Genius

His Zachbots are too far away. That stupid bug scooter took him at least a mile from the Varmijet.

A scooter that is now destroyed. It smashed itself against a tree.

He's lost in the woods. He's dirty, scared, and lost in the woods at night.

Chris is unconscious. He hit his head on a branch, of all things, in the crash.

A big pig-thingy is trying to kill him. They made it mad when they flew past its den.

And he knows he can't use the Creature Power Suit. His experiments proved that, at least.

Zach stifles a high-pitched whine, his mind still functioning enough to tell him that letting the pig-thingy know where he is would be a horrible idea.

Okay, he just has to stay calm. Stay calm, stay alive. He doesn't have a choice. He just has to do what he does best; analyze and calculate. Pigs can't climb, right? So, maybe he can get up a tree and wait for his Zachbots to track him down.

He can't climb, either, but he thinks he can probably jump well enough to get on one of the lower branches. But that would leave Chris to be eaten by the pig, as he definitely can't pull both of them up, so that's out.

Wait, why is that out? The Wild Rat will be fine, he's one with nature or whatever–

That's it, that's why it's out, it just took Zach a moment to catch up with his own genius. Chris actually knows how to survive out here, all he has to do is wait for the guy to wake up and everything will be okay. A brilliant plan, minimal effort on Zach's part with maximum reward, and both of them will be okay.

Which is important, for some reason. Probably the fear of the Rats blaming him for Chris's dea– dem– fate. Yeah, that's it. So, he'll wait here for Chris to wake up, then–

A rustling reminds Zach why he was thinking about getting up a tree in the first place. The pig thingy is getting closer, and he still doesn't have any weapons.

Trying (and failing) to stop hyperventilating, Zach runs through his options in his head. There's not enough time to build something out of scooter parts, even if there's anything salvageable. He isn't strong enough to carry Chris, so he can't run (why?!). All he really has is a smartwatch and an unconscious–

An unconscious survivalist expert with, like, fifty pockets. Zach smacks his forehead, cursing as quietly as possible when he kneels down — dirt leaves bugs eww help contaminated dirt — on the ground, reaching to search through the other's pants and shirt.

Please don't wake up right now. Zach mentally prays, trying very hard to not guess what Chris might think if he wakes to his enemy fiddling around with his clothes while he was unconscious. More importantly, he tries to not guess what the elder Kratt might do to him based on any assumptions by the younger.

The risk is worth it, as he finds a collection of Power Disks (arranged alphabetically, which is strangely soothing in all the chaos around him... Good old organized Chris Kratt) and a case of what appears to be animal parts. Not in the creepy way like Gourmand collects, just the stuff that naturally comes off; fur, spikes, and is that a snake skin?!

Ugh, icky nature lovers. Oh well, at least he has something. Now he just needs to figure out which disks have corresponding parts to activate them, then figure out if any of them will be remotely useful without the user being conscious.

(Stupid DNA-locked power suits...)

Zach glances at his watch, hoping to see a Zachbot signal, and realizes it's only been five minutes since the crash. Not enough time for a Zachbot to get here. Not enough time period, he must really be panicking to be thinking this fast.

It's only another half minute before he figures out which disks can be used. A birdy thingy with a grey feather, the snake, something that looks way too much like a pig but has spikes, and a shark. Because of course Chris just carries around several shark teeth of various sizes.

There's still some fur he can't identify, but none of the remaining animals really look all that useful anyways, so he won't bother trying to sort all of them.

Birdy, snake, spike pig, or shark. Zach's actually not sure if Chris can breath when in shark mode, it's exactly the sort of thing he knows Aviva would overlook, so he discounts that one.

A birdy could fly them to the safety of the trees, but Chris would have to be awake for that. Maybe the snake's one of those with poison (the small part of him that actually pays attention to others' ramblings yells venom, but he ignores it), and Zach can poison the big pig.

It's barely a second after that thought before said pig bursts through the foliage. Zach screams, high-pitched and loud enough to be heard all the way over by the Varmijet. He stuffs a disk into place, isn't sure which one it is so just puts all the animal parts on top of Chris, and slams his hand down on the big paw print button.

A bright green flash and a squeal of pain later, Zach blinks the spots out of his eyes just in time to see the big pig running away with green spikes all over its face. Zach looks down at the grass-colored spike pig that now rests beside him.

"Good job, Green Guy." Zach smirks, carefully patting the pointy head. Well, good job Zach, really. It was his plan that saved them, after all. But there was no one here to hear him, so he might as well give Chris some credit.

He sighs, slumping against the tree, and closes his eyes for a few seconds. The big piggy's gone, now all he has to do is hope his Zachbots find him before the Crew does. Or maybe one of the other villains will make an appearance? So long as someone gets here quick enough to give Chris medical atten–

Nope, no, bad thoughts. He needs to think about something else. There's no red staining the dirt, no bones visible, Chris is fine. Blue Boy and Aviva will hurt Zach if he isn't (Zach wouldn't blame them).

Other topics, other topics... He's never had a chance to study a transformed Kratt this close before. Not in detail, anyways.

He always thought it was just a suit, and it really is, but now he can see that there's some actual physical changes as well. The robotic spikes meld perfectly with the brown-tinged spikes that used to be his hair, dark markings have appeared around his eyes, and–

Oh circuits, those claws are partially real.

...

....

.....

Aviva's a genius, isn't she?

Dammit...

When the Zachbots show up at the Tortuga the next morning carrying a familiar green-clad, concussed Crew member, Martin almost goes berserk. The only thing that stops him from chasing after Zach is the fact that Chris has received medical treatment already and will be fine.

While Martin dotes over Chris, Aviva meets with the Zachbots to find out why they haven't flown off yet. The machines beep at her for a minute or two, give her a large crate and a piece of paper, then zoom away without a word (not that they actually ever say anything, but still).

Aviva opens the crate to find the missing Buzz-Bike, painted black and red, fixed up almost as well as she herself could. She's going to have to take it apart, look for traps, repair and repaint it — but she still appreciates the bizarre gesture from her rival.

Somehow, the piece of paper manages to be both more bizarre and more appreciated. It's a pencil sketch of her, back in her teens, face scrunched in thought as she repairs a TV.

She gasps as she realizes that she remembers that day.

She remembers her highschool friend's boyfriend trying to fix it first. She remembers him screeching when he couldn't, remembers him scoffing when she told him to just let her do it. She remembers his look of shock when it turned back on, the small smile she'd only got a glimpse of before he covered it with a scowl, claiming that she was 'just lucky'.

It's not a moment that should be beautiful. It's not a memory that should be beautiful. It's not an image that should be beautiful.

Somehow, it is.