Thrown about by several large explosions, six colorful heroes in tight spandex ran for cover from their foe, a very large demonic-looking creature with a few eyes too many, some impressive wings, and a third bionic arm. The green hero leaned out from behind the wall that he stood behind.
“Captain, guys, I don’t think we can do this by ourselves,” he said, his voice not at all affected by the helmet completely enclosing his head. “I think we should call for reinforcements.”
The red hero nodded, crouching behind a large crate that had somehow survived the onslaught. “You’re right, Doc. We shouldn’t let pride at what we do endanger us this much.”
The yellow one softly laughed. “Humility from Captain Marvelous, and all it took was a bad guy that’s strong enough,” she said mockingly as she watched Captain Marvelous take out the cellphone-like device that he and his team used to get into costume, and punched in some numbers.
“Yeah hi, this is Gokai Red,” the captain spoke, holding his cellphone against the side of his helmet. “We got a situation here that we can’t handle, and we’d really like some backup. You can tell where we are, right? Yeah, okay, I think we can hold out a little longer. Thanks.”
“I can’t believe that guy managed to counter almost every attack we threw at him,” the pink hero exclaimed as she joined her teammates in waiting for the requested backup.
The blue one merely nodded and adjusted the grip on his cutlass.
After another few tense moments, the monster grew restless. “Come out and fight me, you cowardly excuses for space pirates,” it bellowed, somehow without moving its mouth very much. It then fired several more shots in the general direction of the hiding heroes. With a cry, the heroes were thrown to the ground once more, behind the smoke generated by the attack. Their costumes evaporated off their prone bodies, leaving them in their usual, similarly color-coordinated clothing. The smoke cleared to reveal the pirates slowly marching towards the monster, arrogantly twirling their weapons and generally making a real smug, if not somewhat bloodied impression.
“You people gotta be joking. You’re still coming at me all confident like that?” the monster roared.
“Yeah,” Captain Marvelous replied. “Cos it’s not just us doing this anymore.”
Just when the captain finished his statement, three more colorful heroes arrived on the scene, quickly rappelling from the roof of one of the nearby buildings.
“This round, we’re playing,” the new red hero proclaimed. As one, all three newcomers put their right hand to their left wrist, turned a ring around on the devices they wore on their wrists, and then pressed the big button inside the ring.
IT’S MORPHIN’ TIME, a disembodied voice called out as the new heroes’ costumes quickly materialized from their feet up, leaving only their eyes uncovered. Holding their arms such that the sunglasses that had popped up from the wrist-worn devices aligned with their faces, they themselves called out “Let’s morphin’,” upon which the sunglasses wrapped themselves around the holes in their helmet, finishing their heroic ensemble.
The monster stood there, dumbfounded. It didn’t recognize the new heroes very well. Before it could ask who they were supposed to be, the pirate heroes standing further back took out their cellphones, stuck a key in each, and turned.
Another, more excited voice called out, GoooKAIGER!
“Now, let’s make a show of it,” said Captain Marvelous, now Gokai Red once more. The new arrivals braced themselves in front of him as the red one tapped out a beat.
“Busters! Ready…”
At that precise moment, the monster realized who he was up against. He hadn’t trained against the Go-Busters and their specific fighting styles, like he had against the thirty-five teams that had come before. He started to panic. He had one trump card, but was warned by his superior that it was too risky to use.
He used it anyway.
“GO!” Red Buster finished, and charged towards his opponent, followed closely by his yellow and blue teammates, and the Gokaigers trailing right behind.
A rippling portal appeared in their path, between them and the target, and all nine warriors ran right into it and disappeared.
The monster had no idea where they’d end up, but could only hope it was somewhere in deep space or something. He hadn’t taken the time to set a destination, so as far as it was concerned, they could be anywhere.
What mattered more to the monster was that the Gokaigers were out of his proverbial hair, and so were the Go-Busters. The trump card had obviously worked, at least in the sense that if it had transported the two Sentai into some inhospitable or (heavens forbid) downright deadly environment and killed them, it had done at least the most important part of its job just fine.
But if it had to be entirely honest, the limb pain that the sudden playing of that trump card had left it with was a bigger source of concern.
Meanwhile, somewhere else entirely, a young earth-pony colt by the name of Ochre Flame sat in a small family restaurant, waiting for the rest of his friends of arrive. He nibbled absently on a hay fry, and turned to his companion, a pegasus colt roughly his age.
“I’m tellin’ ya, Gilson. This is gonna be the day,” Ochre said with regained confidence. “By this time next week, we’ll all know our destiny.”
Gilson Process nodded with a short grunt and nabbed a fry from Ochre’s plate. “I’d hope so. We’re all at the threshold of drinking age and we’re still blank. How often does that even happen?”
“Hard to say,” said the little unicorn filly that walked in. “Sometimes, in general. But when you have five of them in one city, the odds go down fast.”
“Lutein,” Ochre said in greeting.
“Ochre. Gilson. What’d I miss?”
“Ochre was just having another quasi-prophetic moment over his fries. I was just about to make a wager on it,” Gilson answered.
“Were you now?” asked Lutein, flicking a lock of her goldenrod mane away from her face.
“Yeah. And I’ll bet you twenty bits that he’s full of plop and we do not get our cutie marks this week.”
“You’re on, Gil. I’ll see your twenty, and raise you another five that we do.”
Ochre took the last hay fry and looked out the window. “What’s keeping Fandango and Pine Blade?” he asked nopony in particular.
“I think Fandango said she’d go ahead to the place, and she’d bring Pine along,” Lutein helpfully answered.
“Then I suppose we should head out ourselves and get this party started.”
Shortly after the three ponies met up with their friends in a field just outside the city, Lutein twitched and fell over. Gilson and Ochre were there with her within seconds. The lithe earth-pony colt Pine Blade silently nodded in approval of their prompt reaction.
“Lute! What happened? Are you okay?” the two colts asked as one.
“Yeah, I’m good,” the little unicorn answered. “Thanks for the concern, guys. There’s just… something massive coming. I can feel it in my horn, and it… surprised me, is all…”
With a loud crack, a distorted hole was torn in the air above the field, and nine colorful bipeds fell to the earth.