Kamen Rider Will-O

[JoeHundredaire]

I was debating whether or not to make this my first post... do I go "HAI GUYZ, I'S NEW AND READ MAH FIC!!!" or make a few posts just for the sake of showing myself, then post? I decided on the former. So, without further ado...

Title: Kamen Rider Will-O
Author: JoeHundredaire
Rating: R/FR18.
Disclaimer: The entire Kamen Rider property (including Den-O) belongs to Toei. And I’m not Joss Whedon or someone who might be able to legally make money off the Buffyverse. Not mine!
Summary: The train of time, DenLiner. Will the next station be in the past or the future? Thanks to Ethan, it's making a stop in Sunnydale just in time for Halloween…
Joe's Note: Obviously, if this is back in 1997… Willow can't be watching Kamen Riders Den-O or Kabuto, or Boukenger or Gekiranger. I've moved the entire thing up to 2007 to make the timelines work. But does it really matter in the grand scheme of things?

********************

Waiting until Buffy and Xander were out of sight, Willow ducked back into Ethan's. Now that the pushy blonde was gone, she wanted a chance to look around and actually pick out a costume for herself. Not that Willow didn't appreciate Buffy's help, but they were just very different people. Just because Buffy liked an outfit and thought the redhead would look good it in didn't mean Willow WANTED it on her body.

Wandering along one of the walls, Willow blinked as she peered through a beaded curtain. She hadn't seen this section when Buffy was pulling her around the store. Stepping through, the brunette looked around in wonder. She recognized this stuff! Zecters, Accellulars, GekiChangers… all sorts of Japanese import toys. "What is this?"

"This, my dear, is how I pay the bills." Willow looked back over her shoulder. Ethan, the nice British gentleman who had sold Buffy her dress, was behind her. "Whatever did you think I did eleven months of the year? This month is very lucrative, but not enough that I live off it all year. I make ends meet by selling high-quality period replica outfits, Japanese imports, and… shall we say… special adult costumes."

It took Willow a minute to figure out what he was talking about with the last bit and she blushed bright red, ducking her head and turning her attention back to the toys to hide her reaction. "So, um, is this stuff still for sale this month? Or is this just a stock room?"

Ethan chuckled and the curtain clinked softly as he entered the room fully. "Why it's still for sale, of course. I just relocate it because I realize that most of your peers would not appreciate things such as these. I do my best to listen for people discussing certain shows and then direct them back here. If I had known, I could have steered you in here before."

Nodding, Willow ran her fingers over a few of the boxes on the shelves before stopping at one. A large silver and black belt, with a familiar logo on the box. Den-O! This was perfect! It was part of her and Xander's normal Thursday night; he'd come over and she'd download the latest episodes of his favorite programs and they'd watch them.

Buffy wanted to be an eighteenth century woman to get Angel's attention, and now Willow knew exactly how to get Xander's. After all, what better way to remind Xander she was there and she was a girl than to remind him of the times they spent curled up on her couch watching television?

"I take it you're interested in the Terminal Buckle, miss?" Willow grabbed one off the shelf and turned to Ethan, nodding. "Excellent. Since it's Halloween tonight and I likely won't have another chance to sell that before closing… thirty dollars. And I'll even throw in a box of hair dye for you." Turning, he exited the back room and Willow followed behind.

Hair dye? Willow reached up to pat her head a few times. She didn't dye her hair. It's not like she had red hair with brown roots or something that he'd think she needed to touch up. Which reminded her, she needed to find a tactful way of reminding Buffy it was that time again. "Why do I need hair dye?"

Ethan placed the box on the counter and perused a display behind the register for a moment before setting a box of brown hair dye next to it. "I do try to watch these shows a bit so I'm not completely confused when my customers come in and attempt to discuss them with me. The hero… he is a brunette, is he not?"

"Oh. Yeah. You think I should dye my hair?" Willow reached up to run her fingers through her red locks. She'd never even considered that in the twenty or thirty seconds she'd spent working on her cunning, cunning plan. "Well… do you have stuff that's not permanent? So I can wash it out after a few days?"

Huffing, Ethan began to ring up her purchase. "Of course; that's what kind I gave you. I didn't think you'd want to turn such glorious red hair that color permanently. Thirty dollars plus tax comes to… thirty-two dollars and eighteen cents."

Willow dug into her purse, very glad she'd taken her parents' debit card and visited the ATM on the way. Two crisp twenties would pay for this… and then maybe she would visit the mall to spend a few more. After all, she was coming as she wasn't for the night. Buffy said she was supposed to get 'wild and crazy'. Nothing in her wardrobe worked with either of those things. Which meant… as much as she dreaded it… shopping time.

********************

"So you're trying to be… a Japanese guy for the night?" Buffy looked Willow up and down and gave the former redhead an uncertain look. "I'm not sure what to say there. Because if I tell you that you did good, that means you look manly and that's not a compliment. Except you're definitely wearing a push-up bra, which is giving you a very not-a-guy effect there. I'm confused."

Willow sighed as she stood in front of the mirror, trying to fluff her dyed brown hair into a style that looked messy without LOOKING like it was supposed to look messy. "No, I'm not trying to be a guy. I'm trying to be a character from a Japanese TV show that HAPPENS to be a guy. When you cosplay, it's okay to be a character that's the opposite gender. Well, if you're a guy trying to be Sailor Moon things can get kinda icky-looking, but for girls it's really not that weird."

There was a long slow blink from Buffy before the blonde shook her head. "I'm going to nod and smile like that made some kind of sense, and then I'm going to go over here and get my wig, kay?"

"It's really not that… oh, whatever." Willow sighed and went back to messing with her hair. Why did it bother her? She was probably going to spend most of the night explaining who she was to the kids… so why did Buffy being, well, Buffy-like bother her? Probably because her prepared excuse for the kids, comparing it to Power Rangers, would have gotten her an even weirder look and so she had nothing to work with?

Sighing again, Willow looked herself up and down in the mirror. She wasn't used to seeing herself with brown hair, for one. While it was a nice change of pace, she was really hoping the brown temporary dye actually DID come out after a week's worth of washing and was glad she had talked herself out of cutting it to actually look like Ryoutarou's. Apart from that, the only visibly different thing was the clunky Terminal Buckle belt around her waist and the black Rider Pass tucked into her pocket.

Well, actually she was different from head to toe. Hair, dyed. A tight-fitting new t-shirt and equally snug jeans, courtesy of a stop at Old Navy. And, as Buffy had pointed out, a push-up bra. Willow couldn't even think about the underwear she had on without blushing. Victoria's secret probably had something to do with how she got women to pay so much money for such tiny underwear. She wiggled her hips a bit. Were thongs supposed to feel like that, or was she just not used to them yet?

Sadly, they were the first clothes she had bought for herself ever. Cordelia's teasing about her mom shopping for her came back to her and Willow scowled. She could shop for herself. It wasn't her fault that her mom kept ordering stuff from catalogs while on the road for her, and Willow didn't have the heart to just leave the clothes in the delivery boxes…

The doorbell rang and Willow gave the ghost costume a fleeting look. She'd dug it out of the attic from last year (waste not, want not) just in case… but she wasn't going to wear it again. She had a perfectly good costume that she was comfortable in, so why not wear it? Giving her hair one final fluff as Buffy pushed past her to head for the stairs, Willow straightened up and smiled. Show time.

Standing near the top of the stairs, Willow waited and fidgeted nervously as she listened to Xander compliment Buffy. He really liked her costume… even though he knew who she was wearing it for. Well that wasn't fair. He was supposed to be irritated that she was dressing up for Angel, not drooling over it!

Willow rounded the corner and stomped down the stairs. Even with her deliberately heavy footfalls, Xander didn't look up from his appreciation of Buffy until after Willow had reached the bottom of the stairs. "Hey Will. Thought Halloween was about dressing up? Although hey, you dyed your hair. Looks… different."

"…you don't know who I'm dressed up as?" Willow looked down and then made a show of smoothing her t-shirt down to make sure it was behind the belt and not obstructing it, not to mention bringing attention to the Terminal Buckle itself. Xander still looked a bit confused. "I'm Den-O! From Kamen Rider Den-O! Remember? You make me download it every week and burn it to a DVD so we can watch it?"

There was a moment of silence pondering and then Xander frowned. "Uh, I hope I'm not the first to tell you this, but you're a girl. Ryoutarou is a boy. Unless something Hellmouthy is going on and you have a secret you need to tell me."

Willow scowled at her best friend. "Don't we need to go pick up some kids?"

********************

The spell was cast, and a pulse of magic rocketed outward from the back room of Ethan's. All across the Hellmouth, the power of Janus fed upon the small bursts of magic that Ethan had imbued in all the costumes and accessories he had sold.

Soldiers. Criminals. Demons. Angels. Aliens. Janus was just as imaginative as those who had dressed up, seizing upon every opportunity to inflict as much chaos as possible. The residents of Sunnydale suddenly found themselves at ground zero for rematches of everything from the Revolutionary War to classic comic book battles to the supreme war between good and evil.

Ethan Rayne smiled. "Show time."

 

[Ladymercury]

So... why did you get banned off of RB?

 

[JoeHundredaire]

So... why did you get banned off of RB?

Yeah, I was discussing this with Vash. Basically, never get drunk and comment to one moderator (*cough*Deacon*cough*) that another moderator (*cough*Megami*cough*) is unattractive. He will then proceed to meet her a month later in person, date her, carry a grudge for another month on top of that, and then band together with newly-modded Jer (see below) to get Ray to agree to a permaban.

Yeah. I saw a few of the posts on RB praising BlackAdam and stuff for banning me for this, that, or the other reason. All bullshit. Long story short: I was drunk and rude about Deacon's girlfriend a month before they started dating, and he took two months before deciding on a geeky way of trying to be manly and avenger her honor.

Glad to know you're here, though. You and 2-3 others, I was genuinely going to miss because I don't have non-RB contact info for.

EDIT: The Jer Feud:
TommyIsCancer/TommyIsGod/Etc... basically claims to hate me for 'crossing a line' when it comes to morality in a VIP thread that most people can't actually see, so he never has to deal with people calling him on his bullshit. I took a picture of a member that had been publicly posted multiple times, and was in fact a photo included in the Photobucket account the member linked to when asked to provide pictures, and used it to mock them. Evidently, that was somehow beyond what Jer considers acceptable behavior (ironic, if you look at his 'conversational' skills when he disagrees with anyone) and makes me a soulless, evil monster to him.

 

[JoeHundredaire]

Joe's Note: I realize this is going to be a departure from canon for Xander as well, but… he went as a generic soldier. I thought the spell might work on perception of identity to create the new personality… so Willow wanted to be Den-O and got the Imagin and a working belt. Xander just went as a grunt, and so… well, you'll see.

********************

Willow stumbled as something unseen swept over her from behind like a tidal wave. All of a sudden, she felt… different. Off. It wasn't something she could put her finger on, but she instinctively knew that something had changed. Something was different. Wrong.

And then, out of the blue, there were voices in her head. Her eyes got wider and wider as a cacophony played out inside her mind. Oh no. No no no. This couldn't be happening. They were just characters in a TV show. She couldn't be hearing them in her head.

'What's going on? Where are we? And where's Ryoutarou? Speak, girl!'

Momotaros? It had to be, as impossible as it was. His voice was just like on the television show and he seemed just as brash and impatient as his fictional self was.

'Relax, sempai. Sometimes the grass really IS greener on the other side. This might not be a bad thing.'

The master manipulator was there too. Willow made a mental note to keep herself far away from Buffy, Cordelia, and half the other girls from school until she could figure out what was going on or until she was sure Urataros couldn't actually take over her form and cause trouble.

'Speak for yourself, Turtle Boy. I liked Ryoutarou! I liked my grass!'

And they were just as obnoxiously as opposed as she remembered them being. Great. Not only did she have voices in her head, they liked to argue.

'Awwww. I'll never become the conductor of the train of time now! And where's Onee-chan?'

…why her? She had the psychotic and childish one in her head too? The others, she could deal with. But Ryutaros? A super-powerful child with the power to hypnotize people and a tendency to act out could only lead to badness.

'Silence! We have a duty to protect our host, and right now she is our host.'

And what multiple-personality moment would be complete without Kintaros? At least he was noble and somewhat sensible… and would sleep a lot, which meant one less voice in her mind half the time.

'Says who, Bear Boy? You?' There was a moment of silence and then a soft snore. 'Urgh! Bastard!'

Except she was. And all around her, everyone in costume was starting to react oddly. A pirate that looked a lot like Larry let out a deep laugh as he chased a giggling girl in a pirate wench costume down the street. Then a rather familiar snap-hiss cut through the night and Willow whirled around to find Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker dueling on someone's lawn. All around her, as far as she could see, something was turning the people into their costumes.

A growl behind her made Willow jump and then stumble backwards. What had been a group of nice kids in scary costumes was now a clump of snarling, evil-looking demons and vampires. Why did Sunnydale's children have to have such an obsession with the demonic? She'd been wigged out enough by their costumes but this… this just made it worse.

Well, if everyone was turning into their costume… and she could hear some very familiar Imagin bickering inside her head… then maybe, just maybe her toy belt was as real as Darth Vader's currently-ignited lightsaber. 'Momotaros!'

'You know who I am?' Momotaros sounded a bit confused, then she felt a not-hers sense of… satisfaction? 'I knew it! You're behind this! You stole us from Ryoutarou! Send us back, now!'

Willow sighed and kept backpedaling from the little monsters stalking towards her. 'Listen, I don't have time to explain this to you guys. Yes, I know who you are. No, I didn't have anything to do with this. But I really, really need help your help right now. And you like to fight. You can fight all these demons, but there are kids underneath. It has to do with how you ended up in my body. So you can only fight them if you don't kill them.'

There was a moment of silence in her head. 'She's ENCOURAGING me to fight random people? Hmm. Ryoutarou always lets Hana yell at me for that. I like this girl. I'm in!'

Reaching into her pocket, Willow pulled out the Rider Pass and took a deep breath. Either this was going to work and her problems were solved (at least for now) or she was going to look like an idiot for a few seconds and then get pounced on by a bunch of preteen not-really-demons. Holding the pass in her right hand, Willow reached down with her left to push one of the four buttons on her belt. There was a slight musical tone and the circle in the center of the belt lit up red. "Sword Form."

So far so good. Well, the belt had electronic sounds and lights. So that didn't really mean anything, come to think of it. Willow closed her eyes and then brought her right arm down, swiping the black Rider Pass across in front of her belt. "Henshin!"

********************

Corporal Alexander Harris shook his head, trying to clear the vague fuzziness in his mind. Corporal? Since when was he a corporal? For that matter, since when did he use his full name?

Looking around, Xander tried to figure out what was going on while fighting off what felt like a monster hangover. He hadn't felt that bad since the guys at Fort Bragg had taken him out drinking to celebrate his promotion to Private First Class. Wait, whoa. Drinking? Army promotions? Something was very muchly wrong here.

Evidently, he wasn't the only one who was having problems. His vision finally cleared and the pounding in his head settled down to manageable levels, allowing Xander to take in his surroundings. Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker were dueling on someone's lawn, something that looked suspiciously like an angel flew overhead in pursuit of some sort of winged demon, and Willow was currently backing away from a small army of demons.

That was bad.

Xander hefted his formerly plastic gun, amazed both at the cool metal in his hands and the fact that he had no problem with the weight. Aiming it seemed like second nature too. Lining up a shot, he prepared to open fire when a familiar word caught his attention. "Henshin?"

A burst of red light erupted from Willow's belt and Xander winced and used his hand to shield his vision. There was a loud rushing noise, like a passing train, and then silence fell again for a moment. Then, Xander heard a voice he recognized but wished he didn't. "Ore… sanjou!"

Willow had transformed into Den-O's Sword Form: a black PVC undersuit that made it way too evident that his bestest bud was a growing girl, along with silver and red armor over it. The helmet was a bit different; giant red goggles instead of the helmet he was used to, but Xander recognized it well. It meant that somehow Willow's prop belt had become real, and she had somehow been possessed by a real Momotaros. And no good could come from any sort of possession. The year since Buffy's arrival had taught him that much.

And if Willow could turn into HER costume… did that mean the demons were really people in costumes? Probably the kids they were supposed to be watching? While Xander wasn't exactly the brightest bulb in the chandelier, he didn't need to be to figure out that might be a possibility. Willow was transforming. He could remember how to field strip a whole bunch of guns, and more military regulations than he could shake a stick at. Was it really that far out there to think that these 'demons' might be in the same situation as Willow and he?

As he internally debated who he had to save, Willow from the demons or the demons from Momotaros, the decision was taken from him. "Listen, I don't do warning shots." As Xander inched towards Willow to either help or restrain her, her possessed form was busy pulling the four pieces of the DenGasher from her belt. There was a popping noise as she fitted the components together in a particular order. With the fourth piece in place, a red blade slid out to produce the Form's signature weapon. "From start to end, it's completely a climax!"

"Wait, Willow, Momotaros, Willotaros, no!" Xander rushed towards Willow and tried to grab her arm as she brought the sword back. "I think they're just kids!"

Growling, Willow lunged forward and swung her sword. Instead of cleaving through flesh like Xander had feared, it just raised lines of sparks and drove each child-demon back. "I know, you jerk! Willow already told me." Xander jerked back at the familiar and very masculine voice of Momotaros emerging from what was quite obviously Willow's body. "Now shut up and let me have fun."

Xander threw himself backwards as the red blade of Den-O's sword came perilously close to his chest, deciding to stand back and watch. No, he was… guarding Willow's six. Yeah. That sounded a lot better. Besides, the way Momo-in-Willow was hacking away at the demons, it would be really easy for someone to sneak up on her. Him. Them. Whatever.

He was rightfully worried, Xander discovered. As Willow tore through the child-sized demons, a hulking full-sized monster was lumbering up the street towards them. Hopefully, it was a real demon and not a football player with an interesting taste in costumes. Otherwise, Xander was going to feel really bad about what he was about to do.

Bringing his gun up, Xander took a deep breath and let it out before squeezing the trigger. The MP5 roared in his hands and three rounds tore through the head of the demon. It let out a sick gurgle before slumping forward onto the ground, its glowing blue lifeblood flowing out to puddle on the pavement.

The gunfire attracted even more attention, Xander found out when a roar echoed down the street and an identical-looking demon began lumbering towards him. Jesus assfucking Moses, that was one ugly bastard. He didn't even think before bringing the gun up and firing off another burst, peppering the demon with bullets. Given that he was firing the submachine gun with deadly accuracy when he had never touched a gun before… oh yes, something was most definitely wrong with him. Felt good, though. He idly wondered where his cigarettes were.

Before he knew it, Momotaros had driven off the miniature demons. While Xander's quarries bled out on the street, the Imagin possessing Willow let out a disgruntled huff before unclasping the belt around her waist. There was another flash of light and then the Willow he knew was standing there in front of him. "Xander?"

Xander nodded and gestured to her belt, then beyond her at the still-visible fleeing 'demons'. "Did you just..?"

Looking around nervously, Willow nodded. "Uh, yeah. Well, kinda." Then her eyes landed on the nearest of the two demons before sliding back up to Xander's gun. "Did you just..?"

"Pretty much." Yep, he'd found out that his 'toy' gun was a real MP5 and taken two demons down with the precision of a hardened soldier. And she'd just transformed into a fictional character, complete with the personality shift that came with being possessed by the demon that granted said character their powers. Why couldn't ANYTHING be normal in their life?

"This is wiggy."

"Oh yeah."

"Hey wait a minute. Where's Buffy?"

"…crap."