"Maybe I can help you out myself." Todd picked up the bucket and carried it over to the old table. There, he cleared off the old wooden top and gently sat the bucket down on top. He carefully scooped out a little of Gretta and poured goo from his hand onto the wooden top. And then, experimentally, he began to kneed her gooey body in his hand, kneading it through his fingers, rolling it around. And just as he had hoped, it seemed like the play was drawing out some of her viscosity and leaving her a damp clay like substance.
"Okay!" Todd leaned over the bucket. "Here's what's happening. You still there?"
The liquid croc bubbled.
"Okay, I need to pour you out and work you into this kind of clay stuff. Then you should be able to form up completely. All right?"
The bucket burbled. And so on, little by little, Todd poured out what was left of Gretta the crocodile and worked her into a massive blob of soft wet green clay. He kept pouring her over herself, working that in, and so on, until at last he had every last drop of her formed into a quivering mass. Now stiffer, and thicker, it was time for the moment of truth.
"Okay. Go for the whole thing." Todd said, and held his breath.
Slowly, but surely, Gretta began to push herself back into shape. Her claws popped out again, followed by her snout. She became a chunky approximation of a crocodile, and then eventually refined into a soft, green, damp and greatly reduced version of her normal self. She looked around the table, the room, and started to go soft again, to which she panicked and began to melt again.
"Easy, easy!" Todd consoled. "Let's just get you to hold your form and I'll try to turn you back to an animal with the remote."
Gretta nodded as she went under a second time, turning to a sloppy mess, and Todd returned to working her back into the soft green clay. Again, she formed herself up, and he patted her back gently. "Okay. Hold still, Gretta. I'll try to get it to recognize your shape, you know, now that you have one."
The remote dinged in the affirmative as he scanned her and announced her to be a 58 year old female Nile Crocodile. And then noted she had a transformative breakage and needed quantum recombination. Todd let this happen, and marveled as the now two foot long little Gretta suddenly snapped back into flesh and bone on the table. Gasping her first breath, Gretta coughed out some of her former self with a hack and then looked up at Todd in alarm. She was perfectly back to normal, just a lot smaller.
"So, uh..." He looked down at her bewildered expression and gulped sheepishly. "Sorry, big girl. I kind of... uh... melted you."
She looked up at him with a deeply peeved death glare and snorted derisively. "You're lucky I like you." She said in a gruff but adorably high pitched voice.
"Hey! You can talk now!" Todd grinned, petting her back. "It worked after all!"
"Yeah. Great." Gretta growled. "Is that gonna have to happen every time we change me? Because if so, don't bother. That was probably the worst most helpless experience of my life."
"Sorry." Todd bowed his head. "I... I didn't calibrate the remote right. I've never used it before."
"You... what?!" Gretta went wide eyed on the table, backing away slightly until her tail fell off the edge of the wood. "You... you mean... I'm the first thing you've used it on?"
"Uh, yes." Todd blushed deep red.
"Well, next time try it out on somebody else! Maybe yourself! See how you like being slop in a freaking bucket!" She snorted and relaxed, pulling her tail back onto the table. "And why in all the hells am I so little, anyway? This is freaking me out."
"Uh... a lot of you kind of went down the drain."
"Okay." She paused, taking that in, and closed her eye to sigh heavily. "Okay, whatever. But it's fixed now?"
"Yes. 100%." Todd nodded.
"Then get me big again!" She pointed at him threateningly. "I hate this!"
"Of course, Gretta. Of course."