(F/M to Pandas)

“You know, Master,” BB leaned in close, a wry smirk on her lips. “I can’t help but root for you to have a happy ending sometimes.”

“Oh?” Replied Gudako, determined not to give the girl a reply. As the probably-last surviving mage in Human History, she’d gotten used to the antics of her Servants. It just came as part of the job when working for the Chaldea Security Organization.

Still, some of these characters could be a bit… grating.

“Oh, of course. I mean, I’ve been to a lot of different Chaldeas. And of all of them, I have to say,” BB leaned in close, eyes twinkling, “yours is the biggest embarrassment of the bunch.”

Gudako blinked. “Hold on. There are other Chaldeas? Wait, what do you mean mine’s the biggest embarrassment!?” She stood up from her bed, temper flaring to the point that her orange hair seemed to shine.

“Ooh, did that touch a nerve?” BB laughed. “Come on then, let’s see how well you do in a little Singularity I just whipped up.” She twirled a finger in the air, leaving behind an iridescent pink glow.

“W-what? Hold on, I haven’t even finished the first few!” Gudako wailed, scrambling to tug on her boots. “And besides that, a challenge is a challenge!”

She stormed off to the Command Room, determinedly ignoring the sound of BB skipping a step behind her all the way.

Da Vinci looked up from her latest notes, her glasses half-fogged from her coffee. “Oh? Master, is something the matter?”

“You’re damned right there is! This bitch-”

“Hiii!” Waved BB.

“-just started up a Singularity!”

Da Vinci’s eyes widened, her cup clattering to the desk. “That’s bad! These are major threats to humanity as a whole! Even a minor Singularity could potentially develop into something far worse!”

“And,” continued Gudako, “she also called me an embarrassment!”

Da Vinci paused. “Eh?” Her fingers froze mid-keystroke, and she turned her head to face the mage who she called Master. “Which of these two, pray tell, do you find more of a concern?”

BB dipped her head between the two girls with a wink, interrupting them. “Whoopsie! I guess she misheard. I wasn’t calling Master an embarrassment. It was all of you. Master, you, inferior-kouhai, and so on. All of you. Just an embarrassment waiting to happen.”

Gudako gulped at the look that entered Da Vinci’s eyes. She’d never seen that kind of passion in the inventor before, not even when the last Director of Chaldea had been sucked into another dimension and likely disintegrated a million times over.

… Come to think of it, this job had some pretty serious stakes for a girl fresh out of college, didn’t it?

“BB. Why don’t you be a good girl. And tell me the location of this Singularity?” Da Vinci somehow found a way to laugh through clenched teeth. It must have been one of the perks of being a genius.

“Oh, that? It’s easy, right here!” BB pointed to a spot in East Asia, before giggling. “Careful, though. I made it myself.”

“Well, if you made it, I’m certain we’ll be back before my drink has cooled,” snipped Da Vinci.

“Ooh, scary! I can’t wait to see you really bare your fangs,” BB giggled. “And as for you, Master, go ahead and pick your team of Servants. I’ll even be generous and let you take along a Servant from one of the other Chaldeas, too.”

“Gee, thanks! As if mine weren’t-” Gudako paused, seeing a familiar face with a blue hat. “Is this… Artoria? But a Caster?”

“I’m sure you’re destined to meet her eventually. Maybe after a few more Singularities, and some… Other events,” BB cast a glance towards Da Vinci, who was too busy entering coordinates to notice. “But, if you don’t want to bring her…”

“Give.” Gudako held out a hand, only to flinch as BB slapped her palm against it.

“Marvelous! It’s a deal!” A heart-shaped emblem briefly appeared on her hand, vanishing a moment later. “Don’t worry about that.”

“I’m already worried about enough. Just…” Gudako sighed. “She’s a Caster, so we’ll need to plan around that. I’ll take… Mordred for a Saber, Semiramis for an Assassin, Astolfo for a Rider…”

“Fan of Apocrypha, hm?” Hummed BB.

Gudako paused mid-count. “Huh?”

“Don’t worry about it, keep going.” BB hopped on a computer table, kicking her legs. “I’ll tag along in the background, so no choosing me! Can’t let me hog all the fun and solve my own puzzle, right?”

“Right… Well, my fourth is obviously going to be Jalter,”

“Does she know you call her that instead of ‘Jeanne D’Arc Alter’? Ooh, she’ll be so mad if you don’t!” BB giggled, then squeaked at the harsh look from her Master. “Oh, right, I’m interrupting again. Hehe, nevermind!”

“And the fifth will be myself! I look forward to challenging whatever pitiful puzzle your bimbo brain could produce,” said Da Vinci, standing from her chair and placing a delicate hand upon her bosom.

“Uh… Hold on, don’t we need you to-” Gudako paused, sensing a malevolent aura emitting from the inventor. “We’ll get Mash to take care of the stuff back here. You could use some field time.”

“Oh, don’t you all know it! This is going to be so much fun!” BB beamed, continuing to smile even as the team of five Rayshifted away to her minute Singularity. As the last of them vanished, her smile took a darker turn, and she slipped after them, eager to see the results of her hard work.

Gudako was the last to arrive in the new Singularity, though both the knight of Camelot and paladin of Charlemagne soon protectively flanked her sides. She quietly took in her surroundings, noting the lush greenery and verdant bamboo.

“Gee, Master, how come I’m always taken on all these missions,” Astolfo whined, kicking one of his boots against the ground, “I mean, it’s not fair to make a Rider do all this walking.”

“Shut your trap,” Mordred glared. “I don’t know why, but there’s something about you that just pisses me off.”

“Everything pisses you off,” Astolfo muttered sotto voce, squeaking a second later as she nailed him with a glare.

“Enough, you two. Where are the others? And where’s that cute version of Artoria? I can’t wait to meet her!” Gudako beamed.

“Ah… About that,” Astolfo hemmed and hawed. “You see, there’s kind of been…”

“The damn witch played a prank on us. Wanna see?” Mordred’s armor clattered as she pointed deeper into the bamboo tangle.

Gudako noticed that several of the stalks looked to have been chopped down with a rough blade, but were already rapidly stretching towards the sky once more. “Yeah, and it looks like we should hurry before your path regrows itself.”

“What the-hey! Is she trying to me mad or something?” Mordred glared.

Gudako considered it. “There’s actually a fair chance of that. Hurry up, let’s see what the others have to say.”

They raced into the bamboo, coming out a few seconds later into a quiet glade that held a rippling pond, what was unmistakably Da Vinci’s tent, and a giant panda. More specifically, it was a panda that was dressed in a familiar blue outfit, chewing on the end of what should be a Caster’s staff.

“We found her like this,” drawled Semiramis. “The poor thing, BB must have dressed it up as your plus-one. Speaking of, does that mean you think we’re not assistance enough?”

Gudako gulped. The regal assassin was mercurial enough without adding jealousy into the mix. “N-no, of course not! I just thought…”

“Thought what, hm?” Jeanne Alter leaned in with a glower. She’d been nearly inseparable from Gudako’s side after having been summoned in Chaldea, but it looked like she’d taken on a jealous streak of her own.

“I mean, she probably thought that you looked cute in that dress,” Astolfo hummed not-so-innocently, doing his best to spur on his Master in love.

Gudako looked to him with a blush on her cheeks. She considered a reply, then saw that for all the anxiety she felt, Jeanne Alter was experiencing it tenfold. The pale girl was practically red as a tomato, and frantically started to sip at a bottle she held in her hands.

Come to think of it, that was a little odd in and of itself.

“Hey, where did you get…” Gudako’s stomach growled, and she winced.

“The bottle, right? From Da Vinci. I guess you just noticed, but the one thing we seem to have in common here is the hunger,” said Jeanne Alter a moment before experiencing a cramp of her own. “Did you two seriously not give her something to drink?”

Mordred’s helmet clicked on with a quiet snap, and her voice came out from its muffled grille. “Well… I… I got hungry, okay? Sue me!”

“And she’s sooo scary when she gets like that too!” Astolfo chirped. He ducked a wild swing from Mordred’s blade, then another. The knight’s motions were clumsier than usual, and Astolfo smirked up to her. “Ooh, what’s the matter? Too full?”

“Sh… Shuddup and sit still so I can flatten you!” Mordred roared.

“Calm down, children,” Semiramis beckoned them over, taking a long draught from a goblet of her own. “Da Vinci’s surely made more by now.”

Gudako blinked. “More of… What, exactly?”

Da Vinci poked her head out from the tent, an eager grin on her face. “Why, the most abundant resource around, of course. Bamboo! It’s quite nutritious when rendered properly. Come in, come in!”

“I dunno… I don’t think I can get into the taste of that…” Gudako walked into the tent, marveling at how quickly Da Vinci had set up a proper workshop.

“I also added plenty of sugar. Think of it like any other fruit drink.”

Gudako took the proffered bottle, looking at it dubiously. “Is it… Safe? I mean, BB made all this bamboo, right?”

“Relax, will you?” Jeanne Alter sighed, slipping into the tent and bumping her hip against her Master’s. “That dumb panda over there was chewing on some when we got here, so we know it can’t be too dangerous.”

Astolfo hopped in a second before Mordred clunked in behind him, her lumbering footsteps rattling some of the cups on the table. Da Vinci gave them an inquisitive look, a thought clearly forming.

“Say, what’s the plan next? Are we just supposed to, you know, survive?” Astolfo chirped, interrupting whatever the genius had been considering.

“I’m… Admittedly not quite sure. Have you tried to reach out to Chaldea?” Da Vinci looked up to Gudako.

The girl blushed, reaching for her communicator. She clicked it into her ear, and received nothing but static for her efforts.

“You too, hm?” Da Vinci read the look on her face and sighed. “I think the best we can do is camp out here until we get some sort of sign.”

“That’s the best plan you’ve got?” Morded huffed, panting slightly within her helmet. “I mean… Come on.”

“Rather even-tempered for you,” mused Da Vinci.

“Well, I’m not on my best game I guess. Happy?”

Mordred couldn’t quite seem to get the energy to get angry, and Gudako reached out to her in concern. “Hey… Need some more juice?”

“Nah,” Mordred waved her off. “You go first. Maybe it’s because you’re not giving us enough magical energy or something.”

Gudako nodded hurriedly, taking a bottle and gulping down a swig before she could taste it. The first swallow was exactly what she was worried about: a rich plantlike flavor that clung to the back of her throat. But the second, and the third after that went down much easier. “Hey, this is pretty good!”

“Well, of course. It was made by yours truly, after all.” Da Vinci said with a smirk.

Gudako blinked, finding her bottle empty. She really must have been hungrier than she’d thought. A mote of concern passed through her, and she grabbed a pair of bottles from the table. “Hey, lemme see if Semiramis needs a refill. This stuff goes down quick.”

“Don’t be gone too long! We still need to come up with a plan.” Da Vinci called after her.

Gudako stepped out into the sun, blinking rapidly in surprise at how bright it had gotten. She was actually starting to see double, with two pandas by the pond instead of just one. It took her an embarrassingly long time to realize that she wasn’t just seeing things.

Astolfo, meanwhile, was much more aware. “Pfft-hahaha! Hey, look at that! Someone dressed up another panda like Semiramis!”

The panda in question seemed confused at the remark; then familiarly indignant. It crinkled its nose, lifting a paw. For a moment, Gudako could picture the dark-haired empress about to curse the pink-haired paladin.

Then she sneezed, and her eyes clouded over. A trickle of drool trailed down her fuzzy cheek, matting against the fur on her prodigious belly.

“Well, that was weird.” Jeanne Alter muttered. “Did anyone else think that panda was really familiar?”

“Yeah…” Mordred grunted, taking a step towards it. “Familiar in the way that it’s really starting to piss me off.”

Gudako blinked in surprise. “Wat.” Was the most eloquent reply that came to mind. She looked back at the Semiramis-alike panda, seeing it flop stupidly to its butt and play with its toes.

“Grr…” Mordred glared. “Now she’s really pushing her luck! Don’t you see? Hey! You damned stinking panda! Look me in the eyes!”

“Bit hard to do with your helmet on,” Jeanne Alter muttered.

Mordred’s reply was to disengage the magical seals on her helm, letting it split along its seams and clatter back into her breastplate. She pointed at her face with her gauntlets. “Hey, look over here, you big fat slob!”

The cry was meant for the panda, but Gudako and the two Servants couldn’t help but stare along. Beneath her helmet, Mordred’s face had changed. Her nose was dark and wet, and two black rings circled her eyes. Her ears were covered in a thick fuzz, and more of the same hairs looked like they were pushing their way out from her collar.

“Hey, uh, Mo…” Astolfo began, only to squeak as Mordred whirled to glare at her, revealing impressively sharper teeth. “Never mind, go get her!”

“Astolfo!” Gudako gasped, scandalized.

“Hhhuhhyy thought you’d neverrrrask…” Mordred grinned, awkwardly wobbling towards the panda. With every step she took, it looked like it was harder and harder to stand on two legs. There was a good reason for that too: the gaps between her armor’s plates were puffing up.

“Muhh… Rggh… Hard… Walk…” Mordred went from a stumble to a full-on totter, arms out at her sides, moving forward more through the motions of her hips than her legs alone.

“You’d really think that she’s going to reach a tipping point…” Jeanne Alter tapped her lower lip thoughtfully.

With a crash, Mordred fell onto her belly. A ripple of jiggling motion traveled through her form, bursting the armor off of her with a clattering like a dozen falling pans.

“Ah, there it is.”

Not even a shred of fabric remained on her body, she was just too fat. Fortunately, her modesty remained somewhat intact thanks to a judiciously dense coat of fur. A short, wiggly tail poked its way from the fluff above her massive rear, and the Mordred-panda snuffled miserably.

“What is wrong with you two!?” Gudako wailed, looking in shock to what was once her favorite Saber-class Servant. Now, there was little left of the warrior other than her hairdo—and temper, evidently.

The Semiramis-panda reared back as the Mordred-panda swatted at her, only to flump forward onto her massive belly, pinning the other bear beneath her.

“Well, it’s not like we can stop them. Sometimes all you really can do is just watch along, you know?” Astolfo hummed, hands behind his head. A small blush was clear on his cheeks, and Gudako made a mental note to avoid looking between his legs just in case.

Instead, Gudako looked at the two pandas, watching as their motions became increasingly less adversarial, and increasingly more passionate. Paws went from pushes to pets, the two shuddering in a hefty embrace.

“Well… How about that.” Jeanne Alter stared at the two pandas, which had begun to slobber against one another’s muzzles. Their big paws pressed against each other’s swollen bellies, as though they found their guts to be more sensitive than their tits.

“Haha, oh wow! I could totally get turned on by this!” Astolfo chirped, flinching at the look from the two girls. “I said could. Geez, you guys are such prudes.”

“It’s not what you said, you asshole, just look at what you’re doing!” Jeanne Alter glared.

Astolfo looked down to find his skirt lifted rather conspicuously, his hand frozen mid-rub. “Oh well!”

“Wha- the hell do you mean by that?” Jeanne Alter glared openly. “You think I’m into that shit like my weird-ass sister?”

“Aw, she’d be happy to hear you call her that.”

Gudako could normally listen to the two bicker for hours, but something was off about both of them. Astolfo’s cuteness fang looked a little bit sharper, and she could swear Jeanne Alter looked a bit softer in the hips.

There was only one person that Gudako could think to call out to in this moment, the likely cause of this all. “BB!” She roared.

“Yes?” A voice chirped from her side.

Gudako screamed, startled by how well the girl had snuck up on her. “What the hell, where did you come from?”

“The tent,” replied BB, matter-of-factly. An impish smirk settled across her face, and she lightly tapped her riding crop against Gudako’s nose. “You know, you really should be keeping a better eye on your Servants. At this rate, you’ll all end up stuck in the zoo!”

The meaning behind her words was readily clear to Gudako, and she bolted for the tent. “Da Vinci!”

Gudako shouldn’t have even bothered wasting the effort in panicking, it would have been like trying to swim into a tsunami.

A thick, bloated panda struggled against an intricate harness on her arm, one that continued to jerkily scratch against Da Vinci’s chalkboard.

“Dhhuuuhh?” Drooled what was once a genius woman, and Gudako’s best chance of escaping this intact. She turned towards the intruder, nose twitching and tongue flicking at the air. Distracted by Gudako, she stopped fighting with her arm, long enough to carve six letters into the chalk.

B A M B O O

“Oh, huh. Guess she figured it out in the end,” hummed BB. “Shame that she wasn’t as clever as she thought she was. I mean, really. Who even tries to brew juice without checking for nanocorruptive Moon Cell particles?”

Gudako stared in mute horror. A loud bang filled the room as the Da Vinci-panda’s paw burst through the gauntlet, her thick and heavy paws completely at odds with the slender fingers that had once worked on so many inventions.

“I mean, it’s like she didn’t even try to hunt for any of my traps,” BB puffed her cheeks into a pout. Then the grin returned to her face. “By the way, you wouldn’t happen to have had any of that juice she brewed, did you? It’s probably too late for the two nitwits out there, buuut…”

BB laughed cruelly as Gudako turned to run outside again. “Someone’s in the mood for cardio. Better hurry while you still can, ‘Master’!”

Gudako found that her worst nightmares had come true. Astolfo was now horribly covered in thick fur, and was pressed atop a Jeanne Alter who was fat enough to have her belly openly burst through her chestplate.

“Mruuuh… Masturrr, get back!” Jeanne Alter growled. Despite the fur, Astolfo was still as thin as ever so she was able to hold him back.

“Jalter!” Gudako squeaked.

“Arrruh yoo listenin’ to me!?” Every word felt like it was forced from the Servant’s pale lips, and Gudako’s heart clenched at the sight of the fallen saint having been so reduced. “Grrruhm tryin’ to keep you away fruhm himmm!”

“Come on, what’s the matter? Let’s just be big, dumb, snuggly pandas together!” Ironically, Astolfo seemed to have no issues talking whatsoever. He pulled back and tore through his coat with ease, revealing his slender, feminine belly. “Aww… But you’re way more bigger than I am…”

Jeanne Alter’s cheeks flushed, and she bared her teeth at him, pushing him off of her and waddling to her feet. She turned towards her Master with a huff, sweat dewing on her pudgy face.

Gudako’s cheeks flushed at the sight, and she had to shake her head from side to side to scatter the thoughts from her head. She had to focus, to get back on track. “Da Vinci’s been turned too. It’s in the bamboo!”

It was meant as a warning, but unfortunately one of the Servants had something else firmly in mind.

Astolfo snapped off a stick of bamboo in each hand, taking a big crunch of each. “Thanks, Master! I bet this’ll let me grow big and soft like her!”

The effect on his body was immediate. His hips widened and flared, gut bulging out like a balloon being inflated. A wide smile snaked across his face, and he chomped down on another shoot. Greenish drool spilled past his lips, which darkened in color.

“Kh! Yoooo morruhn!” Jalter stumbled towards him, clumsily trying to swat the bamboo away. “Whooos gunnuh pruhhhteck Mathturrr?”

“Aw, come on. We both know you wanted her to get away from me because you wanted this beary boy all to yourself,” Astolfo smirked, wiggling his cutely swelling hips. His legs kicked out as they went from slender to swollen, toes bursting free of his shoes.

“WHAT?” Both Jeanne Alter and Gudako cried in unison.

“Well, duh. The nose knows!” Astolfo wiggled his nose to prove his point.

“That’s not even changed yet!” Gudako cried.

“Well, then we’ll call it intuition. I can tell you secretly want to cuddle me, and guess what? Master does too.”

Gudako started in surprise. She’d been inching closer to the two of them this whole time, but it was out of concern… Right? Her belly gurgled as if to disprove her.

“You see?” Astolfo beamed, crinkling his nose. It started to darken as if on cue, his face beginning to stretch towards Jeanne Alter’s. “Brroth of yooo… Ghhuuhh, yay! It’s happuhhnin tuh mee…”

Jeanne Alter stumbled away from him, towards Gudako. “Nnnuh… Ah… Dun wan’ thith… Unleth yooo doo…” She looked up pleadingly to Gudako. Her cheeks were bright red, and there was a desperate need in her eyes.

Words, so many words fluttered through Gudako’s head. Before they could make their way to her lips, she found them plugged by a swelling in her tongue. It was growing thicker, heavier. She had to gulp down drool that tasted like bamboo, for fear of letting it spill from her mouth.

“Muh… Mathturrr?” Jeanne Alter stumbled, falling onto her hands—now swollen, fleshy paws. Fur covered them as her shadow fell across them, and she let out a pleading whimper at how useless they were, never to hold a weapon or cast a spell again. All the same, the small tail that she’d hidden was wiggling like crazy.

“Bllhhuuuh,” came Gudako’s eloquent reply, her tongue spilling past her chin, wetly slapping against her neck.

“And there she goes! I was beginning to wonder if you’d ever change,” giggled BB, “you can be a real tease, you know?”

“Puhleethe…” Gudako whined, wiggling in her clothes. “Ahm’ feewin’ funny…”

“Can’t say I’m surprised, Master. You look hilarious.” BB swatted Gudako’s rump with her riding crop, letting out another deranged giggle as the girl’s ass bulged.

Gudako hated how good it felt. Maybe she really did want this. The others all looked like they were having so much fun… She looked to Jeanne Alter and Astolfo, and both of them must have seen something of the defeat in her eyes.

It was as though she’d given them permission to change further, and the two greedily accepted. The last of their humanity was overcome with fat and fur, leaving a couple of fat, heavy, soft pandas that lumbered towards the last human in the clearing.

Gudako walked towards them, her arms spreading, wondering how long it would be before she joined them. Their warm fur pressed against her from either side, and she squirmed in the loving embrace of her two favorites.

“Anyways, Master, I’m real sorry to ruin the mood, but… Well, I kinda told you and that ‘genius’ a bit of a white lie,” BB cooed.

Gudako blinked, struggling to think about just what the purple-haired girl was talking about. It was an effort, thinking was an effort. Her brain was slowing, as though her thoughts were getting as heavy as the rest of her body soon would.

Eventually, after what felt like hours, she felt like she arrived at an answer. “Thuh… That there wuth a cure?” Gudako struggled to speak around her thicker, swollen tongue. Her cheeks tickled from the growth of fur, and the pandas at her sides played their tongues along the peach fuzz, encouraging it along.

“Huh? I never said there was one, don’t be silly. No, it’s not that. It’s the bamboo. Really, it’s as plain as any other.” BB picked up one of the shoots Astolfo had dropped, taking a loud, crunching bite of it tpo prove her point.

Gudako’s ears wiggled from the sound, rounding and lifting. Fur tickled at them too, and she squirmed as her former Servants nipped at them. They were so big, so warm, so strong… How long had it been since she’d felt safe?

“It’s a conceptual kind of infection, you see,” BB continued, too proud of herself to remain quiet, “the thought of a person turning into a panda… Once it gets into your head, even as simple as ‘I’ll be a panda if I keep eating this bamboo’… Well. You see how it goes.”

“Thhghh… Rhuff… That dhrrrusn’t even muuhhake srrrnse!” Gudako huffed, her chest rising and falling, rising and rising and falling… Each breath puffed her out a bit more, and a dense pleasurable pressure was threatening to overcome her world.

“Well, about as much sense as rainbows turning people into snails, but you don’t see anyone complaining about THAT author,” muttered BB.

“Whhruh?” Gudako blinked. She really struggled with that one, but couldn’t make sense of the girl’s words. Actually, she was having a hard time to make sense of anything. “Guuhhh… Uhhmm… Dhhuhh… Grhhhuhwrr?”

A part of her brain wanted to keep talking to BB, to try and find a way back. Unfortunately, her brain was too slow to come up with words at this point, so all she could do was babble out meaningless sounds like an imbecile.

Still, if being an imbecile meant she could feel this good, she’d gladly take that any day. She squirmed her plump body, arms pawing at the fat pandas around her and hugging them even closer to her. They were warm… Soft…

Her jaw flexed, creaking and popping as it pushed out into a short muzzle perfect for snacking on bamboo. She opened it, tilting her head to the right to press her lips against her Astolfo, tasting the bamboo left on his lips; then to right to give her Jeanne Alter a taste too.

Hers… They were all hers. Her dimwitted brain, and each of theirs, remembered that much at least. She was the leader of their… Pack? Their herd?

“Embarrassment is the word you’re looking for,” hummed BB. “And just like that, I’m right as usual. You’re the biggest embarrassment I’ve seen,” BB leaned in towards the panda, whose glazed eyes barely flicked in her direction.

Instead, the panda that was once Gudako snuggled closer against her two pleasurable pets. The two sloppily licked at her face, and she mindlessly grunted in absolute, stupid pleasure.

“Well… You’re the biggest embarrassment for now, anyways. Thanks for being weak enough to succumb to the virus,” BB giggled, pointing towards the dumb panda with a blue cap. “And especially for giving me the contract to infect this cute widdle smookums. So sorry you didn’t get a speaking role this time, but there’s always the next transformation!”

The bear that had been Caster Artoria vanished with a flicker of blue light, gone back to a home that would find her to be very, very infectious.

“And the next, and the next after that…”

The pandas in the glad could no more understand BB’s words than they could comprehend her reason for breaking into rich, delighted laughter. Nor did they care. They had a warm safe haven, a lifetime’s supply of bamboo, and all the time in the world to enjoy it.