Note: My kid is a fan of Tokusatsu like Super Sentai, Kamen Rider etc. I thought I would try my hand at it.

“Hey Timmy, the green suit said. “Take him on the left. Shelly has him on the right and I got center”

“!0-4” said Timmy dressed the black suit.

The grizzly monster, that resembled a misshapen pizza with tentacles, jumped up once in the air and vanished before appearing behind the team, splattering bits of pepperoni and anchovies at them. The team caught the projectiles full in the chest and were knocked backwards to the ground, while the pizza monster laughed uproariously.

“Ha ha hahahaahah! So much for the great Star Fall Team!! What a bunch of losers!”

The weary team got from the positions in the rock quarry and stumbled, but were undaunted nonetheless.

“Ugghh!” said the blue team member, clutching at his stomach. “I may never touch pizza again!”

“You said it!” the green one nodded. “I’m lactose intolerant anyway and just looking at this thing is enough to make me lose my appetite!”

“Yeah!” replied the gold one. “I’d take a whole plate of cold lutefisk over this”

There was a collective groan from the other team members.

“Whatt!!??!”, the monster shrieked. “You dare to compare me to a dish that would make even the staunchest Norwegian turn green?!!? Me!!??? Pizzalapus??!!.”

The monster reared back and wobbled its form, while muttering to itself and dropping bits of raw dough and melted cheese on the ground.

“I wonder if that’s limberger”

“NO! It is NOT LIMBERGER!! It’s Asiago, I tell you. Asiago!”, the monster roared as it started on it’s charging run, its feet seeming to squelch like mud after every landing, making a very unpleasant sound that reminded everyone of flatulence.

“Well, lets get this done, guys! Altogether now! Star Fall Team! Great Sword! Assemble!”

“Star Fall 1! Locked in!”

“Star Fall 2! Locked in!”

“Star Fall 3! Locked in!”

“Star Fall 4 Locked in!”

As they all came together, the Star Fall Great Sword appeared in its glory and floated upward, glowing above the team, swinging in a large horizontal arc.

“NO! NO! NO!” screeched the Pizzalapus

The wind picked up speed around the sword, creating a massive vortex of unstoppable wind, tearing into the ground in front of them, causing the pebbles and rocks to swirl around in an ever expanding circle.

“Ouch! Ouch! No fair, Star Fall Team! No Fair!”

The rocks spun in an increasing velocity and pelted the monster mercilessly. Sparks flew at every impact, forcing him to back away, towards the ledge and closer to the deep hole.

“I’m not going back! You’ll never take me alive, copper!”

The black member shook his head. “Who says that anymore?”

“Let’s keep it up, guys! Come on!”

“GREAT SWORD STAR WAVE!”

The large Great Sword’s glow increased to a light that was brighter than the sun sent a circular wave outward, knocking the Pizzalapus over the edge and into the abyss

“NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!” , I cried as its echoes reverberated across the walls of the chasm.

“Yeah. That’s what we’re talkin’ about!”

*****

Far above the Earth, in a spaceship that was always just out of radar range, the dark figure of the emperor Suetonius, walked purposefully on the polished surface of the bridge, while his soldiers stood by in a column, as still marble statues as he passed by them.

His short dark hair, framed his lined face as his piercing green eyes, stared at the tactical display before him and grinned slightly.

“My Lord?” said one of the aides as he approached nervously.

The emperor paid little attention to his approaching aide. He clasped his hands behind his back in military fashion.

“Ah, Gaius. You ARE such a worrywort”

The man called Gaius, dressed in a gray military uniform, stood stiffly at attention, his eyes forward, though his face betrayed lines of anxiety. No one liked to report failure of any kind. Such things usually came with a reprimand that left a mark that could never be removed and the individual would be sent to the mines if they were fortunate. Those who weren’t fortunate were never seen again.

“I already know what happened, Gaius”, the emperor, continued. “I saw it on the display. Your pizza monster made a very poor showing of itself and was easily defeated by the fledgling Star Fall Team that Zasafyel created out of 4 disaffected teens from some no name high school. You’d think the old man would’ve chosen someone from a decent school at least, but no, he had to choose a team from the substandard public school system. How uncouth.”

Gaius gulped and was about to open his mouth to protest, but thought better of it. A slip of the lip can sink a ship.

“That being said, Gaius,” he continued. “It is not actually a failure.”

Gaius’s eyes widened. The emperor stared at him, smiling in a way that a predator does when it finds a tasty meal. “Sir?”, he ventured, hoping that his one single word wouldn’t get his head chopped off.

“Watch and learn, Gaius.” the emperor said. The Star Fall Team just provided the key to the ultimate downfall.”

Taking a cue from the emperor, Gauis moved closer to the tactical display and watched as the battle scene began to change.

*********

As the dust of the rock quarry settled after the battle, the four members of Star Fall looked down where the monster had fallen.

“Whew! Well…..” said the one in black

“Yeah. We wait. Usually, they give the monster some kind of growth spell.”

“We’re still paying off the property damage from the last battle. The New Byzantine didn’t bring any liability insurance when they attacked”

“Leaving us to fit the bill for all the buildings, bridges and vehicles that were destroyed when the monsters started stomping around the city like that.”

They paused as they continued to stare down at the inert form of the pizza monster they just conquered.

“Uhhhh…nothing’s happening”

Green walked closer to the edge and pointed to his left.

“There’s a small path that leads to the bottom. Let’s take a closer look.”

Blue shook her head.

“I don’t know. That may be exactly what they’re expecting. Wait until we get close and then clobber us all with a wake kick.”

The others nodded in agreement.

Gold put a finger to the side of her helmet. “I can get a good scan from up here. We don’t need to go down.”

Everyone nodded their heads while gold completed the scanning process. The monster remained completely still at the bottom of the quarry looking like a grotesque lab specimen.

“Huh”, Gold uttered

“What is it?”

Gold looked towards the others and shook her head slightly. “It’s odd. There is no growth at all. What I didn’t expect is a reduction in size.”

“What?!? But it looks the same to me”

“Yes. Nevertheless, my readings indicate a definite reduction in size. It’s miniscule, yes, but it’s there.”

Green stroked his helmet chin with his left hand.

“Let’s call Zasafyel. He’ll know what to do.”

Using his wrist com, Green contacted Zasafyel and a holographic image of a digitized head appeared in front of them.

“Zasafyel. We defeated the monster but the empire has not sent the growth spell down as per the normal procedures.”

The digitized head turned to look to the body of the pizza monster, without saying anything.

*********

On the bridge, the emperor smiled slightly as he watched the drama unfold.

“Come on, old friend.”, he whispered. “You see it, don’t you?”

******

“Zasafyel?” Gold asked.

The head turned to face her helmeted head.

“Yes, I know what you found and it gives us…a few hours at most.”

“What do you mean?”, she asked.

The head appeared to sigh.

“The body is shrinking in size, yes. Its mass remains constant though”

“Meaning?”asked Green

“Meaning that once it reaches a certain point, it will become a black hole which will consume the entire planet in a matter of microseconds.”

The four team members looked at each other in a stunned silence, unable to read the faces behind the faceplates. The quiet moment was broken only by the soft wind blowing a few stray pebbles across the ground.

Then at last, Gold spoke.

“Zasafyel. What do we do?”

The digitized head turned slowly to her, his eyes downcast. Then, his image flickered with a sudden pulse of static and vanished leaving only the four, the body and the creeping feeling of gravity.