Kamen Rider Gr3en

Chapters

Stranger in the Dark
Awaken the Soul
Power to Terror
Danger, Socks, and the Mysterious Armor

Stranger in the Dark

Nopony ever went walking around Ponyville at night. Nopony knew why they didn’t, they just…didn’t. At least, Minty didn’t know why. She didn’t get it, either, the pink-maned green earth pony. Ponyville at night sure seemed like a pretty nice place to be. No, not at all because there was no one around to clumsily mess something up for…or any witnesses in case she accidentally did anyway…again…nope, not that at all.

She took a deep breath and looked around the empty town. The moon was glowing rather brightly, so it’s not like it was too dark. The streetlamps were off, though. That was odd. I mean, why have streetlamps if they weren’t on at night?

Minty stood pondering this while staring up at the light fixture atop one of the lamp poles. Come to think of it, they’ve really only been used as another place to hang decorations on. It’d been forever since she’d seen one of them actually lit up. Wait a second, maybe the reason nopony went outside at night…was because all the streetlamps were broken! That had to be it, right? Hmm, maybe there was something wrong with the wiring? Maybe she should try to fix them! Yeah, that’d be a real—

There was a hoofstep in the darkness, giving Minty a jump. So, she wasn’t the only pony out at night. They could’ve at least given her a heads-up! She looked up and down the street but found it empty. Then she thought to turn and look down the alley the streetlamp was next to. She saw a pony standing in the darkness of the alley, hidden from the moonlight. The pony looked a pale color, but she couldn’t see them too well.

“Hello?” she said into the darkness.

“Life is frail,” said the pony, a young stallion by the sound of his—eeyikes, that voice. Something was just too unsettling about how flat it was, how…lifeless. “Life is limited,” he continued. The words weren’t helping, either. He stared right at her. “So why don’t you think about…true life?” Outlines of a gray pattern appeared on his face.

Minty took a cautious step back. “Uh, whatever you’re selling, I don’t think I’m buying, so…”

There was a hollow humming sound a second before the pony’s outline started glowing white, and he grew and morphed into a bipedal figure a good half over again as tall as her. Minty stumbled back as the figure stepped forward from the alley, the streetlamp suddenly flashing to life with a bright blue light, illuminating the figure. It was a uniform shiny gray, with the head of a horned horse’s integrated onto a knight’s helmet topped by a white tuft of mane, another pair of horned horse heads adorning its shoulders, and a horseshoe decoration at the center of its chest.

Minty backed out into the center of the street. “W-wha…st…stay…,” was all she could mumble. Her little brain had given up. The horse monster approached, its shadow morphing into a blue-tinted projection of the pony it had just been.

“Be smart,” his shadow continued in a monotone, mildly distorted. “True life is your sta—”

The air rang with gunshots as a series of spark spits burst from the monster, forcing it to stumble sideways a few step. It turned right, Minty following its gaze. {Stranger in the dark}

About thirty feet up the street was a smoking gun barrel, the black weapon held in the extended right hoof of an equine figure silhouetted in the moonlight. Round orange bug eyes glowed on a face topped with three upward-pointing spines, and dark blue metal armor plates outlined in silver adorning the figure’s body and limbs. It stood staring silently at them.

The gray horse monster’s breathing began speeding up. “Yyyyou!” it growled, its voice suddenly flush with passion. It gave a shout as it forgot about Minty and rushed at the newcomer. The armored figure turned its head slightly to watch the monster, pulling its gun back. It clicked its weapon onto the plate on its right thigh before reaching down and clicking something on its belt buckle, holding its right foreleg out to the side.

As the monster reached it, the armored figure ducked down and swung, glancing a hit across the monster’s gut with a flash. The monster stopped in its tracks, the figure pulling back for another swing, punching forward for a center mass hit that knocked the monster back a few steps. The figure reached down and clicked its belt again.

Minty watched the fight in shock. What were these things? Where did they come from? How the heck had either one of them been in Ponyville of all places, much less both! Then something else odd rose to her attention. That pony—probably a pony, at least—the one with the armor…they were only using their one hoof to fight with. They hadn’t even taken a step forward yet.

The armored pony stood back and readied for another swing instead of advancing on their opponent. The horse monster charged again, the pony swinging, but the monster stopped a step short and grabbed the pony’s wrist in its hand, bringing it to a stop. It reached over with its left hand to grab the back of the pony’s collar, pushing down and slamming them face-first into the ground with minimal effort, hoisting them back up before delivering a punch of its own to their chest. The armored pony folded at the impact.

Minty gasped. Oh, no! If only there was something…

The monster half-dropped, half-tossed the now-limp armored pony onto the ground, their armor clanking. It stood for a second, staring at the armored pony, its heavy breathing beginning to die down. It took a step forward and reached down, but then stopped. It turned to look back at Minty.

Its gaze switched her legs back on. She backed away before turning and breaking into a run. Sorry, but I… there’s nothing I… The monster turned back to the armored pony, but quickly turned again and started chasing after Minty.

Laying on the ground, the armored pony looked up to see the pursuit. They didn’t have much time. They reached up and pulled a large pack attachment off of their back, with a handle on top and a ring of silver tubes folded up at the bottom, dropping it down in front of them. They reached up to a row of four red buttons, inputting the code “1-3-2-Enter”. “Releasing safety,” said an automated voice.

Minty’s heart was pounding in her ears, but she soon heard another pounding: the sound of a thundering gallop gaining on her. She almost dared a glance back, but a large shadow sailed over her, a large centaur figure landing a short distance in front of her before its back section burst apart into dust and the horse monster staggered to a stop. He turned back to face Minty with renewed vigor. They had never mentioned that he could have a power like that, and he wanted more.

Minty tried stopping, but as she planted her front hooves, her back hoof came forward and kicked her front legs out from under her, and she crashed to the ground, skidding to a stop in a dust cloud. Just her luck.

Minty slowly looked up to see the horse monster staring down at her. A glow from its right hand drew her attention as a wide sword appeared in its grasp in a flash of light. She looked back up at its face. Its expressionless visage kept staring back like a mask on a shelf. She heard a hollow hum as its shadow again turned to a glowing blue image of a pony.

“Don’t run,” it said calmly.

A blue-green x-ray view focused in on the rapidly beating heart of the pony lying before it.

The Horse Orphnoch stepped closer, holding up its sword. It reached out with its left hand as Minty cowered back farther, hiding her face.

“This will be a good thing,” it continued, trying to sound excited.

Back where they had been left, the pony in the blue armor slid the top of its handgun sideways onto the left side of the unfolded armament before it, and then reached over to the back of it and popped up a panel, revealing the top of something red.

Minty counted the seconds to the end, somehow feeling even more uneasy as the number kept climbing. Cautiously, she looked up to see the monster standing over her, sword drawn back, statue still…except for its mildly trembling right hand. It wasn’t sure? M-maybe she could—

It saw her looking. “It’ll work… this time…,” it said in a hush, as if for itself, “i-it’ll work…”

“N-no…please,” Minty tried saying, but she only managed to stutter silently. Five seconds to save your life. Could you think of something to say?

After an eternity lasting two and a half breaths, the monster’s hand gripped the sword tighter and stopped shaking. Minty stared at its blank silver eyes as it spoke. “Welcome to true life.” The sword moved forward.

Looking on, the armored pony looked down and shook its head. “I’m sorry, Bon Bon,” came a mare’s voice from inside the suit’s helmet. “I couldn’t save him.”

She looked up, aiming the GX-05 Cerberus Gatling gun she was propped up on, a red rocket canister loaded at the center of the ring of silver barrels. She fired.

The canister shot off in a burst of smoke, streaking down the street. Minty only heard it. The horse monster looked up and saw it. Something small, loud, and fast flew over Minty’s head, and her view of the monster was immediately replaced by a bright explosion, a second burst of blue flames seeping through it from inside.

As Minty’s sight and hearing faded back to normal, she saw the Horse Orphnoch standing statue still in front of her again, but dust was falling from it and blue flames were leaking from cracks running across its almost stonelike body. Though its face hadn’t changed, she could see something on it now: surprise. The monster dropped its sword, the blade shattering to dust upon hitting the ground. Its blue shadow projection was as still as its body and held the same expression as it slowly faded back into a normal shadow. There was the sound of cracking stone, and its arms tilted down and disintegrated, its head turned to dust, and its body collapsed into a pile of gray dust as the blue flames extinguished.

Back up the street, the armored pony let go of their weapon, rolling off it and over onto their back with a clank from their armor, giving a long sigh.

Minty stared down at the pile of dust, not knowing what to think. The clanking of metal drew her attention back over to the armored pony. Maybe not what to think, but she knew what to do. She took a step towards them.

The pony reached up and took hold of their helmet, a strip at the back sliding up into the mask before the back of the helmet split into two halves that also retracted in. She slowly lifted it off her face, dropping it to the ground over her shoulder.

“Heh…and they all thought that I’d be the first,” muttered the mare, a pale peach color with an unkempt darkish pink mane. “Funny…so did I. And I said that this would break after day one.” She looked down at her armor suit, hitting the blue chest plate. “Bright Eyes, your little toy outlasted us all. How many of us would’ve thought to expect to make it this far…”

The mare reached down to the armor’s silver belt, its buckle featuring a red bar with the right half lit up, and pressed a hidden button on its underside. With a mechanical whir and a small cloud of steam, the suit’s blue torso shell split open at the front as a pair of silver shoulder straps sprung up, and the two silver-bordered blue pads on each limb spontaneously let go and fell to the ground, leaving the pony in a black leathery undersuit. She lay there and took a deep breath, closing her eyes.

Hearing hoofsteps nearing her, the mare tilted her head back to see Minty cautiously approaching. She breathed a chuckle and smiled. “Well at least you’re fine,” she called over, causing Minty to stop. “Go, run. Tell everyone,” the pony said casually, waving her off and looking straight up again, “or don’t. Probably won’t matter.”

“That didn’t look like it hurt that bad,” Minty replied, stepping closer. “D-don’t worry, I’ll get help. You’ll be fine.”

“No,” the mare said, “don’t bother. This is from more than just tonight. I got beat up pretty bad a while back. This suit’s all that’s kept me going for a few days, now.”

“Don’t talk like that,” said Minty. “T-there must be something I can do to help.”

“Nope,” she again brushed off. “This is it for me.” She adjusted her position in the open armor shell and closed her eyes as if for a nap.

Minty looked down and stood silent a second. She never was very good at thinking things through. She always just acted. Minty looked back up. “Too bad, I’m helping anyway,” she said firmly.

The door to Minty’s house opened and the once-armored mare staggered in, wincing with every step. Minty helped her to the middle of the front room before returning to shut the door.

“Ahhh,” sighed the peach-colored mare, looking up as Minty came back. “Aren’t you gonna pester me with questions about what that thing was, or what I was wearing or doing?”

“Let’s just focus on helping you right now,” said Minty. “If I let my mind wander to other things, it’s not coming back.”

The pony’s undersuit zipped open down the front, and Minty immediately saw that the area around her neck, shoulders, and chest appeared to be fading into colorless transparency, looking almost like glass. She suddenly winced and grabbed at the left side of her neck.

“Never did get the tip out,” she said as nonchalantly as she could through the obvious pain. “It’s been slowly draining me ever since.”

Minty held up the undersuit, seeing a pair of puncture holes on the neck, one on each side. “I-I think I could fix this,” she tried to say with confidence. “Or at least, find somepony who could. M-maybe Rainbow Dash, or—” Minty ran her hoof along the suit, when it suddenly poked right through a previously hidden arm-wide slit on the left side of the chest. She looked up at them with surprise. “I-I didn’t…”

“Nah, that’s what happened the while back,” the peach pony brushed off. She shrugged, adding, “They mostly missed.”

The pony suddenly jolted forward, wrapping a hoof around her chest as she held back a choke. Minty saw what appears to be a blue light flickering from inside her chest through the glasslike area.

“Looks like the past is finally catching up with me,” she continued. “Heh, somepony long ago once told me to be careful on my adventures. Guess I’m just bad at taking advice.”

“I-I…,” Minty stuttered, a realization of reality setting in, “wish there was something I could do.”

“Y’know?” the mare said. “I like your attitude. We coulda used you.” She held back another choke. “What was your name? You never said.”

“Minty,” she said, looking at the pony she couldn’t help.

“Patch,” the mare replied, looking at the last pony she’d ever save. “It was nice meeting you…Minty.”

A teal-tinted x-ray view of a slowly beating heart, its lower tip with a small patch of blue flame burning on it. The flame suddenly flared, consuming the entire heart in a surge of blue fire that dissipated to leave nothing.

The blue glow inside Patch’s chest flared brighter, lighting up the glassy area, and then quickly faded out. Patch stood there, shaking slightly as the expression drained from her face. Gray dust fell from her mane. She looked at Minty, trying to stay standing, and gave as complete a smile as she could. Her entire body faded to gray, disintegrating and collapsing into a pile of dust on the floor.

Soon to be seen, on “Kamen Rider Gr3en”…

In Minty’s memory, she relived the rocket flying over her head and hitting the gray horse monster, followed by a large explosion with a second burst of blue flames.

“Did no one hear that?” Minty asked herself, seeing ponies going about their daily lives around her.

At nighttime, a violin played as a black figure with a spiky back waved its hand in front of a house. A transparent red layer over the house glowed and then dissipated.

Minty picked up the armor’s helmet and looked into its eyes.
Danger, Socks, and the Mysterious Armor

Author's Note

The good version of "Stranger in the Dark" was removed from YouTube, so right now the link is just someone's cover version.

Awaken the Soul

It was nighttime on that unicorn spectacular night of nights, the Rainbow Lights Party. Planned as always by Unicornia resident Lily, a dark magenta unicorn with an array of pink, red, and purple in her mane, magenta and teal in her tail, and a downward-pointing lily cutie mark with a curved stem, this Night of a Thousand Lights features every unicorn in Unicornia coming together to help put up hundreds of strings of lights all over every building and lamppost in the city, starting at the castle and fanning outwards. The Rainbow Lights Party is used to celebrate the approach of the Rainbow Day Celebration, wherein between the third and fourth colored shooting stars flying overhead, the four princesses will combine their innate magic abilities with the power of the magic wand to create the first rainbow of the season.

Like every year, Lily had overseen the stringing of the lights, and like every year, it had gone off without a hitch. Everypony had pitched in their part for a spectacular result. Oh, and Rarity had gotten herself tangled up in a strand of lights, the young pink unicorn. Ah well, what’ll ya do?

All the unicorns had gathered in the center of town, admiring the finished product. Countless yellow lights shining bright against the otherwise purple hue of night on the already pink and purple cobblestone roads, strung along every outline and border of every house, tree, and pavilion in sight. Lily stood in the middle of them all and sighed. This was her favorite part. All those smiles on everyone’s faces, everything in perfect order, everyone happy. This is what she did all that work for.

“Well,” Lily said to the others, Rarity beside her and spinning a hooped light strand around her hoof, “it looks like we have everything.”

“There’s one more thing,” said Cheerilee from the edge of the crowd, a pale purple unicorn with a dark pink mane, purple flower trio cutie mark, and the head of the four Princesses of Unicornia, a role almost exclusively of name alone that really only meant something during the Rainbow Day Celebration itself. Still, she lived in the Crystal Rainbow Castle with the other three princesses and was always the one to go to for any needed advice or guidance.

“What?” Lily said with surprise. “Ha-have I forgotten something?” She looked around to check for unlit light strands. Oh, she knew entire strands were always shutting off because of one dead bulb—you had to check every single light to find the problem.

“Lily,” Cheerilee continued, stepping forward, “on behalf of all of Unicornia, I bestow upon you the title of Lily Lightly, princess of all that twinkles and glows.”

Off to the side, a lever was flipped, and a pair of spotlights flashed on onto Lily, prompting a surprised gasp from her as the gathered crowd began cheering. No, no, this isn’t what she did all that work for. As she took a step back in a futile attempt to escape the center of focus, her horn started to glow, emitting a magenta aura. Ahhg! Not this again! Things had skipped bad and gone straight to worse—now everyone would know her horn lit up. Unicorn horns don’t do that! But looking around, she saw everypony’s eyes closed while they cheered. Maybe she had a chance to slip away unseen.

“Uh, thanks, um…,” Lily stuttered as she started walking through the crowd. “I-I gotta, I gotta go now, I mean…um…,” she whimpered as all eyes opened again and started turning to her. This escape was almost going worse than staying put. Even Cheerilee was giving her a mildly shocked expression. She stopped in place; she couldn’t look like she was just bailing. “Shine on, everyone,” Lily said as parting words with fake confidence as she strode on again, “shine on.” She passed the outer rim of the crowd, still holding all stares. “Uhh…o-okay, gotta go. Bye.” And at that, she took off.

Brights Brightly, another one of the four princesses and a yellow unicorn with a rising sun cutie mark and a mane orange over her head and pink down her neck, stood and stared as Lily left down a street leading away from the center of town. She looked to Cheerilee to see her deep in thought; she could guess about what. Brights and Whistle Wishes both walked over to Cheerilee. Whistle Wishes was another of the princesses, pale blue with a mane of yellow, green, and pink, and a cutie mark of yellow stars and a cloud.

“Something’s up, isn’t it?” asked Brights.

“A unicorn with a horn that glows who isn’t a princess?” commented Whistle Wishes. “How could you not think that?”

“I don’t remember exactly,” Cheerilee mumbled, “but I think I read something about that once. Oh, but that was such a long time ago, I can’t even recall where. Whistle Wishes, could you maybe go and retrieve Lily? I have a feeling it might be important for her to stick near us for a while.”

“You can count on me!” replied Wishes. She turned and headed off in the direction Lily had taken…until an immediate fork in the road. She hadn’t watched which way Lily had gone. “Lily?” she called, turning and heading down the right path.

“In the meantime,” Cheerilee said to Brights, “let’s help get Rarity untied.”

Having taken the left path, Lily walked down an empty street, stopping at a pavilion by the small bridge at the edge of town. She took in a deep breath, held it to three, and let it out slowly. As she began to calm down, the glowing of her horn subsided. She sighed. Finally. She didn’t know how her horn kept doing that, but a sudden sense of shock was an easy-to-peg trigger.

From the shadows, something gazed upon her.

A buzzing filled Lily’s ears. A sense of some kind, like a voice in her head. “… be… hin…”

Lily jumped, her horn giving a brief flare. “Wh-ho’s there?” she called, turning right towards a stand of trees, only to see the end of a red scarf whipping behind one of the trunks. “Uh…o-okay?” she said in confusion. “Bye, then. I guess?”

She turned back to face the road that would lead to the bridge out of town, but stopped. “Why would somepony be acting like that? Sneaking around behind things. Speaking of which, what was I doing acting like that? They were all just trying to tell me I did a good job, and I reacted like they shouldn’t be talking to me. I wonder if I should tell them I don’t want the attention. Or would that just draw even more attention with them asking why not? Oh…” She swayed her head back and forth from the path leading farther away to the one leading back. “Maybe I should just go back. I did put this whole thing together, after all, the least I could do is stick with it.” She turned and walked back towards the center of town. “If I’m lucky, maybe everyone will just forget that I up and lef…”

Lily’s words faded as she walked away, as the gaze again looked on from the shadows. A clawed, dull yellow hand reached out and grabbed the side of the tree trunk, and a shadowy silhouette looked out from behind, its eyes reflecting yellow, and a silver object glinting over its left shoulder.

After walking less than a block, Lily felt a brief breeze blow past her from behind. She looked up.

“Yaa-haah!” she screamed in shock, stumbling back a step. Standing in front of her was a tall bipedal figure with the head of a leopard, its lower jaw thick with a prominent chin, and with leathery and spotted dull yellow skin, a long bright red scarf trailing from its neck to the ground, a black leather belt with a spiky spiral buckle, and sandals with knee-high straps. It gave a low growl, and Lily turned and bolted, scampering away and diving down the first side street to her left.

Pantheras Luteus stood and watched her flee for a few seconds before following after her. He turned down the street she’d taken before stopping. She was nowhere in sight. That didn’t matter. He had more ways of finding her than sight. A buzzing echoed in his ears, the power within her resonating from somewhere… over…

Lily was hiding down an alley to the right, breathing heavily. Her mind was…this is…what…just—gah! The buzzing returned to her ears. “… clos… in…” Her horn began glowing again, its magenta spread shining out to the end of the alley.

“No, no,” she pleaded at her horn’s light. “Out, out!”

She heard a growl; her heart stopped. She turned to see Luteus standing in the alley’s entrance. Nowhere to run. No way out. No hope. What was this thing, and why was it suddenly after her? What did she ever do to it?

Luteus walked forward. He held his right hand up to a silver wing-shaped object pinned onto his scarf over his left shoulder, then brought the hand down and used his first two left-hand fingers to trace a ‘Z’ over it. A glowing disk appeared over his head and—aaahhg! The buzzing in Lily’s ears spiked to a painful level. Lily pinned her ears down with her hooves, doing nothing to muffle the near-screech ringing in her head. The pain forced her to squeeze her eyes shut and double over. Her horn began shining brighter than ever as Luteus stood over her, reaching in and grabbing at her neck with his clawed hands, fumbling as Lily struggled back and forth. She knew she couldn’t last long. Was this really…?

“Fight.”

On pure instinct, Lily punched out forward and hit Luteus with her right hoof, sending a burst of light shooting back up her arm and knocking him back a step, hands flying free of her neck. He steadied himself and prepared to attack again, but stopped with a gasp-like snarl.

Lily looked down at her arm. Her usual magenta-purple was now covered in a tight-fitting black sleeve. There was a plate covering the front of her hoof bearing a shiny tint of her own magenta color, next to a similarly-colored wristband with a lone stripe reaching up her arm to a shoulder pad. {Warrior}

“I-I…changed?” she stuttered. What was going on here?

Before she could wonder what or how, Luteus rushed at her again as if in desperation. Okay, then, she thought, seeing she had no option but to push her luck. Here goes everything!

Lily planted her front hooves, pushing off with her back legs to spin around and catch Luteus in the gut with a double-hoof kick. The monster was knocked back as a flash of light climbed up her legs, covering them in the same armor as her arm. Before Luteus could fully regain his footing, Lily turned forward again and let out a shout as she jumped forward, ramming Luteus with a headbutt and throwing him back to the alley’s entrance, the glowing disk over his head fading out.

Landing on her hooves, Lily stood up tall as she heard a charging pulse sound. A silvery-transparent coating expanded up from her left front hoof, solidifying into the same armor, and also expanding a black layer over the rest of her body; a magenta shell grew over her torso and stretched down her back, small magenta shoulder pads also appearing; a magenta silhouette of her cutie mark appeared on the sides of her now-black flanks; her head was covered over by a black casing as a silver sheath covered her muzzle, and a pair of large magenta eye covers grew onto her face with a final crash-pulse. Her still-exposed horn’s glow finally faded.

Luteus struggled back to his feet, looking to behold the sight before him. His lower jaw moved as a graggly voice slowly formed the word, “Kouma.”

Lily looked down and across her new armor. “Kouma?” she repeated. “Th-this is Kouma?” What was a Kouma? No time to worry about that now. Whatever Kouma meant, one thing was sure: it meant she had a chance. She could do this. She looked up at Luteus and stamped her right hoof down and out to the right.

Luteus backed slowly out of alley, eyes pinned on Lily as she stepped out after him. That’s when she saw them. Of course, the lights!

“Alright, you monster, listen up,” she said, trying to sound intimidating. “I am Lily Lightly, Princess of all that Twinkles and Glows.” She reached out and grabbed the end of the nearest strand of lights on the wall next to her. “And this is my night!” She pulled, dragging the light strand off of the building and through the air, slapping it across Luteus with a spit of sparks as several lights snapped off of the end.

Luteus flinched from the hit, but slowly looked back up, having expected more. Lily swung the strand back but Luteus swiped at it, breaking off several more lights. Lily swung again and again, but Luteus swatted it away every time, shaving off more and more lights.

“This,” said Lily as another light broke off with a snap, “is going”—snap—“to start”—crack—“working”—pop—“eventually!” On the next swing, he instead grabbed the dramatically shortened strand, yanking it out of Lily’s grasp and tossing it to the ground. Luteus had realized that his opponent did not have the power he’d feared them to have. He held up his right hand to the silver wing pendant and traced the ‘Z’ with his left, the glowing disk reappearing over his head, but Lily only pulled down the next light strand and continued swinging in desperation.

More lights were broken off, but when the strand became short enough, Lily snagged the lights on each end onto one another and spun the loop of lights around her hoof like she’d always seen Rarity doing, stepping back and waiting. Luteus stepped forward once again, but Lily tossed the loop through the air at him; the loop unraveled back to a strand and snaked around Luteus several times as it landed on him, as was the cords’ natural tendency to do.

Barely more than annoyed, Luteus flexed and pushed his arms out, easily snapping the strand, the lights falling to the ground around his feet just like all those before them. Luteus again stepped forward, but instead of the ground, his foot landed on two of the small round lights. They slid out from under him, and in a bid to regain his balance, he only ended up stepping on more of the lights littering the entire ground around him, staggering and sliding forward.

Lily knew this was her chance, but to do what?

“Kick.”

Responding again to the not so much voice, but rather instinct in her head, Lily stepped her legs farther apart into a crouch, then charged forward at the stumbling monster, jumping and pulling her back hooves up to deliver a midair kick with her back right hoof to its left shoulder. Luteus flew back and landed on more of the lights, desperately clawing at the cobblestone as he slid backwards across the street. Lily twisted in midair like a cat, landing facing away from him front hooves first, touching down with her back left hoof but stopping the right one, keeping it raised in a curl.

Lily took a moment to process that. Okay, she thought to herself, I haven’t spent a day on gymnastics in my life. How did I know how to do that?

Having skidded to a stop, Luteus sat up, reaching over to where he’d been kicked, before stopping short with a growled gasp. He looked at his shoulder to see the silver wing had been snapped off at the base, and several of its broken pieces with smoking edges were lying on the ground in front of him. Above his head, the glowing disk disappeared. He looked up in shock. His sanction had expired.

Lily lowered her final hoof and turned around to face the monster again. It looked over at her again, but in its eyes now it seemed almost terrified. It slowly stood up, not breaking eye contact, before suddenly turning and dashing away. Lily tried to look after it, but only saw the end of a red scarf slipping behind a corner.

Sweet silence finally reached her ears as the buzzing faded away, and she let out a deep sigh of relief, her muscles finally relaxing as she started panting heavily. Her horn glowed brightly again, the armor disappearing off of her, before going out. She stood there.

“Li-ly!”

Whistle Wishes’ voice carried through the streets, bringing Lily’s attention back to the world around her. She didn’t think there was much of a chance, but if anypony knew anything about what had just happened, it had to be the princesses.

“I’m over here!” she called back.

Soon to be seen, on “Kamen Rider Gr3en”…

“It called me ‘Kouma’,” Lily said.

Cheerilee read from a scrawl in the margin of an ancient book, “The dangerous mother of war.”

At night, a white bipedal figure with a jaguar head and wearing a long blue scarf drew back an arrow on its bow.

“I think I finally know what it means,” Lily said. Standing in her armor, she threw her right hoof out to her left and shouted, “Henshin!” Her horn started glowing yellow.
Repainting a Legend

Power to Terror

Coconut Grove flapped her way through the island’s forest, dust red with a purple and green mane, a purple tail, and two coconuts for a cutie mark. Most other pegasi would’ve been too afraid to venture this far from the beach. Coconut wasn’t most pegasi.

Butterfly Island had been a paradise for as long as she could remember. It was a tropical island shaped like a butterfly, with sandy beaches along the entire border, forests running across the inland regions of the lobes of both wings, sandbars trailing from the tips of the slimmer lower lobes, a lagoon at the center of the body beneath a perpetual rainbow’s arc, and a large yellow and purple butterfly statue by the island’s head, below which a waterfall fell into the central lagoon. There had never been any real danger—no dangerous animals, not even very many bad storms, and once you learned to fly, not even the high cliff faces were an issue. It was the perfect hideaway for their largely reclusive race of winged ponies. But then…

It had started as presumed rumors, just some prank that somepony was sticking to a bit too much to try and frighten the rest of us. And then more ponies just decided to join in? Some part of the forest “had gone weird”, they’d say. Now, everypony had been quick to dismiss all that, but never quite brave enough to investigate and prove it. Until n—achhfff. Yeah, the only danger she’d found so far regarded allergies to these spore clouds.

She’d already been planning to look into the claims beforehoof, but hearing about Thistle’s close call, it had just gotten her more pumped. After all, everyone on the island had heard that noise, it wasn’t that big of a place. Speaking of which…

Coconut Grove stopped in midair and looked around. She didn’t remember the island feeling this big before. Had she been going in circles, or was the interior of the forest somehow bigger than the outside? Oh heck, it was high noon, she’d probably gotten turned around a few times by trying to use the sun as a reference. Her navigating skills admittedly weren’t as great as she usually claimed. Besides, this wandering had let her find…whatever this stuff was.

She hovered over for a closer look at some curious additions to the normal underbrush: some sticks with oddly large cotton balls on the ends, a large pumpkin-shaped flower bud, and some odd purple…curled shell plant? Was this the “going weird” that she’d heard of? If so, she alone on Butterfly Island would be disappointed at how tame it was. Hey, if this was it, then maybe she’d be able to convince Island Delight to actually join her next time.

A pair of ghost-white bipedal creatures wandered their way slowly through the forest.

“Urrur. Uruh-uruh. Urrerur.”

They were following something.

“Uruh-uruh-uruh…”

Over there.

There was a small clearing, still roofed by tree branches, with a small spring on the far side. A dull red pegasus was drinking from it, facing away. The figures crept up to the edge of the underbrush across the clearing behind it.

“Urrur. Urhrerer.”

Coconut Grove lifted her head and wiped the water off her lips. Now, she thought, back to business. She had a feeling there had to be something more to the forest’s mystery than just some new exotic plants, and it wasn’t about to find itself.

One of the white figures tilted its head back and spat forward, shooting a white dart from its mouth across the clearing.

“Aig—,” Coconut let out at a brief sharp pain on the back of her neck and reached up to it. “Okay, so maybe there are some bugs, too.”

She turned left and started walking towards the trees. She opened her wings to take flight, but all of a sudden they felt sore, as if she’d been using them all day. Then her legs and neck started feeling sore too, and she reached a hoof back up to rub her neck again. The moment she touched her neck, she felt something sliding beneath her skin. She froze as she felt it sliding up the side of her face, and her blood ran cold when she also felt it in her limbs and wings.

Silk strands suddenly burst from her ears, hooves, and wingtips, shooting up into the canopy before she felt herself pulled from the ground like a marionette on strings. She took a sharp breath and held it to keep from crying. The points where the silk had burst from were red and bleeding, and it felt like metal spikes had been stabbed into her hooftips and were slowly being bent. They were also pulling from an anchor point all the way up past her limbs, and she felt them moving and pulling along every inch. Getting your wing feathers caught on a branch had nothing on this.

Her ascent jolted to a stop, giving each strand a tug. That was better than a pinch to prove this wasn’t a dream. What had done this to her? There were no nasty plants or whatnot on Butterfly Island that did this, and what kind of animal could…unless…

Hearing rustling below her, Coconut tilted her head down, pulling on the strands in her ears—owwwwwch, nope. She pushed down and brought her legs closer together, giving the strands in her ears enough slack to look into the clearing below. Yep, that was tearing some skin by her hooves. What she saw didn’t make things any better. Two pale white bipedal figures walked swaying out of the trees, staring up at her. They had faded gray shoulder covers, sheaths over the backs of their hands that ended with dull bronze rings, and a small gel dome atop their heads with two metal chelicerae around their mouths. The one on their left had a cluster of silk strands stretching from its mouth up towards the treetops, probably connected to the other ends of the ones coming from her.

“Erhrerer. Urrur. Uruh-uruh-uruh…”

So this was it. This was the secret of the forest. It was full of pony-eating monsters.

“Heeeey!” she shouted into the forest, partly trying to maximize range over conveying terror. “Heeey, somepony! Heeeelp!”

But nobody came.

Oh, who was she kidding? She knew no help was coming. Pegasi didn’t fight, they hid. If anyone had been close enough to hear her, the only direction they’d be running was away. She relaxed all her muscles and hung down, limbs splaying out wide like a snowflake, savoring the sharp pain in her hooves and ears as the last she would feel.

“Urrur. Erhrer.”

Something was whizzing along the forest floor at high speed, stirring up the underbrush in its wake, leaning and ducking around tree trunks left and right. It stared with intense focus as it approached its target.

“If you things would like to…” she said, trying to sound threatening, “take one last chance to change your minds…” She heard them continuing to mutter and groan, stepping closer; she closed her eyes tighter. “…Please?”

“Urur, urrur, ur—”

A streaking light blue blur shot out of the forest and slashed across the clearing, passing between the white monsters. A burst of sparks erupted from the one with the silk as it flew over left.

“Hrehhhrer!”

Coconut suddenly felt herself drop down as the monster released the silk strands, but jerked to a stop again as the strands snagged themselves on the branches above, the round of sharp pains jolting her back to attention. She knew something had happened down below. Again pulling against the strands in her ears, she tilted her head to look.

There was a new arrival on scene at the edge of the clearing, crouched against a set of large tree roots, raising and lowering its whole body as it breathed in a panting snarl. {Armour Zone}

The creature was of vaguely equine shape, but much leaner than their admittedly pudgy builds. Its seemingly furless skin was a uniform dull dust blue and looked unnaturally stiff. Spread horizontal at its sides was a pair of dull silver wings with sharp, almost metallic-looking feathers—wings far larger than a regular pegasus’. It had a red pony’s tail several times longer than any Coconut had seen that draped over the tree roots behind it, and a red and yellow pony mane, both of which were unkempt, oily, and scraggly to the point of looking like they were covered in barbs. Minus the mane, its head looked almost like a dragon’s, with no visible ears, but a pair of shiny wide flat crests sticking back that resembled a pincer, black speck eyes set deep in grooves between its brow and cheeks, and a rubbery gray cover over its muzzle with vertical ridges. A guttural hiss escaped from beneath the cover.

“Ur, hrur, hrerur.”

With only a flinch, the blue creature shot over to the white monster, a Sheerghost, that was still standing, swiping at it with sharp, pointed hooves, sending sprays of white gel flying; the startled Sheerghost could only stumble backwards at the onslaught.

The blue creature threw a pointed right hoof forward, hitting the Sheerghost in its open mouth, a mess of moving metal parts with up-and-down pincers at the sides. The Sheerghost grabbed onto the creature’s forearm in response, biting down hard on its hoof. The creature gave a screech, swiping up with its free hoof to knock the Sheerghost loose with another spray of white gel, spinning left to slice its razor wing across the Sheerghost, a shower of sparks raining off the wing from the contact, and leaving a huge gash across it as it stumbled back. The Sheerghost swayed on its feet until it steadied itself, white fluid leaking from the scrapes and gashes on its body.

“Hrererur.”

The creature leapt into the Sheerghost to tackle it, but the Sheerghost grabbed it, trying to bite it again. The creature pushed its arm off, dropping down and slipping between its legs. Before the Sheerghost could turn around, a red tail wrapped around it several times, the creature pulling its tail quickly and spinning the Sheerghost, sending out a spray of white gel. It stumbled spinning around, white liquid dripping from each of its many scratches, before it finally fell backwards.

“Bergeba.”

Hitting the ground, the Sheerghost melted into a white puddle of goo that quickly started evaporating into a white cloud.

In the 30 seconds since the fight had started, the first Sheerghost had gotten back to its feet and turned towards the blue creature.

“Urhrur. Erhrerer!”

It shot a bundle of silk strands from its mouth that wrapped and tangled themselves around the creature’s neck. The creature slowly turned its head to glare. The Sheerghost grabbed the strands and pulled; the creature turned to its opponent and dug its pointed hooves into the ground, locking itself in place against the Sheerghost’s tugging. A pair of up-curved spikes grew out from its heels just above its back hooves. It sprung itself up, diving over lightning fast and flipping forward, bringing the spikes down just inside the Sheerghost’s shoulders.

“Ehrereh!”

The creature dove forward again and kicked its legs back and up; its spikes tore out through the Sheerghost’s shoulders as the monster was launched away, the silk strands severing on the creature’s razor wing as it landed. The Sheerghost flew spinning high across the clearing, hitting a tree trunk and splattering into a spray of white goo. A white cloud evaporated from it.

Hearing something swaying above it, the victorious blue creature turned and looked up to see Coconut hanging there. Coconut had hoped it wouldn’t notice her. She tried struggling against the silk strands again—Even if it fought for the right, this third monster isn’t going to be eating me any more then the first two!—but moving only made things hurt more.

The creature suddenly darted upwards, and Coconut didn’t have the chance to close her eyes before it had flown right past her. A second later, she realized she was falling, her silk strands having been cut by the creature’s flyby. Her wings kicked into action, each flap swinging the silk threads protruding from their tips and tugging along their full length, painfully easing her down to the ground.

Coconut quickly shot her head around to catch the creature as it came by for another pass, but she didn’t see it. After standing on guard for over a minute, she realized she was alone.

“I-it just left?” she asked aloud. “But then why did it attack the others? It had to have been after me, right? Did something else that wasn’t really there spook it off? If so, I’m the luckiest pegasus in history, but…then why did it cut me free as it flew away?” Then a thought hit her. “Could it be…? It knew it was saving me?”

The forest of a former paradise was now filled with carnivorous and hungry monsters, and though the prospect of a monster fighting to protect them in the face of this was an intriguing one, there was a more pressing matter at the moment. Coconut looked down at her hooves, wondering what to do about the silk strands still trailing from them. She bit onto the one on her right hoof and gave it a tug—wincing, she immediately let go, holding still for a few seconds as the nerve endings up her hoof and arm settled down.

“Nnnnope…,” she hissed in a whisper.

A light blue pegasus with a dark magenta and golden yellow mane and a dark magenta tail, both disheveled, stood on an empty beach at the edge of a tidal pool, looking down at their reflection. Thistle Whistle stared into her own green eyes, feeling cheated by finding nothing more there. She felt there had to be something else there. Something that was not herself.

There was a pain in her right hoof. It had been cut by something, and she dipped it into the water. A cloud of some dark green liquid began billowing away from it. Thistle had no idea what that liquid was or how it got there. Then she noticed she had a loop of thick silk strands wrapped around her neck, a short tail hanging down from it. Fluttering in the seaside breeze, it looked like a white scarf. She didn’t know how that got there either.

“W-what’s happening to me?” she squeaked, giving a rightfully nervous signature whistle. “Wwhhwww.”

Soon to be seen, on “Kamen Rider Gr3en”…

“I think I’m starting to remember,” Thistle muttered to herself.

Thistle wandered through a forest with a soap-bubble sky, hearing something nearby.

Several big-clawed blue and gray creatures with shell-like gray humpbacks started wandering over towards her.

Along a vine on a tree trunk hung several red bulb fruit with purple petals dangling below them.
Thistle Kamen Rider: Prologue

Danger, Socks, and the Mysterious Armor

Her world was darkness now.

Minty pushed the borrowed wheelbarrow through the dark streets, the armor’s pieces jangling against each other with every cobblestone bump. She didn’t know why she was bringing the pieces home, she just did.

She piled the pieces in a corner before lying in bed. She didn’t dream that night. She just lay there in a black void, feeling every second tick by one by one.

The next morning, she figured it wouldn’t be good to just leave the armor out in plain view. Closing up the chest shell, she rested a lampshade on its shoulders. No one will notice. She tossed the stray limb pieces into her sock drawer to be forever hidden, staring into the helmet’s eyes for a second before setting it inside and closing the drawer.

She took another look around her room. Everything seemed dreary and drained of color, just a collection of tinted grays. She sighed. Even after the thrill of living was gone, life went on. She’d have to go on with it. Life as usual. Ha.

As soon as she stepped outside, however, her eyes were assaulted by bright and happy colors. The pink houses, purple stone roads, every color of flower on plants almost glowing green, and sparkles on half of it. A group of ponies walked by, laughing at something one of them had said. What was all this for? How dare the world stay bright and cheerful after last night. Oh right, that’s not how it worked.

Minty wandered around aimlessly, getting waves but not waving back, soon stopping as she realized she was back where it had happened. She’d have expected the colors to have dulled themselves here, at least. But nope, there was no difference from the rest of the town. Two smiling ponies walked right over the spot Patch had been thrown to, and they didn’t even flinch. How can they still be happy? That’s right, they don’t know what happened here last…they don’t know?

Her ears rang as she remembered the rocket flying right over her head and hitting the stone monster. She’d gone deaf for a second after that. But then how…? She looked at the ponies milling around her, going about their daily business of just being happy and without care, just as they always do. Exactly as they always do. She now realized the one thing that had been bugging her most about their lack of reactions.

“Did no one hear that?” Minty asked herself, looking around again. “Seriously?”

Despite her best efforts to remain sullen forever, confusion at this conundrum had broken her concentration, and she quickly found the colorful happiness of town to be contagious, soon finding herself wanting breakfast like she always did. Cotton Candy’s parlor always had something good.

Crash!

Minty yelped and dove to the ground.

“Whoops,” came a voice from a second story balcony. Minty’s eyes shot over to a broken flowerpot nearby, and a wave of relief came over her. Then she looked around at the other ponies nearby. Somepony glanced at her, but shrugged and kept walking. Luckily, the whole town was already used to the clumsy and ditzy Minty doing this kind of thing, so nopony would take particular notice. Their seeming lack of concern was…well, in this case it was welcoming. No way was she going to try and explain what had happened.

Arriving at Cotton Candy’s parlor, a pink building at the edge of the lake next to town and with a dock out back, she found it as full of ponies as ever, clustered around assorted small round tables. Cotton Candy herself was behind the counter next to the door, a pink mare with a bubblegum pink and blue mane, and smiled to Minty as she entered. Minty did her best to mimic a smile back. After a pause, Cotton Candy not-so-casually turned away to something behind her suddenly requiring her attention. Yeah, Minty would’ve done the same. As she walked in, a few of the patrons looked her way, but all but one looked away again.

“There you are, Minty!” called a pink-sounding voice. At a table in the middle was her best friend Pinkie Pie, bright and giddy as always. Ah yes, Minty thought as she joined her, if anything could get her out of this mood, it was mere proximity to Pinkie Pie. “You missed sharing the first muffin of the day with me like usual, so I just ate it myself.” Or not.

“Oh,” Minty sighed, “sorry.”

“Yeah, I was surprised, too,” said Sweetberry, the dark red mare waitress with a purple and green mane, as she swung around to their table. “Y’know, it was even getting past its sweetness perfection time range, and she was still gonna let it sit out waiting for you, but I convinced her about my rule number five, ‘you don’t waste good’, because boy was this muffin a good one, Triple Treat made sure of it.”

“I think she gets the picture,” said Star Dasher from the table next to theirs.

“Right you are,” Sweetberry agreed, turning to the purple mare with a pink and silver striped mane. “Another starfait?”

“Yeah, sure…,” Star Dasher feigned. “I just can’t get enough, it’s like an undying hunger inside of me…” Sweetberry was already slinking away. Star Dasher leaned over to their table. “Sometime the same old can get tiring, can’t it, Minty?”

Minty was staring off at nothing. Pinkie tapped her arm. “Huh? Oh…I kinda like it when nothing changes. Changing something, especially something big can be…a bit much. Like your world’s suddenly been shattered.”

There was a pause.

“Uh, I just meant the menu,” Star Dasher said. “But yeah, I hear that sentiment a lot around here.”

“Here you go, enjoy, wave for a refill!” said Sweetberry as she swept by, dropping off the star-shaped confection almost by sleight of hoof before sliding towards another table. “Sparkleworks, I know those checkers are cookies, but you’ll never finish the game properly if you keep eating them.”

“Well,” Star Dasher said as she turned to her plate and clapped her hooves together, “itadakimasu.”

Pinkie and Minty sat for a few seconds in silence. “Don’t take this the wrong way,” Pinkie brought up, “but you seem to be a bit off this morning. For instance, you haven’t once had a random awkward giggle. You’ve usually done that five times by now.”

“Oh,” said Minty, forcing an, “Eh-he-he…”

Pinkie stared at her a second. “That one was the wrong kind of awkward.”

“I, uh…,” Minty sighed, “guess I must not have gotten much sleep last night, probably just a bit tired. Yeah, that’s it, totally…is. It, that is.”

Pinkie muttered to herself, “And now she’s acting a bit more Minty than usual.”

“Speaking of which,” Minty added, “did anyone happen to say they heard anything last night? Anything unusual? Loud?”

The surrounding conversation hushed and eyes turned to her. A few of the other ponies looked between each other. “What’d you do this time?” asked Star Dasher.

“Huh? Nothing!” Minty snapped. “I didn’t…” But as she spoke, she realized how true her words were. She saw the horse monster punching the suit, then Patch standing before her, trying to smile before fading to gray. “I didn’t do anything.”

“If you say so,” Star Dasher said, she and the rest of the patrons turning back to their own tables.

“That went well,” Minty groaned.

“Don’t let it bother you,” Pinkie said. “Well, I actually have something I need to do today.” She got up. “Order a new muffin if you want, all for you.” She left her friend at the table, Minty propping her cheeks in her hooves and staring off again. Sweetberry rose up behind her, but got the impression and slid silently away again.

After a few minutes, Minty found herself turned to look out the window. Outside, there walked by a purple mare with a pink and purple mane and a magenta flower over her ear and a small blue dragon. The dragon drifted behind a bit and leaned to try and snatch something from the ground, but Wysteria reached back and grabbed his other arm.

“Now now, Spike,” she said, “we’re trying to keep that dragon greeed of yours under control, remember?”

Ah yes, it was their resident “Princess” Wysteria and her “royal” assistant Spike. Long story short, she’d found a glowing flower Spike had been sleeping under for centuries in a cavern underneath the castle, and her touching it first had automatically made her into Ponyville’s princess. She didn’t like the restrictions or class division of being royalty, so she’d made everypony in town into princesses so no one would feel the need to treat her differently. Yeah. Minty couldn’t have made this up if she’d wanted to.

That’s when she noticed a group of patrons milling their way to the door consisting of Applejack, Loop-De-La, Toola-Roola, and Sunny Daze. Sunny dipped her sunglasses and waved to somepony still in the diner.

“Ooh, that’s my cue!” Sweetberry said as she noticed, winding her way over.

“Have fun,” Cotton Candy waved from the counter.

“What’s this about?” Minty asked as Sweetberry passed by.

“Oh, we’re having an exercise day out by the park,” Sweetberry said. “You want in?”

“Nah, I’m not really feeling up to it,” said Minty. “Besides, I’ve got something else on my mind.”

“Your loss,” Sweetberry shrugged, heading out with the others.

Minty returned to idle staring, but noticed the table next to her suddenly empty. She looked back to see Star Dasher sneaking out the door, following the others at a distanced pace, but brushed it off. She’s probably just another member of the group. Still, it motivated her to leave, too. There was somepony she had to talk to.

To solve the “puzzler” of the incredibly loud rocket explosion that didn’t draw attention, Minty went for a hunt. She was on the lookout for a white mare with a purple mane that had a yellow then a magenta stripe in the front, and a magenta-above and purple-below tail with a thin yellow strand.

Is that her by the flowerbed? No, that’s Blossomforth. Hold on, the pony carrying water bottles… no, sunglasses, that’s Sunny Daze. And there’s Daffidazey outside the boutique. Don’t tell me I’ll see Candy Cane next, I’m finding every white-coated pony in town except… there! She finally spotted the clue to clinch it: the cutie mark of a magnifying glass over a large yellow puzzle piece.

“Puzzlemint!” Minty called out.

Puzzlemint stopped and turned to her. “Ah, Minty,” she said. “Jolly good day, isn’t it?”

“Hey Puzzlemint,” Minty said, “I’ve got a real stumper and only you can probably help figure it out.”

Immediately intrigued, Puzzlemint trotted over to her. “A real stumper, you say?” she said.

“Yeah, but I’m not sure if it’s something even you’d be able to get.”

“Please, Minty,” Puzzlemint brushed off, “I’m a level 50 puzzle gamer, of course I’ll get it. Let’s hear this perfect puzzle you’ve got for me, then.”

“How do I ask this?” Minty mumbled. “If a tree falls in the forest,” she started, making up the metaphor as she went, “and everyone is around to hear it, but no one does…then what happened?”

Puzzlemint paused a second. “No kidding, that is a puzzler,” she said finally. She looked down and thought for a few seconds. “Could they possibly have all been deaf?”

“No, I wouldn’t think so,” Minty replied. “They were hearing just fine before and after.”

“Oh. Is this a trick question, then? Did the tree actually hit the ground when it fell, or something?”

“It definitely hit the ground hard.”

“Hmm, well…wait, do you even know that there is an answer?”

“I’d say there has to be.”

“And there wasn’t some other noise drowning it out?”

“What’s this we’re discussing?” another mare asked, walking up in between them. It was Wondermint, also white, with a purple and pink striped mane and tail, and a cutie mark of three leaves pointing out from an actual pink gemstone. Self-proclaimed as Puzzlemint’s nemesis, she was always popping up to try and solve the puzzle master’s puzzles first. “Whatever it is, I’m sure I could have it solved long before she could.”

“I don’t think so,” Puzzlemint said, having long since lost her amusement of this rivalry. “Besides, this is my puzzle.”

“Not even letting me hear it?” Wondermint taunted. “A sure sign you know I’d get it first.”

Puzzlemint looked past her at Minty again. “Could they have all been asleep at the time?”

Wondermint paused, the smirk fading from her face. She glanced at Puzzlemint then to Minty.

“It was a big tree,” Minty replied, joining in in ignoring Wondermint.

“A deep sleep, then?” Puzzlemint bounced back.

“No, seriously,” Wondermint insisted impatiently, “what is this you’re talking about?”

“Well, that’s the only answer I’ve got,” shrugged Puzzlemint.

Minty sighed. “Never mind, then,” she said, turning away. “I’m sure it must’ve been a trick question after all.” She walked away, no closer to understanding anything.

“I’ll only ask once again,” Wondermint said to Puzzlemint with an edge of sharpness, “tell me—”

“Sorry, but I’m declaring victory and leaving,” Puzzlemint cut her off, turning and trotting off. “Ta ta.”

Wondermint stood where she was, looking back and forth between the two ponies with suspicion. On her cutie mark, a rainbow glimmer passed over the jewel in the center.

* * *

It was now that night. With no hope of understanding the events of last night, Minty was again considering just ignoring it all and trying to pretend it had never happened. Just going along with the bliss of the town would be easy, and was attractive enough.

Minty lay on her bed on top of the covers, waiting for sleep and listening to a violin play the same note again and again.

Huh, Minty thought. Now who nearby plays violin? Wait, that’s not outside, it’s—

She pulled open her sock drawer and the violin got louder. The suit’s mask was staring back at her, and as she picked it up, she realized that the tune was coming from inside it. It could only mean one thing. Every hero needs a signal.

Minty was out and wandering the empty town in the darkness before she knew it. Just last night there had been something as crazy as a monster roaming—in quiet peaceful Ponyville of all places. What else could be here so soon? Better question, what did she expect to do about it?

The streetlights were again nonfunctional, but in the light of the moon an odd shadow slid along the ground at the edge of an alley up ahead. She tiptoed up to edge, but stepped on a dry leaf and the shadow flinched. As she went to look around the corner, she ran face-first into Star Dasher and the two jumped back, the yellow jewel in Star’s large star cutie mark shimmering.

“How are—Minty, what?” Star Dasher stuttered.

“Oh, it’s just you,” Minty said, sighing in relief.

“Yeah. What else would I be? What would even be out here? You’re not scared of the dark, are you?”

“What? Oh, no, dark is fine, it’s the stuff that sneaks into my way when I can’t see it that…,” Minty nervously rambled as Star Dasher simply stared. “Actually, now that you mention it, there may actually be something out here—just maybe. And maybe it would maybe be best to just go back inside right about now.” Yep, not suspicious at all.

“On a night like this?” Star Dasher said coyly, looking up at the moon. “And what are you doing out here, then?”

“I, uh…talking to you, to…tell you to maybe just stay inside tonight?” Minty gave a nervous smile.

Minty shut her door. Ahhg, so stupid! What did she think she was doing? If that hadn’t just been Star Dasher around that corner, then what?

“Well,” she sighed, “at least it was easy enough getting her back inside. Good thing that’s ov—”

The violin music began to play again.

“What? Oh good grief, is there someone else out there?” she sighed. “I thought the streets were usually empty at night.”

Venturing back outside again, she combed the streets again to find no other ponies. What was that disembodied violin so insistent about? She stepped around a house onto a side street and stopped a gasp with her hoof. Wandering down the path away from her was a black bipedal figure with a spiny back, shiny orange stained glass arms, and a thick curved spike on each foot.

Hearing a slight noise, the monster turned to look, revealing a star-shaped ring of five heads on its chest surrounding a circular array of needle teeth, shards of colored glass making their faces and speckling its body, the detailing on its design resembling a gothic-style wrought iron fence. Seeing the street empty, it turned back and walked on.

Minty was plastered against the hidden side of the house, confident her heartbeat was shaking the building. There was no more avoiding it. She’d been trying to ignore the obvious fact. Patch had been hanging around Ponyville for a reason. Now she was gone, but that reason was still here. And also…“We coulda used you.”

Accept it, she told herself. A crisis has slipped into your familiar surroundings. Who will rise to the occasion but you? {Individual-System}

The Seastar Fangire stood outside the house of one Toola-Roola, local painter, and the most delicious-looking athlete of the day. It inhaled deeply with a slurp.

It waved a clawed hand in front of the house. In the sky, a blood red hue glinted across the surface of the moon, and an invisible red layer draping over the house was briefly illuminated before disappearing in a wisp of smoke. The Fangire rubbed its hands together and took a step forward. Then a rock hit its back, hard, sending it stumbling forward a step or two. It turned back and saw a figure in a blue and silver metal armor suit standing across the street, orange bulb eyes shining.

Inside the armor, Minty was still surprised she was doing this. At the same time, thoughts such as, “Wow, this suit has some arm,” and, “This one’s a bit more colorful than the other guy,” were jumping into her mind. She shook her head to dispel them. This wasn’t the time.

Splintered images of an unidentifiable pony’s face appeared across the many stained glass shards covering Seastar’s body. “Oh?” the images said in a warped and grated voice. “Back again, are we?”

Again? thought Minty. Did Patch fight this same monster before? The fact that Patch clearly hadn’t beaten it wasn’t reassuring. She took what she thought to be a battle stance. “Stay away from Toola!” she shouted, muffled by the helmet.

Seastar gave a blood-chilling howling cackle and charged. Still getting used to moving in the armor, but finding it easily capable of moving with her almost on its own, she ran to meet it. She tried swinging at it, but it grabbed her arm mid-punch and pulled her chestplate into its flared and pointed wrist cover—which the armor actually absorbed most of the impact of…most—before swinging and tossing her up the street.

Okay, she thought as she got back up, that hurt a bit more.

Seastar cackled again. “You don’t fight quite the same as you used to,” it taunted. “I wonder…are you still the same pony in there? I can’t taste you anymore.”

Minty’s ears rebelled upon hearing that, her stomach trying to follow. W-wh… what the heck!?!

“Let me try for another bite. Itadakimasu…”

Seastar summoned a pair of long, ghostly red fangs floating in front of it. They turned to Minty and shot forward, Minty jumping back as they impaled into the ground. Patch had said she “never got the tip out”. Well, those would definitely have a tip.

The fangs pulled themselves out of the ground and flew at Minty again. This time she dove left, the fangs hitting the dirt. They rose again, chasing her around the street, Minty jumping, leaping, and sidestepping back and forth as they constantly poked and stabbed in and out at the ground around her hooves.

“Hehehe…,” Seastar chuckled. “Dance…”

Even with the suit helping, all of this dodging was beginning to tire Minty out; she had to do something soon. As she pulled her hoof back from the next fang stabbing at her, it wedged itself in the ground only inches away. Now! She threw her hoof back to where it had been, catching the retracting fang and smashing it against the ground. It shattered into glass shards that faded away, Minty grinning as Seastar suddenly grabbed at a point on its ring of teeth. Her specialty of breaking things was finally being put to good use.

The other fang drew back and shot directly at her, but the helmet’s display pointed her attention to it, as it just about reached her, she swung a hoof across and broke it in half, leaning her head to the side as the tip flew past. Seastar hissed as it clutched at its teeth.

“Ohh-ho-ho-ho,” it seethed, “and just when I thought you might be my flavor.”

Deciding she didn’t want to get too close to it, Minty reached around and clicked her hoof onto the small gun attached to the armor’s outer right thigh, unhooking it and swinging it into position. A female voice within the helmet said, “G-M-Zero-One, active!”

“Huh?” Minty said, looking to both sides. “Who said that?”

Seastar charged her again, so she dropped the question and shot down the street at it. The first recoil kicked her hoof back and the bullet zinged off the cobblestone at Seastar’s feet. She jolted the gun back into position, but the motion set it off again, kicking it to the side, a runaway loop of this sending a hail sparking around Seastar and stopping it. Minty quickly let go before she hit a house, the gun clattering to the ground.

Seastar growled and slipped aside between a pair of houses. Minty picked up the gun again, a popup on the helmet’s display reporting 14 bullets remaining. “That doesn’t seem like a good number,” she muttered, clicking it back onto her thigh so she had all hooves to walk with.

She followed the monster’s path to the next street over, but found it empty. The night was as still and silent as ever. The violin had stopped playing after she’d taken the helmet to the battle, and now things were feeling too quiet. Keeping a keen eye out, she slowly crept up the street.

Now with half a moment’s respite, a thought rose in her mind about why no one was running outside to investigate the, again, very loud gunshots. “A deep sleep, then?” Puzzlemint had suggested. Well, if that ghostly red sheet covering Toola’s house had meant anything…

In a shimmer, Seastar suddenly reappeared up the street in front of her and shot a blast of lighting from its circular mouth, knocking her back and to the ground with a shock. The armor gave a slight spasm from the jolt, the undersuit squeezing tighter all over. While she struggled against the suit to stand up, Seastar strolled over to her. As she had just managed to get her legs under her, it kicked her in the gut with its large spike-toe and she dropped to the ground again. It picked her up by the collar and drop-kicked her away, cackling.

Minty pushed through the pain to stand up again. She could just hear everypony telling her how bad an idea this was, as always. Ha, but hearing them would mean she made it to tomorrow. Funny motivation to have. The armor’s belt beeped and a light on it flashed red. The voice from before spoke again. “Battery at less than one percent. You have thirty seconds!”

“Oh, now that’s just sweet,” Minty muttered. She looked down to the belt, tilting it up to see the nearly empty red bar light better, but some control on it clicked.

“All power diverting to right arm,” the voice said. “You’ve got one last swing to finish this.”

“What? No, I-I didn’t mean to do that! Oh…”

“Trouble with the suit?” taunted Seastar, stroking its claw-like nails. “I can fix that.” It charged at her, arms spread wide.

Her right arm began to feel tingly as the undersuit’s sleeve hummed and vibrated as power built. This was her only chance. As Seastar closed in, she threw herself to meet it, punching with everything she and the suit had. With a kick, Seastar leapt up and disappeared over her, her left hoof catching her on the ground. Her heart stopped.

I missed. Tell me I didn’t just miss.

Seastar stuck the landing behind her, spinning to finally have its fill after so long. Neither it nor Minty counted on what happened next.

The armor took over, using its left arm as a pivot to tow Minty with it as it spun her around to continue the momentum of the punch, swinging her hoof into the Seastar Fangire’s gut with a flash on impact. Seastar froze, its fragmented face images showing shock before fading. The stunned Minty watched as Seastar’s body crusted over with a rainbow aura. A second later it shattered, splintering into a thousand pieces and sending glass slivers clanking off the armor. A ball of multicolored light floated where Seastar had once stood, rising up into the sky and vanishing over a rooftop.

Minty finally started realizing what had just happened. “I…I did it,” she said giving her first big smile of the day, though you couldn’t see it through the mask. “Ha! I actually did it! Woo!”

The armor beeped once again. “Zero percent power,” said the voice. “Goodbye.”

With a whir, the suit shut off, all of a sudden dropping its full weight onto Minty, her punching arm collapsing.

“Oh no,” she said. The weight tilted her sideways and she fell to the street with a clatter of metal. “Great,” she moaned, immobile. “Just great. Um…help?”

Having found the emergency release switch on the belt, Minty pushed the armor pieces in the same borrowed wheelbarrow as last time.

“Uhhg,” she grunted. “This suit is so much heavier when it doesn’t carry itself.”

Soon to be seen on “Kamen Rider Gr3en”…

A pink mare with a yellow mane turned back from a doorway where a pile of gray dust sat, looking to a group of five other ponies. “Well,” she said solemnly, “I guess that’s decided.”

A figure in a blue armor suit with a silver chestplate leapt with a punch at a white Orphnoch with clawed gauntlets.

There was no monster in sight, but as a blood-curdling sound poured into her ears, Patch spun around before stopping in shock at what she saw. “Starlight!”

The Horse Orphnoch ran forward as a sword appeared in its hand with a flash.
Tales of a Paradise Lost