<It's not like he's screaming... actually, now that I think of it, it's almost like it's a recorded message.>
<You know how when you listen to the same song over and over again, you get to know it better and you hear more things in it because it's more familiar? It's kind of like that. This thing's been playing in the back of my head for ages, and now I kind of know how it goes.>
<Yes, I mean, do you have any more information about the contents of the message that you could share.>
<If I did, I would've led with that. Mostly I'm just getting stronger impressions of all the stuff I already heard. Andalite, trapped at the bottom of the ocean, wants help.>
Eventually, they reach the Swan household, and duck under the garage door gap for demorphing-clockchecking-remorphing-
<I'm definitely getting kind of a direction here,> Trouble reports. <And we're going the right way.>
Eventually, there is the sea.
Bella checks for people. There are no lights; there is no sign of anyone existing nearby without a light. She demorphs and starts wading out into the ocean.
<This thing is definitely predatory. I haven't been a bear so I can't compare, but it sounds "chill" the same way you guys described the grizzly, nothing hunts orcas. I don't think you'll attack each other. You might go after seals if we found seals, or something.>
He demorphs, swims out to meet her, and morphs the orca.
<Oh, cool. Yeah, this is like a bear. A friendlier bear. In the ocean. And...> He kicks his tail and moves out a little farther from the shore, then circles back. <Happy. I'm a happy ocean bear. Who wants to play?>
<Yay, a happy morph!> says Andi, and she flutters out to sit on Bella's back with Charlie on her foot. They demorph and slide into the water.
Andi's an orca very quickly; she gets the colors first, then smooths out into a mini-whale and then grows. <I like this morph! Best morph. I'm gonna see how high I can jump!> she says, and then she races away and dives and leaps and splashes.
<We are here to ->
<Lighten uuuuuup!>
<Ooh,> says Robin. <I like this morph. I like it, I like it, I like it.>
She bumps playfully into Ethan.
<Race you!>
And he powers out into the ocean, clicking happily.
Charlie is quiet. But he tries a jump, too.
The directional pull of the distress signal gets clearer and steadier as he goes.
Eventually, they reach a point where it mostly says down.
<All right, time to dive!>
Until -
<So I guess that's what a Dome ship is,> says Trouble.
It's a dome. Slightly tilted, resting on the ocean floor, a huge bed of blue-green grass under a shimmering transparent hemisphere that looks like it might possibly be a force field. Their whole group of orcas could fit in it just fine with room to swim and play, and considering the size of orcas, that's saying something.