Kamen Rider Tarock Chapter One

Disclaimer: I don't own or make any claim of ownership of the Kamen Rider series. Kamen Rider Tarock and its characters belong to me, and may not be used without express permission. But don't be afraid to ask. I also do not necessarily share the beliefs of any character in my stories, and at least in the case of the ones in this story, do not necessarily endorse anything they do.

Author's Note: Going for a slightly more "traditional" Rider series than Altis with this one.

It started out kind of gray that day. Those are the kinds of days when I don't feel like I could really spend all day in school with people trying to tell me things I'd never need to know.

The guys who do security at my school think they're smarter than the kids they watch, but that's why it's so easy to sneak away if you're fast and if you know how to disappear in a crowd. I'm sort of used to disappearing, makes life easier for most of the people I know.

Not the security guys or teachers think so when the end of the day rolls around, though. Not that stuff like that usually bothers me.

I was six blocks away from school before I looked back. Nobody was behind me, but that was normal. It was starting to drizzle, and I sighed a little. After a minute I forgot I even got on a bus that morning.

Cars drove past, the wipers already beating so fast on most of them you could hear them from the other side of the street. People pulled their hats down and jogged past me to get wherever they were going and splashed in the puddles that were already showing up on the sidewalk. I don't hang out in the nice parts of town. There are lots of places for puddles on the sidewalks.

It meant I was more or less alone, and that was okay with me. The days were starting to get shorter, and that meant rainy days were cooler. For me at least, it was okay to get a little wet if it meant not being baked by the heat coming off the asphalt.

I walked for a while until I saw a little brick building with a cheesy hand-painted wood sign of a smiling car hanging over the door. It said "DECKER ENGINES" underneath in thick black letters.

There it was, my stupid home away from stupid home.

The little bell over the door rang as I went in. I barely heard it, and I don't think the tall skinny girl in dirty coveralls heard it either. If I didn't come in there all the time I probably wouldn't even know she was tall until she heard me kick an oil can across the floor and stand up from the motorcycle she was working on to glare at me.

She sighed. I'd learned to hear it as "hi."

"What are you doing here, Liss? Sooner or later somebody's going to think to look for you here, you know."

"And then they won't, because they'd have to pretend you exist again," I smiled at her, sat down in one of the creaky chairs in her waiting room, and picked up an ancient car magazine I'd read at least fifty times.

She shook her head and went back to work on the motorcycle. "You're crazy, Liss. At least think about your future."

"I am. What am I gonna learn there that's actually gonna help me later?"

I read most of the magazine again and listened to the rain pick up outside. She knew she wouldn't win that argument, she wasn't my mom. I knew she wouldn't turn me in, either.

She couldn't stand my mom.

After a minute I got bored. "Paige?" I called into the garage.

"Yeah?"

"When's the bike gonna be ready?"

She laughed. "Why? You think I'd let you ride it first? Guess again, Liss."

"Aw c'mon, don't start being lame now."

"You can't rush a masterpiece anyway," Paige said. "You can't even get parts like the ones I'm using for this. I had to make 'em myself."

"Really?"

"Yup."

"Not bad for a little two-car place like this," I said.

Paige gave me this look all of a sudden, kind of unsure. Like maybe she said too much. "Yeah, not bad huh? After I sell this baby, though, I can buy a huge place, or move to California or something."

My stomach clenched. "You're gonna sell it?"

Paige sighed then, irritated at me. "Come on, Liss. You've got the world all figured out, what did you think I was going to do with it? Maybe I don't want to be stuck here in this crappy little garage, fixing idiots' junked old cars til I'm old and gray."

"I…I'm sorry…"

"I know, Liss, I know," Paige sighed, but she sounded a lot more relaxed this time. "You've got to stop messing around sometime though, unless you're planning to break into organized crime or something."

"I'd be running this stupid town in a month!" I smiled.

"Take you that long, huh?" Paige smirked, but then the phone in the waiting room rang. Paige got up, wiped her hands and ran over to answer it. "Hello? Decker Engines." I didn't hear who was talking to her, obviously, but right away her face got all serious.

"Liss? Why don't you go get us some lunch," she said and pushed a twenty across the desk at me.

"Already?"

She covered the mouth of the phone. "Just do it. Please."

Just like that, I was out of there. She might hassle me sometimes, but Paige is the coolest person ever. You probably think you know someone cooler, but let me tell you right now, you're wrong. If she wanted to be alone, I left her alone.

But that didn't mean I wasn't gonna find out what it was about sometime.

The rain was coming down even harder when I went outside and started walking toward the block that had all the fast restaurants. I stopped at the corner to see if anybody was coming, but had to look really hard because the rain picked up even more all of a sudden. I ran across the street but after I was sure I got to the other side, I realized I didn't feel that little lift of being on the sidewalk again.

I kept walking, but still, nothing. I tried going to my right, because now it was raining bullets and I couldn't see right in front of my face. I ran until I saw a big dark shape I hoped was a building in front of me, but stopped when I noticed there weren't lights on in the windows. How could there not be lights on? It was the middle of the day and it was pouring rain. There were lights right next to me, after all.

Yeah, lights right next to me. I ran, jumped away from the lights, and landed on my stomach in a puddle. A big black car with metal bars covering the windshield pulled up next to where I landed. It had police lights on top, but the covering was cracked open on the side closer to me.

"Are you crazy, kid?" some guy inside the car yelled at me. "Jumpin' in front of police cars the hot new thing?"

"Am I crazy? Are you idiots trying to make your job easier running people over?"

I shouldn't have said that. I know better than to pick fights with cops, but I was soaked and almost got run down by a very weird cop car. They probably weren't cops at all. It sounded like the driver grunted at me and drove down the street. He was probably aiming to splash me driving through the puddle I landed in, but I jumped back. It would've been pointless with how wet I was anyway.

I started walking again and hoped after a minute the places where I usually went for lunch when I ditched to see Paige would show up next to me and I could go in to get out of the rain for a while. I was getting kind of worried. Still no lights anywhere in the rain, not even when I got to the end of the next block.

This was impossible. I walked over to the closest building, felt around for the door and twisted the knob as hard as I could. It broke off and the door dangled off the top hinge. There was nothing inside the building and the windows all had plywood put up over them. I went in anyway just to wait for the rain to let up a little.

None of this made any sense. Yeah, this was getting toward the really crappy part of town, but there weren't any empty buildings on that block. At least, not since the last time I blew off school to hang out with Paige. Which hadn't really been that long ago.

After a while the rain stopped coming down so hard, and I went back out to see if I could recognize anything. I bet I don't have to tell you things were even weirder when I could see the buildings around me.

I recognized the other buildings, but they looked a lot older and more beat up than the last time I saw them. They had wood over their windows too, and one was even partway caved in where a streetlight fell on it. The taco place where I was gonna go pick up lunch was still there, kind of, except somebody's ripped the schedule off the door and all the tables were gone.

No way! It was packed the last time I was there! Something really, really weird had to be going on.

That's when things picked to get even weirder.

Something-it was big and black and round-came around the corner of the street. Except it was stuck to the wall of a building on the second floor. I noticed it had legs, lots of skinny legs. And eyes. Lots of big, shiny black eyes.

You probably think I'm one of those people who likes to pretend they're not scared of anything. I'll tell you something, I was more scared than I ever was about anything when I realized there was a gigantic spider looking right at me then.

Then, it jumped.

I knew I was gonna die. Even if I got out of the way, that thing looked really fast. Somehow, it was even worse cuz I was gonna die without even finding out what was going on. Something with fake cops, and all the buildings turning all crappy, and giant spiders…

Just before it splattered me, something ran into the spider. It was a guy, in this black suit with red armor on top. I couldn't see his face, because his helmet covered his whole face with these huge yellow eyes. And he had this big, big sword.

"Stay close!" he said, but he didn't take his eyes off the spider. It ran at him but as when it got close he ran around its side and cut off two of its legs with his sword. This purple blood dripped out, but the legs he just cut off kept moving around on the ground even after he cut em off!

One of them jumped over and hit me in the legs, and I fell down. The guy with the sword turned and looked at me, but the spider jumped on his back all of a sudden and bit him on the neck. He held his sword upside down and stabbed it, and it jumped off and ran away. He moaned and I had to put his arm over my shoulder so he didn't just fall down.

"Over there, quick," he gasped and pointed to one of the buildings. I kicked the door open and dragged him. I set the guy down next to a wall, and even through that helmet I could hear him panting.

"What's going on?" I asked.

"It got through the suit…I didn't think that was possible," the guy said like he didn't even hear me.

"Hey! I asked you a question!"

"It's too late for me," he said. He pulled on his belt buckle and when it came loose his whole suit disappeared. It was too dark in there for me to see how he looked, except he had a huge purple spot on his neck. He held out the belt buckle, and I took it.

"Guard that with your life," he whispered, like it hurt too much to talk any louder. "Soon…soon they'll give you answers…" Then he fell over, and I didn't have to guess he wasn't breathing anymore.

I went to the door and looked out to see if that spider was back, and when I was sure it wasn't I looked at the buckle he gave me. It looked really old, like somebody made it for a king hundreds of years ago or something, but at the same time it looked like he'd taken really good care of it. Or maybe had it restored really well.

There was this thing on the front, like a crystal ball. Inside was a gold picture of what looked like a sword. That sorta made sense, since he had a sword and everything. I tilted it back and something fell out of it. It was a card, the size of one in any regular deck. Except it was just that sword picture on a red background. Did that make the belt buckle work or something…?

I put the belt buckle and sword card inside my jacket. By then the rain had totally stopped, but it was still gray out. I started going back toward Paige's, because at that point I had no idea what was going on, and going back the way I came seemed like the only thing that might possibly take me back to where things were still kind of sane.

The spider was nowhere around, so I made a break for it. I stopped at the end of the block and ducked into an alley to look for the spider, but it looked like it was still scared off from losing its legs. But before I came out, I saw an old guy with a ratty old blanket over his head.

"You're like him, aren't you?" he said, and he sounded more tired than anything else. "The one with the sword. He wasn't from here…"

"Of course I'm from around here! That's why everything looks so messed up to me!" I yelled at him.

The old guy looked above me, looked like he was trying to scream for a second, then turned and ran away. I saw him falling down as I turned around. Stuck to the side of the building was the spider. I know bugs don't really have faces, but it looked mad. Really mad. It held up two legs and I almost puked when I saw what looked kind of like fuzzy black fingers on the ends.

Big ropes of web shot out from the ends of its legs came right at my head. I ran like hell out of the way but I looked over my shoulder and the spider was still there, chasing me. When we got to the end of the block it just jumped to the side of the building on the other side of the street and kept chasing me.

In a few seconds I got back to where the garage was supposed to be. One of the doors had fallen off its track and there was no little sign with a smiling car. I was sure Paige wasn't there anymore either. I ran inside anyway. I needed a minute to stop and think, and maybe lose the spider.

I hid behind the beat up counter where Paige used to keep her computer and the keys to the cars she was working on, then reached inside my jacket and got the belt buckle out again. Obviously, the thing was important. It seemed like it was what gave that guy his suit, so did that mean maybe it gave him powers? And would it give me powers if I could figure out how to turn it on?

I held the buckle in front of myself a black strap came out of one side, crossed behind my back and clicked into the other side. That was all, or I should say that's all the belt did, cuz then I heard what sounded like lots and lots of little feet coming into the garage. Damn it, I probably left wet footprints on my way in.

Then I got out the card. Just before I put it into the slot in the buckle, the counter I was hiding behind exploded. The spider was flying through it and landed on the wall facing me. I stood up as fast as I could and before the spider tried to kill me again, I shoved the card into the slot.

Right away I noticed I felt stronger. Like, strong enough to punch through the side of my dad's car. The spider pointed its freaky spider-hands at me again, but all of a sudden, it didn't look so scary anymore. I punched it as hard as I could in the face, or whatever, I must've smashed like four of its eyes with that hit. I even hit it so hard it went right through the wall into the empty lot behind the garage.

But the spider pointed its spider-hands at me again and shot that web at me and this time it got me. The stuff covered my whole chest and my hands were stuck to my sides. It yanked me out of the building and I felt like I was flying for a second before I smashed into the ground. It probably should've broken my neck, but with that suit on it only knocked the wind out of me.

I looked up and saw the spider coming down from a jump right on top of me. I flexed my muscles and I ripped through the web, then rolled a couple times to get out of the way before I got up. For a second I couldn't see anything from all the dust it kicked up from landing on the ground, but a second later it cleared up and the spider was running at me. I started to punch it, but then I remembered the guy who gave me the buckle. I didn't want that to happen to me, did I? No, I didn't.

The spider shot more web at me and got my arm and back with the sticky crap. I tried to pull away again but I guess I couldn't the right angle, cuz it kept pulling me closer. Wait, didn't the guy who gave me the buckle have a sword before? How come I made the buckle work, but I didn't have a sword now?

I reached down for the buckle, since that seemed like it was what made everything else work. There were no buttons or anything on it, just the crystal ball you could see the card through. But right then I noticed the ball moved a little when I touched it, and when the spider yanked my fingers made it start spinning.

Light came out of the ball and then the sword was there, floating in front of me with the blade pointing down. I grabbed it and chopped through the web right before the spider was about to bite my arm. I stabbed it with my new sword but it jumped over my head, onto the wall on that side too high for me to reach it, and started running in circles on the sides of the buildings around me. Probably trying to get behind me . And I never used the only weapon I had before.

Take it easy, Liss, I forced myself to think. You've used a bat. This is the same thing, just like a knife too.

So I did something stupid and stopped trying to follow the spider, and let it get behind me. I turned a second later and like I thought, the spider jumped at me. I let the reflexes that had sent more than a few kids home with broken bones take over. I waited until just before the spider got close enough before I started my swing. The blade cut through the spider's face, slicing its eyes and dumping purple slime everywhere.

I probably killed it, but that didn't stop it from finishing the jump. I got out of the way but I still felt that purple blood splatter on my boots. I hoped to God it only worked if it could get inside the suit, and that it didn't…

…and then things blurred around me. When they slowed down again, I could see windows lit up in the buildings. I turned around and the whole I knocked the spider through wasn't there anymore, but the spider almost wasn't either. The piece I chopped off and the main body, hell even the blood on the ground started to kind of…disintegrate into purple smoke. Soon nothing was left.

Except me. With that suit and no damn clue what just happened.