One day after testing his Faiz power, Thomas walked leisurely under the afternoon sun in Midtown Manhattan. For the first time in a long time, he felt truly confident. The emotional confusion after his night with Christine was still there, but now it was overshadowed by a new certainty he felt from the power at his fingertips. He no longer just had one random trick. He now had a choice. Inside his Ride Booker were two cards representing two very different fighting philosophies. He felt ready. He felt like he could face anything this city threw at him.
That confidence felt warm in his chest. He continued his walk, his smile still present, when suddenly.
BOOM!
A deafening explosion rocked the street, rattling window panes. The ground beneath Thomas's feet trembled for a moment. Car alarms blared in unison, and the afternoon peace shattered into panicked screams. People ran in all directions, away from the source of the sound.
Thomas immediately turned, his instincts taking over. Across the street, an armored car lay on its side, its back door mangled and smoking. From the gaping hole, a man in a strange yellow-brown costume leaped out. Attached to both his arms were large metal gauntlets that hummed with energy. Shocker.
Thomas's first thought wasn't about the fight. His eyes automatically scanned the area, looking for casualties. He saw several security guards lying unconscious near the truck. Shocker ignored the surrounding panic. He raised his gauntlets again, clearly intending to blast open the bank door behind the truck. There was no time to think. Civilians were still within the blast radius.
"Damn it," Thomas muttered. "I have to stop him."
He turned and ran into the nearest alley, disappearing from the panicked crowd's view. In the darkness of the narrow alley, he didn't waste time choosing. He instinctively reached for the card he knew best, his first card. "Henshin!"
He inserted the Mighty Morphin Ranger card into his Decadriver.
KAMEN RIDE: MIGHTY MORPHIN! RED RANGER!
In a flash of red light, his form transformed. As he stepped back out of the alley onto the chaotic street, it was no longer Thomas Vance who appeared, but the iconic Red Ranger, with his Power Sword attached to his waist.
"Your business here is finished!" he shouted, his voice powerful and heroic through the speaker in his helmet.
Shocker paused for a moment, then burst into roaring laughter. The laughter was hoarse and mocking. "Look what we have here. A circus clown," he said.
Driven by adrenaline, Thomas attacked first. He lunged forward, swinging his sword. However, his movements, though powerful, felt reckless and predictable. Shocker easily parried the sword attack with one of his gauntlets, the slight vibration from the gauntlet enough to numb Thomas's arm. Before Thomas could regain his balance, Shocker fired.
An invisible wave of sonic energy shot from his gauntlets. Thomas, confident in his armor's durability, tried to withstand the attack. It was a fatal mistake. The energy wave hit him like an invisible sledgehammer. His armor didn't dent or crack, but the immense vibration propagated through it, directly into his bones.
A strange, excruciating pain coursed through his body. His teeth chattered violently inside his helmet, his head felt like it would explode, and his vision blurred. He was thrown violently backward, crashing into the hood of a car with a loud thud before falling helplessly to the asphalt. He tried to get up, but his whole world spun. His ears rang incessantly.
"How does that feel, Hero?" Shocker taunted as he walked closer. He fired again.
Thomas was thrown back again, this time hitting a brick wall. He could feel his internal organs shaking. He was completely outmatched. He didn't know how to fight an attack like this. Physical strength was meaningless against internally destructive vibrations.
He tried to get up, his joints feeling like they were vibrating loose. He managed to get to one knee, his red armor now flickering in places, as if struggling to maintain its form. His vision was still blurred.
Shocker walked closer casually, savoring his victory. "Told you, kid. Just a circus clown," he said. He stopped a few meters in front of Thomas and raised both his gauntlets, rippling sonic energy visible in the air around them. "Show's over."
As Shocker prepared to unleash a final attack, Thomas's blurry vision caught something behind him: several civilians still crouched in fear near the bank entrance. He knew a full-power blast from this close range would not only destroy him but also injure them.
No. He wouldn't let that happen.
His pain was forgotten, replaced by a desperate surge of adrenaline. This Ranger form wouldn't work. He needed something else. Something faster. With his last remaining strength, his trembling hand fumbled at his waist, his gloved fingers searching for the Ride Booker. He managed to open it. He had no time to think. He only acted on instinct. His hand gripped the silver card.
He pulled it out. As Shocker aimed his glowing gauntlets, ready to fire, Thomas, still kneeling in his damaged Red Ranger armor, raised the Kamen Rider Faiz card with a trembling but determined grip.
Sonic energy crackled in the air as Shocker's gauntlets reached full power. He grinned behind his mask, ready to obliterate the kneeling red clown before him.
However, inside the damaged Red Ranger helmet, Thomas's eyes gleamed with desperate determination. With his remaining strength, he slammed the Kamen Rider Faiz card into the Decadriver's central slot.
A powerful, clear electronic female voice echoed from his belt, cutting through the humming sound of Shocker's gauntlets.
KAMEN RIDE: FAIZ!
Shocker unleashed his attack.
Just as the deadly vibration wave shot forward, the Red Ranger armor on Thomas's body exploded into thousands of red light particles. The sonic blast only hit empty air, slamming into the asphalt behind him and creating a small crater. Shocker lowered his gauntlets, his hidden eyes widening in disbelief. "What?!"
The red light particles didn't disappear. Instead, they spun and reassembled with lightning speed. Glowing red energy lines formed a skeleton, which then quickly filled with sleek black metal and sturdy silver plating. Finally, the large yellow eyes on his helmet lit up with a sharp, piercing light.
In the place of the battered Red Ranger, now stood Kamen Rider Faiz, upright and filled with new power. The second round of the fight began. With a burst of speed, Thomas shot forward, now moving like a ghost. Shocker, startled, couldn't land a single attack. Every time he tried to fire a vibration wave, Thomas was no longer there, appearing behind or beside him, landing a series of fast, precise punches and kicks to Shocker's body.
"Shut up, insect!" Shocker roared, growing frustrated and firing wildly in all directions.
Thomas easily evaded all the attacks. He felt an incredible difference. This was no longer just strength; this was control. He could feel the energy flowing within his suit, responding to his every thought in a fraction of a second. After overwhelming Shocker, Thomas decided to end the fight.
He took the red Mission Memory chip from the Faiz Phone attached to his belt, then inserted it into the Faiz Pointer on his right leg guard. He then opened his phone and pressed the ENTER button.
A powerful electronic female voice echoed from his belt: EXCEED CHARGE!
As the red energy began to crackle violently across his body, a strange echo of Japanese lyrics resonated in his mind, feeling like a chant from the core of the power itself.
~ Ima hitori hitori no mune no naka... Me wo samase The Time To Go... ~(~ Now, within each person's heart... Wake up, The Time To Go...)
The Faiz Pointer on his leg opened and fired a red targeting laser cone that instantly locked onto the panicking Shocker. A quieter electronic voice sounded: Ready.
Thomas ran and leaped high into the air. At the peak of his jump, he shouted with a powerful voice.
"This is your end!"
His leg, now enveloped by the spinning "Crimson Drill" of glowing red energy, shot down along the laser path with devastating speed. The kick hit Shocker dead on. There was a huge explosion that sent nearby cars flying. As the smoke and fire cleared, a burning red Φ (Phi) symbol was briefly visible in a small crater on the asphalt before finally fading away.
Thomas landed steadily. Shocker lay in the middle of the small crater, unconscious, his metal gauntlets broken and smoking. As police sirens grew closer, Thomas turned and sped away, disappearing into the city's alleys as a red flash.
That night, he returned to his apartment. He reverted to human form, his body still incredibly sore from the attack he received as the Ranger. But he had won. He looked at his two cards lying in his Ride Booker. One representing raw power, the other representing speed and precision. He had learned the hard way.
"Lesson learned," he thought.