<That would make more sense, although still not very much sense.>

<Yeah. I have no explanation for beetles.>

Ax's main eyes squint in the suggestion of a smile.

<I am glad I was able to help you perform the maneuver.>

Well, there's Andi, taking kitchen inventory and making a grocery list.

"I figured out how to do combined morphs!" announces Robin. "I've got a lion-tiger-jaguar-leopard morph now. It's gorgeous."

"Ooooh! Are you gonna use it? Like if we have to actually fight aliens instead of being all ninja-y?"

"Probably," she says. "It's got a lot of advantages over any of the contributing species. Being fucking enormous, for one."

"How enormous is that?"

"Well, how wide is your garage? I was about that long. When I stood up my head almost bumped the ceiling. If I'd stood up straighter, it would have."

"Wow, big kitty."

"Yeah."

"I wonder if there's anything you could combine with an elephant?"

She shakes her head. "Probably not, except another elephant. The only animals I can think of that hybridize that well are horses and cats. Well, and dogs with wolves, I s'pose."

"Is there any good reason to want to be a wolfdog instead of just a wolf?"

"Hybrid vigor?" she suggests. "I'm not sure what specifically. I'll look it up."

"What's hybrid vigor?"

"The same reason my Panthera hybrid is bigger than any of the animals I acquired to get it. You get weird effects when you mix related species, and sometimes they're useful ones."

"Oh, huh. What else does that besides wolfdogs? Wolfdogs are real without anybody morphing them, right?"

"Yeah, they're all over the place. And, I don't know, mules?"

"Oh yeah, mules exist. I forgot them."

Robin giggles.

"Has anybody tried to make a four-panthera vigorous hybrid thing? Like, with real animals?"