Inside the abandoned auto repair shop, the arguing was like two male cats in heat howling at each other, sharp and meaningless.
"You have absolutely no idea what war trauma is! You just know how to wallow in your outdated moralistic manual and wallow in self-pity!"
Tony Stark bent over from a violent cough, but he still stubbornly raised his face and pointed at Captain America's nose.
"He's killing people! He's Carnage civilians! And you still want to award him a medal?!"
"He had no choice! He was forced into it!"
Steve Rogers refused to budge.
"If we give up on him, what's the difference between us and Shocker? Tony, Howard would never—"
"Enough!!"
A loud shout interrupted this pointless debate.
"This is a safe house, not a nursery for you kids to hold debates."
"Your argument is so loud the Shocker patrol can hear you three kilometers away. If you want to die, turn left and don't dirty my floor."
Tony was about to retort, but he was silenced by the murderous intent emanating from the black knight.
"I have intelligence and resources."
The knight walked to the rusty roller shutter door and pulled it hard.
"But I don't need two blighted creatures who only fight amongst themselves. Stark, your armor is a pile of scrap metal. Rogers, your brain is a fossil. Now, take your laughable sense of justice and vengeance and get out."
Sunlight pierced the darkness of the garage.
Tony Stark gritted his teeth, wanting to say something harsh to save face for the Stark Family, but in the end he just snorted coldly and dragged himself out.
Steve gave the mysterious knight a long look, then hesitated, as if he wanted to say something but couldn't.
"Remember my words, veteran," the knight said coldly. "If you want to save that killing machine named Barnes, first turn yourself into a monster even more ruthless than Shocker. You can't save anyone with words and a shield."
Steve paused for two seconds, picked up the dusty shield, and turned to walk into the blinding sunlight.
"Clang!"
The roller shutter slammed shut, cutting off all outside light.
The garage fell into a deathly silence, broken only by the creaking of the old ventilation fan.
The black knight stood there for a long time, and only after confirming that the two troublemakers had completely left did he slowly loosen his clenched fists.
"Laugh--"
With a sound of air pressure being released, he raised his hands and placed them on either side of the helmet, which resembled Locust's head.
"Click."
The bio-lock at the connection point has been released.
He pulled upwards and ripped off the blood-stained helmet.
There was no handsome, dashing agent face as one might imagine, nor the heroic aura of someone sacrificing themselves for justice.
What was revealed was a dark, sweat-covered, bald face.
His face bore several hideous scars.
He casually tossed his helmet onto the workbench, walked to the corner, and pulled out an encrypted satellite phone from under a pile of greasy rags.
His fingers flew across the keys, typing out a long string of gibberish.
"Beep--Beep--"
The call was connected.
"It's me."
The bald black man pulled a cheap cigar from the only old tin box he had, but he didn't light it; he just held it to his nose and greedily inhaled the tobacco aroma.
"Yes, Badr. Operation codename: Kamen Rider."
The person on the other end of the phone inquired about the two "guests" from earlier.
Badr let out a disdainful sneer, stuffing the unlit cigar into his mouth and chewing it fiercely.
"Those two? Forget about them."
"That Stark guy is a classic example of a self-destructive personality. He treats the battlefield like a stage, his mind filled with how to cover up his incompetence with more expensive fireworks. His tin toys are like paper in front of Shocker's bio-weapons."
Badr paused, a flash of disdain in his eyes.
"As for that Captain America... ugh, even worse."
"He lives in the past. There's no murderous intent in his eyes, only a nauseating pity. Facing a Shocker Riders who can tear apart a tank with his bare hands, he actually thinks about 'awakening his conscience'? He's as naive as a Boy Scout going to war for the first time."
"These two are not suitable allies." Badr's voice was cold and rational. "They would slow us down and even expose the entire ' Anti-Shocker Alliance's' trump card. I've driven them away."
The person on the other end of the phone wasn't surprised; they simply gave a few brief instructions.
"Clear."
Badr spat out the cigar crumbs from his mouth.
Hang up the phone.
Badr picked up the black Locust helmet again.
He stared at the two compound eyes on the helmet, as if he were looking at his own fate.
" Shocker..." he murmured, "You've turned me into a monster too... then be prepared to be devoured by one."
He ran his fingers over the black helmet, the unique tactile sensation of the biological carapace emanating from his fingertips.
A chill crept up his fingertips and into his bones, dragging him back to that nightmarish hell.
Memories flood back.
It was fishy, sticky, and smelled of a mixture of formaldehyde and rotting flesh.
Back then, he wasn't a " Kamen Rider " or an underground resistance fighter.
His name is Yehya Badr, a Doctors Without Borders doctor who works in the war-torn Middle East to stitch up the wounds ripped open by bombs.
Until that day, a black truck without any markings stopped at the entrance of the refugee camp.
What followed was endless darkness.
When he woke up, he was already lying on an operating table that could drive any normal person insane.
The bright lights blinded everyone, and all they could hear was the elegant yet cruel voice of the devil in the white suit—Dr. Death, Gustave Schmidt.
"A perfect skeletal structure... a good tool is one that requires no thought. Give him a larger dose; I want to see how long his soul can hold out."
That was a torment far more painful than being slowly sliced to death.
The green liquid medicine was forcibly injected into the spine through the thick syringe.
That was Locust gene extracted by Shocker, carrying a savage aggressiveness, frantically devouring and recombining his human cells.
Every muscle was breaking apart, every nerve was screaming.
He convulsed on the operating table, his throat emitting roars, his fingernails digging into the metal surface until they bled.
"Failed." Doctor Shinigami coldly stared at the series of zeroed values on the monitor, a look of disgust flashing across his face. "The rejection reaction was too strong; the prefrontal cortex was damaged, making it impossible to implant the control chip. Tsk, another piece of junk."
"Throw them into the cremation pit, don't take up space."
Badr was dragged out like trash.
That's the back mountain of the Shocker base, a natural deep pit.
It was filled with "junk" items just like his.
There were women with their chests cut open, children with mutated limbs, and countless pieces of flesh melting like mud.
He was thrown down, crashing heavily onto the corpses.
That night, a torrential downpour began.
Rainwater mixed with bodily fluids poured into his mouth and nose, choking him and causing a burning pain in his lungs.
But he couldn't move; the Locust genes within him were waging a desperate battle against his last vestige of human will.
Silence reigned all around, broken only by the distant hum of the crematorium heating up, like a countdown to death.
"Am I going to die here...?"
Yehya looked at the sky in despair.
He was unwilling to accept it.
He saved so many people, and in the end, he's going to rot like a piece of meat in this unknown pit?
Just then, a crack appeared in the sky.
It wasn't lightning, but a beam of moonlight so pale it was almost invisible.
The light pierced through the thick dark clouds, ignoring the torrential rain, and shone directly on his battered body.
Within that light, he saw a figure.
Tall and imposing, with a white bone bird's head, holding a crescent-shaped scepter symbolizing power.
That wasn't an illusion.
The oppressive force emanating from the depths of his soul made him hold his breath.
Do you want revenge?
The voice was ancient and grand, exploding directly in his mind, making his soul tremble.
Look around you, look at these wronged souls. Justice is dead, the law has become a joke. Only one kind of justice remains in this world—an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.
The bird-headed deity lowered its head, pale Flame burning in its empty eye sockets.
"I am Khonshu, the Moon Goddess, the Guardian of the Avengers."
"Offer your loyalty, and in the darkness, I will grant you the power to tear through the darkness. You will become my representative among men, my fist, my blade."
Are you willing?
Badr's heart, which had long since stopped beating, twitched.
Are you willing?
Is that even a question?
Even if it means trading my soul, even if it means becoming a monster capable only of slaughter, as long as I can crawl out of this hell, as long as I can twist that Doctor Shinigami's head off...
"I... do!!"
Badr mustered all his strength to squeeze out this hoarse roar from his throat.
"Boom--!!"
The moonlight engulfed him.
The Locust genes that had been ravaging his body and devouring his life were miraculously stabilized under the cleansing power of the gods. The cells that had initially rejected him began to fuse, and the shattered muscles rapidly healed, transforming into even more resilient mutated tissue.
strength.
An endless surge of power coursed through his entire body.
At the edge of the cremation pit, two Shocker soldiers responsible for pouring gasoline were still complaining about the awful weather.
"Hurry up and finish burning it so you can go back to sleep. This is really bad luck."
"Exactly, the quality of this batch of test subjects is really poor; even that Doctor Shinigami got angry..."
Suddenly, a hand emerged from the pile of corpses and gripped the slippery mud on the pit wall.
With a forceful effort, he dug his fingertips into the Rock.
What was that sound?
Before the two could react, a dark shadow shot into the sky, bringing with it a cloud of mud and rain.
"Snap!"
Two crisp cracking sounds rang out clearly in the rainy night.
The two Shocker soldiers didn't even have time to scream before their necks were snapped by those large hands, and they collapsed limply into the mud.
Badr stood in the torrential rain, completely naked, his skin a strange bluish-black hue.
He gasped for breath, greedily inhaling the free yet blood-stained air.
He raised his head and looked at the full moon hanging high in the sky.
"I am the Fist of Khonshu..."
"I am... Hunter's Moon."
The memory abruptly ended.
Inside the abandoned auto repair shop, Yehya Badr took a deep breath, suppressing the chill that rose from his very bones.
He put on the black helmet that was called " Kamen Rider " again, and his compound eyes shone with a scarlet light.
That wasn't for the sake of justice.
That was for revenge.
" Shocker..."
Badr walked to the workbench, picked up a red marker, and drew a heavy cross on the map on the wall.