The Slayers & World Riders
(A/N: read the 'Other World Riders' prologue chapter)
Ch. 1: ADAPT?! The Four Join Lina Inverse!
Kenzaki wakes in a daze. His vision is blurred and he couldn't see anything. He wanted to wipe his eyes but his muscles feel as stiff and as heavy as rock at the moment. He wants to move but his body doesn't seem to want to comply with his wishes. It's a big enough chore to just to breathe properly. Whatever that phenomenon had done to him was as pretty effective.
First Kenzaki's breathing returns to normal, following it is feeling throughout his entire body. Kenzaki's hearing seems to return and he hears small yet familiar animal sounds. It was a few more seconds before he could hear individual words. His head buzzes with pain only matched by what his eyes were feeling at the moment. He could feel grass beneath him.
'Eh?' silently exclaims Kenzaki to himself 'Grass? Dirt? Breeze? Pebbles? Sand? Animal sounds? We were sent into the outdoors?'
Deciding that lying on the ground not knowing where he is isn't the best idea in the world. With a small groan, he opened his eyes to see the blurry scenery and some kind of green blob surrounding him. Kenzaki took a moment to wipe his eyes and get them back in focus.
Whoever had said the last statement had been talking about Kenzaki as he moved his arm to begin standing up. The witnesses began to panic as they watched him push himself up to his knees. After a few more minutes of labored breathing, he managed to turn his head to check his surroundings.
He is in the middle of a forest. Just not one he's been in before in Japan.
He was still in a forest, just not the one he was knocked out in. The Hummers were there too but they were melted all to hell. Whatever his armor was made of was a real sucker for punishment. Kenzaki looks for anything manmade and spots a wooden sign with text that he is unfamiliar with.
Looking back to ground level, Kenzaki can see that he isn't alone. Chousuke isn't far away from him, dozing on the grassy ground. Leaning against a tree nearby is Hana, who is waking up, and closer to her is Nami, who is still a little dazed. Luckily, none of them appear hurt. Around them are four small rectangular metal chests and two larger wooden treasure chest-like chests.
Chousuke nuzzles against the grassy ground, then he mumbles out "Oohh… what am I lying on? It feels like grass." The child gets up, opens his eyes, rubs them to get them back in focus, and gasps in shock and amazement, "OMG! This is not like the forests near Tokyo!"
Nami mumbles in her unconsciousness "Oh… Mmm… Okaasan, it's too early." Chousuke groans, "Your mother isn't here, Nami-san." Nami opens her eyes, "Oh that's right." She struggles to her feet from the ground with what she would consider monumental effort. She then turns to Kenzaki with furious eyes, "WHAT DID YOU DO?!"
"Mou!" sighs Hana, "why do you always blame Kenzaki, Nami?" "How can you be so sure he didn't cause all those strange lights to disorient us and dragged us out here in the forest?" explains Nami. Calmly, Hana retorts "Can you read that sign? It's not kanji, hiragana, nor katakana."
Nami reluctantly looks at the sign, being patient she finds out that it's not some sort of scribble that an idiot would write, it's a different form of text. She blanches and admits, "Okay, it's not Kenzaki's fault. I am sorry." Hana nods "Now that's more like it."
Nami asks "But why did he use those… sparkly phenomenon-like thingies that he used to lasso us with?" Hana stretches herself and says, "He probably noticed that those solid star-like objects were safe enough to hold and were holding onto each other like they were magnetized to only each other well enough to use as a rope at the moment. It's highly understandable." Kenzaki nods, "Thank you, Hana-nee."
Chousuke says, "The most important question is where we are and how it happened." Hana says, "Let's go with feeling first; to me it felt like we were falling through space. Last I saw, Kenzaki-kun was the last I've seen of us conscious. Can you tell us what you saw?" Kenzaki shakes his head, "No, I blacked out from all that ever-changing painful sensations of heat, electricity, and cold."
"But it's odd…" quietly says Kenzaki, "what happened to us back there felt just like how my mother disappeared 9 years ago." Nami asks, "Then how come you were with us back home?" "I was six years old and I was frightened," answers Kenzaki.
Going to the sign, Hana says, "Well, I recognize some of this writing, but cannot exactly read it."
Kenzaki whistles toward in the trees, Nami asks "What are you doing, Kenzaki?" Kenzaki replies "I was going to ask for directions." Nami shouts "I don't see any human in sight, even if we do, I doubt we might be able to communicate with them!" Kenzaki says, "I never said I was going to ask a human."
Coming from the trees is a flock of birds that later land around Kenzaki, Nami laughs at him "At least they're not so dangerous."
One of the birds tweets a bit, Kenzaki says to it "Yeah, I know she's pretty but there's a wall there when it comes to talking to her." It tweets some more, Kenzaki responds "Of course, she doesn't like me, I'm not her type and she doesn't trust me. She also tends to judge me before she even knows me, along with other people in my class."
Nami's eyes widen in surprise, "Are you talking to those birds?" Kenzaki nods "Yes, I can also talk to other animals too." Chousuke confirms it, "It's true, remember the chaos that befell the city when a circus elephant was rampaging because of it panicking? Well, Kenzaki-nii was the one who calmed him." Nami gasps, "That boy was him?" Hana nods "That was him."
Nami says to Kenzaki, "Okay, so you do have something useful about you. Well, ask it where we are, dunce!"
Kenzaki asks the birds, "Can you please tell us where we are?" The birds tweet and twitter for a few moments, later a confused Kenzaki relays what he is told, "the birds tell me that we are in the world of Red Orb in the Sea of Chaos." Hana exclaims, "RED ORB?! SEA OF CHAOS?!"
Just like that, realization hits Hana like a load of bricks out of a dump truck. Now she knows why the text on the sign resembled something she's seen before. She almost blows a fuse when he realizes it.
She tells her companions "We may be in a world known in an anime/manga series called 'Slayers'!" Her three younger companions exclaim in unison "Anime/manga?!" Then they ask in unison "What is 'Slayers'?"
"Kenzaki-kun," says Hana "Remember 'Dungeons and Dragons'?" Kenzaki nods, "Yeah." "Well, the 'Slayers' series is remotely similar to that due to the fact the game inspired this whole thing, with the exception that it's part comedy, plus some ecchi parts. Lina Inverse, a brave young sorceress, is the main protagonist of the series. The major threat in this part of the continent aside from the common and occasional bandits is the Mazoku, a powerful race of demons who gain power from negative human emotions as well as enjoy it."
Nami's eyes widen in horror, "What?! Demons that thrive on human misery, aggression, and pain for power and the joy of it? We have got to get out of here!"
The boys sigh and lie down against one of the mysterious chests, as Nami panics at the thought of encountering any of the Mazoku.
"Have you imagined that it would end like this?" sighs Chousuke. Kenzaki says, "Nami-san is a surprise." Feeling offended, Nami shrieks out "Hey!"
Looking at their modern clothes, Chousuke realizes "People may get confused by our clothes!" Nami asks, "What do you mean?" "They are not period with this land's era as far as we know, they should be of fantasy style garments and they wouldn't fit in." Nami says "But we couldn't possibly burn them!" "That wasn't what I was intending for us to do," says Hana. "Considering our options, we may have to get to the next village and learn a few things such as reading this land's language, and possibly work for the essential items to survive and adapt with. Or as last resort, we steal clothes off some clothesline when no one is looking."
Kenzaki nods, "I agree." "So are we going to find someone very kind to assist us?" asks Nami, "we lack the many right things to make our lives here much more bearable."
Looking at the chests curiously, Chousuke asks, "Where did these chests come from?" Hana answers, "Remember those solid star phenomena? These chests were those." They look to her in confusion and she answers, "I woke up some time before we landed here and found the solid star-like phenomena fuse and change into the five chests. Plus one of those wooden chests had some of the items from back home, which are turned into items suitable for this world. I didn't open them yet, because I was exhausted and needed some rest."
The boys excitedly exclaim in unison, "Then we can make it here!"
Chousuke looks at the wooden chest, "We might as well see what's inside." Kenzaki smashes with a rock in his fist against the lock on the wooden chest, breaking the lock as well as the rock, "Let's hope whatever's inside will help."
The four open the chest and inside they find a great deal many items!
Hana pulls out a sheathed sword, "Do you see this Kenzaki-kun?" Kenzaki nods, "At least we could use this to ward off bandits!" "In more ways than one," says Chosuke as he pulls out a wooden staff, a quiver full of arrows and a bow, a hand crossbow with crossbow bolts in a quiver, a pair of sickles, a pair of armbands with multiple sheathed daggers, and some silvery plates of armor.
Nami pulls out a scroll case and opens it to find a scroll inside, unrolling it she says "Wow! A map, now we'll know where in the country we are!" Chousuke pulls out a rainbow-colored stack of books, "Spellbooks, now we can adapt to this world better so we can use magic too!" "Look forward to hard training in it and combat," says Hana.
After pulling out several more items, Hana finds common-looking cloth sacks and digs into them finding more items, "Bags of Holding! This will make carrying all the heavier stuff easier!" Nami asks "Why and how?" Kenzaki answers, "Bags of Holding open into a non-dimensional space, where the inside is larger than its outside dimensions, making it able to hold more stuff so long as it's not damaged. Kind of like hammerspace." Nami nods with understanding "Ah! I see."
In the other wooden chest, which has the transformed belongings, they find a compass that Chousuke recognize as his old camping compass. Kenzaki takes out a scroll case, which he believes to have once been his personal sketchbook back home which is now more like a 'sketch-scroll'.
After pulling out her own building kit, Hana smiles and says "Alright! This is the language translations book that I was going to give Kenzaki some time before these events, now we will read the languages of this world. Including the sign we've discovered."
Nami pulls out a pink brassiere-like wrap, which she seems to recognize due to the nervous blush on her face, she quickly hides it and asks herself out loud "Of all the clothes to be transformed into clothes period with this world, why didn't the clothes on our backs?"
"Hey, my small telescope!" smiles a thankful Chousuke. Pulling out a new red tunic, Kenzaki says "Man, there's nothing these chests ain't got." Hana says "Whatever brought us here knew what we needed for adapting to this world."
Kenzaki opens the metal chests and finds them all containing four platinum buckles similar to that of the Garren and Blay Buckles, Rouze Cards, several Oni Transformation Items (tuning forks, whistles, & string braces), Disc Animals, and one Arcle.
The two young males and pre-adult woman look over the Kamen Rider gear they now have with them to see if they're authentic. Kenzaki picks up the Arcle, but Hana pull it away from him so she could examine it, only for it to wrap around her waist and painfully disappear into her body!
Attempting to bear with the pain from her Arcle fusion, she groans out "The Arcle is real. Check the Rouze Cards to see if the pictures move on their own."
Kenzaki looks over the Rouze Cards and spots them moving, he then shows them to Hana, who is fully recovered from the pain and gasps, "They're all real." Kenzaki jumps around happily, "Awesome!" Chousuke exclaims "They're not 'Super Sentai', but they're better than nothing if we can't depend on the fantasy gear forever!" Hana joins in the excitement with the young males. Nami, however, is not pleased with Kenzaki's current behavior——
"Some of our belongings from back home that would be helpful on travel are converted to adapt to this fantasy world and the three of you are more interested with toys for young men and little boys that are not?!" exclaims a frustrated Nami.
Kenzaki excitedly exclaims "These surfaces, the material of the cards and buckles, the feeling from the Rouze Cards—— I shouldn't believe it's true, but it is; these items are genuine fiction-to-fact equipment, including some of the Kamen Rider gear!"
They're in the 'Slayers' universe and holding genuine Rider Gear from 'Kamen Rider Kuuga', 'Kamen Rider Blade', and 'Kamen Rider Hibiki' and the means to change into the Kamen Riders so how farfetched was being in a popular anime anyway?
After a moment's pause, Nami asks "Those star thingies struck the three of you in the head too, didn't they?"
"Well, come on!" says Kenzaki. "Not a chance in hell!" shouts Nami, "I won't go doing any real-life Dungeons and Dragons for a billion yen! I'd rather go home where Dan-kun is waiting for my presence!" "How about… a trillion yen… and someone better than Dan-kun?" persuasively asks Chousuke.
Nami freezes a tad, "What… did you say?"
Hana plays along, "We've just thought that since adventures make one stronger in mind and body, and you can experience new people up close." "What's your point?" asks Nami.
"You know;" smiles Hana, "excitement, adventure, making friends along the way and building a living here in this world with them, in case we may never need to go back to our boring old lives. Besides, there's a chance for Kenzaki-kun to be reunited with his long lost mother, as well as the chance to find a guy taller than I who can appreciate me and I him, even a nice bishounen just for you. But you don't want this, so good luck surviving on your own."
"Wait, wait!" says a successfully persuaded Nami, "I've got an idea: we practice a little while here, we find this Lina Inverse-san, we talk her into us joining her, and share the spoils of our adventures." Hana adds in, "And if we are transported back home, we can show everyone how much we've changed!"
"Oh, wait!" realizes Hana "I've just remembered something; since we're taking up residence here in the Slayers universe, we don't know if any of the events that passed in the TV series have actually passed yet, if they haven't then we should be stranded here until we get the Mazoku Barrier keeping us for the past 1,000 years may as well keep us in, making the journey to our original universe impossible. Also, we don't know if we're possibly the only ones from our world here."
Everyone look at each other and say in unison, "Find and join Lina-san."
"First," says Kenzaki "we must dress up and gear up." Nami stomps on Kenzaki's foot, "Just go behind to your own tree when you do!"
Hana holds out the Rouze Cards and designates the owners among her soon-to-be traveling companions, "I'll be handing Kenzaki-kun some percussion-based Oni equipment to him, along with the Platinum Spade Buckle and the Spade Rouze Cards. Nami-san, you'll be given the Rouze Cards and Platinum Buckle for the Heart Suit along with some string-based Oni gear. Chousuke-kun'll have the Leangle Cards and Platinum Buckle and some wind-based Oni gear. I've got the Kuuga Belt, Arcle, but before I go into using that I think I will have some of another drum-based Oni equipment along with the diamond suit Rouze Cards and Platinum Garren Buckle."
"Out of curiosity," states Nami "why give us such items of these Kamen Rider equipment? Are some of us even qualified? Remember that I'm not that much of a tokusatsu fan." Hana says "I'm going on instinct and it says that somehow we each fit under said item." Kenzaki shrugs "I guess that's fair enough, Hana-san."
Nami asks to herself 'Why couldn't have we landed in a magical girl universe like 'Sailor Moon'?'
The four look for trees to change clothes behind and return to display.
Kenzaki is now clad in sturdy boots, blue breeches, a belt, a red shirt, studded leather armbands with fist-topping metal plates that look almost like knuckle dusters, a white headband, the little metal armor they had over his shoulders and torso, and a medium-sized pouch. He has the sword and his KR equipment. His sword has an emblem like a spade with an oriental dragon within it on the hilt. He shrugs, "It's not much but it'll have to do. I'll bet Kazuma Kenzaki would also wear this if he were here."
Chousuke is now clothed in a wizard-like outfit that consists of soft shoes, yellow breeches, a yellow robe with wide-mouthed sleeves, a belt with a pouch, wide-brimmed pointy white hat (a la Gandalf), and a white cloak. He has the wooden staff (although it's a head taller than him), a golden ring-shaped talisman hanging around his neck, and a satchel. "I don't believe it," gapes Chousuke in surprise "I look like a cross between Gandalf from 'Lord of the Rings' and one of those characters in a magical boys manga."
Nami is now in a blue traveling dress with a long skirt, a skirt that stretches to her ankles, stylish fantasy genre boots, a sky-blue cape with a purple interior, a dark-blue heart-shaped amulet-like necklace around her neck. Hanging on her back is the bow with arrows and the sickles hang in sheathes on her sides. She says, "This stuff's better than nothing. Otherwise I'd be exposing certain parts I don't want people to see."
Hana is in a green corset, green skirt, brown vest, green ninja-style boots, belt with a pouch, garter belts with pouches and a diamond-shaped buckle, the cuffs with sheathed daggers, a headband, a backpack, and a baldric of green silk stretching from her left shoulder to her right hip. She also has the bags of holding and the hand crossbow with bolts. "Remember," states Hana, as she reads the transformed language translations book "the longer we stay here, we may as well unintentionally build some sort of reputation, so please make good impressions as best as you good."
Hana closes the book, looks at the sign once more, and says to her young companions "This road leads to a town named Zelfina." Kenzaki gapes in surprise "Wow!" Chousuke says "I'd like a turn with that book."
"Okay," says Hana "let's start our adventure together!"
"YEAH!" exclaim the two young men. Nami unenthusiastically says, "Yay."
Then the four began their journey along the road to the start of their adventures on Red Orb.
During that time, the four of them encountered several bandits, minor monsters, and several wild animals. But every time they had a problem, each of them shows his or her worth.
Kenzaki and Hana prove to be the strongest out of the four of them, so it was proven when they fought off the bigger bandits. Kenzaki is inclined to not kill the bandits since he's new to this whole thing. Hana takes the role as caretaker and eldest of the group most seriously, she has everyone do roles of grueling training from magic spells to combat so they could handle themselves when they're on their own, and she even shows her prowess and seriousness against the goons that come their ways. She says she memorized all combat techniques she first saw on firsthand accounts from watching tournaments to seeing things on television before practicing them for future emergencies.
Putting very smart minds and exact information collected in their memory, Hana, Nami, and Chousuke work on constructing small tools. Hana used the ingenuity and crafting to build a gun she would use before she resorts to transforming into Garren. This allowed them to build several things like a wagon for themselves, but much to some of the group's pain must wait until they could afford a beast of burden and must pull it for fundamental training purposes.
When Nami tried to cook, worried to get sick from Kenzaki's own, she'd make the other retch instead. She was surprised that Kenzaki's the only to handle her cooking without getting sick, to that he explained that he's had worse before when he was an orphan. When she finally gets a taste of Kenzaki's own cooking, she marveled at how he happens to be gifted with great cooking skills. Hana memorized Kenzaki's cooking and does it whenever it was her turn.
The small group stops at each town, village, or city to work part-time for temporary room, board, and personal work (Hana's craftwork, Nami's teaching, Kenzaki's training, and Chousuke's studying). Hana holds onto most of the money they had earned. During one of those times, Hana had discovered that the year in this world is about 1011 AK, meaning that Lina Inverse may sometime soon face the Dragon Fangs bandit gang.
The start of their restless journey went on for 30 days…
"My god," sighs Kenzaki, "We've gone a really long way."
That afternoon, Kenzaki is pulling the wagon with Nami 'at the whip', so to speak.
Chousuke asks, "Am I the only one here with the question 'why the heck are we going to a dangerous bandit gang's lair' in mind?" "Lina the Pink Sorceress should be entering that location anytime soon to blow most of those bandits to oblivion and take some of their treasure," answers Hana.
The group comes to what appear to ancient ruins at first, but they see that torches are lit and then they hear boisterous laughter on the other side of the gates.
The four of them climb up to see over the wall and see a large gang of bandits celebrating for raid they had performed some time ago. Past them is a balding burly bearded man in a fur vest sitting in a large wooden chair before the gang holding a goblet and with piles of treasure glittering around him; he's the leader of the bandits.
"You dirty bums done a good job!" congratulated the leader to his gang with a smile. "You've really cleaned out that town for me," he scoops up some of the golden fruits of their labor and "So here's a little shower for you!" showers his underlings with it. The bandit gang members are plenty pleased for their payment.
He presents another shower as he calls out "Days like this make me glad I'm a bandit!"
Kenzaki mutters quietly, "Not today." Hana holds Kenzaki down, "Don't do it, Kenzaki-kun, unless you want to get caught in the crossfire!" "Eh?" silently exclaim the younger travelers.
Then a humming ball of light comes flying in from the night sky before exploding much of the scene below.
The bandits are caught in major confusion and panic. The bandit leader exclaims, "What the hell is going on?" An eye-patched gang member came up to warn him, "Boss, over there! Bad news!" The bandit leader was confused and looks into the flames, then he screams in shock.
The four young travelers look through the fire, after another small explosion, and spot a young woman standing dramatically before the bandits. She has long and wild red hair like fire, an attractive petite body build, an adorable face, and red-colored irises in her eyes. She's dressed in purple-red tight-like leggings, boots, a purple-red tunic with short skirt-like extensions, two belts around her waist (one of them carrying a sheathed short sword), a black cape with a dark-pink interior and large collars, a golden-yellow bandeau over the tunic with matching panties, light lavender gloves, dark-colored shoulder shields encrusted with gems, a golden necklace, round golden earrings, a black bandana.
(A/N: it's the best I can describe Lina's garments, sorry!)
The young redhead below giggles mischievously at the bandits.
Silently, the unseen on-looking otherworld adventurers' responses are——
Chousuke gapes, "She's amazing!"
Kenzaki blinks, "She's powerful!"
Nami sweat-drops, "She's smaller than Kenzaki!"
Hana gasps, "She's Lina Inverse!"
Chousuke, Kenzaki, and Nami exclaim quietly, "She is Lina Inverse?!"
The bandit leader begins panicking more at the sight of her, "Y-Y-You! I can't believe it! How did you find me, you rotten little magic-using bandit killer?!"
Lina just smiles as she prepares a destructive-looking ball of magical energy in her hands, just long enough for the bandit leader to scream, "RUN FOR YOUR LIVES! IT'S LINA INVERSE!"
"That's me!" smiles Lina, launching her fireball at him.
The bandit leader goes up in flame before he could run away and that same fireball that inhales him explodes against the castle parts of the lair, it causes several more explosions around the area.
Watching her now go after the treasure, the on-lookers from another world carefully watch her while sneaking in. Kenzaki kept as discrete as possible but is amazed by her actions "Man, Lina-san's rough." "You can say that again," says Chousuke.
"And thus," quietly states Hana, "Lina Inverse, the self-proclaimed sorceress supreme, dedicates her life to defeating the tyranny of evil bandit gangs, as well as raid them of whatever riches they stole for her own wealth. As you can see, this one den of wickedness is mostly destroyed, still this is just one of many and evil exists in this world too. She wishes to fight on for her pleasure."
Nami was about to ask out loud, but the boys witnessing Lina's power firsthand slaps their hands over her mouth to remind her to keep quiet. Hana cringes at the noise of the slaps, knowing that Lina may be alerted of their presence.
Hearing something around her, Lina turns around and spots the four adventurers. Hana frowns at Nami, "Big mouth."
Lina holds up a hand presenting another ball of magical energy toward them, Chousuke steps in front of his friends "We're not with these vile bandits!"
The female redhead's face softens and she dismisses the spell she was about to cast, she asks them "Then why are the four of you doing here?" Nami says, "We're new to this adventuring business and we're looking for someone with great experience." Lina shrugs "Doesn't matter, it doesn't fill my purse any."
Chousuke says "You couldn't possibly carry all of their treasure on your own, we were planning on taking the leftovers in our wagon and pay you with 2000 gold pieces worth for the three of us from the loot so we could travel with you. Think about it." Lina ponders quickly, "You're a brilliant young child, but double that price and it's a deal." Chousuke and Hana shake hands with the red-haired sorceress, "Done."
Lina regains her smile and poses dramatically, "Keep fighting! Never say die!"
"B-B-But that's our treasure!" coughs the smoked bandit leader before he finally keels over, permanently down for the count.
Kenzaki shakes his head, "That bandit leader's such a loser."
To be continued…