Post by Admin on Sept 23, 2009 4:58:44 GMT -5
Matt:
Matt ran along, kicking up dust in the form of the palomino horse. To anyone who were to watch he would have looked like a wild horse, if there were any of those still around that is. He'd left his saddle in Los Angeles, taking with him nothing but the clothes on his back. He didn't have much in belongings anyways, and he was going back to L.A. He wouldn't be staying in Vegas any longer than he needed.
He'd called Rian and told him he was coming, though that still didn't say he wouldn't run into someone patrolling. Actually, if he didn't run into a patrol he'd worry that Rian had lost it. Yes, there weren't many people who could morph and no known ones were controllers, but it was always good to be careful even with an animal.
With this in mind he started to slow down as he reached the base he'd passed by on his way though after the faction leader meeting. He hadn't stopped long enough to visit with anyone, just seen it from the outside as Luce and Rian had let him out of the car. Then he'd morphed and run on back toward L.A.
Nati:
Nati sniffed the ground in front of her. The kit fox was such a small morph, and yet she was beginning to see why Cecily's morphs had been so useful to the group back in Mexico. They weren't big, nor were they ferocious or violent. Yet they had their own uses and advantages. Even starting morphs gave you abilities you didn't possess as a human. All the same, she hoped that she would be getting something more powerful soon. There was only so much she could do with her current morphs.
She looked up. The animal she could hear approaching wasn't something she recognized. She couldn't smell it yet, but she could see it somewhat. It was a horse. Unless one of the members had recently gotten a horse morph, this was not someone from Vegas. The only one Nati knew off the top of her head was Luce, and it didn't look like Luce's morph.
The larger animal slowed it approach and Nati trotted over to it, stopping and snarling. <<Who are you and what are you doing here?>>
Matt:
Matt stopped as the fox placed itself between him and the Las Vegas hideout. At first he was expecting Rian, but the color was wrong and the voice proved to be female. Matt knew the truth about Rian's gender, and yet he'd still always thought of the Vegas leader as a male and the voice had seemed masculine to him. It was probably all in the way he perceived the voice, and yet he would have recognized Rian's mental voice and he didn't recognize this fox's.
<<My name is Matthew. I'm the Los Angeles faction leader.>> he said as he stared down at the fox, one of Rian's recruits. <<Rian should be expecting me. I'm an old friend and I told him I needed some help. Something personal, yes, but in my case a personal problem affects my whole faction.>> Hopefully Rian had told those on the border patrol that Matthew was coming. If not he'd have a few problems.
Nati:
Nati studied the horse, who proved to be a male morpher. She vaguely remembered something about a leader from somewhere else coming to visit for a while. Rian had mentioned the boy would be coming to stay until he could sort something out. Had he said something about the form the leader would show up in though? Damn she was wishing she'd payed more attention. She had just hoped the guy wouldn't show up during her patrol.
So, what do you plan to do now idiota? Well, what now was hope she could get off on being new. <<Could you demorph for me? I don't remember what form he told us to expect you to show up in. I've seen the shirt from his days in L.A. faction though, so I'd recognize the angel logo.>> She was pulling her only option here. Besides, he was needing to demorph herself anyways. She was running close to the two hour limit here.
Matt:
Matt chuckled a little mentally. This girl must have been a recent new addition. She obviously hadn't expected to need to be prepared for his arrival. Now she was trying to confirm him by whatever means she could. Then again, he remembered his early days as an Animorph. There was so much you were still learning about how things went, so much you had to realized and take in during those first few days.
He nodded the large head of his horse morph as he mentally voice his answer. <<Sure. I can do that.>>
With that all the answer he gave he focused on his human form. He'd been fairly good on time and probably could have reached the Vegas hideout without needing to demorph before reaching it, but it was nice to return to his normal shape and size for a short time and to be sure he wouldn't be trying to cut anything too close.
Matt was starting to find that his transitions only improved with time, and while his first few had been somewhat messy none of the ones after that had been. He reminded himself of the term he'd been taught so long ago by Raven. Estreen. He had to think he wasn't quite that good, and yet he also knew he was a modest person and wondered if he should ask someone if there was any chance of it.
The final portions of the demorph came to pass, his ears rounding off where they had still been pointed and his hair turning a kind of bleached brown rather than the blond color the palomino's mane was. There he stood, 18 years old, five feet seven inches, lean though definitely getting some noticeable musculature as time went on, and with hair hanging down to almost level with his chin. His dark eyes squinted against the bright sun. Hello, Las Vegas I guess.
Nati:
As Nati saw the changes start in the horse she started her own demorph, though she knew full and well that if he was really a faction leader he would beat her. If he really was like Rian, then he had a lot of experience over her and probably morphs that could put her fox to a great deal of shame.
The first thing was the fox's tail, it was sucked back into her spine. As that finished she began to grow larger, her arms and legs lengthening as the rest of her body returned to human proportions. Her joints reversed with a strange popping noise and her nose began to recede back into her face. The ears shifted down from the top of her head. Then her paws turned back into hands and feet. Lastly the fur disappeared back into her, leaving her tan skin. The fur on the very top of her head turned very dark, almost black, and became her hair in a short, chin length cut she had gotten after joining the Animorphs.
Judging by the bare feet in front of her, the boy had finished before her. The feet and the legs connecting to them were very obviously masculine from her point of view, still on her hands and knees in front of him. If the voice hadn't convinced her of the gender, this had.
Slowly she stood up and faced the boy. He looked a little older than Rian and he had at least a good five or six inches over Nati in the height department. Most importantly was the morphing suit, the black shorts and sleeveless shirt and the gold belt that looked like the ones Rian had. She risked a glance behind him and saw the winged A, though this one had a crown she hadn't seen on Rian's. No doubt that was a status marker.
She gave him a sheepish smile. "Thank you, Matthew. I'm sorry about that. You can go ahead to the base now. I still have to complete my turn patrolling, otherwise I'd lead you there." She turned so he wouldn't see her roll her eyes at her stupidity. She started the morph back to kit fox form, wanting to get away from this situation as quickly as possible.
Matt:
Matt could tell once he'd finished demorphing that the girl was too, though while he'd finished in something more like two minutes she was still mid way through the transition. It was all a matter of experience though, and he'd already figured the girl was new.
When she'd finished demorphing he noticed the Animorph was very obviously Hispanic, both in her accent and her appearance. She spoke English with a Spanish accent, making Matthew wonder about her history. It was the first Animorph he'd met who had very obviously been raised somewhere other than the states, and yet the yeerk takeover had affected more than just his home. He knew that now. This girl had as much right as him to be fighting for her freedom from the yeerks.
Matthew listened to her apologize after confirming who he was, and then watched her turn to leave. "Hey!" he called to the back of the girl as he saw the start of her fox morph. "It was no trouble. Personally I'd have been worried if you hadn't tried to confirm who I was." But the morph continued and Matt shook his head. She would, hopefully, get over this by the time he had to leave. In the meantime he had to get to the base actually so Rian could know he'd arrived.
He shook his head again as he started to morph, but thought of one more thing. "At least tell me your name. I'm going to be here long enough that I will probably need to learn it."
Nati:
"At least tell me your name. I'm going to be here long enough that I will probably need to learn it." Nati turned to see him morphing again. She was already mostly fox. No doubt he would still finish roughly in the same time as her, even with her head start.
She sighed a little, wondering why the life of an Animorph felt so complicated when only one thing had changed. Well.... really a lot more than one thing had changed. Enough changed could account for it feeling so different from normal life. For now though it was the only life she had though, because she had made her choice.
She finished the morph and then finally responded before running off to continue patrolling. <<My name is Nathali.>>
Matt:
Nathali. Matt would need to remember that. He knew there were probably very few people here in Vegas that he had previously met. The Kinley brothers were here, and Rian, Julia, and Luce. That only accounted for four people in a faction that could be as large as eight though. Actually, factions could be as large as ten now. Most of the older factions had moved to larger hideouts by now and the newer ones had been given larger hideouts to start out with. With losing Vancouver they'd lost some ground and they seemed to be trying to make it up by gaining numbers.
The fox trotted off away from him. Matt watched Nathali leave for a moment before turning and continuing toward the Vegas hideout, the Air Base. No doubt someone would spot him coming again and have questions. Unless that someone already knew him that is. Personally a part of him hoped his arrival would be greeted by a familiar face rather than someone he didn't know. It would just make this a little easier from the get-go.
Stevert:
<<Okay, I'm only going to be gone for under an hour. It doesn't take too long to go get pop-tarts. Especially at that one store that I'm getting friends with the owner of.>>Steve said.
<<Fine, but If we get busted, it's all your fault.>>Robert reminded his younger brother.
<<Okay.>> Steve accepted. THe last few mottled feathers appeared and Steve opened the owl's wings and soared off of the hangar bay roof.
He saw a building, sand, a cactus, more sand, a rabbit, and wait...nope, just sand, a few strands of grass, sand, Matthew, sand and....huh?
Steve began to circle in the air as he looked back at something he thought he had seen. If he had been human, he would've smiled. It was Matthew Blaine, the leader of the LA Animorphs. A.K.A., Stevert's former leader. He also saw Nati leaving and had heard her say that she would have led him somewhere.
So Steve greeted Matt. <<Hey Matt! Look up. How ya doin'? Hows everyone been since Rob and I've been gone?>>
Matt:
Hey Matt! Look up. How ya doin'? The voice was extremely cheerful and extremely familiar. The horse paused in it's running as Matt turned his head to look skyward, catching sight of the owl morph he had given to Steve shortly before the joint Kinley's had come across a risk to exposing their Animorph existence and had ended up staying here in Vegas. This was exactly what Matt had been hoping for.
<<Hey Steve, Robert.>> He sent, knowing that both brothers could hear him. <<Not too much has changed. Jullian moved to Boston, Kat's off in Ottawa. Oh, and we switched bases and live in a mansion in the Hills now.>> The amusing thing was Matthew had been able to stay completely serious while saying the last sentence, if only because it was the complete truth.
<<Oh, and Jullian decided to pull a rather large stunt before leaving. He threw me a birthday party in Union and succeeded in hooking me up with Tess.>> Matt wasn't sure if Steve remembered the red-headed Peace Movement controller that they'd met on their first trip to Union. All in all it had been a long time since the brothers had been in L.A.
<<Other than that nothing major. My faction is fairly small, though the Vancouver leader is MIA and all his members, or most of them, are in L.A. with me. I can catch you up on any details at the Vegas base as I'm here for a little while.>> He wasn't going to tell Steve why he was in Vegas, not yet anyways. The first one he wanted to talk to about it was Rian. Then he might tell some other people, but only then.
Stevert;
<<Oh great,>> Steve said. <<As soon as I leave, you guys go and get yourselves a mansion! I'm sooo jealous since I'm living in an entire barracks. You guys are so lucky. And hey! What about Aubrey and Lizzie? They still there? Seems like nobody else I know is, now.>> Steve maintained a steady speed above Matt. He was directly above him and flying slowly as to not pass him up. The butterfly-like flapping that the owl constantly wanted to do was perfect for following.
Steve randomly let out a trill. He was pretty happy now. Sure, his pop-tart run would have to be put aside for awhile, but it was well worth it to talk and hang out with Matt. And Steve would not pass up the gossip. <<Seriously? A PARTY? A BIRTHDAY party? For a DATE? HAH! I wish I could have been there. Did you guys take any pictures?>> Maybe he was too hopeful, but Steve really wanted pictures. Probably becuase he missed his teammates. If so, he didn't notice it.
And then Robert asked a question. <<Excuse me, Steve. So Matt, what brings you down to our neck of the desert? Don't tell me it's just for the atmosphere or for chit-chat. I'm sure you would have used the phone or a tanning booth.>> Robert's friendliness filtered through his mental voice, making sure Matthew knew that he wasn't being sarcastic or offensive in any way.
Matt:
<<Aubrey and Lizzie transferred down to Dallas faction. I'm working with an L.A. faction full of people I don't know as well as I'd like to. Everyone that was part of our original group has moved on to bigger and better things I guess.>> He knew Steve would have been amused by the party and Matt finally being with Tess.
<<No photographs. Probably a good thing too because whoever bought the punch didn't realize it was spiked. Things got crazy after a while.>> Matt wasn't going to say how crazy though. He knew to some extent what he had done, even though the memory was a blur. All things considered he and Tess were both in agreement that they were not ready to be that intimate in their actual relationship. Not yet.
Robert's voice broke into Matt's thoughts, and he realized he wasn't going to get away without probably at least saying something to the Kinley brothers about why he was in Nevada instead of California. <<It's a long story. But the basic part of it is that I feel like I've lost who I am in fighting this war, and I don't trust myself to lead my faction again until I'm sure I have things straight in my head. To do that I need help from someone who knew me before I became a faction leader, and Rian is the closest person. The others are the Chicago leader, Raven, and my sister, Sara, who is in a faction in Washington DC.>>
There was still the friendliness in Matt's mental voice, but also some of his guilt over Lukas's death and his uncertainty about this whole thing filtered in. He really needed this help, because if he couldn't trust himself then there was no way his faction could. <<I'm here so Rian can help me find my footing again, before I become a threat to my faction.>>
Stevert:
<<Oh,>> was all Stevert said. There was nothing else to really say. Steve had known Matt for long enough to know when enough was enough and that sometimes, saying anything else would worsen a situation. And Steve didn't think that Matt would want any jokes at the moment. No doubt he was probably brooding and Steve understood that. He also was familiar with Matt doing so. Matt was like an emotional sponge. He sucked up all of the negative emotions around him until he broke down. And Matt was now in Las Vegas to prevent that, Steve assumed.
Robert had come to the same conclusion. And now the brothers became occupied in their thoughts. Nobody they knew was left in LA, save for Matt. Steve had asked for pictures because he wanted to see the party, but a small part of him had also wanted to see his friends. He wanted to see Jullian, Aubrey, Katrina, and Lizzie again. Then Matt had said that they didn't even live in the Haunt anymore. LA was now an alien place to Stevert.
Then his eagle-like eyes picked up some of the buildings of the airforce base. <<Hey matt!>> Steve said with his usual level of excitement and joy, <<There's the base! We're almost there!>>
Rian:
Rian stepped out of the hangar bay and used the towel to dry his hair off. He let out a contented sigh before throwing the towel over his shoulder and looking over at Luce. He had just finished one of their training sessions and it always felt good to exercise. When he had started this it had been as a reaction to feeling powerless when they had attacked Area 51 (yeah it existed and it was run by aliens, go figure). He had gotten beaten up by a bunch of scientists despite the fact that he was supposedly one of humanities great warriors, the protector of their culture and a soldier in a war to get it back.
It was embarrassing. But more than that it was unacceptable. Animorphs were hard to come by, hard to make, and hard to train. Replacing them was costly, if only in time. It was a cold way to think about it but that was the burden he had taken on by becoming a faction leader, the burden of knowing that you could look at your fellow humans and only see them for what they could do for the cause, for the war.
Rian had stopped fighting that part of himself. Doing so only made it more powerful, and when it got out of hand people died, his own and innocents. He had to accept who and what he was and use it when it would help save lives. It was the only way he could think to go on and still live with himself. Matt had helped teach him that, had helped teach him that it was harder to feel the deaths, the decisions. But to forget them was cowardice and wrong. He was trying.
"I think I'm getting better," he said, a bit of joking cockiness in his voice. Luce could still beat him on a good day but he was getting better and giving her a run for her money. He hoped that the training was enough. He had learned that it wasn't enough to be able to morph, they had to be able to fight and protect themselves and others in all situations. That's why combat training was mandatory in Vegas.
"I think I could even help train the others," he offered.
Luce:
Luce squinted in the Vegas sun and didn't step out of the shadow of the hangar door. She burned easily and sunscreen wasn't the easiest thing to come by. "Yeah, right." She answered, looking over at the boy leader. "You don't have to help, I enjoy working with them, even Stevert," Luce answered.
And it was true. Luce had discovered within herself a surprisingly love of teaching. It felt good to work with a student who didn't know anything, or at least didn't know what she had been charged with teaching them and to give them her skills. It was a good thing, a constructive thing. It helped build something and added to the world. For someone who spent so much of her time destroying it was not only a good feeling but a needed one.
She hoped, after all this maybe, to be some sort of teacher. Or maybe to be a trainer for young animorphs...if there was no after that was.
"Isn't Matt getting here soon?" She asked.
Rian:
Rian nodded. He wasn't going to encroach on Luce's space, even her professional space, if she didn't want him to. He could tell she liked what she did now and he wasn't going to take it away from her. "Yeah, he's going to be here soon if he isn't already. I guess I should head to the officer's quarters and shower before he gets here. I'll see you later Luce."
She nodded and ducked back inside. Rian turned back around and trotted up the road. He passed the infirmary that Chloe had made her own and headed past the barracks that echoed with emptiness, all except for Stevert's of course. He reached the officer quarter door, opened it and slipped inside. His room was directly to the left of the entrance, the second door past his office.
He entered the room and threw the dirty towel into a hamper by the door. He pulled off the exercise clothes and dumped them in the hamper too. It was starting to fill up, they would have to do laundry soon which meant laundry detergent. They had a bunch of it stored in one of the smaller storage buildings that could be found all around the base so he wasn't too worried about that.
He stepped into the bathroom that was at the back of each room. It was small and simple but he liked that. He stepped into the shower and turned the water on. He picked up the soap and the wash cloth and quickly scrubbed down and rinsed off the sweat and dirt of the training session.
He turned off the shower and stepped out of it a bare five minutes from when he had first stepped in. He used to take hour long showers, back before the invasion. But like so much of his former life, he found that wasn't possible anymore and, more than impossible, it just didn't appeal to him. He liked taking short showers now, and moving on to something else productive and being useful in general. It was a good feeling and so different from the hours he used to spend watching tv, surfing the internet, and going to classes he wasn't sure how he was going to use. There was a lot about this world that was bad and a lot of people had suffered. But there were some good things about it too, about his life now.
He pulled on a spare morphing outfit, a pair of black bike shorts and a black muscle shirt. It was as close to the uniform Jullian had once made him as he could get by stealing from old stores. He left the useful, dark blue belt off but put his necklace back on after removing it for the shower.
Seeing it reminded him off all the other similar necklaces that were floating around. Raven had one, and Matt. Tim, Ray, Ember and now Diana and Stevert had them too. He really should try to send one to Willy, maybe Matt would know which morph he would like.
He pulled on some jeans and a white t-shirt over his morphing suit and then pulled a luxury item from under his bed. A pair of shoes. A pair of black and white, high top converses to be exact. And the white socks to match. He didn't get to wear shoes a lot but he was trying to wear them more now.
He put both socks and shoes on, tying the shoes lightly so they could be kicked off if he had to morph in an emergency, and walked out of his room and back into the hallway. He wondered if Julia, and Diana were around. Neither of them were on patrol duty, Nati had that job at the moment, and neither of them were up for training with Luce after him as far as he knew. He thought about going to knock on their doors and see if they were around but it would have been rude to start a conversation he couldn't finish and he didn't know when Matt was getting here so he walked out of the officer's quarter instead and sat on the steps leading to the door.
He pulled out the book he'd stuffed into the back pocket of the jeans, figuring if he was ever wearing jeans then he had time enough to do some reading, and opened up to where he had left off reading about the adventures of Roland, Eddie, Jake and Susannah on their seemingly never ending quest for the Dark Tower and the conspiracy of 19 that was leading them there.
Diana:
Diana liked to watch old television shows and movies. especially after a morning of training, and had amassed a large DVD collection in various places, from the Den to old theaters, and she now knew that it was a good thing. Yeerks never broadcasted anything regularly that they could safely access. She sat in her room at the base, watching X-Men and wondering what ever happened to man-candy like Hugh Jackman, only briefly saddened by the thought that he was probably a Controller or dead. At least she could enjoy him as Wolverine over and over again. As the credits rolled, Diana rose to a more vertical position and slid a t-shirt over her morphing suit and opened her door and headed out.
Matt was coming. Diana did not know him, only that he led the Animorphs of LA. As she passed Rian's room, she could hear the water running and Diana laughed. Rian was quite hygienic for a male. Smiling as she went, Diana made her way to the main hall and to the kitchen to prepare some sort of snack for Matt and the rest of the team. Smoothies perhaps. Diana would have to see what supplies there were in the kitchen, but she was confident that she could make something refreshing in the desert heat. Admittedly, Diana was no Iron Chef, but she could hold her own against the culinary forces. With a nod and and clap of her hands, she began to cook with a passion that would make her home country proud. It was only a matter of time before Matthew arrived or another member of the faction stumbled in on her surprise. The team deserved a treat after all their hard work and Matthew's arrival was a perfect excuse to make something special, even with limited resources.
Diana made quick work with the frozen and fresh fruit, ice, sugar, and cream that had been salvaged to make a concoction that she herself was quite proud of. Pouring the smoothie into their mismatched set of cups, she let out a triumphant cry.
"Magnifique!"
Matt:
There was an awkward silence after Matt's response to Robert's question. He'd known there would be, and yet he knew Rian would be able to help him sort this out. Still, Stevert was as resilient as ever and his voice rang out in Matt's head as they neared the base. The owl no doubt could see the distance better than the horse from the areal view, and the cheer seemed to urge Matthew on toward shelter and some rest after his journey.
They reached the base in little time at all and Matt couldn't help but notice that it was huge. Even larger than the four floor mansion L.A. faction lived in. No wonder the factions are getting larger. Those were his thoughts, but his words to Steve were something different. <<You complained we live in a mansion when you live in this? This base is way bigger than our mansion in L.A. and that thing has four floors!>> Still, there was a humor in Matt's voice that had been absent for a while. Maybe this trip was already helping.
He demorphed, the transformation so familiar. It almost seemed odd to him to think of how morphing had become so commonplace to him. He shifted forms without thinking or flinching. It still held a fascination to watch his body change into something that gave him new abilities, and yet the action itself seemed as normal to him as breathing. We do this too much. I don't think we'll be able to go back to a normal life once this is all over. That thought in itself made him shiver despite the warmth.
He glanced around as he walked, barefoot, up to the door, brushing his hair back behind his ear. It always seemed to fall in his face after a demorph, and yet it was getting long enough that it stayed out of his way pretty well now. "So..... where is everyone?"
Stevert:
<<So? This is a freakin' military base! It's huge, just not much to it. I"m lucky though. I've got a whole barracks to myself. You would not believe how many trips I've had to take into town to fill that thing up. I've got one bunk covered covered in encyclopedias and stuff, another book had fiction books. Another bunk has pop-tarts. Another bunk has part of my clock collection. And I still have about twenty more bunks!>> Steve's voiced raised at the end, likie it was an incredulous thing.
Then Steve watched as Matt demorphed. He looked mostly like the smal ol' Matt, but something was different. His hair was longer, but his face looked a bit more serious. But that was a sad fact of the war. And then Matt asked where everyone was. <<I dunno.>> Steve said simply. <<But I'll ask and tell them you're here.>>
Steve opened his thought-speak to everyone in the base and said, <<How-wdy howdy howdy! Hey people! What's up? Where are y'all at? Matt, the guy from LA's here. Oh yeah, and um, Ri? He kinda wants ta talk to ya!>>
Rian:
Rian looked up from his book and looked around after hearing Stevert's voice. He looked down the street and saw a boy with blond hair standing outside the gate to the base. It could only be Matt and he put the book down and trotted the short distance to the gate. They kept the gate locked because it had been locked before they got here and they didn't want the yeerks to notice that anything had changed. But there was a small guard door next to the gate that they used to get in and out when they travelled by land instead of air.
Rian walked into the guard booth from the base side door and opened the road side door that was opposite of it. He was greeted with the familiar sight of his former faction leader and friend. He had just seen Matt two months ago so the changes weren't that dramatic but he did look a little worn as if he was an image that was slowly fading away. He was still there, he was still solid, but he looked a little less solid than he had a while ago.
Rian had known that anything that would drive Matt to leave his faction for a few days must be serious but actually seeing him in the flesh made it real. A concerned look flashed across his face before it disappeared behind the mask that had become habit. "Hey Matt," he said and pulled his friend into a hug before standing back so that he could get into the guard booth and out the other side. "I hope the trip wasn't too bad."
Stevert:
Stevert had watched from the gate of the base as Rian appoeared from a building and made the distance towards Matthew. His face was nearly comical as the flattened owl's face with its huge eyes turned all of the way around to stare at Rian. In fact, he was sitting with his tail feathers pointed at his leader.
As soon as Rian embraced Matthew, Steve opened his wings and soared off again. After flying a few hundred feet, he remembered to tell Rian something. <<Hey Ri! Sorry to interupt, but I'll be back in forty minutes or something. We're out of hot fudge sundae pop-tarts. Laters.>> He spread his wings and allowed the thermals rising off the hot desert floor to sweep him up, towards the city of Sin.
Matt:
The fact that it was a military base vs a mansion was true, but Matt tended to focus more one what Steve said last. "You're trying to fill the entire barracks with stuff? Why didn't you just take a smaller room? Or do you like the excuse to be a pack rat?" He was teasing, though it was mostly a front to seem a little more okay in front of anyone else. With Rian he'd let the mask down, but mostly because he and Rian were on equal ground now.
Stevert called out to everyone and Matt waited, wondering how he must look. Only some people would really know the difference between who he was now and who he'd been then. Outwardly he'd grown through his hair getting longer and his frame getting a bit bulkier. Inwardly he was more serious, which showed on his face. But they weren't changes he himself could see as he'd watched them happen slowly, over time. Also, he was currently worn thin. His emotions had become a sandpaper that had slowly worn away at him until he had to wonder if anything was left. Lukas's death had shocked him back into reality, but he still had to regain what he'd lost in the time since he'd last seen Rian.
It all happened in such a short time, because I've only been aware of the fact that this changing scares me since then. If I hadn't seen it in Rian, I might never have known. These were his thoughts as he saw a figure approach the gate an open it. It was Rian, and Matt could see the concern flicker over the Vegas leader's face before it was replaced with a mask like Matt's own. He knew I wouldn't leave L.A. unless it was serious, but the truth is always a little more shocking when you're face to face with it. That, and another part of him was thinking. It's that bad, huh? It being his own worn appearance.
"The trip was fine," he said after releasing Rian from a return hug. "I ran into your guard, Nathali, on my way in and then Stevert spotted me and decided to escort me in. Anything between Vegas and L.A. was pretty uneventful and the faction is in good hands..... not that you'd know any of them. I was already telling Steve that anyone you guys knew has left L.A. for other cities." Small talk made as he passed Rian into the Air Force Base, and yet appearances were important right now. When he was alone with Rian he'd say what was really on his mind, but for now he just told him what the Vegas faction could hear without Matt feeling like he'd be trying to trust them with a secret.
Diana:
Diana could hear the approach of a few people and, knowing that she did not recognize one of the voices, put the finishing touches on her welcome-smoothies. She pushed through the kitchen doors into the mess hall and out to greet Rian and their guest. Diana could feel the unknown shadow that hid behind the eyes of both of the young leaders, but it was only a fleeting suggestion. With a good deal of precision and grace, the petite French girl balanced the silver tray with half a dozen or so glasses and went to meet the figures approaching.
The heat blurred the details of the two young men that walked into the base, but Diana could see the dark hair and equally dark eyes, not unlike her own, of the one who could only be Matthew. He was young, probably slightly older than herself, but Diana recognized the strength of a leader in his countenance and posture, much like Rian.
"Bonjour, amis! I hope that you are thirsty!" The laughter in her voice was unconcealed and the smile on Diana's continually pleasant face was not hard to miss. She came closer, wiping a bead of sweat from her brow with her free hand, and then offering a glass with a humble and welcoming hand.
Rian:
Rian nodded at Matt's news. "Yeah, Jullian told us a bit about that when he passed through. I have to say he had changed a lot since I'd last seen him. He'd grown like two inches or something and those two boys with him," Rian shook his head, "you're still doing a great job with the animorphs in LA. I wished I could have kept at least one but Ember needed faction mates."
Rian looked up as Diana stepped out of the mess hall. There was a large mess hall over by the infirmary but eating there felt down right eerie. It was a space big enough to hold 60 people easily and there were only eight of them. And that was if they were all eating at the same time. So most people just used the smaller, officer's mess hall that was right next to their rooms. It was much more comfortable since the officer's had gotten some perks for their rank.
"Hey Diana," Rian said smiling as she walked up. The smile was a genuine one. Diana was his first real recruit and now she was one of his seconds along with Robert so she was becoming one of his closer friends on the base, especially with most of the original faction gone now. It seemed he and Matt had that in common. Maybe it was something in the air that had made everyone want to move at the same time.
Rian looked at the glass Diana was offering Matt with envy. It looked really cold and good and it smelled good too. His face unconsciously adopted a look of puppy dog yearning and he looked up at Diana. "I don't suppose you have more of those?"
Matt:
Matt gave Rian a bit of a smile at the compliment. Yeah, he was still doing well with the Los Angeles recruits. At least reasonably well. Lukas was the first casualty and Matt just needed to get his feet back under him and let that stop bothering him so much. He should be on the road to recovery after he talked to Rian. Then a feminine voice broke through Matt's thoughts and his eyes traveled toward the interior of the base again.
The girl coming toward them, who Rian called out to naming her as Diana, had wavy, dark hair and dark eyes. She was younger, like any of Animorphs, possibly around the age of Rian and himself he figured, but she seemed very cheerful despite everything she was a part of and also very kind. Matt couldn't help but smile as she approached and held out a glass to him on which he could already see moisture condensing. The liquid inside, which looked like a smoothie so probably was one, was cold and would be extremely nice after his trip from L.A.
"Thank you," he said as he accepted the glass. "I'm Matthew Blaine, the L.A. leader, though I'd assume Rian told everyone I was coming. It's nice to meet you, Diana." He would have held out his hand to shake hers, but her one hand was holding a tray of glasses for the rest of Vegas faction, or so he assumed. Instead he just smiled and took a sip of the drink, enjoying the feel of the cool liquid traveling down his fairly dry throat.
Diana:
Diana's attention remained on Matthew as he introduced himself and she gave a cheery smile, then her eyes shifted on Rian. Presenting a exaggerated pout, Diana teased him.
"You think me so heartless that I would only make one?" She laughed a moment later and punched her leader lightly in the arm with her free hand. "Of course there is one for you, ami." Diana handed him a glass that depicted Las Vegas showgirls on the side, which Diana found to be tacky. The only thing that those images belonged on where shot glasses, in which after a use or two, you wouldn't care what was on them.
"There you are, capitaine. Enjoy!" She paused and looked back between the two young men. "If you will excuse me monsieurs, I need to put these in the fridge for the rest of them team. Au revoir pour maintenant!" Turning carefully so that she would not spill the remaining glasses of cold treat, Diana headed back to the kitchen. Her exit was light and content, a wide grin curling her lips with the satisfaction of bringing a bit of relief from the gloom.
Rian:
"Thanks," he said, wiping the pitiful expression from his face as he took the smoothie. The cool feeling of the condensation that beaded the side of the glass felt good against his palm. He put his lips to the straw Diana had provided and sucked up some of the pink concoction. He didn't know what Matt had gotten but he'd gotten strawberry and it was delicious.
He sucked at it greedily and was a bit embarrassed doing so but it wasn't often that they had such luxuries around the base. Fresh fruit was becoming increasingly difficult to come by. Rian didn't know the official reason, world news wasn't as easy to come by as it used to be, but he had a feeling the yeerks hadn't exactly put much effort into keeping up the agriculture industry around the globe when they took it over. Now they were short on everything. Added to that the yeerks had completely demolished the global economy and with it the human infrastructure of transportation to make sure goods got delivered to their respective markets. There was a time when a swordfish would be pulled out of the waters off Maine and it would be in the Tokyo fish market by the next morning. But that didn't exist anymore.
Rian had noticed an increasing trend towards local foods being the only ones available and in a desert that wasn't much. So drinking this cool smoothie on a hot desert day out of a glass (tacky decoration aside) and from a straw almost felt like a vacation to him. All he needed was a hammock. And that thought led to an overwhelming sense of nostalgia for the Haunt and the time he had spent just watching the endless dance of the waves and listening to the seagulls cry. It was hard to find the same sense of peace in Vegas and he'd only really found it sometimes on patrol when he was out among the towering bluffs and the clear desert night was above him.
He regarded Matt with a calm look in his eyes. He nodded towards the building where most of the faction slept and began heading that way. "So what really brings you to Vegas," he asked Matt now that no one else was around for the moment.
Matt:
Matt watched as Diana handed Rian one of the other smoothies and then headed to put the rest in the fridge. As he'd thought they were for the rest of the Vegas faction. As she turned and left he called, "See you later," after her retreating figure. Then Rian nodded his head and Matt turned, following in that direction.
He began sipping the smoothie, a sweet and tangy concoction that tasted like fresh berries. He had to remind himself to go slowly though. For one he'd make himself sick since he hadn't eaten anything for a while that day. For another he'd give himself brain freeze with how cold the beverage was. That, and it had been so long since Matt had had something this good. He wanted to enjoy it and try to make it last as long as he could.
But now that they were alone, Rian had gotten down to business. Matt knew that the Vegas leader, his former second, would know the L.A. leader better than most. Matt wouldn't have made this trip for simple pleasantries. There was a reason, and Rian probably could see that better than Matt himself could.
For a moment there was a pause as he debated how to bring the issue up. "Things kind of went out of whack for me after we parted ways when we returned from the faction leader meeting," Matt started finally. "I can't lie that seeing how much you'd changed between leaving L.A. and seeing you in New York was something of a wake up call to me. Call me naive, but up until then I didn't realize that the war was changing all of us, and because of how slowly those changes occur I couldn't see them in myself."
He shook his head. It took a lot to admit this to Rian. It took a lot to admit it out loud period, but he need to. "I hadn't known much of who I was when this war started, I was still trying to define myself. The fact that I might be losing myself and I couldn't tell bothered me, and as things started changing even more around me - all the original faction leaving for other cities and moving to a new hideout when we though the Haunt had been compromised - I started to just let myself go numb. I didn't reach out to the members I got from Vancouver after Matthias went MIA, and I just sort of let my empathic side slide."
Tears were starting to form in his eyes as he thought about what had happened next. The wake up call to his own problems, and yet the one he wished had never needed to happen. "We got a member sent up from Dallas, and we went to pick her up. But Brianna got dropped off at the wrong spot and we ended up fighting out way out..... and Lukas died in the battle. And, the scariest thing wasn't that I'd just lost a member, but that I didn't feel a thing. I thought maybe it was the tiger morph messing with my head, but I literally had just become numb. I'd been living life by going through the motions without really feeling like they meant anything......."
There was a very obvious fear on Matt's face now. Matt had been scared so many times as an Animorph, and yet he'd never let someone else see it. He'd been strong for his faction, following from Raven's example.And yet now he turned to face Rian and the fear was clearly there. "I don't know who I am anymore Rian, and I need to figure that out before I become a danger to anyone else. My faction.... they can't trust me if I can't trust myself, and I don't. I don't trust myself. Not right now."
Rian:
He and Matt walked the short distance to the Officer's Quarters and instead of going inside Rian sat on the OQ's steps leading up to the door. He had originally planned to go back to his room but he found he didn't want to be in the dark, closed off space. He wanted to be outside, in the air, and to feel connected to the world, something that it was hard to do indoors.
Matt was speaking and he unconsciously followed Rian's lead and sat down too. Rian hoped it would be enough privacy. No one else was in the OQ at that moment and most of them had already said hi to the visiting faction leader.
As Matt spoke Rian listened and when he finished Rian stared off into the desert, letting the words sink in instead of immediately responding. "It's...hard," he finally began, "hard to keep feeling it all. It all hurts and...you want to avoid it because if you let yourself feel it all...then you couldn't do your job, couldn't keep fighting. I used to think that I needed to go numb, that it was the only way to deal. And I didn't just see it as necessary, I glorified it, thought it made me tough, strong."
He lapsed into silence. He wasn't sure where he was going or if he even had a point. But maybe he didn't need to make a point, maybe just being here and letting Matt know he wasn't alone would help. Rian hoped so because he didn't think he had any answers.
"This war...it's its own thing Matt. It has a life separate from us, or it really feels that way sometimes. And we are caught in it, but...I let it in. I became a part of it, became it. I became everything I was fighting against. And when you showed me that I realized that I'm not fighting the yeerks, they aren't my enemy. War itself is the real enemy, for me. I fight everyday not to lose myself to it, to end it so that everyone is safe."
He looked down at Matt. "In New York you asked me what was harder, to feel every life you take, every life you end, or to just let it slip away from you, to not care? When you don't care War has won. But it only won that day Matt, it doesn't have to win forever, you don't have to let it. Being here, even knowing that going numb is the wrong path shows that you are fighting it, fighting the apathy. And that is all any of us can do. I think it shows you are trustworthy, you aren't laying down and letting it take hold of you."
Matt:
The words Rian said as he and Matt sat out there on the steps of the officers building. It was so much what he'd told Rian in New York, what he'd been trying to tell himself for a while. But Rian worded it differently or something about hearing someone say the words to him changed their meaning, made them matter more. He hadn't lost himself for good, only for that short while. The fact that he knew who he'd been recently wasn't who he was meant to be proved that he did know who he was deep down. He knew the parts of his real self that mattered the most and that he didn't want to lose in the war.
I've been wrong all along. I never lost who I was. I've been discovering who I am. All of this is just showing me who I can be, and what I take from it is shaping who I become every day. Rian is right, so long as I don't give in to the apathy then I haven't lost myself. "It seems so.... weird. You tell yourself something every day, and yet it seems to hold more weight when someone else says it. That, and I realize that I was wrong now. I haven't lost myself, not if I can recognize that I'm not being myself. It's not that I didn't know who I was, but that I wasn't sure of myself."
He sighed. "Well.... that's one thing I haven't lost in this war. I haven't lost myself, I just need to become sure of who I am again. I've still lost my innocence and my naivety though." He thought for a moment, though he mustn't have thought hard when he bluntly added, "And my virginity, but that wasn't entirely due to the war. Someone spike the punch at the party L.A. faction threw for my birthday." Stevert had wanted the birthday party details, but Matt really wasn't sure the younger Kinley could handle the truth and didn't want to know how the older one would have reacted. Rian he trusted, though maybe this was taking even that too far.
Rian:
The change of topic was so sudden and so blunt that it started a laugh out of Rian. He couldn't help it. He leaned back against the door and just laughed for a while. It really helped since his mind had been wandering down dark paths and it was almost like reliving those couple of months. How could he not have seen what he was becoming? But he hadn't. And he was beginning to feel guilty and to doubt himself all over again. But Matt's last revelation brought him out of it completely.
"Oh...my god Matt," he said between gasps. "That was...priceless....so random." He was still laughing a little but he was starting to get himself under control. "I mean, I guess we are sort of talking about a loss of innocence here but...." that just set him off laughing again.
Matt:
Matt couldn't help it. When Rian started laughing he cracked a smile and then started laughing himself. This was the most normal he'd felt since before he'd become an Animorph, before Sara had become a controller really. Matt didn't calm down himself until Rian started to, and he had to agree that it had been priceless. He'd never known himself to be that blunt, but maybe it was just a change he'd need to live with.
After getting himself under control, Matt said, "Yeah, I have to admit that was a little blunt of me, but it's the truth. Jullian and the others threw a party for me, and someone spiked the punch so a lot of us ended up wasted afterward. You remember the Underground city I mentioned at the faction leader meeting? Well and old friend of mine lives there and..... well, I like her. I love her really. And Jullian wanted to get us together, so he had the party be a costume party and got us matching costumes as Romeo and Juliet. I don't think he was planning on us getting drunk and going back to her place alone though."
He shook his head. That night kind of blurred together after getting to Tess's, but he knew for a fact what had happened there. They'd both decided a repeat experience wouldn't happen again until they were ready to go that far. "So yeah, the rest I kind of said. I was drunk, Tess apparently gets kind of seductive when she's drunk and I lose my constant need to over analyze the situation, so we "went all the way" on my 18th birthday."
Rian:
"That sounds a lot like Jullian," Rian muttered amused when he learned the details of Matt's birthday party though the statement wasn't loud enough to break the flow of Matt's story and he kept talking. After he finished Rian looked down at him. "Uh. That is surprisingly...similar to my own story." He stopped. It was odd to talk about Ember. He hadn't really talked about her to anyone before and, unlike with this unknown friend of Matt's, Matt knew who Ember was.
It felt almost like he was dishonoring her if he spoke about it. But he really wanted to speak to someone and he couldn't exactly bring up his love life with any of his faction. He'd talked to Diana about it once but he found himself reluctant to talk about it with her now. Talking about feelings was one thing, talking about sex was another. And there were just no males his own age in the faction. He hadn't thought he would feel the lack of male companionship so acutely but with Ray and Drake gone he found himself lonely sometimes. And talking to Stevert was hard. Even if Robert was there too and his own age Steve was so young that he didn't feel comfortable talking to him either.
So making up his mind he began to tell his own story. "Remember when I said we'd blown up the Hoover Dam? Well...it is a long story it's just...Ember and I were kind of close in LA. I don't know if you knew that back then. Probably did," he said with a small smile remembering how good Matt was at reading other's emotions. "Well I won't lie and say I never thought about her like that. I mean...well, ok, I'm just saying I'd thought about it before. But then we got to Vegas and everything just got so confusing. This city can be really...dark sometimes you know? Even during the day, even in the desert sunlight there is just something about it. It is almost like the soul of the city is rotting and everyone who comes here feels it. I don't know if it was like that before the yeerks came or what. But...it is just so easy to lose yourself here."
He realized he'd begun staring off into infinity again and looked back down at Matt. "I'm not making excuses for myself. I should have seen what was happening but I didn't. I just started concentrating on the next mission, living from day to day and not seeing the big picture. And Ember...she tried to stay close to me but I pushed her away. Part of it was because things just changed. All of a sudden I was her faction leader and I had to give her orders and...distance just grew. I don't know. But part of it was intentional. I didn't want to feel things, for anyone or anything."
He hadn't meant to go down this path. A moment ago they'd been laughing and he still wanted to laugh. And he didn't want to lay any more of his problems on Matt. But he also wanted to tell someone how he felt about her because, with her gone, it almost felt like it hadn't happened. "Well anyway, we did that dam mission and she almost died. We both almost died a lot that day. And afterwards we had a party...including alcohol," he said with a nod and a slight smile to Matt, acknowledging the similarity of their situations, "and I realized that I wanted to be with her. But I still couldn't do anything about it. The barriers I'd built up around myself, well I couldn't take them down alone. And she finally got frustrated with me," he said laughing a little, "and decided to take matters into her own hands. I think she was a liiiiiitle drunk at the time but only enough to be bold, not that she isn't usually." Talking about Ember was actually making him smile again. Gods he missed her.
"Well it was really nice for like a day or two. I think we were a little sickening to be honest," he said laughing a little. "You know that couple that is always hanging all over each other and that couple that have little private conversations with their eyes alone and piss everyone else off? That was us. And then..." he got a pained look on his face and couldn't speak for a moment. He still felt like he'd let her down.
"It was her birthday too, that is what makes it so much worse." Rian covered his face with his hands and stayed like that for a moment. Finally he sat back up. "Remember when I talked about freeing those kids from the farm? Well if only I'd known- Damnit!" He had been so stupid. How could he not have known. He was supposed to know. "We went to Indonesia, that was where the farm was. And we had made a deal with this sub-visser. She wanted a kid from the farm and Luce was the only one who knew where it was, or where that specific one was." He wasn't going to even try to explain that connection. Mostly because he didn't know everything about it and partly because he still didn't like to acknowledge it existed.
"But Alora went too. And the Sub-Visser we made the deal with, well she had a reason to hate Ember. She had a reason to hate all of us actually. And I thought I'd planned for everything," some of the shame he was feeling was starting to slip into his voice, "but...I hadn't. They got to her and they...they...made her one of," he couldn't even say the words. He just ended up tapping his head and looking at Matt. "I didn't even know. Cassie called us right after we got back and I left Matt. I left her here...alone. She had to-I-," he stopped talking. He had told himself he wasn't going to burden Matt any further and yet he was looking at his friend as if he could offer the forgiveness Rian felt he needed.
"We freed her. She's fine now I guess. But...things were...harder after that. I felt like I should have known earlier or, or something. But...and I couldn't look her in the face Matt. I don't think she blames me for it but I don't know. And then she left, got promoted, and now she's all the way across the country." He shrugged. "I don't know. That's it I guess."
Matt ran along, kicking up dust in the form of the palomino horse. To anyone who were to watch he would have looked like a wild horse, if there were any of those still around that is. He'd left his saddle in Los Angeles, taking with him nothing but the clothes on his back. He didn't have much in belongings anyways, and he was going back to L.A. He wouldn't be staying in Vegas any longer than he needed.
He'd called Rian and told him he was coming, though that still didn't say he wouldn't run into someone patrolling. Actually, if he didn't run into a patrol he'd worry that Rian had lost it. Yes, there weren't many people who could morph and no known ones were controllers, but it was always good to be careful even with an animal.
With this in mind he started to slow down as he reached the base he'd passed by on his way though after the faction leader meeting. He hadn't stopped long enough to visit with anyone, just seen it from the outside as Luce and Rian had let him out of the car. Then he'd morphed and run on back toward L.A.
Nati:
Nati sniffed the ground in front of her. The kit fox was such a small morph, and yet she was beginning to see why Cecily's morphs had been so useful to the group back in Mexico. They weren't big, nor were they ferocious or violent. Yet they had their own uses and advantages. Even starting morphs gave you abilities you didn't possess as a human. All the same, she hoped that she would be getting something more powerful soon. There was only so much she could do with her current morphs.
She looked up. The animal she could hear approaching wasn't something she recognized. She couldn't smell it yet, but she could see it somewhat. It was a horse. Unless one of the members had recently gotten a horse morph, this was not someone from Vegas. The only one Nati knew off the top of her head was Luce, and it didn't look like Luce's morph.
The larger animal slowed it approach and Nati trotted over to it, stopping and snarling. <<Who are you and what are you doing here?>>
Matt:
Matt stopped as the fox placed itself between him and the Las Vegas hideout. At first he was expecting Rian, but the color was wrong and the voice proved to be female. Matt knew the truth about Rian's gender, and yet he'd still always thought of the Vegas leader as a male and the voice had seemed masculine to him. It was probably all in the way he perceived the voice, and yet he would have recognized Rian's mental voice and he didn't recognize this fox's.
<<My name is Matthew. I'm the Los Angeles faction leader.>> he said as he stared down at the fox, one of Rian's recruits. <<Rian should be expecting me. I'm an old friend and I told him I needed some help. Something personal, yes, but in my case a personal problem affects my whole faction.>> Hopefully Rian had told those on the border patrol that Matthew was coming. If not he'd have a few problems.
Nati:
Nati studied the horse, who proved to be a male morpher. She vaguely remembered something about a leader from somewhere else coming to visit for a while. Rian had mentioned the boy would be coming to stay until he could sort something out. Had he said something about the form the leader would show up in though? Damn she was wishing she'd payed more attention. She had just hoped the guy wouldn't show up during her patrol.
So, what do you plan to do now idiota? Well, what now was hope she could get off on being new. <<Could you demorph for me? I don't remember what form he told us to expect you to show up in. I've seen the shirt from his days in L.A. faction though, so I'd recognize the angel logo.>> She was pulling her only option here. Besides, he was needing to demorph herself anyways. She was running close to the two hour limit here.
Matt:
Matt chuckled a little mentally. This girl must have been a recent new addition. She obviously hadn't expected to need to be prepared for his arrival. Now she was trying to confirm him by whatever means she could. Then again, he remembered his early days as an Animorph. There was so much you were still learning about how things went, so much you had to realized and take in during those first few days.
He nodded the large head of his horse morph as he mentally voice his answer. <<Sure. I can do that.>>
With that all the answer he gave he focused on his human form. He'd been fairly good on time and probably could have reached the Vegas hideout without needing to demorph before reaching it, but it was nice to return to his normal shape and size for a short time and to be sure he wouldn't be trying to cut anything too close.
Matt was starting to find that his transitions only improved with time, and while his first few had been somewhat messy none of the ones after that had been. He reminded himself of the term he'd been taught so long ago by Raven. Estreen. He had to think he wasn't quite that good, and yet he also knew he was a modest person and wondered if he should ask someone if there was any chance of it.
The final portions of the demorph came to pass, his ears rounding off where they had still been pointed and his hair turning a kind of bleached brown rather than the blond color the palomino's mane was. There he stood, 18 years old, five feet seven inches, lean though definitely getting some noticeable musculature as time went on, and with hair hanging down to almost level with his chin. His dark eyes squinted against the bright sun. Hello, Las Vegas I guess.
Nati:
As Nati saw the changes start in the horse she started her own demorph, though she knew full and well that if he was really a faction leader he would beat her. If he really was like Rian, then he had a lot of experience over her and probably morphs that could put her fox to a great deal of shame.
The first thing was the fox's tail, it was sucked back into her spine. As that finished she began to grow larger, her arms and legs lengthening as the rest of her body returned to human proportions. Her joints reversed with a strange popping noise and her nose began to recede back into her face. The ears shifted down from the top of her head. Then her paws turned back into hands and feet. Lastly the fur disappeared back into her, leaving her tan skin. The fur on the very top of her head turned very dark, almost black, and became her hair in a short, chin length cut she had gotten after joining the Animorphs.
Judging by the bare feet in front of her, the boy had finished before her. The feet and the legs connecting to them were very obviously masculine from her point of view, still on her hands and knees in front of him. If the voice hadn't convinced her of the gender, this had.
Slowly she stood up and faced the boy. He looked a little older than Rian and he had at least a good five or six inches over Nati in the height department. Most importantly was the morphing suit, the black shorts and sleeveless shirt and the gold belt that looked like the ones Rian had. She risked a glance behind him and saw the winged A, though this one had a crown she hadn't seen on Rian's. No doubt that was a status marker.
She gave him a sheepish smile. "Thank you, Matthew. I'm sorry about that. You can go ahead to the base now. I still have to complete my turn patrolling, otherwise I'd lead you there." She turned so he wouldn't see her roll her eyes at her stupidity. She started the morph back to kit fox form, wanting to get away from this situation as quickly as possible.
Matt:
Matt could tell once he'd finished demorphing that the girl was too, though while he'd finished in something more like two minutes she was still mid way through the transition. It was all a matter of experience though, and he'd already figured the girl was new.
When she'd finished demorphing he noticed the Animorph was very obviously Hispanic, both in her accent and her appearance. She spoke English with a Spanish accent, making Matthew wonder about her history. It was the first Animorph he'd met who had very obviously been raised somewhere other than the states, and yet the yeerk takeover had affected more than just his home. He knew that now. This girl had as much right as him to be fighting for her freedom from the yeerks.
Matthew listened to her apologize after confirming who he was, and then watched her turn to leave. "Hey!" he called to the back of the girl as he saw the start of her fox morph. "It was no trouble. Personally I'd have been worried if you hadn't tried to confirm who I was." But the morph continued and Matt shook his head. She would, hopefully, get over this by the time he had to leave. In the meantime he had to get to the base actually so Rian could know he'd arrived.
He shook his head again as he started to morph, but thought of one more thing. "At least tell me your name. I'm going to be here long enough that I will probably need to learn it."
Nati:
"At least tell me your name. I'm going to be here long enough that I will probably need to learn it." Nati turned to see him morphing again. She was already mostly fox. No doubt he would still finish roughly in the same time as her, even with her head start.
She sighed a little, wondering why the life of an Animorph felt so complicated when only one thing had changed. Well.... really a lot more than one thing had changed. Enough changed could account for it feeling so different from normal life. For now though it was the only life she had though, because she had made her choice.
She finished the morph and then finally responded before running off to continue patrolling. <<My name is Nathali.>>
Matt:
Nathali. Matt would need to remember that. He knew there were probably very few people here in Vegas that he had previously met. The Kinley brothers were here, and Rian, Julia, and Luce. That only accounted for four people in a faction that could be as large as eight though. Actually, factions could be as large as ten now. Most of the older factions had moved to larger hideouts by now and the newer ones had been given larger hideouts to start out with. With losing Vancouver they'd lost some ground and they seemed to be trying to make it up by gaining numbers.
The fox trotted off away from him. Matt watched Nathali leave for a moment before turning and continuing toward the Vegas hideout, the Air Base. No doubt someone would spot him coming again and have questions. Unless that someone already knew him that is. Personally a part of him hoped his arrival would be greeted by a familiar face rather than someone he didn't know. It would just make this a little easier from the get-go.
Stevert:
<<Okay, I'm only going to be gone for under an hour. It doesn't take too long to go get pop-tarts. Especially at that one store that I'm getting friends with the owner of.>>Steve said.
<<Fine, but If we get busted, it's all your fault.>>Robert reminded his younger brother.
<<Okay.>> Steve accepted. THe last few mottled feathers appeared and Steve opened the owl's wings and soared off of the hangar bay roof.
He saw a building, sand, a cactus, more sand, a rabbit, and wait...nope, just sand, a few strands of grass, sand, Matthew, sand and....huh?
Steve began to circle in the air as he looked back at something he thought he had seen. If he had been human, he would've smiled. It was Matthew Blaine, the leader of the LA Animorphs. A.K.A., Stevert's former leader. He also saw Nati leaving and had heard her say that she would have led him somewhere.
So Steve greeted Matt. <<Hey Matt! Look up. How ya doin'? Hows everyone been since Rob and I've been gone?>>
Matt:
Hey Matt! Look up. How ya doin'? The voice was extremely cheerful and extremely familiar. The horse paused in it's running as Matt turned his head to look skyward, catching sight of the owl morph he had given to Steve shortly before the joint Kinley's had come across a risk to exposing their Animorph existence and had ended up staying here in Vegas. This was exactly what Matt had been hoping for.
<<Hey Steve, Robert.>> He sent, knowing that both brothers could hear him. <<Not too much has changed. Jullian moved to Boston, Kat's off in Ottawa. Oh, and we switched bases and live in a mansion in the Hills now.>> The amusing thing was Matthew had been able to stay completely serious while saying the last sentence, if only because it was the complete truth.
<<Oh, and Jullian decided to pull a rather large stunt before leaving. He threw me a birthday party in Union and succeeded in hooking me up with Tess.>> Matt wasn't sure if Steve remembered the red-headed Peace Movement controller that they'd met on their first trip to Union. All in all it had been a long time since the brothers had been in L.A.
<<Other than that nothing major. My faction is fairly small, though the Vancouver leader is MIA and all his members, or most of them, are in L.A. with me. I can catch you up on any details at the Vegas base as I'm here for a little while.>> He wasn't going to tell Steve why he was in Vegas, not yet anyways. The first one he wanted to talk to about it was Rian. Then he might tell some other people, but only then.
Stevert;
<<Oh great,>> Steve said. <<As soon as I leave, you guys go and get yourselves a mansion! I'm sooo jealous since I'm living in an entire barracks. You guys are so lucky. And hey! What about Aubrey and Lizzie? They still there? Seems like nobody else I know is, now.>> Steve maintained a steady speed above Matt. He was directly above him and flying slowly as to not pass him up. The butterfly-like flapping that the owl constantly wanted to do was perfect for following.
Steve randomly let out a trill. He was pretty happy now. Sure, his pop-tart run would have to be put aside for awhile, but it was well worth it to talk and hang out with Matt. And Steve would not pass up the gossip. <<Seriously? A PARTY? A BIRTHDAY party? For a DATE? HAH! I wish I could have been there. Did you guys take any pictures?>> Maybe he was too hopeful, but Steve really wanted pictures. Probably becuase he missed his teammates. If so, he didn't notice it.
And then Robert asked a question. <<Excuse me, Steve. So Matt, what brings you down to our neck of the desert? Don't tell me it's just for the atmosphere or for chit-chat. I'm sure you would have used the phone or a tanning booth.>> Robert's friendliness filtered through his mental voice, making sure Matthew knew that he wasn't being sarcastic or offensive in any way.
Matt:
<<Aubrey and Lizzie transferred down to Dallas faction. I'm working with an L.A. faction full of people I don't know as well as I'd like to. Everyone that was part of our original group has moved on to bigger and better things I guess.>> He knew Steve would have been amused by the party and Matt finally being with Tess.
<<No photographs. Probably a good thing too because whoever bought the punch didn't realize it was spiked. Things got crazy after a while.>> Matt wasn't going to say how crazy though. He knew to some extent what he had done, even though the memory was a blur. All things considered he and Tess were both in agreement that they were not ready to be that intimate in their actual relationship. Not yet.
Robert's voice broke into Matt's thoughts, and he realized he wasn't going to get away without probably at least saying something to the Kinley brothers about why he was in Nevada instead of California. <<It's a long story. But the basic part of it is that I feel like I've lost who I am in fighting this war, and I don't trust myself to lead my faction again until I'm sure I have things straight in my head. To do that I need help from someone who knew me before I became a faction leader, and Rian is the closest person. The others are the Chicago leader, Raven, and my sister, Sara, who is in a faction in Washington DC.>>
There was still the friendliness in Matt's mental voice, but also some of his guilt over Lukas's death and his uncertainty about this whole thing filtered in. He really needed this help, because if he couldn't trust himself then there was no way his faction could. <<I'm here so Rian can help me find my footing again, before I become a threat to my faction.>>
Stevert:
<<Oh,>> was all Stevert said. There was nothing else to really say. Steve had known Matt for long enough to know when enough was enough and that sometimes, saying anything else would worsen a situation. And Steve didn't think that Matt would want any jokes at the moment. No doubt he was probably brooding and Steve understood that. He also was familiar with Matt doing so. Matt was like an emotional sponge. He sucked up all of the negative emotions around him until he broke down. And Matt was now in Las Vegas to prevent that, Steve assumed.
Robert had come to the same conclusion. And now the brothers became occupied in their thoughts. Nobody they knew was left in LA, save for Matt. Steve had asked for pictures because he wanted to see the party, but a small part of him had also wanted to see his friends. He wanted to see Jullian, Aubrey, Katrina, and Lizzie again. Then Matt had said that they didn't even live in the Haunt anymore. LA was now an alien place to Stevert.
Then his eagle-like eyes picked up some of the buildings of the airforce base. <<Hey matt!>> Steve said with his usual level of excitement and joy, <<There's the base! We're almost there!>>
Rian:
Rian stepped out of the hangar bay and used the towel to dry his hair off. He let out a contented sigh before throwing the towel over his shoulder and looking over at Luce. He had just finished one of their training sessions and it always felt good to exercise. When he had started this it had been as a reaction to feeling powerless when they had attacked Area 51 (yeah it existed and it was run by aliens, go figure). He had gotten beaten up by a bunch of scientists despite the fact that he was supposedly one of humanities great warriors, the protector of their culture and a soldier in a war to get it back.
It was embarrassing. But more than that it was unacceptable. Animorphs were hard to come by, hard to make, and hard to train. Replacing them was costly, if only in time. It was a cold way to think about it but that was the burden he had taken on by becoming a faction leader, the burden of knowing that you could look at your fellow humans and only see them for what they could do for the cause, for the war.
Rian had stopped fighting that part of himself. Doing so only made it more powerful, and when it got out of hand people died, his own and innocents. He had to accept who and what he was and use it when it would help save lives. It was the only way he could think to go on and still live with himself. Matt had helped teach him that, had helped teach him that it was harder to feel the deaths, the decisions. But to forget them was cowardice and wrong. He was trying.
"I think I'm getting better," he said, a bit of joking cockiness in his voice. Luce could still beat him on a good day but he was getting better and giving her a run for her money. He hoped that the training was enough. He had learned that it wasn't enough to be able to morph, they had to be able to fight and protect themselves and others in all situations. That's why combat training was mandatory in Vegas.
"I think I could even help train the others," he offered.
Luce:
Luce squinted in the Vegas sun and didn't step out of the shadow of the hangar door. She burned easily and sunscreen wasn't the easiest thing to come by. "Yeah, right." She answered, looking over at the boy leader. "You don't have to help, I enjoy working with them, even Stevert," Luce answered.
And it was true. Luce had discovered within herself a surprisingly love of teaching. It felt good to work with a student who didn't know anything, or at least didn't know what she had been charged with teaching them and to give them her skills. It was a good thing, a constructive thing. It helped build something and added to the world. For someone who spent so much of her time destroying it was not only a good feeling but a needed one.
She hoped, after all this maybe, to be some sort of teacher. Or maybe to be a trainer for young animorphs...if there was no after that was.
"Isn't Matt getting here soon?" She asked.
Rian:
Rian nodded. He wasn't going to encroach on Luce's space, even her professional space, if she didn't want him to. He could tell she liked what she did now and he wasn't going to take it away from her. "Yeah, he's going to be here soon if he isn't already. I guess I should head to the officer's quarters and shower before he gets here. I'll see you later Luce."
She nodded and ducked back inside. Rian turned back around and trotted up the road. He passed the infirmary that Chloe had made her own and headed past the barracks that echoed with emptiness, all except for Stevert's of course. He reached the officer quarter door, opened it and slipped inside. His room was directly to the left of the entrance, the second door past his office.
He entered the room and threw the dirty towel into a hamper by the door. He pulled off the exercise clothes and dumped them in the hamper too. It was starting to fill up, they would have to do laundry soon which meant laundry detergent. They had a bunch of it stored in one of the smaller storage buildings that could be found all around the base so he wasn't too worried about that.
He stepped into the bathroom that was at the back of each room. It was small and simple but he liked that. He stepped into the shower and turned the water on. He picked up the soap and the wash cloth and quickly scrubbed down and rinsed off the sweat and dirt of the training session.
He turned off the shower and stepped out of it a bare five minutes from when he had first stepped in. He used to take hour long showers, back before the invasion. But like so much of his former life, he found that wasn't possible anymore and, more than impossible, it just didn't appeal to him. He liked taking short showers now, and moving on to something else productive and being useful in general. It was a good feeling and so different from the hours he used to spend watching tv, surfing the internet, and going to classes he wasn't sure how he was going to use. There was a lot about this world that was bad and a lot of people had suffered. But there were some good things about it too, about his life now.
He pulled on a spare morphing outfit, a pair of black bike shorts and a black muscle shirt. It was as close to the uniform Jullian had once made him as he could get by stealing from old stores. He left the useful, dark blue belt off but put his necklace back on after removing it for the shower.
Seeing it reminded him off all the other similar necklaces that were floating around. Raven had one, and Matt. Tim, Ray, Ember and now Diana and Stevert had them too. He really should try to send one to Willy, maybe Matt would know which morph he would like.
He pulled on some jeans and a white t-shirt over his morphing suit and then pulled a luxury item from under his bed. A pair of shoes. A pair of black and white, high top converses to be exact. And the white socks to match. He didn't get to wear shoes a lot but he was trying to wear them more now.
He put both socks and shoes on, tying the shoes lightly so they could be kicked off if he had to morph in an emergency, and walked out of his room and back into the hallway. He wondered if Julia, and Diana were around. Neither of them were on patrol duty, Nati had that job at the moment, and neither of them were up for training with Luce after him as far as he knew. He thought about going to knock on their doors and see if they were around but it would have been rude to start a conversation he couldn't finish and he didn't know when Matt was getting here so he walked out of the officer's quarter instead and sat on the steps leading to the door.
He pulled out the book he'd stuffed into the back pocket of the jeans, figuring if he was ever wearing jeans then he had time enough to do some reading, and opened up to where he had left off reading about the adventures of Roland, Eddie, Jake and Susannah on their seemingly never ending quest for the Dark Tower and the conspiracy of 19 that was leading them there.
Diana:
Diana liked to watch old television shows and movies. especially after a morning of training, and had amassed a large DVD collection in various places, from the Den to old theaters, and she now knew that it was a good thing. Yeerks never broadcasted anything regularly that they could safely access. She sat in her room at the base, watching X-Men and wondering what ever happened to man-candy like Hugh Jackman, only briefly saddened by the thought that he was probably a Controller or dead. At least she could enjoy him as Wolverine over and over again. As the credits rolled, Diana rose to a more vertical position and slid a t-shirt over her morphing suit and opened her door and headed out.
Matt was coming. Diana did not know him, only that he led the Animorphs of LA. As she passed Rian's room, she could hear the water running and Diana laughed. Rian was quite hygienic for a male. Smiling as she went, Diana made her way to the main hall and to the kitchen to prepare some sort of snack for Matt and the rest of the team. Smoothies perhaps. Diana would have to see what supplies there were in the kitchen, but she was confident that she could make something refreshing in the desert heat. Admittedly, Diana was no Iron Chef, but she could hold her own against the culinary forces. With a nod and and clap of her hands, she began to cook with a passion that would make her home country proud. It was only a matter of time before Matthew arrived or another member of the faction stumbled in on her surprise. The team deserved a treat after all their hard work and Matthew's arrival was a perfect excuse to make something special, even with limited resources.
Diana made quick work with the frozen and fresh fruit, ice, sugar, and cream that had been salvaged to make a concoction that she herself was quite proud of. Pouring the smoothie into their mismatched set of cups, she let out a triumphant cry.
"Magnifique!"
Matt:
There was an awkward silence after Matt's response to Robert's question. He'd known there would be, and yet he knew Rian would be able to help him sort this out. Still, Stevert was as resilient as ever and his voice rang out in Matt's head as they neared the base. The owl no doubt could see the distance better than the horse from the areal view, and the cheer seemed to urge Matthew on toward shelter and some rest after his journey.
They reached the base in little time at all and Matt couldn't help but notice that it was huge. Even larger than the four floor mansion L.A. faction lived in. No wonder the factions are getting larger. Those were his thoughts, but his words to Steve were something different. <<You complained we live in a mansion when you live in this? This base is way bigger than our mansion in L.A. and that thing has four floors!>> Still, there was a humor in Matt's voice that had been absent for a while. Maybe this trip was already helping.
He demorphed, the transformation so familiar. It almost seemed odd to him to think of how morphing had become so commonplace to him. He shifted forms without thinking or flinching. It still held a fascination to watch his body change into something that gave him new abilities, and yet the action itself seemed as normal to him as breathing. We do this too much. I don't think we'll be able to go back to a normal life once this is all over. That thought in itself made him shiver despite the warmth.
He glanced around as he walked, barefoot, up to the door, brushing his hair back behind his ear. It always seemed to fall in his face after a demorph, and yet it was getting long enough that it stayed out of his way pretty well now. "So..... where is everyone?"
Stevert:
<<So? This is a freakin' military base! It's huge, just not much to it. I"m lucky though. I've got a whole barracks to myself. You would not believe how many trips I've had to take into town to fill that thing up. I've got one bunk covered covered in encyclopedias and stuff, another book had fiction books. Another bunk has pop-tarts. Another bunk has part of my clock collection. And I still have about twenty more bunks!>> Steve's voiced raised at the end, likie it was an incredulous thing.
Then Steve watched as Matt demorphed. He looked mostly like the smal ol' Matt, but something was different. His hair was longer, but his face looked a bit more serious. But that was a sad fact of the war. And then Matt asked where everyone was. <<I dunno.>> Steve said simply. <<But I'll ask and tell them you're here.>>
Steve opened his thought-speak to everyone in the base and said, <<How-wdy howdy howdy! Hey people! What's up? Where are y'all at? Matt, the guy from LA's here. Oh yeah, and um, Ri? He kinda wants ta talk to ya!>>
Rian:
Rian looked up from his book and looked around after hearing Stevert's voice. He looked down the street and saw a boy with blond hair standing outside the gate to the base. It could only be Matt and he put the book down and trotted the short distance to the gate. They kept the gate locked because it had been locked before they got here and they didn't want the yeerks to notice that anything had changed. But there was a small guard door next to the gate that they used to get in and out when they travelled by land instead of air.
Rian walked into the guard booth from the base side door and opened the road side door that was opposite of it. He was greeted with the familiar sight of his former faction leader and friend. He had just seen Matt two months ago so the changes weren't that dramatic but he did look a little worn as if he was an image that was slowly fading away. He was still there, he was still solid, but he looked a little less solid than he had a while ago.
Rian had known that anything that would drive Matt to leave his faction for a few days must be serious but actually seeing him in the flesh made it real. A concerned look flashed across his face before it disappeared behind the mask that had become habit. "Hey Matt," he said and pulled his friend into a hug before standing back so that he could get into the guard booth and out the other side. "I hope the trip wasn't too bad."
Stevert:
Stevert had watched from the gate of the base as Rian appoeared from a building and made the distance towards Matthew. His face was nearly comical as the flattened owl's face with its huge eyes turned all of the way around to stare at Rian. In fact, he was sitting with his tail feathers pointed at his leader.
As soon as Rian embraced Matthew, Steve opened his wings and soared off again. After flying a few hundred feet, he remembered to tell Rian something. <<Hey Ri! Sorry to interupt, but I'll be back in forty minutes or something. We're out of hot fudge sundae pop-tarts. Laters.>> He spread his wings and allowed the thermals rising off the hot desert floor to sweep him up, towards the city of Sin.
Matt:
The fact that it was a military base vs a mansion was true, but Matt tended to focus more one what Steve said last. "You're trying to fill the entire barracks with stuff? Why didn't you just take a smaller room? Or do you like the excuse to be a pack rat?" He was teasing, though it was mostly a front to seem a little more okay in front of anyone else. With Rian he'd let the mask down, but mostly because he and Rian were on equal ground now.
Stevert called out to everyone and Matt waited, wondering how he must look. Only some people would really know the difference between who he was now and who he'd been then. Outwardly he'd grown through his hair getting longer and his frame getting a bit bulkier. Inwardly he was more serious, which showed on his face. But they weren't changes he himself could see as he'd watched them happen slowly, over time. Also, he was currently worn thin. His emotions had become a sandpaper that had slowly worn away at him until he had to wonder if anything was left. Lukas's death had shocked him back into reality, but he still had to regain what he'd lost in the time since he'd last seen Rian.
It all happened in such a short time, because I've only been aware of the fact that this changing scares me since then. If I hadn't seen it in Rian, I might never have known. These were his thoughts as he saw a figure approach the gate an open it. It was Rian, and Matt could see the concern flicker over the Vegas leader's face before it was replaced with a mask like Matt's own. He knew I wouldn't leave L.A. unless it was serious, but the truth is always a little more shocking when you're face to face with it. That, and another part of him was thinking. It's that bad, huh? It being his own worn appearance.
"The trip was fine," he said after releasing Rian from a return hug. "I ran into your guard, Nathali, on my way in and then Stevert spotted me and decided to escort me in. Anything between Vegas and L.A. was pretty uneventful and the faction is in good hands..... not that you'd know any of them. I was already telling Steve that anyone you guys knew has left L.A. for other cities." Small talk made as he passed Rian into the Air Force Base, and yet appearances were important right now. When he was alone with Rian he'd say what was really on his mind, but for now he just told him what the Vegas faction could hear without Matt feeling like he'd be trying to trust them with a secret.
Diana:
Diana could hear the approach of a few people and, knowing that she did not recognize one of the voices, put the finishing touches on her welcome-smoothies. She pushed through the kitchen doors into the mess hall and out to greet Rian and their guest. Diana could feel the unknown shadow that hid behind the eyes of both of the young leaders, but it was only a fleeting suggestion. With a good deal of precision and grace, the petite French girl balanced the silver tray with half a dozen or so glasses and went to meet the figures approaching.
The heat blurred the details of the two young men that walked into the base, but Diana could see the dark hair and equally dark eyes, not unlike her own, of the one who could only be Matthew. He was young, probably slightly older than herself, but Diana recognized the strength of a leader in his countenance and posture, much like Rian.
"Bonjour, amis! I hope that you are thirsty!" The laughter in her voice was unconcealed and the smile on Diana's continually pleasant face was not hard to miss. She came closer, wiping a bead of sweat from her brow with her free hand, and then offering a glass with a humble and welcoming hand.
Rian:
Rian nodded at Matt's news. "Yeah, Jullian told us a bit about that when he passed through. I have to say he had changed a lot since I'd last seen him. He'd grown like two inches or something and those two boys with him," Rian shook his head, "you're still doing a great job with the animorphs in LA. I wished I could have kept at least one but Ember needed faction mates."
Rian looked up as Diana stepped out of the mess hall. There was a large mess hall over by the infirmary but eating there felt down right eerie. It was a space big enough to hold 60 people easily and there were only eight of them. And that was if they were all eating at the same time. So most people just used the smaller, officer's mess hall that was right next to their rooms. It was much more comfortable since the officer's had gotten some perks for their rank.
"Hey Diana," Rian said smiling as she walked up. The smile was a genuine one. Diana was his first real recruit and now she was one of his seconds along with Robert so she was becoming one of his closer friends on the base, especially with most of the original faction gone now. It seemed he and Matt had that in common. Maybe it was something in the air that had made everyone want to move at the same time.
Rian looked at the glass Diana was offering Matt with envy. It looked really cold and good and it smelled good too. His face unconsciously adopted a look of puppy dog yearning and he looked up at Diana. "I don't suppose you have more of those?"
Matt:
Matt gave Rian a bit of a smile at the compliment. Yeah, he was still doing well with the Los Angeles recruits. At least reasonably well. Lukas was the first casualty and Matt just needed to get his feet back under him and let that stop bothering him so much. He should be on the road to recovery after he talked to Rian. Then a feminine voice broke through Matt's thoughts and his eyes traveled toward the interior of the base again.
The girl coming toward them, who Rian called out to naming her as Diana, had wavy, dark hair and dark eyes. She was younger, like any of Animorphs, possibly around the age of Rian and himself he figured, but she seemed very cheerful despite everything she was a part of and also very kind. Matt couldn't help but smile as she approached and held out a glass to him on which he could already see moisture condensing. The liquid inside, which looked like a smoothie so probably was one, was cold and would be extremely nice after his trip from L.A.
"Thank you," he said as he accepted the glass. "I'm Matthew Blaine, the L.A. leader, though I'd assume Rian told everyone I was coming. It's nice to meet you, Diana." He would have held out his hand to shake hers, but her one hand was holding a tray of glasses for the rest of Vegas faction, or so he assumed. Instead he just smiled and took a sip of the drink, enjoying the feel of the cool liquid traveling down his fairly dry throat.
Diana:
Diana's attention remained on Matthew as he introduced himself and she gave a cheery smile, then her eyes shifted on Rian. Presenting a exaggerated pout, Diana teased him.
"You think me so heartless that I would only make one?" She laughed a moment later and punched her leader lightly in the arm with her free hand. "Of course there is one for you, ami." Diana handed him a glass that depicted Las Vegas showgirls on the side, which Diana found to be tacky. The only thing that those images belonged on where shot glasses, in which after a use or two, you wouldn't care what was on them.
"There you are, capitaine. Enjoy!" She paused and looked back between the two young men. "If you will excuse me monsieurs, I need to put these in the fridge for the rest of them team. Au revoir pour maintenant!" Turning carefully so that she would not spill the remaining glasses of cold treat, Diana headed back to the kitchen. Her exit was light and content, a wide grin curling her lips with the satisfaction of bringing a bit of relief from the gloom.
Rian:
"Thanks," he said, wiping the pitiful expression from his face as he took the smoothie. The cool feeling of the condensation that beaded the side of the glass felt good against his palm. He put his lips to the straw Diana had provided and sucked up some of the pink concoction. He didn't know what Matt had gotten but he'd gotten strawberry and it was delicious.
He sucked at it greedily and was a bit embarrassed doing so but it wasn't often that they had such luxuries around the base. Fresh fruit was becoming increasingly difficult to come by. Rian didn't know the official reason, world news wasn't as easy to come by as it used to be, but he had a feeling the yeerks hadn't exactly put much effort into keeping up the agriculture industry around the globe when they took it over. Now they were short on everything. Added to that the yeerks had completely demolished the global economy and with it the human infrastructure of transportation to make sure goods got delivered to their respective markets. There was a time when a swordfish would be pulled out of the waters off Maine and it would be in the Tokyo fish market by the next morning. But that didn't exist anymore.
Rian had noticed an increasing trend towards local foods being the only ones available and in a desert that wasn't much. So drinking this cool smoothie on a hot desert day out of a glass (tacky decoration aside) and from a straw almost felt like a vacation to him. All he needed was a hammock. And that thought led to an overwhelming sense of nostalgia for the Haunt and the time he had spent just watching the endless dance of the waves and listening to the seagulls cry. It was hard to find the same sense of peace in Vegas and he'd only really found it sometimes on patrol when he was out among the towering bluffs and the clear desert night was above him.
He regarded Matt with a calm look in his eyes. He nodded towards the building where most of the faction slept and began heading that way. "So what really brings you to Vegas," he asked Matt now that no one else was around for the moment.
Matt:
Matt watched as Diana handed Rian one of the other smoothies and then headed to put the rest in the fridge. As he'd thought they were for the rest of the Vegas faction. As she turned and left he called, "See you later," after her retreating figure. Then Rian nodded his head and Matt turned, following in that direction.
He began sipping the smoothie, a sweet and tangy concoction that tasted like fresh berries. He had to remind himself to go slowly though. For one he'd make himself sick since he hadn't eaten anything for a while that day. For another he'd give himself brain freeze with how cold the beverage was. That, and it had been so long since Matt had had something this good. He wanted to enjoy it and try to make it last as long as he could.
But now that they were alone, Rian had gotten down to business. Matt knew that the Vegas leader, his former second, would know the L.A. leader better than most. Matt wouldn't have made this trip for simple pleasantries. There was a reason, and Rian probably could see that better than Matt himself could.
For a moment there was a pause as he debated how to bring the issue up. "Things kind of went out of whack for me after we parted ways when we returned from the faction leader meeting," Matt started finally. "I can't lie that seeing how much you'd changed between leaving L.A. and seeing you in New York was something of a wake up call to me. Call me naive, but up until then I didn't realize that the war was changing all of us, and because of how slowly those changes occur I couldn't see them in myself."
He shook his head. It took a lot to admit this to Rian. It took a lot to admit it out loud period, but he need to. "I hadn't known much of who I was when this war started, I was still trying to define myself. The fact that I might be losing myself and I couldn't tell bothered me, and as things started changing even more around me - all the original faction leaving for other cities and moving to a new hideout when we though the Haunt had been compromised - I started to just let myself go numb. I didn't reach out to the members I got from Vancouver after Matthias went MIA, and I just sort of let my empathic side slide."
Tears were starting to form in his eyes as he thought about what had happened next. The wake up call to his own problems, and yet the one he wished had never needed to happen. "We got a member sent up from Dallas, and we went to pick her up. But Brianna got dropped off at the wrong spot and we ended up fighting out way out..... and Lukas died in the battle. And, the scariest thing wasn't that I'd just lost a member, but that I didn't feel a thing. I thought maybe it was the tiger morph messing with my head, but I literally had just become numb. I'd been living life by going through the motions without really feeling like they meant anything......."
There was a very obvious fear on Matt's face now. Matt had been scared so many times as an Animorph, and yet he'd never let someone else see it. He'd been strong for his faction, following from Raven's example.And yet now he turned to face Rian and the fear was clearly there. "I don't know who I am anymore Rian, and I need to figure that out before I become a danger to anyone else. My faction.... they can't trust me if I can't trust myself, and I don't. I don't trust myself. Not right now."
Rian:
He and Matt walked the short distance to the Officer's Quarters and instead of going inside Rian sat on the OQ's steps leading up to the door. He had originally planned to go back to his room but he found he didn't want to be in the dark, closed off space. He wanted to be outside, in the air, and to feel connected to the world, something that it was hard to do indoors.
Matt was speaking and he unconsciously followed Rian's lead and sat down too. Rian hoped it would be enough privacy. No one else was in the OQ at that moment and most of them had already said hi to the visiting faction leader.
As Matt spoke Rian listened and when he finished Rian stared off into the desert, letting the words sink in instead of immediately responding. "It's...hard," he finally began, "hard to keep feeling it all. It all hurts and...you want to avoid it because if you let yourself feel it all...then you couldn't do your job, couldn't keep fighting. I used to think that I needed to go numb, that it was the only way to deal. And I didn't just see it as necessary, I glorified it, thought it made me tough, strong."
He lapsed into silence. He wasn't sure where he was going or if he even had a point. But maybe he didn't need to make a point, maybe just being here and letting Matt know he wasn't alone would help. Rian hoped so because he didn't think he had any answers.
"This war...it's its own thing Matt. It has a life separate from us, or it really feels that way sometimes. And we are caught in it, but...I let it in. I became a part of it, became it. I became everything I was fighting against. And when you showed me that I realized that I'm not fighting the yeerks, they aren't my enemy. War itself is the real enemy, for me. I fight everyday not to lose myself to it, to end it so that everyone is safe."
He looked down at Matt. "In New York you asked me what was harder, to feel every life you take, every life you end, or to just let it slip away from you, to not care? When you don't care War has won. But it only won that day Matt, it doesn't have to win forever, you don't have to let it. Being here, even knowing that going numb is the wrong path shows that you are fighting it, fighting the apathy. And that is all any of us can do. I think it shows you are trustworthy, you aren't laying down and letting it take hold of you."
Matt:
The words Rian said as he and Matt sat out there on the steps of the officers building. It was so much what he'd told Rian in New York, what he'd been trying to tell himself for a while. But Rian worded it differently or something about hearing someone say the words to him changed their meaning, made them matter more. He hadn't lost himself for good, only for that short while. The fact that he knew who he'd been recently wasn't who he was meant to be proved that he did know who he was deep down. He knew the parts of his real self that mattered the most and that he didn't want to lose in the war.
I've been wrong all along. I never lost who I was. I've been discovering who I am. All of this is just showing me who I can be, and what I take from it is shaping who I become every day. Rian is right, so long as I don't give in to the apathy then I haven't lost myself. "It seems so.... weird. You tell yourself something every day, and yet it seems to hold more weight when someone else says it. That, and I realize that I was wrong now. I haven't lost myself, not if I can recognize that I'm not being myself. It's not that I didn't know who I was, but that I wasn't sure of myself."
He sighed. "Well.... that's one thing I haven't lost in this war. I haven't lost myself, I just need to become sure of who I am again. I've still lost my innocence and my naivety though." He thought for a moment, though he mustn't have thought hard when he bluntly added, "And my virginity, but that wasn't entirely due to the war. Someone spike the punch at the party L.A. faction threw for my birthday." Stevert had wanted the birthday party details, but Matt really wasn't sure the younger Kinley could handle the truth and didn't want to know how the older one would have reacted. Rian he trusted, though maybe this was taking even that too far.
Rian:
The change of topic was so sudden and so blunt that it started a laugh out of Rian. He couldn't help it. He leaned back against the door and just laughed for a while. It really helped since his mind had been wandering down dark paths and it was almost like reliving those couple of months. How could he not have seen what he was becoming? But he hadn't. And he was beginning to feel guilty and to doubt himself all over again. But Matt's last revelation brought him out of it completely.
"Oh...my god Matt," he said between gasps. "That was...priceless....so random." He was still laughing a little but he was starting to get himself under control. "I mean, I guess we are sort of talking about a loss of innocence here but...." that just set him off laughing again.
Matt:
Matt couldn't help it. When Rian started laughing he cracked a smile and then started laughing himself. This was the most normal he'd felt since before he'd become an Animorph, before Sara had become a controller really. Matt didn't calm down himself until Rian started to, and he had to agree that it had been priceless. He'd never known himself to be that blunt, but maybe it was just a change he'd need to live with.
After getting himself under control, Matt said, "Yeah, I have to admit that was a little blunt of me, but it's the truth. Jullian and the others threw a party for me, and someone spiked the punch so a lot of us ended up wasted afterward. You remember the Underground city I mentioned at the faction leader meeting? Well and old friend of mine lives there and..... well, I like her. I love her really. And Jullian wanted to get us together, so he had the party be a costume party and got us matching costumes as Romeo and Juliet. I don't think he was planning on us getting drunk and going back to her place alone though."
He shook his head. That night kind of blurred together after getting to Tess's, but he knew for a fact what had happened there. They'd both decided a repeat experience wouldn't happen again until they were ready to go that far. "So yeah, the rest I kind of said. I was drunk, Tess apparently gets kind of seductive when she's drunk and I lose my constant need to over analyze the situation, so we "went all the way" on my 18th birthday."
Rian:
"That sounds a lot like Jullian," Rian muttered amused when he learned the details of Matt's birthday party though the statement wasn't loud enough to break the flow of Matt's story and he kept talking. After he finished Rian looked down at him. "Uh. That is surprisingly...similar to my own story." He stopped. It was odd to talk about Ember. He hadn't really talked about her to anyone before and, unlike with this unknown friend of Matt's, Matt knew who Ember was.
It felt almost like he was dishonoring her if he spoke about it. But he really wanted to speak to someone and he couldn't exactly bring up his love life with any of his faction. He'd talked to Diana about it once but he found himself reluctant to talk about it with her now. Talking about feelings was one thing, talking about sex was another. And there were just no males his own age in the faction. He hadn't thought he would feel the lack of male companionship so acutely but with Ray and Drake gone he found himself lonely sometimes. And talking to Stevert was hard. Even if Robert was there too and his own age Steve was so young that he didn't feel comfortable talking to him either.
So making up his mind he began to tell his own story. "Remember when I said we'd blown up the Hoover Dam? Well...it is a long story it's just...Ember and I were kind of close in LA. I don't know if you knew that back then. Probably did," he said with a small smile remembering how good Matt was at reading other's emotions. "Well I won't lie and say I never thought about her like that. I mean...well, ok, I'm just saying I'd thought about it before. But then we got to Vegas and everything just got so confusing. This city can be really...dark sometimes you know? Even during the day, even in the desert sunlight there is just something about it. It is almost like the soul of the city is rotting and everyone who comes here feels it. I don't know if it was like that before the yeerks came or what. But...it is just so easy to lose yourself here."
He realized he'd begun staring off into infinity again and looked back down at Matt. "I'm not making excuses for myself. I should have seen what was happening but I didn't. I just started concentrating on the next mission, living from day to day and not seeing the big picture. And Ember...she tried to stay close to me but I pushed her away. Part of it was because things just changed. All of a sudden I was her faction leader and I had to give her orders and...distance just grew. I don't know. But part of it was intentional. I didn't want to feel things, for anyone or anything."
He hadn't meant to go down this path. A moment ago they'd been laughing and he still wanted to laugh. And he didn't want to lay any more of his problems on Matt. But he also wanted to tell someone how he felt about her because, with her gone, it almost felt like it hadn't happened. "Well anyway, we did that dam mission and she almost died. We both almost died a lot that day. And afterwards we had a party...including alcohol," he said with a nod and a slight smile to Matt, acknowledging the similarity of their situations, "and I realized that I wanted to be with her. But I still couldn't do anything about it. The barriers I'd built up around myself, well I couldn't take them down alone. And she finally got frustrated with me," he said laughing a little, "and decided to take matters into her own hands. I think she was a liiiiiitle drunk at the time but only enough to be bold, not that she isn't usually." Talking about Ember was actually making him smile again. Gods he missed her.
"Well it was really nice for like a day or two. I think we were a little sickening to be honest," he said laughing a little. "You know that couple that is always hanging all over each other and that couple that have little private conversations with their eyes alone and piss everyone else off? That was us. And then..." he got a pained look on his face and couldn't speak for a moment. He still felt like he'd let her down.
"It was her birthday too, that is what makes it so much worse." Rian covered his face with his hands and stayed like that for a moment. Finally he sat back up. "Remember when I talked about freeing those kids from the farm? Well if only I'd known- Damnit!" He had been so stupid. How could he not have known. He was supposed to know. "We went to Indonesia, that was where the farm was. And we had made a deal with this sub-visser. She wanted a kid from the farm and Luce was the only one who knew where it was, or where that specific one was." He wasn't going to even try to explain that connection. Mostly because he didn't know everything about it and partly because he still didn't like to acknowledge it existed.
"But Alora went too. And the Sub-Visser we made the deal with, well she had a reason to hate Ember. She had a reason to hate all of us actually. And I thought I'd planned for everything," some of the shame he was feeling was starting to slip into his voice, "but...I hadn't. They got to her and they...they...made her one of," he couldn't even say the words. He just ended up tapping his head and looking at Matt. "I didn't even know. Cassie called us right after we got back and I left Matt. I left her here...alone. She had to-I-," he stopped talking. He had told himself he wasn't going to burden Matt any further and yet he was looking at his friend as if he could offer the forgiveness Rian felt he needed.
"We freed her. She's fine now I guess. But...things were...harder after that. I felt like I should have known earlier or, or something. But...and I couldn't look her in the face Matt. I don't think she blames me for it but I don't know. And then she left, got promoted, and now she's all the way across the country." He shrugged. "I don't know. That's it I guess."