Kamen Rider Build - The Deal of Faust

Chapters

A New Experiment
Mythical Spellbinder
Stormy Story

A New Experiment

The woman walked down an alley at night. No one else was around. Good. She looked around and sighed. Soon.

With one hand, she pulled out a black handgun covered in silver tubes, with a yellow caution sticker on the side and a dropdown strut underneath he barrel; the Transteam Gun. With the other, a small bottle, translucent pale purple with a dark brownish red base and top, a small silver cap, and a silver emblem on the front sculpted like a front-on winged horse with a horn on its head. She shook the bottle several times and twisted the cap.

“It begins,” she said to herself, and pushed the bottle up into the gun along the track of the dropdown like a rifle’s ammo magazine.
Alicorn

A pale purple image of the bottle’s emblem briefly appeared over the side of the gun before a looping dark techno tune played from it. The woman held the gun out. “Jouketsu,” she announced. Pulling the trigger, the gun poured out a stream of black smoke as she traced it down along her left then quickly across to the right at the bottom. The cloud expanded out and engulfed her.
Mist Match

Amidst the cloud, a red emblem flashed on, looking like the head and chest of a horned horse with spread wings and its forelegs curled out to the sides.
Alicorn

The emblem hummed off and on again as a smaller version of it flickered in just above it.
Al-A-Alicorn

Both emblems flared on brightly. Something clicked, and a whirring vacuum sound started up as the smoke was sucked into the top center of the cloud, clearing enough to reveal a slim silhouette.
Fire

Fireworks burst down from the top and out from the sides of the figure, the rest of the smoke crackling away in a cascade of fizzling sparks. The figure stood in a slightly off-white Transteam suit with heavy strapped boots. On their chest and face were a pair of sculpted blood red alicorn emblems; the larger one was mounted on a solid chest plate, and the faceplate one was translucent. From the top of their chest emblem, a pair of silver pipes snaked over their shoulders and fanned out sideways into a pair of small wing-like pipe arrays on their back. A thick, banded tube stuck out from their forehead, ending with a rounded pad, like they were using a retracted camera monopod as a horn. Red and black wires ran like veins from under the chest emblem around back, down their arms, and up over the top of their head.

Up at the end of the alley, a pony ran into view, no doubt attracted by the sudden fanfare in the middle of the night. They stopped short upon seeing the figure. “Who are you?” they demanded, raising a hoof and lighting up their horn.

The figure simply looked at them. “I am…,” she said in a distorted voice, “…Faust.” She held up the large Steam Blade dagger, with a red spoked wheel knob on the side.

Kamen Rider Build, the briiiilliant physicist Sento Kiryu, is trying to prove Ryuga Banjou innocent of the murder of the infamous scientist Takumi Katsuragi by finding out the truth behind the incident. He was getting rather close to the answer, and has collected almost all of the Full Bottles needed for the Pandora Box, but what’s this? Where is Banjou? Hey, this isn’t the nascita café. This place isn’t even in Touto! I don’t think this is technically an episode, either. And why am I suddenly talking in English? What will happen now?

Sento’s eyes opened to the bright sunlight of late morning. He must’ve slept in again. Birds were chirping nearby. That was nice. He was also propped up against a wall. Must’ve exhausted himself in the lab. Wait, the lab was underground, so where were the chirping birds coming from, not to mention the sunlight?

He blinked as the image came into focus. Pale wooden houses with thatched roofs. Hang on, he was outside. He never went to sleep outside. In fact, the only time he’d ever woken up outside was when…

“Eh!” he let out as the realization hit, shooting to his feet—which were clad in one red and one blue shoe—and looking around at the town he didn’t remember coming to. “Don’t tell me it happened again.” He patted the pockets of his beige coat, pulling out a pair of small bottles, red and blue. He breathed a sigh of relief and put them away. At least he had his equipment.

A pair of ponies walked along nearby, one beige and one green with a horn. They stopped when they saw him and slowly backed away. The green one craned their head back over to look, but was dragged off. A second later, Sento did a double take.

“Eh?” he said. Had he really just seen that? As he pondered this, a gray pony with wings led a pale violet horned pony and a small purple dragon over and pointed to him. The violet pony waved off the gray one and walked up to Sento.

“Um, hello,” Starlight said. “Just one question…who are you?”

There was a silent pause. Sento blinked.

“Ehhhhh!?!”

Starlight and Spike brought the new arrival to the castle, avoiding taking him through large crowds along the way. The “briiiilliant physicist Sento Kiryu” had managed to introduce himself after getting over the fact that they were a talking pony and a talking dragon, which were apparently big deals to him.

“Is he from the Canterlot High world, you think?” Spike asked as the made their way down the hall.

“If he came through the portal,” replied Starlight, “you’d expect he’d have been inside the castle instead of outside, and that he’d be a pony. We must somehow be dealing with another other world here.”

“Humph,” Spike grunted, crossing his arms. “Perfect time for Twilight to disappear on us.”

“So cool…,” came a voice. A short ways back up the hallway, Sento had stopped to look at the wall. Not something on the wall, just the wall. He scratched rapidly at his hair, a spurt of which had shot up, excitedly muttering, “The entirety of this crystalline structure is made of a single enormous, unnaturally perfect lattice. There’s not a single impurity to be found.” He looked over to them, pointing at the wall. “Hey, how did you make it like this?”

“Uh…,” Starlight said, “magic.”

“Oh,” Sento replied. He looked away and immediately turned back. “No, really, how’d you do it?”

Starlight rolled her eyes. She levitated a stray apple from the kitchen over to her, zapping it with her horn to turn it into a pink teacup. “Magic,” she repeated.

“Ohhh,” Sento said, turning back to wall.

“Should I bring everypony else in?” Spike asked.

“There’s no need for that,” replied Starlight. “In fact, this may well all just be Twilight’s doing. Some kind of test for me.”

“I kinda doubt that.”

“Even still,” Starlight said confidently, “in Twilight’s absence, I’ll show her that I can handle this situation alone.”

They looked back to Sento to see him holding a large drill weapon, about to swing at the wall.

“Aaag! Whoa, hold up!” Starlight called out. “What are you doing!?”

Sento looked over at her like he wasn’t holding a large drill weapon. “I need to get a sample of this,” he said, nodding at the wall.

“What? B-but you can’t just break the wall apart,” insisted Starlight.

“Why not?” he asked. The drill started spinning. “You made it with magic, just repair it.”

“Well, the uh…,” she stumbled, “the castle’s owner isn’t here to give you permission.” She gave a nervous smile.

The drill slowed to a stop. “Eh, good point,” Sento said, lowering the weapon.

Starlight let out a sigh of relief, then saw Spike staring at her. “What? It’s all I could think of.”

“Not, ‘you just don’t’?”

“He had a drill sword, did you want me to sound patronizing?”

Sento took out a light blue bottle. “Probably not as good as this, anyway.”

“Maybe I should stay here and watch him while you go fetch everyone,” Spike said.

“Sounds good, yeah,” said Starlight.

Rainbow Dash, Applejack, Fluttershy, Rarity, and Pinkie Pie had arrived, and surprisingly, nothing had spontaneously happened to progress the situation towards a resolution. Who would’ve guessed?

“Yeah, and why’d ya call us all in, again?” asked Applejack.

“I don’t know!” Starlight said. “But we can’t find Twilight, and more heads are better, so…nothing?”

Applejack shook her head.

“You’re the most qualified after Twilight,” said Pinkie, “so we’d be looking to you if we were in your horseshoes.”

“Exactly,” poked in Rainbow, “because I’m lost here.”

“How are you able to fly?” Sento asked, pulling out one of Rainbow’s wings. “Your wings don’t have enough surface area for your body size.” She snapped her wing away again. “Are your bones hollow? Or is it magic again?”

“How am I even supposed to react to this guy?” she softly pleaded to the others.

“Well, could you at least help me out while you’re all here?” Starlight continued. “After all, it’s not like there’s anything else going on right…now…,” she trailed off, cringing to add a pained, “and I said it.”

Just then, a scream emanated from outside, and everypony turned, but Sento snapped to attention, his hair spurt folding down. Starlight smacked her forehead before following the others out the door.

Outside, a few scattered ponies were running from a bulky bipedal figure stumbling around. It had thick mechanical black and silver plated legs and was covered in pale pink metal plates from the waist up. Three large white spiral drill heads with purple ridges were mounted directly onto its neck and shoulders, with smaller ones over its hands. A small purple crystal was embedded in the front of the ‘head’ drill. Only one of the observers knew what they were seeing.

“Smash!” Sento called out in surprise. He whispered to himself, “They’re here, too?”

“Smash?” Starlight asked.

“Monsters made by human experimentation, get back,” he said, holding his arm out in front of the others. “Well, probably not human in this case, but still.”

He raced out towards the Drill Smash, stopping a short distance from it and pulling out a black device before strapping it onto his waist, a yellow belt wrapping around him and clicking. The device had silver tubes running across the lower edge, a red-handled turn crank on the right side, one large and two small silver gears to the left of that, and a pair of open slots on the left half: the Build Driver.

“Are you crazy?” Rainbow called, her and the others following him out. “What are you doing running out at that thing alone?”

“No worries,” Sento said over his shoulder, taking out a pair of Full Bottles, red and blue. “I’m a professional.” He started shaking the Bottles, and an array of white-text physics equations written in midair floated from behind him out of nowhere. The Smash stopped as they drifted past it, curiously watching them go by and even reaching out at them. Sento twisted the Bottles’ caps and put them upside down in the open slots of the Driver, red in the right then blue in the left.
Rabbit
Tank

Colored emblems of the sculpted fronts of the Bottles appeared in front of them, spinning in before an “R/T” projected out.
BestMatch!

As the emblem spun back in, Sento turned the Driver’s crank, spinning the gears on the front as the large one flashed red and blue and making the Bottles’ contents pump up and down, the device giving off a cyclic clanging sound. Clear tubes extended out from the Bottles, reaching down then one heading backwards as a base appeared around him and colored liquid flowed through them, the tubes branching sideways at the front and back base edges before stretching up and forming a pair of frameworks in front of and behind him, connecting with three lines of tubes along the sides. New tubes appeared inside the frameworks, filling with red and blue liquid as they shaped themselves into armor suits on the die-cast punch cards. Sento stopped cranking as the tubes finished forming, all the liquid being pulled from the framework tubes into the inner ones, which solidified into armor.
AreYouReady?

“Henshin!” he shouted, holding his left arm out, before crossing his arms and throwing them down and out. The frameworks quickly slid in and connected over him, encasing him in the armor. The framework tubes retracted and the base disappeared as steam shot from the armor: a base black suit with shiny red and blue strips wrapped diagonally from upper left to lower right; red strips on his left leg, and covering his right arm, upper right chest, and the lower left side of his face; blue strips on his right leg, and covering his left arm, lower left chest, and the upper right side of his face. A white spring was on his lower left leg, and his right foot had a tank tread on it; a red spike and blue shaft pointed over his left shoulder; his left eye cover was a red rabbit face’s profile with the ear sticking out like a spike, and his right eye cover was a blue tank with the turret barrel sticking out like a spike. Kamen Rider Build, RabbitTank.
Hagane no Moonsault!RabbitTank!Yaay!

“The laws of victory have been set,” he said, sliding a finger up Tank’s eye cover strut before making a finger ‘O’ and flicking it. The ponies slowly stepped backwards up to the castle steps again. Unseen, the off-white suited Faust leaned against a wall just inside a nearby alleyway. She looked out at him.

Sento leaned forward, the spring on his left leg contracting before launching him at the Drill Smash. He punched with his red right arm, knocking the Smash back a step. It swung at him, and he spring-jumped over it. The Smash’s lack of obvious eyes left it confused as to where he’d gone, but he gladly tapped it on the shoulder, and when it turned to him, he punched it again with his blue left arm and sent it back another few steps. It was a tad sturdier than some other Smash, however, and as he continued to pummel it, neither Rabbit nor Tank’s punches seemed to actually do much to it.

The Smash swung at him again, and this time he stepped on its wrist to propel himself over it again. This time, however, it started up the drills on its hands and spun around with a right hook, catching Sento in the chest as he turned back to it. The hit sent him flying back with a burst of sparks and the sound of scraping metal.

“You sure you’re up for this?” Rainbow called from the sidelines.

“I’ve got it covered,” Sento replied, getting back up and removing the blue Tank Bottle. “In cases like this…” He took out a light blue Bottle and shook it, twisting the cap and sticking it in the Driver.
Diamond

He turned the crank a few times, the large gear flashing red and light blue.
AreYouReady?

“Build Up!” he called, shiny light blue armor flying in from the left and replacing the blue parts of his armor in a flash, a short horn tune playing. His left shoulder now bore a large cut diamond and his right eye cover was a cut diamond with a glint sticking out: RabbitDiamond.

The Drill Smash ran up to him, hand drills spinning, and punched. Sento leaned his left side into the hit, and the drill rammed into the diamond on his shoulder. Sparks flew and metal scraped, but he didn’t move. The drill couldn’t catch, and its tip started sliding around the diamond as it spun, eventually jumping off. The Smash looked at its drill as it slowed to a stop.

“That happen often?” Sento asked.

The Smash swung the drill at Sento as it started up again, but he caught it in his left hand, holding the drill steady as it continued spinning and sparking uselessly. A pair of liquid-filled tubes extended from the Bottles in his Driver and reached over to his right, crossing and twining into the shape of a tall cone with a handle, condensing into the drill-bladed Drill Crusher sword. He grabbed it from midair and slashed the Smash with a spray of sparks, jabbing its chest to send it back.

The Smash swung again, but Sento triggered the Crusher and intercepted the Smash’s attack, their spinning drills hitting and scraping for a second before bouncing apart. Sento kicked out his left leg, stamping onto the Smash’s chest but doing nothing to it. It looked at his foot in confusion. Then the leg’s spring contracted.

The force of Rabbit’s jump propelled the Smash back instead, sending it tumbling over. Sento removed the Crusher’s drill and attached its tip into a hole on the front, turning the drill into a flaring gun barrel. He took out and shook the Tank Bottle, inserting it into a slot on the back of the Crusher as its emblem flashed over it.
Ready, Go!

He raised the Crusher at the Smash as it turned to him again.
Vortech Break!

He pulled the trigger, and an artillery-grade shot burst from the handheld cannon, the loose dirt around him jumping from the shockwave. An explosion knocked the Smash over again, but it wasn’t the type of explosion Sento was waiting for.

“Not yet, eh?” he said. He removed the Bottle, tossing the Crusher aside and replacing Diamond with Tank before turning the crank and retaking his first form.
RabbitTank!Yaay!

As the Smash staggered to its feet, Sento turned the crank again.
Ready,Go!

“Just a moment,” he teased to it, turning and dashing a few steps away before stomping down and disappearing into a sudden rabbit hole. A pair of identical white-line curve graphs just like the equations sprung from the ground and snapped together into a single layer, trapping the Smash between them at the far end. A chunk of earth with Sento standing on it flew out of the rabbit hole and up the y-axis to the point y_0 where the graph began.
VortechFinish!

He leapt forward and kicked his blue right foot out, sliding up the hump of the curve before speeding down the trail-off at the Smash, the tank tread on his foot starting to race. As the Smash struggled, the three big drill heads on its head and shoulders started spinning.
Yay!

The kick hit the Smash, the tread grinding against it for a second before it erupted into an explosion of green flames, Sento flying past it and stomping onto the ground, skidding to a stop as the graph faded and the Smash was left lying on the ground.

He took out a smooth, empty Bottle with a white cap and aimed it at the fallen Smash, and its form disintegrated and was pulled away into the Bottle, leaving behind a pony.

“Twilight!” cried Starlight, racing over with the others as Twilight began to stir.

“Huh?” Twilight moaned. “What happened?”

“Wait, you mean you don’t remember being a big drill monster?” Rainbow said.

“A what?” said Twilight.

Sento twisted the cap closed, the Bottle now bulged and covered by a black spider web, filled with pink unpurified Smash essence. He looked over at the others as Pinkie cut through the conversations with a simple hug. No one could see it through the mask, but he always had to smile at the reunion part after saving people…er, ponies. Then he took a closer look as Twilight got up.

“Hm?” he muttered. “Horn and wings? So…if there are already normal ponies, unicorns, and pegasi, then you would be…”
Alicorn

It took Sento a second to realize what he’d heard, and as he spun to face the source, he saw a white figure with a red face and chest aiming a rifle at him—
Steam Shot
Alicorn

A red energy beam shot through the air and hit him, the explosion knocking him over. As he fell, his armor glowed and split apart off of him, fading away as he landed and every Full Bottle he’d been carrying spilled across the ground around him. As the ponies turned with a series of gasps, Twilight tried summoning her magic, but her horn only fizzled and her legs partly gave out.

Faust lowered the Steam Rifle, raising her left hand as it glowed red, all of the Bottles gaining a red glow and lifting up. Realizing what would happen next, Sento reacted as fast as he could, rolling up and grabbing the nearest Bottle as the rest suddenly shot over to her. Faust looked across the 17 Bottles now floating around her, as if counting her spoils, but not betraying her reaction to them.

The colored emblems, the pipes…now getting a proper look, Sento recognized the pattern of a Transteam suit. “And who are you, now?” he grunted, propping himself up with an elbow.

The figure slowly looked to him as if annoyed he’d spoke. “Faust.”

“Faust?” he repeated. “So, another one of Stalk and Rogue’s allies.”

Faust tilted her head. “Who are they?”

“Eh? Blood Stalk and Night Rogue. You know, part of Faust?”

“Part of me? I think not.”

“Wait, you…mean your name is Faust?”

Faust gave a chuckle at Sento’s cluelessness. “Stay out of this,” she warned, before a burst of smoke poured from the pipes making up her wings and horn, covering over both her and the collection of Bottles. The smoke cloud wrapped in on itself, rising and vanishing with a shimmer.

Well, this was a predicament, Sento thought to himself. At least he managed to grab one Full Bottle. He opened his hand to look, and his heart sank. It was the Unpurified Bottle he’d just gotten off the Smash. Useless.

“Thiiiis is the worst,” he moaned, dropping his head.

Mythical Spellbinder

Kamen Rider Build, the briiiilliant physicist Sento Kiryu, has found himself in a world filled with magical talking ponies with no memory of how he got here. Kinda becoming a recurring trend at this point. Smash are here, too, and what’s worse, a mysterious villain called Faust has stolen all of Sento’s Bottles, taking Build out of commission! Admittedly also a recurring trend now. So, what will happen in Chapter 2? These are chapters, right?

“So let me get this straight,” Twilight said, rubbing her head both from the post-Smash recovery and from trying to follow Sento’s story. “In your world, Faust is an organization?”

Sento nodded. “And they use the same type of equipment as this new Faust, the person.”

The ponies had gathered in the castle’s roundtable room after Sento’s insistence that Twilight would recover fully in a few hours without needing a hospital.

“And you fight them all the time?” Rainbow asked.

“Usually I do better,” Sento replied. “Well, there was that one time the exact same thing happened as here, but that’s not important.”

“Those Full Bottles are, right?” Starlight added before Rainbow could argue.

Sento took out the Unpurified Bottle. “I use them in my Driver to become Kamen Rider Build, but they need to be purified before they have any functionality. They’re useless like this, except to pour on someone and make them into another Smash.”

“So, how do you purify them?” Starlight asked.

“I don’t,” said Sento, “Misora does, it’s her special power. But she’s not here.” He sighed and stared off into the distance. Then something came to mind. “Densha.”

“What?” said Starlight.

“The Densha Bottle,” Sento repeated, “Misora didn’t purify it, Faust just already had it. Well, I didn’t see her do it, maybe that’s one they’d made her do before, but since I don’t know that for sure, that means there’s still a chance there’s another way to purify the Bottle I could cook up.”

“Speaking of cooking,” Pinkie spoke up, “if you need something neat to happen, maybe go talk with Zecora. Trust me, she can make small bottles that can do anything.”

“Oh?” asked Sento. “And where can I find her?”

Zecora pulled a page of chemistry notes off of a flask hanging from the ceiling. She’d almost managed to clear away all of the papers that had infected the place after Sento had gone through and analyzed everything in her ingredients drawers. She’d tried helping him understand how her potion brewing worked as he explained the mechanics of Nebula Gas, but after he’d stubbornly concluded her rhyming to be too much of a distraction, he’d mostly just pulled ahead and figured it all out on his own…leading to even more papers strewn about the place. The fruits of his labor were a large bubbling cauldron of light blue liquid sitting in the middle of the room with that bottle of his dropped inside. And while she alone was cleaning up, Sento had been at her table, recounting to his chaperones Twilight and Starlight about gas boxes and smashing walls or something, she wasn’t invited to the conversation.

“So that’s why I lost my memory of what happened,” said Twilight.

“A giant structure magically springing from the ground because of a small box,” Starlight commented, looking to Twilight. “Sounds familiar.”

“At least it helped bring ponies together instead of splitting them apart,” Twilight replied.

“Well, that’s good to hear,” added Sento.

“You know,” Twilight said, “since you’ve stumbled into this world from another, you could be focusing on getting back home instead of doing all this for us.”

Behind the group, the liquid in the cauldron began to glow.

“That really doesn’t matter,” Sento said. “Not now that there’s a problem here that needs solving. I make sure I see things through. Plus, I’d be equally out of luck if I went back without my arsenal.”

The liquid began flashing repeatedly, faster and faster, as steam started drifting out.

“Well,” Twilight continued, “I have to say that I’m impressed by your commitment. You know, this one time I also—”

Boom! A massive burst of steam erupted from the cauldron as the contents vaporized, everyone but Sento jumping out of their skins and the walls of the hut rattling.

“Oh, it’s done,” he said, leaving Twilight at the table hyperventilating on her calm breathing exercise. Starlight had a hoof to her heart and Zecora was muttering something in Zebric.

Sento stepped up to the cauldron and waved away the steam, curiously peeking in to see that it was now empty of liquid, but that one thing remained sitting at the bottom. Zecora looked over the edge suspiciously as he reached in and carefully picked up the translucent lavender Bottle, a grin conquering his face.

“This is,” he said, looking it over as his spurt of hair sprang up again, “…Unicorn?” The front of the bottle was sculpted like a horse’s head and neck looking forward, with a tall, spiraled horn on its forehead.

“That’s great, right?” Starlight said, coming over. “Now you can use that Bottle to take down Faust!”

The smile immediately left Sento’s face. “The Build Driver needs two Bottles to work.”

“Oh…right,” said Starlight. “And you’re sure you don’t have any others? A spare one isn’t hidden in your shoe or something?”

“I mean,” Sento said, pulling out a clear Bottle, “I have plenty of empty Bottles, but…they’re empty.”

“And without another Smash,” Starlight finished for him, “there’s nothing to fill them with.”

“This is still the worst,” Sento moaned, sinking down to the floor as his hair spurt folded back down.

“Well,” Starlight offered, “what if it…wasn’t?”

Sento looked up at her. “How so?”

“Well, is there a way you could fight with only one Bottle?”

Sento pondered a second. Then he jumped up with excitement. “Of course! If I could make a weapon to Best Match the Unicorn Bottle, I might not need to transform. I need a lab with technology!” He rushed towards the door.

“I suppose there’s probably a room or two in the castle you could use,” Twilight said. “But first—”

“Great!” he exclaimed, racing outside. He slowly looked back in a second later. “Can someone lead the way back to town?”

“I’ll tell you the route so you can come back and forth on your own should you ever need to make another Bottle,” said Twilight, turning to Zecora, “if that’s okay?”

“Him taking over my hut like this on a whim?” Zecora said. “With his papers and explosions, I say, ‘be gone with him’!”

“Well,” Twilight sighed, “I guess this’ll give us a chance to—”

“H-hang on a second,” Starlight spoke up. “I think I could help you with that project.” She gave a nervous smile.

In a shaded alley near the edge of Ponyville, Trixie pulled her cart to a stop. Unlatching, she went around to the back and entered, starting to shuffle some things around.

“Oh, Starlight’s gonna be so surprised,” she said to herself. A second later, one of her smoke pellets triggered, pouring smoke out the door and filling the alley. She stumbled out coughing. “If I survive my own props—cough—jeez.” She looked in through the door and tried moving things around with magic as she waited for the cart to air out. What she didn’t notice was how thick the smoke in the alley had gotten.

In the midst of thickest part of the cloud, a figure had materialized with a panel on their back bearing a round port with slothead bolts around it. The bolts spun a turn, triggering a whirring sound as the surrounding smoke began flowing in towards the figure. As the cloud condensed in, it disappeared into the tips of their pipe wings and under the rim of the pad at the end of their pole horn.

Trixie took notice as the smoke cloud vacated the alley faster than it should have. She’d heard the click and whir, but thought it was just somepony with a vacuum. “Um, thanks? Who’s there? I’m not ready for a show, yet.”

“To think a one-off would need to be part of it,” said a distorted female voice behind her.
Loading

“Huh—ya-haah!” Trixie exclaimed, falling off the cart’s ramp when she turned to look. “Wh-who, what, you?”

“But Sparkler just isn’t fit for this one,” Faust said, holding the Steam Rifle with an empty Bottle attached. She gave the red knob wheel on the side three turns, and it gave the sound of depressurizing steam. “You’ll do fine.”
Devil Steam

Sento placed the completed staff on the map table in front of Twilight. He and Starlight were wearing science goggles and eager grins. His spurt of hair had sprung up again, and Starlight almost looked like the same could happen to her.

“Um, okay,” Twilight asked, looking down at the staff, “what’s with the stick from your old village?”

“It’s my new weapon for the Unicorn Bottle,” Sento said, picking up the tuning fork-tipped staff again. Made of a tan metallo-plastic material and complete with a coil just beneath the tuning end, it was the spitting image of the wooden staff Starlight had once owned, except with a few extra bolts, wires, and a small strip of black caution stripes. There was also an opening with a sliding track for a Bottle at the end of the handle.

“The idea hit me when I suggested he find a way to combine the extraction and purification steps,” Starlight added. “I remembered how I pretended to use the staff to snatch cutie marks, and the design evolved from there.”

“Because Zecora used that potion to purify the Unicorn Bottle,” Sento continued, holding up the Bottle, “I equipped this staff to draw on and replicate that ability through the Bottle’s power. Now a new Full Bottle can be ready right after I defeat a Smash! I can’t wait to test it!” He glanced around for something he could try it out on.

“And I’m glad you two are getting along so well,” Twilight said through a smile thinly veiling something else, “but I just had to find a way to somehow explain to Princess Celestia about this new Faust character’s threat and the whole backstory from another world that may or may not actually be related to her from the memory of only hearing it once while the only one who clearly knew the details was preoccupied on a pet project they’d only just decided to take on and was therefore unnecessarily unavailable for hours on end even when I tried asking kindly to maybe help clarify a thing or two!”

A silent pause fell over the room as Twilight huffed a few times.

Sento scratched his head with a nervous smile, slipping off his goggles.

“We…got a bit sidetracked,” Starlight muttered to Spike, standing beside the table, “didn’t we?”

“Big time,” said Spike.

Sento set the equipment back on the table, but as soon as the Unicorn Bottle touched it, the surface lit up and projected a 3D map, surprising everyone. A small symbol was floating and slowly spinning over a point near the center.

“The Map?” said Twilight.

“The what?” Sento asked.

“It shows ponies where they need to be to solve problems,” she replied.

“Who’s being summoned this time?” asked Starlight.

“I don’t know,” Twilight said, looking closer at the floating symbol. “It’s not one of us. Who has a gear cutie mark?”

At that, Sento quickly leaned over the table for a closer look himself. The symbol was two halves of a black gear rim with a bent line running between them on a diagonal.

“That’s the symbol I use for Build,” he said in surprise. “It has to be talking about me. Solve a problem, you say. It has to mean another Smash, where is that?”

“What do you mean where?” Twilight asked. “That’s right here over Ponyville. Oh, right, you don’t know the land—,” she turned, but Sento and his equipment were already gone, “…scape.”

With a shrug, Starlight raced after him, Twilight and Spike following a second later.

In a burst of glitter and playing cards, a slim-bodied Smash appeared in the middle of the street, several ponies racing into houses or behind corners. It had skinny legs with smooth gray plates, a pale dust blue upper body, and short purple spools mounted on its shoulders wrapped with magenta chains that snaked down its arms and trailed from its wrists. Its head was a purple top hat with a small pale purple crystal at the center and a short stiff cape trailing from the back. The Trick Smash turned to the new arrivals as Sento and the others ran into view.

“Quit poofin’ around!” came Applejack’s voice from the other direction.

The Trick Smash spun and tossed a handful of playing cards at her as she charged it, the crystal on its face flashing like a camera strobe. With each flash, one of the cards grew giant and a corner jabbed into the ground, forming a wall in front of her.

“Alright,” Sento said, holding up the staff and Unicorn Bottle as he stepped forward, “time to test this new Tuning Staff out—”

The Smash threw its left arm at him and the chain shot out, the spool spinning as it emptied, the chain flying over and slamming into him, quickly snaking around him as he fell to the ground, the staff and Bottle clattering down next to him.

“Sen—”

“Sento!” Starlight said, racing up to him. Twilight was a bit glad she’d been drowned out.

Sento looked down at the loops of magenta chain cocooning his arms and torso. “Well, this sucks,” he stated plainly. A new chain slowly filled up the Smash’s empty spool as a replacement.

“Don’t stress yourself, new guy,” Rainbow Dash said, floating over, “we’ve got it this time. Right, AJ?”

Applejack spun and tossed a lasso at Trick, but it reached out and caught the loop of rope with a poof of smoke and glitter, the cloud fading to reveal it holding a now-lassoed Spike.

“How the—what?” Spike stuttered. Applejack dropped the rope in surprise, and Trick tossed Spike aside.

“Spi—”

“Spike!” Starlight said, racing over and catching him with magic.

Twilight snorted. Okay, this was getting old.

Applejack charged at the Smash again. Trick simply watched as Applejack reached it, jamming her front hooves into the ground and spinning around, kicking out at it, but it vanished again in a burst of glitter and cards like it had several times before Sento’s arrival.

“You’ll never hit him if you keep doing that,” Rainbow said, flying over to Applejack.

“And what do you suggest?” she snapped. Trick reappeared a house down the road in another glittering flourish of smoke.

“Doing it faster!” Rainbow shouted as she shot at the Smash. She twisted to land a kick, but on impact, its shape collapsed into a tower of cards. Before she could react, a cape spun from thin air behind her, Trick swirling out of it and swinging the chain on its right arm, smacking her out of the air.

Trick continued the swing, the chain whipping wide around the general area, snapping at the ground below Applejack as she leapt aside, and bouncing off the shield Twilight had put around her and Sento. The impact rippled the shield down to her horn, making her grab her head as the shield faded.

“There’s just no hittin’ this thing,” Applejack said, frustrated.

“There is if we match magic with magic,” Twilight said.

“You really don’t look up to it yet,” Sento said from the ground.

“And you’re any better?” she replied. She lit up her horn and teleported out in front of the Smash, but swayed a step upon arriving.

Trick casually flicked her forehead, sending her skidding back about twenty feet. She angrily shook her head and fired a magic beam at it, but it tossed out three cards, its face crystal flashing to expand them into triangular barrier. The beam hit and blasted it into a spray of 52 pick-up, but a magenta chain swung through the clutter and smacked Twilight flipping several times to the ground.

Trick stepped forward and bowed. It drew back its right arm and threw the chain beelining at Twilight, links rattling as its length speedily unspooled, but Starlight jumped in front of Twilight, horn glowing. The chain lurched to a stop in midair, inches from Starlight.

“Huh?” Starlight said, her horn fading. She hadn’t done that. Her gaze followed up the chain to discover that Trick had itself grabbed it at the source with its right hand. After hanging straight for a second, the chain dropped limp to the ground. Trick was standing stock-still. Starlight didn’t know what this was about, but her instinct sent a blast of magic that sent Trick to the ground, the spool slowly retracting the chain back.

The Smash pushed itself to its feet again, raising its arm to swing but forcing itself to freeze up again upon seeing Starlight. Getting steadily more freaked out, Starlight blasted it again.

Applejack pulled Twilight back over to the sidelines by Sento, who was still on his back and struggling inside the chains. A click was quickly followed by a sliding and latching sound.

“Need any help?” Applejack asked, stepping over and looking for either end of the chain.

“Nope,” Sento said. The Drill Crusher suddenly stuck out from beneath chains next to his face, Applejack jumping back a step. “I got this.”

Looking away, Sento triggered the Crusher, the drill blade grinding against the chains and spraying sparks. A few seconds later, the first loop snapped, quickly followed by the next, and the next, until the chain cocoon split open like a zipper as Sento sat up, now adorned with his Driver.

“If you still had that,” moaned Twilight, “then why’d you need to make a new weapon?”

Sento paused.

Trick stumbled back from another blast, its torso smoking. It raised its right arm, but grabbed it with its left hand and pulled it down to its side again. It grabbed the chain and wrapped it around its right wrist several times, pulling back as its arm tried reaching at Starlight.

“What’s wrong with this thing?” Starlight asked in a panic, another blast charging itself. “How come it’s not fighting me?”

“It probably has something to do with who that is,” Sento replied, walking up beside her with his equipment, “so let’s get a look inside.” He put a hand on the back of her neck. “I got it from here.” Starlight took a deep breath and stepped back.

Sento shook the Unicorn Bottle several times and twisted the cap, sliding it into the open slot at the end of the Tuning Staff’s handle, a purple image of its emblem briefly appearing over it.
Ready, Go!

The tuning fork end of the staff started spinning to the right and made his Driver’s cyclic clanging noise (because it just sounded so good). On the lower half of the staff were a pair of button triggers, and as he aimed it at the Smash in both hands, he pressed the first trigger. A glow appeared between the spinning tuning prongs, shooting a beam of bluish energy that hit and connected to the Smash. He pressed the trigger again.
Vortech Break!

A bulge of energy shot up the beam, hitting the Smash with green flame explosion and knocking it to its back, the beam staying connected. He pressed the second trigger.

The clanging sound faded as the tuning prongs slowed to a stop, then resumed as they began spinning to the left. The Smash form began disintegrating, the extracted essence getting pulled back along the beam and collecting between the prongs. As the last of the essence was extracted, the beam’s connection broke, and a symbol flashed over the essence; the bulge of materials was slowly drained into the spinning prongs as a dull blue glow began flowing down the coil. Starlight’s attention, however, was elsewhere.

“Trixie!” she shouted, running to the pony lying where the Smash had been, now stirring.

“Nnnhg, Starlight?” Trixie said weakly, leaning up. “Surprise,” she said, raising a hoof before flattening again. “What happened after I got to Ponyville?”

As the glow from the coil drained out of it, there was a flashing from the center of the staff and a cloud of steam burst out. The prongs slowed to a stop again, and when the steam died down, Sento bent the staff in half like a shotgun to open up the second Bottle track hidden inside. He grabbed the Bottle inside, but let go and shook his hand. He grabbed it again a few seconds later, pulling out the newly purified dust blue Bottle and twisting the cap closed. On its front was sculpted star-tipped wand trailing a curving streak. “Works like a charm,” he said.

Then he heard more steam flowing. He turned to see that the small cloud produced had drifted away and expanded, and was now being funneled into the pipes on Faust’s suit. She was holding the Steam Rifle.

“Starlight…,” Trixie muttered nervously, edging herself a bit away.

“What happened after you arrived?” Starlight repeated. “She did.”

“You again?” Faust said to Sento. “I deal with you for interfering with Twilight, and now you manage to crawl back into my way.”

“Him?” Starlight interrupted. “Excuse me, but you’re the one who messed with Twilight, remember?”

“You dare speak to me?” snapped Faust. “You’re as much an intruder as he is.”

“Huh?” Starlight said. “Wait, how?”

Faust turned back to Sento. “Give me those Bottles. You don’t know what they’re for.”

Sento sighed. “You may not be part of the Faust I know,” he said, retrieving the Unicorn Bottle before dropping the Tuning Staff, “but whatever you’re after, I’ve decided I’m stopping you. Now,” he held up a Bottle in each hand, “shall we begin the experiment?”

He began shaking the Bottles, spawning an array of floating equations drifting out from behind him. Glancing at them, however, he saw that a number of the normal letter variables had been replaced by cartoon stars, horseshoes, and smileys. One equation floated by that read “sun + lollipop + rainbow = 2”. Sento chuckled. Oh, this place. He stopped shaking and twisted the caps, putting the Bottles into his Driver.
Unicorn
Magic
BestMatch!

“Best Match!?” he said in surprise, looking at the pair. “Are you serious? What luck!” He grabbed the handle with a grin and began turning the crank, tubes tracing out from the Bottles and into the base that appeared around him, filling with violet and pale blue liquid while forming the frameworks and inner tubes.
AreYouReady?

He pumped out his left arm as the inner tubes solidified into armor. “Henshin!” He crossed his arms and threw them down, then the frameworks slid in and he was encased by the armor, the tubes retracting away as steam poured out.
MythicalSpellbinder!MagiCorn!Yeyyy.

His left leg, right arm and chest, and left face were lavender, and his right leg, left arm and chest, and right face were a bright dust blue. His right foot had a printed chain decoration wrapping around it, and the top of his left foot had a printed spiral horn pointing to his toes. A short pole was sculpted onto his left forearm armor and led to a thick yellow five-pointed star crystal over his wrist, and a lavender spiral cone outline was attached onto his right wrist, spreading out as it extended up to the level of his elbow. His right eye was a dust blue star with a wand handle and sinusoid magic trail sticking out, and his left eye was a lavender profile view of the right side of a (real-world) unicorn’s head, the snout aiming down and a long horn spiking up.

Starlight and Twilight looked on, giving a collective, “Wow.”

“I’ve found the winning formula,” Sento said, tracing his finger up the wand eye cover and flicking.

Faust shifted the Steam Rifle and held up a white Bottle, snagging Sento’s attention in a second. Giving it a shake, she twisted the cap and plugged it into the Rifle, the white image of a panda face briefly appearing.
Full Bottle

“Hey,” Sento said, “those are my—”

Faust flipped the Rifle in her hand to grab the back and hold it like a sword, clicking the trigger.
Steam Attack

A cloud of steam poured from Faust’s horn and wing pipes, engulfing her and shooting over to Sento. She burst from it and swung down the blade of the Rifle with a five-wide spread of white claw streaks, raking across his chest with sprays of sparks and sending him to the ground.

“So much for your winning formula,” she said. She swung the weapon down again, but Sento held up his blue Magic arm, the star on it glowing. A magic dome rose up around him, the Rifle blade hitting it and stopping, the claw streaks fading out. Sento jumped to his feet, raising his left arm high, the dome expanding and pushing Faust back before fading.

“Magic wand, huh?” Sento said, looking at the glowing star. He swung out the Drill Crusher, moving the Unicorn Bottle into its slot.
Ready, Go!

The drill blade began spinning as a lavender unicorn horn energy projection appeared around it.
Vortech Break!

Sento thrust the Crusher towards Faust, the spinning projection flying off; she held up her left arm to block it, but it grazed past her arm and hit her chest plate, pushing her back while spraying sparks, feet skidding through the dirt. She raised the Steam Rifle and slashed it down, the claw streaks cleaving the projection into chunks that shattered away. She came to a stop, quickly stamping down for stability. She glared up at Sento, panting.

“This isn’t over,” she said. “My world will come.” Smoke poured from her pipe wings and horn and covered her, wrapping in on itself before sparkling and fading away, leaving nothing.

Sento pulled the Unicorn Bottle out of the Crusher and removed Magic from the Driver; his armor glowed before splitting off of him. He took another look at his two new Bottles as the ponies approached.

“So, this is what you’re up to now, is it?” Trixie commented.

“Looks that way,” Starlight replied. She walked up to Sento. “Guessing you’re not done yet then, huh?”

“Not by a long shot,” he said.

“Is it bad for me to say that I’m glad you’re sticking around a bit longer?” she asked.

“I have that effect on people,” Sento said. “Well, ponies in…you know what I mean.”

Stormy Story

Kamen Rider Build, the briiiilliant physicist Sento Kiryu, has found himself in a world filled with magical talking ponies with no memory of how he got here. Despite having all of his original Bottles stolen by the mysterious villain Faust, he’s managed to use his genius intellect to devise a way to purify new Bottles without needing Misora’s power.

Hey, you weren’t the only one who contributed to that idea.

Starlight? You can join the opening narration, too?

Apparently so.

Well, Build’s got a new Best Match under his belt, and it’s awesome! Sugoi ne! So, what will happen in Chapter 3?

The Next Day

“Where are you?” Lightning Dust muttered to herself as she stalked the streets of Ponyville.

“What are you doing here?” Rainbow Dash had said yesterday.

“I’ve got a score to settle with you,” Lightning said.

“You sure? ’Cause things seem pretty settled on my end.”

“You think that something like that just goes away?” Lightning snapped.

Rainbow tilted her head. “You’re acting as if I did something. Are you sure we’re remembering the same event?”

“Now you listen here, Rainbow—”

A scream followed by the sound of a commotion came from a nearby street, Rainbow jumping into the air. “I’ve heard all I’m listening for,” she said, zipping away towards the action. Lightning glared after her.

Lightning kicked the ground. “We’re not finished yet,” she said.

As she continued her search, however, she didn’t notice the trail of steam drifting from a nearby alley. Leaning against the shadowed wall, Faust looked out at her.

Lightning Dust stopped, having felt for a while someone watching her but not making a move. She didn’t like sneaky ponies. “Alright, what are you after?” she said to the general area. A layer of steam drifted across the ground from behind.

“How far must I reach to complete it?” pondered a distorted female voice. Lightning Dust turned to the voice and jumped at what she saw, quickly planting her hooves forcefully to hide her surprise. “I’m lucky I even know about you,” Faust continued. “Nopony else would fit but Firefly, and I need her for something else.”

“I don’t know who you are or what you’re talking about,” Lightning Dust said sternly, crouching with wings flared, “but I’m afraid I won’t be a part of it.”

Faust simply stared at Lightning Dust. “I don’t recall addressing you.”
Devil Steam

Faust raised the Steam Blade with a glowing ball of blue smoke on the barrel built into the blade. Lightning Dust shot forward at her, and she swung the blade, throwing the smoke ball. Lightning Dust leaned to swerve around it, but it corkscrewed sideways and let the surprised pegasus run right into it.

Lightning Dust dropped from the air as the smoke snaked around and covered her, her body flashing a sickly blue-green while pouring out a cloud of white steam as she tried suppressing cries of pain. Behind the cloud, her shape twisted, growing and morphing before the cloud burst away, revealing a hulking bipedal figure. Mechanical plated legs, a swollen and bumpy body lacking an obvious head and covered in overlapping whitish metal plates resembling a cloud, jagged yellow lightning bolt spikes sticking out along the sides of its arms, and a small amber-colored crystal centered about where a face would be: the Electric Smash.

“Let’s hope this one lasts a bit longer,” Faust said as the new Smash began to stumble threateningly around in a rough circle.

Above the next house over, Rainbow Dash had been preparing to confront Lightning Dust again, but had been caught off guard by Faust’s sudden appearance. But no longer.

Faust looked up to see a rainbow streak flying at her. She snapped her fingers, and the Electric Smash threw its arms out, sending a wave of electricity to knock the streak aside, Rainbow catching herself and shaking off the hit.

“Speak of the devil,” Faust said.

“You must really want to be defeated if you keep showing up so often,” Rainbow said.

“Be patient,” Faust replied. “I’ll be ready for you in a minute.”

Rainbow jumped back as the Electric Smash swung at her. She tried darting around it, but it swung back around and sent an electrical burst, Rainbow zipping back.

Faust casually watched as Rainbow tried evading and fighting Electric, pulling the Steam Blade’s handle and blade apart with a click.

Rainbow shot in and kicked Electric back a step, zipping away again as electricity jumped between its lightning bolt arm spines.
Rifle Mode

After clicking the Blade halves onto the Transteam Gun, Faust flipped up a red switch on the side of the newly formed Steam Rifle and slid a red bar back underneath it. “Two birds at once,” she mused. “It must be my lucky day.” She took out an Unpurified Bottle with a blue cap and hot pink contents, giving it a shake and twisting the cap open before plugging it into the Steam Rifle.
Loading

Electric shot a beam of electricity up at Rainbow, but she spiraled around it, so it moved the beam in circles trying to catch up to her.

The Bottle’s contents glowed and were sucked up into the weapon, the Bottle deflating and its black spider web pattern disappearing, leaving it as a clear Empty Bottle. Faust removed it and replaced it with an indigo Bottle with a light blue cap, the image of a rocket briefly appearing.
Full Bottle

“I’m surprised you aren’t trying your signature loop,” she called, “…Firefly.”

In the middle of pulling back for another pass, Rainbow Dash stopped in midair to look at Faust. “Who’s Firefly?”

“You’ll remember soon,” Faust replied. She gave the red gear three quarter-turns with the sound of a pressure valve releasing and raised the Steam Rifle at Rainbow.
Devil Steam Attack

“Yike—,” Rainbow let out, bolting away as a light orange energy rocket fired from the Rifle at her, leaving a steam trail. She turned left to avoid it, but the rocket arced after her. Letting it close in, she gave a burst of speed and looped around it, but it spun and came straight back at her. She quickly ducked under it, the rocket looping again to follow. That was close.

Rainbow tried flying low along the ground, spiraling up in a cone before zipping straight down from the apex and shooting away, but the rocket traced her path exactly, slowly catching up.

There’s no losing this thing! Rainbow though as she looked back at it, but as a crackling sound brought her attention forward again, she ran right through a net of electricity projected by Electric’s bolt spines. Shocked to the core, she tumbled to the ground, rolling to a stop. She tried telling her muscles to get her airborne again, but they weren’t listening, and the rocket came around and hit her in the side.

A sickly blue liquidy smoke covered her as a cloud of white steam poured out, her body morphing into a slim Smash down on its knee. The smoke burst away, revealing a figure with smooth-paneled gray legs and a hot pink upper body with blue plates bearing long backward-sweeping shark fin spikes spaced along its arms and on its shoulders; its skinny blue head had a similar spike pointing backwards on top of it and a small magenta crystal in its face. The Blitz Smash’s appearance was blurry to the eye, its entire body constantly jumping a half-inch in every direction and back again every split second.

“Back to basics,” Faust said, walking over to Blitz as it looked up at her.

* * *

Sento, Twilight, Starlight, and Spike were sitting around the Map and staring silently at Build’s gear symbol floating over Ponyville. Despite the events of yesterday, it was still there. They’d been like this for a good few minutes.

“So, if it wasn’t telling me about the Smash,” Sento spoke up, “what does it want me to do?”

“The Map only calls us for friendship problems, not battles,” Starlight replied, “we already found that out with Stygian. There must be a friendship problem it thinks only you can solve.”

“Alright then,” Sento said, “but what?”

Twilight slowly shook her head. “If I had a bag of bits every time we asked that question ourselves…”

“Maybe you should be going out and looking for it, then?” Trixie said from the side of the room. While everyone else had been puzzling over the Map, she’d been relaxing over there and eating cinnamon nuts.

“Hate to say it, but she’s right,” Spike said.

“Of course I—what?”

“Well, even if it didn’t call me,” Twilight said, sitting up, “as the Princess of Friendship, I’d probably be the best match with Sento for searching to the—I mean—whaddid I say?” Her eyes darted around.

“Don’t you think Starlight would be the better partner?” Trixie taunted. “From what I hear, she’s already been way more useful.”

“Really, I was just the one who was available,” Starlight waved off.

“I would’ve been if I could’ve been!” Twilight called back.

“Oh?” said Trixie. “Is science horse a bit jealous at being second fiddle?”

Twilight grumbled more than silently in response. Starlight almost didn’t try hiding an amused snort.

“Of course!” Sento said, suddenly jumping to his feet. “I get it now.”

“Y-you do?” Twilight pipped nervously.

“To solve this problem,” he said, starting to pace, “I’m going to need to choose my best partner to achieve the winning formula.”

“The choice should be clear…,” Trixie fed him.

“As clear as ever!” he declared, taking a pose and pointing to the sky.

An unsure Starlight looked over as a hopeful Twilight looked on.

“Not really what I was going for,” Trixie muttered.

“You can’t question the winning formula,” Sento teased.

On Sento’s decision, he, Trixie, Twilight, Starlight, and Spike were all taking to the street to search Ponyville for the friendship problem together. Twilight and Starlight were currently bringing up the rear.

“Right, yes—this,” Twilight stuttered, “exactly…what…what you—I, meant.”

“Rule Number 12,” Starlight whispered to her with a smirk.

“Shut up,” she said flatly.

After about twenty further seconds of silent walking, a sense of boredom began to overtake Trixie. She glanced around for anything at all to be happening. “When I said you should be out and looking for the problem,” she spoke up, “I was under the impression you had a more reliable way of finding it.”

“Nope, this is it,” said Twilight.

“So we really just walk around and wait to run into it?” Sento asked.

“Basically,” Twilight said, coming up to the front of the group. “We could start by checking a few of the more populous areas of Ponyville like Town Hall or Sugarcube Corner to better facilitate meeting the most potential friendship problem ponies in the least amount of—”

An arc of electricity hit in front of them and blasted up a spray of dirt and sand, everyone ducking back. As the group looked though the clearing cloud, they saw the Electric Smash stomping down the street and shooting off lightning bolts in random directions from the bolt spines on its arms, the townsponies fleeing as they do.

“Or we could just run right into another Smash,” Twilight huffed.

As Trixie screamed and ran for cover, Sento was already shaking his pair of Bottles. Electric turned and swatted at the flowery equations floating past it, knocking characters and symbols out of them. Sento stuck the Bottles in his Driver and turned the crank.
Unicorn
Magic
BestMatch!
AreYouReady?

The tubes structures formed and generated his armor, Sento pumping out his left arm. “Henshin!” he shouted. The tube frames slid in.
MythicalSpellbinder!MagiCorn!Yeyyy.

A magic wand sculpted onto his dust blue left arm and a pale purple spiral helix curve reaching back from his right wrist. As the tubes retracted and steam poured out, Sento traced a finger up the magic wand eye cover and flicked with a call of, “The new laws of victory have been set!”

Twilight stepped up beside him, horn glowing. “I’ll help out better this time.”

Electric swung its arm, sending an electrical spray at the ground at their feet. They flinched, and Twilight’s magic blipped out.

“Are you sure you’re up for this?” Spike called from back up the street from where he and Starlight were directing ponies away safely. Twilight snorted.

Sento raised the Drill Crusher and went to charge, stopping himself half a step in. “Whoa, whoa, whoa,” he said aloud, catching the weapon with his other hand. “Electricity, remember? Don’t give it a lightning rod.” Then he gave it another look and thought. “Hmm, actually…”

He flipped the Crusher around in his grip and threw it like a spear, its tip driving into the ground off to the side near the Smash.

“What are you doing that for?” Twilight asked.

Sento waved at the Smash. “Hey, nice splatter pattern,” he taunted. “I bet you can’t even aim.”

Electric stopped and turned its full attention to him. It charged up an arc of lightning across its arm spines and shot a bolt at Sento, but it was immediately drawn off course. Electric looked to see the electricity stream curving aside and channeling through the Crusher and harmlessly into the ground. It looked back to see Sento right in front of it and punching with his right arm; the hit projected a spinning drill construct that sent it skidding back, cutting off the bolt.

“Oh, that was genius,” Twilight whispered excitedly.

Sento grabbed up the Drill Crusher and moved the Magic Bottle into its slot.
Ready, Go!

“Now,” he said, a blue aura appearing around the drill, “let’s see what this baby can do.”

Wow, thought Twilight, he’s actually going to use free-form magic. What genius new ways of using it will he come up with?

Sento swung the Crusher towards Electric, shooting a blue magic beam. Electric dove aside, the beam instead hitting a produce cart behind it. Instead of taking damage, the cart simply rose up off the ground, and it kept going up. And up. A pony ran out and shouted up after it, “My cabbages!”

“Um, sorry,” Sento called.

It’s okay, Twilight thought, eye twitching. No one can be a genius all the time.

“So, no more of that,” Sento said, moving the Magic Bottle back to his Driver.

Electric was suddenly in front of him, and he pulled up the Crusher to intercept a punch, but it was knocked away in a burst of electricity. Sento tried to block a further barrage of punches, each zapping him back a step, finally channeling both of his powers and getting a spiral drill projection and magic shield between him and the Smash. He swung his arms out to X-slice Electric back in a spray of sparks, but as he went to attack, something blurred past and hit him. A second later, it zipped back and hit him repeatedly from all sides in rapid succession before disappearing again. Sento tried turning where he thought it had gone, but it raced back up and pelted him with lightning-fast punches, raining sparks everywhere, and then rammed him over, vanishing again.

“Sento!” Twilight called. Flat on the ground, Sento saw a trail of dust kicking up from the ground on a beeline.

“To you!” he called back, Twilight barely having time to look and bring up a magic dome around her, which the blur of a figure deflected off of.

Sento rolled up to his knee, seeing a pink streak now tracing around him in a large circle. With a twist of his wrist, he rose a magic dome around himself, the streak immediately shooting in, but bouncing off of it. It continued circling, ramming the barrier every few feet and sending shockwaves across it. Against this new foe, Sento could only manage one thought: I think this is the first time I’ve faced more than one Smash in the same adventure. Hey, maybe I could get another Best Match out of this!

The second Smash gave up circling and instead began ramming into one point on the dome, still too fast to see clearly. As he saw the dome begin to waver, Sento jumped up and expanded it suddenly to force the Smash back, knocking it off its rhythm, the dome fading out. As it regained its balance, Sento finally got a look at the Blitz Smash, or at least its shape and colors. Thought it was standing still, he still couldn’t focus on its exact form behind the constant motion blur. This should prove an interesting one.

Sento pointed and shot a beam from the wand on his arm, but without flinching Blitz jolted several feet to the side and the beam missed. “Hey,” Sento said, shooting again, but it jolted aside the other way. “Hold still!” He sent a scattered rapidfire, but Blitz dodged all of them with this faster-than-eye “relocation” like an impossible game of whack-a-mole.

As he was shooting another beam, his eye caught a motion and he turned to see Electric charging him. Remembering he was using magic, he solidified the current beam into an energy rope and swung it over to snake around the Smash. Now unoccupied, Blitz prepared to rush in, but because it had wasted time preparing instead of acting, Twilight grabbed it in a magic hold, freezing it save for its vibration, and lifted it off the ground so it couldn’t run. As this was happening, the rest of the Mane 6 had been arriving to the scene of the commotion.

“Not another one,” Rarity said.

“Y’all got things contained around here?” Applejack asked over to Starlight and Spike.

Electric flexed and its amber face crystal and bolt spines glowed, letting it slice out of the magic rope, but as it raced at Sento, he ducked a slash and punched with Unicorn’s glowing drill spiral.

“Yeah, I’d say so,” Starlight said.

As Electric stumbled back with a trail of smoke coming from its side, Sento cranked his Driver’s lever.
Ready,Go!

He pulled back then thrust his arms forward and together, their armaments glowing. From the wand’s star end, the tip of a spinning conical spiral projected out, the spiral continuing to draw itself in the air around the wand before shooting forward and drilling into Electric’s arms raised in defense, then tilted up.
VortechFinish!

Looking up the helix, Electric saw equations sitting along its curves as they spun by: x=a \cos(\theta) drifted across on a curve, then y=a \sin(\theta) came by on the next curve, then z=a\theta \tan(\alpha) on the next, then Sento jumped up and kicked down into the spiral.
Yay!

As Sento’s Unicorn foot passed through the spiral, it undrew at the same pace, the last of it vanishing in a white flash as the kick hit, Electric bursting with a green flame explosion. Standing over the downed Smash, Sento generated the Tuning Staff and loaded the Unicorn Bottle into the end of the handle.
Ready, Go!

He leveled the staff at Electric and hit the first trigger, an energy beam shooting from the staff’s spinning prongs and connecting to it, before hitting the second trigger, the prongs spinning the opposite way and pulling the Smash essence off. As it absorbed down the coiled tube along the staff, Sento triumphantly announced, “The future is now, thanks to science and magic!”

“Yes,” Twilight silently cheered, having been watching Sento fight instead of doing anything else to Blitz. Ignored, its magenta face crystal began glowing intensely.

The four sideline ponies gathered in to see Electric’s host begin to stir. They didn’t recognize her at first, but then they remembered.

“Lightning Dust?” said Pinkie.

“Why is she here?” Applejack asked.

After thinking something over, Starlight dashed to Lightning Dust, pushing through the crowd. “Eyes, eyes,” she ordered, lifting up Lightning’s head by the chin to look.

“Huh?” Lightning moaned as Starlight’s face came into focus. She quickly slapped away the hoof. “Who the hay are you?”

“I knew it,” Starlight said, turning away. First the Drill Smash had had a purple crystal near it’s ‘face’, and Twilight’s eyes were purple, then Trick had a pale purple crystal, just like Trixie’s eyes, and now Electric’s crystal was amber, as were Lightning Dust’s eyes. And if that pattern continued, “Then that would mean…”

A burst of steam poured from the center of the Tuning Staff, and Sento bent it open at the middle, reached for the Bottle inside, waited a few seconds for it to cool down like he’d learned last time, and finally pulled out a new light gray Bottle featuring the image of a cloud with a lightning bolt below it, twisting its cap closed.

“This would be…Thunderstorm?” he speculated.

“Oh no!” Twilight called, bringing all attention to her. Blitz’s constant vibration had cranked up and shaken it free of Twilight’s magic grip, and as soon as it landed it sped past Sento, knocking him over. Sento removed the Magic Bottle from his Driver and retrieved Unicorn from the staff, jumping back to his feet and tossing the staff aside.

“Now,” he said, holding up the two Bottles, “time for the experiment.” He shook and inserted them, turning the Driver’s crank.
Unicorn
Cloud
AreYouReady?

“Build Up!” he shouted. Light gray armor flew in from the left and replaced Magic’s with a flash, a short horn tune playing. His right leg, left arm and lower left side of his chest, and upper right side of his face were now in nonreflective light gray strip plates. His right foot had a lightning bolt pattern printed on top, a long silver contraption with a dish on the end was mounted on his left arm, and his right eye cover was a cloud with a lightning bolt sticking out to the upper right.

Blitz zipped around him, darting in and out, Sento swatting with Unicorn’s cone spiral to knock it back. Trying to quickly find Cloud’s power, he examined the new armament: an antenna dish mounted on the end of what appeared to be a silver radar tower attached flat along his forearm. As Blitz backed out for another charge, Sento pointed the dish at it.

The radar tower extended as its inner layers telescoped out, the dish twisting and beeping, the ball-tipped rod inside sparking before a dark stormcloud began condensing in front of it. Blitz shot at Sento, but upon racing into the cloud, it was jerked to a stop in a burst of electricity.

“Ah-ha!” Sento shouted, reaching for the Driver’s crank. “Got you now!”
Steam Attack

The cloud was suddenly pulled off to the left, Sento watching it disappear into the tip of the Steam Rifle surrounded by the turquoise projection of a vacuum cleaner. Standing on the sidelines, Faust looked between Blitz and Sento.

“Firefly is too essential,” she said before Sento could speak. “I can’t let you interfere with her just yet.”

She removed the turquoise Soujiki Bottle and replaced it with the yellow Light, giving the red gear a half-turn.
Full Bottle
Eleki Steam Attack

The Rifle shot twined yellow and light blue electricity at Sento, zapping him and sparking across his armor, but as he raised his left arm on reflex, the antenna dish glowed, and all of the electricity channeled harmlessly into it. He prepared to attack again, but saw that Faust and Blitz had vanished. With a sigh, he pulled out the Bottles, his armor glowing and splitting off of him.

From somewhere else along the street, Trixie peeked up from where she was hiding. “Is it safe to come out yet?”

Sento returned to the others, Twilight grumbling to herself.

“Firefly?” Spike repeated. “I only know that name from history. Who did she mean by that?”

“I think I know,” Starlight said with a sigh, everypony looking over. “I’ve noticed a few patterns with how the Smash turn out based on who they are. I’ll explain later, but think about this. Who’s fast, has magenta eyes…and is the only one not here right now?”

To be continued…