the animorphs

[instar]

Renée is gone in the morning, a pot of maple oatmeal for the girls and Trouble cooling on the stove and a note on the fridge, she's going to be gone all day on a day trip to Tucson with her friends.

Andi wakes up first. Bella's not far behind.

Comments

[instar]

"We work separately?" Bella says. "I suck it up and do it anyway? One of us retires?"

[pandion]

"I'll acquire the icky Yeerk, Bella," says Andi. "Ugh, I don't want to, but if you can maybe stand it from me and not anybody else I guess I have to, right?"

[hold_infinity]

"And I'd better do it too," says Robin. "For Ethan."

[pandion]

"And I could let Bella check me if she had to - what about you, Robin?"

[hold_infinity]

"...Ethan. Maybe," she says. "Maybe Trouble. But I'd really rather not, either way."

[pandion]

"I don't think anybody would rather, I mean, ew."

[hold_infinity]

"How much do you want to bet on that?"

[pandion]

"...Huh? Why?"

[hold_infinity]

"Ethan. And Trouble." She thinks about it. "Mostly Trouble."

[pandion]

"...Okay, Trouble's pretty weird, no bet, but Ethan, really?"

[hold_infinity]

"I bet he'll want to try it," she says. "With me as the Yeerk, obviously, he'd never trust anyone else."

[pandion]

"Huh. So I guess we all should acquire it when we get it out of Charlie."

[instar]

"Yep. And when we're done we can squish it before it comes out of sedation, in case that helps, no point being unprofitably sadistic."

[hold_infinity]

"But profitably sadistic's all right?"

[instar]

"Well," says Bella. "I still plan to kill it, this without knowing how good a painkiller the acquisition trance happens to be."

[hold_infinity]

"Are you going to experiment with that?"

[instar]

"If someone's going to acquire Trouble and hasn't yet, it's worth checking."

[hold_infinity]

"I might," she says thoughtfully. "And me and Ethan haven't acquired each other yet, either."

[instar]

"Are you likewise up for investigating how good an anaesthetic we're carrying around?"

[hold_infinity]

"Sure."

[instar]

"Do inform us, then."

[hold_infinity]

"All right."

She heads back down to the basement, from which Ethan has not yet emerged.

[instar]

And Bella writes.

[aeskhyne]

A few minutes later, a pigeon wanders into the garage.

<I'm back, guys!>

[instar]

Bella opens the door to the garage. "Renée's not home," she says. "You can demorph and come in and get dressed the rest of the way."