Post by Admin on Aug 9, 2009 18:08:01 GMT -5
Drake:
Drake was running for his life.
He had been out in his secretary bird morph when he had been spotted by some controllers. Stupid, stupid, stupid, he thought to himself. He should have known better than to use such a distinctly non-native morph. Now one of his wings was damaged from dracon fire and he was running to escape.
He had lost them for a moment, but they would be back soon. He ducked inside of an old warehouse to demorph. <<I could use some help about now if anyone is out there.>> He knew it was hopeless. It was a long shot that any of his allies would be within thought speech distance.
Once human, Drake heard a group of controllers entering the building. "Fan out! Search the entire place!" one of them said. He would not be able to fly of of this one. From his position behind a stack of crates, Drake began to morph his giraffe. He would need to fight his way out.
Suji:
Suji was soaring. She did it a lot in Dallas: the area was so wide open, and there were a decent number of vultures around. Sure she might not blend in quite as well as her darker brethren, but she'd seen an eagle or two with lighter feathers. The thermals were nice and hot and the air was inviting.
Then thoughtspeech welled into her head. Drake? Help? Looking down, she began to scan the ground. It took a moment or two, but then she saw a group of Controllers pretty anxious about breaking into what looked like an abandoned building. <<Whoa, who'd you piss off?>> Suji tucked her wings in, and entered the not-so-speedy dive that she'd had time and practice with perfecting as her vulture. It wasn't a graceful bird, but falling from the sky didn't take much grace. She entered from a large cavity where the roof had started to crumble in, and found herself in some sort of loft. The area below her was big and open, though there might have been one or two more rooms this large within the warehouse.
Once her eyes adjusted to the light, she also happened to see a giraffe forming on the other side of the warehouse. <<Uhh->> Her thoughtspeak was cut short by a group of Controllers entering from the other side. Suji quickly dove from the loft to a place wedged behind some boxes. <<I'll be there in a second. Don't step on me!>> She said, and then concentrated on her human form.
Drake:
Hallelujah! Drake exclaimed to himself as he heard Suji's though speech. He could not respond at the time because he was between morphs, but that would soon change. However, trying to stay hidden when turning into a giraffe proved to be somewhat difficult. He kept his head as low as possible so as to stay behind his crates.
<<I will watch my step,>> he said to Suji as his thought speech kicked back in. He heard a few controllers just around the corner. In a moment they would see him. He would have to catch them off guard.
Two of them stepped into view, not five feet from his ducked down head. Drake took one large step forward and launched the first controller with his horns. He continued moving and trampled the second guy. He did not think he killed him, but he would not be doing much physical activity any time soon.
Now at his full height, he could see over top of all the junk in the warehouse. Unfortunately, everyone could see him as well. Bring it, he thought as he rushed another group of stunned controllers. Apparently they had not been expecting to find a giraffe.
Suji:
Giraffes, for all their silly appearance, were pretty good at trashing stuff... including human bodies. Suji watched as a Controller sailed over some boxes... and then landed with a not-so-comfy sounding crash. Whatever was in these warehouse boxes, it wasn't pillows and cotton balls, that was for sure.
From the loft, Suji could see a handful of other Controllers left. She wanted to ask Drake how he'd managed to gather such a following, but not only was thoughtspeech not available, he was momentarily busy with kicking some more suprisied Controllers around. Suji looked around for one of the ladders down from the loft. It took a while to find one, and once she did, she rushed over to it.
Which would have been fine, if she hadn't been barefoot. A nail plunged into the arch of her foot, and with a (rather undignified) cry of pain, she fell forward. It took less than a second for her to realize that she wasn't going to land on the loft, as the empty space between her and the warehouse floor opened up under her. Suji stretched as far as possible, trying to grasp for the ladder that she had been heading towards.
She managed to partially grab it, at least enough that her fall was slowed as she collided into it. Unfortunately, the momentum of her dive knocked the ladder aside...and began to fall too. It teetered with painstaking slowness at first, and then as gravity did it work, she again saw the ground rushing up to meet her.
But the ladder never full hit the ground. Instead, it smacked against a tall shelf of boxes filled with gods-knew-what. And like a series of terrible dominoes, the shelf that was hit was knocked over, which knocked the next over, and the next, and the next--Suji heard the crashing sound across the warehouse as she tried to cling to the ladder. When the the motion had slowed, she released her death-grip on the ladder rungs. She had dislocated her shoulder and that damn nail was still in her foot.
With a thud she hit the ground, and then groaned as she curled into a ball, puling her foot upwards so that she could remove the nail. It came out with a long spurt of blood. It was rusty. "Good thing I've got my tetanus shots," she said to herself through a clenched jaw, and tossed the nail away.
Drake:
Drake was momentarily distracted by the sound of multiple large objects crashing noisily to the floor. Luckily, so were the controllers so that when he glanced quickly to see what it was, none of them took the opportunity to shoot him. A row of shelves was toppling over like dominoes. And he was in that row of shelves.
A bit of panic took over as he realized he needed to move before he got squashed. He ran along side several controllers as they rushed to escape the collapsing shelves. He just made it as they crashed to the floor inches behind him. Some of the controllers were not so lucky.
In an instant, the momentary truce he had with the fleeing controllers was over. One of them shot a dracon beam at his head and it sliced of an ear. It hurt, but Drake was sure that his backwards kick to the guy's chest hurt a lot worse. He felt bones give on impact as the person went flying backwards onto the pile of shelves.
Drake thought there were only a couple of them left, but then he saw more of them coming in through the front entrance. <<If you are going to help, Suji, now would be the time.>>
Suji:
Suji was halfway into her next morph when she heard Drake's thoughtspeech. She'd thought about going cobra, but in the end, that was for situations that were mostly under control--for surprises. And though she thought that the Controllers were probably pretty shocked at seeing a giraffe, that wasn't the type of surprise that a venomous snake morph was useful for.
So, in the end, she'd had to settle for her crocodile. The images of what she'd done to a group of boars with this morph rose to her mind: the snake at least wouldn't exactly kill a human. Well, it would if she pumped all her venom into one of them, but at the same time, envenoming left room for someone to be possibly saved by a hospital. You could do a lot more precision work with snake than a 20 foot ancient beast.
<<Yeah? I was just hanging back, you know, to see if you could handle this on your own,>> Suji told him, once she was fully reptilian. The smell of prey was everywhere, but she took the couple of seconds necessary to completely gain control over the crocodiles mind. Its surface tranquility had tricked her into underestimating the power of its instincts before, and she would not let that happen again.
Suji pushed herself forward, faster than one might expect from such a large animal. She passed over the fallen boxes, and then lunged at a Controller who had been running to try to flank the giraffe. The woman let out a shriek when she saw the crocodile suddenly appear, and though Suji felt the reptile's mind jolt to life, she resisted the temptation to clamp her jaws around the Controller's soft body. Instead she swung her tail--breaking both of the Controller's legs on impact. The woman was down for the count, and her dracon beam skittered under one of the fallen shelves.
<<Stay down,>> Suji ordered the woman, who was crying out in pain and terror as the large scaled body brushed past her.
Then Suji heard a strange noise. There was a lot of loud clattering, as if something was scaling the shelves. <<I can't see much Drake, but can you hear that? I think more Controllers came in the back or somethi->>
Pain! Something heavy on her back! Did it cut her? What jumped on her?! Suji couldn't turn her head to see, but it smelled like nothing the crocodile had ever encountered.
<<Augh! There's something on me!>> Suji rolled, turning to snap at whatever was on her back.
Drake:
Drake's heart skipped a beat as he saw what else had entered the building besides a few more controllers. <<Suji, hork-bajir!>> They were climbing shelves and crates like they were nothing. This was not good.
At least Suji was in her crocodile morph now. If anything could take out a hork-bajir, that would be it. Drake on the other hand, was a bit more vulnerable. One well placed cut and he would be missing a leg. Or worse.
Too bad Drake did not have time to think things through. There were a couple of controllers on the opposite side of a shelf from him, preparing to fire. Drake threw his weight into the shelf and it began to topple onto them, just as the shelves earlier had done.
Suji:
Suji's jaws clamped around something giving, and crushed. What had been solid bone was now more like a sticky paste. Fucking cut me, she thought angrily, pulling on the crocodiles territorial outrage: it could only register this similarly reptilian creature as another predator, a challenge. With one strong jerk of her head, the bipedal creature was on the ground. It swung wildly at her face, and with an ankle blade on the other leg managed to slice into her shoulder.
But Suji was bigger and she had the power right now. She throttled the alien, and with a particularly vicious tear, its entire leg separated from its body. At that point the alien seemed less pre-occupied with attacking her, and more set on getting away from her. Its blood smeared across the ground in heaping pints, arteries pumping the stuff into open space.
<<How many of those things-->> Suji knew the word, she'd seen them in NYC, but not since then, and certainly she'd never fought them, <<--those Hork Bajir, how many are there in here?!>> Another landed in front of her, and thankfully took a moment to try to regain its balance, sliding in the blood of the fallen monster. Suji charged, rushing and snapping at once, bowling the thing over. Her maw closed around its neck, easily powering through the tissue and bone. It seemed to be one of the only places she'd be able to bite without stabbing herself in the mouth.
<<Keep knocking over those shelves! It'll give them less room to climb!>> With that, she rammed a shelf of her own. She had enough weight to push them easily enough, but it was hard to control where the shelves fell.
Drake:
<<Keep knocking over those shelves! It'll give them less room to climb!>>
Drake would have responded, but he was a bit preoccupied. One of the hork-bajir had climbed up the remaining shelf and jumped at his face. Drake ducked just in time so that the massive creature missed its mark. He swung his horned head sideways and smacked the creature in the side of the face, gaining a few minor cuts in the process.
Next he followed Suji's advice ad slammed his weight into the remaining shelf. It toppled. Now the hork-bajir had nowhere to climb other than the walls and crates, but now Drake had no cover either.
Drake saw a group of human controllers notice this fact. They were taking aim, but Drake was already charging them. The first two shots went wild, apparently from surprised fright, but the third hit him dead on in the chest. But it must have been at a too low of setting because he barely felt a warm patch appear on his body as he continued his run. He bowled them over as they tried to leap aside. Drake almost lost his balance, but managed to regain it by leaning against one of the warehouse's outer walls. He turned around just in time to see more hork-bajir running at him.
Suji:
The sounds of chaos were all around them, but for now Suji had cleared the area around her of Controllers--she wasn't nearly as good as a target as Drake had to be. <<Drake, I can't see much from down here, even with most of the shelves knocked over. My eyesight isn't great to begin with--can you guide me to you? We should make our way out of here if possible, before any more reinforcements show up,>> to hersel, she added: And then you can tell me what this is all about!
For now she followed the strong senses that she did have: scent and hearing. She followed the smell of the aliens, the Hork Bajir--it was much different from the human smell, and almost mimicked something the crocodile could recognize as reptilian. Turning around one of the shelf-piles, Suji caught sight of Drake: bad eyes or not, there was no mistaking the form of a giraffe leaning against a wall. It looked terribly awkward, that much she could tell. But they were pretty awkward animals to begin with.
Then something stepped on her snout, and a taloned foot left a long gash. The running form of the Hork Bajir, passed over her. For a brief moment she felt almost powerless: she couldn't open her jaw. For all the strength in the world, just the weight of the Hork Bajir alone was enough to keep her jaw useless. It was a trade off for having one of the best crunching powers in the animal kingdom.
The alien lunged off of her, springing up impossibly fast as it leaped towards Drake. Suji lunged forward after the Hork Bajir, snapping her jaws around--air. Wait, no! The tip of her maw had been fast enough to catch the end of the alien's tail... which was barbed. Instantly pain filled her mouth, but she held on. It wasn't a secure grip, but it was enough to send the creature crashing to the floor.
Drake:
<<I am right smack dab in front of you! Just go straight!>> Drake was a little harsh with his words, but he was in a pretty stressful situation at the moment. He figured Suji would understand.
Drake kicked a hork-bajir, then ran forward to trample another. He got his leg cut pretty badly in the process, but it was still supporting his weight, so that was a plus. <<I would love to get out of here. If you see any giraffe-sized doors, let me know. Unless you can somehow get one of those big garage door things open.>> The situation was not looking good, but they were not out for the count just yet.
Suji:
Drake sounded... stressed. It wasn't often that Suji heard him frustrated, but she couldn't really blame him. Especially not when he had those skittering hooves and long limbs to contend with. He trampled the sprawled Hork Bajir at least, and she caught a strong whiff of his blood--warm and mammilian. The crocodile had no instinctual doubt that it could make a meal out of the giraffe if it could catch it, certainly if the tall thing was already wounded.
Big garage door things? Suji couldn't make out what he was talking about, though she could imagine: warehouses generally had really big, nearly wall-sized doors where trucks parked outside and their cargo was unloaded. She, however, had no idea how one went about opening them. Which meant that either she'd need to demorph and hope he could buy her some time to figure out how to open one of those things, or he needed to demorph so they could leave through a more conventional exit.
Which brought up another problem. Would Suji even fit through a regular-sized door? She wasn't nearly as big as the giraffe, and she was definitely longer than she was wide or tall, but still. <<Can you see any of those doors you're talking about? Like a place that looks like it might be a loading dock? A control panel or something? If you can hold them off, I'll try to get that open and we can get out that way. The other option is you demorph and I defend, and we make a break for a regular exit. Not sure I'll make it through, though.>>
A lancing beam of dracon fire bored into her hide: her scales were thick, but it seared deep. Not fatal, but how long would it be till someone got a lucky shot?
Drake:
Drake head butted a couple more human controllers, launched a few more wild kicks, and took a couple glancing blows of dracon fire before he got a chance to look around. About thirty feet away along the wall, there was a switch that looked like it probably was for the doors. <<Suji, up ahead there is a switch for the...>> Drake watched as one of the human controllers went over and pushed the switch he had seen. The controller was on some sort of radio or cell phone or something, so it was likely that whatever was behind that door would not be good for them.
<<Suji, quick, go back the way you came from. They are opening the doors. They must have something plan- Taxxons!>> Drake turned to run as the centipede-like creatures struggled to get under the opening doorway for a chance to taste the carnage.
Suji:
Suji let out a groan via thoughtspeak. She hated being blind down here--unable to see over the mountains of fallen crap. But she could hear the sound of the Taxxons now. They slurped and skittered across the concrete flooring. There was a loud shriek and Suji realized that the woman she had taken the pains not to kill was being eaten alive.
<<No- No I can hold them off for a while. Get to where the shelves first started to fall from--can you see a fallen ladder? It might still be propped over there->> Suji put on an explosive burst of speed and intercepted the first of the Taxxons. The human Controllers seemed to be pulling back, unwilling to get too close to the frenzied cannibal aliens. The Taxxon screamed, and Suji let out a loud hiss--in the end the bloated body of the centipede creature was no match for her teeth. It smelled awful, and tasted worse.
<<Demorph, set up the ladder, go into the loft, and start going bird or something--there's a place where the roof is falling in, that's how I got in. I'll... um.>> Another Hork Bajir behind her! Suji felt a foot of her tail being suddenly severed from her body: it would be Taxxon food before long. Good thing she still had plenty more where that came from. With a whooping swing she sent the bladed alien crashing into a pile of collapsed shelves. <<I don't know, I'll follow you, maybe if you can find a dracon gun on the way, try to give me some cover- Just get to the ladder, it's our best chance out of here, we can knock it down once we're up it!>>
Drake:
Drake wanted to object, but he decided not to. By this point all of the blood loss from his cuts, especially on his legs, was starting to make him a little light headed. Not to mention that he wanted to get away from the fight in general. <<Just... try not to die.>> Drake galloped off, starting to demorph along the way.
Drake kicked over a couple of human controllers that had been injured and were running from the taxxons too. If those big centipedes made it past Suji, those people would slow them down a bit. Even when he sped up his morphs to his maximum speed, it was a painstakingly slow process. Hurry, hurry, hurry. Now he could see why some of the others practiced their morphing, even when they were not doing official group training.
Finally Drake was human enough to set up the ladder. He was already climbing up it by the time the last of his giraffe features vanished. Unfortunately he was unable to find a weapon by this point, so he would have to make due with whatever was in the loft area. But first things first. He began to morph his turkey vulture so that he could tell Suji to retreat. <<Suji! Get back here, quick!>> Then he reversed his morph once again, but just enough so that he could function as a human. He kept his feathers, beak, and shrunken head in order to save time later.
Suji:
Drake didn't argue, but Suji felt her stomach turn at the sight of the giraffe galloping away. It had been the most practical plan at the time: her morph was better suited for defense than his. All the same, she felt alone very quickly, and thought she didn't consider herself a particularly cowardly person, there was fear bubbling up inside of her. She'd never had to fight aliens before, and even the dam mission had been a mission there had been some kind of plan to follow, some objective.
When pure survival became an objective, Suji didn't feel comfortable. It showed a little too clearly the very real danger that they put themselves in. And there was no explanation for the time being. Less quickly that the giraffe, but more quickly that the fleeing humans, Suji began to haul her form over to where she thought the ladder would be. It became much easier when she realized she could track her own scent.
The pain in her tail, as well as the other cuts and burn marks, was growing rather than diminishing. She was losing quite a bit of blood out of the missing part of her tail, but she was a large creature, and fairly durable. Not that she wanted to put that last bit to the test. Suji began to demorph as she moved, but it slowed her down--going from 20 feet long to less than 6 feet long, from a heavy quadruped to a not-so-heavy bipedal creature didn't do wonders for her balance. She fell on her face more than a few times, until finally she pushed herself up hard, and found herself human enough to keep running.
She quickly grabbed hold of the ladder and began to climb. Fortunately, most of the Taxxons still seemed more preoccupied with cleaning up than anything else. Scampering with all the vestigal instincts of a once-ago-primate, Suji hurried up the rungs. Then she felt the ladder shake--not too hard, but with an added weight below her: a human Controller frantically chasing her. Well, maybe not chasing her so much as trying to escape the pit of carnage that had opened up below.
Suji flopped down on her stomach on the loft as soon as she reached the top. Then, with a snarl, she flipped on her back... and gave the ladder a solid kick.
Drake:
"Boy, am I glad to see you," Drake said. Or at least he tried to. His moth was more beak than lip, so it did not come out as smoothly as he would have liked. He watched as the ladder toppled over. It would slow them down, but they could set the ladder back up again, and the hork-bajir seemed to be pretty good climbers.
Drake had found a few tools that had been left up there, so he started to throw them down. A hammer, a circular saw, a big monkey wrench, and an entire tool box provided about ten seconds worth of ammunition. But then Drake brought out the nail gun.
"Morph," Drake managed to squawk. The nails he was shooting were not exactly deadly, but all he needed to do was wound and the taxxons would help with the rest. His main worry now was for the hork-bajir finding a way to climb up the walls.
Suji:
Suji looked over at Drake, and let out an involuntary yelp of surprise. She quickly clapped a hand over her mouth, and flushed, embarassed. The fact that he was partially morphed hadn't been the worst of it--it was just that with the beak, she almost thought that he was one of those Hork Bajir, already up in the loft. "Sorry," she said quickly, and got to her feet. She hadn't really ever seen someone operate partially into their morph, and she was intrigued, once she had time to watch him shooting the nail gun.
Suji began morphing. White feathers puffed out from her skin, and quickly formed a crown around her neck. Her face melted into the fleshy beaked countenance of her Egyptian vulture. It was his turn to defend and play hero, so she didn't bother stopping her morph, like he had. Sooner rather than later, she was fully vulture. <<Okay, it's over here, go ahead and finish morphing->>
There was a scraping sound that she didn't recognize until she saw an arm blade bite into the wood of the loft's floor. A Hork Bajir was pulling itself up.
Drake:
Upon hearing Suji's words, Drake continued his morph while still shooting the nail gun. The gun was almost too heavy for his hollow-boned wing-arms by the time he also noticed the hork-bajir climbing into the loft. He turned and managed to get three shots off before he was no longer capable of holding his weapon. One nail missed, one went in the head and the last in the neck. The alien fell.
But two more were soon taking its place. Drake did not waste any time and rushed to where Suji had instructed. He took to the air just as he became fully bird. He went up and out of the roof with the hork-bajir not too far behind.
Suji:
<<Nice shot!>> Suji said: she wouldn't leave the warehouse without him in tow. But once it was clear that he was heading towards her, she propelled herself out into the sky. The weather was strangely cooler than before, crisper too. She could see the sky darkening prematurely in the distance. <<I think we're gonna get a storm,>> she said, but climbed higher into the sky anyway.
<<Which way should we head?>> She asked. <<Which way is away from wherever you picked up all your friends down there? Hopefully that storm was far enough off that they could get to a decent hiding place without having to go to ground--she didn't want to fly in a storm.
Drake:
<<Umm...>> Drake was a little turned around after being in that warehouse. <<This way, I think.>> Drake turned to fly in the direction he was thinking. Down below he could see the controllers pouring into the streets to try and get them, but they were far away. A couple even shot their weapons at them, but their aim was way off and he doubted they would do any lethal damage from this range anyway.
<<Yeah, after all we just went through, rain is the last thing we need.>> Drake was silent for a moment before he spoke again. <<Thanks for rescuing me Suji.>>
Suji:
Suji followed Drake's lead. They were quickly outpacing the scene below them, but unfortunately for the time being it seemed that they were flying towards the storm. With her laser-like eyes, she even saw a bolt of lightning flash from within those dark clouds in the distance. Rain was one thing. Lightning was going to be something else entirely.
She almost started to say something about that, in the silence after Drake spoke, but then he spoke again. And thanked her. Suji felt uncomfortable. She didn't like the idea that she'd 'rescued' Drake. Helped, sure. But rescued implied that he wouldn't have been able to get himself out of the situation alone. And that was not the kind of thought that she found very pleasing to entertain. Sure, Suji could accept and deal with a good deal of responsibility, but that was a different kind of burden that was far too reliant on dumb luck. And dumb luck scared her.
<<Rescue is such a strong word,>> Suji said, trying to sound light-hearted, though her thoughtspeech seemed uneasy even to herself. <<I just lent you a hand. Or a giant set of jaws, I guess. You would've done the same for me.>> She quickly tried to get away from the subject, though tried not to make it seem like she was rushing to drop it.
<<If we stay this course we're going to be heading into that storm--but I think it's gonna come at us either way. We might have to go to ground and hide somewhere, wait it out. Don't wanna lead anyone back to the Temple.>>
Drake:
It was true. He would have done the same for Suji. But that did not make her assistance any less helpful. He probably died in there if it was not for her. He was about to mention this, but Suji had already moved on to a different topic.
<<Yeah, lets not lead them to our hideout. Imagine what kind of epic battle that would turn into.>> Drake tried not to. He would never be able to unsee all of the carnage that had taken place today. For that reason he did not want to imagine any more of it happening.
<<I would not mind resting for a while, I suppose. Although I admit that the longer we stay out here, the more nervous I will get. There is just something about getting home that calms you, you know? I know it is silly, but it seems like we can get to the Temple and declare 'base,' and then the yeerks stop following us.>> Drake laughed a little, inwardly.
Suji:
Suji could imagine all too clearly the possible sequences that would play out if their hideout was raided. How many of them even had morphs that could fight? Probably less than half. The others, like Brianna would be even more vulnerable. They'd end up scattered, not knowing which way to flee, and probably suffering more than a few 'casualties'.
Not a pleasant thought. Even with the Dam, that had been different. There had been... a lot less blood. Not that she hadn't seen creatures die, not that she hadn't seen gore and violence... but this had been one of the first times she'd seen the heart of chaos like that.
She listened to him talking about being nervous, and she had been prepared to respond until he said something about 'declaring base'. She was glad to be a vulture, because she had no idea what her facial expression would have betrayed. If only it was all just a game. And maybe for Drake that was the only thing he could really relate it too: maybe it was too much to realize that all that ugliness had been real. They weren't going to be calling 'base' any more than those Controllers got the chance to call 'time out'.
The analogy made her feel far too young and far too old all at once. She glided for a while, though the turbulence under her wings was growing as the storm approached. <<We'll just wait out some of it. If it gets to be too long, we can head back on the ground, I guess.>>
After a bit she added, <<I know what you mean though. It's... nice to have a place to call home. I feel like I've been bouncing from place to place way too much, and there is something special about knowing you've got a bed to return to.>>
Drake:
Drake soaked in Suji's words as they flew for a bit longer. Drakes mind was busy trying to forget somethings and think of others. <<We could stop there, if you want,>> Drake finally said as it started to drizzle. <<In that movie store with the broken front window.>>
Drake started to spiral downward lazily. He did not feel like putting forth any effort at the moment. Then he decided to ask Suji a somewhat tricky question. <<Hey Suji, do you think we will ever find a way to beat the yeerks. Right now it seems like we just annoy them. Granted, the Hoover Dam was a pretty big blow, but even that was kind of tiny when compared to the whole world. We gotta find a way to kick them off of the earth eventually, right?>>
Suji:
It looked like a good a place as any. Suji scanned the area before following him down--but it'd been a while since she'd seen anyone, let alone any aliens. She followed his lead; they might just look like two regular vultures, if it weren't for the fact that it was beginning to rain.
She hadn't been expecting the question, and it blindsided her. Sure she'd gotten into some philosophical, hypothetical ponderings before, but they tended to leave her more frustrated than anything else. They were generally the result of locking horns with someone who had authority over her. Drake, however, merely asked: didn't challenge, didn't try to foist a useless set ideological values on her first. That was probably what made it so hard to answer--Suji was more accustomed to just pushing back when it came to thinking about that kind of question.
<<Um,>> Suji started, not as collected as she'd have liked to be. The image of kicking that ladder backwards, of feeling good while she did it, feeling righteous, kept forcing its way into her mind. She'd done worse things in her life--much worse--but this had been recent, vivid, and it threatened to pull up all those other scenes she kept safely locked away in her memory. <<I don't know.>> It came out much more dejected than she'd have hoped, and there was a weariness in her voice that suggested that she might as well have been fighting the war for six years, not just six months or so.
She mentally shook herself. <<I don't know how, but we'll win. We recruit more and more Animorphs every month--soon enough we'll actually have an entire army, you know? That and it's not just us fighting. There are refugee camps fighting back and saving people all over the country... I mean, we only ever really see the cities, which are Yeerk hotspots. The countryside still belongs to free humans. No big pools there, and the Yeerks are using all their resources consolidating just the places they have.>> It sounded good to her, and she became more confident as she went on.
<<I don't know if we'll kick them off but... I don't think this planet is big enough for the both of us, you know? We'll never stop fighting. I'm not sure if they've realized just what species they're trying to make into long-term hosts yet.>>
Drake:
<<I guess I never thought of it like that. We really could take them down if we keep at it.>> There was a bit more determinedness in his voice than he expected. He swooped into the video store and began demorphing in the drama section.
<<I suppose it could go kind of like this. Each animorph kidnaps a host. They starve the yeerk out. The ex-controller becomes an animorph. Rinse and repeat. Obviously it would not be quite that efficient, but over time we could make a pretty big dent.>> Drake made the transition to mostly human and grew a human voice box. "I was starting to feel like we were fighting an impossible fight, but it suddenly seems doable. Thanks Suji. They really have no idea what they got themselves into."
Suji:
Suji demorphed: the place didn't look like it'd been as ransacked as a lot of other buildings. Maybe when the world was ending looting a Blockbuster's didn't seem as tempting as looting a grocery store or something. She found herself staring at some really cheesy horror titles as she grew upwards to her normal height.
"Well," she called out, walking down the aisles till she found him. "I mean, having more Animorphs is a great thing, but there would definitely have to be a more selective process. I've seen-" Suji frowned, and looked away briefly. She, specifically, had been the one to put down the last Animorph that turned out to be not such a great pick. At least that she knew about. And worse than that, she'd had to...
Suji shook her head, looked back at him. Her poker face had slipped, momentarily. "But yeah. I think... well... I don't think it'll be easy or we'll wake up one day and find that they've just quit. But... but it's not hopeless." She tried to give him a smile, but her mind was still on Toby. Still on Sophia.
Thunder cracked overhead.
Drake:
It seemed that more was going through Suji's mind than was coming out her mouth, but Drake decided not to pry. He figured she would either not want to talk about it, or it was some sort of mushy girly emotional type stuff that he would not be interested in. Judging by who he was talking about, he guessed it was the former.
Thunder cracked overhead and Drake looked at store around him. "So, it looks like we could be here a while. What do you want to watch? When Mars Attacks, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, or War of the Worlds?" To tell the truth, Drake would have rather watched a Barney movie than one of those. "On second thought, lets find something that does not relate so well to our current lifestyle."
Suji:
Suji looked around. The place was dim, and it would probably only get darker once the storm clouds blocked out all of the sun. "Well, at least in War of the Worlds all the aliens got sick from being on Earth and died. If only the same could be said for our current invaders." She started to walk towards the nearest set of TVs. She had to half-climb up the nearest DVD rack to reach it (the TV was suspended from the ceiling), but after a few missed gropes, she managed to turn it on.
It offered more light in the rental store, even if it was an eerie blue tint at the moment. "Well, what if we get movies about morphing?" She said lightly, as she walked towards the front desk. "The Fly or something awful? Or is that still too close for comf- CANDY!"
It was a brief outburst, but Suji darted forward. She'd been on her way to look for a flashlight, but by the front counter (probably for people waiting in line) were several kiosks filled to the brim with the colorful wrappers that she felt like she'd left behind in another lifetime. It'd been more than half a year since she'd tasted so much as a Skittle, or peeled the wrapped off of a Starburst.
The simple delight of glorified ultra-processed sugar and corn syrup overtook her. She rushed to the display, momentarily at a loss for what to dig into first. "It's been so long! I don't even like candy!"
Drake:
It took a moment for Drake to process that word- candy. But as soon as he did, he was right by Suji's side looking over the contents of the shelf. Candy and a movie. Could they day have flipped any more upside down from less than an hour ago? Probably, but Drake did not care.
"You are such a liar, Suji. Everyone likes candy. I call the jawbreakers! Oh, and the snickers! The kitkats too! Oh, it is impossible to decide." Drake was just enjoying the moment. Right now, at this very moment, he could almost pretend that the world was right again. "We definitely have to bring some stuff from this place back with us once the rain stops."
Suji:
Suji laughed: it was a real, genuine laugh and it caught her off guard. It didn't travel far because the rain that was beginning to fall quickly outside muffled the sound, but it was there. "No really! I don't--or I didn't--candy was beneath me," she said, grinning. "I'd horde my Halloween candy all year when I was little."
Now though she began reaching for anything that caught her eye. She pulled the stretchy material of her shirt forward, and began to dump candy into the makeshift pocket. She grabbed peppermint patties, several different types of Milky Way, gummy bears, and a host of other things (though she dutifully let Drake grab his fill of his preferred candies). "We should! It might be hard to carry though... unless we end up walking back barefoot. Do you think we could morph it? Like if we taped it to us or something? I bet there's tape around here somewhere."
It was a question that made her stop for a moment. What exactly could they morph with them? "Or do you think it would melt?"
Drake:
Now it was Drake's turn to laugh. "You are talking about strapping candy to yourself so that it can be turned into an animal, just so we can sneak it back to our hideout, and you are worried about wether or not it will melt?" For some reason that seemed absurd to him and he busted out laughing. It probably was not as funny as he thought, but he did not care. He would take all the laughing he could get at the moment.
Once he finally settled down a bit he managed to respond to her question. "I have no idea if we could morph candy or not. Maybe something like taffy if we got it really tight to our skin, but other than that, who knows. I doubt that I personally would have the skills necessary to morph an Almond Joy." A huge grin was plastered on his face. "Try it out and see."
Suji:
Suji watched Drake laugh, and laughed herself. It was contagious. Nearly dying had that affect: everything felt funny, everything felt wonderful now that they were out of immediate danger. The fact that there was enough candy for them to eat themselves sick on sugar was just an added bonus.
She dropped her head in mock defeat for a moment, letting him laugh at her idea. She'd proposed it in all seriousness--the careful, methodical, Suji way of thinking. But she wasn't sore that he found it funny. It was funny. Just imagining them getting back to the Temple, demorphing, and being covered in a taped together mess of chocolate and fruity coating was enough to get her laughing again. It was a terrible idea. Would anyone even want to eat morphed candy?
She looked back up to see him grinning at her and telling her to try it out. She cocked an eyebrow at him, smirking good naturedly. "You just want to laugh at me some more." Holding her shirt-pocket out with one hand, she lifted one of the Milky Way bars to her mouth and used her teeth to open it. Grinning back at in, she took a hearty bite. The sheer sweetness of it was enough to make her want to laugh again, and she covered her mouth with her wrist. "You know," she said, tilting her head as she said it. "I actually think I've had enough morphing for a while."
Drake:
"I hear that," Drake said in response. "I have done enough morphing in the past few months to last me a lifetime." Drake was going to leave it at that when he realized it was not actually true.
"Okay, so maybe not enough to last me a lifetime. I still get excited whenever I manage to acquire something new. Speaking of acquiring new things, I was thinking about asking Ray for a new morph sometime soon. As I found out today, my giraffe morph is not quite as cut out for battles as I originally thought. Got any suggestions for what type of animal I should ask for?"
Suji:
Suji had already finished off the chocolate bar by the time it was appropriate for her to respond. "Mmm," she intoned, but didn't get much further than that: it would have made a sad sight to try to talk around a mouthful of chocolate and caramel. Looking down at her hand she was puzzled with what to do with the wrapper for a moment. Of course she could just throw it on the floor: this place wasn't exactly in use any more.
But even the idea of that felt wrong. This might be a version of the post-apocalypse, maybe beyond the age of human civilization, but she wasn't going to litter. That would have felt like crossing a line: maybe it was wrong to eat the candy if it didn't belong to her, but it seemed worse to trash the place on top of it. After all, wouldn't even a small act like that be some kind of concession that she didn't expect to return to a world where littering was looked down on?
She walked over to the nearest trash can and tossed the wrapper in, swallowing down the last bits of the bar. "Well, what animals are you most comfortable with? If you want something with some serious firepower, you could always ask for a polar bear or something. I recently picked up a cobra morph--deadly but really situational. But that's kind of the problem with the giraffe I guess."
Drake:
Drake popped a jawbreaker into his mouth as he awaited Suji's response. The sweet taste that trickled down his throat was like candy from a dream. He popped in a second jawbreaker to accompany the first.
"Yeah, a polar bear would be kind of neat. Not a snake though. I would feel like I was too easy to kill. No offense. But even with the bear I would probably have to bite people or slash them open, and, well, no thanks." The thought threatened to take away the tastiness of his candy.
"I guess the only real thing wrong with my giraffe morph is that it does not fit anywhere. Like in the warehouse, I could not get out of the regular doors. There is not such a thing as a miniature giraffe, is there?"
Suji:
Suji shrugged. "None taken," she responded at the 'no offense' comment. And when he talked about having to bite people, she winced a little. She didn't want to argue with him about what was necessary and what wasn't: sometimes you were going to need to do some damage to complete missions, to survive. And sometimes it wasn't as easy as blowing up a pool full of Yeerks that didn't have human faces to hide behind yet.
He probably knew that, and if he was opting out of that type of fighting for something else, that was his decision. She didn't begrudge anyone for fighting how they chose. As long as he didn't start harping on her for recognizing and utilizing the deadly strength of a crocodile, then she was fine.
"Hm. So you're thinking more bludgeoning, right? Probably something that's a quadruped?" She ripped open a bag of Skittles, and couldn't resist munching on a few at once. "Cause in that case, um. I guess there's always some sort armored bovine-like thing. Like a bull or a rhino. Cape buffalos are pretty big and they've got some big horns too. An elephant would be excellent for damage-dealing, but I think that brings in some of the same problems as the giraffe, doesn't it?"
Drake:
"Yeah, I will have to think about this. I guess if I have to get into a combat situation, I would prefer the hammer style to the machete style. An elephant would not be so bad though. Just because I could make my own doors with that morph. Like I said, I will have to think about it."
Drake shook his head, trying to get his mind off the topic of fighting once again. "So, did you decide on a movie yet? It is still raining pretty hard out there. How about a comedy. Oh, or a nature documentary? It could inspire some strategies that we would not have thought of otherwise. Who knows what kinds of ideas watching salmon swimming up stream could inspire."
Suji:
"Um. The most recent animal documentary I can think of was something about penguins." She smirked. "Or we could watch that one on global warming--you know, the Al Gore one. Flashback to the days when carbon emissions were the most pressing thing we had to worry about in the world." She wondered briefly if Gore was a Controller.
After popping a couple more Skittles in her mouth, she offered the bag to Drake, for him to take any if he wanted them. He seemed a little preoccupied with the jawbreakers though. "Maybe we can split up, meet back here in ten minutes with whatever we find? Unless you've got an idea off the top of your head?"
Drake:
"I got nothing," Drake said as he took a couple Skittles and attempted to chew them with the jawbreakers in his mouth. "I will see what I can find." With that, he went to brows the movie selection.
It took a while to decide on only a few, but he eventually narrowed his choices down to three. "I found Transformers, season one of Planet Earth, and The Sand Lot. What did you find?" Drake was interested to find out what Suji thought was a good movie. He cold not even begin to guess.
Suji:
Suji knew very little about movies in general: she paid no attention to new releases, and didn't really care about the 'critically acclaimed' stuff either. She'd been much more of a book person. And even those hadn't been fiction generally. She rubbed her forehead with the back of her hand as she walked between the aisles. Every now and again she'd pop another Skittle into her mouth. The sugar was divine, at least.
Finally, when she had two movies in tow, she went back to Drake. "Um. I got some stuff from the kid's section." It had made more sense when she'd picked the stuff up, but now admitting that made her feel a little embarassed. She looked down at her picks in an attempt to hide the slight discomfort in her face (which was likely manifesting in a bit of a flush). "Well, my little sister used to love this one. Avatar: the Last Airbender--it's about a small group of kids that save the world. I got season one." Then she held up what she suspected was a recognizable movie for anyone born in their era: The Lion King.
"Sorry that they're, um, both cartoons. I just figured... you know, light fare." She winced lightly.
Drake:
"The Lion King? Who does not like The Lion King? Do not apologize for picking out that movie. It gets my vote for sure." Drake had all but forgotten about that movie, but he was glad that Suji had reminded him that it existed.
Drake gathered up some more candy before situating himself in a comfortable spot to watch the movie. "We definitely have to persuade Ray to bring the van over here sometime. We could have an entire movie library at the Temple. Not to mention the candy..."
Suji:
"The movies would probably outlast the candy, too," Suji smirked. She was glad that he didn't think the choice was too juvenile. They were both supposed to be leaders in their own right, and how often did war leaders in any form admit to liking cartoons? Do you think you could be any more serious if you tried, Suji? She scolded herself, and then went over and popped the movie into the nearest video display. She had to half-climb the adjacent video rack again in order to reach the buttons and the remote controller which was velcroed to the side of the monitor.
Before taking a seat of her own, she also grabbed the candy that appealed the most to her. At least it wasn't really cold: there was a draft from the broken window, but it was nothing like she imagined the same excursion in Chicago could have been. Morphing suits didn't tend to be the best against the elements.
Suji flicked the movie into start, and reclined as much as she could. In an amiable gesture, she placed the remote between them. Then she crossed her arms loosely and tried to imagine that she was at home, not stuck in an abandoned movie rental place because the world had been taken over by aliens.
Drake was running for his life.
He had been out in his secretary bird morph when he had been spotted by some controllers. Stupid, stupid, stupid, he thought to himself. He should have known better than to use such a distinctly non-native morph. Now one of his wings was damaged from dracon fire and he was running to escape.
He had lost them for a moment, but they would be back soon. He ducked inside of an old warehouse to demorph. <<I could use some help about now if anyone is out there.>> He knew it was hopeless. It was a long shot that any of his allies would be within thought speech distance.
Once human, Drake heard a group of controllers entering the building. "Fan out! Search the entire place!" one of them said. He would not be able to fly of of this one. From his position behind a stack of crates, Drake began to morph his giraffe. He would need to fight his way out.
Suji:
Suji was soaring. She did it a lot in Dallas: the area was so wide open, and there were a decent number of vultures around. Sure she might not blend in quite as well as her darker brethren, but she'd seen an eagle or two with lighter feathers. The thermals were nice and hot and the air was inviting.
Then thoughtspeech welled into her head. Drake? Help? Looking down, she began to scan the ground. It took a moment or two, but then she saw a group of Controllers pretty anxious about breaking into what looked like an abandoned building. <<Whoa, who'd you piss off?>> Suji tucked her wings in, and entered the not-so-speedy dive that she'd had time and practice with perfecting as her vulture. It wasn't a graceful bird, but falling from the sky didn't take much grace. She entered from a large cavity where the roof had started to crumble in, and found herself in some sort of loft. The area below her was big and open, though there might have been one or two more rooms this large within the warehouse.
Once her eyes adjusted to the light, she also happened to see a giraffe forming on the other side of the warehouse. <<Uhh->> Her thoughtspeak was cut short by a group of Controllers entering from the other side. Suji quickly dove from the loft to a place wedged behind some boxes. <<I'll be there in a second. Don't step on me!>> She said, and then concentrated on her human form.
Drake:
Hallelujah! Drake exclaimed to himself as he heard Suji's though speech. He could not respond at the time because he was between morphs, but that would soon change. However, trying to stay hidden when turning into a giraffe proved to be somewhat difficult. He kept his head as low as possible so as to stay behind his crates.
<<I will watch my step,>> he said to Suji as his thought speech kicked back in. He heard a few controllers just around the corner. In a moment they would see him. He would have to catch them off guard.
Two of them stepped into view, not five feet from his ducked down head. Drake took one large step forward and launched the first controller with his horns. He continued moving and trampled the second guy. He did not think he killed him, but he would not be doing much physical activity any time soon.
Now at his full height, he could see over top of all the junk in the warehouse. Unfortunately, everyone could see him as well. Bring it, he thought as he rushed another group of stunned controllers. Apparently they had not been expecting to find a giraffe.
Suji:
Giraffes, for all their silly appearance, were pretty good at trashing stuff... including human bodies. Suji watched as a Controller sailed over some boxes... and then landed with a not-so-comfy sounding crash. Whatever was in these warehouse boxes, it wasn't pillows and cotton balls, that was for sure.
From the loft, Suji could see a handful of other Controllers left. She wanted to ask Drake how he'd managed to gather such a following, but not only was thoughtspeech not available, he was momentarily busy with kicking some more suprisied Controllers around. Suji looked around for one of the ladders down from the loft. It took a while to find one, and once she did, she rushed over to it.
Which would have been fine, if she hadn't been barefoot. A nail plunged into the arch of her foot, and with a (rather undignified) cry of pain, she fell forward. It took less than a second for her to realize that she wasn't going to land on the loft, as the empty space between her and the warehouse floor opened up under her. Suji stretched as far as possible, trying to grasp for the ladder that she had been heading towards.
She managed to partially grab it, at least enough that her fall was slowed as she collided into it. Unfortunately, the momentum of her dive knocked the ladder aside...and began to fall too. It teetered with painstaking slowness at first, and then as gravity did it work, she again saw the ground rushing up to meet her.
But the ladder never full hit the ground. Instead, it smacked against a tall shelf of boxes filled with gods-knew-what. And like a series of terrible dominoes, the shelf that was hit was knocked over, which knocked the next over, and the next, and the next--Suji heard the crashing sound across the warehouse as she tried to cling to the ladder. When the the motion had slowed, she released her death-grip on the ladder rungs. She had dislocated her shoulder and that damn nail was still in her foot.
With a thud she hit the ground, and then groaned as she curled into a ball, puling her foot upwards so that she could remove the nail. It came out with a long spurt of blood. It was rusty. "Good thing I've got my tetanus shots," she said to herself through a clenched jaw, and tossed the nail away.
Drake:
Drake was momentarily distracted by the sound of multiple large objects crashing noisily to the floor. Luckily, so were the controllers so that when he glanced quickly to see what it was, none of them took the opportunity to shoot him. A row of shelves was toppling over like dominoes. And he was in that row of shelves.
A bit of panic took over as he realized he needed to move before he got squashed. He ran along side several controllers as they rushed to escape the collapsing shelves. He just made it as they crashed to the floor inches behind him. Some of the controllers were not so lucky.
In an instant, the momentary truce he had with the fleeing controllers was over. One of them shot a dracon beam at his head and it sliced of an ear. It hurt, but Drake was sure that his backwards kick to the guy's chest hurt a lot worse. He felt bones give on impact as the person went flying backwards onto the pile of shelves.
Drake thought there were only a couple of them left, but then he saw more of them coming in through the front entrance. <<If you are going to help, Suji, now would be the time.>>
Suji:
Suji was halfway into her next morph when she heard Drake's thoughtspeech. She'd thought about going cobra, but in the end, that was for situations that were mostly under control--for surprises. And though she thought that the Controllers were probably pretty shocked at seeing a giraffe, that wasn't the type of surprise that a venomous snake morph was useful for.
So, in the end, she'd had to settle for her crocodile. The images of what she'd done to a group of boars with this morph rose to her mind: the snake at least wouldn't exactly kill a human. Well, it would if she pumped all her venom into one of them, but at the same time, envenoming left room for someone to be possibly saved by a hospital. You could do a lot more precision work with snake than a 20 foot ancient beast.
<<Yeah? I was just hanging back, you know, to see if you could handle this on your own,>> Suji told him, once she was fully reptilian. The smell of prey was everywhere, but she took the couple of seconds necessary to completely gain control over the crocodiles mind. Its surface tranquility had tricked her into underestimating the power of its instincts before, and she would not let that happen again.
Suji pushed herself forward, faster than one might expect from such a large animal. She passed over the fallen boxes, and then lunged at a Controller who had been running to try to flank the giraffe. The woman let out a shriek when she saw the crocodile suddenly appear, and though Suji felt the reptile's mind jolt to life, she resisted the temptation to clamp her jaws around the Controller's soft body. Instead she swung her tail--breaking both of the Controller's legs on impact. The woman was down for the count, and her dracon beam skittered under one of the fallen shelves.
<<Stay down,>> Suji ordered the woman, who was crying out in pain and terror as the large scaled body brushed past her.
Then Suji heard a strange noise. There was a lot of loud clattering, as if something was scaling the shelves. <<I can't see much Drake, but can you hear that? I think more Controllers came in the back or somethi->>
Pain! Something heavy on her back! Did it cut her? What jumped on her?! Suji couldn't turn her head to see, but it smelled like nothing the crocodile had ever encountered.
<<Augh! There's something on me!>> Suji rolled, turning to snap at whatever was on her back.
Drake:
Drake's heart skipped a beat as he saw what else had entered the building besides a few more controllers. <<Suji, hork-bajir!>> They were climbing shelves and crates like they were nothing. This was not good.
At least Suji was in her crocodile morph now. If anything could take out a hork-bajir, that would be it. Drake on the other hand, was a bit more vulnerable. One well placed cut and he would be missing a leg. Or worse.
Too bad Drake did not have time to think things through. There were a couple of controllers on the opposite side of a shelf from him, preparing to fire. Drake threw his weight into the shelf and it began to topple onto them, just as the shelves earlier had done.
Suji:
Suji's jaws clamped around something giving, and crushed. What had been solid bone was now more like a sticky paste. Fucking cut me, she thought angrily, pulling on the crocodiles territorial outrage: it could only register this similarly reptilian creature as another predator, a challenge. With one strong jerk of her head, the bipedal creature was on the ground. It swung wildly at her face, and with an ankle blade on the other leg managed to slice into her shoulder.
But Suji was bigger and she had the power right now. She throttled the alien, and with a particularly vicious tear, its entire leg separated from its body. At that point the alien seemed less pre-occupied with attacking her, and more set on getting away from her. Its blood smeared across the ground in heaping pints, arteries pumping the stuff into open space.
<<How many of those things-->> Suji knew the word, she'd seen them in NYC, but not since then, and certainly she'd never fought them, <<--those Hork Bajir, how many are there in here?!>> Another landed in front of her, and thankfully took a moment to try to regain its balance, sliding in the blood of the fallen monster. Suji charged, rushing and snapping at once, bowling the thing over. Her maw closed around its neck, easily powering through the tissue and bone. It seemed to be one of the only places she'd be able to bite without stabbing herself in the mouth.
<<Keep knocking over those shelves! It'll give them less room to climb!>> With that, she rammed a shelf of her own. She had enough weight to push them easily enough, but it was hard to control where the shelves fell.
Drake:
<<Keep knocking over those shelves! It'll give them less room to climb!>>
Drake would have responded, but he was a bit preoccupied. One of the hork-bajir had climbed up the remaining shelf and jumped at his face. Drake ducked just in time so that the massive creature missed its mark. He swung his horned head sideways and smacked the creature in the side of the face, gaining a few minor cuts in the process.
Next he followed Suji's advice ad slammed his weight into the remaining shelf. It toppled. Now the hork-bajir had nowhere to climb other than the walls and crates, but now Drake had no cover either.
Drake saw a group of human controllers notice this fact. They were taking aim, but Drake was already charging them. The first two shots went wild, apparently from surprised fright, but the third hit him dead on in the chest. But it must have been at a too low of setting because he barely felt a warm patch appear on his body as he continued his run. He bowled them over as they tried to leap aside. Drake almost lost his balance, but managed to regain it by leaning against one of the warehouse's outer walls. He turned around just in time to see more hork-bajir running at him.
Suji:
The sounds of chaos were all around them, but for now Suji had cleared the area around her of Controllers--she wasn't nearly as good as a target as Drake had to be. <<Drake, I can't see much from down here, even with most of the shelves knocked over. My eyesight isn't great to begin with--can you guide me to you? We should make our way out of here if possible, before any more reinforcements show up,>> to hersel, she added: And then you can tell me what this is all about!
For now she followed the strong senses that she did have: scent and hearing. She followed the smell of the aliens, the Hork Bajir--it was much different from the human smell, and almost mimicked something the crocodile could recognize as reptilian. Turning around one of the shelf-piles, Suji caught sight of Drake: bad eyes or not, there was no mistaking the form of a giraffe leaning against a wall. It looked terribly awkward, that much she could tell. But they were pretty awkward animals to begin with.
Then something stepped on her snout, and a taloned foot left a long gash. The running form of the Hork Bajir, passed over her. For a brief moment she felt almost powerless: she couldn't open her jaw. For all the strength in the world, just the weight of the Hork Bajir alone was enough to keep her jaw useless. It was a trade off for having one of the best crunching powers in the animal kingdom.
The alien lunged off of her, springing up impossibly fast as it leaped towards Drake. Suji lunged forward after the Hork Bajir, snapping her jaws around--air. Wait, no! The tip of her maw had been fast enough to catch the end of the alien's tail... which was barbed. Instantly pain filled her mouth, but she held on. It wasn't a secure grip, but it was enough to send the creature crashing to the floor.
Drake:
<<I am right smack dab in front of you! Just go straight!>> Drake was a little harsh with his words, but he was in a pretty stressful situation at the moment. He figured Suji would understand.
Drake kicked a hork-bajir, then ran forward to trample another. He got his leg cut pretty badly in the process, but it was still supporting his weight, so that was a plus. <<I would love to get out of here. If you see any giraffe-sized doors, let me know. Unless you can somehow get one of those big garage door things open.>> The situation was not looking good, but they were not out for the count just yet.
Suji:
Drake sounded... stressed. It wasn't often that Suji heard him frustrated, but she couldn't really blame him. Especially not when he had those skittering hooves and long limbs to contend with. He trampled the sprawled Hork Bajir at least, and she caught a strong whiff of his blood--warm and mammilian. The crocodile had no instinctual doubt that it could make a meal out of the giraffe if it could catch it, certainly if the tall thing was already wounded.
Big garage door things? Suji couldn't make out what he was talking about, though she could imagine: warehouses generally had really big, nearly wall-sized doors where trucks parked outside and their cargo was unloaded. She, however, had no idea how one went about opening them. Which meant that either she'd need to demorph and hope he could buy her some time to figure out how to open one of those things, or he needed to demorph so they could leave through a more conventional exit.
Which brought up another problem. Would Suji even fit through a regular-sized door? She wasn't nearly as big as the giraffe, and she was definitely longer than she was wide or tall, but still. <<Can you see any of those doors you're talking about? Like a place that looks like it might be a loading dock? A control panel or something? If you can hold them off, I'll try to get that open and we can get out that way. The other option is you demorph and I defend, and we make a break for a regular exit. Not sure I'll make it through, though.>>
A lancing beam of dracon fire bored into her hide: her scales were thick, but it seared deep. Not fatal, but how long would it be till someone got a lucky shot?
Drake:
Drake head butted a couple more human controllers, launched a few more wild kicks, and took a couple glancing blows of dracon fire before he got a chance to look around. About thirty feet away along the wall, there was a switch that looked like it probably was for the doors. <<Suji, up ahead there is a switch for the...>> Drake watched as one of the human controllers went over and pushed the switch he had seen. The controller was on some sort of radio or cell phone or something, so it was likely that whatever was behind that door would not be good for them.
<<Suji, quick, go back the way you came from. They are opening the doors. They must have something plan- Taxxons!>> Drake turned to run as the centipede-like creatures struggled to get under the opening doorway for a chance to taste the carnage.
Suji:
Suji let out a groan via thoughtspeak. She hated being blind down here--unable to see over the mountains of fallen crap. But she could hear the sound of the Taxxons now. They slurped and skittered across the concrete flooring. There was a loud shriek and Suji realized that the woman she had taken the pains not to kill was being eaten alive.
<<No- No I can hold them off for a while. Get to where the shelves first started to fall from--can you see a fallen ladder? It might still be propped over there->> Suji put on an explosive burst of speed and intercepted the first of the Taxxons. The human Controllers seemed to be pulling back, unwilling to get too close to the frenzied cannibal aliens. The Taxxon screamed, and Suji let out a loud hiss--in the end the bloated body of the centipede creature was no match for her teeth. It smelled awful, and tasted worse.
<<Demorph, set up the ladder, go into the loft, and start going bird or something--there's a place where the roof is falling in, that's how I got in. I'll... um.>> Another Hork Bajir behind her! Suji felt a foot of her tail being suddenly severed from her body: it would be Taxxon food before long. Good thing she still had plenty more where that came from. With a whooping swing she sent the bladed alien crashing into a pile of collapsed shelves. <<I don't know, I'll follow you, maybe if you can find a dracon gun on the way, try to give me some cover- Just get to the ladder, it's our best chance out of here, we can knock it down once we're up it!>>
Drake:
Drake wanted to object, but he decided not to. By this point all of the blood loss from his cuts, especially on his legs, was starting to make him a little light headed. Not to mention that he wanted to get away from the fight in general. <<Just... try not to die.>> Drake galloped off, starting to demorph along the way.
Drake kicked over a couple of human controllers that had been injured and were running from the taxxons too. If those big centipedes made it past Suji, those people would slow them down a bit. Even when he sped up his morphs to his maximum speed, it was a painstakingly slow process. Hurry, hurry, hurry. Now he could see why some of the others practiced their morphing, even when they were not doing official group training.
Finally Drake was human enough to set up the ladder. He was already climbing up it by the time the last of his giraffe features vanished. Unfortunately he was unable to find a weapon by this point, so he would have to make due with whatever was in the loft area. But first things first. He began to morph his turkey vulture so that he could tell Suji to retreat. <<Suji! Get back here, quick!>> Then he reversed his morph once again, but just enough so that he could function as a human. He kept his feathers, beak, and shrunken head in order to save time later.
Suji:
Drake didn't argue, but Suji felt her stomach turn at the sight of the giraffe galloping away. It had been the most practical plan at the time: her morph was better suited for defense than his. All the same, she felt alone very quickly, and thought she didn't consider herself a particularly cowardly person, there was fear bubbling up inside of her. She'd never had to fight aliens before, and even the dam mission had been a mission there had been some kind of plan to follow, some objective.
When pure survival became an objective, Suji didn't feel comfortable. It showed a little too clearly the very real danger that they put themselves in. And there was no explanation for the time being. Less quickly that the giraffe, but more quickly that the fleeing humans, Suji began to haul her form over to where she thought the ladder would be. It became much easier when she realized she could track her own scent.
The pain in her tail, as well as the other cuts and burn marks, was growing rather than diminishing. She was losing quite a bit of blood out of the missing part of her tail, but she was a large creature, and fairly durable. Not that she wanted to put that last bit to the test. Suji began to demorph as she moved, but it slowed her down--going from 20 feet long to less than 6 feet long, from a heavy quadruped to a not-so-heavy bipedal creature didn't do wonders for her balance. She fell on her face more than a few times, until finally she pushed herself up hard, and found herself human enough to keep running.
She quickly grabbed hold of the ladder and began to climb. Fortunately, most of the Taxxons still seemed more preoccupied with cleaning up than anything else. Scampering with all the vestigal instincts of a once-ago-primate, Suji hurried up the rungs. Then she felt the ladder shake--not too hard, but with an added weight below her: a human Controller frantically chasing her. Well, maybe not chasing her so much as trying to escape the pit of carnage that had opened up below.
Suji flopped down on her stomach on the loft as soon as she reached the top. Then, with a snarl, she flipped on her back... and gave the ladder a solid kick.
Drake:
"Boy, am I glad to see you," Drake said. Or at least he tried to. His moth was more beak than lip, so it did not come out as smoothly as he would have liked. He watched as the ladder toppled over. It would slow them down, but they could set the ladder back up again, and the hork-bajir seemed to be pretty good climbers.
Drake had found a few tools that had been left up there, so he started to throw them down. A hammer, a circular saw, a big monkey wrench, and an entire tool box provided about ten seconds worth of ammunition. But then Drake brought out the nail gun.
"Morph," Drake managed to squawk. The nails he was shooting were not exactly deadly, but all he needed to do was wound and the taxxons would help with the rest. His main worry now was for the hork-bajir finding a way to climb up the walls.
Suji:
Suji looked over at Drake, and let out an involuntary yelp of surprise. She quickly clapped a hand over her mouth, and flushed, embarassed. The fact that he was partially morphed hadn't been the worst of it--it was just that with the beak, she almost thought that he was one of those Hork Bajir, already up in the loft. "Sorry," she said quickly, and got to her feet. She hadn't really ever seen someone operate partially into their morph, and she was intrigued, once she had time to watch him shooting the nail gun.
Suji began morphing. White feathers puffed out from her skin, and quickly formed a crown around her neck. Her face melted into the fleshy beaked countenance of her Egyptian vulture. It was his turn to defend and play hero, so she didn't bother stopping her morph, like he had. Sooner rather than later, she was fully vulture. <<Okay, it's over here, go ahead and finish morphing->>
There was a scraping sound that she didn't recognize until she saw an arm blade bite into the wood of the loft's floor. A Hork Bajir was pulling itself up.
Drake:
Upon hearing Suji's words, Drake continued his morph while still shooting the nail gun. The gun was almost too heavy for his hollow-boned wing-arms by the time he also noticed the hork-bajir climbing into the loft. He turned and managed to get three shots off before he was no longer capable of holding his weapon. One nail missed, one went in the head and the last in the neck. The alien fell.
But two more were soon taking its place. Drake did not waste any time and rushed to where Suji had instructed. He took to the air just as he became fully bird. He went up and out of the roof with the hork-bajir not too far behind.
Suji:
<<Nice shot!>> Suji said: she wouldn't leave the warehouse without him in tow. But once it was clear that he was heading towards her, she propelled herself out into the sky. The weather was strangely cooler than before, crisper too. She could see the sky darkening prematurely in the distance. <<I think we're gonna get a storm,>> she said, but climbed higher into the sky anyway.
<<Which way should we head?>> She asked. <<Which way is away from wherever you picked up all your friends down there? Hopefully that storm was far enough off that they could get to a decent hiding place without having to go to ground--she didn't want to fly in a storm.
Drake:
<<Umm...>> Drake was a little turned around after being in that warehouse. <<This way, I think.>> Drake turned to fly in the direction he was thinking. Down below he could see the controllers pouring into the streets to try and get them, but they were far away. A couple even shot their weapons at them, but their aim was way off and he doubted they would do any lethal damage from this range anyway.
<<Yeah, after all we just went through, rain is the last thing we need.>> Drake was silent for a moment before he spoke again. <<Thanks for rescuing me Suji.>>
Suji:
Suji followed Drake's lead. They were quickly outpacing the scene below them, but unfortunately for the time being it seemed that they were flying towards the storm. With her laser-like eyes, she even saw a bolt of lightning flash from within those dark clouds in the distance. Rain was one thing. Lightning was going to be something else entirely.
She almost started to say something about that, in the silence after Drake spoke, but then he spoke again. And thanked her. Suji felt uncomfortable. She didn't like the idea that she'd 'rescued' Drake. Helped, sure. But rescued implied that he wouldn't have been able to get himself out of the situation alone. And that was not the kind of thought that she found very pleasing to entertain. Sure, Suji could accept and deal with a good deal of responsibility, but that was a different kind of burden that was far too reliant on dumb luck. And dumb luck scared her.
<<Rescue is such a strong word,>> Suji said, trying to sound light-hearted, though her thoughtspeech seemed uneasy even to herself. <<I just lent you a hand. Or a giant set of jaws, I guess. You would've done the same for me.>> She quickly tried to get away from the subject, though tried not to make it seem like she was rushing to drop it.
<<If we stay this course we're going to be heading into that storm--but I think it's gonna come at us either way. We might have to go to ground and hide somewhere, wait it out. Don't wanna lead anyone back to the Temple.>>
Drake:
It was true. He would have done the same for Suji. But that did not make her assistance any less helpful. He probably died in there if it was not for her. He was about to mention this, but Suji had already moved on to a different topic.
<<Yeah, lets not lead them to our hideout. Imagine what kind of epic battle that would turn into.>> Drake tried not to. He would never be able to unsee all of the carnage that had taken place today. For that reason he did not want to imagine any more of it happening.
<<I would not mind resting for a while, I suppose. Although I admit that the longer we stay out here, the more nervous I will get. There is just something about getting home that calms you, you know? I know it is silly, but it seems like we can get to the Temple and declare 'base,' and then the yeerks stop following us.>> Drake laughed a little, inwardly.
Suji:
Suji could imagine all too clearly the possible sequences that would play out if their hideout was raided. How many of them even had morphs that could fight? Probably less than half. The others, like Brianna would be even more vulnerable. They'd end up scattered, not knowing which way to flee, and probably suffering more than a few 'casualties'.
Not a pleasant thought. Even with the Dam, that had been different. There had been... a lot less blood. Not that she hadn't seen creatures die, not that she hadn't seen gore and violence... but this had been one of the first times she'd seen the heart of chaos like that.
She listened to him talking about being nervous, and she had been prepared to respond until he said something about 'declaring base'. She was glad to be a vulture, because she had no idea what her facial expression would have betrayed. If only it was all just a game. And maybe for Drake that was the only thing he could really relate it too: maybe it was too much to realize that all that ugliness had been real. They weren't going to be calling 'base' any more than those Controllers got the chance to call 'time out'.
The analogy made her feel far too young and far too old all at once. She glided for a while, though the turbulence under her wings was growing as the storm approached. <<We'll just wait out some of it. If it gets to be too long, we can head back on the ground, I guess.>>
After a bit she added, <<I know what you mean though. It's... nice to have a place to call home. I feel like I've been bouncing from place to place way too much, and there is something special about knowing you've got a bed to return to.>>
Drake:
Drake soaked in Suji's words as they flew for a bit longer. Drakes mind was busy trying to forget somethings and think of others. <<We could stop there, if you want,>> Drake finally said as it started to drizzle. <<In that movie store with the broken front window.>>
Drake started to spiral downward lazily. He did not feel like putting forth any effort at the moment. Then he decided to ask Suji a somewhat tricky question. <<Hey Suji, do you think we will ever find a way to beat the yeerks. Right now it seems like we just annoy them. Granted, the Hoover Dam was a pretty big blow, but even that was kind of tiny when compared to the whole world. We gotta find a way to kick them off of the earth eventually, right?>>
Suji:
It looked like a good a place as any. Suji scanned the area before following him down--but it'd been a while since she'd seen anyone, let alone any aliens. She followed his lead; they might just look like two regular vultures, if it weren't for the fact that it was beginning to rain.
She hadn't been expecting the question, and it blindsided her. Sure she'd gotten into some philosophical, hypothetical ponderings before, but they tended to leave her more frustrated than anything else. They were generally the result of locking horns with someone who had authority over her. Drake, however, merely asked: didn't challenge, didn't try to foist a useless set ideological values on her first. That was probably what made it so hard to answer--Suji was more accustomed to just pushing back when it came to thinking about that kind of question.
<<Um,>> Suji started, not as collected as she'd have liked to be. The image of kicking that ladder backwards, of feeling good while she did it, feeling righteous, kept forcing its way into her mind. She'd done worse things in her life--much worse--but this had been recent, vivid, and it threatened to pull up all those other scenes she kept safely locked away in her memory. <<I don't know.>> It came out much more dejected than she'd have hoped, and there was a weariness in her voice that suggested that she might as well have been fighting the war for six years, not just six months or so.
She mentally shook herself. <<I don't know how, but we'll win. We recruit more and more Animorphs every month--soon enough we'll actually have an entire army, you know? That and it's not just us fighting. There are refugee camps fighting back and saving people all over the country... I mean, we only ever really see the cities, which are Yeerk hotspots. The countryside still belongs to free humans. No big pools there, and the Yeerks are using all their resources consolidating just the places they have.>> It sounded good to her, and she became more confident as she went on.
<<I don't know if we'll kick them off but... I don't think this planet is big enough for the both of us, you know? We'll never stop fighting. I'm not sure if they've realized just what species they're trying to make into long-term hosts yet.>>
Drake:
<<I guess I never thought of it like that. We really could take them down if we keep at it.>> There was a bit more determinedness in his voice than he expected. He swooped into the video store and began demorphing in the drama section.
<<I suppose it could go kind of like this. Each animorph kidnaps a host. They starve the yeerk out. The ex-controller becomes an animorph. Rinse and repeat. Obviously it would not be quite that efficient, but over time we could make a pretty big dent.>> Drake made the transition to mostly human and grew a human voice box. "I was starting to feel like we were fighting an impossible fight, but it suddenly seems doable. Thanks Suji. They really have no idea what they got themselves into."
Suji:
Suji demorphed: the place didn't look like it'd been as ransacked as a lot of other buildings. Maybe when the world was ending looting a Blockbuster's didn't seem as tempting as looting a grocery store or something. She found herself staring at some really cheesy horror titles as she grew upwards to her normal height.
"Well," she called out, walking down the aisles till she found him. "I mean, having more Animorphs is a great thing, but there would definitely have to be a more selective process. I've seen-" Suji frowned, and looked away briefly. She, specifically, had been the one to put down the last Animorph that turned out to be not such a great pick. At least that she knew about. And worse than that, she'd had to...
Suji shook her head, looked back at him. Her poker face had slipped, momentarily. "But yeah. I think... well... I don't think it'll be easy or we'll wake up one day and find that they've just quit. But... but it's not hopeless." She tried to give him a smile, but her mind was still on Toby. Still on Sophia.
Thunder cracked overhead.
Drake:
It seemed that more was going through Suji's mind than was coming out her mouth, but Drake decided not to pry. He figured she would either not want to talk about it, or it was some sort of mushy girly emotional type stuff that he would not be interested in. Judging by who he was talking about, he guessed it was the former.
Thunder cracked overhead and Drake looked at store around him. "So, it looks like we could be here a while. What do you want to watch? When Mars Attacks, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, or War of the Worlds?" To tell the truth, Drake would have rather watched a Barney movie than one of those. "On second thought, lets find something that does not relate so well to our current lifestyle."
Suji:
Suji looked around. The place was dim, and it would probably only get darker once the storm clouds blocked out all of the sun. "Well, at least in War of the Worlds all the aliens got sick from being on Earth and died. If only the same could be said for our current invaders." She started to walk towards the nearest set of TVs. She had to half-climb up the nearest DVD rack to reach it (the TV was suspended from the ceiling), but after a few missed gropes, she managed to turn it on.
It offered more light in the rental store, even if it was an eerie blue tint at the moment. "Well, what if we get movies about morphing?" She said lightly, as she walked towards the front desk. "The Fly or something awful? Or is that still too close for comf- CANDY!"
It was a brief outburst, but Suji darted forward. She'd been on her way to look for a flashlight, but by the front counter (probably for people waiting in line) were several kiosks filled to the brim with the colorful wrappers that she felt like she'd left behind in another lifetime. It'd been more than half a year since she'd tasted so much as a Skittle, or peeled the wrapped off of a Starburst.
The simple delight of glorified ultra-processed sugar and corn syrup overtook her. She rushed to the display, momentarily at a loss for what to dig into first. "It's been so long! I don't even like candy!"
Drake:
It took a moment for Drake to process that word- candy. But as soon as he did, he was right by Suji's side looking over the contents of the shelf. Candy and a movie. Could they day have flipped any more upside down from less than an hour ago? Probably, but Drake did not care.
"You are such a liar, Suji. Everyone likes candy. I call the jawbreakers! Oh, and the snickers! The kitkats too! Oh, it is impossible to decide." Drake was just enjoying the moment. Right now, at this very moment, he could almost pretend that the world was right again. "We definitely have to bring some stuff from this place back with us once the rain stops."
Suji:
Suji laughed: it was a real, genuine laugh and it caught her off guard. It didn't travel far because the rain that was beginning to fall quickly outside muffled the sound, but it was there. "No really! I don't--or I didn't--candy was beneath me," she said, grinning. "I'd horde my Halloween candy all year when I was little."
Now though she began reaching for anything that caught her eye. She pulled the stretchy material of her shirt forward, and began to dump candy into the makeshift pocket. She grabbed peppermint patties, several different types of Milky Way, gummy bears, and a host of other things (though she dutifully let Drake grab his fill of his preferred candies). "We should! It might be hard to carry though... unless we end up walking back barefoot. Do you think we could morph it? Like if we taped it to us or something? I bet there's tape around here somewhere."
It was a question that made her stop for a moment. What exactly could they morph with them? "Or do you think it would melt?"
Drake:
Now it was Drake's turn to laugh. "You are talking about strapping candy to yourself so that it can be turned into an animal, just so we can sneak it back to our hideout, and you are worried about wether or not it will melt?" For some reason that seemed absurd to him and he busted out laughing. It probably was not as funny as he thought, but he did not care. He would take all the laughing he could get at the moment.
Once he finally settled down a bit he managed to respond to her question. "I have no idea if we could morph candy or not. Maybe something like taffy if we got it really tight to our skin, but other than that, who knows. I doubt that I personally would have the skills necessary to morph an Almond Joy." A huge grin was plastered on his face. "Try it out and see."
Suji:
Suji watched Drake laugh, and laughed herself. It was contagious. Nearly dying had that affect: everything felt funny, everything felt wonderful now that they were out of immediate danger. The fact that there was enough candy for them to eat themselves sick on sugar was just an added bonus.
She dropped her head in mock defeat for a moment, letting him laugh at her idea. She'd proposed it in all seriousness--the careful, methodical, Suji way of thinking. But she wasn't sore that he found it funny. It was funny. Just imagining them getting back to the Temple, demorphing, and being covered in a taped together mess of chocolate and fruity coating was enough to get her laughing again. It was a terrible idea. Would anyone even want to eat morphed candy?
She looked back up to see him grinning at her and telling her to try it out. She cocked an eyebrow at him, smirking good naturedly. "You just want to laugh at me some more." Holding her shirt-pocket out with one hand, she lifted one of the Milky Way bars to her mouth and used her teeth to open it. Grinning back at in, she took a hearty bite. The sheer sweetness of it was enough to make her want to laugh again, and she covered her mouth with her wrist. "You know," she said, tilting her head as she said it. "I actually think I've had enough morphing for a while."
Drake:
"I hear that," Drake said in response. "I have done enough morphing in the past few months to last me a lifetime." Drake was going to leave it at that when he realized it was not actually true.
"Okay, so maybe not enough to last me a lifetime. I still get excited whenever I manage to acquire something new. Speaking of acquiring new things, I was thinking about asking Ray for a new morph sometime soon. As I found out today, my giraffe morph is not quite as cut out for battles as I originally thought. Got any suggestions for what type of animal I should ask for?"
Suji:
Suji had already finished off the chocolate bar by the time it was appropriate for her to respond. "Mmm," she intoned, but didn't get much further than that: it would have made a sad sight to try to talk around a mouthful of chocolate and caramel. Looking down at her hand she was puzzled with what to do with the wrapper for a moment. Of course she could just throw it on the floor: this place wasn't exactly in use any more.
But even the idea of that felt wrong. This might be a version of the post-apocalypse, maybe beyond the age of human civilization, but she wasn't going to litter. That would have felt like crossing a line: maybe it was wrong to eat the candy if it didn't belong to her, but it seemed worse to trash the place on top of it. After all, wouldn't even a small act like that be some kind of concession that she didn't expect to return to a world where littering was looked down on?
She walked over to the nearest trash can and tossed the wrapper in, swallowing down the last bits of the bar. "Well, what animals are you most comfortable with? If you want something with some serious firepower, you could always ask for a polar bear or something. I recently picked up a cobra morph--deadly but really situational. But that's kind of the problem with the giraffe I guess."
Drake:
Drake popped a jawbreaker into his mouth as he awaited Suji's response. The sweet taste that trickled down his throat was like candy from a dream. He popped in a second jawbreaker to accompany the first.
"Yeah, a polar bear would be kind of neat. Not a snake though. I would feel like I was too easy to kill. No offense. But even with the bear I would probably have to bite people or slash them open, and, well, no thanks." The thought threatened to take away the tastiness of his candy.
"I guess the only real thing wrong with my giraffe morph is that it does not fit anywhere. Like in the warehouse, I could not get out of the regular doors. There is not such a thing as a miniature giraffe, is there?"
Suji:
Suji shrugged. "None taken," she responded at the 'no offense' comment. And when he talked about having to bite people, she winced a little. She didn't want to argue with him about what was necessary and what wasn't: sometimes you were going to need to do some damage to complete missions, to survive. And sometimes it wasn't as easy as blowing up a pool full of Yeerks that didn't have human faces to hide behind yet.
He probably knew that, and if he was opting out of that type of fighting for something else, that was his decision. She didn't begrudge anyone for fighting how they chose. As long as he didn't start harping on her for recognizing and utilizing the deadly strength of a crocodile, then she was fine.
"Hm. So you're thinking more bludgeoning, right? Probably something that's a quadruped?" She ripped open a bag of Skittles, and couldn't resist munching on a few at once. "Cause in that case, um. I guess there's always some sort armored bovine-like thing. Like a bull or a rhino. Cape buffalos are pretty big and they've got some big horns too. An elephant would be excellent for damage-dealing, but I think that brings in some of the same problems as the giraffe, doesn't it?"
Drake:
"Yeah, I will have to think about this. I guess if I have to get into a combat situation, I would prefer the hammer style to the machete style. An elephant would not be so bad though. Just because I could make my own doors with that morph. Like I said, I will have to think about it."
Drake shook his head, trying to get his mind off the topic of fighting once again. "So, did you decide on a movie yet? It is still raining pretty hard out there. How about a comedy. Oh, or a nature documentary? It could inspire some strategies that we would not have thought of otherwise. Who knows what kinds of ideas watching salmon swimming up stream could inspire."
Suji:
"Um. The most recent animal documentary I can think of was something about penguins." She smirked. "Or we could watch that one on global warming--you know, the Al Gore one. Flashback to the days when carbon emissions were the most pressing thing we had to worry about in the world." She wondered briefly if Gore was a Controller.
After popping a couple more Skittles in her mouth, she offered the bag to Drake, for him to take any if he wanted them. He seemed a little preoccupied with the jawbreakers though. "Maybe we can split up, meet back here in ten minutes with whatever we find? Unless you've got an idea off the top of your head?"
Drake:
"I got nothing," Drake said as he took a couple Skittles and attempted to chew them with the jawbreakers in his mouth. "I will see what I can find." With that, he went to brows the movie selection.
It took a while to decide on only a few, but he eventually narrowed his choices down to three. "I found Transformers, season one of Planet Earth, and The Sand Lot. What did you find?" Drake was interested to find out what Suji thought was a good movie. He cold not even begin to guess.
Suji:
Suji knew very little about movies in general: she paid no attention to new releases, and didn't really care about the 'critically acclaimed' stuff either. She'd been much more of a book person. And even those hadn't been fiction generally. She rubbed her forehead with the back of her hand as she walked between the aisles. Every now and again she'd pop another Skittle into her mouth. The sugar was divine, at least.
Finally, when she had two movies in tow, she went back to Drake. "Um. I got some stuff from the kid's section." It had made more sense when she'd picked the stuff up, but now admitting that made her feel a little embarassed. She looked down at her picks in an attempt to hide the slight discomfort in her face (which was likely manifesting in a bit of a flush). "Well, my little sister used to love this one. Avatar: the Last Airbender--it's about a small group of kids that save the world. I got season one." Then she held up what she suspected was a recognizable movie for anyone born in their era: The Lion King.
"Sorry that they're, um, both cartoons. I just figured... you know, light fare." She winced lightly.
Drake:
"The Lion King? Who does not like The Lion King? Do not apologize for picking out that movie. It gets my vote for sure." Drake had all but forgotten about that movie, but he was glad that Suji had reminded him that it existed.
Drake gathered up some more candy before situating himself in a comfortable spot to watch the movie. "We definitely have to persuade Ray to bring the van over here sometime. We could have an entire movie library at the Temple. Not to mention the candy..."
Suji:
"The movies would probably outlast the candy, too," Suji smirked. She was glad that he didn't think the choice was too juvenile. They were both supposed to be leaders in their own right, and how often did war leaders in any form admit to liking cartoons? Do you think you could be any more serious if you tried, Suji? She scolded herself, and then went over and popped the movie into the nearest video display. She had to half-climb the adjacent video rack again in order to reach the buttons and the remote controller which was velcroed to the side of the monitor.
Before taking a seat of her own, she also grabbed the candy that appealed the most to her. At least it wasn't really cold: there was a draft from the broken window, but it was nothing like she imagined the same excursion in Chicago could have been. Morphing suits didn't tend to be the best against the elements.
Suji flicked the movie into start, and reclined as much as she could. In an amiable gesture, she placed the remote between them. Then she crossed her arms loosely and tried to imagine that she was at home, not stuck in an abandoned movie rental place because the world had been taken over by aliens.