#reunion posts stuff

A cell medal falls to the grass, the insignia on it like none others. Ankh blinks his eyes, adjusting to the light as though he'd just woken up from a long, long nap. He stood, full sized and mostly human. His arm the only monstrous part remaining.

"Shit." He hissed, dropping to the ground to look for the little medal. His claws raking through the grass until he found it. Clutching it close to his chest, but not reclaiming it yet.

Only now, with the coin safe and sound in his hands, did he look around. The critters who had also been out in the garden looked at him with a kind of naive, careless curiosity. Rare among creatures, but not uncommon with the critters. Some of them could be hostile, but they weren't here.

But neither was the one Ankh wanted to see.

"Ei-" He wouldn't respond to that name right now. Just like Ankh wouldn't have responded to much of anything just a few minutes ago. "OOO!" Desperate, he even mimicked the transformation sound of "Ta-To-Ba!"

It felt like too long, but it wasn't. It was only seconds. The critter was too fast on grasshopper legs for it to have taken any longer to get to the garden. "Eiji." Ankh said out of habit, relieved. "C'mere."

He scooped the critter into his arms, more gentle than he'd ever been. As though the critter was made of glass and feathers instead of flesh and magic. With shaking claws, he took the coins out of the critter's belt. One by one.

And the transformation dropped.

Hino Eiji was in his arms, limp and cold. But when Ankh pressed an ear to his chest, he heard a heartbeat. And then another, and another, and another. But they weren't strong, his breathing was weak and his body was still cold.

How much longer would they have to wait? How much longer would Eiji need to be trapped in the body of an animal instead of being his true self? How much longer would it take for Eiji to recover from a fate he did not deserve?

"How much longer?" He sobbed, all the emotions that kept him locked away in the body of a mindless bird bubbled to the surface. But he had to feel them. To be reminded that he was here to fight for Eiji.

"How much longer?" He screamed, scaring away the other critters who had remained out of curiosity.

"You know I can't answer that." Ankh can feel the world shift as this person arrives. A man outside of time and space, but somehow tethered nonetheless. Maybe in a similar way Ankh was to Eiji.

Also the person who delivered the critter medals to Ankh. A way to save Eiji, he had said. A way to give any kamen rider a time of carefree bliss.

He'd arrived at the end of that battle. With Eiji broken and bleeding. A stranger dressed in dark, dusty grays and carrying a book.

Not another, Ankh had thought. But the stranger didn't bare hostility. He brought an offer.

A way to preserve him. Transformation medals that would warp the mind and body. A way to trade away the human mind, all the painful thoughts and memories, for a body and mind that knew only simple things. Happiness, pleasure.

But most of all, this stranger- Woz- offered a way to keep Eiji alive.

It was too good to trust. After it all, how could Ankh possibly trust a good thing. Even if all he wanted to do was take it, save Eiji, he couldn't give away Eiji's fate so easily. "What do you want in return."

"Data." Woz's book fluttered open, and suddenly four coins were in his hands. The Critter Medals.

Ankh wouldn't take the risk of refusing them. But only three fit into Eiji's driver.

The last one was for him. "I need to prove the transformation works on the mind, I can't get that data from someone who's unconscious." Woz told him. This was the cost.

Every few months, Ankh's coin would fall out and he'd detransform. The first time it had happened, he didn't know where he was. Didn't know he was safe in Decade's garden and only meters away from the person he did this all to protect.

But he knew that when transformed, when he was just a fluffy little bird, he was happy. To this day, that was still true.

"Don't you think he should go back to rest?" Woz slowly pried the coins out of Ankh's claws, and slid them into Eiji's driver.

Ankh let Woz force the transformation. There was a change in the world again, as Woz vanished. And then a critter was back in his arms, looking up at him with confusion. It didn't know why it recognized the smell of this man.

Ankh set him down again. The only coin left in his hands was his own.

He took a final deep breath, and took it back within himself.

The pain was gone, replaced by a round squishy body. The bird and the critter, both returned to being blissfully unaware of the nightmares and heartbreak they'd both been through.

Fouze was happily sitting atop the person's head, watching the world as he was carried to… he didn't know. Meteor was crouched on the same person's shoulders, watching everything with more wary than wonder. They were dropped off at a school's gate, and detransformed as the rest of their club arrived. The person is forced into a handshake before leaving.

The person sits with Wizard as he detransforms only to personally get a doughnut from his favorite vendors. "Plain sugar." As always, to their disappointment. His people are coming to find him, but he always takes a moment of quiet to remember how much has changed. The person can almost relate. Beast is in a basket, curled up around a bottle of mayo, until Wizard decides to let him out.

Ghost floats alongside the person, and Specter follows at his heels, as they all approach a temple. A friend in a green shawl is there to meet them as they detransform. He offers takoyaki to the person, it's accepted this time, it isn't always. The person vanishes and the monk and the scientist arrive to see their friends returned once again.

Build and Cross-Z are carried in a basket, neither trusted to not run away or start fighting the person so carefully bringing them to a hidden away cafe. They tumble out and detransform in front of it. All the usual faces are there to recognize them as they walk inside, friendly and happy and not unlike the critters in that way.

Saber and Blades are returned to the book store in a wire basket that was taken last time this happened. An editor and a friend are both their to be surprised at the arrival of two familiar, dearly missed faces. The person picks up a new volume of a series and leaves, Espada never makes him pay for it.

Gavv is draped across the neck of the person like a gummy scarf, happily chewing on a snack, Valen is sitting in a bag slung over the person's shoulders. Both are set inside a place called Happipare and detransformed before their boss can see the cute little critters. But she is able to catch sight of the person who leaves. She doesn't know him, not yet.

…

The delivery guy arrives with bags of food for the critters, and is automatically let inside by this point. However, inside, it seems a lot of the critters are missing.

"Oh, this happens." Decade sighs with the relief of a man who wishes the critters would stay gone. He'd thought they would- the first few times it happened. "They'll be back by midnight."

"Yeah, the kid came by earlier to pick them all up." Diend sipped his tea, not realizing what he'd just said.

"Kid?"

"Hm? Yeah, the Woz guy. Zi-O's friend. From before the timeline switch."

He has something to do with this? "Of course it's him."