Chapter 235: Tony: The Laws of Victory Have Already Been Decided!
Tony looked at the magenta Rider, then back at Ethan, with the specific look of someone trying to establish whether backup had arrived or a second problem had.
Ethan gave a small shake of his head.
Not mine.
Tony absorbed this. He'd developed a working assumption that anyone who could transform into a Kamen Rider was either Ethan or someone Ethan had equipped. The head shake revised that assumption. He filed it and looked back at the figure in front of him.
"Professional courtesy," Tony said. "Rider to Rider — walk away. This doesn't have to go further."
Decade tilted his head. The gesture had the quality of someone examining an interesting insect.
"That armor," he said, with the mild contempt of someone reviewing work that doesn't meet their standards, "is the best you've got? And you haven't even transformed?" He waved a hand. "Disappointing. I've seen junior Riders with more dignity."
Tony's jaw tightened. He did not appreciate being called a junior anything.
He fired — ice beam, laser burst, suppressive pattern designed to force lateral movement and open an angle. Clean combination. Against most opponents it would have worked.
Decade sidestepped the first, was already through the second, and had a card in the reader before Tony had finished the sequence.
A blade materialized in his hand. One swing.
The armor — Tony's newest, the one he'd spent the better part of three months building and had been looking forward to testing against something worthy — split down the center. Not cleanly. Catastrophically.
Tony went to one knee.
He looked at the damage. He looked at Decade. He looked at the damage again.
Why does this keep happening to me.
"Your suit," Ethan said helpfully, from his position against the wall, "keeps meeting people who outclass it."
"I'm aware," Tony said, through his teeth. "Thank you."
Decade stood with the sword loose at his side and the particular patience of someone who has already decided how this ends and is giving the other party time to arrive at the same conclusion. "You have a belt," he said. "Use it. I don't finish fights against people who aren't trying."
Tony got to his feet.
The truth was he didn't want to transform. He had reasons that were real even if they were also slightly ridiculous — the Rider form was Ethan's gift, Ethan's technology in the most direct sense, and Tony Stark's ego had spent months constructing an argument that he should be able to win something without it. That he could contribute something that was purely his.
Every single time he went out in the new armor, something dismantled that argument.
He looked at the belt. He picked up the two Fullbottles — Rabbit, Tank, the best-match combination, the one that actually worked.
He'd modified the transformation sequence. Spent weeks on it. Tried every variation he could think of.
He could not get rid of the sound effects. He could not get rid of the compulsion to say things he would under no other circumstances say.
He held both Fullbottles in one hand, extended toward the Driver — his own style, not the standard double-rotate, because if he had to do this he was going to do it his way.
"Alright," he said. "Experiment commencing."
The mathematical formulas appeared around him as they always did — cascading variables, reaction chains, the visual language of the Build transformation expressed in the symbols that meant something to him specifically. Experimental apparatus materialized. Blue and red solutions moved through tubes in opposite directions.
The Fullbottles clicked in.
"RABBIT—"
"TANK—"
"BEST MATCH!"
He worked the lever.
"ARE YOU READY?"
The dual armor assembled — red half from the front, blue half from the back, the two halves closing around him with the synchronized precision of something that had been designed to be felt as well as seen.
"KAMEN RIDER— BUILD!"
"RABBIT TANK! YEAH!"
Tony's hand went to his face.
He kept his hand there for a moment.
The YEAH was inarguable. He had tried to remove it. It existed beyond his ability to remove it. It would be there every time, for as long as he used this form, announcing itself with the enthusiasm of a game show host.
He had also, without deciding to, just struck a pose.
Ethan was watching with the expression of someone who finds something funny and is being polite about it.
"Don't," Tony said.
"I didn't say anything."
"You're thinking it."
Decade was watching with what appeared to be the first genuine interest he'd shown since entering the room. He tilted his head again, reading the form, comparing it against something internal.
"Build," he said. "Not bad for a junior." He shifted his stance. "Let's see if the form suits you."
Tony straightened. The YEAH was behind him. The pose was behind him. He was Kamen Rider Build in the Rabbit Tank form and the laws of victory had — he stopped, because he was absolutely about to say the laws of victory have already been decided and he had not consciously decided to say that.
It came out anyway.
"The laws of victory," Tony said, with the resigned delivery of a man who has accepted that the suit has opinions about his speech patterns, "have already been decided."
A pause.
"I hate this," he added, which was not part of the transformation's vocabulary and was therefore entirely his own.
Ethan decided this was a reasonable time to step away and let Tony handle his own problems.
☆☆☆
-> 20 Advanced chapters Now Available on Patreon!!
-> https://www.pat-reon.co-m/c/Inkshaper
(Just remove the hyphen (-) to access patreon normally)
If you like this novel please consider leaving a review that's help the story a lot Thank you