Welcome to Gaia! ::

Finding more Generals to bring him topside, Bazzite was quite thrilled with the wind blowing through his hair and the sensation of cold air on his skin. The youma had stopped to rest for a moment on the flat roof of a small community bank, stretching his insect wings and long, lanky legs. There were no civilians nearby, and no senshi on which to feed. That irritated him. Claws dug into the brick facade of the front of the bank as Bazzite climbed down onto the street level.

Climbing onto a nearby SUV parked on the side of the street, Bazzite seemed irritated at the lack of delicious powered starseeds. In boredom, but still thankful to even be topside int he first place, Bazzite broke the car's window with a swift punch and crawled partially inside. He was much too large to fit properly inside the driver seat, but that didn't stop him from rifling through the glove compartment, legs dangling out of the window.

Owner's manual, eye drops, duct tape...

The youma’s ears twitched immediately upon hearing his name. Pulling himself out of the driver’s side window, Bazzite had a pack of cigarettes in his mouth. They were still wrapped in plastic and slightly bent from the youma’s teeth. Spitting it out into one hand, the creature’s countenance lit up when he spotted and recognized Hydra.

”Hydraaaa. You look… different?” Approaching her, Bazzite smiled down at the Negaverse Senshi. He liked Hydra. She was nice to him. Her increased senshi power made his ears and nape of his neck tingle. It was a good feeling. ”...did you do something with your hair?”

Youma weren’t known for their sense of humor, and while Bazzite didn’t experience joy from humor, he still understood it to a degree. Benitoite was very serious most of the time, but other Negaverse officers he had the chance to meet exposed the youma to different sense of humor he could emulate.

He looked back to the trashed automobile and frowned. ”Sorry, Hydra. Nothing pretty in there. I think a smelly guy owns this car. It smells like cigarettes and beer and greasy food. No pretty things for pretty Hydras. Did you get to meet Beni yet? I told him about you. He doesn’t have any Negaverse Senshi in his team but he likes them well enough. I told him you are my friend.”

Bazzite looked down at Hydra’s admittedly shorter skirt, then down at his own small loincloth. He no longer had any private parts to cover, but they acted as a reminder that he was once a person, like Hydra. ”Want to trade?” The youma didn’t linger long on the cracks in Hydra’s chest and forehead - why should he? Bazzite’s skin was mottled and dry and rather lumpy in certain places. He was not one to stare.

The youma did not hesitate to follow Hydra, walking slowly alongside her. Longer legs meant longer strides, and he didn’t have to move as quickly as she did to cover the same distance. He seemed excited, or at the very least, energetic. Bazzite seemed to notice a very slight limp in her stride, and would normally explain it away as having something to do with her new boots. However, being a youma, and being Bazzite on top of that, he had very little filter. ”Hydra, did you twist your ankle or something? I can carry you, if you want.”

He seemed to smile at that thought. Hydra was kind to him, and smelled nice. Not very many people would consider him a companion, much less a friend.

Reminded that Hydra had a General, Bazzite nodded in return. ”The red one, right? Obsidian. Red hair, kind of grumpy.” From what little he remembered of the fiery General, Bazzite pieced together a very vague picture. Didn’t he have a sharp weapon? Something like that. ”Did he help you get better boots, Hydra? Beni told me that there was a big battle down in the Rift, and Pinkie ate people. Was the red one there too?”

Time wasn’t linear to Bazzite, and the youma had considerable difficulty remembering what events happened in correct chronological order. Events he didn’t partake in directly were filled away like half-remembered dreams. ”Minty is Queen now, and Pinkie is gone. That’s what Beni told me. Does the red one tell you important things too, Hydra?”

Bazzite looked down at himself for a moment. ”It’s because I don’t have curves, huh, Hydra?” A toothy grin followed.

Without so much as a sigh or a questioning tilt of his head, the youma deftly scooped Hydra into his arms, bridal-style. She wasn’t heavy and the scent of her hair and warmth of her body was a welcome comfort. Bazzite’s skin wasn’t soft, but the remaining fabric of his uniform was. With a contented buzz of his wings, he continued to walk in the direction Hydra was headed. ”Better now, Hydra? I can’t give you a piggy-back ride, though. Sorry. Wings are too fragile. But… now you have a blue taxi.”

He listened intently to Hydra’s description not only of Obsidian, but of training in general. While the youma had no real recollection of his own training, he assumed it must be brutal for Negaverse senshi in particular, since many Officers looked upon them with scorn. It was something both Bazzite and Hydra had in common.

The youma’s face lit up when Hydra produced the coveted medal - one he’d never seen before. ”Beni has a lot of medals but he doesn’t have that one. You are extra special, Hydra. If Metallia likes you enough to give you your own special medal… Obsidian must be really proud to have you on his team.” While he had asked Benitoite earlier about Hydra, the blonde didn’t seem that interested. His loss.

”Beni doesn’t tell me everything, either. Sometimes he says he doesn’t want to upset me, but I think that’s silly. I’ll tell you whatever you want to know, Hydra. Um… if I happen to know it, anyway.”

Civilians who caught site of the strange duo gave them a very wide berth. It wasn’t every day that a strange, upright blue insect man carried a beautiful young lady clad in blacks and greens with tresses that reached the ground.

The youma thought for a moment, clawed feet padding softly upon the pavement. Without his wings buzzing, Bazzite was surprisingly quiet for something of his size (when he chose to be). ”A trinket would be nice, Hydra. Something I can take back with me to my nest. Something that reminds me of you. That would a good fare. You’re my only senshi friend, Hydra.”

While the words themselves would have garnered some emotion from the speaker, it was simply not so with Bazzite. He smiled at Hydra, certainly, but there was no depth of emotion in his luminescent blue eyes. Such was the psychological fog of being a youma.

He rounded a corner, awaiting direction from the Negaverse senshi in his arms. Bazzite did not refer to them as corrupted, for they were simply Chao senshi. The word implied that something was fundamentally wrong or impure about Hydra - an implication Bazzite vehemently disagreed with. ”Maybe. I don’t know why some Generals give out information to some people and not others, but I’m not invited to meetings. Kind of rude, if you ask me.” Perhaps that was something both Hydra and Bazzite shared as well - a lower social rank in the Negaverse than a pure Officer.

”No secrets.” came an easy agreement. ”I don’t lie unless I’m ordered to, and I hate it when I have to obey.”

Dutifully the youma turned left at the next opportunity. The thought of Hydra bringing him a present the next time they saw each other guaranteed another chance to see the senshi. Any social engagements were welcome since the Rift could get boring and lonely sometimes.

"I'm your best youma friend."

Since turning the corner, the number of citizens who locked eyes with the pair diminished greatly. Shops were closed for hours in this side of the city, little cafes and bookstores with locked doors and drawn shades. The transients who wandered between alleys skittered away at the youma's approach, half wondering why the woman in his arms wasn't being devoured like so many of their companions.

"I guess if you work hard, then you become eternal. You can train with me down in the Rift sometime. The other youma won't like you but maybe General Obsidian will be impressed. Besides, you have the special badge. You're extra special, Hydra."

Clawed feet finally touched the soft grasses of the park, the youma appreciating the tactile difference between the earth and pavement. "I've been like this for a long time, Hydra. I don't think it will ever change."

The youma made a disgruntled noise and his long, tapered ears lowered when Hydra explained she couldn’t make house calls down in the Rift. ”It gets lonely down there, Hydra. Not much light except for the crystals and those thunderstorms. Sometimes there are Captains down there or Lieutenants who are stupid and get eaten. I wouldn’t want you to get eaten, Hydra. I’d miss you.”

The pair was approaching an empty play area, brightly-colored plastic slides and metal monkey bars positioned in an ocean of soft sand. Bazzite seemed to enjoy how soft the sand felt between his alien toes. With a quick buzz of his wings, the youma gently deposited the super senshi on some of the plastic-coated metal grating that lead to the sunny yellow slide. It was roughly chest-height on him. He spoke while plucking the last bits of Hydra’s long, turquoise hair from his skin and clothing.

”...topside is okay. I like coming up here but I can’t get into the kingdom without being called. Nobody can leave the Rift very easily. At least, I can’t. Sometimes they get really hungry and angry, so they’ll go stand in the Hall and watch everybody who goes in and out. That’s where dinner can come from - they’ll pluck whoever they don’t like right out of the Hall and you don’t see them again. I’ve stood in the Hall sometimes but not very often. Everybody there is very angry all the time, it’s like a big roiling pit of teeth.”

Simple. Succinct.

The youma regarded his senshi companion very curiously when she asked if he wished to be anything else, and how long he’d been as lanky and blue as he was that night. Bazzite scratched at his arm and tilted his head at Hydra. ”I don’t really remember a lot about that time. Everything is pretty fuzzy, but Beni says it’s been four years now. Time is funny, Hydra. There’s no sun in the Rift so it’s hard to say how much time has passed. You sleep and wake up and it’s always dark. No clocks. Not many youma talk, so there’s nobody to ask what year it is.”

Her next question was more complex and required more deliberation. ”Want? I want to be around you and Beni all the time. I miss burgers. It would be nice to go home. Real home, not the nest.” Oddly, Bazzite lacked the emotional depth to his voice when explaining his perceived hopes and dreams, his affect flat and expression rather blank.

”Okay, Hydra.”

Without another word, the youma scooped up his turquoise companion and wandered over to the tree she designated. Depositing her down on the soft grass, Bazzite plopped right down next to her. He couldn’t appreciate the smell of the grass and trees or the delicate softness of the earth, but he did appreciate Hydra’s company. She didn’t treat him like a talking animal to order around, as some officers did. ”How about this tree as the rendezvous point?” came a suggestion.

A few errant leaves floated down from the tree and landed in his hair, the youma’s clawed hands making to brush them away from the powder blue fluff he managed to retain from the transformation so many years ago. ”Beni promised to bring me topside more often. So far, so good. I can’t really leave the Rift unless somebody calls me, and it used to be other Generals until Beni came back. Now I can come up here more often. It’s nice.”

There was live, fresh food, fresh air, light, fewer supernatural creatures vying to take your precious real estate… Topside was pretty good as far as Bazzite was concerned.

His ears dramatically flopped down when the subject of burgers came up. Oh how he longed for a juicy burger and fries. Bazzite stuck out his tongue - a long, limp, blackened roll of fleshy texture. The youma blew a brief raspberry. ”No burgers for me, Hydra. They upset my stomach. I tried it once. Youma puke is pretty disgusting. Just crunchies. They don’t really have a taste but they’re the only thing I can keep down.”

Not to mention that crunchies were starseeds and thus living souls.