"There's got to be a place around here that has real soup," said Potto to the Yaygher.

He had been very accommodating. Much more accommodating than anyone should have been while having their arm gummed and sucked on. Much more accommodating than anyone ever had been with a Yaygher in the history of Yayghers.

"Real soup?" the Yaygher perked up. "With real soup innit?"

Potto checked his pockets. He only had the few credits Teeg could spare giving him. Instinctively he knew he shouldn't waste it on buying someone else soup; his physical survival might need to count on it. But also, instinctively he knew he should waste it on buying someone else soup because his mental survival counted on that.

"Yeah, but you gotta get me out of here. I don't think the family that owns this house really likes me very much. I don't think their house likes me very much either," Potto added.

"Like new soup?" the Yaygher asked in disbelief (disbelief!). He, like all Yayghers, had trust issues. "I'll get y' outta here. But...I want half the soup up front. Half later. I bin burned like this before."

"Really?" Potto asked, wondering if the life of a Yaygher was far more adventurous than he had first imagined.

"Yep. By that guy. Shifty guy, that," the Yaygher answered pointing out between the stairs to the lawn mower shed. Another Yagher stuck his head out of the shed and looked around like a slow old tortoise sticking its head out of its shell.

"I can't give you half of the soup now. I don't have any soup yet," Potto said sadly.

"I don't believe you. Let me check your pockets," sneered the Yaygher.

"I have no soup in my pockets...um...what do I call you?"

"Why you wanna call me sumpin? Bad words? Interested?"

"I just want to know your name..."

"Oh. Name's Lazy Susan."

"Okay. I have no soup in my pockets, Lazy Susan. That would make them wet, and they are mostly dry."

"Hmph. Neither do I," grumbled Lazy Susan.

"I figured that by the way you're sucking on my arm. And I think you'd need pants to have a pocket." Potto was trying to be helpful, but he was really growing quite weary of being cramped under the stairs of the porch of a smouldering house belonging to a family that wanted to kill him, and with a Yaygher that was causing his skin to wrinkle with saliva.

"Can you take me somewhere where I can buy you soup?" he asked.

"I can do it, yep," Lazy Susan fired back, making finger guns.

Lazy Susan climbed out into the backyard cautiously and rat-like, pulling on Potto's soggy arm. Instead of heading to the main back gate and into the alley, they headed past the other Yaygher, and made their way behind the shed.

"What 'r you doin', Lazy Susan? Who's that guy?" asked the shed Yaygher.

"Shut up, Toaster-Oven. Yer dead to me."

They climbed out through a large hole dug behind the shed and out into the alley. They then climbed down a sewer grate. The smell was something that Potto could barely stand, but it didn't seem to bother the Yaygher at all. It smelled like stroganoff that had been sitting too long inside a long-dead bear's long-inactive large intestine, and the freshly mowed grass of a terribly befouled dog park.

Potto noticed they were being followed. It was Toaster-Oven, the shed Yagher. They passed by another group of sewer-dwelling Yayghers.

"Evenin' Lazy Susan," one muttered.

"Evenin' Plow Mouse."

"Evenin' Lazy Susan," said another.

"Evenin' Bad Peach."

"Evenin' Lazy Susan."

"Evenin' Charlie Ankylosaurus."

"Evenin' Lazy Susan."

"Evenin' Other Lazy Susan."

"What cha doin', Lazy Susan?"

"This guy is buyin' soup, Stupid Cowboy."

Soon Potto was being escorted through the sewers of a suburb of Krank City by forty-seven hungry Yayghers.

They all climbed out of another grate in front of the diviest dive. It was a greasy spoon that could more aptly be described as a spoon floating in grease....a spoon made out of grime held together with earwax. It was called "Here Is Food!", and it was the only food establishment that would serve Yayghers in the entire universe.

The only reason it existed at all was because health inspectors were too afraid to go near the place for fear of catching the type of illness that makes one's intestines come out simply by being within a few blocks of the place.

Potto was getting nervous. He didn't like to disappoint anyone, and he didn't like to say no. He worried that he would not have enough money to buy forty-seven Yayghers soup. He hoped Lazy Susan would send them all away. That he would yell, "Plow Mouse! Bad Peach! Charlie Ankylosaurus! Other Lazy Susan! Stupid Cowboy! Blister Boy! Cucumber Bandersnatch! Doughy Brad! The Marvelous Bandage! Batman Freud! Ignatius Idiom! Farzzle Gorp! Toaster-Oven! Smoochy Pembroke! Francesca W. McGillicuddy! Smokin' Bobby Noodles! Chad Sombrero! Seeping Anson's Ghost! Brother Bratwurst! Mustard Fudge! Jazz Dumptruck! Shitbox Rendezvous! Li'l Barty Mazda! Fabio Panthercock! Goose Liver Candyfloss! Brigadier Horse! Chia Pillows! Softshell Puma! Donny's Ice-cream! Chum Plunkitt! Chaughn Broughning! Plaid Dandy! Sweater Chunk! Lovehandle Scrump! Cake Fashion! Splat Bangbangboom! Mozart Go-cart! Scottish Youth-Hostile! Buzzsaw Poopstraw! Nougat Wagon! Iron Shaft! Picnic Nick! Banjo Hotdog! Pretty Tom Blancmange! Asshole the Turtle Boy! Nuts Lupus! ...go back to the sewers! He only made the deal with me!"

Lazy Susan said no such thing, and soon they were all inside the horrible "lounge" of this horrible "bar and grill", ordering "the soup". Before Potto could even ask about the cost, Pebbles Splotch (possible the worst Vexian to ever Vex) had buckets of split-roach/rot-corn chowder poured into a back trough where the Yayghers all went at it like ants on dripped ice cream.

Potto sat at the bar counting and recounting the few credits he had in the palm of his hand as if they would magically multiply if he kept counting them. Pebbles spotted this and came over.

"Hope you got enough there to cover this, shit-fer-brains," she said with three cigarettes sticking out of the same corner of her charming mouth at once. Before he could answer, one of the Yayghers (Blister Boy?) knocked a leg off the trough and soup came sliding down and slopped onto the floor. The Yaghers didn't notice, they kept eating, but Pebbles ran off to scream at them incoherently while trying to hoist the trough back up (and not trip over the several Yayghers that were now licking the floor).

There were six full, capped bottles of Ugly Uncle brand "Gin-ish Beverage and Varnish Remover" on the far end of the bar that only caught Potto's attention because they kept disappearing. A hand was slowly coming up from underneath the bar and stealing them one by one. He ducked under the bar to find the culprit. He didn't want to add six bottles of subpar alcohol to a bill he already couldn't pay.

It took a moment of blank staring to make out that there was a figure in the darkness under there. The figure squealed and was soon excitedly coming towards him in a squatted crab-walk. The dark figure pulled him off his stool and dragged him out of Here Is Food!, down the street, and into an alleyway.

~~~

Bodies do involuntary things all the time. From spastic nerve shutters, to cold shivers, to uncontrollably going for an itch. Emotions can be responsible for these things as well.

An emotionally illiterate man who has never hugged his children will still excitedly throw his arms around a dog he has been separated from for a long time. The mix of emotion with an unlikelihood of being judged as something he may (ridiculously) see as being "unmanly" gets the better of him, and his arms just involuntarily wrap around the dog as it jumps up. That dog might even be invited to lick the face of the man. The very man who thinks he is too macho to kiss his children.

Though he didn't have children (or a dog), Aye was this type of man. He wasn't a hugger. He wasn't raised by a hugger. He wasn't from a society of huggers. In fact, if a Topher were caught hugging anyone, they would end up with garbage pelted at them and then they would possibly be murdered. Usually by the one on the receiving end of the hug. Even on their birthday.

But here Aye was, standing in an alleyway, covered in refuse, pockets and pant legs stretched with clinking, stolen bottles of Ugly Uncle's Gin-ish Beverage and Varnish Remover, on a planet far from even his second home, with his arms around Potto. He squeezed hard and he laughed. The laugh turned to a cough and he doubled over.

"Aye???" Potto shrieked. He immediately started jumping up and down like that once-separated dog.

Aye started crying. This was something that was becoming easier and easier for him to do. Potto started crying, too, because crying could be very contagious.

Aye started crying harder into Potto's arms, loudly sobbing and gasping for the odd breath. The events he had witnessed with the Ilt-por-un-Ilt Players had affected him so much, decimating him to the core of his being. It had made him feel so terrified and alone that he had decided to drink gin-flavoured varnish remover until he was dead. He had already considered himself dead.

Potto felt this. This wasn't a sulking man-child crying. This wasn't a mere "Hey! Glad to see ya!" reunion hug. This was a man broken and destroyed and very seriously falling to pieces.

Aye was not just glad to see him. Potto was everything in the world to him at this horrible moment in his life. Potto was a warm thaw after being frozen solid. He was living, breathing defibrillator paddles.

Just when he was ready to put a gun (of sorts) to his head, he had found the smallest amount of light in the dark. At this moment Potto was the brightest light in the well-lit universe. And he wept hard because it was all so overwhelming and terrifying and hopeless, and now there was hope. Hope in the form of a hapless Quarol. A friend. A real friend to bring him back to life.

"Let's get drunk," he finally managed.

~~~

They wandered for a while, passing a bottle back and forth. If Potto had ever been drunk before, it was before his memory was taken from him. Aye was already swaggering. The suicide drink had become a celebratory drink. They only difference between the two being quantity.

"I didn't think I'd ever see you again, Baby Boy!" Aye laughed, an arm around Potto as an affectionate way to steady himself.

"Well, I knew I'd see you again, Aye," Potto offered.

"How? We were in space suits. In space. Just floating around! Neither of us should even be alive, much less together on the same planet, in the same city, in the same...uh...restaurant? Bar? Cesspool? Farm dump? How could you possibly know?"

"Just did. I don't remember all that has happened to us, but I do know that we probably should've died many times. But we didn't. I think Clover knows why. She says we're special, you n' me. I knew we'd see each other again because we're special."

"I'm not special, my friend. Thanks for saying so, but I'm not. I am awful. I do a lot of stupid things. I've been arrested dozens of times. I've only been in love once, shortly, and that ended in a vampire massacre. I think you are special. I think I'm merely a passenger on your magic special train," Aye laughed.

"Hmmm..." said Potto, thoughtfully. "You've been arrested though you're not in jail. You do stupid things; well I am a stupid thing. You lived through a vampire massacre! And you got to be in love, even if it was short. And I was nowhere around for any of that. You are special."

"You're not stupid, Potto." Aye said, almost as if he were sober. "Did you hear yourself just now? You may not remember things. You may not grasp concepts or procedures or even regular behaviour, but you make everyone around you feel special. You're the smartest person I know."

Potto smiled at this as they rested on a park bench behind a patch of shrubs where they would be out of sight. A children's playground lay before them, empty due to the late, late hour.

For what felt like a joyous lifetime, the bottle was passed back and forth and Aye told Potto of what had happened with The Rotten Lovers. How he had escaped. How he watched their theatre ship leave before being found out by the ever-slow Vexian authorities. How he had been hiding amongst the Yayghers and actual sewer rats.

Potto simply listened. He had very little to tell, for there was very little he could recall. Simple points. Clory was alive. The Shiv was chased off but would rescue them, hopefully.

They played on the swings, and a teeter-totter thingamajig. They stayed away from the slides as they had each had enough of sliding downward.

"Why wait to be rescued?" Aye offered. He was sufficiently drunk enough for brave stupidity. "Let's steal a ship and go help the Shiv! Might as well! Nothing bad can happen! We're special!" he laughed as Potto was sick on a bobbling springy horse.

~~~

It was only an hour before the sun was to come up on Krank City. Potto and Aye staggered towards the light of the far-off fuel station on the outskirts of the suburbs.

They passed (from a distance) Here Is Food! where a riot had broken out over an unpaid bill and missing alcohol. It seems the Yayghers had taken over the joint. A woman with six cigarettes, three in each charming mouth-corner, sat on the curb out front of the dive cursing to herself.

They passed (from a distance) the Donut house. The fire was now out and Bisher Donut was standing in the front yard with Vexian police and an insurance man and two of his three grub hounds.

Potto stopped in his tracks upon seeing them, far enough that he couldn't be seen by the "sliding frosted door on pre-made moulded tub surround" installer. He was forgetting something. He was forgetting someone. He strained to remember, but the combination of his already broken mind with the gin-ish beverage flowing through him made thinking even harder than normal.

"Ok, so we found the trail of your pod. We can just follow the destruction back to where the Shiv fired it. What's wrong?" Aye could tell something was weighing on Potto. The usual thoughtless grin had been replaced by a harrumphy scrunchy face.

"I don't know. It's all leaving my head too quickly. Kinda like when you wake up from a dream. It's right there but I can't remember it..."

"Ha! You'll wake up from your dream one day, Potto. I promise."

They followed the pod trail past flattened and burning fences, garages, fire hydrants, front porches, garbage bins, a high-end clothing boutique, a take-out pancake joint, and countless economy cars that various emergency vehicles, too busy to notice them, were investigating and fire-extinguishing.

"Wow. That pod really did a number!" Aye slurred and laughed harder. The whole ordeal, in his drunken mind, was absolutely hilarious.

This was the sort of thing that may have made Potto feel bad and extremely guilty, but he was too busy trying to remember whether Clover had been on the pod with him when it fired.

They finally made it past a final billboard advertising "Free flooded basement with every house!", and to the fuelling station.

"Oooooooh," Aye said as if in slow motion. Half of the fuelling station was engulfed in huge blue flames. Vexian fire fighters were running about, hosing it down, trying to control the destruction. A ship had apparently taken off without detaching the fuel hose first and blown up the place.

Luckily, a fair distance away, there was another whole half to the fuelling station (in case such things happened), totally intact and still open.

All of the surviving Jorge Jorge Jorges in stolen Vexian ships where now off following the Shiv and things were quiet. They hid behind the rack of flotsam grease, beside a rack of jetsam oil. For a brief second Aye pondered what these familiar fuel station mainstays were actually used for (and why they were always on sale), but the thought only lasted a few seconds.

They spotted a lone ship of unknown origin. At first Aye wasn't sure how to go about stealing it, but soon he had a very good idea...

~~~

When humanoid aliens think of other species of alien, they often think of other humanoid species first. Although some have reptilian qualities (Kancorians), some have insect qualities (Mantis Widows), some vegetational (Sentaphylls), and some even fungal (Sammolites), they all have variations of a human shape. An upright shape. Even if they have extra limbs, heads, or genitalia. No matter how ugly (again Sammolites) or beautiful (Handsomians).

Of course, only humans arrogantly refer to all these species as humanoid. Mantis Widows refer to them all as insectoid (or their Squambogian language equivalent). Towerscapians refer to them as tophoids, Four-armed Jost'leans refer to them all as phronkoids, and Sloovtopians (refusing to use the suffix "oid" because on Sloovtopia oid means "handicapped parking" and not "of similar form to, but not the same as" like it does everywhere else in the galaxy) simply call these species Steven Duckworth.

Once a planet goes from primitive to part of the galactic community, it doesn't take long before all these other humanoid species become old hat and less jarring. That said, non-humanoid species...those not upright or in solid form (or tangible at all), can be quite jarring to run into, and even harder to understand.

The Garax were one of these species. They were simply an idea. They existed among the humanoids, insectoids, tophoids, phronkoids and Steven Duckworths, but also existed in a multiverse of almost every dimension that had other living beings in it to think "Hey! I just thought of something!" at some point.

These ideas evolved and manifested themselves as semi-sentient beings that tried really hard to fit in. Ideas lead to actions, and those species that did run into them often found them quite exhausting. Shortly after meeting them, one needed a nap.

Not all ideas become Garax, but all Garax are born of ideas. Ideas that become so big and so great they come to life and long to be humanoid. They even build and fly around in spaceships, though they don't need them, with interiors barely resembling spaceship interiors. They even fuel them up from time-to-time even though they are mere concepts and really only need to be fuelled by inspiration and epiphanies.

During one of these unneeded fuel ups they let two humanoids named Potto and Aye steal their ship, simply because it just seemed like a really good idea to do so.