Mercury wheeled over a little rolly shelf with a coffee pot, accouterments, and two mugs, one plain white and the other one reading KISS YOUR ASTROPHYSICIST ! in big block letters. Kepler took the plain one and loaded it up with sugars and little creamer packets so it was more sweet than coffee.

“Every time we interviewed anyone in school, we had to recite that.” Kepler wondered once again when his life would expand past the need to compare everything to his scholarly years.

He clicked the recorder back on as Mars released his Pokemon and for a second all Kep can do is squint.

“Woah.”

He walks a little half circle around the strange Inkay. She looks relatively normal, aside from being a different color. Setting the coffee cup down, he grabs a plastic container and a scale usually used for weighing infants, sets the box on top of it, and tares it out.

“Subjective: presents with an odd coloration. Normal species-specific levitation capability. Normal anatomy present: mantle, tentacles, and feeders. Relaxed demeanor, if apprehensive.”

He makes sure the scale reads zero then steps back. “Can you hop in there, please?” he asks the Inkay, pointing to the plastic container.

Martín del Mar

☉

It’s not a suggestion or a hint, it’s just the cup Merc happened to grab. Fun fact, Kepler had never been kissed (or kissed anyone, for that matter) and so even if Mars was down, which he certainly definitely probably wasn’t, Kepler had long since accepted his fate to die a spindly, untouched virgin.

It was fine.

Kepler keeps rattling off observations: the strange miasma, the odd colorations, and the normal things. Then the Inkay flexes, and Kepler arches an eyebrow.

“Subject is… B-A-R,” he decides, not realizing just how close he comes to have a face-full of tentacles as he chooses then to retreat to his computer and record the subject’s weight as it settles into the basket.

“Did you catch this Inkay as a shadow or did you… transform them, somehow?” Kepler asks, moving to unwrap a series of sterile instruments in a package, breathing in the remnant scents of autoclave.

It was his favorite smell.

He was going to die a virgin.

Martín del Mar

☉

Kepler’s mouth makes a little oh shape when Mars says the Inkay hatched. He thinks back to all the times he walked by the repro lab. Never ventured in-- genetics, while exponentially fascinating, were not his cup of tea.

Mars sighs as though disappointed and Kepler can’t stop the peristalsis of failure that slides its way up his gut like he’s about to vomit a slug.

“I see,” is all he says, because what else can he say? He’d still been wobbly on his feet a few months ago. Fresh out of Alamos, setting up his lab, nestling into the Rocket Sub like a good Cuterebra. Then he’d gotten kidnapped and killed a guy. He’d been busy!

“If she’ll permit, I’m going to take a small blood sample,” he said, splitting the package on a 3CC luer lock with a 22 gauge needle. “Then, a small tissue sample with the biopsy punch.”

He pointed to a spot almost dead center of her mantle. “Her cephalic artery should be there, so that’s where I will draw from.” He looked at Mars for permission to approach-- not because he really, specifically wanted it, but he did want Mars to be aware and jump in if she tried to hentai his face.

Martín del Mar
im reading about the circulatory system in cephalopods it's very interesting

☉

Kepler nods as Mars releases his Hatterene, who gives Kepler the dirtiest look he thinks a Pokemon has ever been able to conjure-- which is saying something, given his rampant history of being bullied. He does his best to ignore it, making sure the needle is well snug in the lock and putting the syringe between his teeth to snap on a pair of nitrile gloves, just to be safe.

The miasma around the Inkay’s body burns cold, even through the gloves. It’s a very strange feeling, one that Kep wants to bottle and investigate-- but maybe later, because he has to get all his baseline shit down before he can start running around in fantasy fairy shadow gas land.

He’s not the most well-versed with needles and blood draws but he’s done his fair share of micro pipetting and PCR analysis; he flips the needle bevel up, clicks off the cap, and goes to apply pressure around the cephalic to get it to really pop, two fingers in each side of the vein, pads of his pointer and middle finger pressing into the soft flesh of the Inkay’s mantle.

The vein is, surprisingly, not very abnormal. It’s purple in color, which is to be expected. It stands up beautifully and Kepler is pretty much sure he’s gonna hit it dead on; when the needle slides in, like a knife through butter, he slowly begins to draw back the plunger. Dark ichor floods the syringe, spiraling through the needle hub first before beginning to drip into the 3cc tube.

He’s got almost half of the full thing when the Inkay’s tentacles lash up and wrap around his restraining wrist. Kepler panics and jerks the needle back, at the same time trying to follow proper procedure and hold the venipuncture off while the Inkay savages his hand and wrist with tentacles. Her lights begin to flash angrily in warning. “Hold on-- I just gotta-- make sure you stop bleeding, ack, Mars!”

One of her longer feeder tentacles lashes across his face, hitting his cheek with a wet slap and pulling at the skin. At the same time, she launches forward, beak snapping within millimeters of Kepler’s nose.

Martín del Mar

☉