In front of him the table thudded under the immense weight of what had just been dropped on it.

"Go on, dig in."

"This isn't really what I'm good at…"

"What do you mean? You love eating! You love eating even more than Bibi does!"

"She does love eating," he conceded.

Slowly, uncertainly, Burgermon tried to pull off a slice of deep dish pizza Kibi was having him try. Five inches seemed excessively deep for deep dish, though. Burgermon was rapidly learning that his host was an experimenter; no matter how crazy a recipe sounded, Kibi was willing to try anything once to find the miracle dish to found his pizza empire on.

Burgermon pulled on a slice.

It wouldn't budge.

He pulled harder, but the slice was stuck to the rest of the pie like cement. Burgermon didn't have to say anything, Kibi was watching his friend failing to separate it from the rest of his most recent creation. Kibi's round face shined from the heat of the kitchen, the only place Kibi claimed to feel really at home. His belt was tighter, like he might've actually sweated off a few pounds Burgermon had met him. His hair was just stubble on his scalp after one of his self-inflicted razor haircuts to keep it simple and get it over with fast.

Kibi's face seemed to be scrunching in on itself when he frowned down at his friend's failure to separate a portion of his new pizza to sample, though. Regardless of how seriously he didn't take his appearance, there was nothing Kibi could focus on as intensely as the philosophy of pizza recipes.

"Not to worry!" he said, thrusting his finger straight up as his usual blind optimism took over. "I have a cutter than can cut through anything!"

Already Kibi had the Ju Ju Pizza game in his hand and jammed his thumb down on its trigger. He turned it over, inserting it circuit-first into the slot on the pizza-orange Gamer Driver Kibi had on out of nowhere. "Henshin!" Kibi exclaimed, face turning into a grin.

The usual blast of garish colors followed. Chopped mushrooms, fish, peppers and onions spun through the air and shrank to into dark outlines traveling up the arms and legs of Kibi's orange armor as he transformed into the mighty Kamen Rider ZZa. His giant pizza cutter, the Gashacon Wheel, was already attached to his arm, the pink disc on the end spinning as if eager for its task.

ZZa jumped up on the stool across from Burgermon, who leaned back in his own from surprise. In a very unsanitary fashion ZZa propped one foot on the edge of the table, and brought down the whirring wheel of his great pizza-slicing weapon like he was delivering justice to an implacable enemy.

Fountains of sparks erupted from the pizza as the giant wheel came down. ZZa leaned back and forth, bravely trying to carve through the massive pizza.

His blade didn't even sink half an inch into it.

Burgermon wasn't noticing that detail, though. Sparks had landed on top of the giant hamburger that made up his head and set the top bun on fire. He yelped and rank to the kitchen, sticking his head under the faucet.

ZZa pressed the blade of his weapon harder against the seemingly indestructible super-deep dish pizza. Burgermon's loyalty to his vision of an empire of pizza restaurants was a prize he valued above most things; ZZa wouldn't let the monster see him defeated by one of his own recipes. He leaned over harder but his blade didn't go deeper even with the pressure of his superhuman strength behind it.

"Grrraaagh!" ZZa yelled and yanked back his arm. Burgermon peeked out of the door to the kitchen, his giant burger-topped head not surreptitious at all. The Rider didn't notice him, instead focused entirely on the pizza that defied them. Mocked them.

"You will not win," Kamen Rider ZZa warned his pizza. It said nothing, but sometimes it was what an opponent didn't say that mattered.

ZZa clenched his fingers around the grip on his weapon, holding his finger down on the throttle button. He raked the wheeled across the pizza, then across it again an angle the bisected the first one. A third time at an angle that bisected the second, and then crossed the third angle in the middle with a fourth.

The classic pizza slice. It never failed.

And so it was when ZZa tried to pull away a slice, he was extremely surprised when it still refused to separate from the rest of the pie.

"No pizza can beat me!" ZZa declared. "I'm the master of pizza!"

"What are you yelling about, honey?" asked a short, heavy girl with a round face like Kibi's. Her limp black hair was pulled back in a tiny ponytail.

Burgermon cringed. "Eh, Bibiko-san…this might not be the best time. He's all fired up about this new pizza," the game monster tried to warn her.

"Don't worry, Bibi-chan!" ZZa said with unfailing confidence. "No pizza can defeat me! I am pizza!"

The girl, Bibiko, walked right past the proud Rider. "I guess the new cheese mix is a little tougher than I thought."

"You mixed the cheese?" ZZa asked, not quite believing her. "With what? Cement?"

She was completely unimpressed, whapping him upside the head with a wet rag. "It's been too bland lately, honey," she informed him. "You can't have people loving your pizza if it tastes boring."

ZZa let go of the throttle on his pizza wheel. It spun to a stop. ZZa stepped closer to the girl who didn't move, and hugged her in his powerful arms, lifting her right up off the floor. Bibiko didn't move, letting him make his display of affection.

"Bibi-chan, I love you," ZZa whispered. "You're just as dedicated to my dream as we are! You're never afraid to tell me what I need to hear!"

"Her cooking could stand some work," Burgermon mumbled. Bibiko didn't hear, or ignored her boyfriend's weird partner. She walked over to the indestructible pizza and knocked on it with her knuckles. A hollow stone echo was the response.

"Maybe I should leave a few out and try again," Bibiko mused.

ZZa gasped. "Make it soft enough to eat, but still chewy! We'll call the restaurant 'Pizza Bricks: We're Tough as a S***house!" he exclaimed. "How about that?"

"Might want to workshop that name a little bit, honey," Bibiko suggested.

None of them noticed the dark figure slipping away from the window.

To Be Continued…