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"This water is sweet!"

Yahui said this as if it was the most amazing thing he'd ever experienced, because, well, it was. He'd been wary about the plastic cup it came in at first, but once he had been reassured it wouldn't bite him, he started sipping down his horchata with barely-restrained enthusiasm. He was accustomed to a life where it took immense effort, skill and fortune just to find clean water. Water with flavor, with pure delight mixed into it like this was, was completely unheard of.

Water could come and go so easily in Rob's home, and he was fascinated by it. He had watched with awe as the Earthling used it to wash a carton of milk that had gone bad down the sink. The faucet ran for seconds and seconds, and water kept flowing on out and down the drain. It only stopped when Rob made it stop by twisting the tap in the right direction. While they waited for the food he ordered to arrive, Yahui spent much of that time testing it out himself: on and off, and on and off, over and over again. He was surprised every time the faucet obliged his request for more.

Powered down, his clothing was little more than a sheet with a hole for his head to go through, tied together with a fraying rope. He hadn't eaten a proper meal in longer than he was completely aware of, something obvious from his emaciated physique. In spite of that, he ate very politely, though the look on his face made it clear how hungry he was and how much he was enjoying the food.

"What animal is this from?" he asked, grinning over a half-eaten chicken tender.

Faust would eat syrup on fried chicken. Hell, Faust would eat syrup. Drink? He didn't care, as long as it went in his face.

The fat furbag licked his lips expectantly when he saw the chicken come out. It wasn't that he was politely remaining silent — Faust didn't know what polite meant — but he was so damn famished making his way over to Rob's stinky shithole that if he spoke before he got food in him, he might faint.

Faust snorted when "Yo. The ******** the syrup at?" Ears swiveled back, he stared up at ******** calls me all the way out here, I bust my a** gettin' here, cuz he's cryin' aliens, and he doesn't pass me no damn syrup…" He should turn around and bury the ********'…" Faust waggled his a**, then leapt up onto the table, moseyed over to Rob's plate, and tried to stick his face into one of the square syrup holes on his hard bread thing.

"Oi, cat!" Rob exclaimed, attempting to shove the large black bobtail Mauvian away from his breakfast. "Hang on, hang on…" Grabbing the syrup bottle, he reached over and angrily squeezed it until it spread syrup all over Faust's chicken to the point it looked like a golden-brown, sticky sweet puddle on the plate. "Demanding ********> he grumbled. "Can't wait for one ********' moment…"

He turned his attention to Yahui when the small man spoke. "Who was Matrix then? Were you afflicted with a furball like this back on your homeworld?"

cibarium

Strickenized

Yahui was busy with an oversized bite of waffle when the surly Mauvian stuck his syrup-smeared paws and maw all over his person. He offered only an mmph! in protest while being sniffed and poked and prodded, all the time thinking, that if 'badass' meant 'rude and aggressive,' Faust's assessment of himself might not be wrong. It was a close call between the two, at the very least, enough for a pang of sadness to momentarily steal the sweetness from his meal.

In a delayed answer to Rob's question, he said, with a sigh, "She was a hero."

Then he winced empathically at the sight of Faust leaping into Rob's lap and digging. He hoped that, in this instance, this Mauvian would prove to be less 'badass.' For his host's sake.

Something something Matrix. Yeah, whatever.

"Mau business. Need a damn pocket…" He dug and dug and dug at the hem of Rob's pants until he pulled a small, round enamel pin from it. The front was simple, perhaps owing to the Mauvian who made it — a black pin with a stylized gold star in the center. No frills, no cute cat faces; even if Faust was capable of producing a Mautech machine gun, it would likely be black with a single gold star somewhere on it.

With the pin secured in his mouth, Faust hopped up onto the table. He stepped on Rob's waffle square by accident — shook his foot out for that — and tracked syrup across the table on his way over to Yahui.

He paused when he was close enough to the alien dude, then let the pin fall out of his mouth. He hadn't set it down, or spat it out, he just… Let it fall out of his mouth. As if he was taken by surprise and dropped a kibble.

"You gonna need that. If you wanna escape Rob's s**t bin, you gotta look like a human while you doin' it. That pin? It's gonna make you look human as ********. More human than human. So human that the humans gonna be jealous of how human you are. So, try that ******** on — I gotta see if it works right.

"Oh, and —" he half turned to Rob, once again shaking out his rear syrup paw. "He got a phone?"

"No, he ain't got a phone," Rob replied to Faust irritably, deciding to let Yahui's response go unquestioned. He didn't really understand all that Mauvians did for Senshi, beyond awakening them and helping them gain more magical power, but apparently it was a LOT more than just that. Looking at the syrup-soaked paws of the big cat standing with his a** in his face, Rob almost – almost – reached out to give Faust a pet. He thought better of it, though, just in case the Mauvian could in fact beat him up.

Instead, he turned his attention to Yahui. "No no, you're not frightening at all. It's… well, it's pretty much for your own protection. Senshi types don't have the best reputation here in this town, largely 'cos of the media – which is controlled by the Negaverse, we reckon. At least they have a pretty efficient propaganda machine and they've managed to get it into the public's heads that we're all monsters and space aliens. s**t, some of their own agents have drunk that Kool-Aid and believe it too. So we all have normal-people disguises that help protect us and allow us to go about doing daily things out in public without getting shouted at or hurt. You follow?"

Yahui took in the explanation carefully, and answered with a polite nod. "I don't want to disturb your planet too much. I'll try it, thank you." He affixed the pin to his tunic. "Yes.

To Faust's credit, the glamour he'd created worked like a charm. Yahui felt a pleasant tingle as a wave of sparkles briefly enveloped his skin and a more human appearance bloomed forth. The brown patches of keratin on his arms and head had melted away into smooth brown skin, something that made him pat at his wrists for a second. Even more interesting, however, was the hair. He spent quite some time poking at the short crop of mossy-hued dense curls on his scalp, and then started tugging at it, first gently, then firmly.

"Oh," he confessed, laughing a bit. "I thought this part was a hat!"

Faust sat, stared at Yuhui, and one ear swiveled back in Rob's general direction. As his consternation grew, his ears turned in more opposing directions until one was a full 180 from the other.

How the hell did anybody get 'hat' out of 'hair'? Even an alien — especially an alien!!

"Yo." He maneuvered just enough that he sat directly in front of both Yuhui and Rob, then looked at Rob. "Ain't alien's s'posed to be hella smart? Yo Treehugger," and his head swiveled back toward Yuhui, "Did one o' your alien parents drop you on your head? You s'posed to know all that already. And, like, the answers to the universe, and all that s**t. And speakin' o' that, when you gonna tell me how to make myself infinite food?

"Gotta show your appreciation for your Mauvian's somehow, cuz this jackass?" He huffed at Rob. "He ain't done s**t-all else but gimme dry-a** chicken."