Star Buddies

It continues, and I STILL don't own it.

They banged on the front door to Zapz for at least five minutes, but the Martians didn't answer. Mike and Angela had a short arguement about lock-picking before the little floaty-camera came out of a window, observing them like the first time. They met its "eyes" sternly.

Mike smiled, maybe even smirked, a good and evil smirk. He started to lean down, reaching to pick up half of a brick. "Hey, look, someb-"

"EEPEEPEEPEEPEEPEEP!" The One in Blue opened the front door in a panic, jumping in front of the kids with his arms outstretched. He kept talking, babbling in his burbly language that sounded more like boiling soup than speech.

Mike pumped his fist. "Yes! I knew that would work!"

"Really?" asked Cedric.

"Well... no." Mike shrugged. "But it did!"

The One in Blue made a few helpless gestures to the door, ushering the kids inside. He waved the camera inside with him, giving it an affectionate pat on the back. The kids rushed to their bed out of habit. There was an entire building to explore, still filled to the brim with arcade machines and possibly even the prizes from the ticket booth. They started chatting immediately, making plans about where to explore and what to take home and what to tell their parents when they asked where they got them. The One in Blue only sighed, holding his head in his hand.

With hardly a second to spare, the other two Martians came from nowhere. The One in Yellow shot The One in Blue a killer glare before turning to the kids. "All of you. Goodbye. Now."

"Woah!" Cedric gasped. "He learned to talk!"

The One in Yellow nodded his head. "Learned from TV. Sesame Street. No-"

Cedric gasped in delight, slapping his hands to his face to prevent himself from making any more undignified noises. Beside him, Angela and Mike were making similar happy sounds. He barely collected himself enough to speak. "What's your name?"

The One in Yellow lost in commanding presence quickly. His... eyebrow-like area-of-his-face tweaked slightly. "Er... my name is Bebopaluna."

"Awesome!" he squeaked. "I'm Cedric Barker!"

"Oo, me next! Me next!" cried Angela, raising her hand. "I'm Angela Young!"

"I'm Mike Ellis!"

It was quiet for a few minutes. Bebopaluna had to gesture to his two comrades to talk, which they did after another second of weird looks and pondering. The One in Red shrugged and said "My name is Doowadiddy," followed by The One in Blue stating "My name is Tootyfrooty", which made the kids laugh again.

"Wait..." Tootyfrooty interrupted them. "You, um... you say names... bigger... than now... before."

It was quiet again. Tootyfrooty rubbed his head, struggling to think. Bebopaluna and Doowadiddy stood aside, also thinking but not as hard, while the kids tried to figure out the alien's message through weird syntax and missing words.

"Um... u- oh! Oh! He hasn't heard out last names before!" said Mike. He punched his palm in victory. "I bet that's what it is!"

"Yeah!" Angela calmly explained to Tootyfrooty. "Humans- that's us- we like our names to be short. My whole name is Angela Elizabeth Young, but my friends call me 'Angela'. Same with Mike and Cedric."

"Names to be short... yes..." Tootyfrooty thought again. "My name is... 2-T... short."

Something changed when his name shortened. The inflection was like sounding out a word, and Angela found she liked it better than calling him "Tooty". "Yeah! For short, your name is 2-T."

"My name is Doo-Wah short!" Doowadiddy cheered. "I am so smart!"

"My name is Bebop! Short!" Bebopaluna cried. "I like this!"

They didn't wind up leaving for another hour, the entirity of the hour spent poking at various things in the arcade and going "What is this? Tell me words. Teach me." The kids did eventually find the abandoned prize room, meaning that the Martians knew the word for "inflatable plastic toy squeaky hammer" before they knew the word for "water", but it was a start. The kids left when they were hungry, the Martians offering them some kind of white wormy thing for food in exchange for staying longer. They promised to be back later.