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Butter, milk, eggs, pizza crust, soda, celery, carrots, bread... did I already say eggs? I think I did. Yeah. The only thing bad about this new weapon stuff is that now I don't have like folded little notepads in my pockets anymore... but I could just fold more. I guess. Why didn't I think of that before JEEZ?

Bazzite huffed to himself and tried to keep track of his mental grocery list while out on patrol. He'd promised Benitoite that he'd hit the store at some point that evening so the new Captain figured he'd kill two birds with one stone - patrol and then go to the grocery store. But power down first. Last time, he forgot the power down part and scared the living daylights out of several pairs of old people who were simply trying to get ingredients for food to bring to a weekly bridge game.

He felt kinda bad about that.

Leaping from rooftop to rooftop, Bazzite repeated the list. Butter, milk, eggs, pizza crust, soda, celery, carrots, bread, puffy pants...

Wait a minute.

Skidding to a halt, Bazzite stared at the person who derailed his mental grocery list. Heeeeey... that looks like a knight! With puffy pants! That's... kinda weird. The captain leaped from his position and lit near the lady in pink.

"HIYA!" he greeted in good cheer.

Bazzite was downright confused.

And apparently, so was gravity.

Instead of falling or being righted, the boy was rightfully shaken to and fro like a sack of potatoes. His eyes rolled about in his head like so many marbles and he had to hold his head steady before he could actually look at Ms. Pink-n-Puffy who very well nearly shoved him into the dirt.

Not that he would have blamed her, really, but sometimes Bazzite underestimated other people's hearing or perhaps underestimated his ability to be quiet at times.

In either case, Bazzite's poignant pondering was over in the bat of an eyelash and no permanent damage to brain matter or physical body was done. Thus, Bazzi was a happy camper. "Sorry about that," He damn near called her Puffles but if she could pop his head right off, that had to mean she had a gun on her someplace and that s**t was scary. Knights (he was pretty sure she was a knight though the puffy? That was totally a senshi thing so maybe they dipped into each other's wardrobes sometimes who knows.) were kind of A New Thing(ish) to Bazzite. He figured he was better off being nice anyway. "Sometimes I forget how quiet I can be! So sorry if I scared you. Didn't mean to."

Bazzite gave her a big smile. "Anyhoo, I'm Bazzite! You can call me Bazzi. I don't think I've seen you around before. You new? I like your pants. ....bloomers? ....pantaloons?"

Now Aventine should consider herself blessed indeed because Bazzite just busted out a 50 cent word in pantaloons. He was so proud.

Bazzite was following along very well until nefarious was tossed onto the train tracks of his little Choo Choo That Could and he nearly blew a fuse. The captain shook his head and regarded Aventine like she'd been speaking a foreign language. Hmm.

Anyway. "Well I guess I shouldn't, you know, assume you're new cuz I mean, I was a lieutenant for like ever." The last word was incredibly stressed to emphasize how long it took him to promote to captain. It was embarrassing. But surely there were other lieutenants who were late bloomers, right? Right? Maybe? "'n then one day one'a'tha' higher ups pulled me aside and bam! Now I get this spiffy upgraded jacket n' call kinds of cool stuff!" Bazzite rightly figured that he shouldn't start whipping out his throwing stars if Aventine could right pop off his head.

Which was a funny phrase. "Nah, I don't really have an area and like," Bazzite gave a funny face for a moment, like he'd realized the sky was blue or something. "...we're not animals so it's not like we go around whizzin' on everything. ....at least I hope not." He looked a little worried then. He didn't know about some people. There were people even more special than he was in the space pirate army. He wouldn't put it past them. "But I was out stretchin' mah legs and doin' mah thang and then I was going to head to the store, but I saw somethin' real pink outta the corner of my eye so I had to come chekkit out."

Life really was that simple to him.

Avetine seemed a little shaken up. Maybe he should announce himself before walking up to Order people? Bazzi just didn't see the fun in that.

Oh well.

Bazzite shrugged with a smile. "It's okay! I didn't mean to scare you so... no hard feelings, okay?" He would have reached out a hand to shake or some other show of friendliness but intelligently decided against it. If Aventine was on edge just from him showing up, well... and that gun she had someplace. Knights must have interspacial purses or deep pockets or something. Or maybe it was in Aventine's hat.

On the subject of investigating, Bazzite laughed and rubbed the back of his neck. "Well... I like talkin'! I don't see the problem in talkin' to people if they're willin' and everything. I have been attacked a couple times though." The captain frowned at the memory of being smashed against one of Pasiphae's shields while being pummeled by Tsui. Now that was less than fun. "An' I mean... you know, all deep down and all that, we're still flesh n' blood people. Just with spiff clothing on top, you know?"

And that was Bazzi being philosophical.

"Oh, hey, you got it down pat already so there's no reason to be talkin' about that, huh?"

Bazzite smiled brightly. This was the first time any of the enemy really understood their own position in the war. So maybe his message was getting through! Awesome! This freed up their being able to talk about other things. ...but what did girls like to talk about? Fashion? Shopping? Cooking? Other stereotypically feminine activities? Not that Bazzite would know anything about feminine activities, being that he was the maid of his household before his mother threw him out in hopes of saving him from misery.

Now he had to figure out what else to talk about. "Let's see... do you have any hobbies? Why are you wearing pink? Do those heels hurt? Is that outfit warm, or are you cold? Why do you have lady symbols on you? Are you from space too? What planet are you from? Lots of senshi have planet 'n star names and all that so is Aventine a star?"

"Don't they teach you anything in the Negaverse?"

Well of course they did!

...just not specifically about ladies who have lady symbols on them, traipsing about in puffy pink pants and high heels who aren't senshi. And Bazzite operated very well on specifics.

Instead of getting angry, Bazzite tilted his head in a very well what do you mean? look. "So... you're from here? Or like your super special place of specialocity is in Rome? ....are you Roman? Or Italian? Oh wait, that's the same thing, isn't it?" Thought derailed, Bazzite turned away for a moment to redirect what was happening in his tiny mind. A spark fired, he spazzed a little bit and turned back to Aventine. His mouth hung open for a while, his mind busting up again before formulating the single greatest question, the most important quandary he'd ever thought of in his life.

"....so are there any guys from Venus or is it just ladies because I know men are supposed to be from Mars but I mean there wouldn't be very many Venus ladies if there weren't Venus guys around I mean unless Venus ladies imported guys from Mars in which case that's pretty ingenious and then I have to wonder what they would trade for in order to get Mars men..."

Beef and war didn't seem like two things Bazzi would ever put together but... Aventine seemed to kinda sorta know what she was talking about.

Sort of. In a pink and puffy pants sort of way.

"Well I would think that if you're from space or doin' stuff in the name of [insert celestial object here], then I'd think you could go into space. Or visit space. Heck, maybe you have a rocket ship sittin' somewhere that your buddies haven't toldja about? I'd think that's kinda mean, personally." And who would want to be mean to someone like Aventine? Sure, they wouldn't like leave the rocket running with the keys in the ignition, but if space was at all important to space pirates then surely they've been there at least once for whatever reason.

Right?

Anyway, back to the question at hand. "Oh yeah, I'm from Earth. We're all from Earth except the space pirates who converted into space ninjas, but I can only assume. Cuz I mean... I never did ask any of 'em." Bazzite scratched his head. Perhaps some mysteries were never meant to be known by him. "One day this lady in a kimono was under attack and I was like HEY WAIT and she was like, why'd you save me? And then this HUGE PURPLE MONSTER came outta nowhere and---"

Bazzite blinked for a moment. "Anyway, we're all from Earth as far as I know, 'cept for a select few. So I guess... that kinda sorta means this is a funky civil war?" The captain's brain was thrown for a loop at that thought.

How long had he been doing this? Bazzite scratched his head and thought a moment.

"Well... let's see..." He held up a few fingers, twiddled them and frowned. "About a year and a half maybe? I dunno. But I do know that powered people are real good at keepin' on the dee-ell, if you know what I mean." Nudge, nudge, wink. "I mean, if everybody suddenly knew, like, oh god there are people with laser beams n' s**t runnin' around my city all willy-nilly, you know, there'd be general panic n' chaos in the streets. Riots." Pause. Stare. "Burnin' cars and lootin' stores and all that, I betcha."

But as to the ins and outs, that was something the captain could really only speculate on. "....dunno." he said finally with a nonchalant shrug of his shoulders. No skin off his teeth and all that. "The way I figure it, magic's gotta have somethin' to do with it but I'm not really known for using my bean so... maybe you oughta ask somebody else about the cloakin' thing. I mean I figure I'm a ninja so it's au naturale but you guys? I dunno. Magic sparklies, I bet. Yep."

Magic sparklies. "And ya got talkin' cats, or so I heard. And between you n' me, that's mega weird."