Post by Suji on Sept 20, 2009 22:46:26 GMT -5
Ray:
Ray opened the doors to the Bellagio with the box in hand. It was quite heavy as there was probably a small cooler underneath the packaging. He had just gotten back from the post office picking up the order that had been sent from New York as it was labeled on the packaging, but there was no return address otherwise. He was actually kind of giddy at the fact that they had went through all the trouble to ship new blood samples to the faction since hearing that the controller trouble had picked up.
Walking into the ballroom, Raycut the tape on the packaging and peeled off the paper in which it was wrapped. After opening the box, his suspicion was confirmed when he saw the distinct vials of crimson liquid. Glancing through them one lable stood out in particular: the caracal.
Ray knew about this cat because he'd had to study it once in biology. He'd not soon forget something that he'd put off all month and barely finished it before class began the next day. He didn't remember too much about the animal except for one thing: it was a warm climate animal.
Remembering back to his Moose's lackluster performance in the desert, he took the vial and set it aside as he muttered "First dibs." He'd only take one morph so that others who needed new morphs could have them. He'd have to see where everyone was because he'd yet to come into contact with anyone. It was mid-day so he wasn't suprised.
Unlocking the freezer, he wondered if anyone would show.
Rian:
Rian walked into the ballroom and saw Ray opening the freezer. Cassie had called him and told him to expect a package soon of new blood but he hadn't thought it would arrive so quickly.
He trotted over to the box before Ray could put it in the freezer and began looking through the vials with the excitement of a kid opening a present on Christmas. "Cockatiel, Nighthawk, Prairie Falcon. Where does Cassie get all these new morphs?" he asked idly as he rifled through the avian section. But then he skipped over it and started going through the land animals. If there were any section of morphs he was covered on it was air and he had no need for water in Vegas.
"Koala, Camal, Gharial. I don't even know what a Gharial is. I think I need a new morph, something different from everything I have so far but a land animal. What do you think I should go for?"
Ray:
Rian soon entered the room and Ray wasn't too surprised to see at least one person here. There was always a need to have someone guarding the base at all times anyway. Even if Rian was the leader, it probably wasn't going to exempt him from the thrill of new morphs just as Ray had had when he'd opened the package. New morphs were a breath of fresh air to the fight and always carried an aura of hope.
Ray pondered the question that Rian had asked. Sure there were a ton of morphs here and it'd be foolish to just start acquiring a bunch of them so the selection process was very important here. "Well, earlier this week I found out my Moose didn't particularly enjoy desert heat, so I hope this cat will be more at home here." Ray said nodding to the vial that had "Caracal" written on it in black ink. "I've got my power morphs and air morphs, so I wanted something a little more adept at recon and agility, but still possessing quite a bit of firepower. That's how I picked mine if that helps you any."
Hopefully there'd be some more to show up at the gathering because Ray was thoroughly excited at the new firepower.
Rian:
Rian nodded. It made sense. He was covered in the air departement and he had a good spying and recon morphs in the form of his kestrel and his fox. But maybe more firepower and something different from his wolf. The wolf was agile, quick, powerful, but there were other animals that could beat a wolf in a one on one fight. "Cat sounds good to me. I haven't gotten any sort of cat morph before though others tell me that they are a unique experience."
He carefully looked through the cat section of the box. Ray had the caracal DNA but there was also Lynx, African Gold Cat, Jaguarundi, Bobcat. He didn't know enough about all these animals to know how they differed from each other so he made a choice at random. He pulled out a vial of clouded leopard dna and looked at the dark red blood it contained.
"I think I'll follow your example and go with this one. Do you know anything about clouded leopards?" He looked at all the other morphs in the box that he didn't know about and he knew there were more in the freezer. If they were going to use these animals as weapons they really should know more about them. "What do you say that after we acquire these we take a little trip and try to find some books on animals. Maybe steal them from a library or book store so that we know what all these morphs can do?"
Drake:
"Did I just hear you say 'steal from the library,' Rian? You know that library cards are free, right?" Drake laughed at his own joke as he walked through the door. He would be very surprised if the yeerks bothered to keep something like a library up and running at a time like this.
"What do you got there?" he asked, looking at the box. His heart started to beat faster as he realized what it was. New morphs! He had not thought about new morphs since he had acquired his last one, the secretary bird. There was no way he would be able to decide on a new one before they left to get books. Assuming he was going with, of course. All Drake knew was that he wanted his next morph to be big.
Rian:
"If they were free before I'm not sure if they are free now. Besides, I don't think it would really be safe for us to be seen in any place that regularly and if we are going to be getting a lot of morphs we'll have to reference the books often. I don't know, maybe stealing isn't necessary, maybe there is still a book store around somewhere but I doubt it. We could probably just scavenge what we need from an abandoned library anyway."
He popped the vial of blood open and let a drop of the blood hit his hand. That is when he remembered that he wasn't in his birth form and couldn't acquire animals this way. He had gotten to the point where he had forgotten. He looked around at Drake and Ray. He didn't think either of them had really seen him demorphed yet and he still felt a little weird about showing people but this was as good a time as any.
He demorphed back to his original form and acquired the clouded leopard. Then he quickly remorphed to the male form that everyone was used to, the change only taking 30 seconds at most since the morph was something he did almost 24/7 and it was quite practiced by now. He would still have to demorph later so that he could try out the clouded leopard but he would save that for later.
He cleared his throat a bit and looked at Ray. "Maybe you should go first with the caracal and I can morph wolf just in case the instincts are hard to control? Then, once you have control of the caracal morph you can do the same for me when I morph the clouded leopard."
Ray:
Ray listened to the conversation between Drake and Rian intently as he aquired the caracal, but because he was doing so, he remained silent. "Yeah, that sounds like a good idea." Ray said of Rian's suggestion for him to test his morph. Hopefully it wouldn't be too hard to control. Hopefully this thing was as everybit as docile as a housecat.
Focusing on the images he remembered from the project, he felt the tan colored hair begin to spout. The muscles and bone moved around and, within the next two and a half minutes, he was fully feline.
Glancing around the room for threats, the Caracal found none. If the humans didn't mess with it, it wouldn't mess with them and they didn't carry themselves in an aggressive manner. He heard a car go by outside and it was then that he realized that the caracal's hearing was the best of any animal he'd ever morphed. Suprised by the sense of hearing, he realized that he was an animal. <<Alright, I think I got it.>>
Rian:
Rian had been caught a bit off guard when Ray began morphing and quickly rushed through his own demorphing and remorphing to wolf in order to be ready to fight him off if he lost control of the morph. Only the fact that the wolf morph was becoming a very familiar one allowed him to get into morph before Ray did but it was a close thing.
Rian's wolf morph wasn't too happy about the caracal's scent but the rule between predators was, "if they leave you alone, you leave them alone," so all he did was twitch his tail and ears, resisted the urge to show any other wolf forms of aggression, and sat back on his haunches as Ray reported that he had the morph under control.
<<Alright, I guess it is my turn then.>> Rian gave up the wolf form he had come to love so much, the agility and keen senses slipping away as his body became more human. He sat on the ballroom floor for a moment to catch his breath. Even though he didn't like being in his birth body for long but he was a little nervous about the clouded leopard morph. It wasn't like when he had gotten his wolf morph. The wolf was a powerful animal but at least he had some sort of reference for what it would be like since he had spent so much time as a fox before that. This time he had no frame of reference so he took a moment to prepare his mind to take on the new instincts.
Then he closed his eyes and pictured a cat about Ray's size, trying his best to concentrate on the parts of the animal that he was certain of like the basic shape of the face and the look of the eyes. He also, as always, kept in mind what the animal was. When he thought of cats he thought of quiet, cool confidence born of indifference. He thought of grace. His cat morph was a leopard and he knew that a defining characteristic about leopards were their climbing abilities. He thought of a cat, lounging on a tree branch in the warm sun of its jungle home, content for it had no needs that were not provided for.
If it was hungry then food need only be caught. If it was thirsty water was all around. It lived in this world and it was perfectly adapted for it.
His body twisted and shifted. Claws grew from his fingertips, curving and becoming the weapons that would keep Rian and his team mates alive. Claws that allowed Clouded leopards to grip tree branches even while hanging under them. Muscles, fluid and strong, began to take the place of his own human muscles as his skeleton morphed to support them. The cat had a stocky, large build, making it very powerful.
Before his face had completely changed two canine teeth grew past his lips, making Rian look briefly like a vampire of legend. The clouded leopard had the longest teeth of any feline in proportion to its size and the yellow fangs certainly felt formidable.
Tawny, silver fur spread across his body, forming a marbled pattern. The cloud shaped ellipses that gave the cat its name covered his coat instead of stripes or spots. The fur was smooth, silkily so, and gleamed under the soft lights of the ballroom.
His spine extended to form the tail that was as long as his body and gave this cat its amazing sense of balance and allowed it to be as agile through the trees as Rian's own primate ancestors.
Three minutes later Rian stood in the ballroom and waited for that moment when the cat's mind would join his own. He was looking for it but he still wasn't prepared when it happened. A cool presence came into his mind and almost seemed to lull him to sleep. He found himself falling under its spell as a man in a blizzard might contemplate sleep even though he knows it means death.
The deadly confidence filled his mind and pushed everything else out. The clouded leopard looked around the ballroom and spotted the young boy there. Prey maybe. Hungry. No. Not prey then. Cat. Competitor. No. No prey between them. No territory. No competition.
The golden eyes of the cat stared at the caracal and Rian wasn't behind them.
Drake:
Drake watched as Rian morphed into a leopard. He had to admit that he was a bit jealous that Rian had gotten such a cool morph. Ray's caracal morph was pretty sweet too, for that matter. He was about to comment on this when he noticed something about Rian.
His leopard body looked all tensed up, the way a wild animal would look. "Rian... Are you ok in there?" Drake took a cautious step back, his fight or flight instincts kicking in.
Who was he kidding? Only his flight instincts were kicking in.
Ray:
<<Yeah Rian, I got the territorial urge too, just gotta control it.>> Ray said commenting on Rian's appearance as the leopard. <<These things are highly territorial.>> He explained to Drake. At first, it was hard to tell what that nagging feeling was that for lack of a better word, pissed the cat off. At first he thought it was just the presence of others and that was it, which would explain why the cats were independant animals, but upon further inspection, it was that the humans and other cats were here.
Somehow when the cat brain came in, it sensed that the human felt this as it's home. Becoming one, the cat took this as it's home as well. <<Rian.>> Ray said again trying to calm the cat's mind. <<It's the cat's urges. If you want to you can let this out by peeing somewhere, but not by fighting.>> He looked over at Drake whom was looking like he was about to flee the scene which, Ray didn't blame him at all. <<I knew we should have waited the standard week before introducing a new feline to the household.>>
Rian:
The clouded leopard sniffed the air and tried to find territory markers but none were too be found. If human emotions could be assigned to it the best would have been confused. But it wasn't really thinking, it was just acting. This wasn't it's territory but this wasn't the caracal's territory either which meant it was open to be claimed...and the leopard wanted it. It had to live somewhere and this was as good as any.
The clouded leopard growled low in its throat and lowered itself slightly into a crouch position. Now would come the ancient ritual that animals had been practicing for all their existence. I push you, test your resolve. You can run but if you don't you push back. Now it is my turn to decide if what we are fighting over is worth it. If I run then the conflict is over but if I stay then I push back. Maybe do more than growl this time, maybe swipe, but not attack, not yet. Not unless the oppenent still decides that the resources, in this case territory, were worth fighting over. If he pushes back, well then you fight.
It was instinct. Even humans still followed this very simple script though many didn't notice they did it, but just watch a confrontation escalate on a street corner and it always followed this pattern: push, push back, push again-fight.
The clouded leopard growled and waited.
Ray:
Ray backed up a couple of steps. The caracal mind didn't want to, but he forced it back. The last thing they needed was to tear each other apart along with the Den. The mind of the cat was unlike anything Ray had experienced before. There was a sort of cocky way that the cat's mind behaved. The stereotypical perspective that humanity had on felines was dead on to say the least. The cat did believe it was the owner of the house.
The caracal's mind was easier to get control of at first because there were no other felines for it to contend with. Rian had gone wolf, but Ray had kept a focus on his morphing process the whole time so that it was easier to take control of his morph knowing that the wolf wasn't really just a wild wolf. Rian hadn't had such a luxery. Understandably his clouded leopard was angry.
<<Riiiian.>> Ray called. <<If you want to be a cat that's fine, but understand that by doing so you forfeit your name and will be renamed "Mr. Tinkles.">>
Drake:
Drake was about to bolt for the door, but then realized they were not paying much attention to him personally. He decided to stay in case an 'emergency situation' broke out. Although he did position himself behind one of the ballroom chairs.
He just about burst out laughing when Ray threatened to call Rian Mr. Tinkles. The seriousness of the situation was the only thing that kept him in control. Perhaps that sudden absurdity would be enough to snap Rian back into control of his body.
Rian:
The voices in his head were what finally broke him out of it. Not necessarily because of what they said but because it was there in the first place.
Rian was suddenly back. It was almost jarring. One moment he wasn't there and the next he was, in control. He shook his head and sat back on his haunches. He flexed his muscles, slipping his claws in and out of their sheaths and opened his mouth, letting his tongue loll out and feel his gums and incisors. He took a deep breath and then sneezed as some of the Den's dust got in it.
Once he was done testing everything out and really making sure that he was in control he turned his amber eyes on Drake and Ray. <<Thanks.>> Then a bit more sheepishly, <<Sorry, I lost control. Over confidence I guess.>>
Ray:
<<It's fine.>> Ray said totally empathetic to Rian's plight. <<I don't know about you, but this sense of hearing is way better than even a dog's. Everything is much more precise.>> Yes, precise was the perfect word for the cat. The cat's mind loved the little details it's nose and superior ears picked up. The cat's ears could probably even hear conversation from blocks away given it was outside along with the conversation.
Out of pure habit, Ray began to pace. The muscles barely working at all as the package of power and flexibility worked to create one powerful cat. A buzzing noise! He looked up to see a fly flying near the top of the ceiling. It's buzzing was about as noticeble as a car engine running. Although the cat's mind had little interest in this, it sent the message to him that he could jump high enough to get a swat off at it.
Weird, Ray thought. That thing must be nearly seven or eight feet in the air...
Drake:
Now that the tension had subsided, Drake could finally take the time to really look at their new morphs. Both of the big cats had a liquid coolness associated with the way they moved. It was as if two of The Fonze from Happy Days were glued together with feng-shui and molded into cat-form.
"That's it. I gotta find a morph as cool as your guys' morphs. Where did those vials go?" Drake went over to the new morphs and started looking through them. Camel? Handy, but no. Gazelle? Kind of cool, but pretty small. Sturgeon? Definitely not. This could take a while...
Rian:
Rian unmorphed even though he wanted to hold onto to the cat form for a bit longer, maybe test more things out, but they had things to do today. Maybe they could go for a run in the desert later. Rian did that sometimes, flew out to the desert, morphed wolf and just ran for all he was worth, howled at the moon some or just howled for fun. It was always a bit lonely but it was ok.
He walked over to Drake. "Yeah, you should definitely get a new morph too. What do you want? A cat like ours or something else?"
Drake:
"Yeah, a cat would be pretty neat. Do we have tiger DNA? Oh, wait... I think I found something." Drake pulled out a vial of giraffe DNA. He had wanted something big, and this definitely fit the requirements. "I think I will take this one," he said, holding up the container and wiggling its contents.
He popped the top off and acquired the genetic make-up of a giraffe. He looked up at the ballroom ceiling. It was pretty high and would probably be high enough, but he could not be sure. "Should I try it out now, or wait until later?"
Rian:
"Um," Rian said looking at the vial that Drake was holding, "maybe later." He didn't think a full grown fgiraffe would fit in the ballroom no matter how big it was. But then he thought about what would happen if the yeerks heard about a random giraffe wandering around the desert and changed his mind.
"Nevermind. Better try it here. Hold on though, I'm going to morph back to the leopard just in case you lose control of the morph. The giraffe probably wont be happy about having two cats around it but they are the only things that could take it down if we had to."
With that he reversed his morphing and became the clouded leopard again, this time fully in control.
Drake:
Drake was a bit nervous to morph the giraffe. This was his first morph that was bigger than him, and also his first morph that was a mammal. This was going to be a new experience to say the least. "Alright, here I go," he said as he striped down to his morphing suit.
The first change he noticed was the tail shooting out from the base of his spine. This caught him off guard since he had expected to get taller. A giraffe's tail might not seem very big on a giraffe, but on a human it was enormous. It did not help that it was completely devoid of hair either, just like a rat's.
Next were his arms. They doubled, or even tripled in length with a grinding-stretching sound, causing them to crash to the floor under their own weight. At this time his torso began to bulk up, expanding his ribs to allow for all of the giraffe organs that he could feel (and hear) replacing his own. Spotted fur also covered most of his body, giving him the pattern characteristic of a giraffe.
Finally his legs began to lengthen to match his arms. Awkwardly, he went to all fours and was at a dizzying height by the time his hooves formed. At least he though it was a dizzying height until his neck started to grow.
His neck shot up like a weed using Miracle Grow. He was so tall that he bumped his head on the fifteen foot high ceiling. Surprisingly, he could feel that the bones in his neck were only growing, he was not gaining more of them.
The last few changes were some knobby horns on top of his head and a tongue that was too long for its own good. He was now an eighteen foot tall tree eater with stilts for legs, feet the size of dinner plates, and a neck that was taller than his human self. All in a room that was too short. <<I can see my house from here,>> Drake joked right as the instincts kicked in.
Predators. There were predators in the room. His giraffe body tensed as the fight or flight response kicked in. These puny little cats probably could not do much to him, but better to be safe than sorry. To top it all off, claustrophobia began to set in. The giraffe mind did not like to be in a place where it could not extend to its full height.
Ray:
Ray had always thought of giraffes as funny animals and watching a human turn into one was amusing aside from the disgusting aspect of it. He'd laid lazily on the ballroom floor grooming himself as Drake had aquired the morph. Sure he was himself, but acting out the cat was just plain fun. It had sort of an apathetic attitude toward anything that didn't directly involve it that wasn't interesting.
Rian's remorphing into his leopard kind of threw off his caracal mind, but he quickly figured out what was happening. He stood, stretching, as Drake began his morph. The giraffe quickly took up a lot of space and left the caracal feeling very stressed and uneasy about how cramped the ballroom was getting.
Once the giraffe was done growing all Ray could say was <<Wow.>>
Rian:
Rian sat back on his haunches and stared up at the giraffe Drake had become. <<Well I guess that answers that question. I think you are going to have to practice that morph outside from now on, preferably in the desert where no suspicious controllers will see you.>>
He looked at Ray and then back to Drake wondering what they should do next but then, remembering his own recent experience he realized Drake might not be fully in control yet. <<So Drake, you in control? You ok?>>
Drake:
Drake thrashed his head around near the ceiling. His head was getting a bit scraped up, but he needed his full height. He just would not be okay if he could not stretch to his full height.
<<So Drake, you in control? You ok?>> he heard Rian say.
Drake was not quite in control. The giraffe really did not like this low ceiling, and the predators did not help much either. However, since the big cats were not lions specifically, the giraffe did not view them as terrible threats. He tried moving around,but it was awkward with his head tilted down, so he soon stopped.
He slowly started to gain control over his vertical claustrophobia. It probably helped that he had never really suffered from claustrophobia as his human self, enabling him to better subdue the giraffe's instincts. <<I think I... I almost... There. Indoors was not a good choice.>>
Now that he had control over this form, he started testing out the body. He moved his neck, lifted his legs, swished his tail, and whatever else seemed interesting. Yet the whole time the giraffe's instincts kept nagging at the back of his mind. It was getting pretty annoying. <<I think it is about time I demorph.>> And he began to do just that.
Rian:
Rian began to demorph when Drake did and so they finished at about the same time. He went over to the box of blood vials and began storing them carefully in the freezer, making sure that they were in the right order so that animals would be easy to find in the future.
He looked at Drake and Ray, "I know I said that maybe we should go out to a library but do you guys still feel up to it? Getting and trying out that new morph took it out of me a bit but I'll go if you both still want to."
Ray:
<<Yeah, I know what you mean.>> Ray said. He hadn't chose to demorph just yet. The power all coiled up inside of him and the acute senses were unlike anything he'd experienced before. He wasn't too keen on immediatly returning to his own body. The dog had been one his favorite morphs before this, but even the dog's senses were nothing compared to this.
Finally done with grooming himself he stood up and stretched noting the flexibility the cat had. <<We could stick around for a little bit and see if anyone else shows up.>> Ray said. <<I probably will go out and scout the library, jut not at the moment.>>
He'd had fun watching the two get new morphs and he himself had a load of fun with the Caracal. Surely someone else would show up to join in on the festivities. He knew how serious this was, but there wasn't anything against the rules in not denying the good times that arose from it.
Drake:
"I have no problem with sticking around the ballroom for a while," Drake said nonchalantly. "You were going to the library to get an animal book right? I think that between all of us here at The Den, we know enough about giraffes. So I am just saying, you do not have to go steal anything for my benefit."
Drake sat down on an empty chair and set his feet up on another one. "But I will still help you if you do decide to go later. I have nothing better to do." He rocked back onto the rear legs of the chair put his arms behind his head.
