looked so familiar. She ran over to them, catching a glimpse around the corner and stopping in shock.

Ambulance sirens set the scene, a conscious and responsive Vinyl being wheeled up to the rescue vehicle by a pair of EMTs.

“And you’re sure you didn’t see anything suspicious?” asked Detective Danny Haygan.

“There was nothing you could see that was unusual,” Rainbow technically didn’t lie.

“Okay, thanks,” the detective fronted, pretending to scribble down the noninformation, not satisfied but making no headway. “You can go.”

Rainbow walked back to the police tape with the gathering crowd but turned to the scene again. There was nothing he could’ve seen, but if she’d gotten there sooner… She whispered to herself, “What was this?”

* * *

“What was that?” snapped the mysterious figure. He swiped through a few mirror views before coming across the culprit. It had surprised him by reforming itself like the Dispider before, and had become notably more explorative than the others of its batch. He’d thought that would be a good thing. Manglethal hung from the corner of a ceiling like a metal spider with its three feet; branching from its overburdened torso were a half dozen too-many-jointed arms and legs, carrying such features as ending in empty ball joints, a hand attached to an elbow, and a second, bare animatronic humanoid skull head at the end of another arm which bore only a left eye while its main pink-snouted white fox head had only a right eye. It was currently ignoring him.

“Excuse me,” he said calm but forcefully, hands behind his waist.

Manglethal rotated its neck to look at the figure in the reflection, twisting its head sideways in curiosity. Some blood was smeared on its jaws.

“Do you like trying my patience?” he said. “Those weren’t my orders, I need those Riders distracted, not fired u—”

Manglethal lunged at the mirror, the image in front of the man shattering to static. He didn’t flinch, simply falling silent with an intense stare. With a wave he dismissed the screen.

“As much fun as a wild card can be,” he hissed, “I don’t need a rogue Monster drawing more attention than I wanted. And no one disobeys me.”

* * *

Back at the scene, lead detective for the case Danny Haygan, recognized the city over as coming from a family of cops by his police uniform-blue skin, watched Rainbow from a distance as his long-time partner, Detective Bays, came over.

“I get the feeling she’s hiding somethin’,” Haygan said, Manehatten accent showing. “She knows more about what’s goin’ on than she’s telling us.”

“You think she did it?” Bays asked, a woman with pale aquamarine skin.

“I don’t think I’d go that far,” Haygan replied. “Yet.”

One of the EMTs handed Vinyl’s wallet to the detective, before a female EMT called to him, “Hey Rabbit, gimme a hand, here.” He left the detectives to help her get the gurney into the ambulance.

Taking out Vinyl’s ID, Haygan found a printed card taped to it. “Great,” he said, reading it.

“What?” asked Bays.

“Look at this. It says here that she ‘doesn’t communicate verbally’.”

“This is gonna be tough,” Bays sighed. “We gonna need a sign language interpreter?”

“Hang on,” said Haygan. “I got an idea.”

“Uh-oh. What is it this time?”

Haygan held up the ID, then nodded over to Dash. “Two birds one stone.”

Bays raised her eyebrows (“Oh?”) and he raised his back (“Yeah?”), the two making their way over.

Trying to make sense of why a monster had suddenly attacked someone and then just left instead of waiting for Riders or even kidnapping them, Rainbow was caught off guard when the detectives walked up to her again. “Um, yes?”

“Just one more question,” Haygan said. “Are you close friends with this, uh, Vinyl?”

“I…guess we’re kinda friendly,” she said, trying to act normal without looking unaffected by the incident. “Don’t actually know her too well. Why?”

“According to this,” he held up the card, “she doesn’t like talking. I just thought that a familiar face might help her open up a bit. There’re a few things I need to know and she might be able to help with that. It’ll just mean tagging along for a little bit.”

“Sure.” Rainbow, you—, she started berating herself. Well, you might as well learn more before reporting this to the group. And keep these two from finding out.

After arriving at Canterlot General Hospital, they were led by a friendly nurse named Asuna to outside of Vinyl’s room, who thankfully only needed a few stitches, where they met with the light tan Dr. Stable.

“Her injuries are quite peculiar,” Dr. Stable described to the detectives as Rainbow pretended not to listen in from a distance. “They appear to have been caused by something with a very powerful vise grip that was attached over her head from ear to ear. The scarring on her hands indicates that whatever it was, it had a jagged edge, and that her hands were caught inside and were used to push out against it.” He imitated the motions. “She certainly fought back. Damage to the headphones you found nearby suggests that they may have taken a good portion of a presumably fast initial impact. They may well have saved her life.”

“So what,” Bays asked, “a weak bear trap from above?”

“I said they were quite peculiar,” repeated Dr. Stable, “but trace from the wounds did appear to be rust, I’ve sent it to your labs.”

“Right,” Det. Haygan said, “and can we see her now?”

“Well,” Dr. Stable replied, “she was a quick and easy fix, but she’s still recovering.”

“We’ve only got a few questions,” Haygan pressed with a friendly plead.

“We’ll be gone before you know it,” Bays added.

The doctor looked at them a second. “I suppose she’s in fit condition.”

“Thank you,” Haygan smiled him away, waving for Rainbow.

Inside, Vinyl was sitting up in a hospital bed, not hooked up to any machines, but with bandages on her hands and around her head. No headphones, so she had to make due with the music in her mind. She looked up in surprise as everyone suddenly walked in.

“How’s it goin’?” the man said. He held up a badge. “Just a few visitors with a few questions here.”

Vinyl looked at the two detectives, then saw Rainbow stepping around them. She gave a small wave to Vinyl, who hid a sigh. Not hidden to the detectives, though, who exchanged a brief look.

“So, I think you know what we’re here to find out, right?” asked Haygan. Vinyl nodded. “Did you see who attacked you?”

Vinyl stole a glance at Rainbow. Taking a breath, she faced the detectives and raised her hand halfway up only to stop, tilting her head from side to side, then wobbled her hand like a scale.

“You kinda did?” Haygan interpreted.

Vinyl raised a finger but paused, then shook her head.

“Yes we have no bananas? No we have plenty?”

Vinyl shrugged.

Haygan sighed. “Did you see what they used? What were they carrying?”

Vinyl had started to raise her arms straight out in front of her before shaking her head to dismiss his suggestion, proceeding to move her arms open and closed several times.

“A gator? They used an alligator?”

Vinyl paused again, then dropped her arms, facepalming with a shake of her head.

Haygan put on a smile. “Thank you for your time.” He nodded Bays out of the room with him, leaving Rainbow alone with Vinyl.

“Well?” Bays asked as they stopped outside the door. “If Rainbow was part of the attack, Vinyl certainly didn’t seem to remember that part.”

“Nah, I don’t think she’s involved in that,” Haygan said. “Now I’m just hoping she can get more info outta Vinyl. I got the feeling there’s something she’s not comfortable telling while we’re around.”

Satisfied that the detectives were out of range, Vinyl let her tension go, reaching over to the bedside table for a small notepad and pencil as Rainbow came over, glancing around. She started writing something.

“You sure you wanna do that?” Rainbow asked. “I mean, your hands…”

Vinyl stopped writing, flipping to the next page to write something else. She showed the second page to Rainbow: Nah, it’s fine.

She flipped back and finished writing the first note. Don’t think they’d believe me. Have a feeling you will.

“Why, what happened?” Rainbow whispered. “What did this?”

Vinyl wrote another note, tearing off and handing the page to Rainbow as she wrote on the next page. Monster. Came from above. Didn’t see much. Then she showed her the next page. Black metal skeleton. White fox head.

Rainbow stopped short at the description of a robotic animal. Well, she had been pulled into the Mirror World, it made sense she could see the thing.

Seeing Rainbow’s reaction, Vinyl sighed and smiled, writing another note. Something tells me you do know what’s up.

“Well…,” Rainbow started, but Vinyl had another note ready.

Need help?

Rainbow chuckled. “No thanks. You rest up now, ya hear? We got this one.”

Vinyl gave a thumbs up. Rainbow nodded and was about to leave, but Vinyl wrote one more note. Listen for static, then look up.

“Got it.”

Gathering up the pages, Rainbow walked to the door, already thinking what array of Vents she’d use against this fox monster, but stopped as she stepped between the detectives waiting right outside.

“She didn’t see anything,” Rainbow said as casually as she could.

“Really?” Haygan asked in fake surprise. “That looked like quite the gripping conversation in there. What was all that about if she didn’t see anything?”

Rainbow silently crinkled the pages tighter into her hand. Think, think. She looked Detective Haygan in the eyes. “She wanted me to feed her cat.”

Haygan looked to Bays and sighed.

“Can I go home now?” Rainbow asked.

Haygan rubbed his temples, gesturing down the hallway. Rainbow walked away before switching to a jog.

“And back to square one,” Haygan sighed.

“So now we’re just waiting for trace?” suggested Bays.

“Yeah, nothin’ else we can do now,” he replied. “What’s the world come to these days, huh? First people in costumes and so-called invisible monsters, and now attacks like this. Weird things are happening everywhere now, even showin’ up on the force. I mean, have you seen the new guy’s car?”

Bays rolled her eyes and started down the hallway. “Here we go.”

“Bright red and black,” Haygan continued, walking after her, “front like a racecar, and it’s got an extra pair of wheels in the back that point straight up. When does he expect to use them, so he can keep driving in case he ever flips over? Does he plan on doing that very often?” Bays was already turning the corner, and Haygan sprinted to catch up, calling after her, “And what’s with that belt he always wears? It looks like there’s a face on it half the time!”

* * *

“And now to our evening report,” said the ORE newswoman. “To follow on our earlier breaking news, a high school student became the victim of an alleged attack this afternoon at the Capriole Mall.” The camera view cut to an on-scene shot of the bench in front of the window from behind a line of police tape. “Authorities report the student, who is underage and will therefore not be identified, is recovering at Canterlot General and will be released in the coming days, but refuse to elaborate as to the nature of the incident, citing an ongoing investigation. The student has also declined our requests to speak privately. Speculations are flying about a possible connection to the Armored Hero incidents that had recently died down, but no reports of any such superhero at the scene have come to light.”

“Poor Vinyl,” Fluttershy said, “I hope she ends up okay after this. Did you ever meet her?”

She and Discord were watching the news report on a TV at the school. It was the weekend, but he still had a shift so she’d decided to visit him to keep him company, despite everyone else. But Discord didn’t respond, instead staring at the screen.

“Discord?”

“What?” he said, glancing around to remember his surroundings. “Oh, yes well, no more than any other student. I saw her a few times. But anyone being affected like this is terrible.”

Fluttershy took a closer look at the image on the news. “The window, huh?”

Discord sighed. “Is it too much to project my issue with reflections onto serious situations like this?”

That’s exactly what he would say, Rainbow’s words echoed in Fluttershy’s mind. Unwelcome as those words were, they made their point. Discord did sometimes seem to almost frame their conversations around reflections, as if he was allowing—inviting her to let on more of what she knew. No, she knew Rainbow’s claims about him and the Mirror Monsters were ridiculous. Still, and she hated to admit it, but the easy leaps a suspicious mind could make of the situation were…unsettling. It was so easy to defend him when she wasn’t thinking about the dissenting opinion, but did that at all mean…

“And I thought I was the one with all the spaced out pausing,” Discord said. “Sorry for asking, it was probably insensitive. I shouldn’t be bothering you with my delusions.”

She wanted to quell his fears, but she couldn’t reveal the truth. And if Rainbow really was right…

“Maybe…there are reasons,” she said slowly, carefully, Discord looking over curiously, “to be worried about reflections.”

From his screen, the mysterious man watched their conversation unfold in a contained steaming rage.

“So,” he breathed with a hiss. “You dare try to undo all my hard work? To unravel the weaving of my masterpiece? Unforgivable.” Turning away, he took a sharp deep breath, then let it out to compose himself. The silence was broken by the sudden sound of an electrical surge and a pained static screech. “You’re getting a reprieve,” he said without turning.

Off to the other side of his dark lair, Manglethal was sprawled against the ground, its mess of limbs each stuck down by globs of a Gelnewt’s goo. A bluish silver Mirror Monster with a bulbous jellyfish head and pronged projections coming off its hands stood over it, having been administering controlled shocks for its disobedience. Manglethal’s head jerked up to look at the man, shaking slightly, a spark jumping between its teeth.

“You’re good at interference, aren’t you?”

In response, Manglethal gave a shrill howl accompanied by a static squeal, the floating screen next to the man wavering.

“Please don’t make jokes about that,” Discord said.

“No, I wasn’t,” Fluttershy said, trying to find a safe way to steer this. “I just mean…she mentioned the Armored Hero, right? Me and my friends have been…‘looking into’ what he was doing, and it in…may involve…mirrors.” Discord was giving her that kind of look you give a child spinning a fantasy as they go. But she had him on the line, she should at least try to reel in some detail. Maybe something that could get Rainbow off his case. “Yeah, it was mostly Ra—this one friend who was following the story. She remembers everything about it. How about you, do you remember what you were doing when you first heard about him? We’ve heard her story countless times.”

“Goodness, um,” he humored her, “well I wasn’t the biggest news watcher back then, so I may have missed a few of the stories. But I know I first heard about him after coming here.”

She knew he’d become janitor before they first stumbled across the Mirror World, but as for the first missing person Cavalier had admitted was connected, she wasn’t so sure. “Well, when did you start working here?”

“Oh, a good month or so ago,” he replied. “Right around the point when you’re getting the hang of it and stop counting.”

Convenient non-answer, Fluttershy though, seemingly in Rainbow’s voice. No, he had a perfectly valid reason for not having an exact answer. Bad Rainbow conspiracy theory, no food for you! “Speaking of…,” Fluttershy muttered to herself. After Rainbow found something like Vinyl’s attack, shouldn’t she have called some sort of a meeting, or a discussion at least? How come she hasn’t yet? She slid out her phone to double check.

“I’m still not too keen on doin’ things like this,” Applejack said.

“Yeah,” added Pinkie, “you told us Rarity and Fluttershy were just running late. Now it turns out you didn’t invite them at all?”

“So?” Rainbow said. Following a rather unusual request, the girls had gathered not in their normal base in Twilight’s lab, but in its Mirror World duplicate, and with several notable absentees. “They’d be impossible to convince in a divided crowd,” she explained, as if the justification was understood.

“Meanin’ we’re the easy swing votes,” Applejack said.

“A crowd being what’s divided could end up the least of your worries,” Sunset spoke up from a table off to the side. Unlike its other version, the tables weren’t lined up neatly, there was less stuff cluttered around, and the open door lacked Twilight’s fancy lock, orange evening light streaming in to partly illuminate the scene. “Aren’t you taking this a bit too far?”

“Too far is what this new monster did,” Rainbow shot back. “How are we heroes if we let this happen?”

Sunset sat up at that. “We had and still have no way of predicting monster activity, just reacting.”

“No way?” repeated Rainbow. “We know who’s behind it!”

“We have a person of interest,” Sunset reiterated, “barely even a suspect.”

“Who else could it be!?”

“Anyone!”

“Sunset’s right,” Applejack interrupted.

“You were the first one to suggest him!” Rainbow countered.

“And what are you suggestin’?” Applejack replied. Rainbow fell silent. “As us or as Riders, jus’ swooping in on someone who looks suspicious isn’t the best or the right thing to do.”

“Yeah,” Pinkie said, “if you’re so on this hero angle, then imagine the optics if you go after the wrong guy. It typically takes the whole third act to make up for that.”

Rainbow groaned. “Then we can at least look close enough to know if he is the wrong guy or not.”

“You mean if he’s the right guy or not,” Sunset said. “Being assumed innocent comes first, remember?”

“I’m sorry,” scoffed Rainbow, “I missed that lesson in Gov. and Econ. because I was thinking about a classmate who almost got their head bitten off by an invisible monster on the loose.”

“And that’s bad, I agree,” said Sunset, “but this won’t help.”

“Is this a sign of things to come?” Rainbow asked. “Monsters have been leaving people alone for over a week, now. Have we just been lucky? Is that over? Are they back with a vengeance?” The others looked between each other dolefully. “Catching monsters in the act isn’t enough, we need to stop their ringleader now, before things can go any farther. That villain had a monster straight up attack someone we see almost every day, and we,” she got caught up on a choke, “we might have known who they were. We shouldn’t have let it get this far.”

“I’m surprised it got this far, too,” said a new voice. Everyone turned to see Fluttershy standing at the mirror on the wall with crossed arms. “I thought we were a team in this.”

Rainbow stuttered to say, “L-look, Fluttershy, this—”

“No, I get it,” she dismissed. “Naïve little Fluttershy can’t be trusted as a judge of character even when she’s the only one who knows the person we’re all throwing accusations at.”

Rainbow sank to the table and buried her face.

“As fun as I’m sure this is gonna be,” Applejack said, getting up, “I got something tomorrow I gotta be ready for. Y’all know where I stand on this, I’ll expect you to have Rainbow sorted out next time we meet.” She walked over and left through the mirror without another word.

Fluttershy came over and took a seat opposite Rainbow, politely folding her hands and sitting perfectly straight. “I assume I’m allowed to sit here, as you do seem to be missing someone at the moment.” Rainbow didn’t respond.

“There’s clearly a problem here,” Pinkie piped up, crouching with her hands on the table and reach-walking them towards Rainbow, “and Pinkie Pie’s Patented Friendship Counseling Technique will be the surefire remedy to—”

“Pinkie, you can go, too,” Sunset said, eyes locked on Rainbow. “I’ve got this handled.”

“You?” Pinkie replied, immediately dropping the persona. “Well…alright, if you’re up for it.” She backed away towards the mirror, surprised but sensing someone on a mission. “See you later, then.” She backed through the mirror and vanished.

In the silence that remained, Rainbow and Fluttershy glanced around a bit. This isn’t how either of them had predicted showing up here would go.

“Alright girls,” Sunset said in an imposingly calm manner, moving over to their table, “you’re both straightening this out before we leave.” She could tell she was coming on a bit intense, and she should know the strength of their friendship by now, but she was able to tear them apart by setting them at odds just like this, and this time the conflicts were actually real. She wouldn’t risk letting this group fall apart around her, not over something like this.

Rainbow leaned away from Sunset a bit. It was that extreme attitude that had made her scary in the first place all that time ago. “First of all,” she started to Fluttershy, “you have to understand that—”

“No,” Sunset cut in, “she doesn’t have to understand. And don’t be so defensive, we’re building bridges, not walls.”

Rainbow gave a long wince, then let out a sigh. She got it. No more fronts, time to let them all the way in. Sunset being so stern actually made it easier to open up to Fluttershy instead. “I…I shouldn’t have just tackled the first theory I saw because I was angry at our lack of progress. I only saw what I wanted to see, and I can tell it made me straining to be around. It was a bad choice that led to a bad call. I’m sorry.”

Sunset turned to Fluttershy. “And is there anything you’d like to say with regard to the defense of your position?”

“You callously ignored who Discord is now,” Fluttershy answered to Rainbow. “He may or may not have started off the same as that other Discord, or however our world duplicates work, but the different things they went through changed each of them into different people. Whatever about Equestria’s Discord made you suspect him, our Discord is completely different and that didn’t deserve to be overlooked.”

“A very good point,” Sunset said in an off sort of cheerful.

“I know you want the answer before anything else bad can happen,” Fluttershy continued, “I do too, but I also know you know that jumping to conclusions isn’t how we’re gonna get it, and for briefly losing sight of that, I forgive you.”

“But that’s not the only thing you’d like her to know,” Sunset added in the same tone. “Fluttershy, if you will.” Fluttershy looked to her, then looked away and shifted nervously. “It only works if you actually say it.”

Fluttershy gave a moan, but then her own deep sigh. Even for her, this part was difficult. “I did not appreciate being left out of this secret meeting designed to undermine my position on this important issue facing the group. Rejecting my input directly to me without a thought earlier wasn’t much better, but this time it stung. However…I can’t say that I’ve been as ironclad in my confidence as I’ve been letting on, and though I still feel firmly that I’m right, I can understand the uncertainty and shouldn’t expect to have my word go without question just because I said it. That is, I’m sorry for mocking you for doubting or disagreeing with me.”

Sunset turned to Rainbow to prompt her again, but Rainbow raised a finger to her face before she could speak.

“I am also sorry if I hurt you by doubting and ignoring your judgment,” Rainbow said. “You’re a very caring and forgiving person, and sometimes it just feels like you give chances where they shouldn’t be. But, you clearly have your reasons, and though I don’t always see the same things, you still deserve to be listened to on that.”

“Thank you,” Fluttershy nodded.

The two stood up and hugged over the table. Sunset sat back and sighed to herself, hiding a smile. Crisis averted.

With nothing else pressing happening, and with plenty of time left before they’d actually need to leave, the three just hung around, finding topics new and old to discuss and laugh about as it got later.

The mysterious man was back at the pizzeria, standing in front of the open curtains to the pitch black backstage area, the type of place it enjoys so much.

“You’re on early tonight,” he said into the darkness. “It seems someone I thought I’d written out of the script has returned to the stage. See that they don’t find the spotlight, it could disrupt the performance…and the show must go on.”

From behind his back, he held out a very particular microphone. In the darkness, a pair of glowing eyes blinked on, staring at it.

* * *

Nighttime

Discord pulled his janitor cart through the dark and empty hallways of Canterlot High, an uneasy feeling floating in the air.

He normally preferred the night shift on weekends, which the school was happy to give him, because it kept him away from most people. Except for Fluttershy’s visit earlier, though, she was fine. She wasn’t ‘most people’. But something was off about this shift.

There were many types of darkness, he’d come to find out, like total black darkness, foggy gray darkness, and streetlamp yellow darkness. This was blue darkness, under the light of the moon reflecting in the windows and throughout the halls. But there was something else about it. Something.

He stopped, and the creaking of his cart’s wheels echoed out. Then a clatter. He sprung to attention.

“Fluttershy?” he called, though doubtful. “A-are you back? It’s awfully late…”

He saw a brief blur of motion out of the corner of his eye and quickly turned, seeing a large mirror on the wall and giving a small jump before steadying himself.

“Oh, heh,” he sighed. “It’s me.” His own reflections had unnerved him for a while, but he knew it had to be nothing, right? Fluttershy’s far-fetched story had put that in clear perspective. Staring right at this one…it wasn’t so bad after all. Nothing to be worried about. “It’s only me,” he repeated. He started to walk away.

“That’s right,” sneered a voice that sounded just like his own. Discord spun back, seeing his reflection suddenly with its arms crossed and wearing a cruel smile. “It’s you.”

He barely had time to gasp. The mirror rippled and his reflection was replaced with a tall brown monster that reached out of the glass at him.

Still in the mirror version of the lab, Sunset and Rainbow heard the whistling ringing. For Fluttershy, however, it felt somehow different. Some extra instinct gave her an unexplainable sense of urgency. But before the girls could pinpoint where it was coming from, the sound seemed almost to shoot through the air right past them.

“What the?” Sunset said. “You don’t think this one is—”

“It’s jumping through the Mirror Plane!” Rainbow finished.

As she reached for her Advent Deck, however, the mirror in the room warped. She looked over, but no one had arrived.

“Uh, where’s Fluttershy?” asked Sunset.

TimE 12()()FM 3rd hNtgi
Ybsh//jalaySTN// :ont*icaLoL#Lo-Lo-Lo—

Discord was pushed into the north wall of the pizzeria’s Greeting Hall, veiled in darkness with the curtains drawn shut. Standing in front of him was the imposing form of a brown humanoid bear with a small black top hat: Jawzbear. Discord was steadily realizing he couldn’t be dreaming, a deep-seated panic setting in.

“W-wh—,” he stuttered. “What do you want from me?”

The bear monster only stood there, staring at him. Glaring. Then its head gave a small shake as a scratching static sound rose up, brief shrill screeches and garbles jumping out as if tuning a radio. As the peaks settled out into a background of cleaner static, an artificial squeak emerged and expanded into the distinct sound of an ‘nnnn’, then an ‘ehhh’ before cutting out. It was…talking?

“Never forgive,” Jawzbear’s voice box crackled. “Never forget.”

Discord fumbled his hands against the wall behind him, but found nothing. Jawzbear stepped forward, and he sank to the floor, hopeless.

“Don’t close your eyes,” the bear growled. “It’s not over yet.”

Jawzbear raised its arms, Discord flinching, but the monster grabbed its own head instead. Against the straining and springing of metal components, Jawzbear tilted and twisted until it tore the brown casing off its metal skull. Then it turned the head around in its grasp and pushed the open neck hole at Discord.

He caught the head in desperation, seeing in through the hole a jungle of wires and crossbeams spanning and jutting around the inside the head with no room for his own, the body of Jawzbear visible through the eye holes. Its strength would overpower his in seconds.

“N-no, no!” Discord pleaded in the vain hope for help. “Why…?” he whimpered.
Flutter Vent

A swarm of glowing pink butterfly projectiles strafed Jawzbear’s right side, triggering a barrage of small explosions that made it recoil. A moment later, a yellow-suited Kamen Rider flew in with a kick that sent Jawzbear stumbling across the room and collapsing into the cashier counter, bringing a section of the counter with it to the floor.

“Are you okay?” asked the petite voice of the Rider, leaning down to him.

Discord blinked a few times to regain focus, but despite looking at an off-brand Armored Hero outfit, what he’d heard had been clear as day. “That can’t be…,” he started. The Rider paused. “Fluttershy?”

The Rider gave a nervous wave. “Hi,” she said. “I guess I had my own secrets to keep, too.”

Discord shook his head. “Is there still a chance I’m just dreaming?”

Fluttershy was about to respond, but the nearby wreckage shifted. Still on the ground, Jawzbear held up its head casing facing them, and the decapitated head opened its jaws and roared at them, echoing through the room.

“One thing I’ll need to admit,” Fluttershy said, “is that I’m really only brave for the first move of a confrontation before I have the chance to look around, realize what I’ve just gotten myself into, and determine that maybe this wasn’t such a good idea after all.” She grabbed his hand. “Run!” {Burn it Out}

As Fluttershy pulled Discord to his feet and ran through the doorway deeper into the building, Jawzbear stuffed its head back on, giving a deep, slow laugh. From elsewhere in the establishment, a clunking sound accompanied the rising growl of machinery as the main generators fired up full, dim lights blinking on throughout various rooms across the premises.

Rainbow and Sunset warped into the Central Hall through an empty fire extinguisher case as Talon and Leona, immediately having Fluttershy leading Discord cut right between them.

“Whoa!” Sunset let out, backing up. “This place needs a crossing guard.”

“Is that Discord?” Rainbow asked, looking after the pair. “So wait, was he really related?”

“You think I know more?” said Sunset. “Where are they going?”

While the Riders were facing down the hall, a Jawzbear now with a slightly tattered casing silently melted out of the darkness behind them, looking over their shoulders curiously.

Sunset crossed her arms. “There’s something right behind us, isn’t there?”

“Probably,” said Rainbow.

As Jawzbear raised its arms, the two turned and grabbed onto it. It tried walking through them, but together they pulled and shoved it through the door into the now lit Main Party Room 1, lights flickering and the humming from the generator room coming from beyond the northwest corner. Crawling around on the ceiling, Manglethal ignored the figures below and tapped at an unlit bulb, an electric spark jumping from its appendage and surging the light on to burst a second later, Manglethal recoiling.

Jawzbear stumbled through the debris of tables and chairs from past nights of battles, scraping the Riders off him in the process. He shook his head and turned back to them as they pulled themselves back up. They dared to push him around? Tall and thick, his imposing presence conveyed a simple message: he does what he wants and goes where he pleases. Jawzbear let out an echoing roar, the Riders covering their ears as the light bulbs above strained before bursting one by one, bringing the room into a total, unnatural inky darkness.

Though they’d been standing feet apart, Rainbow couldn’t see Sunset anymore. A deep, slow laughing drifted around her as she tried stepping through the darkness, but no matter where she turned it never sounded closer. Then the hair on her neck raised.
Strike Vent

Rainbow spun around as Jawzbear’s open maw reached towards her head, grabbing its face with her taloned gauntlets, left hand on its chin and right hand over its right eye as it twisted its head around at unnatural angles to push closer. It pushed with a near unstoppable force, Rainbow’s feet sliding back and sparks spitting from her gauntlets’ claws, her arms straining towards giving out. Leaning over to push down, its mouth reached around her head, and while her grasp kept it from biting, its inner jaws pulled loose of the head casing and snapped inches away.

Rainbow ducked as she shoved its head to the side, kicking off its stomach and rolling back. As she sprang to her feet again, she faintly saw its shape drifting away and melting into the darkness, its deep laugh fading. As her heart and breathing calmed down, ambient light returned to the scene, streaming from under the doors to Parts and Services a few feet to the left.

Hearing a shambled scraping, she looked up to see Manglethal crawling across the ceiling. Black metal skeleton. White fox head. Exactly as Vinyl had described.

“Oh, so it was you, was it?” Rainbow called up to it. Manglethal looked down at her for a second, then scurried over to a large open square vent entrance near the ceiling on the west wall, loudly vanishing though it as its metal walls echoed. “Get back here!” Not knowing the blueprints, she didn’t know if these doors would let her follow, but she pushed through them anyway.

Back in the darkness, Sunset looked around for any sign of anything. “Rainbow?” she called. No response. She dropped a card into her lionhead slotter but left it sitting open, hand on its mane. Taking long and slow breaths, she stood perfectly still, waiting, listening.

A large pair of glowing white eyes blinked on in the darkness a short ways away as a music box began to play a chilling children’s melody. Well, it was no tune Sunset ever grew up with. Trying to ignore its attempt to intimidate her, she adjusted her footing and stared down the eyes. The eyes and music abruptly shut off mid-note, again leaving total darkness and silence. Sunset took a breath and held it, focusing on anything she could sense. Seconds passed.

Step.

Pause…

A form in the darkness began to move, Sunset snapping her slotter closed.
Attack Vent

Jawzbear rose out of the murk right in front of Sunset, starting a screech—cut off by a mirror whoosh and the red Pantheraleo lunging in and tackling Jawzbear with a roar. The humanoid lion wrestled Jawzbear away from his master, though the beast was almost a foot taller than him, and when it got its footing back, it grabbed his hand in its powerful grip and began pushing back. Pantheraleo growled as he struggled against Jawzbear’s sheer strength, but found himself slowly being overpowered, Jawzbear pushing him down to his knees as its deep laugh echoed.

Sunset looked around in the darkness, having already lost track of the dueling pair. Then an orange and yellow display flared up with a roar, flame jets spewing through the vent slits in Pantheraleo’s mane melting the shadows away and forcing Jawzbear to try shrinking away from the light. But their hands were grasping each other’s, and Pantheraleo held tight.

Jawzbear tried slipping around Pantheraleo towards the Backstage area that connected the two Party Rooms, but the Advent Beast saw its move and maneuvered to stay between them. With a screech, Jawzbear shoved Pantheraleo with its full strength to break away from its grasp and disappeared back into the darkness towards the door. Seconds later, the unnatural darkness faded away, bringing the room back into faint view.

Sunset sighed, then heard a commotion echoing through the ceiling vent. She raced over to Parts and Services.

Rainbow raced through Parts and Services and took the only door deeper, entering a large and open dark room full of humming generators. Spinning around and losing her direction while finding nothing, she remembered the advice Vinyl had given her: listen for static.

Standing still, she listened. The humming and whirring were loud and distracting, but if she listened closer…closer. The background noise fell away in her mind, revealing the hidden, garbled sound of static. Barely audible, it seemed to be coming from…right above her—

With a metallic shriek, Manglethal stretched down from the ceiling like a slinky, jaws clamping down onto Rainbow’s helmet, shrill and jumbled static screeching in her ears. She grabbed at the jaws with her gauntlets but was lifted clean of the ground, swinging around in her struggle. Desperately she jabbed and slashed at Manglethal’s face, sparks spraying, prompting it to squeal and flail, swinging her back and forth and back and throwing her across the room.

Rainbow tumbled to the ground, her gauntlets flying off and clattering away. She pushed herself back up and Manglethal immediately swung in again and rammed her in the chest with its nose, an electrical jolt jumping to her as she flew back even farther, slamming her back into a control panel on the back wall, the jolt jumping to it and powering up the panel, the lights in the room coming to life. The Generator and AC room was basically a large warehouse with bare cement walls and floor, silver pipes running along the walls, and humming machinery with gauges and dials everywhere. A pair of raised platforms ran along the side walls as balconies with guardrails.

Rubbing her head, Rainbow saw Manglethal crawling across the ceiling towards her again, quickly slotting a card—
Wing Vent

—as the monster lunged down at her, a pair of large metal wings folding around her a second before it rammed into them with a loud clang.

Manglethal examined its quarry’s new shell before dropping to the floor. It pounded with its handless limbs, battering the metal feather scales and threatening to knock them off. Inside the wings, Rainbow pushed out to hold them steady against the onslaught. If she could get off a Blast Vent, it might buy her some time. Maybe racing in alone was another bad idea. A white mechanical hand sticking off an elbow grabbed over the top of the wings.

Following the sounds of a battle, Sunset saw Manglethal pounding on a folded Wing Vent, racing up a short set of stairs onto the left balcony. Sneaking up to the monster from above, she opened her slotter and reached for her Advent Deck.

Manglethal clamped its jaws onto the edge of the outer wing, pulling back. Inside, Rainbow heard the screech of metal bending as half of her protection was pried open. Through the gap created, Manglethal’s right eye and empty left eyehole locked with her gaze.

But as something landed behind Manglethal, it let go of the wing, which folded back down as best it could, and twisted its head around with a snarl. Staring back at it was Sunset, holding up her slotter, hand on the gauntlet’s lion mane.

“Burn with me,” she said, pulling the mane.
Sun Vent

Manglethal stared as her armor began glowing red and yellow, letting out a shriek as the light flared.

A blast of light and heat peeked around the edges of Rainbow’s Wing Vent, followed by the metal clanking and scraping of Manglethal scampering over the guardrail and up the machinery into a vent. Then something rapped several times on the wings.

“Knock, knock,” came Sunset’s voice.

“Who’s there?” Rainbow replied.

“Not the creepy fox thing,” Sunset said.

“Good enough for me.”

Rainbow opened the wings and Sunset helped her up. The end of the right wing was bent outwards and wouldn’t fold back properly, so she decided to despawn the entire setup, the locking points on her back letting go as the pack gave a slight glow, shattering away as it fell into quickly fading glass shards.

“Why here again?” Cavalier asked himself, responding to the monster alarm only to find himself back in the Central Hall of the pizzeria. Then the dark hallway sunk into an even deeper darkness, the sound of deep laughing quickly approaching.
Guard Vent

He caught his shield and looked around, turning to a loud thumping sound behind him, but his shield was shoved back at him, ramming him into the wall as the deep laughing passed right by, leaving as the extra darkness faded.

If it was ignoring him, that was a bad sign. He ran after it.

Sunset was looking over one of the control screen in the generator room, which displayed a secondary map layered overtop of the pizzeria’s floor plan. Rainbow stood impatiently nearby. Sunset pressed a few buttons, mechanical whirring echoing through the open vent shaft from what sounded like several distances.

“That should do it,” said Sunset, nodding to Rainbow. “Do it now.” Rainbow slotted a card.
Blast Vent

A column of wind swirled around Rainbow’s right arm and she thrust it up at the vent, a tornado shooting off and sweeping into the duct. A series of clanks echoed out, getting fainter for a second before getting louder and louder, a harsh wail rising to accompany it as the tornado burst out of the vent again, Manglethal flying across the room and crashing onto the floor.

“Yeah?” Sunset cooed.

“I’ll admit, I had my doubts for a minute there,” Rainbow replied.

Left in the center of the room with no walls or bars to grab or climb on, Manglethal was all but trapped, its lack of a coherent limb arrangement preventing it from moving effectively on a flat surface. It scrambled awkwardly across the ground towards the doorway, its three legs tripping over each other and the other appendages it couldn’t figure what to do with before simply grabbing the cement and trying to drag itself.

After leading Discord through a random door out of the Central Hall, Fluttershy was catching her breath leaning to keep the door out of Main Party Room 2 shut. It was just bright enough to see across the room, as the lights seemed to be spending most of their output lighting up the glass bulbs themselves instead of their surroundings.

“That thing,” Discord trembled, “it came out of the reflection. That’s what you meant earlier, right?”

“Yeah,” was all Fluttershy could think to say. As she looked around the room, she noticed the hole in the left wall and how it was much darker beyond it. And how that darkness was spreading out through the hole. “Um, not to cause alarm, but we might need to move again. Now.”

But as she fumbled with the door handle, the darkness slid back into the hole, revealing a view of Pantheraleo. He turned to her, spreading his arms wide in some sort of a message. That’s when she heard a deep laugh echoing from behind the door.

“It’s back,” moaned Discord, backing away and grabbing his head. Fluttershy’s eyes shot around the room, noticing a glint in the far corner of the room, beyond the stage.

“This way,” she said, grabbing his hand again, “we can go through mirrors.” As they traversed the room, however, the sound of the door bursting open came from behind. “Keep running!”

All the lights above them began blowing out in a wave spreading across the room towards the mirror, a deep darkness sweeping up behind them. They were almost there, but the last light, right above the mirror, blew out, a pair of glowing white eyes blinking on in front of it. Fluttershy brought them to a stop as Jawzbear gave its slow deep laugh. Its jingling melody started up, and she pushed Discord backwards as the eyes moved towards them step by step. Flipping a wing sheath on her butterfly shield open, she slotted a card.
Attack Vent

The mirror behind Jawzbear warped, and it was suddenly rammed by a giant butterfly, its music cutting out. Dustwinger rose and rapidly beat its pink wings, buffeting Jawzbear as clouds of sparkling dust fell from them that ate away the deep darkness and partially illuminated the room.

“Even if it would be for Vinyl,” Rainbow said, looking around, “I don’t think Aquileo would have enough room in here. Would you do the honors?”

“Don’t think you’re the only one mad about that,” replied Sunset, holding up the red starburst card with a gold lion head emblem and slotting it.
Final Vent

Sunset’s katana flew into her hand from a flash, Pantheraleo stepping up behind her and blazing up his mane. Manglethal looked up from its failed scarper as Pantheraleo roared, a massive lion’s head of fire bursting from his flames and streaking at it. It desperately tried scrambling away and got itself tangled up.

Sunset jumped up as the lion’s mouth passed around her, the construct dragging her as her sword ignited. She swung it to draw an ‘X’ of fire in midair and shoved it forward with the blade. As Manglethal extracted its bare second head from under the second knee of its third leg, it turned to the approaching ‘X’ with a shriek, the flaming brand stamping itself over its torso and crossing several of its limbs.

The lion’s head opened its jaws wide as it reached the immobilized Manglethal, Sunset thrusting and impaling it through the center of the ‘X’, the jaws of flame clamping down on it and surging the entire head in through the wound. Manglethal sprang its head at Sunset with a hiss, its body being shredded by a fiery explosion as soon as it moved, the heat wave washing harmlessly past Sunset.

This time, Manglethal’s energy condensed immediately, floating up out of the burning spot in front of Sunset. Pantheraleo leapt at the energy ball, absorbing it on contact.

As Cavalier followed the deep laughing into the large room, he saw the thick cloud of sparkling dust spreading throughout the room. Fluttershy was trying to lead someone he didn’t recognize through it, probably a monster kidnap victim, but her own Advent Beast seemed to be accidentally hampering her efforts.

“This way!” he shouted, waving to them. As they made their was to the door, Cavalier noticed the monster and groaned.

A howling Jawzbear was swinging at Dustwinger, but after it saw Fluttershy approaching the exit, Dustwinger lifted away and sank back through the mirror. Looking through the dust, Jawzbear locked onto Discord again. Cavalier watched Jawzbear, its eyes still alight, forcefully stepping towards them through the cloud.
Arc Vent

As Fluttershy led Discord past him, he raised a golden horseshoe pointed right at Jawzbear, then drew back and threw. Meant to soften it up for the main fight, the boomerang spun through the air and hit Jawzbear’s shoulder, sparking a small explosion…which ignited the sparkling dust cloud, spreading a raging fireball across the room in a split second, the blast wave knocking an unprepared Cavalier clean through the doorway and to the floor. Luckily, he’d had his shield out already, which took the brunt of it. Sprinklers in the Central Hall were triggered by the smoke, but due to a budget maximization strategy, they had only been placed in this hall to prevent fires in the central hub of the building. Fortunately for the building, the fireball had burned itself out immediately.

Despite the brief event, the room had been scorched barren. A ball of energy floated amidst the crackling of scattered flames and flickers soon to die out. Cavalier pulled himself back up, blinking his vision straight again to see the state of the room.

“It’s time they closed this place anyway,” he muttered.

In the remaining Party Room next door, Rainbow and Sunset ran to check on the floor-shaking boom, passing by a line of balloons tied to chairs of a table. A fourth balloon now floated alongside the previous three: blue, yellow, red, and now brown.
Now it’s all burning, burying the nightmare.
Crumbling away, but the scars remain there.
Smoke’s licking the skies, crashing down to the floor.
Maybe it’s safe now? Salt the ground to be sure.

Dustwinger re-emerged from the mirror sitting against the wall, now cracked but still intact, and absorbed Jawzbear’s energy.
Salt the ground to be sure…

The mysterious man looked away from his screen as the Riders met up. His delicately planned machinations were now in utter ruins. His masterwork, his ‘Portrait of a Frightened Man’, gone forever. But with a loss as total as this, he knew he couldn’t remain mad.

“No better way to build anew,” he said begrudgingly, “than after the old has been torn away completely.” And in its place…he would create a new masterpiece. They were already so close as it was. It was time for them to meet the one behind it all.

“Mental note,” Sunset said after she and Rainbow had been filled in, “keep your power and my power away from each other.” That’s when the whistling ringing returned. “Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me.”

The noise echoed from all around them before settling down in one direction: inside the scorched Party Room. The cracked mirror propped in the far corner began to warp and ripple, a black silhouette fading into view, red-on-yellow eyes glowing piercingly.

Rainbow and Sunset immediately raced in, opening their slotters in preparation, Cavalier staring for a second before following. Fluttershy stayed back with Discord, keeping him out of sight away from the doorway.

“Who’s there!” Rainbow demanded as they reached the mirror. The form within the silhouette faded in to show itself, the glowing eyes subsiding, but it still stood half in shadow from the dark room. They recognized what they saw of him. There was no doubt anymore.

The figure spoke, not to them, but at them, in a subdued but sinister tone. “I don’t need to introduce myself to something I’m going to destroy…”

“You’re right, you don’t need to,” Sunset said, stepping forward. “I know who you are. You were the only one it could be.” She pointed at him. “You’re Discord, the Spirit of Chaos.”

He did not respond immediately. “I recognize that title,” the figure said calmly, staring at them. “It is mine, but that’s not my name.” He feigned a sigh as he continued, “Oh, but I suppose I can see where your confusion stems from. That’s the name of the other me. The one from the world behind the mirrors.”

“Wait,” Rainbow cut in, “aren’t you the one from behind the mirrors?”

“But who is truly the ‘real’ them?” the figure replied. “From your reflection’s perspective, you’re the reflection.” He gave a slight, creepy chuckle. “This Spirit of Chaos is called Turmoil.”

“Alright then, Termite Motor Oil,” Rainbow continued, “you dared to show your ugly face, now get with the monologuing. Why are you doing this?”

“Why?” repeated Turmoil. “Why, revenge, of course.”

“And what did our world ever do to you?” Rainbow demanded.

“Your world?” he taunted, his voice livening up. “Your world? Oh, no, no, your world isn’t my target, it’s just in the way. There’s only one treasure in this world that I seek: the portal out.”

“How do you know about the portal?” accused Sunset.

“I had a bad experience with its twin,” Turmoil recounted. “I was thrown out of my old world, and they barricaded the door behind me, how rude. So now, I have to take the long way around, which just so happens to go right…through…you.”

“If you’re not after these worlds,” Cavalier spoke up, “then why are you still terrorizing them?”

“These worlds?” Turmoil repeated innocently. “Terrorizing? Oh, I haven’t the power to terrorize in these worlds, just…antagonize.”

“That’s what you call kidnapping the entire population?” he pressed.

“Over on this side of the portal, there was no magic,” Turmoil said, frustration in his voice rising. “I was trapped in this world, all but powerless, for longer than I care to remember. I couldn’t stand looking at it anymore—I just had to do something as I left.” He hissed a deep breath, calming again. “Now, however, the only interest I have is finding the portal’s duplicate over on your side. Although, it’s been so long since I came through that everything’s changed, and I’ve forgotten where it was. Minor issue, I’ll solve it soon,” he said, waving the air away. “Once I’m through it, however, I shall finally regain my true form, and my infinite powers will return at last!” A maniacal tone crept into his voice. “I’ll use the world I find as a testing ground of sorts, just to make sure I remember how to do everything, before moving through the mirrors again to my true prize. Oh, how I will savor the moment when it comes. The world that cast me out, at my mercy once again.” He savored the moment early for a second. “You should be thankful. Of the four connected worlds, yours is the one I have the least interest in ruining.”

“Speak for yourself,” Sunset and Cavalier said simultaneously, both stepping forward. Sunset paused, glancing over at Cavalier.

Turmoil hid a smirk, and continued with another fake sigh. “Oh, I suppose that if you’re going to get all up in a tizzy about me coming after your world, I might as well give you a one-chance pass. You leave me and my Mirror Monsters alone, make no further attempt to stop us from finding and getting through the portal once it opens again, and I promise I won’t bother you or your world anymore.”

“Only our world?” Rainbow pressed, not needing a group pause.

“But of course,” grinned Turmoil. “What more could you possibly care for?”

“Yeeeeaah, no, not happening,” Rainbow replied. “We surely won’t back down from defending our world, but neither will we leave another one defenseless.”

“Are you sure?” taunted Turmoil. “I’m sparing you. This game has no continues if you lose, so choose wisel—”

“No deal means no deal,” insisted Rainbow, “and none of us would hesitate to give the same answer over again.”

“Not for a second,” Sunset confirmed.

“Good,” Turmoil said, drumming his fingers together. “I was hoping you’d say that. I hope you’re all prepared…because you’re in for a bad time.”

Sunset wouldn’t let him steer the conversation anymore. “Why are you even telling us all of this, anyway? What could you possibly get out of revealing your plans to the enemy?”

“Oh, well aren’t you genre-savvy?” Turmoil cooed. “It’s all to see your looks of frustration turn to anger when you realize that knowing my plan gets you no closer to stopping it. I like riled-up adversaries. They don’t think as clearly as they would otherwise, and it’s always amusing to watch…them…squirm…” The mirror warped as his image faded away on his last words.

The Riders stood in silence, processing what they’d heard. Sunset turned to Cavalier.

“Care to elaborate?” she asked.

Cavalier looked away. “No comment.”

Rainbow looked back at the door where Fluttershy and Discord were surely listening from.

“Don’t say it to her,” Sunset warned as she walked by.

“What?” Rainbow replied, following. “I was almost right.”

“I-I had been hearing about what happens at the school,” Discord said, having slid to the floor, “but I never actually thought…”

“It’s a lot to take in, isn’t it?” comforted Fluttershy.

They looked up as the others walked out the door.

“I…I only heard some of that,” Discord said to them. “W-was that my reflection? What was it doing?” He paused and looked away. “Am I responsible?”

Sunset looked to Fluttershy, who nodded.

“None of this was your fault,” she said. “It never has been.”

“Never?” he repeated. “I…then it wasn’t me. It really wasn’t.”

“No,” Fluttershy continued. “It was all a trick. You were just caught up in a villain’s plans.”

“But, but this is great,” he said, excitement starting to rise in his voice. “Ha! I’m not crazy. Does that mean this is over?” He looked back to them. “Can I clear my name and get rid of this black cloud hanging over me? Can I get my old life back?”

Fluttershy paused. This would hurt. “I’m afraid this can’t go public. The school has contained its stories well enough, but this reaches too far beyond it.”

The excitement faded from his face. “No, that was…thank you, for your best.” He turned to the opposite wall. “I feel like I need to…to go away for a while anyway. I just need to…not be here for a bit. I’m sorry, Celestia, you had such high hopes for me.”

Fluttershy put a hand on his shoulder. “It might be the safest option.”

Rainbow and Sunset walked away.

“I mean,” Rainbow whispered, “I know it’s for the best overall, but…”

Sunset sighed, leaning against the wall. “Best doesn’t mean everyone wins.”

“But was Turmoil right?” asked Rainbow. “Do we have any better chance to stop him after his speech?”

“I’m not sure,” Sunset said, “but it did clear up a lot. As for the rest of the answers, I think someone else should have our attention now.” She looked over at Cavalier.

Back in his dark base, Turmoil watched the Riders on his projected screen.

“Well, well, well,” he mused, hands crossed behind his back, “isn’t this an interesting development? Look who’s got my attention now…”

The image zoomed in on one Rider in particular.

Next time, on “Kamen Rider EqG”…

Silence.

Stillness.

A tall frameless glass mirror stands in a dark room, reflecting what little light hits it. Six other, identical mirrors also stand scattered around it.

—crash—

The mirror suddenly shatters, glass shards raining to the ground and splintering further. An Advent Deck falls onto the pile of broken glass.
Shattered

Chapter 11: Shattered

Shattered bɘɿɘƚƚɒʜƧ

The Next Day, Sunday

Sunset was hanging around in the Riders’ base, with Twilight on her computer off to the side, as usual. Also as expected, she’d deflected any questions on Cavalier as “not her place” to answer. Sunset, however, was well within her place to reiterate to Twilight the conclusions she and her friends had come to that morning, something apparently no one else had felt the need to do.

“…and so it looks like the Starswirl of that Mirror Equestria banished their version of Discord through the portal instead of the Sirens like ours did.”

“Pff,” Twilight sighed. “Did he even think about what might happen to the world he dropped an immortal spirit of chaos into? Even if it wasn’t supposed to have magic, still.”

“If he was anything like the Starswirl I read about…,” Sunset said, pondering the varied, hopefully exaggerated tales of the wizard finding his hat.

“Is there anything you can do to protect the portal?” asked Twilight.

“Sad to say, but we can’t risk it,” Sunset replied. “Any activity around it could clue in Turmoil in a second since he’s probably watching us much more closely now. We’re only safe here because you said the Advent Master locked this room from mirror access without an Advent Deck. We’ll just have to hope he can’t recognize the portal if he sees it.”

“And you have how much time, again?”

Sunset sighed. “A day under three weeks before it’s open. If he can’t find it within the three days after that, we’re good for another month.”

“Given how long he’s been searching,” Twilight asked, “couldn’t you assume he still won’t find it?”

“Given how long he’s been searching,” Sunset said, “there can’t be many more places left.”

During the discussion, Sunset had been pacing around and taking in the details of the room for really the first time, such as a microscope on a cabinet with an old and peeling piece of masking tape along the base reading “tWilihgt” in faded marker. She smirked. Aww. As she scanned, she noticed a pale object sitting amongst some other trinkets on a shelf. Looking closer, it was a lavender Advent Deck with a silver 6-pointed star in each corner but no gold symbol at the center. “Hey…is this yours?” Sunset asked, holding it up.

Twilight looked over. “I suppose so,” she replied after a second.

“It’s blank,” Sunset commented. “Never contracted?”

“Nope.”

Sunset paused at the short response. She looked over at Twilight. “You…going to?”

“Probably not,” Twilight said.

“Oh.” Sunset turned aside awkwardly. “Then, why are you still keeping it?”

“Well,” Twilight said, “I guess I could just use it anyway if any Mirror Monsters ever somehow got in here, even if I don’t have a Contract Beast.”

Sunset slid one of the few cards out of the deck, a purple card with a golden circle symbol in the corner, the image of a straight blade on a green background, and a black bar running under the image with no yellow tabs whatsoever. “Yeah, ’cause this 300-Attack blank sword is gonna be real effective,” she teased. “What’s my Sword Vent say, 4000?”

As Sunset reached to fish out her own deck, Twilight turned back to her computer with a sigh. “At the very least, having it will let me go through the mirrors to escape. I’m not really the battling type. I’m far better on this side of things, in a supporting role.”

Sunset held both their Sword Vents next to each other. “Ooh, 3000, so close.” She looked over. “You know, it would never hurt to have another Rider out there. Heck, we even sometimes have Fluttershy helping us. Fluttershy. Do you even understand that? You’d never expect someone like her to have anything to do with this, and yet there she is, fighting right there alongside us, however timidly. You’ll never know how good you might be unless you try.”

Twilight pushed her glasses back into place. “And if I end up failing miserably?”

Sunset paused. “Well…then at least you’ll know that your self-doubts were…well-placed?” She looked at the Advent Decks side by side. “I mean, there’s gotta be some way to opt out of being a Rider if it doesn’t work out, right? At least you don’t have to worry about hearing the monster alarm. It would be tough to know whenever someone was in danger and have to keep ignoring it.”

Twilight had been forcing herself to stay silent and still as Sunset’s words continued to dig deeper. “Oh, I can still hear it,” she interjected. “Even though all I did was pick the Deck up, I can hear it. Every. Single. Time.”

A stunned Sunset stammered, “Wwww-wait, you what?”

“It’s a reminder of my decision.”

“That doesn’t sound healthy,” Sunset said, still surprised. “Why do that to yourself? It can’t be the Advent Master’s intention to just leave you stuck like that. Just because you aren’t a Rider, it doesn’t mean…”

“Let me have my reasons,” Twilight said grimly.

Sunset gently replaced the Advent Deck and took a step back. She knew about inner demons, and no one knew them better than you. She paced in awkward silence for a bit as Twilight returned to typing.

“Well, I’ve asked this before,” Sunset led, trying to restart the conversation. “If you aren’t a Rider, then what are you doing here all the time?”

“I’m not sure he’s let you in on that part yet,” Twilight replied without turning. She stopped typing.

“He?” Sunset scoffed jokingly. “You mean mister tall, dark, and mysterious? Come on, how’s he gonna know? Just give me a hint, at least.”

“He has some plan for things,” Twilight said, drumming on two keys back and forth for a second. “It’s not my place to interfere. It isn’t my fight.”

Something sparked in Sunset. “Not your fight?” she snapped. “Defending your own world isn’t your fight, is that what you’re saying?”

“Why should you care, it’s not your world, right?” Twilight snapped back. “You’re from that pony world, you can just slip back if something goes wrong here. With all of your magic, you should be able to stop Turmoil the moment he steps through. You told the other me already, right?”

“It’s true I’m from Equestria,” Sunset said with restraint. “But in Equestria, there’s a practice, something that followed me here to make its point known. It’s called friendship, and it involves reaching out to those in need, whoever they are. Whichever world they’re from.”

“Well, I wouldn’t want to get in the way of the expert on friendship, would I?” Twilight mocked without turning away from her computer. She held several keys at once and then hit enter.

“I’m no expert,” defended Sunset, “but I am a fast learner.”

“Good for you,” Twilight said. “So you think it’s better to just assume you know enough and risk causing collateral damage by failing.”

“That’s how it is, then?” Sunset said, crossing her arms. “Ah, I think I’ve figured it out. So, you’re someone who—”

Twilight slammed her desk loudly. “So I’m someone who’s using not having a Contract as an excuse to not fight to protect my own world. What of it?”

Sunset had taken a step back. “I…,” she hesitated, “was going to stop at ‘afraid to lose’.”

“Sure,” Twilight huffed, heart pounding in her ears. “You think you’re the first one to give me that sentiment? I tell myself that every day, and I’ve stopped being surprised that it isn’t convincing me to change. You don’t want me out there.”

Sunset couldn’t answer. And she probably shouldn’t.

Twilight sighed, intently not looking in Sunset’s direction. She tapped a key several times, then clicked twice. “And now the Force Quit menu’s stopped responding, too. Great.”

Sunset just stood there silently, wanting to disappear. Why did she have to be so forceful sometimes? The seconds drew on, when both of them heard the whistling ringing echo around.

Sunset tried to talk as delicately as she could. “Look, if I—”

“Just go,” Twilight said, not looking away from her rebooting screen.

A few seconds later, the mirror warped.

Sunset’s Advent Cycle glided through the Mirror Plane’s reflective tunnel.

Well that didn’t go well. What was she even trying to do with that? She sighed to herself. Some things are not yours to solve.

She’d think of a way to apologize for this. She’d just had that mini intervention for Rainbow about an apology, there was no way she’d let herself escape without giving one. But…would Twilight even want that? she asked herself. Forget settling matters, would touching the issue at all cause too much damage?

She shook her head and sped onward.

* * *

“But you didn’t have to come here if you were busy,” Rainbow was saying, “it’s the whole point of having a team!”

“It’s not until later this afternoon,” Applejack insisted, “I’ll be fine here for a while.”

“If you say so,” Rainbow relented.

Sunset’s Advent Cycle rolled up to the armored Rainbow Dash, Applejack, and Cavalier standing around in an open, half covered mall area full of windows at the foot of a large and wide cement staircase. Not seeing a monster, she got out and jogged over. “What’ve we got?”

“Good question,” replied Applejack, “we haven’t found anythin’ yet.”

Rainbow walked up the wide stairs leading up to a raised walkway connecting nearby buildings. “Yeah,” she called to the area, “we all heard the alarm and it called us to here.” She reached the top and turned back to them, holding her arms out. “So where’s the Monster?”

Dropping from above, a metallic blue figure landed behind Rainbow and kicked her in the back, sending her tumbling down the staircase with a surprised yelp, clattering down step after step before clunking down in front of the others.

“Rainbow!” Sunset let out, running up.

“Uhg,” Rainbow moaned. “Found ’im.”

The spine-fringed monster with dust blue insect armor and a head shaped like a samurai helmet with large silver jaws and a pair of antennae trailing behind its head, Zenobiter, snarled down at the group. {Don’t let me down.}

Rainbow leapt back to her feet. “The first shot’s mine!” she announced, slotting a card.
Strike Vent

From the covering far above them, a pair of flashes dropped her gryphon gauntlets, and she held her arms up to catch them. “Ha!”

Spotting the weapons, Zenobiter unhooked a long jagged boomerang from its back and sent it sailing through the air, spinning into the gauntlets about ten feet above Rainbow and knocking them away with a clang and a spit of sparks. The gauntlets hit the wall of the building beside them and fell to the ground.

“What the?” said Rainbow. “Hey! No fair!”

The boomerang returned to Zenobiter.

“Don’t worry,” Sunset said, stepping up to Rainbow, “I’ve got just the card for this.”
Pack Vent

Zenobiter prepared to throw its boomerang again at the new weapon, looking around. Instead, the gauntlets lying on the ground glowed, splitting into copies that flew off, a pair attaching onto the arms of each of the four Riders present. “Sweet,” said Rainbow. Choking in surprise, Zenobiter made a frustrated snarl at Sunset.

With a nod to coordinate, Rainbow on left and Cavalier on right rushed up the stairs at Zenobiter. The monster slashed with its boomerang, Rainbow blocking it with her gauntlets to open for Cavalier to swipe its side, but it spun to its right and slid the boomerang off of Rainbow’s defense to swing around and hit Cavalier. Cavalier swayed to stay balanced, but Zenobiter elbowed Rainbow back against the railing as she tried to grapple it, then shoved Cavalier in the chest and sent him tumbling, catching himself halfway down the stairs. Applejack ran up to help.

Sunset took a step up to follow, but noticed a dark red figure with similar spiny armor to Zenobiter ducking around the left side of the staircase. She looked up to the others to ask for backup, but saw that they clearly had their hands full here. She paused a second. Not ideal, but, “There’s another one, I've got it!”

Sunset ran after the second monster, finding herself outside around the back of the building before spotting it. With silver pincer jaws and long antennae hanging down off its face, Terabiter was dragging an unconscious person in dull gray clothes along the pavement by the shoulders.

“Hey!” she shouted.

Terabiter looked up at her in surprise. With a grunt, it leapt over its victim and threw a long red boomerang at Sunset. She skidded to a stop and quickly put up her gauntlets, the boomerang ramming into them with a spark shower and knocking the right one off, shoving her back a step. Her hand now free, she slotted a card, Terabiter catching its boomerang and preparing to throw it again.
Burn Vent

Flames erupted from Sunset’s lionhead slotter’s mouth and surged up her arm and across her body. Terabiter swung its boomerang at the ground and hissed at her.

“I just seem to be too prepared for your tricks today,” she taunted. Raising her flaming fist, she ran at the monster.

Back at the stairs, Zenobiter slashed its boomerang at Applejack as she reached it. Applejack leaned into the swing, absorbing the impact with her shoulder to let her grab the weapon tightly. Zenobiter tried forcing her back down the fast way, but she shoved against it, trying to make it up to the top of the staircase to reach a level playing field. The monster suddenly pulled the boomerang past it, tugging Applejack up, ducking sideways and kneeing her in the gut. With Applejack briefly stunned, it put its finger on her forehead and nudged, sending her down the steps, too.

Frustrated, Cavalier tossed the gauntlets aside and slotted a card of his own.
Arc Vent

A golden horseshoe fell from a flash under the canopy, and he held up his hand to catch it. Zenobiter gleefully threw its weapon at it, but when the two boomerangs collided, their spins tangled them up and, with a spray of sparks and metallic scrape, they both flew away in opposite directions and clattered to the cement. Zenobiter looked at its empty hands, then glared at Cavalier and shrieked.

“Caught by your own trick,” Cavalier said, holding up a card. “What a shame.”
Sword Vent

Cavalier’s sword fell to him without interference and he raced up the stairs again.

Meanwhile, Sunset raked her flaming gryphon gauntlet across Terabiter’s torso with a cascade of fiery sparks, sending it rolling along the ground as Burn Vent wore off, steam drifting from her armor. The monster briefly incapacitated, Sunset slotted another card.
Sword Vent

Terabiter reached feebly for its boomerang too late as Sunset caught and ignited her katana. It pushed itself to its feet with its weapon and charged, but Sunset raised her sword and brought a downward slash against the boomerang the monster tried to block with at the last second, slicing the boomerang clean in half with a spray of sparks, the strike also sending Terabiter stumbling back again.

Sunset swung her katana back and forth to throw a zigzag line of flame at Terabiter, igniting the monster before she jumped in for the final swing, spinning left to slash across its chest with a shower of sparks. She came to a stop facing away from it, freezing. Behind her, Terabiter moaned and fell backwards, exploding as it hit the ground to frame the epic pose.

Lying just away from the action, the person dragged by Terabiter sat up. With a pin of a tornado on his collar, the young man raised a gray hand to cradle his head through his spiky black hair, looking through the fireball at Kamen Rider Leona. Terabiter’s energy ball flashed in, slowly drifting in his direction. Then his eyes turned yellow and red.

At the base of the stairs, AJ held her stomach as she sat herself back up. This monster was getting on her nerves, and it had decided to be a nuisance today of all days. She had somewhere important to be. Getting back up, she noticed the monster’s blue boomerang on the ground nearby. An idea began to form.

After losing its weapon, Zenobiter had been unable to stop Rainbow and Cavalier from pushing it back onto the overpass the staircase led to. Cavalier slashed with his sword, and Zenobiter did its best to deflect the blade with its spiny forearm plates, swiping with them for minimal scratches against his armor. As Cavalier stood there imposingly unfazed, Rainbow came up and slashed Zenobiter’s back with her gauntlets. However, as it shook its head in pain, its antennae flailed wildly, whipping against her armor, and she had to hold up her gauntlets to deflect them.
Spring Vent

“Make a hole!” came Applejack’s shout.

Cavalier and Rainbow turned to see Applejack sailing up over the stairs towards them with Zenobiter’s own boomerang pulled back for a swing. They quickly ducked to the sides, Zenobiter turning to growl in surprise.

Applejack landed right in front of Zenobiter, her spring boots absorbing the momentum and letting her transfer the full force of her leap into a point blank boomerang launch. The boomerang shredded past Zenobiter and carried it along amidst a shower of sparks. Zenobiter flew spinning and tumbled along the overpass, exploding into an array of charred debris. The ball of its energy flashed in and continued tumbling away in a corkscrew, Hyperboxer leaping out of a mirror surface appearing on the ground to catch it.

Meanwhile, Sunset sighed and lowered her sword. That didn’t go too bad. Unseen behind her, however, the person in gray stood up, his face and form melting away, replaced by another. Reaching out, the new figure caught Terabiter’s energy.

“There we go,” Sunset said, turning to the person she’d just rescued. “Now, are you oka—”

A thick yellow beam shot from the energy ball and through Sunset’s stomach with a massive shower of sparks. As the impact punched her back, the beam struck the ground behind her, blasting up cement shards as a loud metallic grinding noise echoed. Her weapons flew away as a fiery explosion erupted around her. As the flames fell away, Sunset hit the ground.

Silence. Stillness. Amidst an array of six others, a free-standing glass pane bearing Leona’s symbol of a lion’s face suddenly shattered, its shards collapsing to the floor and breaking further.

Rainbow Dash looked up after that sudden vision, turning in the direction Sunset had run off. She glanced to an equally distressed Applejack. There was no need to ask what had just happened. Some instinct told them exactly what it was. And they were already running.

The smoke was clearing from Sunset’s blurry vision, her heartbeat numbing most other sounds. She coughed, straining to tilt her head and glare at the silhouette standing over her, but her body was too in shock to let her lift it.

“I was king,” fumed Turmoil. Through grit teeth, he raged, “My throne will be mine again! And no mere plaything is going to stand in my way!”

Trying to slow his heart rate, he blew away the smoke drifting from his palm. He closed his eyes and clenched his fingers, taking a deep breath. After a sigh, he straightened his collar. Now his preferred composed self, he stepped towards Sunset, ignoring Pantheraleo silently pounding ripples across a window on the building from inside its reflection, unable to exit.

“Oh, this so feels like a cheat code,” he sighed.

The girl lying in scorched and smoking armor in a small crater of cracked cement tried to grunt, her fingers barely beginning to clench. Turmoil reached out for the Advent Deck sitting in her belt, but as he leaned down, he heard running footsteps approaching. He looked at his hand and grimaced, unable to replicate his stunt. Instead he turned and headed for the window on the left, walking through Pantheraleo’s noiseless roaring reflection and making it swirl and vanish.

As the window’s warping faded, Rainbow and Applejack ran around the corner into view, Cavalier following at a brisk walk. Despite somehow knowing what they would find, they weren’t ready.

Rainbow remembered finding Vinyl. This can’t be happening again. Not this soon. “Sunset!” she called, starting to jog over. “Are you okay?”

Slowly regaining the ability to move, Sunset rolled over, propping herself up against the wall of the crater. Everything hurt. Everything started to tingle. “I…,” she moaned, getting up to a kneeling position, feeling lightheaded and swaying, “I-I think…h-huh?” Her hand felt extremely wrong, but lifting it into view made her gasp. As she stared at her shaking hand, it began disintegrating into a rising cloud of dust, armor and all. “W-what? What’s going—?” In a panic, she reached out with her disintegrating arm, crying out, “Rainbow Dash! Applejack! Help!”

“Sunset!” they shouted, breaking into a run. Cavalier still stood back.

The feeling had spread across Sunset’s whole body, and then all feeling began leaving. She knew they wouldn’t make it. Her body was disappearing. As her voice faded too, she managed to say, “It was Turmoil…”

The last of her body broke apart into a cloud of dust that quickly vanished from sight. The Leona Advent Deck fell to the ground, clattering a bit on the pavement before coming to a rest.

Applejack came to a stop and Rainbow fell to her knees. Cavalier silently clenched his fist. The seconds passed.

Today, thought Applejack. Today of all days. That… “What…what happened?”

Rainbow mechanically rose to her feet again and slowly walked over to the Deck.

“She was vented,” Cavalier struggled to say. Why was he so stunned? This was supposed to be simple. “I-it’s a safety precaution for Kamen Riders. It pulls you out of the battle to prevent you from sustaining serious injury.”

“Oh,” Rainbow hissed, “there’s gonna be serious injury, all right.” When she reached the Deck, she could only stare at it. She reached for it.

“Look out!” Applejack’s voice suddenly rang.

Not a second later, a massive force slammed into Rainbow’s right side and sent her flying, a loud mechanical bellowing echoing after her. She crashed into the wall of the opposite building, dropping to the ground hard.

“Rainbow Dash!” called Applejack. She turned to the new arrival, an 8-foot blue minotaur Mirror Monster with muscle-shaped plating on its upper body, a thick pair of curved metal horns, and a gold nose ring: Ferrotaur. It stomped a hoof on its undersized legs and let out another metallic roar.

“Uhhhng,” Rainbow moaned pushing herself up. She opened her slotter and reached for her Deck. “So, you wanna play rough, huh?”
Attack Vent

A large window next to Rainbow warped and Aquileo flew out with a screech, talons open wide. As Ferrotaur charged to meet him, he tacked into it and tried to grapple, but the monster stepped one hoof back to solidify its footing, then grabbed Aquileo’s arms. It lifted a straining Aquileo’s talons away from it, then in a sudden motion thrusting him up and twisting and smashing him into the ground.

“No!” cried Rainbow, reaching out as she struggled to stand up.

The window behind Ferrotaur warped as two human-sized monsters sprang out, a purple and black one that flipped through the air before touching down, and a gold and gray one who leapt with its arms held out and its legs tucked up before landing in a crouch, standing up beside its partner. They had very little elaborate armor, instead being covered in tight-fitting, smooth plates and bearing gold or blue gazelle face emblems on their chests. Hoofed foreleg decorations arced back up their arms from their wrists, and they had two pairs of red eyes in a row and a pair of long horns on their heads, the purple one with straightened, corkscrew horns, Gigazelle, and gold with slightly curved, smooth horns, Megazelle. Megazelle’s eyes scanned the scene before dashing towards the crater.

Realizing their play, Cavalier quickly slotted a card as he called, “Get the Deck!”
Arc Vent

Megazelle picked up Sunset’s Advent Deck, looking when it heard something whipping through the air, a golden horseshoe hitting its wrist with a spit of sparks and launching the Deck up high.

Applejack snapped back into attention as she caught on. “I got it!” she said, slotting a card.
Spring Vent

Orange spring boots shot down and flashed onto her feet, and she sprang up at the Deck. Below, Megazelle jumped and began somersaulting, crashing into Applejack in midair and knocking her to the side. They both tumbled to the ground, Megazelle rolling and springing back up immediately as the Deck clattered down a distance away.

Gigazelle had crossed the battlefield and was approaching Rainbow as she swayed on her feet, staring down the monster. It swung a long staff with a pair of large spiral prongs from behind its back and ran up to jab it at her.
Strike Vent

Rainbow simply grabbed the prongs with her clawed gauntlets, sparks flying from the contact, her expressionless visor staring blankly at Gigazelle. She silently pulled the staff out of Gigazelle’s grasp and with one tug tore one of the prongs off in a spray of sparks, throwing the broken pieces aside.

She ran at the startled monster and scoured her claws across its face, sending it spinning to the ground amidst falling sparks. With a whimper it tried crawling away, but Rainbow walked up and grabbed its back with her gauntlets.

Applejack pushed herself up and ran for the Deck, but a gold streak sped by and rammed her aside left. She managed to stay up and went for it again, but a whooping chitter came from above as a foot hit her between the shoulders, knocking her down again as Megazelle flipped and landed a short ways away to the right. Frustrated, she slotted another card.
Pound Vent

Catching her sledgehammer, she ran at Megazelle and swung, but with barely a glance over its shoulder, it leapt up and the hammer hit the ground, dropping down again behind her. Applejack turned and swung the hammer around left, but Megazelle sprang up and over her again, ducking and rolling forward out of the way as she continued the swing in a full loop to try and catch it off guard. As it came to a stop, she was already swinging back the other way at it so it launched itself up again.

It must be the extra eyes, Applejack thought. “Stay still, would you!” She turned around to meet it again, but it didn’t come down. Instead, a sharp pain streaked down her back as it raked her with its horns while dropping down exactly where it had been.

Aquileo had clawed his way back up, scratching and biting at Ferrotaur to no real effect. The minotaur was holding up its left arm to block the gryphon, who had grasped and was attempting to snap around it, buffeting the monster with his wings. With a growl, Ferrotaur took a step away and drew back its right arm, putting its full force into an uppercut that struck Aquileo across the face, slinging his head up with a squeal and bending his lower beak sideways amidst a small shower of metal feathers. The gryphon let go, staggering back on its hind legs.

Looking to the scene again, Rainbow hoisted Gigazelle and threw it away. “You gonna let him win just like that?” she called over to Aquileo, slotting a card for him.
Drop Vent

Aquileo gave a mighty screech as a rush of energy flowed through him, surging forward and grabbing Ferrotaur again. With powerful wing flaps, he rose, beginning to lift Ferrotaur off the ground. The monster grabbed Aquileo back, slamming its feet back onto the ground and pulling down against him, giving a snort. As Aquileo flapped, Ferrotaur yanked him in, wings getting contorted by the lurch, and hurled him off into the wall behind Rainbow, who barely ducked in time. Aquileo fell out of the shallow crater and collapsed flat.

Having sidestepped the dueling monsters, Cavalier made his way through the battlefield towards Sunset’s Advent Deck until he came across Applejack and Megazelle, who was leaping and backflipping away from yet another hammer swing. Cavalier slotted a card.
Attack Vent

As Megazelle landed in a crouch and stood again, it found itself in a shadow, turning to see a rearing Caballkhan flail his hooves, smashing the startled monster in the chest with sprays of sparks and sending it tumbling away with a kick to the jaw.

During this, a new competitor had joined the fray: another slim Mirror Monster, brown with faded white strips wrapped around its arms and upper legs, red wrapping on its chest, and a large-eared, wrapped face with three glowing red eyes arranged in a triangle: Dedlimmer. Having jumped down out of the window, it meandered curiously over to the bright red Deck currently sitting unattended, its wide mouth chomping at the metal bar set in front of it. Dedlimmer crouched down to the Deck and stretched out its right hand, waving its hovering fingers as it tilted its head at the object. It grasped the Deck and slowly stood up with it.

Noticing the interloper, Cavalier opened his slotter as he ran over and reached to his Deck for a card, but Dedlimmer’s head shot around to him with a cackle, and it quickly reached to its back and unhooked a silver tail-like armament mounted there, swinging it out and firing a barrage of red lasers from the disguised gun. Cavalier was forced to a stop and held up his open slotter as some semblance of a shield, deflecting a laser shot or two as he was pelted with the rest.

Dedlimmer turned with a howling scream and leapt the distance back to and through the window in one bound, diving into the reflection.

Cavalier took a step after it but hesitated as Ferrotaur let out another roar, turning back to the others battling.

“You go on after that monkey,” Applejack called, hoisting her hammer, “we’ll take care a’ these guys.”

Cavalier nodded and slotted a card, jumping up onto Caballkhan.
Sword Vent

He caught his sword and rode through the window after Dedlimmer.

Back on the other side of the courtyard, Rainbow shambled towards Aquileo one step at a time.

“Come on,” she said in monotone, “get back up.” Aquileo strained but buckled, giving a soft screech. “Alright, then…,” she said, turning to Ferrotaur, pulling open her slotter.

Ferrotaur bellowed again as Applejack tried winding around it, taking a swing but getting her hammer caught in its grasp. After a brief tug of war, she let go and stumbled over to Rainbow as Ferrotaur threw the weapon over a nearby rooftop.

“Hey, whoa whoa,” she said, grabbing Rainbow’s shoulders, half to steady herself. “Easy, Rainbow, focus. How’s about we finish this big guy together?”

Inside her helmet, Rainbow blinked, her head pounding but her mind fading back to attention. She put a hand to her forehead. “Y-yeah, that…much better idea. Any plan?”

Ferrotaur stomped the ground and roared at them, kicking back as if preparing to charge.

“Well…,” Applejack considered uneasily, “bein’ fast about it sounds reasonable.”

Applejack popped up her slotter and pulled out a card, tipping it to reveal her Final Vent; Rainbow pulled out her own. She set it in her slotter and slid the cover shut.
Final Vent

Applejack pressed her card against the slotter tray and pushed it down.
Final Vent

Ferrotaur lowered its head and kicked off, barreling towards them.

Aquileo pushed itself shakily to its feet, spreading its wings and flapping over, grabbing Rainbow’s arms and lifting her straight up into the air. Hyperboxer sprung from a mirror surface that appeared behind Applejack, grabbing her arms and throwing her into the air before jumping up after her.

Ferrotaur stomped its front hoof solidly to bring it to a halt, looking up after the two Riders.

Aquileo arced over backwards and with a powerful flap shot at Ferrotaur just above ground level. Spring boots flashed onto Applejack’s feet as Hyperboxer rose up behind her and kicked her in the back, down at Ferrotaur in a flatfooted double-kick. Aquileo threw Rainbow forward into a glowing sliding kick right for it.

Ferrotaur looked between the two oncoming attacks, roaring to the sky and puffing out its chest, light and steam leaking from underneath its muscle armor plates as a force from inside threatened to dislodge them from its body. The Rider Kicks collided with its armor, Rainbow’s splitting through the gaps between the smaller ab plates to hit into its gut, and Applejack kicking out and smashing a pec plate deep into its chest. The monster exploded from its torso, charred debris scattering as Rainbow was thrown back and Applejack dropped directly down, neither the usual outcomes of their finishers. Rainbow landed on her back with a thump while Applejack managed to land feet-first, her spring boots absorbing the impact.

As Rainbow groaned and tried getting up, Applejack turned to a high chittering sound and saw Gigazelle and Megazelle running and leaping towards a window on the far side of the courtyard.

“Oh no you don’t,” she muttered, popping up her slotter.

The Zelles arrived at the window and were about to jump through when they noticed motion out of the corner of their outer pair of eyes: Applejack was sailing through the air at them, Pound Vent hammer drawn back to swing.

As Applejack started to bring the hammer around, Megazelle spun right and brought out a weapon resembling a sword with a pair of curved blades shaped like a pincer, slashing her across the gut as she passed in midair, sending a spray of sparks. Applejack skidded onto her back at Megazelle’s feet as the hammer clattered down next to her. Moaning, she tried grabbing its leg, but it kicked her grip off.

Gigazelle jumped and somersaulted into the reflection, Megazelle giving a taunting whoop to Applejack before springing through itself, feet tucked and arms out.

Rainbow stood aligning the Blast Vent card into her slotter as the Zelles left, her arm dropping after the window stopped rippling. Removing the card, she closed her empty slotter, starting over to Applejack as she slid the card back into her Deck. Aquileo hovered down for a landing behind her.

“You okay, AJ?” she asked in a drained voice. “Hey, sorry about back there, I just—”

A crash came from behind her, accompanied by a moaning squawk. Aquileo had collapsed to the ground, wings laying splayed open. Rainbow stopped, slowly turning back to him. More friends hurt around her. Her calmness was slipping away again.

Cavalier sat atop Caballkhan at the edge of a park-like courtyard with curving sidewalks winding through the grass. Dedlimmer was nowhere in sight, and he couldn’t hear any more monster alarms.

Dropping off Caballkhan, he stood in silence. Then he threw his sword to the ground, clattering away. He slotted a card.
Arc Vent

Cavalier stepped out into the courtyard and caught two golden horseshoes, throwing them forward overhand at once. Sent straight, they quickly flew off course, the left one banking down and hitting the sidewalk and the right one sailing off left and ramming into a building’s wall, both exploding and sending shards of cement and plaster flying.

He turned away and strode back through the window he’d arrived by, Caballkhan standing in place and staring after him.

Hyperboxer leaned back onto his tail and kicked his wide feet, pushing the air to make Ferrotaur’s energy drift over to Aquileo. The gryphon reached his beak up and absorbed the energy, a flash sweeping across his body. He sat up and managed to pull his wings in to fold properly.

As Cavalier stepped out of a window and walked over to the Riders, they turned to him. Rainbow crossed her arms.

“Well?” she said. “I don’t see a red Advent Deck.”

Cavalier did not answer. Rainbow continued to stare.

Cavalier started, “The Advent Void is designed to hold you in stasis until—”

A hissing of steam accompanied light blue glowing lines running across Rainbow’s armor, a vertical ring bursting out and splitting sideways, dragging and dissolving her armor off.

“Alright, that’s enough of this,” she snapped, storming over to his face. Cavalier looked away. “Safety mechanism or not, you never said anything about the chance of being disintegrated when we signed up for this. And if you’re gonna keep something like that from us, I—we don’t even know who you are! Why are we even trusting you in the first place if we can’t look you in the eye?”

“Normally I’d be tellin’ Rainbow to cool it down,” Applejack said, “but right now I’m not likin’ this any more than she is.”

Cavalier stood silently again. He turned slightly back to them. Then he sighed. “Tell your friends to meet you back at Base.”

He turned and walked away again, warping through a window.

Good men through the ages,
Tryin’ to find the sun.
And I wonder, still I wonder…
Who’ll stop the rain?

* * *

Dedlimmer walked partly crouched through a large, dark room. It came up behind a mysterious figure and bowed its head, holding out Leona’s Advent Deck.

Turmoil turned to his thief, taking the Deck from it. Looking hungrily at its every detail, he waved a hand over it. A web of crackling red electricity surged across its surface, barely managing to tingle the hand that was holding it. Seconds later, the electricity slowly faded away.

“Well then,” he said, a smile forming. “At least this will be interesting.”

Next time, on “Kamen Rider EqG”…

“The plan was to ease you all in one step at a time,” said Cavalier’s voiceover. “Looks like that’s out the window.” Glowing lines start running across the edges of his armor. “Time to go all in, then.”

Rainbow was on the ground as a slim monster leapt at her, before a fire burst flew in from the left and hit it. She turned to the direction of the attack.

“Sunset?”

A Rider silhouette was partially obscured by air wavering from rising heat. They were partly crouched with their left arm out to the side and their right arm extended forward.
Critical Angle

Chapter 12: Critical Angle

Author's Note

Alternate Title: Talon’s Talion

Chapter 12: Critical Angle

Critical Angle ɘlǫnA lɒɔiƚiɿƆ

Within the Hour

The rest of the group had gathered, pulling themselves away from whatever they’d been doing, and were waiting impatiently in Twilight’s lab, Pinkie especially being oddly silent and still. Rainbow and Applejack had told what they knew, but it wasn’t any more satisfying to the others.

As Rainbow paced around the room again, she took yet another look at Twilight, who was sitting at her computer as always, as calm as she’d ever been. “Well you could look a bit more concerned,” Rainbow spoke up.

“There’s no need,” Twilight said. “She’ll be fine once she’s retrieved from the Advent Void.”

Rainbow stopped. “And you know that for sure? How many times has this happened to you?”

“Hey!” Twilight shot back.

“Simmer down,” Applejack said, standing up, “there’s no reason to get confrontational. ’Least not with her.”

“I have every reason in the world to be upset right now!” Rainbow shouted.

The mirror on the wall warped, and Cavalier stepped out, all eyes turning to him.

“This oughta be good,” muttered Rainbow, crossing her arms.

But Cavalier was holding his hand in the mirror’s ripple, keeping the connection open as someone else stepped out, the group stirring at the sight. Flash Sentry.

“Flash?” Applejack said.

Flash held up his hand. “Hold your questions.”

Cavalier released the mirror and stepped forward. “The plan was to ease you all in one step at a time,” he explained, his voice sounding weaker than usual. “To let you get accustomed to the latest development before telling you the next one only as you needed to know. Looks like that’s out the window.” He sighed and paused, feeling their gazes. “Time to go all in, then.”

Taking a breath, he held his arms aside and made loose fists. Glowing indigo lines ran across the edges of his armor’s plating, looping the two halves of his chestplate and fanning across his diamond-shaped eye cover, before a large vertical energy ring burst out and split, flashing and fading images of his armor stretching off sideways. In a final lurch, his armor dissolved away, leaving a familiar form: pale orangish skin and blue hair, the spitting image of Flash, save for his hair being notably less spiky, a featureless zipped hoodie instead of a black jacket, and cargo pants instead of jeans. Several gasps came from the group, but not from Twilight. She’d known all along.

The first Flash flipped his raised hand down to point at the girls. “Now you can ask.”

“Wait,” Pinkie began sputtering, “if you—then he—but he’s not—then what?”

“Shall I spill the last secret,” Flash asked Cavalier, “or do you think they’ve already figured it out?”

Rainbow hadn’t gasped with the others. “Do you think we’re in the mood for games?” she hissed. She turned to Flash. “And shouldn’t you of all people be concerned about Sunset, or did you drink the same ‘she’ll be fine’ punch?”

Flash stared at Cavalier, gesturing at the girls. “Aaand they’ve even stopped caring.” Cavalier looked down. “I told you they could’ve handled it all at once.”

“That’s your cue to start talking,” Rainbow cut in. Cavalier mentally shook off the eyes as best he could.

“As you figured out before,” he began, “the Mirror World…didn’t used to be so empty. Not two months ago, it was my home. The only world I thought there was. Something I didn’t mention earlier about Ventara was that every person on it had a mirror twin on its counterpart world, Earth. Much like that, your world and my Mirror World do too, but unlike the pony world you know, we have different names. Lumen. My name is Lumen Centurion. Don’t let it sound too impressive.”

“Not hard,” Rainbow said.

Lumen shook his head. “All I knew was that there had been a string of unexplained disappearances, when one day, out of nowhere, someone in black armor pulled me into a mirror, and through the reflection, I saw everyone else on the street vanish into thin air all at once. He was the Advent Master, and he explained that someone had used a network of teleportation beacons to kidnap everyone in my world. He said that the same thing would probably happen to another world, one behind the mirrors, and convinced me into becoming that world’s first Kamen Rider. Sure enough, within weeks the Monster attacks began. You probably know the rest from there.”

The girls were silent as they absorbed this, only mumbling a bit to themselves. Rainbow turned away.

“E-everyone else?” Fluttershy asked.

Lumen nodded. “I haven’t found a single other person left behind, and believe me, I looked. Even after Master Eubulon told me not to bother. He said it happened the same way on Ventara.”

“Sorry,” she said, “we knew it had to but, I guess we just…never thought about the moment it happened.”

“When should we tell Twilight about this?” Rarity asked. Then she noticed Twilight across the room looking at her. “Well, other Twilight.”

“If Sunset’s just gonna be back real soon,” Pinkie spurted, “then we can just wait and have her tell Twilight herself.” She turned to Applejack, twitching. “I mean, she’s just gonna be right back, right?” She leaned over to Fluttershy. “You watch, I’m sure we’ll all laugh about this one day about how worried we were over nothing. Right?”

Fluttershy put an arm around her.

Applejack looked to Lumen. “You lot’re certain about this safety mechanism talk, right?”

“Yes,” he said. “She’ll be fine.”

“Forgive me if I don’t believe you all of a sudden,” Rainbow cut in from pacing again, “but I recently discovered just how much you tend to leave out.”

“Venting is what happens when a Kamen Rider takes too much damage,” Lumen continued to the others. “They get pulled from the battlefield into the Advent Void so they don’t get seriously hurt. Master Eubulon set up that feature when he made the original Advent Decks. His Deck is the Void Key, and he can go into the Advent Void and retrieve any vented Rider.”

“I already sent him a message before you arrived,” Twilight added from her seat. “If he’s there now, it won’t be long.”

“Okay,” Applejack nodded.

“So,” Pinkie popped back up, “if we’re doing story time, how about you? How did you get into all of this?”

Twilight leaned away from her desk with a sigh. “I was working in the lab late one night doing…research.”

Twilight was sitting at her computer in the lab, watching a close-up video of a person with short hair, a short beard, and glasses talking to the audience from a studio filled with knickknacks.

“So in the end,” he was saying, “maybe we can know… and maybe we can’t. But if we did know, then how would we know… that we knew?” He gave a raised eyebrow for effect. “And as always… thanks for watching.” The screen changed to show a green ‘V’ of dripping slime.

Unseen across the room, the panel mirror hanging from the wall began warping, the image of Kamen Rider Cavalier appearing in it.

Getting a suspicious feeling of being watched, Twilight turned to see Cavalier’s image in the mirror. She gave a short gasp, jumping a step back from her chair. Then she paused. “Mirrors…”

She turned back to her notes, ignoring as Cavalier stepped out through the mirror.

“Most of the incidents took place next to or nearby a large window or other reflective surface,” she muttered, looking over the corkboard covered with papers and strings far more neatly arranged than Rainbow’s had been. “That must be the key: mirrors.”

Twilight looked back at Cavalier as he took a few steps closer.

“You know who I am?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said. “Am I in danger?”

“No.”

“Well if I’m not in danger,” Twilight mulled briefly, “then the only reason you’d be here is… because you think I can help?”

There was a silent pause.

“Yes,” Cavalier said.

“Yeah,” Pinkie said, “what exactly have you been doing?”

“I’ve stayed on top of keeping the Extended Mirror Plane to Ventara connected on this end,” Twilight explained, “as well as providing a safe and controlled location for it to be linked to perpetually. The Advent Master gave me the technology needed to stabilize the connection if it started to give out or fluctuate too much, which it does quite a lot, more than he has the time to keep up with. Despite that, it’s easy to monitor all the time,” she trailed off, letting slip not quite as quietly as she thought, “…since I don’t use my Deck.”

Rainbow stopped mid-pace. “What?” she said darkly, turning. Twilight shrunk back as Rainbow marched towards her. “You mean you have a Deck, too? How come you’re not using it? You could’ve been there, why weren’t you? You could’ve helped prevent this!”

“Rainbow!” Fluttershy shouted, jumping between them. “I wasn’t there. Are you going to be blaming me next?”

“Well I—…” Rainbow stopped, throwing up her arms in defeat. “Okay, no. Sorry.” She turned away.

“Simmer down now, sugar cube,” Applejack said, “we can’t change what’s happened, but we know there’s an easy fix, focus on that for right now.”

“Sorry, I…,” Rainbow sighed, holding her forehead. “It’s just that, being a Kamen Rider…having this much power…” She took out her Advent Deck to stare at it. “And I can’t even protect my friends…” Fluttershy put a hand on her shoulder. “Her Advent Deck, if I was just one step faster…”

“Humbling, isn’t it?” Lumen said. “Our enemy’s at least as strong as we are, just remember that. Even with the power of being Kamen Riders, there’s only so much we can do.”

Rainbow stared at him. “That doesn’t exactly help much.”

“I have to agree with her on this,” Pinkie said, “that actually makes things sound worse.”

Lumen looked away, muttering, “They always are.”

No one knew how to pick up from that. They waited another minute in silence. Then another. There was still no sign of the promised Advent Master or Sunset’s triumphant return, and by now Rainbow couldn’t take it anymore.

“I need to clear my head,” she said as she turned and walked to the mirror.

Pinkie went to reach for her, but Applejack pushed her hand back down. Rainbow warped out.

Now that that flamethrower was away from the powder keg, Applejack turned to Lumen. “So, basically…,” she led in, before unloading, “what the heck were you thinkin’ with all a’ this secrecy?”

“I don’t want to be the kind of person to say, ‘it seemed like a good idea at the time’,” he said firmly without looking. “It’s not like there was a manual.”

“Did I say there was?”

“I was a default ‘leader’ because there weren’t any other Riders,” Lumen continued, turning to her, “I didn’t choose or earn the position for any actual reason.” Applejack silently raised an eyebrow. “Maybe you can’t tell just by looking at me,” he stepped closer, “or maybe my name gives you the wrong idea, but I’m not qualified for this. I’m a Dungeons nerd, I…I learned to swordfight at the Renaissance Fair, I critique historical movies for accuracy instead of just watching them.” No response. “What do you want from me!? Do you think I stand by my bad plan after this—no, I don’t. I wasn’t confident in my decisions, but I felt I had to sound like I was because you might not listen to me otherwise.”

“What it’s soundin’ like is that the whole stoic tough guy demeanor was just one big lie.”

“You mean my Armored Hero persona?” Lumen said. He sighed. “It sounds childish to say it out loud. I wanted to think of a hero who could’ve saved everyone if he’d been there. I thought that if I acted like that hero, that I could become him.” He dropped into a chair. “I see how far that’s gotten me.”

“An’ this couldn’t a’ been your introduction because…?” Applejack pressed.

“I wasn’t sure how much of it you’d believe,” Lumen said.

She turned to Flash, who’d been standing off to the side ignored for ages. “You did try to tell him everythin’, right?”

“Mm-hm,” Flash nodded, having kept up regardless. “No idea why he didn’t catch on.”

“You knew there was already another world,” Lumen continued. “Wouldn’t ‘there’s also another other world’ sound a bit tacked on and less believable? I know I’d be suspicious.”

Pinkie crossed her arms with a sigh. “Even still, trying to outrun one trope by falling into another is no solution.”

“Well,” Lumen said, “the past has passed, mistakes and all.”

Turning away from that depressing conversation, Flash walked over and sat by Rarity. “Well. I stayed out of that while you all sorted things out, but I clearly have missed a lot. Last I checked in, Rainbow was the only Rider and bad at keeping her secret identity. She’s lucky she didn’t actually need to follow up with me with an NDA or anything, that could’ve been a big security leak otherwise.”

“Ha ha, yes,” Rarity chuckled, “totally none of the rest of us knew that and also did nothing, I mean could you imagine.” She held a nervous smile. “So you knew everything all along, then? Even back when we were only seeing it on the news?”

“Ah, yeah,” he said, “I heard about that meeting. That was actually Lumen you saw then at Sugar Cube Corner, he was testing the waters with you guys.”

“Riiiight…,” she trailed. “Testing the waters based on your recommendation, I suppose?”

“Yep. They asked ‘Can anyone help?’ and there was no one else to think of. Well, and I figured this world’s Twilight had to at least compare to yours.”

“Then,” Fluttershy said, gravitating over to their discussion, “what else do you do? Do you monitor some security system to keep track of monsters? Or maybe you analyze their movements to predict their next targets.”

Flash shook his head. “I mostly got roped into this because I’m Lancelot’s mirror twin. It would’ve been easy to just keep me out of it, but they decided early that having someone on this side of the mirrors would be useful, and I was an easy first option. Guess I’m also on standby for damage control if someone sees something.”

“Still,” Rarity said, “even if she doesn’t use it, it seems the Advent Master at least gave this Twilight a Deck. What about you?”

“I’m really only here right now so you’d believe he wasn’t me,” Flash replied. “Other than that, again, I’m basically just scouting and crowd control. I’ve seen it twice before, you six are the most capable defense this school has to offer, I know I can’t compete with what you do.”

“But we aren’t even using that power,” Pinkie added, leaning over to their conversation as well, “so why should it matter not having it? There had to have been an Advent Deck with your name on it at some point, right?”

“Well technically,” Lumen joined in, “he kind of already has one.” He held up his own indigo Deck.

“The Advent Decks are locked to a specific genetic profile,” Twilight explained over her shoulder. “They can only be used by the intended user.”

“Or,” Lumen picked up, “anyone with the same DNA.”

“Right here,” Flash said, waving a hand. “Advent Decks count mirror twins as the same person. Call me a back-up copy,” adding a deflated, “Too valuable to risk in the field.”

“But haven’t you ever wanted to use the power of a Kamen Rider?” Pinkie continued.

“I mean, sure, it would be awesome,” Flash said. “It’s just…it’s me. I play guitar, I don’t fight.”

“Pshh,” Pinkie waved off, stepping into an open spot. “I’m sure you could find some way to fight with a guitar. Maybe make it into a sword.” She swung her arms around as if wielding an air guitar blade. “And add in some cool lightning effects!”

She raised her left fist—and an array of lightning bolts struck down around her, blasting up sparks, a central bolt surging across her. She swung her arm out to break the bolt and the charge dissipated.

P
I
N

Amidst an empty dark expanse, she stood gleaming in a sleek and shiny pink suit with silver shoulder straps, dark pink gloves, pink branches on a smooth black face cover, and silver ear spikes. In her hands was a skinny silver and pink guitar with a spearpoint at the tip. She spun and swung it around and over her head, cutting through the air with metallic reverberations.

N
K
I

The spectral form of a purple Siren monster charged her from the right. With but a glance, she twisted the guitar blade in her grasp and thrust it out into the oncoming Siren’s glowing red gem, the monster pushing the weapon back into her full grasp as it came to as stop. In the same motion, she pulled a pink stringed clip off her belt and slid it onto the guitar, its body splitting off into two blades to reveal a pink gem club at the base of the spearpoint.

P
I
N
K
I

She brushed the strings, sending a pink shockwave across the Siren’s body, then started strumming rapidly. The Siren screeched and writhed as a cascade of shockwaves flowed over it. After one last mighty sweep across the strings, Pinkie slowly pulled her arm back up and gave an emphatic thumbs-up as the last note faded.

Flash just blinked at her.

“She does that,” Rarity said casually.

* * *

Rainbow Dash was walking through the city. Not heading anywhere, just to be active, be moving, be doing something.

Even if Sunset was going to be brought back as easily as they kept saying, should everyone else be so calm about it? They suddenly seemed more concerned about some stranger who’d been as good as lying to them for weeks than they were about someone who was supposed to be one of their best friends. Was she the only one who actually cared? Or was she really overreacting? And what was so wrong with overreacting to something like this!

Then a sound came to her ears, and she stopped. As the whistling ring flowed around her, her muscles began tensing and she started to boil. A Rider’s or not, some instinct told her who it was. She took out her phone.

“Yeah, the duplicate thing was a bit weird at first,” Flash was saying, “but thanks to you guys, the school had me pre-prepared for something like that.”

The whistling ringing started echoing to all of them, snapping everyone’s focus to honing in on it, though as Rarity’s hand reached around instinctively to grab her Advent Deck, she paused. “Are we all just going in like usual? Even now?”

“This does feel a bit soon for another attack,” Pinkie noted.

“Well,” Fluttershy said, “we do trust that Sunset’s almost back.” She looked around. “Don’t we?”

Twilight cut in, “I mean you could just sit around and keep talking, but…”

But as the Riders started to stand up, their phones each pinged. The message wasn’t signed, but it didn’t need to be: “Stay out of this one.”

“That doesn’t sound smart,” Pinkie said after a second.

Applejack sat back down on the table edge. “You want her angry at you, be my guest.” She looked to Lumen. “Maybe you could go. Can’t get much madder at ya.”

Behind them, the mirror on the wall started rippling.

Davenport strolled down the city sidewalk on his way to the planning commission. Again. It seemed the city planning board needed to be convinced that a shop selling exclusively quills and sofas was in fact a sustainable economic venture and did deserved the lease on a prime piece of real estate some rich construction company wanted to start planning the expansion of a high rise condo into. Again.

Gigazelle and Megazelle were standing in a window’s reflection looking at the city street beyond it. They had been ordered to put the pressure on. They watched as Davenport walked by across the street.

They turned to each other. Megazelle nodded. Gigazelle looked back at Davenport and leapt out of the glass, sailing over the road with its arm outstretched. {Gotta be strong.}

Halfway to its target, a screech pierced the air as Aquileo surged out of the window across from Gigazelle and crashed into it, plowing it back towards the first window, Megazelle jumping in surprise in the reflection.

Elsewhere in the Mirror World, along the edge of an open cement courtyard, a set of storefront windows warped. Megazelle was ejected backwards out of the reflection as Aquileo dragged Gigazelle through in its claws, throwing it to the ground before giving a strong wingbeat and rising out of the courtyard. Kamen Rider Talon stepped out of the windows as the rippling subsided, clawed gauntlets equipped. She stared the Zelles down.

Hissing, Megazelle jumped up first and charged. Talon didn’t react until it was right at her, knocking it aside with one swipe as it started to jump over her. Gigazelle was on its feet, but hesitating after its last clash with her.

“You two helped steal Sunset’s Advent Deck,” Rainbow said, devoid of pluck, devoid of her.

Shaking off its nerves, Gigazelle let out a howl and charged, leaping up earlier and sailing over the Rider to her right, kicking off of a cement pillar and flipping over past her on the left. She didn’t try looking after it. The purple monster spun and rushed, slamming into her as it passed in a blur. She lurched back, but planted her foot to stay firm.

“You were tricky enough to escape last time,” she continued.

Gigazelle turned on a dime and raced up for another hit, but Rainbow silently ducked back with a turn and swept with her left foot, an old soccer trick to kick the ball away from the opponent, instead kicking away both of Gigazelle’s shins, sending its face into the ground as it tumbled away.

“You shouldn’t’ve pushed your luck!” she shouted as she turned to the monster.

As Gigazelle tried pushing itself back up, Rainbow ran over and kicked it in the gut, the monster dropping to the ground again. She kicked it again, sending it rolling. It managed to roll and spring back to its feet, turning toward her only for her to be right there to unleash a barrage of punches, the knuckles of her clawed gauntlets rapping on its chest like gunfire, scattering showers of sparks off of it.

It staggered back, sparks still falling from its smoking gazelle emblem chestplate. Rainbow shook her right hand to shatter the gauntlet away so she could pull out and slot a card.
Blast Vent

She strode up and slapped her hand onto the moaning monster’s chest, wind swirling around her forearm. As it gave a startled whine, she shoved up, and the tornado erupted over her hand, launching Gigazelle into the air.

Jumping into the tail of the tornado, she somersaulted and, with the cyclone’s boost, rocketed a kick straight up into Gigazelle’s gut, shooting past it with a spray of sparks. Gigazelle tumbled and crashed to the ground in a heap, Rainbow flipping and touching down in the remaining wind of the tornado a short distance away. The monster exploded behind her, Aquileo swooping in to absorb the energy ball that rose from the flames before leaving through a reflection.

Rainbow stood up and scanned the courtyard like a bird of prey, lungs pounding as loud as her heart, blocking out her footsteps as she stalked back and forth. Megazelle was nowhere. “Show yourself!” Even her voice was muffled. No wonder she didn’t hear it. But she felt it.

A heavy bladed weapon caught her left elbow on a dive, dragging down and shattering her remaining gauntlet as the force turned her to see Megazelle. She instinctively swung with her empty right hand, but distracted by the throbbing in her left arm she could barely slap it. Megazelle responded by ramming its palm into her face hard enough to shove her mask into her nose, forcing a reflexive blink as her eyes teared up.

Rainbow grabbed at her faceplate as Megazelle sprang out of her blurry view in a gold streak, trying not to lose her balance. It hurt to move her left arm, and now her eyes stung as she tried to keep them open, being unable to wipe away the tears messing with her vision. She tried to think of an insult, but only managed a pained shout she couldn’t tell how loud. Then she felt something around her waist.

She saw the dual blades of the pincer sword snagged around her from behind a second before Megazelle swung. The trailing blade sliced as its curve spun her, and she was flung out of the pincer, the leading blade’s tip catching her side on the way out with a spit of sparks and spinning her the other way, sending her clattering across the ground. The world spun around her again and again, but came to a stop as the back of her head hit the pavement, sending a wake-up jolt through her body. The muffled state of sound around her numbed for a second before fading back out to normal, and she finally heard her panting breaths. She reached up to her head. Why did lessons on teamwork always hurt so much?

Megazelle leapt a distance backwards before it crouched and charged in. Trying to sit up, Rainbow quickly shoved her slotter open, but in overshooting the reach for a card, the edge of her thumb dragged one out and it flipped up on top of her hand. Reaching after it by reflex, she instead launched it away and it clattered down out of reach. The footsteps were twice as close. Wait, just wait!

She grabbed at the next card but her fingers didn’t listen right, and when she finally had the edge, it pulled at an angle and bent, jamming itself in the Deck’s slot. She yanked at it to no avail as Megazelle sprang up.

Rainbow looked up at a screaming whoop. Megazelle sailed through the air at her, legs tucked, its pincer sword drawn back ready to impale. She threw her arms up in defense.
Strike Vent

With barely a chance for Megazelle to glance at it, a stream of flames shot from Rainbow’s left, crashing into the monster and sweeping it out of view before it exploded.

Rainbow sat there for a second just to breathe, but as several simultaneous shocks faded, an overriding thought formed in her mind. Flames? That can only mean… “Sunset?” she called as she turned to the sources of the attack.

Partially obscured through the air wavering from the rising heat, she could make out the silhouette of a partly crouched Rider, their left arm out to side and their right arm extended forward. As they moved to stand up straight, she saw they were largely red, much like Sunset, but…instead of red armor over a gray undersuit, their suit was the red part, their chestplate a gleaming silver. A red gauntlet on their right hand was shaped like a creature’s head with long toothy jaws, and a pair of glowing red circles shone from underneath their silver facemask covered in horizontal slits. As the heat cleared, she saw their belt’s black Advent Deck bore a gold dragon’s face silhouette, a silver version on their forehead.

“Not exactly,” said Kamen Rider Dragon Knight.

With a screeching roar, a red serpentine dragon flew through the energy ball floating above the scorched ground and sped past Rainbow, looping once around the red Rider. It drifted to a stop in midair, revealing its segmented metal body had four small limbs and the end of its tail looked like a curved sword blade. Dragreder roared at Rainbow again.

Kit Taylor stepped out of the mirror in the Crystal Prep base, his skin a pale red, and wearing a black uniform with a small gold Dragon symbol in ‘name tag position’. “Found ’er,” he said, thumbing back at the mirror as Rainbow jumped out.

“Did you bring Sunset back yet?” she asked eagerly, stepping around Kit. “Where is she?” She scanned the room, seeing the others standing around the table, Twilight still at her computer but not looking back. And no sign of Sunset.

Applejack turned to Rainbow. “Uh, that may be a bit more complicated than we thought.”

“What do you mean by that?” she asked, taking a closer headcount. That’s when she noticed a short-haired man in a black leather jacket, his skin not bearing any obvious shade, also sitting at the table, a larger black Advent Deck with a circular orange decoration in the center set in front of him. She looked to her other friends for a clue.

“I went into the Advent Void to retrieve her,” the man said.

Rainbow tilted her head and stepped closer. “And…?”

The Advent Master looked her in the eyes. “She’s not there.”

Next time, on “Kamen Rider EqG”…

Sunset Shimmer and Princess Celestia were standing apart at a picnic by a tree under a gloomy sky with the wind whipping by.

“Sunset Shimmer,” Celestia said forcefully. “We’ve been over this, we will get to the Mirror and many other lessons in due time…when you’re ready.”

Sunset and Celestia each turned and walked away from the other.

Sunset glared back over her shoulder. “I am ready.”
Real or Virtual?

Chapter 13: Real or Virtual?

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.

Chapter 14: Total Internal Reflection

Total Internal Reflection noiƚɔɘlʇɘЯ lɒnɿɘƚnI lɒƚoT

Immediately

“She’s not there.”

There was a silent pause, she didn’t count how long. Those three words hung in Rainbow’s mind, taunting her.

“What?” she snapped. She turned to Kit, who immediately took a step back with hands raised.

“Hey, don’t look at me, I didn’t know that part,” he insisted. “I was sent directly to get you when I arrived.”

Rainbow looked to the others, anger melting into desperation.

“We just heard this a minute ago,” Applejack spoke up, walking over to put a hand on Rainbow’s shoulder.

Kit ducked around them to reach Master Eubulon. “How could she not be there? I mean, that’s where you go when you’re vented—I’ve been there.”

Rainbow spun pointing to Eubulon. “Are you sure you didn’t miss checking a corner somewhere?” she prodded. “Did you look under the couch?”

“I know every inch of the Advent Void,” Eubulon said, remaining calmly seated. “Trust me, I checked everywhere.”

“Then check again!” Rainbow cried.

“Are you sure you checked the right Advent Void?” said Pinkie, leaning in from the side. “Just saying, but I’ve been hearing lots of talk of a bunch of both mirror and alternate places lately, and they’ve meant two entirely different things, and it’s been kinda confusing keeping track of them all.”

“I checked the Advent Void her Deck was designed to send her to,” Eubulon said, “the one for this world, twice. If Sunset had been there, I would have found her.”

Rainbow’s arms slowly sank to her sides. Without a word, she walked to the far end of the table and dropped into a chair, staring forward.

“But since I didn’t,” Eubulon turned to her, “that leaves only two possibilities. Either you were incorrect in thinking that she had been vented, which is unlikely, or someone else got to her first. And from what I’ve been told, if it’s the latter, then there’s only one person who it could be, and he’s not exactly a person.”

Turmoil stood in his dark lair, staring as he flipped through projected screens of video feeds, each looking from a different mirrored surface somewhere in the city. He stopped on one showing three girls with excessive hair, the yellow and magenta ones fighting over a microphone as the cyan one watched while absentmindedly eating a taco.

“Decent candidates,” he said, “but too likely for my taste to try turning on me. I need allies I know I can control.”

Flipping to the next image, he found a blue-skinned girl with a star-patterned purple cloak and pointed hat standing in an alley. She tossed a pellet on the ground, but started coughing amid the larger-than-expected smoke cloud.

“A viable option,” he noted, “though I don’t think I could stand her for long enough to make any use of her presence.”

He flipped to the next image: a pair of schoolboys, one blue and squat and one yellowish and lanky, arguing over trying to film an ill-advised skateboard stunt, only one had forgotten the camera and the other the skateboard.

“Hhhhah-ha-ha…” Turmoil almost couldn’t breathe through the wheezing of his laughter. “Like I’d ever be that desperate.”

He swiped again. A girl in a hood with her hands in her pockets was sitting in an isolated corner.

“Ohhh…?” he cooed softly. “Hello…”

Twilight was sitting silently at her computer, trying not to visibly rock back and forth. Unlike usual, she was now disconnected from the conversation by distress instead of dismissal. Eubulon had seemed so powerful with his advanced technology and otherworldliness, she’d never for a moment considered that maybe he couldn’t do something he’d said he would. He was less a person and more a force of nature she felt could live up to the standards she judged herself against, a hypothetical projectile’s perfect parabola of motion instead of the mess of reality where air resistance couldn’t be considered negligible. With this sudden failure of his infallible image, she was suffering from a breakdown of certainty; two plus two was no longer four. And she’d never allow anyone to know it, because that would be worse.

“So you mean Turmoil has Sunset,” Rainbow said. She sat inert for a second. Then kicked her end of the table a few inches to the side, some of the others flinching.

Kit quickly jumped to the center of the group still standing. “O-okay look,” he tried to not stammer, “for the rest of you, I told her on the way back here that I’d been vented once and Master Eubulon got me out just fine. Now I know the situation now must seem hopeless, but back when I first became a Rider, Master Eubulon had been lost for decades, and as it was explained to me, venting was permanent, Len never thought the Advent Void could be opened again, and I didn’t either until I was pulled back out. At least this time we all have more to hope about.” He looked around the room. “Right?”

There was a pause. Not even Pinkie echoed back.

“We appreciate the optimism,” Applejack spoke up, “but we still don’t know where to find him. Or even how.”

“This is a war,” Eubulon said. “Not every battle will be won on the same day it begins.”

“Not helping,” Rainbow hissed to herself. “Not that you ever were.”

After watching this, Pinkie turned to Eubulon. “Timing,” she noted.

Wanting to break the tension, Rarity cautiously approached Kit. “So, it seems you’ve got your personal emblem on your outfit like all of us do. Is that something our worlds share in common, or did it happen when you arrived like the other Twilight’s transformation?”

“What?” Kit asked, searching his clothing. “Oh, you mean this?” He pointed to the golden thread-sewn dragon face emblem over the left pocket of his jacket. “No, it’s just the Dragon Knight symbol, it’s always like that, this is my Rider team uniform. My skin, however,” he flexed his pale red hand, “isn’t usually this color. Which gets me wondering about…” He turned and pointed to Eubulon.

“My current appearance is a disguise,” the Advent Master said to everyone, “as I don’t belong to Kit’s species. This is a standard appearance of people on Ventara and Earth that let me blend in, but it seems the projection doesn’t adapt to this world like humans do upon arrival.”

“Right,” Kit said. “Still forget that sometimes.”

“Ah,” said Rarity. “Well it seems there are still a few gaps in the story insofar as we’ve heard.”

“Very well,” Eubulon said, spreading his hands out across the table before him. “The easiest place to start, is back where it began, with the war on Karsh.”

“Maybe we speedrun events,” Lumen spoke up. Eubulon turned to him. “Just saying.”

“Ooh,” Kit piped in a ‘pick me’ sort of way, stepping forward, “I just reread Maya’s book, I’ve got this story off the top of my head.” Eubulon silently settled farther into his chair. “Okay, so basically, the Ventaran Riders thought they defeated Xaviax, but the original Dragon Knight, not me, betrayed them and let Xaviax win, stealing everyone off of Ventara. One Rider escaped and recruited me while Xaviax sent the other Riders’ twins after us. We found Master Eubulon long after he’d gone missing, brought back all the old Riders, the original Dragon turned good again, and we beat the bad guy, Dragon letting me take his place on the team officially. I also became this black dragon guy named Onyx for a while there, it was really neat with a stronger copy of every—”

“And that’s essentially what happened,” Eubulon finished. “However, this was not the end of the struggle, and not just of returning Xaviax’s victims to Ventara or hunting down the straggling monsters of his army.”

“When we were taking apart Xaviax’s ‘Fortress of Doom’,” Kit cut back in, “Master Eubulon found something.”

“It appears,” Eubulon picked up after a pause of staring at Kit, “as if stealing the populations of two worlds was not ambitious enough for Xaviax. According to his salvaged notes, he had been working on several side projects, one of which involved an attempt to ‘extend’ the mirror plane to access more worlds than simply Ventara and Earth. He succeeded.”

“By reaching all the way to our world,” Flash said. He met the round of glances. “I’m here too, by the way.”

Eubulon continued. “He had sent some number of Mirror Monsters through as an advance scout to assess the viability of this new world, complete with a teleporter and beacons. Fortunately, it appears that we defeated him before he could act on the matter further.”

“Score one for the good guys,” piped Pinkie.

“Unfortunately,” Eubulon said, “someone else had since gained control over the Mirror Monsters sent here, and was using them for their own purposes.”

“Turmoil,” muttered Fluttershy.

Eubulon nodded. “After discovering Xaviax’s experiment, I reestablished the extended mirror plane connection and journeyed through to arrive in your world. I quickly discovered the presence of Mirror Monsters attacking not this world, but the world behind its mirrors.”

“My world,” Lumen said.

“I tried to fight them,” said Eubulon, “but I realized that I had arrived too late to help, only minutes before zero hour, and could only escape before the entire population was taken at once by the teleporter. It may not have been Xaviax in command, but it seemed to be his strategy. I was, however, able to save one individual.” {Last time…}

In an alley, a figure in black armor with pale orange stripes on its chest and upper legs and a cricket-like helmet with short antenna and a shiny black bug-eye visor was sparring with a pair of mechanical humanoid insect monsters with metallic casings, one silver and one gold, each with large jagged eye covers and striped bee stinger decorations draping off their shoulders. Feet away, the stack of disks atop a slim silver transporter beacon gave off a low bleeping tone.

The Advent Master kicked away Buzzstinger Bloom, the gold monster with faded red feet and bright red eye covers, where it rammed into a line of trashcans along the wall. Buzzstinger Frost, the silver monster with blue feet and yellow eye covers, latched its pair of short daggers around Eubulon’s long and spiky black sword and tried to wrestle it away from his grip. Getting its footing, Bloom drew back the string on its segmented golden bow, a glowing arrow appearing as it aimed at Eubulon.

Spotting this, Eubulon used his free hand to pull a card from the left side of his black Advent Deck, the card green with a barcode down the side and the horizontal image of a red-glowing engine, and swiped the barcode across the edge of the long silver box over his right wrist. The card vanished in a plume of blue flame.
Speed Vent

Grabbing his sword with both hands, he spun to yank it out of Frost’s arms, then almost without moving his feet, his image blurred over to Bloom. He slashed to cleave off the top half of the startled monster’s bow before speeding back behind Frost and ramming it with the side of the sword now leaking blue flames, shoving Frost at speed across into Bloom and slashing through both of them with a blue fire trail. The monsters exploded behind him.

Ahead of him, someone walked by the alley’s entrance, but stopped short upon seeing him. They stared at each other for a second, before Eubulon heard the teleporter beacon’s beeping begin to speed up and get louder. Eubulon let go of his sword.

In the blink of an eye, he sped over to the person, grabbed them, and pulled them into the alley, past the beacon, and jumped with them through a window’s reflection as they saw over Eubulon’s shoulder the beacon release a visible pulse wave that swept across the area, everyone walking along on the street outside briefly glowing before stretching up and vanishing all at once.

The sword clattered to the ground, kicking up some dust.

After it came to rest, only silence remained.

“And thus the Armored Hero was born,” Lumen said.

“You say there were a dozen other Kamen Riders like Kit already?” Pinkie brought up. “How come you didn’t have them help from the get-go?”

“Unfortunately again,” Eubulon responded, “although the mirror plane can be extended between our worlds, the two worlds themselves are somewhat ‘incompatible’. As I found out myself during my first visit, there seems to be a time limit that someone from one of the worlds can spend in the other.”

Pinkie tilted her head. “Or else…?”

Eubulon held out his arm. “Look closely,” he said. As the girls leaned in and squinted, they could faintly see the outer fringes of his hand, arm, and even jacket…for lack of a better word, ‘hazing’.

“That looks like what happened to Sunset,” Applejack said.

“Perhaps,” Eubulon said, pulling his arm back, “but however similar they may look, they are very different. I have sustained no damage from battle, I have merely been present in this world. If I were to stay too long, I can only imagine the extent this effect might reach. That is why I couldn’t risk sending the Ventaran Kamen Riders here.”

“The connection across the extended mirror plane is unstable,” Flash spoke up again. “You may remember my ‘must be another provider’ excuse from that one phone call Rainbow Dash overheard? I was communicating with Eubulon across the plane when the portal suddenly closed.”

Twilight finally turned to them. “It took a while for us to get it open again.”

“Owing to the ‘disagreement’ between a Ventaran’s body and your world,” Eubulon continued, “I could not risk having a similar slipped connection while any of the Riders were here. Luckily, alternative strategies existed. I could, perhaps, have tried to reassign the genetic lock on the Advent Decks to individuals from this world. This, however, would have left Ventara short several Riders, which it may have needed for its own protection, not to mention that the difference between people from both worlds could not be bridged in the conventional manner. Instead of simply reprogramming them, which takes seconds, the Decks would need to be wholly reformatted for essentially a different type of genetic profile, which I wasn’t sure I could do nor undo afterwards. The remaining choice was obvious.”

“Just make new ones,” Lumen said.

“With the new genetic template built into them from the start,” Eubulon said, “making new Advent Decks only required candidates to decide Advent Beasts for, and those were in no short supply.”

Suddenly a whistling ringing echoed throughout the room. Everyone looked around in frustration.

Fluttershy gave a disheartened sigh. “Again?”

“That’s the third time today,” Pinkie moaned. She glared at the ceiling. “Haven’t they done enough?!”

“You don’t have to respond if it would be too much for you,” Lumen offered.

“Hey…,” Rainbow said darkly from her chair, staring forward, the first she’d spoken since the conversation’s start. “Shut up.” She turned to look at him, and he silently froze. “We’re still in this, no matter what tries to knock us down. Remember that.”

“Much as I agree with the sentiment,” Applejack said, looking at the latest few messages on her phone, “I can’t stay here any longer today. I’m already runnin’ late for a family event I have a history of bein’ early for, and I can’t miss it on an unexplained reason.”

Pinkie turned to her. “Wait, is this the…”

Applejack nodded. “The anniversary, yeah. Big Mac’s been fine for a bit, but Apple Bloom still seems to need me.”

“There are more than enough of us here already,” Rarity spoke up. “Go on. Hurry, hurry.”

“Thanks, guys,” Applejack said, nodding to them. She walked through the mirror as everyone else was getting their Decks out.

Looking in from the sidelines, Kit waved tentatively. “I can…still kinda fill in for…someone. A veteran’s here, remember?”

* * *

On a rooftop overlooking a courtyard in front of a tall office building, two nearly-golden figures waited, one skinny and leaning over the edge in eager anticipation, and one bulky and standing back. As the six Riders arrived from the reflective marble walls of the building into the courtyard below, the skinny one, an eternal sinister grin molded onto its face, tilted its head, then stepped back and waved a hand across the courtyard in a dramatic flourish. It’s time, my friends, to rise…again! {Who knows?}

As everyone looked around for a sign of the new monsters, Rainbow heard a screeching static that sounded eerily familiar. After glancing up, she spun to the source, seeing a charred and blackened fox head with glowing pinprick eyes peeking up from behind a nearby bench: Manglethal.

“What the?” Rainbow muttered. An image of the original white-headed Manglethal swinging at her upside down flashed in her mind. “But Sunset destroyed that thing. How is it back?”

“Huh?” Pinkie asked, popping up beside her. “What do you mean, what’s there?” She looked at the bench, but didn’t see anything odd about it or around it.

Meanwhile, as Rainbow glared at Manglethal’s face, it ducked back down behind the bench as a shadow rushed off to the right, the static sound following it. “Hey!” she shouted as she ran after it.

“Rainbow Dash?” a concerned Fluttershy said. “Where are you going!” She ran after her.

“What?” a confused Kit said. “Hey, hold on, wait!” He ran after them.

Pinkie just stood there. Usually she was the one to act like that. Is this what the others were always left feeling like? Huh.

“Where are they going?” Rarity asked, looking on as half the Riders left without explanation.

“Stay sharp,” Lumen replied, stepping past her. “Whatever’s going on, it’s—huh?” Scanning the perimeter of the courtyard, he spotted something that couldn’t be there, a charred and rotten reddish fox monster, missing half its right arm and jaw hanging open, just standing on the sidelines and staring at him. “How are you…?” The scorched Vulpatch sprang to life and dove at him in an instant, bursting into a murky cloud on contact.

To the others, all they saw was a cloud of dark haze suddenly erupting from his armor before he staggered back from nothing.

“Lumen!” Pinkie shouted, turning to him.

Losing his senses of direction and balance, each breath feeling to bring less and less air, and his vision pulsing darker with each heartbeat, he could make no effort to stop himself from tilting over and hitting the ground.

Rarity immediately slotted a card.
Sword Vent

Catching her conical sword, she quickly swept her gaze over the area, but… Do you ever feel like you were looking right at something but missed it? Noting something from the corner of her eye where she’d already looked, she jerked her head to see a burnt-over Chikaraves charging at her. She swung her sword, but it sifted right through the monster’s inky form before Chikaraves reached her. Rarity stumbled back disoriented and collapsed in a cloud of shadowy smoke that was bubbling out of her armor.

“Rarity!” Pinkie cried, turning to her, then looking back to Lumen. The others were weakly writhing on the ground from attacks by unknown assailants and she had to be next.

Pinkie stood tensely in place and carefully scouring the courtyard until movement caught her eye. A greenish scorched bear figure with a top hat and one ear missing was slowly dancing across the edge of the courtyard. She kept her eyes locked with the phantom Jawzbear as it stared back, unblinkingly, until it tapped behind a tree but didn’t emerge from the other side.

“Eeeaasy, there…,” she muttered, taking a cautious step back.

And bumping something.

Pinkie sprang forward and spun around to find a sickly greenish golden assemblage of worn and hole-filled soft casing segments approximating the form of a humanoid rabbit lunging and swinging its arm at her. Then the ground vanished and she dropped.

Swiping through nothing, Trapispring caught his lunge. He looked at the ground by his feet, bare mechanical feet covered with tendrils of a dried slime of indescribable nature that still looked wet, but only saw concrete. Bah. After taking another look around, he turned eagerly to finish up with his other victims.

Feeling like she was floating, Pinkie opened her eyes to see an open silvery expanse with reflective cubes floating around and a mirror surface just above her, past which stacks of glass boxes formed larger shapes. It was almost like the Mirror Plane, but a bit different. Then she saw a form floating just beneath her: Pinkrhynch! The platypus looked over its shoulder and honked to her; not wanting to risk there being water or something here if she opened her mouth, she just waved back.

Looking back up, she saw three figures amidst the scene, Lumen, Rarity, and the rotting rabbit, all from underneath, realizing the glass boxes vaguely formed the shape of the building, benches, and trees of the courtyard. This must be what Pinkrhynch sees as he’s swimming around before jumping in through the mirror puddles.

He honked at her again, nodding back more times. Realizing what he meant, Pinkie grabbed onto his shoulders.

Rainbow stopped running in a nearby courtyard, looking around as Fluttershy and Kit caught up, panting. Rainbow kicked the ground.

“Where’d you go!” she spat.

“Where’d what go?” Kit asked. “You took off after nothing. I thought Mirror Monsters were only invisible to those who hadn’t been through mirrors yet.”

“It was there!” Rainbow said. “Taunting me.”

“What was?” Fluttershy repeated.

Then a sound echoed through the courtyard. A faint, high-pitched laughing.

“Is that…,” Kit asked, looking around, “a little girl?”

Then a large golden figure faded in standing amid the Riders. The humanoid bear made of soft, darkened yellow casing segments in a small top hat pulled back its arm and gave a deep roar. As the Riders spun to it in surprise, GuldJawzbear shoved its open palm against Rainbow’s chestplate with a shower of sparks, launching her back and down skidding across the ground.

“Rainbow!” Fluttershy let out. She turned to the monster looming over her, but it faded away as Kit tried tackling it with a shout, stumbling past her to the left while trying to not fall over.

“That’s a new trick,” he said. Then GuldJawzbear faded back in next to him. He swung a kick for it to dodge, then took the chance to start pelting punches it easily held back with a raised arm.

“Didn’t we beat a bear monster already?” Fluttershy asked.

“No, this one is gold,” Rainbow groaned, sitting up, “that makes all the difference.”

GuldJawzbear swiped up, knocking Kit into the air and dropping a bit away.
Flutter Vent

Fluttershy threw her hand forward, and the arch of pink metal butterflies began shooting forward. After being pelted on the left side by the first few, GuldJawzbear turned and bellowed at the incoming projectile swarm, the air wavering. They stopped midair a foot away, gathering into a cloud in front of it before falling together to the ground and shattering.

“Emergencies only, huh?” Kit said. “I think this counts.”

He pulled out a card and held it up, turning it to face forward: with a golden border and round gold symbol in the corner by the top row of red bars, a vortex of fire began swirling in the image background behind a golden left wing bearing a red gem. As strands of flame started whipping around Kit, he threw his left arm forward, a coil of flames pushing his slotter forward into his grasp as a newly formed tall and thin dragonhead-shaped weapon. Its mouth opened, and he placed the card in a sideways slot inside, snapping the mouth closed.
Survive Mode

A burst of fire surged over Kit, changing his Rider armor from black and silver plates on a bright red suit to dark shiny red and gold plates on a black suit, his new bulky red chestplate curving back over his shoulders as spikes, and a gold top rim of his wider faceplate: Dragon Knight Survive Mode.

“Whoa, whoa, hold up there,” Rainbow said, rushing over. “What’s with the sudden upgrade?”

“Don’t you have one too?” Kit asked. “I thought all Advent Decks had a Survive Mode card.”

Rainbow crossed her arms. “First time I’m hearing about this. Don’t tell me Eubulon short-changed us new girls.”

Trapispring slowly approached the disoriented boy in indigo knight’s armor, savoring every shambling step.

“Hello,” came a young voice.

Trapispring turned around to the right, but saw nothing that could have spoken. Another ghost following him, perhaps. Still…to be sure…the more the merrier. He followed the echo in his tall ears, his right nearly missing but still working, following slowly, so as not to startle the child.

Then he stopped. No. This was his imagination again, and it was wasting his time. He turned left to the girl in a white and purple suit surely too delicate to be armor, taking a stride in her direction.

“Hi,” came the voice again.

Trapispring lurched left again towards the sound, giving a hiss. They were persistent. Could they be daring to mock him again? He took a step forward.

The voice laughed behind him.

Trapispring spun to the right to face the fading echo, again seeing nothing.

The voice laughed behind him.

Trapispring spun back left again. No…

The voice laughed behind him.

Trapispring spun back right again.
Spur Vent

Trapispring spun back left—Pinkrhynch leapt arms wide with a shrill honk at him, clamping onto him in a violent hug before bringing his back feet around and stabbing their spurs into the monster’s gut and back. Learning from last time, Pinkrhynch quickly leapt off before Trapispring could swing at him, splashing back-first into an appearing mirror puddle before it dried up again.

Trapispring clutched at the impact point on its gut as pink spider web cracks began expanding from it. The decaying rabbit had already started twitching as Pinkie jumped in and kicked it stumbling away, leaving a wispy trail of smoke.

Meanwhile, the dark clouds bleeding off of Lumen and Rarity had begun to dissipate, their vision and breathing starting to clear and ease.

Pinkie pointed at Trapispring as it turned back to her. “Fired up for more to even up the score!”

An orange glow erupted inside its chest casing as the monster lurched in place, flames beginning to peek out as smoke leaked through the rotted holes.

Pinkie nervously withdrew her arm. “Um…not what I…meant?”

Rainbow held up her crossed arms to block as GuldJawzbear swatted, propelling her back in a spray of sparks; she kicked the air for a distance before her feet dropped back to the ground, stumbling until she rammed into Fluttershy, who finally brought her to a stop.

Pushing himself off the ground, Kit pulled a handle at the back of his new slotter weapon, a transparent red panel springing out from the side. Pulling out a gold-rimmed brownish card showing a red dragon spitting a huge fireball with Attack 4000, he slotted it into the panel and pushed the handle to snap it closed again.
Shoot Vent

Dragreder roared as it flew in from above, a shine spreading across it as its body bulged slightly before its outer casing shattered off front to back, revealing a new, larger wingless red dragon with large shoulder and hip blades and a much longer tail: Dragranzer. It swooped in and skidded to a midair stop, snaking up to hover reared up just behind Kit and snarling, its new segmented silver underbelly almost seeming to be continuously moving upward like a conveyor belt.

GuldJawzbear stared on, simply beginning to fade away again, but Kit pointed his dragonhead slotter at it and shot a white laser beam from its mouth. The steady beam hit the fading GuldJawzbear, anchoring it and forcing it back solid again. The bear gave a deep howl as if in surprise.

“Where are you going!” Kit shouted excitedly at it.

Dragranzer took in a deep breath, expanding its chest segment as it pulled its head back, then threw its jaws forward as it shot a large fireball. As soon as it hit GuldJawzbear, the beam broke, a fiery explosion consuming the area around the monster. As the smoke cleared, GuldJawzbear was no longer standing there.

“Did I get him?” Kit asked.

GuldJawzbear faded in next to Kit, already pulling its arm back, and slammed its open palm onto the surprised Rider’s chest, taking him to the ground in a shower of sparks. Kit tried grabbing at its hand as it pushed down harder, growling at him, more sparks continuing to spray off from the contact alone. Dragranzer roared and hurled itself forward, ramming into GuldJawzbear and pushing it back a ways, but its feet skidded to a stop, turning the counterattack into a shoving match. Kit sighed as his arm dropped, the outline of his Survive Mode armor glowing and then fading with a flash, leaving his original form. At the same time, Dragranzer’s exterior glinted and shattered away, leaving Dragreder recoiling away from GuldJawzbear, the dragon quickly shooting off into the sky as GuldJawzbear tried swiping at it, missing its tail as it fled.

Kit moaned while getting up. “Uhhg…okay. So that’s a good gauge of its power.”

Pinkie quickly spun over to Rarity. “You guys are okay now, right? Most spells seem to get broken by punching the caster, so I just figured.”

“Yeah,” said Lumen from nearby. “Seems it just needed to fail a concentration check.”

Rarity stared at him for a second before responding to Pinkie, “Yes, much appreciated, darling.” She stood up with Pinkie’s help.

“Now what’s this thing?” Lumen asked, turning their attention to the increasingly flaming Trapispring.

Who was rushing at them.

Pinkie shoved Rarity away and ducked back as Trapispring swiped at the spot where they’d been, but its arm froze mid-swing as its head twisted to the side suddenly. Wrenching its head back the other way, Trapispring turned towards Rarity and charged, but the fingers on its hand suddenly flexed back as it tried grabbing her, letting her slip past it with a spin, chipping its back with the beak sword she was still holding.

Trapispring used its other hand to force its seized-up fingers back closed, but they locked into a fist. It hissed, but as Cavalier ran up and slashed it across its back with his knight’s sword, its jaws sprang open as it stumbled forward, snapping shut again a moment later as a spasm rolled over its body.

Trapispring spun around with a wide swing of its arm, but Lumen and Rarity ducked under it to deliver a double stab that send the monster stumbling back, Pinkie leaping between them to land a swinging slash from her webbed gauntlets that sent it back even farther, spews of fire accompanying the usual spraying sparks.

Though its feet brought its momentum to a halt, Trapispring kept twitching. It reached out at them, but its elbow suddenly bent and its torso jerked sideways over its hips.

“It’s like it doesn’t even work right anymore,” Pinkie said, approaching as the others cautiously hung back. “I guess this is just what Spur Vent does. I almost feel sorry for it at this point. Almost.”

She held her arms sideways to prepare for a double slash, but Trapispring suddenly lurched into her, slinging her away with an arm swing that almost pulled itself over.

Taking the chance as GuldJawzbear faded out again, Rainbow dashed up to Kit. “So much for the upgrade, guess making them for us would’ve been a waste of effort anyway.”

“Hey, Survive Mode only has a limited energy supply,” Kit defended as he tried to stand steady, “but it’s only run out on me once before.”

“Well, I thank you anyway, you’ve distracted the monster long enough to prepare our secret weapon.” Rainbow crossed her arms and turned to look at Fluttershy, currently standing a safe distance away.

A few seconds later, she realized Rainbow meant her. “What? M-me? How can I help?”

Rainbow dropped her arms. “Don’t you remember studying your deck?”

“I remember you looking over my shoulder.”

“You have a net weapon,” Rainbow explained with a groan, walking over, “we can use it to catch this Monster. We saw it can’t vanish while it’s being hit, remember? A tight net around it should count as hitting it for ages, right?”

Fluttershy nervously pulled out a bright yellow card with Attack 2000 showing a thick butterfly net over a yellow swirl background with its rippling net ballooning out mid-swing: Snare Vent. “But I’ve never been the best in the middle of a battle, and I’ve only ever used this card in a practice fight with a garbage can (that I may have almost lost), w-what if I don’t swing right, I’ll just be too busy thinking of how bad it’d be if the Monster grabs me to focus that it’ll grab me for sure.” She looked at an unimpressed Rainbow. “And other assorted reasons.”

“Fine,” sighed Rainbow, “then I’ll do it.” She snatched the card and stepped away to slot it, holding her hand straight up to catch the net.
Snare Vent

With a flash, the stocky 4-foot butterfly net with a segmented handle and a taut net as flat as a tennis racket’s fell from the sky. And bounced off Fluttershy’s helmet. She fumbled to catch it as it spun off of her hands repeatedly, eventually clattering to the ground.

Rainbow looked back at her. “Huh?”

“Ah, right,” Kit grunted, still rubbing his sore back, “should’ve warned you that wouldn’t work.”

Rainbow spun to him. “Ya think?”

As Fluttershy stood up with the net, the spot around her dimmed, like clouds blocking the sun. She turned and let out a yipe at the looming GuldJawzbear, instinctively swinging the net. Its short length made it barely miss the monster, but like soap on a bubble wand, the sudden movement let the taut net surface catch the air to stretch and balloon out, a large bubble splitting off and hitting GuldJawzbear. On contact, the bubble of net split open and shot forward, grabbing and wrapping itself tight around GuldJawzbear, who let out a deep howl as the net began crackling with electricity and spraying off sparks.

Fluttershy stared frozen at the struggling monster until Rainbow ran up and pulled her away, snapping her back into focus. GuldJawzbear wrestled against the net and tried fading out, but could barely start before the constant electric surge pulled it back solid again.

Shaking off, Kit jumped in beside the girls and pushed his slotter open, pulling out a red card with a gold Dragon symbol over a red starburst background, Attack 6000. “Stand back!”
Final Vent

Kit put his arms forward then swung them around while crouching as a roar came from above, Dragreder snaking down and looping past in front of him to twist and loop back the other way and into the sky again. Kit quickly stood and launched himself up, flipping around as Dragreder snaked around him once, twice, the dragon’s head coming in behind him as he’d angled a kick down at GuldJawzbear. Dragreder let out a screech as it breathed a burst of fire to propel Kit shouting in a flaming streak. The kick knocked GuldJawzbear back and away from Kit, a series of fiery explosions erupting as it hit the ground and slid across it before ramming into the wall of a building at the edge of the courtyard, the flame shockwaves catching up to it and reflecting off the wall.

The net having blasted away, GuldJawzbear collapsed limp to the ground in a sitting position with its hands splayed palms up, its head tilting over, and its jaws hanging open, stray wires trailing out of its shoulders and missing left ear. A faint disembodied child’s laugh echoed as GuldJawzbear slowly faded away again. Rainbow looked around, but saw no sign of it reappearing.

Kit sighed loudly. “Now did I get him?”

Final Vent

Rarity pointed her sword at Trapispring as tendrils of water circled her feet, coiling around her legs and lifting her as it turned to her, its sneer cut short as its head suddenly rattled on its neck, flopping its ear and a half around.

Elegrence flew in behind Rarity with a caw, stomping down and launching her forward with a powerful flap of its wings, sending her corkscrewing amid water tendrils sword-first into Trapispring. The impact and wave of water crashing over it threw it back against a building’s polished marble wall, extinguishing the flames to leave its scorched and half-gutted form to slide down the wall. Instead of exploding as expected, it simply continued twitching as sparks began jumping off of it, its twitching speeding up into convulsions to the point of a full body seizure, the sounds of internal mechanisms springing back and forth now clearly audible.

“What?” Rarity said in mild shock. “How did it even…?”

Pinkie added, “It’s like it just keeps going, and going, and—”
Final Vent

Caballkhan galloped past the girls, Lumen on his back with his lance and round shield, the steed skidding to a stop as Lumen impaled the thrashing Trapispring in the stomach. Lumen pinned and slid it up the wall with his lance until it was held above him, its twitching and sparks fizzling out to leave it hanging limp. Lumen paused. Was it over?

Suddenly Trapispring’s eyes flared a blazing purple, grabbing the lance with its left hand and in one tug running itself fully through and sliding down the lance like a zip line, shouting a hiss as it reached for him with its right hand. With Lumen frozen in surprise, the energy pulse building on the lance’s handle shot up on reflex, hitting Trapispring’s gut and lurching it to a stop, jerking its head casing to unhitch from something inside, Lumen watching in perceived slow motion as the head slid up just enough for a rotted shape to become partly visible through the gaping mouth before his eyes focused on the hand swiping down at his face. Leaning back, the fingertips passed less than an inch shy of his mask. Then the energy surge pushed Trapispring back up the lance and into the wall with a purple flash amid the explosion, charred debris flying away.

Caballkhan immediately reared with a loud whining neigh and stepped back from the explosion, almost throwing Lumen off before he made the horse stamp back down. Appearing in a flash, a sickly greenish energy ball rose from the scrap, but neither Advent Beast approached. The energy ball floated back down to the ground. Lumen gently kicked Caballkhan’s side, but the horse still didn’t move.

“What’s the matter?” he asked. “Go on.” He spurred Caballkhan’s side, but Caballkhan only reared again, more forcefully than before. “Whoa!” Lumen tossed his weapons and somersaulted off backwards, running back around in front of the flail-kicking Caballkhan. “Whoa there, calm down! Hold it!” Caballkhan stamped down again before turning and galloping a short distance away. He looked back at the Riders and snorted.

“I don’t think we should have any of our Advent Beasts absorbing that,” Rarity said, eyeing the energy ball. “It almost looks…infected, somehow.”

“Well we can’t just leave it here,” Lumen replied, “we’ve made that mistake twice before.”

Rarity tilted her head. “We?”

“Well I’m not touching it,” announced Pinkie.

Rarity sighed, pulling out a card. “I’ve got this.”
Splash Vent

Sharpened water tendrils rose from the ground and coiled in a sphere around her, grouping and shooting off as she thrust her hand out. They drilled into the energy ball, bursting it apart in a flash. Rarity sighed.

Turning to approaching footsteps, Rarity saw Rainbow, Fluttershy, and Kit walking back over.

“Anything interesting happen to you on your little tangent?” Rarity asked.

“Not much,” Rainbow replied. “How ’bout you?”

“Not much,” Rarity said.

Above them, the evening sky was beginning to turn orange.

“Something tells me neither of these monsters played by the normal rules,” Kit spoke up, “is that common over here or are you just as—”

Suddenly Pinkie shouted to the sky, “Someone please tell me today is over already!”

Kit pointed awkwardly away. “I-I’ll, just…yeah.”

* * *

That Night

There upon a midnight dreary, a girl was walking slowly all alone through the streets of the city she called home. There was a mild chill in the air, but it was still more than she’d expected. She’d wanted to clear her head, but now the shift in ambiance left her only wanting to get back inside. She hurried her pace and turned the next corner.

Then a blinding light suddenly glared on in front of her. She stopped in her tracks and covered her eyes in a half-recoil, sure it was a car about to hit her. But there was no engine noise, and nothing else happened. Then she heard clapping.

As her eyes adjusted to the light, and one set of clapping became a crowd, she looked past her raised arms, seeing a line of half-hunched red figures with large X-shaped objects strapped to their backs, and in their center stood a tall grey-skinned man still largely silhouetted by the spotlight leading the applause.

“Congratulations!” Turmoil exclaimed, holding up a large bouquet of red roses as the Gelnewts clapped harder. The girl stood frozen at the sight as he stepped forward. “You are the one chosen, all congratulations! Welcome to the team.”

He held out the bouquet to her. Sitting amid the flowers was a blank dark purple Advent Deck.

Next time, on “Kamen Rider EqG”…

Pinkie held out her Advent Deck. “Kamen—”

The pronged hand of a jellyfish monster quickly slapped the Deck out of her grasp with a zap.

“Okay,” Pinkie’s voiceover said as a jumping Advent Cycle rammed the monster, but got zapped by its prongs, the Cycle tipping over and skidding along on its side, “minor problem.”

“I…” A figure in bulky black armor stepped up. “…am…” They looked up at Pinkie. “…Brute.”

There was a sudden metal clamping noise.
Like Broken Glass

Chapter 1: The Hero of Canterlot High

The Hero of Canterlot High ʜǫiH ƚolɿɘƚnɒƆ ʇo oɿɘH ɘʜT

It was late at night, and on a stage, a figure was sweeping. The figure swept the stage with a broom, pushing every stray piece of clutter, bit by bit, off to the side. A figure dressed in a janitor’s outfit. The only person to dare venture that close. Earlier in the evening, the strangest thing had happened on that stage.

No one was quite sure what exactly had happened, or at least those who did weren’t talking. Whatever it was, it had to do with the local high school’s battle of the bands, three new girls, and potentially attempted mass mind control with a side of giant flying spectral monsters being fought off with musical instruments.

Now, however, aside from the sound of the broom, only the figure’s whistling carried through the darkness across the otherwise silent outdoor amphitheater.

Whoo-woo, wo w-w-w-w-woo…

As the figure pushed the last of the debris collected from the stage into a single pile of dust, he squatted down to take a closer look. Continuing to whistle, he reached into the pile and sifted out a handful of red crystal shards.

Looking over them in his open hand, the shards softly began to give off a faint red glow. The figure whistled on, and a trail of red smoke began rising from the crystal shards as they continued to glow brighter. The figure closed his hand and clenched the shards tightly. A few seconds later, his hand became surrounded by a faint yellow glowing aura.

The figure stopped whistling, gave a sinister smile, and began to softly chuckle.

* * *

Three Weeks Later

Rainbow Dash ran down the sidewalk. Naturally, she was in a hurry to get somewhere. She just hoped she wouldn’t be late.

Her destination was in sight, just across the next crosswalk. She spared a glance to check the crossing light. Flashing red hand. She could make it.

She dashed out onto the crosswalk. Halfway through, she realized the red hand had stopped flashing. She didn’t see it coming, but she heard it. She didn’t think. She jumped.

Tires screeched as a red-and-white striped hood flew in from the right, brakes squealing. Everything went into slow motion. She shot her right arm forward and planted her hand on the center of the hood. Pivoting on her hand, her legs swung over and around to the left, flying over and past the front of the car. Her palm left the hood and she was airborne. Her left foot hit the ground first. She threw her right leg out in front as her left knee bent to absorb the impact. As her momentum carried her forward, she pushed off with her left foot, sprinting forward the last few steps as the car’s horn honked behind her. She burst through the doors of Sugar Cube Corner.

“Did you hear?” Rainbow Dash said excitedly. “It happened again!”

Most of the people inside stopped what they were doing and looked up at her. Ignoring them, she looked up at the shop’s ceiling-mounted TV in the corner before scanning the place for the table her friends were clustered at. It was the one sitting by the green couch, as usual. Quickly walking over to them, she pulled out her phone and checked the time. “They’d better have it as top story on the six o’clock news.”

“Rainbow Dash eager to watch the local news?” said an amused Applejack as Rainbow Dash sat down. “Now there’s a first.”

“Only because it’s the most awesome thing that’s ever been on the news!” Rainbow Dash said back.

“Speaking of awesome,” piped up Pinkie Pie, “what was that move you just did out there? I thought for sure that was gonna be the news tonight.”

Rainbow Dash paused a moment before shrugging. “Reflexes?”

“Regardless,” Rarity said, “you really should be more careful, dear. After all, there’s only one of you.”

“Well,” said Sunset Shimmer, “that would kinda depend on how you counted.”

“However many version of her there are,” said Fluttershy, “only this one is this her.”

Rainbow Dash looked up at the TV and saw the ORE Channel 13 News icon floating across the screen, signifying the start of the news broadcast. The image shifted to that of a woman sitting at the news desk with an image of the city’s skyline behind her. She began talking, but no sound was heard. Rainbow Dash waved to get the attention of Mrs. Cake standing behind the counter, then pointed at the TV. “Turn it up!”

Mrs. Cake rolled her eyes as she reached for the remote. The newswoman’s voice began to become audible as the volume rose.

“In a few minutes, we’ll catch up with Misty Breeze for your local weather,” she said, “but before that, a new development on breaking news from late last night that came to our attention earlier today.”

“This has to be it,” Rainbow Dash said eagerly.

An image appeared on the screen to the newswoman’s left. It was a rough artist’s pencil rendering of what appeared to be some sort of mask or helmet, almost resembling that of a medieval knight, but with multiple horizontal black slits covering the eyes instead of the usual one.

“At first with only sketches from eyewitness accounts,” the newswoman continued, as the image was replaced with another sketch, this time of a full figure positioned in a fighting stance, and who appeared to be clad in a suit of armor, “of a mysterious person who reportedly appeared at the scenes of three seemingly random late-night attacks in the past two weeks,” the image was again replaced, this time by a color sketch shaded a dark blue, with the figure holding a sword with a yellow U-shaped crossguard, “it has just been released by authorities that we now have bystander footage of the now-famed Armored Hero in action.”

“Yes!”

Most of the patrons of Sugar Cube Corner again looked over at Rainbow Dash’s outburst. She smiled innocently at them before turning back to her friends and continuing with a subtler tone. “He’s on video! I told you he was real!”

“Yes, darling, we remember,” Rarity said, not looking up. She lifted her teacup before pausing. “Every. Single. Time.”

“Well,” Rainbow Dash said, “I was right, wasn’t I?”

“Police came into possession of this video last night,” continued the newswoman, “although they withheld it from the media until they had authenticated it, meaning that they have concluded that there have been no attempted alterations to insert or remove anything digitally after the footage was shot. That fact, however, only makes the following images more confusing and, potentially, controversial.”

“Huh?” Rainbow Dash said. She looked intently at the screen as the bystander footage was played.

It was clearly a cell phone video, as it was rather blurred and unsteady, not to mention constantly brightening and darkening as the reflections of streetlights in the storefront window in the back went in and out of view, making the camera auto-adjust the brightness. Despite this, what was shown was unmistakable. Across the street from the videographer, a figure in dark-colored armor was fighting against what appeared to be…nothing. He was ducking and weaving and throwing kicks and punches, but there seemed to be nothing on the receiving end of his onslaught. In the midst of this, the figure held up an arm and staggered back, then leaned back and made a particularly powerful swing with his left fist. Then a trashcan a few feet away clattered over. The figure ran forward and swung with something he was holding in his right hand, sending a spray of sparks flying from thin air. After that, the video looped back around to the beginning, and the frame was shrunk and moved to one side of the screen, revealing the newswoman again.

“It isn’t clear what this video proves,” the newswoman said, “but one possibility is that it may show the entire deal of the Armored Hero to be nothing more than a hoax, perhaps attempting to capitalize on the other reports of unusual activity surrounding the nearby Canterlot High School.”

“A hoax?” Rainbow Dash spoke up. “Are you kidding me!?”

“Easy there, Rainbow Dash,” Applejack said, “they said they don’t know exactly what’s goin’ on. Maybe whatever he’s fightin’ is just invisible er somethin’. Wouldn’t be too odd, considerin’.”

“When presented with this new information and footage,” the newswoman continued, “the victims and witnesses of previous encounters all confirm that this was the figure they saw, but the victims continue to maintain that there was definitely something else that attacked them before his arrival. Authorities say that they are looking into potential connections between the victims to determine if they may have coordinated the story ahead of time.”

“Oh, come on!” Rainbow Dash shouted again. “Just listen to yourself! Those sparks have to be coming from somewhere! And how about that trashcan?”

“If you keep this up,” Sunset Shimmer said, looking around nervously while running a hand through her hair, “you might get yourself thrown out of here, and us along with you.”

Rainbow Dash paused. “Heh, sorry,” she said sheepishly.

“I wouldn’t read too much into it,” said a voice.

Rainbow Dash and the others turned toward the sound to see Flash Sentry leaning against the cashier counter. Not once looking over at them, he grabbed a paper bag off of the counter and strolled towards the door.

“That’s just what the news does sometimes,” he said as he passed the group. Some of them exchanged glances. When the bell over the door chimed as he made his exit, the girls turned their attentions back to the TV.

“In other news, there are still no more clues in the disappearance from two weeks ago…” The newswoman’s voice faded away as Mrs. Cake turned the TV’s volume down again.

The group turned back to each other. There was a pause. Applejack decided to break the tension.

“Well,” she said, clapping her hands together, “looks like the news has made up its mind on what’s going on here. Anyone about to agree with their conclusion?” She looked around the group. There was no response. Rainbow Dash crossed her arms and shook her head. “Good. They probably know that somethin’s up but no one’s willin’ to be the first to say it.”

“You bet something’s up,” Rainbow Dash said. “Four incidents in only two weeks? All of these crazy unexplained details? I can’t believe they’re ignoring the fact that we have some sort of superhero in town.”

“And a new supervillain,” chimed Pinkie. “Can’t forget about that part.”

“I admit, it’s suspicious,” Sunset said, “but that doesn’t automatically mean it’s something supernatural. It could just be something…not…” The others all turned to look at her. Sunset dropped the role of the obligatory opposing viewpoint for the sake of argument. “Okay, yeah, it’s supernatural, no doubt about it. But what are we supposed to do about it? Play music at…,” she gestured back at the TV, “whatever the things that don’t show up on video are? How would we find them? We don’t even know what we’re up against.”

“Duh,” Rainbow Dash responded, “then we find out.”

Sunset crossed her arms. “How?”

“I don’t know yet,” admitted Rainbow Dash, “but I think I have somewhere we can start.”

“Granted, I’ve been suspicious of these reports from the start, myself,” said Sunset Shimmer as she looked on with surprise, “…but I wasn’t about to make a conspiracy wall about it.”

She was standing with the rest of her friends in Rainbow Dash’s room, staring at a corkboard sitting on the floor and propped up against one of the walls. On it, attached by pushpins, staples, and partly uncurled paperclips, were an assortment of newspaper clippings, half of them torn instead of cut out of the newspaper, and a few with edges taped misaligned back on after apparent tearings-gone-wrong, as well as hand-written notes on the backs of papers of every size and shape (Sunset thought she saw what looked like half of a worksheet that had been due last week), with many of the items connected to others on the opposite side of the board by either pieces of string or, more commonly, lines drawn in black marker across the board and paper scraps alike, several of which with their now-dissociated segments scratched out by pencil when the board had apparently been rearranged.

“Come to think of it,” Sunset picked back up after a few moments of staring, "maybe I should have made one. It would’ve been set up much more coherently than this.”

Rainbow Dash shrugged. “Eh, I made do with what I had.”

“I can see that…,” Sunset squeaked, still recovering from the sight before her. Her tone almost made it seem like making conspiracy walls was an art form, and that Rainbow Dash had single-handedly butchered its legacy.

Rainbow Dash walked up in front of the board and turned back to the group. “As you can probably tell,” she started, “I’ve been following this story from the beginning. I admit, it’s kinda grown on me just a tad more than a bit. But during that time, I’ve…,” she glanced up at the ceiling as if trying to see the thoughts floating around her head, “…I’ve…” There was a pause. Rainbow Dash dropped her arms and slumped her shoulders. “I’ve found out that I’m no good at spontaneous dramatic speeches, apparently.”

“Well there’s a surprise,” said Applejack. Shoulders still slumped, Rainbow Dash pointed at her and squinted in an ‘I’ll get you next time’ look.

Rainbow Dash stood up straight again and raised her hands in front of her, palms facing inward, as one would if they were attempting to explain something. “Okay, look. Point is, the news is wrong. The Armored Hero is real, I can prove it, it’s all there. Somewhere, in…,” she waved her hand around at the conspiracy board in general, “…there…but it’s there.”

“You seem rather certain about this,” said Rarity. “Not that I’m doubting, it’s just that you seem to be getting a bit ahead of the evidence, here.”

Rainbow Dash turned to her. “You saw that video. Sure, maybe we can’t tell what, but something’s definitely going on here. Besides, we’ve faced and beaten dark magic, twice. This is right up our alley. If the Armored Hero’s facing something bigger than just random stray incidents, he might need some backup.”

“So that’s what you’ve been tryin’ to get at, is it?” Applejack said. Crossing her arms and leaning back against the wall, she continued, “Lemme guess. Savin’ the world just twice ain’t enough? Count me in.”

“You’re gonna need some help,” Sunset Shimmer added. “With that, specifically.” She nodded at Rainbow’s attempted conspiracy wall. “I’m in.”

“Me too!” said Pinkie, raising her hand into the air.

“And me, I suppose,” added Rarity, stepping forward.

There was a group pause in anticipation of the answer from the final member. None came. Everyone looked over at Fluttershy.

“Oh,” she said nervously. “A-and me.”

“Woo-hoo!” Pinkie exclaimed. “Now let’s get to work on solving this mystery.” She began rubbing her hands together while looking slyly off to the side. “We’ll be an unstoppable team of half-boiled detectives.”

Rainbow Dash facepalmed.

Sunset raised a hand and started, “Uh, I think you meant…,” but she saw Applejack giving her the signal of several quick hand swipes across the neck. Sunset dropped her hand. “Never mind.”

* * *

Back in the city, a lone figure rode a motorcycle through the empty nighttime streets. He passed by rows of empty shops and other buildings, passing in and out of the columns of light from the lines of streetlights. The figure was clad in a black leather jacket, wore a black helmet, and rode a black motorbike. Suddenly he skidded to a halt before an empty intersection.

The figure looked up and around, listening, trying to pinpoint the direction of a sound that he and he alone heard. He revved the motorcycle’s engine and turned the handlebars to the left, making a U-turn before kicking off and riding back up the street. Halfway up the block, a spherical shell of dark indigo energy shot out from and surrounded the figure, and a pair of glowing rings began rotating around him, followed by gold-bordered blue-violet armor plating flipping seemingly out of nowhere and covering over the motorcycle.

One of a pawnshop’s co-owners, dressed in a stripped blue and white outfit and closing up the store for the night, was locking up the safe under the counter when he heard the motorcycle ride by. He thought nothing of it until he heard a loud crackling and humming accompanied by a flash of blue light, and followed a second later by a whooshing noise as the light flash faded. The bell over the door rang as he ran outside, stopping and looking around. He saw a few stray newspaper pages being blown along the dark and empty street by an errant gust of wind, but nothing else noteworthy.

Confused but not particularly curious, he shrugged and turned back to lock the shop door.