Post by Admin on Aug 10, 2009 20:58:02 GMT -5
Fin:
"Demorph god damn you!" Fin's tongue just flashed out, tasting the air. His small beady eyes were expressionless. The controller watching him, looking for some sort of reaction, looked like he was about to have a heart attack. The vein in his neck was pulsing faster than was healthy and Fin could almost hear his heart beat. He could certainly taste/smell his fear. Apparently that wasn't a lie, fear really did have a smell. And this controller stunk of it. And if Fin were the cause he wouldn't be running mental circles in panic. But he wasn't.
"If you don't demorph we will fry you! Do you understand me human!" Fin wanted to cry but he couldn't and for that he was grateful. This body allowed him a level of dignity he probably would not have achieved on his own. He wondered how much of his mental image of Sophie and her unshakable calm was due to the fact she was a god damn snake.
Sophie! He hadn't ever apologized. Fuck! How was he going to get out of this. He had to get out of this. He couldn't die here and he couldn't spend the rest of his life as a snake. Please...he wanted to go home.
FLASHBACK
"THEY SHOULD BE OPEN." Ray's voice came to them booming over the intercom reminding Fin of the Wizard of Oz. Big voice, small man. Kind of like them. Big show, small team.
Fin muttered under his breath as his hands flew over the door controls, trying to hold up his end. What was he not getting? His mind raced, trying to spot the key that would make the damn door recognize Ray's command as a legitimate one without the proper access key. "Right they should be open. Doesn't mean they-" with a slight hiss as the hydraulics kicked in and all the doors in this hall opened. Fin stepped back from the control and walked over to the door the rest of his team was standing in front of so that he could see into the room.
At first he wasn't sure what he was seeing. He looked over at Aubrey and Suji for a clue. Suji's face was expressionless but what else was new. He turned his attention to Aubrey. "Oh my God." Her voice was barely a whisper and Fin looked back into the room, spotting a pool of blood seeping into the light from the door.
"What the..." he took an involuntary step back as he realized what was on the floor, what was all over the bodies, because that was what they were, in the room. Fin had seen his fair share of death and slaughter. He was a hunter, he'd cut the throats of wounded deer with his own hands. They had always screamed, a cry of ignorant fear, it was the thing that made him hesitate each time. So how could someone have done that to a human being that could say your name?
Fin was broken out of his shock when Suji lunged forward with a cry of denial. What the hell was she saying no to. They couldn't deny what was right in front of their faces and Suji had never seemed like the type to deal in comforting fantasies instead of disturbing facts.
She fell in the blood and he didn't move to help her because he had caught sight of what she must have already seen. The woman in the corner brought the bit of glass up to her own neck and drew a gruesome red line. Fin heard the wet ripping sound as the glass bit into and severed the muscles in her neck, the cut anything but clean.
Fin had the almost disturbing thought, well that is one way to do it, do it yourself. He grimaced in disgust as she fell to the ground and her blood joined the pool already on the floor.
Suji picked herself up and shrugged off her lab coat. Seemed they were discarding their disguises, and why not, Ray's message was sure to alert everyone that they were here anyway.
Can't believe I gave up a kidney for this shit, he thought rebelliously as Suji brushed past him, letting Drake and Aida know that the ones in their room were dead.
He turned away from the sight in the room and shrugged off his own lab coat, letting it drop beside Suji's as Ray's voice came over the intercom yet again. “GUYS, GET OUT OF THERE! YOU GOT COMPANY COMING!” Fin looked around, adrenaline flooding his veins as Ray announced they were in danger, he was in danger.
"Everyone, battle morphs. Hurry!" Suji ordered. He didn't have to be told twice but what should the morph? He didn't have anything especially powerful in his arsenal. He had always trusted to his ability to hide to keep him alive. He looked at Suji and could already see the scales overtaking her skin. Aubrey was tripling in size even as he turned to look at her. What should he morph?!
He closed his eyes and began to shrink. He wanted to be small. If his teammates were going big he was going to be small. They would be targeted first. No offense to them or whatever but they could probably take it. He didn't have any thing that could take a hit and keep going.
Black scales spread across his skin in a wave and his ears shrunk to almost nothing, becoming tiny holes on the side of his head. His pupils grew to take up his entire eye and his arms got sucked back into his body. His legs melded together and he fell over. It hurt.
He let out a hiss that was actually half hiss as his fangs began to grow in. Small! I want to be small! but he was shrinking slowly, too slowly. Taxxons hit their group when he was still halfway between human size and morph size. Maybe he should have joined the others in morph practice after all.
He did his best to slither away in his half morphed state as Taxxons fell under Suji's jaws and Aubrey's hooves, Aida's paws and Drake's horns. Good to be useless but at least he was alive.
He got over to a wall and saw the other Peace Movement Controllers just sitting around in their cell watching the battle. WTF. He was about to yell at them when they began moving on their own. Apparently seeing the team repel the first attack broke them out of their paralysis.
<<Figures. They don't trust us until we face death for them,>> Fin said sarcastically as the morph finished and he slithered over to the group, trying to avoid the Taxxon guts everywhere.
<<Ok, new plan. Drake and Aubrey have the fastest morphs that can do some real damage in small hallways. You two should take the lead, clear a path, and we'll follow right behind you. Aida, Fin, you two watch the back. I'll stay directly in front of the group.>>
Suji's voice was calm in his head and for once he didn't question someone else telling him what to do. He wanted to be told what to do right now because he had no idea how to get out of here alive on his own.
Drake and Aubrey turned to leave, completely ok with being used as living shields at Suji's order. Fin dropped back, Aida's lynx form right beside him. <<Got your back...>> her voice came into his head. He knew it was meant to be comforting but he couldn't be comforted by much right now. They were trapped in a fucking prison underground and half the people they had come to save were already dead. The yeerks knew they were here and they were coming. He didn't see them as getting out alive.
<<Just don't step on me,>> he almost snapped back, softening his tone at the last minute. Now that he was at this height he realized just how likely that was and he didn't blame Sophie for being paranoid. Fucking Sophie. She could be down here doing this as well as he could. Once again she wasn't doing anything to justify that big ego of hers.
His thoughts continued to stray down dark and unforgiving paths has he slithered down the hall.
Fin:
"Leave him Demien. He'll demorph soon enough." A woman said, coming up behind his captor. She was different from the rest. She didn't have the lackey air that everyone else seemed to have. She thought she was better than these people and she showed it.
"Yes Inspector," he said as he stepped back and let her have his position in front of Fin. Fin was reminded of those nature vids he'd watched in between doing homework or something, specifically of the ones featuring wolves and their dominance rituals. This guy backed up and bowed and it reminded Fin of wolves laying down and exposing their throats for those stronger than him.
Figures the Yeerk Empire would be a nation of wolves in sheep's clothing. It all made such a pretty metaphor and if Fin was safe and at home where he belonged he was sure he would enjoy it. As it was he was trapped in a little box feeling his poison sacks fill as the woman drew closer. But his poison couldn't reach her through the glass and he knew that even if the snake didn't.
"You'll be trapped in that body in five minutes. If you are trapped as a snake you are useless to us and we will kill you. Demorph and you have a place in our empire." She said logically but in a light tone as if none of this mattered to her. And who was he kidding, his life probably meant less to her than the shoes she was wearing. "Surely that is better than death?"
She had a point.
Fin looked around the little glass box they had stuck him in when they'd caught him. There was no way out of course and there wasn't even enough room in here for him to morph something truly big and scary even if he'd had a morph like that. Just room enough to demorph. But then they would make him a controller and he would betray everyone he cared about. Aida, Sophie, Aubrey, Drake, Suji. They'd even get hold of everyone's favorite guy, Jack Day. They would all die if they weren't dead already. Or be made into controllers. But what did he care? They had left him behind. He'd heard the order to leave him behind.
FLASHBACK
Fin was keeping himself occupied trying to hear anything coming their way. His hearing wasn't exactly like human hearing. He seemed to feel sound through his body more than hear it in the traditional sense. And right now he was trying to hear the pitter patter of hork bajir claws on the hallway's floors. But there was a lot of interference. Drake's and Aubrey's hooves were making quite a racket and the scraping of the croc's belly on the concrete wasn't helping much either. Add in the human footsteps of the YPM and you had one big cacophony that he couldn't hear anything through. The only one who was being quiet was Aida but she was a cat so that was to be expected.
He tried to isolate the sounds in his mind so that he could know what to pay attention to and what to discard. Scrapey claw sound, Suji, ignore. Patting of sneakers and click of heals on concrete, YPM, ignore. Clop of pounding hooves, Drake and Aubrey, ig--The sounds of the hooves got louder as one of them came back down the hallway and soon he could see that it was Drake. There were wounds all over his face and shoulders and it was obvious that he'd been in a fight. And it was just as obvious that it hadn't phased him much. Fin envied that invulnerability right now.
<<Dra->> Suji's voice called out to him but he quickly cut her off.
<<I can not stop. I have to help Ray and Lizzie.>> He barreled past them, the YPM controllers squeezing against the walls to get out of his way. Fin silently wished him luck in his foolish, but brave endeavor and was about to turn his attention back to searching for threats that might come at him when Suji ordered Aida to go as well.
She seemed surprised to be called on but Fin was more surprised than her. He wasn't an anti-feminist or anything. He didn't mind Suji fighting or Aubrey but he'd never really seen Aida as a fighter. He didn't see her as weak but, until her name was called, he realized he hadn't seen her as a combatant either despite the powerful lynx morph.
She didn't question the assignment of course. Everyone here didn't seem to have problems following possibly suicidal orders. She just turned and ran after Drake and Fin heard her departing thought speak in his head. <<See you soon. Be safe Fin.>>
<<Yeah, you too,>> he answered lamely, caught off guard by her sudden absence and not knowing what to feel about it.
They continued down the hallway and Fin actually started to believe they might get out of this in one piece despite the sounds of fighting he was hearing ahead of him. But then a cry of anguish ripped through his head and he swore he almost saw Ray die himself. He knew immediately that was what it was. He had never heard someone scream like that but, like most things having to do with death, it wasn't like anything else in the world.
To make it worse Hork-Bajir were flooding the hallway. Either Aubrey was dead or they had found some way to get past her. Suji started to go to work on them, her jaws crushing limbs and disemboweling monsters. The YPM began to scatter in fear and many were cut down as they tried to flee. Basically everything started going really bad all at once as it always seemed to do. There was never a slow build up of bad things, nope, just bam, the world is fine and now it sucks.
And in the middle of the chaos Fin found that he couldn't move. He was paralyzed, frozen in fear. His snake body was curled up in a corner as he watched the blood fly through the air. People were dying and it was very obvious that if he went out there one of those dead people could be him, probably would be him. So he didn't move. Just like when Aida was taken by that crazy dude. He'd just hidden, protected himself, looked out for number one.
You're a coward. For a moment he thought he was hearing his alter ego's voice, the being who seemed to have made his misery and degradation it's personal mission in the universe. But it wasn't the Prince. The voice was his own. It was the simple, pure voice of self realization. He was a coward... And he wasn't ok with it.
He thought he could live with being a coward, live being the important word, but he realized he couldn't. He couldn't face waking up everyday hearing that voice repeating the truth over and over again as it surely would. Now that he'd heard it he couldn't unhear it. That voice, that truth, would be with him the rest of his life if he didn't do something to change it.
<<Hey!>> he said as he surged out of the corner. <<Stay back here you idiots!>> he yelled at the remaining YPM controllers. Their best chance of staying alive was to let Suji do her job and they needed to stay out of her way. But he wasn't content to let her do this alone...he just needed some help.
<<Hey, you.>> The person he was addressing ignored him completely until he curled himself around her leg. Then she started shrieking and shaking her leg, trying to throw him off as if he was an over sized cockroach. In her panic she could no longer discern friend from foe, she just wanted to get out of here. He empathized. But he didn't have the time for it.
<<Listen! Shut up you little nit! Pick me up.>> She continued to try to shake him off and now she was even running in the wrong direction, which was to say she was running away from the battle.
"I have to get out of here!" she yelled as if that wasn't obvious or as if saying it would make it true like some deity would hear and come down and open up a door just for her.
<<You and me both so you're gonna help me. Pick. Me. Up.>> She reached down and gripped him a little too tightly around his mid section. He curled the bottom half of his body around her arm so that she couldn't throw him off if she changed her mind. As he did so he realized how odd her skin felt on his scales. He remembered thinking that Sophie felt odd to him. Now he knew he probably felt odd to her too.
<<Good. Now you've got a weapon and I'm in the fight. See, we both win.>>
"What?" she asked, not understanding him.
<<Just point. I'll shoot. Now let's get out of here.>> She held her arm away from her body as much as possible as if contact with him could infect her with something. It seemed an awfully good way to get a limb cut off, especially with all these slicer and dicers around so Fin constricted his body so that it was mostly around her wrist. If she got her arm cut off he didn't want to be cut in half for it.
She pointed him at the Hork-Bajir that came close and he sprayed poison into their eyes. The aliens didn't pay attention to the pair while they had a twenty foot crocodile to deal with and that was why they were effective, or effective as he could be as a small cobra.
He didn't try to kill anything. Incapacitate and move on. When he sprayed one he turned his head and directed her to point him at another, all the while trying to conserve his poison.
He turned his head towards a Hork-Bajir that had just entered the hallway and his new controller buddy pointed him in that direction. He spit acid in the creatures face and it quickly back peddled as it tried to wipe its face clear. It tripped and fell, it's tail blade sinking into its own back and the creature went limp but not before its dracon weapon sent off shots.
He heard a scream of pain and he felt himself dropping and, even though he had mentally thought of the possibility that his little helper might get her arm cut off, he didn't immediately recognize what was going on. He didn't even feel like he was still gripping her arm. Shouldn't he feel that? He could certainly still see her hand.
That's about when his mind caught up with what was happening and he realized the scream was his own. The bottom portion of his body was missing, still wrapped around the stump of the woman's arm. He was falling, the front half of him was falling, with the woman's severed hand.
No, no, no, no. His mind began racing like hamsters in a wheel jacked up on caffeine. Except it wasn't saying anything useful it was just denying reality.
Distantly he could hear Suji's thought speak. <<Fin! I’m coming!>> Fix it! Fix it! he wanted to yell but he was still a bit busy screaming in pain.
He felt himself get eaten and decided that was a really good time to just opt out of this terrible situation. He didn't know how, he just knew he had to get away so he ran, ran from reality. And he gratefully passed out.
Fin:
<<Alright,>> Fin said clearly into the controller's head. Her eyes widened slightly in surprise. She hadn't expected him to say yes. But Fin had finally learned his lesson and he'd learned it well. Look out for himself. If they used the information he had in his head to track the others down at least he would be alive.
They'd do the same if they were here. At least one of them would.
Fin began demorphing.
FLASHBACK
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Didn't compute. The software that was Fin's brain couldn't understand it. Didn't matter much anyway. Hadn't he gotten eaten?
Yep, by a dragon. It was really big. He kind of remembered now. But...why was any of that happening? He wasn't quite sure and he just had the feeling that he didn't really want to think about it. He didn't want to think of anything really. But there was some nagging part of him that just kept insisting that he pay attention. Except the thing it was pushing him to was all red lightningy. He didn't want to go.
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That was it, that was what he was supposed to be doing. Something about his body was wrong, really wrong, and he had to fix it. Except it hurt, it hurt too much to really deal with. So he tried to just stay away but behind him was darkness and it wasn't warm or welcoming, it was cold. Ahead there was pain, fire, heat. Which one? Which one was the easier choice?
He didn't care much about the right choice, not right now. He just wanted to go where it didn't hurt quite so much. So he started to slip into the cold. Better cold than hurt. Yes, better the cold.
But as he slipped away he felt a spike of fear. What was he doing? And following the fear was pain. Oh no you don't boy, we've put much too much work into you. Fin wasn't really surprised to hear the voice but he was surprised by the tone. Was that...concern in the thing's voice.
<<I didn't know you cared,>> Fin mumbled. He heard a snarl of anger and he felt another bolt of pain. He wasn't even sure how he was feeling the pain. Was he even attached to anything, to nerve endings still? He supposed he must be. <<I'm going, I'm going,>> he said, his voice exhausted as he made his way back to the world.
As he became conscious of his body again he had time enough to regret his choice. But it hadn't really been a choice, he'd been driven here and, to his surprise, he found that his body had started demorphing on its own. He wondered if that was his own, deep seated survival instinct kicking in or something else, someone else.
He felt himself tumble to the floor, his body still a shifting mass of something that he was glad he couldn't see. He didn't even have eyes at the moment. A voice came into his head and he was just glad it wasn't his own personal nightmare.
<<Aubrey, start running towards the door. Fin, you need to start running as well once you can. Keep demorphing.>> Aubrey? Right, he knew that person. And the voice, it belonged to Suji? Yeah.
Each thought pulled him farther and farther out of his own world and connected him to reality again. He began demorphing faster. He'd paid the price of coming back, dealt with the pain, he'd be damned if he was going to give life up without a fight now. But he was still changing too slowly for his own liking.
When he felt he had even the beginning of legs or something that could propel him forward he began trying to escape. He wanted out of here. He wanted to put all of this behind him. The dead YPM members, his cowardice and his stupid desire to prove it untrue. This is what he got for trying to play hero. A short and painful life and an ugly death as half a snake...almost.
Fin's eye's blinked back into existence and it was like someone had turned a light on. He blinked and squinted against the harsh fluorescent illumination in the hallway. Ahead of him he could see Suji. Crocodile. Dinosaur. Dragon, whatever.
Farther past her was a large animal of some sort. It could have been Drake or Aubrey, Fin didn't remember which morph was which. But wait, Suji had talked to Aubrey earlier so it had to be her right? Why was his mind running so slowly, so sluggishly? Was it really just because of the near death experience? And why was this damn demorph taking so long. He was bad but he wasn't that bad? He felt like someone had pushed the SLOW button on his life.
Fin felt a flare of anger as he tried to move faster and felt some sort of resistance. It was like moving through water. Who was playing with him? What was playing with him.
He heard someone laugh and he didn't bother turning around, he just focused on moving forward. Watch and learn little Gary.
What the hell was this? A game? Something like that.
He heard the alarms change and he felt a spike of fear and redoubled his efforts to finish the morph, to move. And somewhere behind him (in front? around?) The laughter only increased. This time it didn't make him angry, it just made him more afraid. If there was ever a sound that could be called 'unholy glee' that was it and he didn't want to be the punchline of any joke that inspired a laugh like that.
Ahead of him he saw Aubrey stop and turn around. <<Suji! Fin's still back there! I don't think he's going to make it!>> Fuck you Aubrey, yes I am, he wanted to scream back just to deny her statement, just deny the truth of it, but he had no mouth with which to speak.
<<Aubrey, keep running! You can't stop!>> Suji yelled. Fin reached out a hand to try to grab the crocodile. Maybe not the smartest action but Fin wanted to remind Suji he was here. Like a little child who wanted a parent's attention, Fin was reduced to pawing at her tail. But he couldn't even reach that and he was falling behind.
<<Suji->> , Aubrey began but was interrupted as the sound of the building's hydraulics reached all their ears. Everyone knew what it meant and that realization silenced them more than the sound itself.
<<Strewth! The door's closing! What do we do? Fin's not going to make it!>> Would you stop saying that! He tried to yell but it was just a gurgle stuck in his throat as his mouth started to reform.
Fin clawed at the melting hole in frustration. In desperation he tried thoughtspeak even though he was more human that animal at this point. <<…Um, guys?>> Elated that it was working Fin rushed to beg them not to leave only to find his thoughtspeak had cut out. Oops, forgot about that. There we go, all fixed.
Arrrrrrrrg!!! He mentally screamed in frustration and then directed his thoughts towards Suji and Aubrey anyway even though he knew it was useless.
Please. Please don't leave me here. I swear I'll do anything you want. Dishes for the next month. Suji...please, turn around, just, wait. Wait! They wouldn't leave him. Never leave a man behind and all that romantic nonsense. He had never put much stock in it but Suji did. She hid it well but she was as much of an idealistic soldier type as the rest of them. All about morals instead of logic. He knew because they weren't the same. And Aubrey? Aubrey didn't even try to hide that she believed in all that. So they wouldn't leave him behind.
<<Leave him.>> Suji's voice was cold...logical, almost curt. He heard the voice in his head nearly choke on its own laughter as Fin felt...he wasn't even sure what he was feeling. If he had to put a word to it he might have said he felt betrayed. But you couldn't be betrayed by people you didn't trust. Trust had to go both ways. If you didn't trust them then they couldn't really trust you and there were no hard feelings on either side when things like this happened. It was understood that everyone was looking out for number one.
But he had trusted them. Somewhere along the way Fin had stopped being the scrappy little bastard he prided himself on being and had actually started to buy in to all the 'all for one and one for all' bullshit that people always seemed to be spouting in the animorphs. He'd begun to think that if everyone else believed it so strongly maybe it wasn't a lie, maybe they could be heroes and good soldiers and all that. Save people, save the planet, do more than just survive from day to day.
Fin felt a part of himself that he'd thought he'd squashed long ago begin to die. It was a lie after all. He'd been right from the first. Gods, how could he have been so stupid!
He swore to himself he'd never be that dumb again. He put his head down and tried to push through whatever barrier was holding him back. He didn't look up, he didn't want to see Suji or Aubrey. He didn't want to be reminded that he'd actually looked outside himself for rescue. No one helped you but you. Had to remember that.
But Suji refused to get out of his mind. It was almost like she derived some sick pleasure in letting him know exactly why she was leaving him behind. <<Listen Aubrey, we need to get out,>> she began calmly. It made so much sense. Save two or risk all three. It was the choice he would have made if he'd been her right? So why the hell did it hurt so much? <<The door is—>>
Fin heard the Tswwee of a dracon beam go off and he smelled something horrible burning. He jerked his head up and spotted the poor bastard who didn't realize that he'd already lost holding a dracon beam in one shaky hand. Ahead of Fin there was already a trail of blood and the large, lifeless tail of a crocodile lying in the middle of the hallway.
He slipped in the blood and almost tripped over the tail. Sure Suj, leave another obstacle in my way, he thought as she lunged through the quickly closing door. Aubrey turned and ran too and she wouldn't have done that without an order but he couldn't hear any thoughtspeak. He was no longer a concern in Suji's mind and she'd dropped him out of the conversation.
Whatever was holding Fin back suddenly released and he tripped forward, catching himself at the last moment. Fin began to run but he could tell he wasn't going to make it. Whatever had been holding him had only let him go just to see him run.
"NOOOOOOOO!!!!" Fin surprised himself with the full throated denial (he hadn't realized he had a mouth) as he slammed his whole body into the door, the last sliver between it and the floor disappearing.
His eyes were wide with anger and fear and panic and a host of other emotions that were all competing with each other to be expressed RIGHT NOW, as he looked through the little view window at the retreating forms of a crocodile and a buffalo. He slammed a fist against the thick plastic. "Noooo! God damn you! Come back here! Don't leave me like this! You can't do this! You CAN'T do this!" He couldn't believe a part of him was still convinced that the hero-wanna-bes of the Dallas faction literally could not leave someone behind. But there they were and here he was.
He leaned against the door as all the anger seeped away. "You can't...you can't leave me..."
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"Demorph god damn you!" Fin's tongue just flashed out, tasting the air. His small beady eyes were expressionless. The controller watching him, looking for some sort of reaction, looked like he was about to have a heart attack. The vein in his neck was pulsing faster than was healthy and Fin could almost hear his heart beat. He could certainly taste/smell his fear. Apparently that wasn't a lie, fear really did have a smell. And this controller stunk of it. And if Fin were the cause he wouldn't be running mental circles in panic. But he wasn't.
"If you don't demorph we will fry you! Do you understand me human!" Fin wanted to cry but he couldn't and for that he was grateful. This body allowed him a level of dignity he probably would not have achieved on his own. He wondered how much of his mental image of Sophie and her unshakable calm was due to the fact she was a god damn snake.
Sophie! He hadn't ever apologized. Fuck! How was he going to get out of this. He had to get out of this. He couldn't die here and he couldn't spend the rest of his life as a snake. Please...he wanted to go home.
FLASHBACK
"THEY SHOULD BE OPEN." Ray's voice came to them booming over the intercom reminding Fin of the Wizard of Oz. Big voice, small man. Kind of like them. Big show, small team.
Fin muttered under his breath as his hands flew over the door controls, trying to hold up his end. What was he not getting? His mind raced, trying to spot the key that would make the damn door recognize Ray's command as a legitimate one without the proper access key. "Right they should be open. Doesn't mean they-" with a slight hiss as the hydraulics kicked in and all the doors in this hall opened. Fin stepped back from the control and walked over to the door the rest of his team was standing in front of so that he could see into the room.
At first he wasn't sure what he was seeing. He looked over at Aubrey and Suji for a clue. Suji's face was expressionless but what else was new. He turned his attention to Aubrey. "Oh my God." Her voice was barely a whisper and Fin looked back into the room, spotting a pool of blood seeping into the light from the door.
"What the..." he took an involuntary step back as he realized what was on the floor, what was all over the bodies, because that was what they were, in the room. Fin had seen his fair share of death and slaughter. He was a hunter, he'd cut the throats of wounded deer with his own hands. They had always screamed, a cry of ignorant fear, it was the thing that made him hesitate each time. So how could someone have done that to a human being that could say your name?
Fin was broken out of his shock when Suji lunged forward with a cry of denial. What the hell was she saying no to. They couldn't deny what was right in front of their faces and Suji had never seemed like the type to deal in comforting fantasies instead of disturbing facts.
She fell in the blood and he didn't move to help her because he had caught sight of what she must have already seen. The woman in the corner brought the bit of glass up to her own neck and drew a gruesome red line. Fin heard the wet ripping sound as the glass bit into and severed the muscles in her neck, the cut anything but clean.
Fin had the almost disturbing thought, well that is one way to do it, do it yourself. He grimaced in disgust as she fell to the ground and her blood joined the pool already on the floor.
Suji picked herself up and shrugged off her lab coat. Seemed they were discarding their disguises, and why not, Ray's message was sure to alert everyone that they were here anyway.
Can't believe I gave up a kidney for this shit, he thought rebelliously as Suji brushed past him, letting Drake and Aida know that the ones in their room were dead.
He turned away from the sight in the room and shrugged off his own lab coat, letting it drop beside Suji's as Ray's voice came over the intercom yet again. “GUYS, GET OUT OF THERE! YOU GOT COMPANY COMING!” Fin looked around, adrenaline flooding his veins as Ray announced they were in danger, he was in danger.
"Everyone, battle morphs. Hurry!" Suji ordered. He didn't have to be told twice but what should the morph? He didn't have anything especially powerful in his arsenal. He had always trusted to his ability to hide to keep him alive. He looked at Suji and could already see the scales overtaking her skin. Aubrey was tripling in size even as he turned to look at her. What should he morph?!
He closed his eyes and began to shrink. He wanted to be small. If his teammates were going big he was going to be small. They would be targeted first. No offense to them or whatever but they could probably take it. He didn't have any thing that could take a hit and keep going.
Black scales spread across his skin in a wave and his ears shrunk to almost nothing, becoming tiny holes on the side of his head. His pupils grew to take up his entire eye and his arms got sucked back into his body. His legs melded together and he fell over. It hurt.
He let out a hiss that was actually half hiss as his fangs began to grow in. Small! I want to be small! but he was shrinking slowly, too slowly. Taxxons hit their group when he was still halfway between human size and morph size. Maybe he should have joined the others in morph practice after all.
He did his best to slither away in his half morphed state as Taxxons fell under Suji's jaws and Aubrey's hooves, Aida's paws and Drake's horns. Good to be useless but at least he was alive.
He got over to a wall and saw the other Peace Movement Controllers just sitting around in their cell watching the battle. WTF. He was about to yell at them when they began moving on their own. Apparently seeing the team repel the first attack broke them out of their paralysis.
<<Figures. They don't trust us until we face death for them,>> Fin said sarcastically as the morph finished and he slithered over to the group, trying to avoid the Taxxon guts everywhere.
<<Ok, new plan. Drake and Aubrey have the fastest morphs that can do some real damage in small hallways. You two should take the lead, clear a path, and we'll follow right behind you. Aida, Fin, you two watch the back. I'll stay directly in front of the group.>>
Suji's voice was calm in his head and for once he didn't question someone else telling him what to do. He wanted to be told what to do right now because he had no idea how to get out of here alive on his own.
Drake and Aubrey turned to leave, completely ok with being used as living shields at Suji's order. Fin dropped back, Aida's lynx form right beside him. <<Got your back...>> her voice came into his head. He knew it was meant to be comforting but he couldn't be comforted by much right now. They were trapped in a fucking prison underground and half the people they had come to save were already dead. The yeerks knew they were here and they were coming. He didn't see them as getting out alive.
<<Just don't step on me,>> he almost snapped back, softening his tone at the last minute. Now that he was at this height he realized just how likely that was and he didn't blame Sophie for being paranoid. Fucking Sophie. She could be down here doing this as well as he could. Once again she wasn't doing anything to justify that big ego of hers.
His thoughts continued to stray down dark and unforgiving paths has he slithered down the hall.
Fin:
"Leave him Demien. He'll demorph soon enough." A woman said, coming up behind his captor. She was different from the rest. She didn't have the lackey air that everyone else seemed to have. She thought she was better than these people and she showed it.
"Yes Inspector," he said as he stepped back and let her have his position in front of Fin. Fin was reminded of those nature vids he'd watched in between doing homework or something, specifically of the ones featuring wolves and their dominance rituals. This guy backed up and bowed and it reminded Fin of wolves laying down and exposing their throats for those stronger than him.
Figures the Yeerk Empire would be a nation of wolves in sheep's clothing. It all made such a pretty metaphor and if Fin was safe and at home where he belonged he was sure he would enjoy it. As it was he was trapped in a little box feeling his poison sacks fill as the woman drew closer. But his poison couldn't reach her through the glass and he knew that even if the snake didn't.
"You'll be trapped in that body in five minutes. If you are trapped as a snake you are useless to us and we will kill you. Demorph and you have a place in our empire." She said logically but in a light tone as if none of this mattered to her. And who was he kidding, his life probably meant less to her than the shoes she was wearing. "Surely that is better than death?"
She had a point.
Fin looked around the little glass box they had stuck him in when they'd caught him. There was no way out of course and there wasn't even enough room in here for him to morph something truly big and scary even if he'd had a morph like that. Just room enough to demorph. But then they would make him a controller and he would betray everyone he cared about. Aida, Sophie, Aubrey, Drake, Suji. They'd even get hold of everyone's favorite guy, Jack Day. They would all die if they weren't dead already. Or be made into controllers. But what did he care? They had left him behind. He'd heard the order to leave him behind.
FLASHBACK
Fin was keeping himself occupied trying to hear anything coming their way. His hearing wasn't exactly like human hearing. He seemed to feel sound through his body more than hear it in the traditional sense. And right now he was trying to hear the pitter patter of hork bajir claws on the hallway's floors. But there was a lot of interference. Drake's and Aubrey's hooves were making quite a racket and the scraping of the croc's belly on the concrete wasn't helping much either. Add in the human footsteps of the YPM and you had one big cacophony that he couldn't hear anything through. The only one who was being quiet was Aida but she was a cat so that was to be expected.
He tried to isolate the sounds in his mind so that he could know what to pay attention to and what to discard. Scrapey claw sound, Suji, ignore. Patting of sneakers and click of heals on concrete, YPM, ignore. Clop of pounding hooves, Drake and Aubrey, ig--The sounds of the hooves got louder as one of them came back down the hallway and soon he could see that it was Drake. There were wounds all over his face and shoulders and it was obvious that he'd been in a fight. And it was just as obvious that it hadn't phased him much. Fin envied that invulnerability right now.
<<Dra->> Suji's voice called out to him but he quickly cut her off.
<<I can not stop. I have to help Ray and Lizzie.>> He barreled past them, the YPM controllers squeezing against the walls to get out of his way. Fin silently wished him luck in his foolish, but brave endeavor and was about to turn his attention back to searching for threats that might come at him when Suji ordered Aida to go as well.
She seemed surprised to be called on but Fin was more surprised than her. He wasn't an anti-feminist or anything. He didn't mind Suji fighting or Aubrey but he'd never really seen Aida as a fighter. He didn't see her as weak but, until her name was called, he realized he hadn't seen her as a combatant either despite the powerful lynx morph.
She didn't question the assignment of course. Everyone here didn't seem to have problems following possibly suicidal orders. She just turned and ran after Drake and Fin heard her departing thought speak in his head. <<See you soon. Be safe Fin.>>
<<Yeah, you too,>> he answered lamely, caught off guard by her sudden absence and not knowing what to feel about it.
They continued down the hallway and Fin actually started to believe they might get out of this in one piece despite the sounds of fighting he was hearing ahead of him. But then a cry of anguish ripped through his head and he swore he almost saw Ray die himself. He knew immediately that was what it was. He had never heard someone scream like that but, like most things having to do with death, it wasn't like anything else in the world.
To make it worse Hork-Bajir were flooding the hallway. Either Aubrey was dead or they had found some way to get past her. Suji started to go to work on them, her jaws crushing limbs and disemboweling monsters. The YPM began to scatter in fear and many were cut down as they tried to flee. Basically everything started going really bad all at once as it always seemed to do. There was never a slow build up of bad things, nope, just bam, the world is fine and now it sucks.
And in the middle of the chaos Fin found that he couldn't move. He was paralyzed, frozen in fear. His snake body was curled up in a corner as he watched the blood fly through the air. People were dying and it was very obvious that if he went out there one of those dead people could be him, probably would be him. So he didn't move. Just like when Aida was taken by that crazy dude. He'd just hidden, protected himself, looked out for number one.
You're a coward. For a moment he thought he was hearing his alter ego's voice, the being who seemed to have made his misery and degradation it's personal mission in the universe. But it wasn't the Prince. The voice was his own. It was the simple, pure voice of self realization. He was a coward... And he wasn't ok with it.
He thought he could live with being a coward, live being the important word, but he realized he couldn't. He couldn't face waking up everyday hearing that voice repeating the truth over and over again as it surely would. Now that he'd heard it he couldn't unhear it. That voice, that truth, would be with him the rest of his life if he didn't do something to change it.
<<Hey!>> he said as he surged out of the corner. <<Stay back here you idiots!>> he yelled at the remaining YPM controllers. Their best chance of staying alive was to let Suji do her job and they needed to stay out of her way. But he wasn't content to let her do this alone...he just needed some help.
<<Hey, you.>> The person he was addressing ignored him completely until he curled himself around her leg. Then she started shrieking and shaking her leg, trying to throw him off as if he was an over sized cockroach. In her panic she could no longer discern friend from foe, she just wanted to get out of here. He empathized. But he didn't have the time for it.
<<Listen! Shut up you little nit! Pick me up.>> She continued to try to shake him off and now she was even running in the wrong direction, which was to say she was running away from the battle.
"I have to get out of here!" she yelled as if that wasn't obvious or as if saying it would make it true like some deity would hear and come down and open up a door just for her.
<<You and me both so you're gonna help me. Pick. Me. Up.>> She reached down and gripped him a little too tightly around his mid section. He curled the bottom half of his body around her arm so that she couldn't throw him off if she changed her mind. As he did so he realized how odd her skin felt on his scales. He remembered thinking that Sophie felt odd to him. Now he knew he probably felt odd to her too.
<<Good. Now you've got a weapon and I'm in the fight. See, we both win.>>
"What?" she asked, not understanding him.
<<Just point. I'll shoot. Now let's get out of here.>> She held her arm away from her body as much as possible as if contact with him could infect her with something. It seemed an awfully good way to get a limb cut off, especially with all these slicer and dicers around so Fin constricted his body so that it was mostly around her wrist. If she got her arm cut off he didn't want to be cut in half for it.
She pointed him at the Hork-Bajir that came close and he sprayed poison into their eyes. The aliens didn't pay attention to the pair while they had a twenty foot crocodile to deal with and that was why they were effective, or effective as he could be as a small cobra.
He didn't try to kill anything. Incapacitate and move on. When he sprayed one he turned his head and directed her to point him at another, all the while trying to conserve his poison.
He turned his head towards a Hork-Bajir that had just entered the hallway and his new controller buddy pointed him in that direction. He spit acid in the creatures face and it quickly back peddled as it tried to wipe its face clear. It tripped and fell, it's tail blade sinking into its own back and the creature went limp but not before its dracon weapon sent off shots.
He heard a scream of pain and he felt himself dropping and, even though he had mentally thought of the possibility that his little helper might get her arm cut off, he didn't immediately recognize what was going on. He didn't even feel like he was still gripping her arm. Shouldn't he feel that? He could certainly still see her hand.
That's about when his mind caught up with what was happening and he realized the scream was his own. The bottom portion of his body was missing, still wrapped around the stump of the woman's arm. He was falling, the front half of him was falling, with the woman's severed hand.
No, no, no, no. His mind began racing like hamsters in a wheel jacked up on caffeine. Except it wasn't saying anything useful it was just denying reality.
Distantly he could hear Suji's thought speak. <<Fin! I’m coming!>> Fix it! Fix it! he wanted to yell but he was still a bit busy screaming in pain.
He felt himself get eaten and decided that was a really good time to just opt out of this terrible situation. He didn't know how, he just knew he had to get away so he ran, ran from reality. And he gratefully passed out.
Fin:
<<Alright,>> Fin said clearly into the controller's head. Her eyes widened slightly in surprise. She hadn't expected him to say yes. But Fin had finally learned his lesson and he'd learned it well. Look out for himself. If they used the information he had in his head to track the others down at least he would be alive.
They'd do the same if they were here. At least one of them would.
Fin began demorphing.
FLASHBACK
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<<We need to go. Fin, start demorphing.>>
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Didn't compute. The software that was Fin's brain couldn't understand it. Didn't matter much anyway. Hadn't he gotten eaten?
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Yep, by a dragon. It was really big. He kind of remembered now. But...why was any of that happening? He wasn't quite sure and he just had the feeling that he didn't really want to think about it. He didn't want to think of anything really. But there was some nagging part of him that just kept insisting that he pay attention. Except the thing it was pushing him to was all red lightningy. He didn't want to go.
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That was it, that was what he was supposed to be doing. Something about his body was wrong, really wrong, and he had to fix it. Except it hurt, it hurt too much to really deal with. So he tried to just stay away but behind him was darkness and it wasn't warm or welcoming, it was cold. Ahead there was pain, fire, heat. Which one? Which one was the easier choice?
He didn't care much about the right choice, not right now. He just wanted to go where it didn't hurt quite so much. So he started to slip into the cold. Better cold than hurt. Yes, better the cold.
But as he slipped away he felt a spike of fear. What was he doing? And following the fear was pain. Oh no you don't boy, we've put much too much work into you. Fin wasn't really surprised to hear the voice but he was surprised by the tone. Was that...concern in the thing's voice.
<<I didn't know you cared,>> Fin mumbled. He heard a snarl of anger and he felt another bolt of pain. He wasn't even sure how he was feeling the pain. Was he even attached to anything, to nerve endings still? He supposed he must be. <<I'm going, I'm going,>> he said, his voice exhausted as he made his way back to the world.
As he became conscious of his body again he had time enough to regret his choice. But it hadn't really been a choice, he'd been driven here and, to his surprise, he found that his body had started demorphing on its own. He wondered if that was his own, deep seated survival instinct kicking in or something else, someone else.
He felt himself tumble to the floor, his body still a shifting mass of something that he was glad he couldn't see. He didn't even have eyes at the moment. A voice came into his head and he was just glad it wasn't his own personal nightmare.
<<Aubrey, start running towards the door. Fin, you need to start running as well once you can. Keep demorphing.>> Aubrey? Right, he knew that person. And the voice, it belonged to Suji? Yeah.
Each thought pulled him farther and farther out of his own world and connected him to reality again. He began demorphing faster. He'd paid the price of coming back, dealt with the pain, he'd be damned if he was going to give life up without a fight now. But he was still changing too slowly for his own liking.
When he felt he had even the beginning of legs or something that could propel him forward he began trying to escape. He wanted out of here. He wanted to put all of this behind him. The dead YPM members, his cowardice and his stupid desire to prove it untrue. This is what he got for trying to play hero. A short and painful life and an ugly death as half a snake...almost.
Fin's eye's blinked back into existence and it was like someone had turned a light on. He blinked and squinted against the harsh fluorescent illumination in the hallway. Ahead of him he could see Suji. Crocodile. Dinosaur. Dragon, whatever.
Farther past her was a large animal of some sort. It could have been Drake or Aubrey, Fin didn't remember which morph was which. But wait, Suji had talked to Aubrey earlier so it had to be her right? Why was his mind running so slowly, so sluggishly? Was it really just because of the near death experience? And why was this damn demorph taking so long. He was bad but he wasn't that bad? He felt like someone had pushed the SLOW button on his life.
Fin felt a flare of anger as he tried to move faster and felt some sort of resistance. It was like moving through water. Who was playing with him? What was playing with him.
He heard someone laugh and he didn't bother turning around, he just focused on moving forward. Watch and learn little Gary.
What the hell was this? A game? Something like that.
He heard the alarms change and he felt a spike of fear and redoubled his efforts to finish the morph, to move. And somewhere behind him (in front? around?) The laughter only increased. This time it didn't make him angry, it just made him more afraid. If there was ever a sound that could be called 'unholy glee' that was it and he didn't want to be the punchline of any joke that inspired a laugh like that.
Ahead of him he saw Aubrey stop and turn around. <<Suji! Fin's still back there! I don't think he's going to make it!>> Fuck you Aubrey, yes I am, he wanted to scream back just to deny her statement, just deny the truth of it, but he had no mouth with which to speak.
<<Aubrey, keep running! You can't stop!>> Suji yelled. Fin reached out a hand to try to grab the crocodile. Maybe not the smartest action but Fin wanted to remind Suji he was here. Like a little child who wanted a parent's attention, Fin was reduced to pawing at her tail. But he couldn't even reach that and he was falling behind.
<<Suji->> , Aubrey began but was interrupted as the sound of the building's hydraulics reached all their ears. Everyone knew what it meant and that realization silenced them more than the sound itself.
<<Strewth! The door's closing! What do we do? Fin's not going to make it!>> Would you stop saying that! He tried to yell but it was just a gurgle stuck in his throat as his mouth started to reform.
Fin clawed at the melting hole in frustration. In desperation he tried thoughtspeak even though he was more human that animal at this point. <<…Um, guys?>> Elated that it was working Fin rushed to beg them not to leave only to find his thoughtspeak had cut out. Oops, forgot about that. There we go, all fixed.
Arrrrrrrrg!!! He mentally screamed in frustration and then directed his thoughts towards Suji and Aubrey anyway even though he knew it was useless.
Please. Please don't leave me here. I swear I'll do anything you want. Dishes for the next month. Suji...please, turn around, just, wait. Wait! They wouldn't leave him. Never leave a man behind and all that romantic nonsense. He had never put much stock in it but Suji did. She hid it well but she was as much of an idealistic soldier type as the rest of them. All about morals instead of logic. He knew because they weren't the same. And Aubrey? Aubrey didn't even try to hide that she believed in all that. So they wouldn't leave him behind.
<<Leave him.>> Suji's voice was cold...logical, almost curt. He heard the voice in his head nearly choke on its own laughter as Fin felt...he wasn't even sure what he was feeling. If he had to put a word to it he might have said he felt betrayed. But you couldn't be betrayed by people you didn't trust. Trust had to go both ways. If you didn't trust them then they couldn't really trust you and there were no hard feelings on either side when things like this happened. It was understood that everyone was looking out for number one.
But he had trusted them. Somewhere along the way Fin had stopped being the scrappy little bastard he prided himself on being and had actually started to buy in to all the 'all for one and one for all' bullshit that people always seemed to be spouting in the animorphs. He'd begun to think that if everyone else believed it so strongly maybe it wasn't a lie, maybe they could be heroes and good soldiers and all that. Save people, save the planet, do more than just survive from day to day.
Fin felt a part of himself that he'd thought he'd squashed long ago begin to die. It was a lie after all. He'd been right from the first. Gods, how could he have been so stupid!
He swore to himself he'd never be that dumb again. He put his head down and tried to push through whatever barrier was holding him back. He didn't look up, he didn't want to see Suji or Aubrey. He didn't want to be reminded that he'd actually looked outside himself for rescue. No one helped you but you. Had to remember that.
But Suji refused to get out of his mind. It was almost like she derived some sick pleasure in letting him know exactly why she was leaving him behind. <<Listen Aubrey, we need to get out,>> she began calmly. It made so much sense. Save two or risk all three. It was the choice he would have made if he'd been her right? So why the hell did it hurt so much? <<The door is—>>
Fin heard the Tswwee of a dracon beam go off and he smelled something horrible burning. He jerked his head up and spotted the poor bastard who didn't realize that he'd already lost holding a dracon beam in one shaky hand. Ahead of Fin there was already a trail of blood and the large, lifeless tail of a crocodile lying in the middle of the hallway.
He slipped in the blood and almost tripped over the tail. Sure Suj, leave another obstacle in my way, he thought as she lunged through the quickly closing door. Aubrey turned and ran too and she wouldn't have done that without an order but he couldn't hear any thoughtspeak. He was no longer a concern in Suji's mind and she'd dropped him out of the conversation.
Whatever was holding Fin back suddenly released and he tripped forward, catching himself at the last moment. Fin began to run but he could tell he wasn't going to make it. Whatever had been holding him had only let him go just to see him run.
"NOOOOOOOO!!!!" Fin surprised himself with the full throated denial (he hadn't realized he had a mouth) as he slammed his whole body into the door, the last sliver between it and the floor disappearing.
His eyes were wide with anger and fear and panic and a host of other emotions that were all competing with each other to be expressed RIGHT NOW, as he looked through the little view window at the retreating forms of a crocodile and a buffalo. He slammed a fist against the thick plastic. "Noooo! God damn you! Come back here! Don't leave me like this! You can't do this! You CAN'T do this!" He couldn't believe a part of him was still convinced that the hero-wanna-bes of the Dallas faction literally could not leave someone behind. But there they were and here he was.
He leaned against the door as all the anger seeped away. "You can't...you can't leave me..."
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