Say Hello To Scylla
Gag!
“Urgh! What was that!? Why did I just say that!?” NO1SY physically lurched.
Legoc was starkly quiet, his head bowed pensively.
“That. Was. EPIC!” The Yellow Raider fist-pumped. They were slim, male, and their voice was youthful. A short, white cape billowed to the middle of their back as they stood proudly, bow in hand.
“Suuper? Is that you!?” NO1SY probed. It had been a long time, but he could imagine the guy grinning from ear to ear for getting to wear a Sentai suit.
“Uh-huh. Long time no see.” Suuper scanned the vast army that encircled them, “Although I wish it were under less stressful circumstances...” The Pink Raider, a fair bit more heavy-set than Suuper, stomped over to join in. A comfy-looking, bold pink hood bobbed up and down on her shoulders behind her helmet.
“Stressfulisanunderstand… underside.... understatement!” She spat the words so fast that she seemed to trip over them. Even the slight tinniness of speaking through the helmet could not muffle her temper. “Ican’tevenprocre… protrac… procrastinateproperly’causetheywon’tletmedrawinthefirstplace!”
“Hi Bobby!” chuckled Suuper.
“ANDTHEYCONFUSCATEDMYMOTHERT-SHIRTS!”
“Confuscated?” puzzled NO1SY.
“CONFISCATED!”
A calm voice interjected.
“Awfully nice of them to stand still all this time for us, but shall we postpone re-introductions until after we have fought our way out of this predicament?” The shoulders of his suit were mantled, but if the blue color didn’t give his identity away, something else surely did.
“Op…” NO1SY couldn’t help himself, “Why are you wearing your mask over your helmet…?” The two rectangular slits in the otherwise featureless silver mask stared blankly back at him before the man regally spun about-face and began to ready his stance with his staff. I guess no one knows what he looks like still…? NO1SY mused internally.
Once again, the street was plunged into chaos. Bobby wasted no time in leaping back into the fray behind them to air her frustrations through her mighty sword swings. Operative held the line to their front with deadly efficiency, his staff extended now on either end for maximum reach as he whirled . Suuper narrowly ducked a shuriken aimed at his visor, then back-flipped up onto the top of a nearby fountain plinth before firing off a volley in retaliation. The statue of Hasith in a fairy costume that once stood daintily on the carved stone platform lay toppled in three pieces off to the side.
“Absolutely, definitely, certainly too much heat down here for me. Gotta get moving!” With that the Yellow Raider bounded away, loosing arrow after arrow as he leapt and slid and flipped from lamp-posts to scaffolding to rooftops. The streaks of neon yellow were like shooting stars up above the battle, and little ninja bodies were flung from their high vantages and open windows as if hit by shotgun blasts. They burst into pixel dust on the wind before even hitting the ground.
“... missing one…” mumbled Legoc off to the side.
But NO1SY was mesmerized as Bobby brought devastation to the ranks of Spam Ninjas with each mighty swing of her huge sword. She was a furious grizzly bear rending through fish in a barrel. Her momentum built as downward cleave twisted into horizontal slash, which comboed into a vicious uppercut that she followed through into a backwards flip-kick and tumbled into another strike of her laser blade. Her flurry wove a trail of neon pink like a wound through the sea of darkly clad bodies. Op was fairing much the same; a neon blue twister riding the maelstrom of battle. But he fought intelligently too, switching the form of his staff’s laser ends to suit his needs. Billhook to unbalance and reposition a foe, staff to sweep some space from himself, guandao to lop off some heads. NO1SY watched them, then looked down at his bloodied gloves.
“Cat-man…?” he asked.
“Huh?” The Green Raider sounded like he had just snapped back to reality.
“Why do they have weapons?”
There was an uncomfortable pause as if NO1SY had asked a stupid question.
“Those are their Sentai Power Weapons. Look.” All of a sudden, Legoc began to glow with a green aura. If NO1SY focused he could see the lines of code building within like a digital primordial soup. The Green Raider raised his Sentai Bracelet skyward. The glow that was diffused around his whole body rushed to gather at the bracelet, writing, downloading, increasing in intensity to a bright green ball. He lowered his arm until it was outstretched in front of him, then rested his other hand on his bicep. “POWER WHIP! GO!” His proclamation was coupled with a definitive swipe down his arm, grasping the ball of energy and installing it into reality. In his hand now coiled a nine-section whip tethered by neon green laser that ran through it and cut the edges of the leading dart. NO1SY was astounded.
“You’re kidding…”
Legoc let the whip unravel. “No I’m not. All Sentai Raiders can manifest a Power Weapon through the Sentai Power.” He began to spin the chain, faster and faster, until the weapon looked like a green disc and he was whipping up a veritable gale that NO1SY could feel buffet him. Then his fellow Raider struck out in a wide arc, sending a shockwave that immediately cut all of the enemies at their flank to dust. Legoc deftly redirected his whip’s dart back across himself with small manipulations of the laser chain to score a bullseye against a rushing attacker. The Spam Ninja’s head basically exploded off its shoulders. “They are super strong force multipliers,” he explained.
“YOU MEAN WE COULD HAVE BEEN FIGHTING WITH SUPER-POWERED WEAPONS THIS WHOLE TIME!?”
The Green Raider shrugged, “I like the feeling of killing with my claws.”
“BUT I DON’T HAVE CLAWS!” NO1SY knocked on the sides of his helmet in frustration. If it had vents he was sure they would be steaming. “OKAY. Okay… How do I do this then?”
“Instinct.”
“I will dunk you in that fountain, cat.”
“No, really!” NO1SY paused before acting on his urge, Legoc continued, “if you focus, you will… feel the power around you. Your Sentai Bracelet gives you access, the rest should come naturally. You stream it through you to shape it into your weapon.”
“But I don’t even know what my weapon is…”
“You’ll know. It will simply feel natural when you draw on your own individual creativity with the power. Now, get to it or get back to punching, our exposition bubble is about to burst!” The Green Raider spun up his nine-section laser whip and readied his stance.
NO1SY studied his Sentai Bracelet. It was a large and cumbersome-looking, mostly metallic contraption in the general shape of an elongated octagon. Weird tubes fed into its sides, and there was an overabundance of buttons, none of which NO1SY could even begin to guess the function of. Did he have to press any of them to ‘switch on’ his access to the power, or to ‘program’ his weapon? Who knows!? Usually he hated to attempt things without a relatively decent understanding of the fundamentals first, but, with the returning reality of a raging battle surrounding him, and a sigh for good measure, NO1SY resigned himself to the fact that he just did not have that luxury. Here goes nothing… he thought, and he went searching for the strange power.
It started in his wrist, but soon wrapped his entire body. It felt like bathing in TV static. Or what he imagined that felt like. He became aware of a white glow contrasting against his black suit. It flickered, almost timidly, a few times, and NO1SY worriedly thought back to the journey over here, when it seemed like the - his - suit was on the fritz. Was something interfering with his channeling? But consistency returned in the next moments, before he felt the tingling power grow. He raised his hand and focused the power to his bracelet. He could feel the power moving, linking, compiling and shaping as it coursed through him. He could feel it reading and learning from the deepest reaches of his being as it passed. He felt a cold shudder down his spine. But the growing pressure around his wrist required his full attention. It took force from his other hand on his bicep to push his aloft arm down to level. The white ball of power had an almost digitized appearance as it floated above the bracelet. I hope… my… instincts don’t… give me a… dumb… weapon…
NO1SY swiped down his arm and let his words flow.
“POWER SPEAR! GO!”
He grasped the bundle of power. In the infinitesimally minute moment of first contact, NO1SY was struck with awe at the utter immensity of the power from which he was allowed to draw just the tiniest trickle; the limitless potential that was the source of the creation of all things in MangaRaiders. The Tan Power. And then he was grasping the manifest shaft of his weapon, a spear of modern material with a sleek head edged with white lasers.
His helmet hid his smirk and muffled his words:
“Lets see how the little sh*ts like being the ones getting stabbed.”
Oba-san was resisting the urge to pace. Instead, she settled for tapping her foot on the bare concrete floor as she surveyed the battle from her vantage. With the promise of immunity within MangaRaiders, The Clan had spared no time in expanding their operating base in the city, which had already industriously been built from an underground bunker into the skeleton of a grand tower. A brisk wind buffeted her on the exposed upper level, which still had no walls nor scaffolding to obscure her view, but she stood so stubbornly against it that barely a hair moved from where it was pinned on her head. She, like The Clan she represented, prided herself on being terribly well-rooted.
Unfortunately, she had become more than a little shaken on the inside over the course of the night, grimacing at every flash of neon that sparked within the dark tide of her vast army. Despite initial reports that the Sentai Raiders only numbered a measly pair, three more of the gaudily-colored vermin had crawled out from the collapsing woodwork of the city and joined the battle. Five! Just five of these creatures against a legion of the most vicious and deadly Spam Ninjas bred on The Net, yet they refused to be crushed. The latest communications suggested that they were in possession of powerful advanced weaponry of unknown origin, which they were now using to actually push back against her forces. Preposterous... she rebuked internally and tepidly.
“Bah!” She chided herself as she turned from the ledge. So they had some fancy glow-sticks; she had weapons of her own. The Clan had long since developed past its old, simple method: Throw more Spam Ninjas at it. Modern times called for devious plots and the hijacking of creative technologies. She snapped her fingers to summon her underling. “Bring it up,” she ordered the bowing man.
As she waited, workers erected the support pillars to hold up the next floor up of the tower, and scaffolding began to be wrapped around the outside for the installation of the walls. She took pride in the industriousness of her underlings.
The grating squeaks of an extremely heavy bulk on strained wheels announced the delivery of her request, as twelve workers guided it from the construction lift onto the concrete with considerable effort. They set the large device down with a heavy, metallic thunk. It was completely metal and shaped a little like a giant, rounded, high-backed throne out of the space age that stood four meters tall at its peak. Instead of a seat however, the heavy base was circular and deeply concave. Thick metal tubes coiled in and out of the outside of the device, four sockets for bulky cable attachments were equally spaced around the circular base, and an even larger port fed into the back of the device. This was the peak of Spam Ninja Clan technology. Extra workers accompanied the delivery crew; four dragging the ends of enormous cables that snaked out from a shaft in the corner that delved deep to siphon from the city’s grid, one carrying a briefcase, one carrying a large cylinder that contained something that glowed intensely white, and one more carrying a typical Spam Ninja Egg. The cables and canister were attached to their respective ports on the device. The men with the briefcase and the egg awaited further direction.
Oba-san marched over and inspected the egg. It was the size of the worker’s torso and had been cleaned of the wiry, blue veins that usually spread and clamber around them in the nests, fully revealing the perfectly smooth, matte metallic, blue-grey shell. It was nearly fully matured. Yes, this will do nicely, she discerned. She provided a curt nod to the man holding it up for her, and he turned to take it over to the device, the basin of which had now been filled with the viscous, glowing liquid from the cylinder attached at the back. He placed the egg carefully into the gel-like substance, and watched it slowly submerge and suspend just beneath the surface.
Meanwhile, Oba-san had opened the briefcase and extricated the large, long-needled syringe from within. She turned to hold the glass up against the light of the morning sun. A single black strand writhed and danced in an otherwise milky, translucent liquid. She grinned malevolently at the thought of the depths of the Dark Net that the little strand had been fished from, that such a small, hidden thing could precipitate such devastation when paired with The Clan’s spam.
Not wishing to waste any more of the day, Oba-san strode with the syringe to the device that now cradled the egg in its glowing bath. The digital soup tumbled hypnotically, but too benignly, around it. Without hesitation, and almost betraying excitement, Oba-san drove the needle into the shell and ejected the malignant contents of the syringe inside. Then, without taking her eyes from the bath, she gave the nod that commanded her underlings to flip the large switch above each of the four cable ports on the device. They snapped down with a satisfying mechanical clank. Blue energy surged through the cables into the device, which began to whir, and the lights flickered out across the surrounding area of MangaRaiders City. The thick glowing liquid in the basin began to bubble lightly as in the background a few more dilapidated buildings crumbled.
Then came the transformation. The liquid began to take on an inky blackness that permeated slowly and insidiously from the egg; its shell yellowing, then darkening to match. Larger bubbles belched forth from the viscous, tar-like fluid. The shell began to swell with boils, until even the blisters had blisters and the shape more closely resembled a growing tumor than an egg. As it grew it breached from the basin, absorbing the liquid that clung to its dark, rubbery exterior as it went. When it reached the top of the tall back of the device and looked like it was about to fall out from it, the shell split grotesquely and spilled forth its contents. Oba-san’s new minion.
The troll was slimy and a dark, mottled green-black. It was a hunched, twisted thing, already wrapped in tattered, jet-black rags, but the virus coursing through it caused it to be in part formless; its skin spiked up and down sharply in constant motion. It clumsily tried to find its footing. It hacked and wheezed and drooled over the concrete, before settling into a jittering throaty growl. A black, sparking energy radiated around it and made one’s hairs stand on end. When it finally stood it was no taller than Oba-san was. It looked at her through beady little eyes that had been infected with new depths of stygian darkness, and were filled with hunger and malice.
The maniacal laughter that erupted from the usually reserved woman startled the peons milling around - though they dare not drop anything nor stop their work. Oba-san flung out her arm, pointing out across the city towards the battle that raged on the defunct gallery street.
“GO! Feed, my minion! FEED AND GROW! THEN OBLITERATE THOSE SENTAI RAIDERS! AHA-HA-HA-HAAAA!”
The thing let loose a foul shriek, then leapt powerfully from the building into the waking city. Oba-san watched on through the last of the glass panes being installed on this story, as the virulent Troll bounded towards the fray.
She raised a quivering hand to her mouth and regained her composure. Then she gave a quick appraisal of the space around her.
Six more floors will do, I think.
The final thug crumpled, cold as the unforgiving ground beneath him. It was supposed to have been one last hurrah to test his mettle before he returned to The Net and finally left behind the never-ending depths of this cyber-scape hell-hole. The dark, purple energy that thrummed from him dissipated, and he wondered about the worth of what he had found here. He had survived his gauntlet, faced his demons, and hardened himself for what was to come. Alone. And it was not until this moment that he had realized how utterly insufficient it all had been. How empty it had been.
Fro turned slowly, his body no longer impeded by the deep burn scars that marred his skin from head to toe. His afro, finally having regained some length, bobbed with his motion.
“You should not have followed me here,” he said, trying to convey a stern tone. But, damn me, I’m glad that you did.
“What can I say? Ribbit! When I see a tear in reality I just have to hop through it. Especially after seeing a sorry excuse for a leader wander through it like an idiot zombie.” Greentrap sat nonchalantly on the corpses of the three thugs she had dispatched with an agility that Fro had not seen from the frog-person before.
“Reckless, dangerous, and foolish,” reprimanded Fro, equally including himself. “The journey to the other side is chaos in and of itself, you must have all ended up scattered throughout The Dark Net, just as alone as I was.” Her response looked to be venomous, as she had proved to be now during the fight, but before she could speak a calmer voice interjected.
“Now now Coach,” floated the voice with ghostly reverb from beneath Fortis’ thick scarf wrap, “even I cannot disagree with Greentrap’s ire in this instance. You left the AirBnB quite suspiciously that morning, when you had barely recovered. It was immediately evident that YOU were going to do something reckless, so naturally we decided to keep an eye on you.” The hooded skeleton man doused the blue flames in his eyes behind his signature sunglasses. It seemed that the weapons master had finally learned some magic; that ghostly fire had imbued his blades and bullets (now hidden away once more beneath his long black cloak) with haunting power.
But Fro’s gaze was solely leveled on one other, bare-footed, individual, who held her clenched fists tight to her sides while her grey eyes stared into the ground. Her long silver hair framed her young face that was worryingly blank for all the emotion obviously swirling beneath the surface. In spite of all he had faced before, Fro was genuinely scared now. Her voice began as a murmur, but he knew exactly what words she spoke, for he had spoken them before.
“Rule... number one of the MR Fighters Division: Fighters fight together… as a unit at all times.... No exceptions…” Then she let loose, practically screaming. “RULE NUMBER TWO: NEVER ABANDON A TEAMMATE UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCE!” Tears splattered the concrete in the midst of the numerous bodies that lay around her. She had defeated more foes than any of the others, including Fro. Her voice receded once more, “And... Rule n-number three... Never... b-betray a fellow t-teammate…” She looked up at him, unwaveringly into his eyes. “Why Mister Coach?”
“Oh Filia. I had t-” he stopped himself. The time for selfishness was over, or what had been the point of coming here in the first place? Pushing aside his nerves, he strode forward to the girl, whose eyes had returned to staring holes into the floor, and knelt before her, so that their heads were level. He pulled her into a hug and held her until her sobbing subsided. Keeping a hand on her shoulder he stood and addressed his compatriots.
“I have been a lousy leader and mentor, and it has taken me until now to truly understand why. Thank you, all of you.” The candidness put them off balance for a moment, but there was no strategy here. Fro bowed low to them, “Please forgive your stupid coach.”
Greentrap shifted uncomfortably, “Well it turned out to be good training, so…”
“It is good to have you back, Coach.” Fortis nodded.
Fro felt a light tug on his sleeve. Filia held up a palm sized metal item to him. “I made it for you, from pieces of this place… to replace the one you lost…” Fro smiled for the first time in what felt like ages and accepted the gift. He slid the hair pick into his afro, at its current peak.
“Alright, let’s get out of here. We have an Italian sailor to save!”
The battle was going quite well, all things considered.
With the addition of the new Sentai Raiders and the use of their weapons, the pressure on them had lessened enough to regain a level of fluidity and coordination, despite how exhausted they were. The Sentai team were even pulling off combo-moves, playing off each others’ strengths. Pink Raider Bobby and Blue Raider Op would take turns launching Spam Ninjas into the air like baseball batters, and Yellow Raider Suuper would pick off the floundering, defenseless little creatures with arrow after arrow. Black Raider NO1SY would use the reach of his spear to trip groups of them flat so that Bobby’s greatsword could come crashing down on them with ease. Op could use his adjustable staff to redirect Suuper’s arrows mid-flight into more devastating targets. And Legoc, clad in green, could round up bunches of ninjas with his whip and drag them in to be skewered on NO1SY’s spear tip.
Legoc back-flipped away from a leaping sword swing that aimed at his neck, then shouted over to Bobby, “Pink, swing me!” He extended his nine-section whip out to her, which she grabbed the other end of and began to spin. Legoc swung round and round, and kicked out at the face of every Spam Ninja he could reach. It almost looked like he was running in a horizontal wheel of little black-wrapped bodies.
“Gettingditz...dizzyhere!” complained the Pink Raider at the center. She let go of the whip and Legoc turned the momentum into a gyroscopic tumble of laser-whip and claws. Dead ninja dust rained to the ground around them. NO1SY and Op came to take a breather in the space that they had carved out for themselves. But then even Suuper hopped down from his perch on high to join them.
“Erm guys…” said Yellow Raider, unnerved, “something weird’s likely, probably, definitely happening…”
He was right. None of the ninjas from the wide circle charged at them like they were want to do before. Instead, they mostly stood still, once again staring blankly at the Sentai Raiders with their hateful, beady eyes. Then there was a disturbance from the south-east, deep within enemy lines, a shifting in the dark sea of bodies. The Ninjas in that direction began to draw back, slowly and always staring, and those on the other side parted and strafed around to follow. It was like the unnatural false retreat of water before a tsunami.
“Oh no, no, no no no no…” muttered Legoc under his breath, “we aren’t ready…” NO1SY and Op shared a worried sideways glance beneath their visors (and mask).
The thing grew in the distance of the street, but not only because it was drawing closer. It started like a mound, but then an appendage reached out like an arm dragging it forward. As it did, a handful of Spam Ninjas were absorbed into it, and the thing grew in size once more. The sea of foes was being sucked in as if by a sponge, and the little imps practically threw themselves onto the swelling blob. By the time it was the size of a townhouse, the amorphous creature was crawling, and when it reached the size of the larger galleries on the street it was lumbering on what approximated legs. The Sentai Raiders craned their necks as the creature peaked at the height of an office tower or the lower tiered highways of the city center. Legoc had seen larger - thankfully the number of Spam Ninjas available to feed it had been significantly reduced - but this was still a terrifying foe.
The thing's “shoulders” broadened and its form and contours congealed into something more real; hideously sinuous and muscular. Its legs were small by comparison but still powerful. Its hands and feet formed and its nails sharpened into vicious points. Its skin looked rubbery, dark and mottled green and red. Gnarled spikes studded the thing’s neck, shoulders and back like stakes in a battlefield ditch. Long horns curved up from its forehead, whilst fangs lengthened to overlap at the sides of its maw, kept snarling by horizontal tusks. One tusk protruded like a razor from its chin. The only things that hadn’t changed were those malicious Spam Ninja eyes. As the last little ninja was sucked up off the street into the toe of the creature, the Kaiju let out a shrieking roar that rang out across the city and shattered what remained of the glass in the derelict buildings on the street. For good measure, and purely out of spiteful rage, it hammered its fist like a wrecking ball into a nearby structure, which cracked and crumbled away to dust. It turned its hateful visage upon the Raiders beneath it.
Without their final team member - their Red Raider - Legoc knew; without the ability to form their ultimate weapon, they had no hope of winning.
Topic: MR War Arc: MR Sentai Revival! (Read 8476 times)
