Post by Aubrey on Sept 28, 2009 2:41:27 GMT -5
Rian
Rian walked into the main room to see that everyone else was already gathered for the faction meeting. He had been the last to arrive because he had been on guard duty seeing as they still had Robert in the store room. He would have been fine but the first time he had walked into the main room Jullian had insisted that he go change into the new morphing outfits that he had made all of them.
Everyone else apparently had already gotten theirs. Rian had gone and changed into the almost all black uniform. In the end it was made of a black muscle shirt with and angel logo across the shoulders and black running shorts that were tight but not too tight and ended right above the knees. The only thing of color in the uniform was a wide, spandex belt that could be pulled on over the head. Rian didn't know what the purpose of it was but he had requested dark blue and apparently everyone had gotten to choose their own color.
Now dressed in the new uniform of the LA Faction members he took a seat in the common room and waited for Matt to start the meeting.
Matt
Matt stood up in front of the group. In the new morphing suits his black tips seemed to stand out even more, matching the black of the suit. He belt was a gold color and he'd been given a specific top by Ember and Jullian. When everyone came in wearing their morphing suits he'd seen why. The logo on his shoulders had a halo-like crown on it to indicate his being the leader. Leave it to them to feel my morphing suit needs to set me apart, he thought, though inwardly he kind of liked these suits.
Everyone was here, Rian having returned from putting his new uniform on. Matt kind of felt like it could have waited until after the meeting, but Jullian had been insistant. "Okay people, a while back Rain suggested to me an idea of mapping the sewer system of the city and then using the maps to go on raids in the city. What we'd be taking is controllers, holding them for three days and then freeing them. We haven't really done anything as a faction yet so this will be our first mission, fortunately it should be easy and make a good test misson."
He paused for a moment glancing around the room. Kat, Ember, Jullian, Steve, Bane, and Rian. The plan was to split into groups and he only hoped he hadn't made terrible choices of who he put with whom. All he knew was that the three leaders wouldn't have changed no matter what organization he'd chosen. "To do this mission we will split into three groups. One group of three lead by me and two pairs each with a leader I've chosen. Before I announce them are there any questions?"
Rian
Ember, like everyone else, was in her new morphing outfit. However, unlike the others she'd been around when they'd been designing and picking out fabrics. Hers was a one piece gymnast suit, black sheen like the other's, and Jullian had picked out a red belt to match her cardinal's feathers. She thought it looked wonderful and decided to officially change her favorite color from pink to bright red. It was a color that seemed to reflect every animal she'd been given on one scale or another, so maybe it was a sign that she was destined for it? It was certainly more mature than pink, and could show how much she'd changed since the beginning the war. The logo was a bit smaller on her shoulder blades because there was less room to situate it, but it matched with everyone else's quite nicely.
From what Matt said, it seemed like they were finally taking the offensive against the yeerks. Ember, who always had something constantly bugging her that could be used as fierce rage against an opponent, was all too ready to get going. But groups? And three leaders? Naturally Rian and Matt would be the first two, but she could hardly expect any bonuses thrown her way after her last trip to LA. Did that mean he was electing Jullian? Oh boy, she could already play out how little would get accomplished with that kid leading the way. Although if he got paired with steve... She smiled slightly.
Jullian
Jullian had chosen to stand in order to best show off the new outfits. It was a vain move and probably no one would notice but him. He intellectually knew all that but they had worked so hard for these. They had literally bled for them and even though no one else knew that, he was proud of them. So he stood.
He had chosen a light blue belt for himself. The belts had been his idea after Rian had told him a story about the obstacle course. Now they had a place to put items and the belt would keep them skin tight so that it would follow them through the morphing process. Hopefully anyway. He had a feeling not everything would morph but small things might.
He had also wanted to have armbands of the same color as the belts with everyone's name on them but Ember had flatly refused because of the source of material. Seriously what was wrong with using speedos for armbands. It wasn't like they were speedos anymore.
Then Matt started the meeting. Groups uh. He wondered who he would be put with.
Katrina
Katrina had never been a fan of skin tight clothing. She'd always preferred something loose and free to move around in, but upon accepting the morphing abilities that came with being an animorph, she'd also accepted that skin tight was the new way to go. She didn't mind these new outfits. She liked them better then what she'd had to choice from when she'd first received her morphs.
Her suit was a s tight shirt, probably meant for some kind of sport but Kat wasn't into that kind of thing so she wasn't completely sure. It seemed like a good guess though. The logo on the shoulder had been the first thing to catch her eye when she'd been given the new outfit, and she admired it's design. It looked pretty neat and she wondered if was something Jullian had come up with all on his own. The shorts might have been from some kind of sport store too for all she knew. They were tight as well and not what she was used to but she needed to deal with that. At least her outfit came in two pieces, unlike Ember's. Kat knew she wouldn't have been comfortable in something like the gymnast suit, so she was grateful for what she'd gotten. Around her waist was the only splash of color the suit held. She'd chosen purple.
Kat's eyes scanned the faces of the other faction members before they rested on Matt. He was talking about a mission that would be her first. Steve had already gone on a small mission and come back with his brother, but she hadn't had any kind of mission yet so far. It made her a bit nervous. She wondered about the groups, curious as to who the leaders would be and where she'd be placed. Matt had already said he's be one, Rian seemed like second in command from what she'd seen so probably him, then... maybe Ember? She wasn't sure if Jullian would be put in charge of a group, but she was pretty sure that since Steve, Bane and herself were so new it wouldn't be one of them.
She didn't have any questions for the time being, so she just sat quietly.
Matt
Matt waited for a while for people to speak up. When no one volunteered anything he absently rubbed one bare arm as he ran over the groups in his mind. "The first group will be Myself, Jullian, and Steve. The second Rian and Bane with Rian in charge. The third, Ember and Kat with Ember in charge. I trust both Ember and Rian to make the choices I would no matter what situation thier group comes accross down there. If you run into anything, leaders morph into your most violent morph and someone else shout. Hopefully the leader can hold off whatever it is until another team can arrive to help." Most violent morph would vary depending one person. For Matt is was croc, for Rian it was wolf, and for Ember is was her horse. Matt hoped any danger would be confronted by his or Rian's groups since the horse wouldn't be quite as dangerous.
"For forms I'd say go with landbound animals. Foxes, cat, ferret, monkey, squirrel and racoon would proably best since we'd all be around the same size that way. I think smaller is possibly better right now." Again he rubbed his arm trying to figure out if there was something he could say before he got any possible question now that the groups had been revealed. Despite that he'd had a sleevless morph top since moving to L.A. he felt like there should have been something on his arm to play with. An armband possibly. Still, he'd seen the fabric and had the suspicion his belt had once been part of a speedo. The armbands would have come from that too.... though the fabric had never served it's original function so it didn't really matter that much.
He'd gotten a look at himself in a mirror after putting the suit on. Though the suit emphasised his scorched hair it also made his eyes darker and his skin seem slightly lighter. He was naturally pale as it was so he had to wonder if black was really a good color on him. Still, Ember and Jullian had made the suits. Their judgement was definitely better than his own.
Ember
Ember didn't say anything, but it was hard to hide the wide smile that started to spread across her face. This must be the challenge Matt had talked about earlier, though she couldn't believe he actually put her in charge. Although... she couldn't help but glance over at Kat once the giddy feeling had died away. She was supposed to lead the girl who shot her teammate? They would have to rely on each other completely in order to make it through LA safely, and even then it would be dangerous. What if she'd been on the shopping trip with Kat instead of Jullian? Somehow she doubted she could have summoned such energy to save someone she barely knew...
But what could she do? No Matt, I'm sorry but I'm just too much of a prick to accept your extremely trusting offer? Not likely.
Jullian
Jullian flashed Ember a big smile to say he was happy for her then he turned back to Matt. Ok, this sucked. Mapping the sewers. They were going to be walking around in, in, waste. And this had been Rian's idea. Of course it had been Rian's idea because Rian would come up with something like this.
He tried to keep the look of displeasure off his face. Matt would probably be able to tell since he was Matt but he thought he did a pretty good job as far as hiding it from the others. Well, at least they would be going on the offensive. And these were brand new morphing outfits too. Maybe he better get started on making sure everyone had a spare.
Rian
He couldn't say he was surprised that he had been picked to lead one of the groups. It made sense, he was the most experienced here after Matt. So he wasn't surprised but he was glad. For some reason it always felt good to know that Matt trusted him, trusted him enough to send him on his own.
He spared a moment to be happy for Ember too. Maybe she would finally stop feeling guilty about what had happened knowing that she was trusted with this.
He turned his mind towards the mission. Bane. Not a bad choice for a team mate. He didn't know the older boy very well but that just meant he would now have the opportunity. And they both had fox morphs that they could use for travel in the sewers. Yeah, he had a good feeling about this mission. It felt good to be fighting back.
Katrina
Katrina closed her eyes a moment after hearing Matt say where she'd been placed. She felt her stomach flip-flop from the news. She opened her gray optics and just stared straight at Matt, biting her lower lip a bit. She tried to keep her face composed and her gaze directed at the faction leader as he continued to speak.
She still hadn't had a chance to speak to Ember. Even after all this time, she had yet to talk things over with her and try to smooth things over. In fact, she didn't think she'd really said more then a few words to her at all! She'd been preparing for the right moment, but it always seemed like Ember either wasn't in the mood to talk to anyone or she'd been with someone else. Kat felt cowardly, but she did intend to talk to her, it was just things never went the right way to lead up to it. She really did want to make things right...
She continued to slightly chew on her bottom lip due to her nerves. She didn't know what Ember felt about her. She didn't have much to go off of other then the punch to the face, awkward silences around other members, and the like. She felt uneasy with this pairing, maybe even.. slightly afraid?
Kat mentally sighed. It was stupid to be afraid of something so trivial. Matt was putting Ember in charge for a reason. She doubted he would have put them together if Ember wasn't past what had happened, and could handle it. She felt silly for feeling so uncomfortable, but she couldn't help it and tried hard not to let it show on her face, though maybe biting her lip gave it away...
She needed to talk to Ember. It had to be before this mission. It had to be soon.
Stevert
Steve was trying to control himself. He was very eager to go on the mission and it was all he could do to keep his mouth shut. He tried to occupy himself by looking at his morphing suit that Jullian and Ember made. It was a two piece suit. The top was a black spandex shirt with an angel logo on the shoulders. The bottom was a pair of black, tight shorts that reached to his knees. The only other bit of color on his uniform besides the logo, was the bright green spandex belt that he had requested from Jullian. He looked back up to hear Matt tell who was going with who on the mission. When he heard his name, he quickly restrained himself from jumping up. Steve felt confident about the mission, especially since Matt and his crocodile were coming along.
Then he listened and heard the rest of the list. Naturally, Rian was a leader. And suprisingly, so was Ember. Not that Steve had really thought about who would lead the third team so everyone would have been a surprise. Suddenly, Steve remembered something, "Matthew, what about Robert? Who would guard him? Maybe we could seal the storage room off totally." Steve didn't want to do that to his brother but it might be necessary.
While he was waiting for a response, his gaze drifted over the other Animorphs. Kat looked like she had some kind of problem, possibly with Ember. Jullian looked okay with the idea but there was something that Steve couldn't place in his eyes. Rian looked a little bored as if he had already done this mission several times before. Ember looked very happy, judging by her huge smile. Steve couldn't read Matt's or Bane's face at all. Steve was fidgeting around in his excitement so he clamped his hands on the sides of his chair and tried to control himself.
Matt
Matt glanced up and down the line of people. Bane wasn't showing a reaction yet. Steve was excited, possibly over the mission, and seemed to be forcing himself to remain calm. Rian was as ever serious about the situation, though Matt thought he'd seen Rian flash a smile of congratulations over towards Ember. Jullian seemed disgusted and it was probably about the whole idea of traversing the sewers with their new morphing suits. Matt would see if that couldn't be fixed by later reassuring the kid he'd planned on taking the new suits to the laudrymat afterward. He had't, but he hadn't planned on having the new suits to begin with. Lastly Ember and Kat. Ember seemed proud of herself and ready for the challenge. The fact that Matt still trusted her after the shopping trip would boost her back to being herself hopefully. Kat.... seemed overall nervous, but Ember had too for the moment she'd glanced at Kat.
I hope I did the right thing here, Matt said to himself. He didn't let his emotion show on his face right now. They couldn't know he was doubting his choices. He'd paired the groups together for the exact reason that the older and newer members hadn't worked together before. Matt had rescued Ember with Jullian, but throw Steve into the mix and things could get a little crazy. Besides, it had mostly been a react without thinking rescue where Matt had been ordering Jullian around. Rian and Bane would hopefully connect through having fox morphs. Kat and Ember had been the toughest pairing. He knew the two hadn't reconciled about the shooting thing though, so mostly this was a nudge, or more a shove, in the right direction. I order to work as an effective group they would have to resolve the issue of what had happened more than a week ago, when Kat and Steve had first met the Animorphs of L.A.
"Robert for one thing is tied up," said Matt. "I thought at first about leaving someone to watch him, but that's not really fair to whoever gets that shift because it would have an indeffinite end and everyone else would be on the mission into town. Instead, I found a fairly decent solution. For one thing, we would have needed some sort of system like that when we started the raids so we could have someone tied up for their last day while we went on one. So, I got a new doorknob for the storage room door, one that locks, and I kept the key. Rian knew about it, he helped instal it shortly before this meeting. Kind of hard for anyone to unlock it from the inside when the window is boarded up and the only person inside is tied up so we're effectivly down one gaurd duty for the duration of the mission." Matt had been rather impressed he'd come up with anything at all when he wasn't usually the ideas person, but this had really just been a logic puzzle that needed solving or at least that's how he'd viewed it. The key was in his room, in a luggage tag that was attached to the bottom of one of the drawers in the dresser. It seemed reasonable enough for hidding it. He'd debated keeping it on him, but if he ever died in morph on a mission no one would ever open that door again.
Stevert
Steve took the response in stride. "Okay then, when do we start this 'mission'? All we're doing is mapping out the sewers right? That can't be to hard, right?" Then in a lower voice he added, "Unless the sewers are infested with taxxons and Hork-Bajir and they all have Dracon beams." Then his smile manifested itself again as Steve asked, "So what are we waiting for? The winter solstice? C'mon, let's get started!"
Then Steve shut up before anyone could get mad at him. That happened way to frequently.
A couple minutes later however, Steve jumped up and went into the storage room to say good-bye to Robert. He spent several more minutes talking to his brother before he closed the door and went back to his seat.
Bane
Bane had been quiet, taking in everything Matt said. So he was paired up with Rian? He didn't even have to look to remember who that was. His mind flashed to that rather forced conversation between himself, Rian, and Ember, and how they hadn't seemed to really want him there. He shook his head and forced his mind to focus on other things.
His morphing suit was similar to Rian's, though his shirt had sleeves, though short and tight, and his shorts were a bit longer. He had liked the logo, it was unique and he found it kind of cool. For his belt he had chosen a dark maroon, which seemed an odd choice, but he felt it fit for some reason.
He wondered what would happen on this mission, and wondered what would happen with Rian. Best case scenario, the became friends. Worst case scenario, they became enemies. He really hoped the latter didn't happen, as it would make it rather difficult being in the same faction.
Wonder how Kat'll handle this... The thought popped into his head. Kat was the faction member he'd talked to the most, mostly because they were both new and Steve was usually running about too fast for Bane to really get a chance to know the chatterbox. He knew now about the tension between her and Ember, and hoped they could work it out.
Rian
Well that seemed to be all there was to say about the groupings. They would either work out or they wouldn't. He was impatient to get started. He had run this mission so many times in his head over the past few weeks that he felt like it was already done. And yet another part of him was a bundle of nerves knowing that something that he had never thought of could happen in those tunnels. Either way the only way to know what would happen on the tunnel mission was to do it.
And then they had an even more dangerous mission to try. They had to somehow get ahold of Hork-Bajir morphs but that would come later. Get past this mission first, he reminded himself.
He looked to Matt to see if there were anymore instructions before they went to the air and then to the tunnels.
Ember
Ember caught a glance from Kat. The girl looked like she was going to have an aneurysm. Either that or she was going to pounce. Ember could practically read her thoughts just from that expression. The girl was going to try and have a meaningful talk, maybe apologize, and then whoop de doo everything will be right as rain in her head.
Great. Fun.
No way, never going to happen. Sure Ember wanted to get along with everyone, sort of, but she was pretty sure that if she was put through a 'talk' she was just going to punch Kat in the nose again before it was through. Not the best of ways to start a mission. Especially since she was aching to get out of the Haunt. Maybe if she could just avoid her until they left... ugh, maybe it would just go away. Heck, they could be playing bridge by nightfall and making smores and talking girl-shop.
"So! When can we start?"
Matt
Matt could sense some tension between people about the groups he'd put together, but that was the point of things. If you were forced to trust someone it forced you to get over any issues you had and he knew some of the pairs had quite a few issues with each other. Overall it just seemed like everyone was ready to go and he couldn't blame them. Sitting around gave them more chance to question the groups they'd been put in. He, personally, was ready to go.
"If everyone is ready to go we can start now. We'll morph our air morphs to get into the city and then we'll head into the sewers and split up. Jullian, I get the feeling you're worried about the new uniforms getting dirty. Keep in mind that we're going to stay in morph most of the time and the fact that I've morphed a wet morphing suit and demorphed with it completely dry. Any dirt or grime that gets on these will be gone as soon as we morph again." Matt knew it bugged Jullian when he did that, but he couldn't help it when he knew what was bothering folks.
"I say if there's anything someone needs to do before we head out you have ten minutes to take care of it. I'm going to head outside and wait. When everyone's out there we're taking to the skies. This is our first real mission folks. Here's to it going as well as it possibly can." With this he turned from the group and exited the door to the front porch and the beach. His eyes drifted to the waves and a light breeze toyed with his bangs. His first real mission as a leader. This time he not only didn't have Raven as a guide, but he was guiding other people too. I'd be stupid not to be nervous. Just the fact that I am indicates that I'll be just fine.
Jullian
Morph away dirt? A new innovation. Well, we'll certainly get a chance to see how well it works. He didn't really have much to do before they left. He wanted to wish Rian and Ember good luck since he wouldn't be with them but he was worried that if he did then it would show that he didn't care about Kat, Bane and Steve, which wasn't true. He was just closer to Ember and Rian, that was all.
He settled for looking at them before heading outside. Then he began to shrink as his body was replaced by a seagull's.
Katrina
Ten minutes. She had only ten minutes to try to say something that wouldn't end up making the only other female faction member hate her more? Was that even possible? It was going to take a hell of a lot longer then that to get things worked out. She'd been hoping the mission would be tomorrow, that way she'd be able to corner Ember after the meeting and then give her most of the night to think things over and maybe calm down after whatever might possibly happen.
Any subtle way of bringing up the topic wasn't going to happen in the short amount of time she was given. Why couldn't Matt have given her some kind of warning? Would it have been hard to swing by quickly and say something like, 'Hey, I'm pairing you up with Ember in a day or so, maybe you should get a move on with working things out..' Kat held back a groan and tried to keep the unease off her face. This should have been resolved by now...
She glanced to Ember a moment then looked away as if she hadn't. With a deep breath and no idea of what she was actually going to say, she stood up. She mustered up confidence and forced herself to seem calm now, then began to slowly head in Ember's direction.
Rian
Rian went over to Bane after Matt and Jullian had left. He had yet to really talk to the other faction member and looked forward to this mission as a way to get to know him. He mentally tried to remember what morphs Bane had at his disposal, black fox, magpie and, if he wasn't mistaken, some type of lizard. As he reached Bane he held out his hand.
"I know we've already met but, except for one awkward conversation, we haven't really got a chance to get to know each other. I'm Rian."
Stevert
Since the meeting was obviously dismissed, Steve took the oppurtunity to run to the bathroom. After about a minute or so, he joined Jullian and Matt outside and began to concentrate on the blue jay DNA inside of him.
He felt his bones hollow out and his vision increase. His nose and mouth stretched out and became his beak. A cool-looking tattoo of feathers appeared all over his skin. Steve watched as they became 3D and become blue, white, and black feathers. The feathers on his butt stretched out and became wings at the same time his legs reversed direction and became scaly. By now, Steve was a human-sized blue jay with arms instead of wings and scaly legs with human toes. Then he concentrated on his feet as two of them melted together and another one traveled to the back of his foot. His toes grew claws and his legs were complete. Then he concentrated on his wings and thirty seconds later, he as a human-sizeed blue jay. <<Ha this is so-->> as he broke off thought-speak and began to talk, "cooooool!" <<Hey, I wonder if I can fly like this.>>
With that, Steve tried to fly but quickly discovered that he couldn't.<<Rats! I'm probably to big and heavy for flight. Ow well, it would have been cool.>> he said in open thought-speak.
Bane
"Bane, and I guess now we'll get the chance to really know each other," The black-haired boy said, clasping Rian's hand in his own to shake.
His eyes wandered over to Kat, seeing her moving towards Ember. Good luck... He thought, hoping things would work out between them. He returned his gaze to Rian, unsure of what to say to his teammate, and they had ten minutes to prepare...
First Magpie, then Fox. He made a mental note of which morphs he'd be using. Won't get much of a chance to try out that skink I guess... His newest morph was one that he hadn't had much practice with, though maybe that was a good thing...
Matt
"Keep track of your time in morph." Matt said to Steve and Jullian as he noticed the two morphing. He wasn't going to morph yet. His bat hated the daylight but kept up with the bird morphs of the other faction members a lot better than his hummingbird morph was capable of. He personally was going to wait as long as possible to force the bat to work in an environment that wasn't natural for it.
For now he'd wait and hope the groups still inside weren't made at him for throwing them together the way he did. Matt could see Bane and Rian talking, which seemed to be going well, and Kat approaching Ember. Matt felt bad only giving them ten minutes to work out the issue between them, but they really should have worked it out already or at least attempted to. As far as he knew they hadn't even brought it up. You're doing fine. Raven said that you could do this when she came and she wasn't lying. You can lead a mission and eveyone will survive.
Rian
"I hope so. And we'll be able to test the fox morphs. I had a teammate back in Chicago who had a fox morph but his was a gray fox. We had fun testing out the differences. Hopefully we won't run into anything too bad in the tunnels. Our foxes should be able to outrun most things." He stopped for a second wondering if there was more to say about the mission but couldn't think of anything. "Are you ready because I think maybe we should go," he said glancing over to where Kat was approaching Ember.
He knew Ember wouldn't do anything too bad especially since she had been given a leadership role in this mission and could use the opportunity to make up for what she perceived as a failure of the shopping trip. Yeah, she wouldn't do anything too bad, uh, he thought. Still better to let them sort it out on their own.
Jullian
<<Oh, right,>> he said, a little embarrased that he hadn't thought of something that simple. He started to demorph. He knew they only had to wait 10 minutes but what if 10 minutes was the difference between being his own wonderful self and being a seagull.
When he was fully human he looked down at the blue jay and then at Matt and then back into the house. He started to whistle a little and tap a foot. Ok, so he was a little impatient but he was excited.
That thought stopped him. Excited? About crawling around in a sewer in his brand new clothes? Ok, maybe excited wasn't the best word. But he really wanted to do something to fight the yeerks. He had a feeling he wasn't the only one glad that they were striking back.
Stevert
Steve heard Matt's voice and said, <<How long will it take us to get to the sewers? I still have about an hour and 50 minutes in morph.>> Without waiting for answer, Steve followed Jullian's example and started to demorph. About three minutes later, he was his normal hpyeractive talkative self again.
Then he said to Matthew, "do you think It would be possible for us to find a watch that we can morph? Like put a small tight watch on Jullian's or Rian's leg in their bird morphs since theirs are the only ones probably big enough to hold one. That way when they are birds, they have watches on but when they demorph, they are gone. How about it? We could also do the same on other morphs that can hold it, like the foxes, the wolf, the dingo, the coyote ((I'm assuming Kat would have the coyote by this point)) the horses, and the pronghorn. I think that those are our only morphs that could use a watch since we would also have to be able to see it. That's a lot of watches though and where would we get them? And all of the watches would have to be tight and not that big or else they won't morph. Well I think my squirrel, Jullian's monkey, and Kat's otter could all support a watch. For my squirrel, the watch may have to go on its stomach but I would still be able to see it."
Steve took a breathe and thenjogged over to Jullian, who seemed as excited about the mission as himself. "I can't wait to get started! " he said to Jullian, "we're finally doing something on the offensive!"
Bane
(Steve I don't think...things can demorph away like that...like...yeah, it morphs with the person, but I don't think it demorphs...but...I'm not 100% positive...)
Bane nodded in agreement to Rian. "Yeah, I'm ready." It would be easier for Kat and Ember if they could talk without anyone else there, and he doubted anything too bad would happen, especially right before a mission like this. He wished for the best before heading outside where Jullian, Matthew, and Steve were already waiting.
He kept the image of the Magpie in his head, but didn't concentrate on morphing it yet. He thought about what Rian had said, their fox morphs out running most things. Fox, small bird, lizard...none of his choices were very good offensive morphs, though fox was probably his best bet, plus it's speed was better than the others as well.
Matt
"Not to be a party pooper but what you're suggesting is impossible. We can morph clothes from human to animal and back because they're part of our natural state of being before we morphed.They go into z-space with the rest of the matter we aren't using from ourselves when in morph and come back when we demorph. With the animals though, if it isn't in their DNA we can't morph it onto them. It would have to be something we can wear both as an animal and a human for it to work which would mean one per person so actually a lot less watches, but I don't know if you could find something that would stretch enough while remaining comforable."
Matt had turned to Steve as he was talking. He didn't know a lot about morphing, but he had explained what he could that had been passed onto him from Raven who'd learned it from Cassie. He didn't really understand some of it himself, but he knew enough to know Steve's idea wansn't possible.
Matt's eyes drifeted back to the water. A few more minutes and they could be going. "It won't take us too long to get into the city," he said, answering the question Steve had asked but had seemed to decide didn't matter. Rian and Bane were coming out now. That just left Kat and Ember. I don't know if Kat was going to try and patch things up now or not, he thought. I can only hope whatever happens goes well.
Rian
Rian walked out of the Haunt and joined Matt, Steve and Jullian. He didn't morph yet but he did demorph so that he would be ready to go whenever Ember and Kat came out. As always Rian felt extremely uncomfortable and self conscious when he had to return to his female form around others so he wondered away and sat under a tree away from the group.
He stared at the ocean and waited for Ember and Kat to come out of the Haunt. The water was choppy today and the sky was slightly overcast. Not exactly your normal southern california weather. He hoped it wasn't an omen.
Bane
Bane was...needless to say...very confused.
Had he just watched Rian turn younger or something? He was very, very confused...
He watched Rian walk off, doing his best not to stare curiously. It was certainly...different..
He forced himself not to stare, to concentrate on other things. It was rude, and really none of his business anyway. He knew his curiousity would be nagging at him, but he could easily push it away. What mattered was the mission, not Rian's sudden change. He was actually really excited for some reason, but he kept that under control as well. After sitting in a room for three days tied to a chair and then being confined to a small area, a little excitement would definitely do him some good.
Jullian
"I know!" Steve's obvious excitement broke down Jullian's reluctance to show his own. That's when Rian and Bane came out and Rian demorphed and wondered away. He saw Bane looking slightly confused and knew that Rian probably wouldn't want to explain the situation himself. That and he couldn't resist the opportunity to tell a secret, that actually wasn't a secret at all if he thought about it.
"Rian's a transguy. I was surprised too, when I first found out on the road here. Apparently that means you're born into one body but don't feel right or something like that. I'm not exactly sure, I just know he morphs a boy body all the time but has so demorph to girl before he can morph anything else. He doesn't like talking about it though. Isn't that weird? I don't mean weird in a bad way just weird in an odd way. I mean how many transpeople are out there anyway and yet one ends up in the animorphs. The only one I know of is Alexis on Ugly Betty but she's a tv character so I guess the only one I know is Rian 'cause he's a real person."
He looked back in the house. "Do you think Kat and Ember will take a long time?"
Ember
Dangit. The last thing Ember wanted was to be left alone in the Haunt with Kat, but when she next looked around that was exactly what had happened. Quick, she subtly turned around to search for an escape, find a distraction or something, anything that would help her avoid the growing tension.
Bugger this, she thought peevishly, a heart felt talk was not what she wanted before going out on a mission and she'd be damned if Kat managed to do anything other than make her more annoyed within the ten minutes they'd been given. There was nothing for it. Ember had to call it off before the girl got any ideas. "Ok, pick your morph. I'm going Cat so don't form anything i'd eat, that's all i ask . Now c'mon we need to go, the boys are waiting." She kept her comments curt, directing them at the door. What she wanted was to go ahead and morph, but she couldn't risk the time limit just to avoid talking so instead she walked with as much purpose as possible toward the door and so help the girl if she called her on it.
Katrina
Ember spoke first which got rid of Kat's dilemma over how best to begin speaking. It was clear from her behavior that she wasn't all for being alone with Kat or even speaking to her. Yea.. This mission's gonna go great.. Kat thought, not feeling very optimistic at the moment about the current situation.
"Mine's Raccoon," She said, trying to keep her manner calm and relaxed even though she didn't feel that way.
Ember was already heading to the door quickly, making a break for it. Kat wondered if she was aware of just how easy it was to read her actions. It was clear she didn't want to sort anything out in the ten minutes they'd been given, which probably meant she still had bad feelings about what had happened. Maybe trying to talk would start some kind of a fight... that wasn't exactly what they needed. She felt like she was just making cowardly excuses again. Damn it.
As she started to follow she decided to ask one thing. "..Are you ok with this?.." She was a bit apprehensive about how her question would be answered.
Stevert
Steve kind of felt embarrassed by his somewhat stupid question. "Oh, I just thought that since we morph into animals with no clothing and demorph into ourselves with clothing on, why couldn't we morph into animals with watches on and demorph into ourselves wihtout watches on. But if that won't work, than I guess it was only worth a shot."
Steve was extremeley hyper now. He was really tempted to go squirrel and burn the energy off. Or maybe go blue jay and start flying around. Then he walked towards Matthew and said, "Do we have to fly? Can't we run? I'm super energetic, on the off-chance that you haven't noticed which I highly doubt since you guys seem to think I'm hyper when I'm asleep but back to what I was saying. Flying doesn't seem to take much energy, especially today with this good wind. Running however takes a lot more work. Besides I want to use the Pronghorn. It's fast. Probably faster than your horse. Jullian could ride on our backs or be our eye in the sky. Besides, I don't think our birds can keep up with a seagull. Too small. Our ungulates would have better chances. So how about it? But if we do have to fly, I'm okay with that to since I'm not as energetic as I was a minute or so ago. Maybe it is because of me talking. Oh well. When do we start?"
Matt
Matt considered Steve's suggestion about using the horse and the pronghorn morphs to run below the others in bird morphs. He'd been intending to use his bat, though it wasn't a large morph really. It was better than using his hummingbird in a case like this, but maybe the horse would also be a better option than the morph that had earned him the nickname Bruce from Tim.
"I guess you're right," said Matt. "I was planning on using my bat morph rather than the hummingbird anyways since the the hummingbird is so small it would get left behind by everyone else. Still, we both would have a better chance of keeping up with everyone if we used the pronghorn and the horse. Being the only ground members though you'll have to hold back on the speed so we can stay together in case something happens." Whatever worked to get them into the city, Matt didn't really care what it was. He would make sure the group stuck together as much as possible between the haunt and L.A., but if running got rid of some of Steve's energy then they might be less annoyed by him in the sewers. That and Matt's horse morph wouldn't be so annoyed about being out in the daylight.
Bane
Bane just sort of...stared at Jullian, barely able to comprehend all that he'd heard before the boy had started talking again. Transguy? Demorph? Ugly Betty? Kat and Ember?
He took a moment to respond to Jullian, trying to sort his thoughts. So Rian was really...female? He'd thought he'd just looked younger..and he had never even considered the possibility of morphing a human. Maybe it was a bit weird...like Jullian said, how many could there be in the world?
"Uh...I guess...it's a bit strange...but I mean...there's nothing really wrong with it..." He didn't think Jullian thought there was, but he just wanted to make sure his comment was taken wrongly. It did make him a bit uncomfortable thinking about it, but that didn't make Rian a bad person or an overly strange person.
He was about to answer Jullian when he noticed Ember, then Kat, heading for the door. The way the too walked...it was obvious they'd gotten no talking done. He frowned a bit, though not very noticeable, disliking the fact that it was obvious Ember was avoiding it. What was so bad about just talking to Kat?
Matt
Matt saw Kat and Ember coming. They hadn't gotten over the issue yet. Ember had, in fact, wanted to aviod discussing it. Matt only hoped it wouldn't become a problem when they were in the sewers. He knew he hadn't given them enough time, but the feeling that everyone in the faction was waiting on them would have been odd for both of them and would have made the topic harder to discuss..... or so he'd thought at the time. It was too late to take what he'd said back though, so he'd need to live with his decision and whatever it's results were.
"Okay everyone. Morphing time. We stick together until we get to the city because we'll be mapping the sewers in our groups. Steve, do you still want to run or are we flying too? LIke I said, we run and we need to stay with each other and with the group and I will remind you of this if you start getting too far ahead." Matt was mostly making a point. Steve may be energetic and may be fast in his pronghorn, but staying together came first in a team. That was one thing Matt had worried about with Steve, the fact that he liked to be so fast in his morph and that he'd be forced to stick to the pace his group members set. Would he be able to do it?
Stevert
"Oh, goody! Let's go!" Steve said to Matthew, "Sure let's run. Our air morphs wouldn't keep up with the others as well, except for your bat but it is still bright out. And I'll try not to get to far ahead of you. I've been practicing my morphs so it should be a little easier to control the pronghorn."
With that, Steve began to morph into the pronghorn. Orange-ish fur appeared on his back, neck, head, arms, and legs as tan fur appeared on his belly. White fur shot out onto his butt. "Wow, this is sooo attractive." he said as his spine lengthened and a short tail appeared over the patch of white fur. Steve started to say, This is so cool but he only managed "This is sogh cohlgg" as his mouth and nose stretched out in front of his face. His vision enhanced itself and his eyes moved to the sides of his face. His ears moved to the top of his head and grew longer. <<I love the senses on this animal!>> Steve exclaimed through thought-speak. Steve tried walking towards Matthew but he fell forward as his hind legs thinned and transformed. Then his arms become a pronghorn's front legs. Steve said, <<For some reason, this morph doesn't feel right. Wait! I know what I did wrong.>> Steve focused on the antelope one more time and two pronged antlers shot out of his head. <<Much better.>> He thought.
By now Steve was pretty hyped about the mission. <<Hey Matthew, I have a question. How are we going to map the sewers exactly? I don't think my pronghorn can write very well. Nor can it hold a map or a piece of paper.>>
Jullian
"Oh no. Nothing wrong with it. I mean being, like, gender non-comforming is like the new gay. Well, I mean, he is gender conforming just not his birth gender but whatever. Works for me. I do wonder where he got the human morph though. He's never told me. Maybe you could find out while you guys are in the sewers."
The thought of running around in the sewers reminded Jullian of the mission. It made him excited and grossed out at the same time. Both of these emotions flashed across his easy to read face.
"Good luck on the mission." It seemed like the right thing to say. He turned to Matt, ready to go.
When Jullian heard that Steve and Matt were going ground morphs he thought about using his dingo morph but on second thought it probably wouldn't be a good idea. The horse and antelope might not be too cool with a dingo around so he began morphing his seagull instead.
Rian
Jullian wasn't the quietest person and Rian heard his whole explanation. He smiled at the Ugly Betty comparison and then at Jullian's insistence that being trans was trendy. It wasn't really, or at least it didn't feel that way but if that was how Jullian chose to look at it that was fine with Rian. It was better than rejection or awkward silences.
He turned and saw that Ember and Kat were coming out of the Haunt and began morphing his kestrel, glad to be free of his birth body.
Ember
Ember stopped dead short of the door, Kat's words freezing her to the bone. Was she ok with it? Hell no. Did she want to give up a leadership position just because she had a personal problem? She pursed her lips into a sharp frown, the idea was becoming more and more attractive. But no, if this was how she was going to live, then she had to step up and take the responsibility. Even if that meant being miserable the entire trip and doing her best to hide it. Ergh, that was going to be the most difficult part. Ember would be the first in line to say just how little she could hide her emotions.
Ok, well maybe she couldn't outright deny that she had a problem with the girl, but if she set this out alright then they could at least be professional. Moving her head without turning around, she spoke over her shoulder, "We don't have to be awkward about this. This is a mission, and any personal issues you and I might have aren't relevant. But if you think you can't work with me, Matt is right outside and he does need someone to watch Steve's brother if you'd rather stay behind."
Katrina
Kat had tensed a bit, coming to a stop as well behind Ember. For a brief chaotic moment in her head she flew through different scenarios and how she would deal with them based on the different reactions Ember could have. The reaction she received was about the best she could have hoped for. At least she hadn't got punched, which was one of the options she'd thought about in that brief moment of waiting. She'd just said that she could put her personal feelings aside to work with Kat during the mission. That was good enough.
" I can work with you. I was just wondering if you could work with me. If you're willing to put personal issues aside and go ahead with this, then I have no problem going ahead." Kat said calmly.
She wondered if Ember really would put all personal issues aside, but she wasn't about to turn back. She'd have to try to trust Ember, and Matt's decision to put her in charge, even if it was a bit nerve racking to be placed with her.
"Let's do this," Kat said, flashing a slight grin before heading past Ember and exiting the haunt to join the others.
Ember
The second-thought of punching Kat again flashed through Ember's mind, but she roughly pushed it aside before it got the better of her. "Right." She muttered her response through gritted teeth, following the girl out the door. This might be harder than she'd thought...
"Matt!" Ember walked over to him, giving Bane an odd glance as she passed by him. What on earth could have given him that soured expression? "Hey Matt..." She spoke, finally tearing her eyes away, "Are we ready to go?"
Matt
Matt had begun morphing the horse as soon as he'd given the order to morph. His hands changing into hooves as his hair lengthened and lightened, turning into the horse's mane. He always felt weird when his size changed, growing from a teenage boy with a thin frame to an adult horse. He wasn't sure if that grossed him out more or if it was worse when his bones, veins, and internal organs shifted around inside him to arrange like the horse's. The gold mane was now spreading over the rest of his his body, as the morph continued. After a few minutes he was fully transformed and actually glad he was going along with this morph. The horse didn't mind the daylight as much as the bat so the instincts wouldn't be complaining at him. The horse was perfectly content to come along for the ride into L.A.
Remembering a comment he'd overheard Jullian make to Bane, he sent Jullian a private thought-speak messge. <<Jullian, Rian told me once that he had a twin brother. Considering how similar the human morph looks to Rian's birth body I think he accidentally acquired his twin's DNA.>> Matt wasn't sure what he thought about that. He'd tried comparing it to what it would be like to morph Sara, but a female body would have felt unatural to Matt whereas the male body actually felt more natural to Rian.
Next Matt answered Ember's question. <<We're ready when you two have morphed into your bird morphs so we can leave.>> he said so all could hear. Even as he said this he wished he'd changed his mind and given them more time. I don't want to push them into reconciling about the issue if they aren't ready and I somehow think maybe I'm doing that as it is. Putting them in a group together is forcing them to get over it in a stressful situation. Am I asking for something to go wrong? He wasn't quite sure, all he knew was he had to live with the choice he'd made. It was too late to take it back now.
Bane
Bane wished he could have switched places with Kat somehow. Though there wasn't much in common between them other than the fact that they were both newer members, he'd formed a friendship with Kat. He didn't want to see her have to suffer during this mission, but he knew there was nothing he could do.
He then heard that they were going and began morphing into the Magpie. In about three minutes, black feathers had replaced skin, a beak was in place of a mouth, wings were held tight to the body rather than arms, feet became claws, and his size had shrunk drastically. He now stood as a black-billed Magpie rather than a seventeen year-old boy.
Ember
Rian laughed but only so Ember could hear. <<It's kinda funny that you haven't forgiven her for something she did to me. Not that I have exactly forgiven her, that would require thinking about the whole thing and coming to a mature decision to put it behind me, which is impossible considering I'm not thinking about it.>>
He fluffed up his feathers in an bird body language attempt to shake it off. <<Anyway, good luck in the sewers.>> Then he launched himself into the air. Thinking about the other day and his morphing attempts he added, <<do you think you can show me that flying-morphing thing that you do?>>
Katrina
Kat refrained from glancing to Matt. She didn't want him to think she couldn't handle this, and she wasn't sure if the calm, sure look she'd put on would hold if she looked at him. Thankfully the mask wouldn't need t oremain their for long since she would be morphing in a moment. They were mostly waiting for her and Ember to morph so they could go.
She started to focus on her goose morph, closing her eyes as she usually did. She made a mental note to try to get out of that habbit. If she got into a situation it would probably be good to be able to see while she morphed. The feathers rushed up to cover her body as the her arms formed wings and her bones hollowed out. Her organs moved themselves around in an uncomfortable manner. Her body shrunk and her mouth and nose stretched forward then hardened to form a beak. Soon the canadian goose had taken the brown haired girl's place.
A pair of black eyes glanced around at the others a moment as she waited for Matt to tell them to head out. She was preparing herself for the awkward flight that was soon to commence. She didn't think Ember would strike up a conversation along the way so it would probably be a quite journey.
Ember
Ember easily ignored Rian's first statement, not keen to hear anything that might break her concentration on ignoring her problem with Kat altogether. But her mood brightened immediately at what he next said, reminding her of the one skill she'd honed past anyone expectations. "Oh? You mean, like this?"
The Cardinal's mind rose unbidden to her, not needing an image to call forth the spirit. His energy was the first thing she felt. Bolting toward the ocean, away from the haunt and the others... away from Kat, letting the anger ebb away as the wind flowed beneath her wings. Like water running rapid through her skin, the feathers grew and fluttered charmingly. The transformation taking less than five seconds, shifting in fast paced liquid movements that left onlookers with nothing more than a red blur as she shot off into the sky with one final leap from the grass.
Maybe she couldn't get her other morphs past three minutes, but her Cardinal was all she needed to raise her spirits, only slightly regretful that she had to turn back to pick up her team mate.
Matt
<<Okay folks>> Matt projected to all after Ember and Kat had morphed <<we're off. Stick together as a group as much as you can, but don't draw attention to yoursleves. Basically, keep at least one other member of the group in sight at all times. Steve, you and I will use each other. Someone can get ahead of me if they like, but it will mostly be me leading because it's easier for you all as birds to stay with me than me to look up so I stay with you.>>
Okay, that should have taken care of any possible way this could go wrong. That was all he had to say, so he reared up and then started out towards the city. Hopefully they could avoid looking too odd, though that was almost impossible all things considered. A horse, a pronghorn, a seagull, a magpie, a goose, a kestral, and a cardinal normally did not travel as a group. That was why he'd said keep one person in sight. Hopefully that would still leave them spread out enought to look somewhat ignorable.
Stevert
Steve answered Matthew, <<Gotcha Matt!>> and in open thought-speak he said, <<If anyone up there hhets tired, you can always land on my back and ride on me for awhile.>> Steve craned his head up and looked at everyone in the sky. If pronghorns could've smiled, Steve would've been. Steve was laughing inside at the sight of all the different birds flying overhead. By now, Matt had gotten a somewhat big head start so Steve took of in pursuit.
When he had caught up with Matt, Steve slowed down so he wouldn't get chewed out. Staying side by side, Steve said to Matthew, <<Umm, Matt? How are we going to map the sewers? I don't really have much of a photographic memory and I forgot to pack a piece of paper and a pencil. I was just wondering, you know, in case that was an important part of the mission or something. Just in case it is, uh, what will we do? And what will happen once we're in the sewers?>>
Rian
Rian wasn't flying very close to anyone. If yeerks saw any birds in the air they would get suspicious since they had killed the birds but having 5 in the air was down right dangerous. So Rian was as high as he could get, right below the lowest cloud layer and hoping that they wouldn't be spotted. Jullian's white body wasn't too conspicuous and neither was Bane's black and white. But Kat's goose was pretty big and noticeable and Ember's cardinal was bright red though small.
He just hoped nothing would go wrong this early in the plan. If it did he would feel responsible. It was true that it was Matt's job to see this plan through but it was Rian who had come up with it and he wouldn't know what to do with himself if it went horrible wrong and someone got hurt.
He started going over everything in his head one last time. Had he checked out the sewer entrance they were going to be entering through? Yes, ok, good. Had he remembered to put the paper and pencils in his morphing suit to morph and bring with them so that they could map the sewers? For a panicked moment he thought the answer was no because Jullian had made him change into the new morphing suit. Had he switched the stuff over? Wait, yes he had. They were in his pockelt ((pocket/belt)). Alright. Did everyone know where to meet up? Not yet but Matt would make sure everyone knew the deal when they got there. Had he missed anything?
<<Matt, I keep feeling like I forgot something or like something might go wrong. Do you have that feeling at all?>>
Rian walked into the main room to see that everyone else was already gathered for the faction meeting. He had been the last to arrive because he had been on guard duty seeing as they still had Robert in the store room. He would have been fine but the first time he had walked into the main room Jullian had insisted that he go change into the new morphing outfits that he had made all of them.
Everyone else apparently had already gotten theirs. Rian had gone and changed into the almost all black uniform. In the end it was made of a black muscle shirt with and angel logo across the shoulders and black running shorts that were tight but not too tight and ended right above the knees. The only thing of color in the uniform was a wide, spandex belt that could be pulled on over the head. Rian didn't know what the purpose of it was but he had requested dark blue and apparently everyone had gotten to choose their own color.
Now dressed in the new uniform of the LA Faction members he took a seat in the common room and waited for Matt to start the meeting.
Matt
Matt stood up in front of the group. In the new morphing suits his black tips seemed to stand out even more, matching the black of the suit. He belt was a gold color and he'd been given a specific top by Ember and Jullian. When everyone came in wearing their morphing suits he'd seen why. The logo on his shoulders had a halo-like crown on it to indicate his being the leader. Leave it to them to feel my morphing suit needs to set me apart, he thought, though inwardly he kind of liked these suits.
Everyone was here, Rian having returned from putting his new uniform on. Matt kind of felt like it could have waited until after the meeting, but Jullian had been insistant. "Okay people, a while back Rain suggested to me an idea of mapping the sewer system of the city and then using the maps to go on raids in the city. What we'd be taking is controllers, holding them for three days and then freeing them. We haven't really done anything as a faction yet so this will be our first mission, fortunately it should be easy and make a good test misson."
He paused for a moment glancing around the room. Kat, Ember, Jullian, Steve, Bane, and Rian. The plan was to split into groups and he only hoped he hadn't made terrible choices of who he put with whom. All he knew was that the three leaders wouldn't have changed no matter what organization he'd chosen. "To do this mission we will split into three groups. One group of three lead by me and two pairs each with a leader I've chosen. Before I announce them are there any questions?"
Rian
Ember, like everyone else, was in her new morphing outfit. However, unlike the others she'd been around when they'd been designing and picking out fabrics. Hers was a one piece gymnast suit, black sheen like the other's, and Jullian had picked out a red belt to match her cardinal's feathers. She thought it looked wonderful and decided to officially change her favorite color from pink to bright red. It was a color that seemed to reflect every animal she'd been given on one scale or another, so maybe it was a sign that she was destined for it? It was certainly more mature than pink, and could show how much she'd changed since the beginning the war. The logo was a bit smaller on her shoulder blades because there was less room to situate it, but it matched with everyone else's quite nicely.
From what Matt said, it seemed like they were finally taking the offensive against the yeerks. Ember, who always had something constantly bugging her that could be used as fierce rage against an opponent, was all too ready to get going. But groups? And three leaders? Naturally Rian and Matt would be the first two, but she could hardly expect any bonuses thrown her way after her last trip to LA. Did that mean he was electing Jullian? Oh boy, she could already play out how little would get accomplished with that kid leading the way. Although if he got paired with steve... She smiled slightly.
Jullian
Jullian had chosen to stand in order to best show off the new outfits. It was a vain move and probably no one would notice but him. He intellectually knew all that but they had worked so hard for these. They had literally bled for them and even though no one else knew that, he was proud of them. So he stood.
He had chosen a light blue belt for himself. The belts had been his idea after Rian had told him a story about the obstacle course. Now they had a place to put items and the belt would keep them skin tight so that it would follow them through the morphing process. Hopefully anyway. He had a feeling not everything would morph but small things might.
He had also wanted to have armbands of the same color as the belts with everyone's name on them but Ember had flatly refused because of the source of material. Seriously what was wrong with using speedos for armbands. It wasn't like they were speedos anymore.
Then Matt started the meeting. Groups uh. He wondered who he would be put with.
Katrina
Katrina had never been a fan of skin tight clothing. She'd always preferred something loose and free to move around in, but upon accepting the morphing abilities that came with being an animorph, she'd also accepted that skin tight was the new way to go. She didn't mind these new outfits. She liked them better then what she'd had to choice from when she'd first received her morphs.
Her suit was a s tight shirt, probably meant for some kind of sport but Kat wasn't into that kind of thing so she wasn't completely sure. It seemed like a good guess though. The logo on the shoulder had been the first thing to catch her eye when she'd been given the new outfit, and she admired it's design. It looked pretty neat and she wondered if was something Jullian had come up with all on his own. The shorts might have been from some kind of sport store too for all she knew. They were tight as well and not what she was used to but she needed to deal with that. At least her outfit came in two pieces, unlike Ember's. Kat knew she wouldn't have been comfortable in something like the gymnast suit, so she was grateful for what she'd gotten. Around her waist was the only splash of color the suit held. She'd chosen purple.
Kat's eyes scanned the faces of the other faction members before they rested on Matt. He was talking about a mission that would be her first. Steve had already gone on a small mission and come back with his brother, but she hadn't had any kind of mission yet so far. It made her a bit nervous. She wondered about the groups, curious as to who the leaders would be and where she'd be placed. Matt had already said he's be one, Rian seemed like second in command from what she'd seen so probably him, then... maybe Ember? She wasn't sure if Jullian would be put in charge of a group, but she was pretty sure that since Steve, Bane and herself were so new it wouldn't be one of them.
She didn't have any questions for the time being, so she just sat quietly.
Matt
Matt waited for a while for people to speak up. When no one volunteered anything he absently rubbed one bare arm as he ran over the groups in his mind. "The first group will be Myself, Jullian, and Steve. The second Rian and Bane with Rian in charge. The third, Ember and Kat with Ember in charge. I trust both Ember and Rian to make the choices I would no matter what situation thier group comes accross down there. If you run into anything, leaders morph into your most violent morph and someone else shout. Hopefully the leader can hold off whatever it is until another team can arrive to help." Most violent morph would vary depending one person. For Matt is was croc, for Rian it was wolf, and for Ember is was her horse. Matt hoped any danger would be confronted by his or Rian's groups since the horse wouldn't be quite as dangerous.
"For forms I'd say go with landbound animals. Foxes, cat, ferret, monkey, squirrel and racoon would proably best since we'd all be around the same size that way. I think smaller is possibly better right now." Again he rubbed his arm trying to figure out if there was something he could say before he got any possible question now that the groups had been revealed. Despite that he'd had a sleevless morph top since moving to L.A. he felt like there should have been something on his arm to play with. An armband possibly. Still, he'd seen the fabric and had the suspicion his belt had once been part of a speedo. The armbands would have come from that too.... though the fabric had never served it's original function so it didn't really matter that much.
He'd gotten a look at himself in a mirror after putting the suit on. Though the suit emphasised his scorched hair it also made his eyes darker and his skin seem slightly lighter. He was naturally pale as it was so he had to wonder if black was really a good color on him. Still, Ember and Jullian had made the suits. Their judgement was definitely better than his own.
Ember
Ember didn't say anything, but it was hard to hide the wide smile that started to spread across her face. This must be the challenge Matt had talked about earlier, though she couldn't believe he actually put her in charge. Although... she couldn't help but glance over at Kat once the giddy feeling had died away. She was supposed to lead the girl who shot her teammate? They would have to rely on each other completely in order to make it through LA safely, and even then it would be dangerous. What if she'd been on the shopping trip with Kat instead of Jullian? Somehow she doubted she could have summoned such energy to save someone she barely knew...
But what could she do? No Matt, I'm sorry but I'm just too much of a prick to accept your extremely trusting offer? Not likely.
Jullian
Jullian flashed Ember a big smile to say he was happy for her then he turned back to Matt. Ok, this sucked. Mapping the sewers. They were going to be walking around in, in, waste. And this had been Rian's idea. Of course it had been Rian's idea because Rian would come up with something like this.
He tried to keep the look of displeasure off his face. Matt would probably be able to tell since he was Matt but he thought he did a pretty good job as far as hiding it from the others. Well, at least they would be going on the offensive. And these were brand new morphing outfits too. Maybe he better get started on making sure everyone had a spare.
Rian
He couldn't say he was surprised that he had been picked to lead one of the groups. It made sense, he was the most experienced here after Matt. So he wasn't surprised but he was glad. For some reason it always felt good to know that Matt trusted him, trusted him enough to send him on his own.
He spared a moment to be happy for Ember too. Maybe she would finally stop feeling guilty about what had happened knowing that she was trusted with this.
He turned his mind towards the mission. Bane. Not a bad choice for a team mate. He didn't know the older boy very well but that just meant he would now have the opportunity. And they both had fox morphs that they could use for travel in the sewers. Yeah, he had a good feeling about this mission. It felt good to be fighting back.
Katrina
Katrina closed her eyes a moment after hearing Matt say where she'd been placed. She felt her stomach flip-flop from the news. She opened her gray optics and just stared straight at Matt, biting her lower lip a bit. She tried to keep her face composed and her gaze directed at the faction leader as he continued to speak.
She still hadn't had a chance to speak to Ember. Even after all this time, she had yet to talk things over with her and try to smooth things over. In fact, she didn't think she'd really said more then a few words to her at all! She'd been preparing for the right moment, but it always seemed like Ember either wasn't in the mood to talk to anyone or she'd been with someone else. Kat felt cowardly, but she did intend to talk to her, it was just things never went the right way to lead up to it. She really did want to make things right...
She continued to slightly chew on her bottom lip due to her nerves. She didn't know what Ember felt about her. She didn't have much to go off of other then the punch to the face, awkward silences around other members, and the like. She felt uneasy with this pairing, maybe even.. slightly afraid?
Kat mentally sighed. It was stupid to be afraid of something so trivial. Matt was putting Ember in charge for a reason. She doubted he would have put them together if Ember wasn't past what had happened, and could handle it. She felt silly for feeling so uncomfortable, but she couldn't help it and tried hard not to let it show on her face, though maybe biting her lip gave it away...
She needed to talk to Ember. It had to be before this mission. It had to be soon.
Stevert
Steve was trying to control himself. He was very eager to go on the mission and it was all he could do to keep his mouth shut. He tried to occupy himself by looking at his morphing suit that Jullian and Ember made. It was a two piece suit. The top was a black spandex shirt with an angel logo on the shoulders. The bottom was a pair of black, tight shorts that reached to his knees. The only other bit of color on his uniform besides the logo, was the bright green spandex belt that he had requested from Jullian. He looked back up to hear Matt tell who was going with who on the mission. When he heard his name, he quickly restrained himself from jumping up. Steve felt confident about the mission, especially since Matt and his crocodile were coming along.
Then he listened and heard the rest of the list. Naturally, Rian was a leader. And suprisingly, so was Ember. Not that Steve had really thought about who would lead the third team so everyone would have been a surprise. Suddenly, Steve remembered something, "Matthew, what about Robert? Who would guard him? Maybe we could seal the storage room off totally." Steve didn't want to do that to his brother but it might be necessary.
While he was waiting for a response, his gaze drifted over the other Animorphs. Kat looked like she had some kind of problem, possibly with Ember. Jullian looked okay with the idea but there was something that Steve couldn't place in his eyes. Rian looked a little bored as if he had already done this mission several times before. Ember looked very happy, judging by her huge smile. Steve couldn't read Matt's or Bane's face at all. Steve was fidgeting around in his excitement so he clamped his hands on the sides of his chair and tried to control himself.
Matt
Matt glanced up and down the line of people. Bane wasn't showing a reaction yet. Steve was excited, possibly over the mission, and seemed to be forcing himself to remain calm. Rian was as ever serious about the situation, though Matt thought he'd seen Rian flash a smile of congratulations over towards Ember. Jullian seemed disgusted and it was probably about the whole idea of traversing the sewers with their new morphing suits. Matt would see if that couldn't be fixed by later reassuring the kid he'd planned on taking the new suits to the laudrymat afterward. He had't, but he hadn't planned on having the new suits to begin with. Lastly Ember and Kat. Ember seemed proud of herself and ready for the challenge. The fact that Matt still trusted her after the shopping trip would boost her back to being herself hopefully. Kat.... seemed overall nervous, but Ember had too for the moment she'd glanced at Kat.
I hope I did the right thing here, Matt said to himself. He didn't let his emotion show on his face right now. They couldn't know he was doubting his choices. He'd paired the groups together for the exact reason that the older and newer members hadn't worked together before. Matt had rescued Ember with Jullian, but throw Steve into the mix and things could get a little crazy. Besides, it had mostly been a react without thinking rescue where Matt had been ordering Jullian around. Rian and Bane would hopefully connect through having fox morphs. Kat and Ember had been the toughest pairing. He knew the two hadn't reconciled about the shooting thing though, so mostly this was a nudge, or more a shove, in the right direction. I order to work as an effective group they would have to resolve the issue of what had happened more than a week ago, when Kat and Steve had first met the Animorphs of L.A.
"Robert for one thing is tied up," said Matt. "I thought at first about leaving someone to watch him, but that's not really fair to whoever gets that shift because it would have an indeffinite end and everyone else would be on the mission into town. Instead, I found a fairly decent solution. For one thing, we would have needed some sort of system like that when we started the raids so we could have someone tied up for their last day while we went on one. So, I got a new doorknob for the storage room door, one that locks, and I kept the key. Rian knew about it, he helped instal it shortly before this meeting. Kind of hard for anyone to unlock it from the inside when the window is boarded up and the only person inside is tied up so we're effectivly down one gaurd duty for the duration of the mission." Matt had been rather impressed he'd come up with anything at all when he wasn't usually the ideas person, but this had really just been a logic puzzle that needed solving or at least that's how he'd viewed it. The key was in his room, in a luggage tag that was attached to the bottom of one of the drawers in the dresser. It seemed reasonable enough for hidding it. He'd debated keeping it on him, but if he ever died in morph on a mission no one would ever open that door again.
Stevert
Steve took the response in stride. "Okay then, when do we start this 'mission'? All we're doing is mapping out the sewers right? That can't be to hard, right?" Then in a lower voice he added, "Unless the sewers are infested with taxxons and Hork-Bajir and they all have Dracon beams." Then his smile manifested itself again as Steve asked, "So what are we waiting for? The winter solstice? C'mon, let's get started!"
Then Steve shut up before anyone could get mad at him. That happened way to frequently.
A couple minutes later however, Steve jumped up and went into the storage room to say good-bye to Robert. He spent several more minutes talking to his brother before he closed the door and went back to his seat.
Bane
Bane had been quiet, taking in everything Matt said. So he was paired up with Rian? He didn't even have to look to remember who that was. His mind flashed to that rather forced conversation between himself, Rian, and Ember, and how they hadn't seemed to really want him there. He shook his head and forced his mind to focus on other things.
His morphing suit was similar to Rian's, though his shirt had sleeves, though short and tight, and his shorts were a bit longer. He had liked the logo, it was unique and he found it kind of cool. For his belt he had chosen a dark maroon, which seemed an odd choice, but he felt it fit for some reason.
He wondered what would happen on this mission, and wondered what would happen with Rian. Best case scenario, the became friends. Worst case scenario, they became enemies. He really hoped the latter didn't happen, as it would make it rather difficult being in the same faction.
Wonder how Kat'll handle this... The thought popped into his head. Kat was the faction member he'd talked to the most, mostly because they were both new and Steve was usually running about too fast for Bane to really get a chance to know the chatterbox. He knew now about the tension between her and Ember, and hoped they could work it out.
Rian
Well that seemed to be all there was to say about the groupings. They would either work out or they wouldn't. He was impatient to get started. He had run this mission so many times in his head over the past few weeks that he felt like it was already done. And yet another part of him was a bundle of nerves knowing that something that he had never thought of could happen in those tunnels. Either way the only way to know what would happen on the tunnel mission was to do it.
And then they had an even more dangerous mission to try. They had to somehow get ahold of Hork-Bajir morphs but that would come later. Get past this mission first, he reminded himself.
He looked to Matt to see if there were anymore instructions before they went to the air and then to the tunnels.
Ember
Ember caught a glance from Kat. The girl looked like she was going to have an aneurysm. Either that or she was going to pounce. Ember could practically read her thoughts just from that expression. The girl was going to try and have a meaningful talk, maybe apologize, and then whoop de doo everything will be right as rain in her head.
Great. Fun.
No way, never going to happen. Sure Ember wanted to get along with everyone, sort of, but she was pretty sure that if she was put through a 'talk' she was just going to punch Kat in the nose again before it was through. Not the best of ways to start a mission. Especially since she was aching to get out of the Haunt. Maybe if she could just avoid her until they left... ugh, maybe it would just go away. Heck, they could be playing bridge by nightfall and making smores and talking girl-shop.
"So! When can we start?"
Matt
Matt could sense some tension between people about the groups he'd put together, but that was the point of things. If you were forced to trust someone it forced you to get over any issues you had and he knew some of the pairs had quite a few issues with each other. Overall it just seemed like everyone was ready to go and he couldn't blame them. Sitting around gave them more chance to question the groups they'd been put in. He, personally, was ready to go.
"If everyone is ready to go we can start now. We'll morph our air morphs to get into the city and then we'll head into the sewers and split up. Jullian, I get the feeling you're worried about the new uniforms getting dirty. Keep in mind that we're going to stay in morph most of the time and the fact that I've morphed a wet morphing suit and demorphed with it completely dry. Any dirt or grime that gets on these will be gone as soon as we morph again." Matt knew it bugged Jullian when he did that, but he couldn't help it when he knew what was bothering folks.
"I say if there's anything someone needs to do before we head out you have ten minutes to take care of it. I'm going to head outside and wait. When everyone's out there we're taking to the skies. This is our first real mission folks. Here's to it going as well as it possibly can." With this he turned from the group and exited the door to the front porch and the beach. His eyes drifted to the waves and a light breeze toyed with his bangs. His first real mission as a leader. This time he not only didn't have Raven as a guide, but he was guiding other people too. I'd be stupid not to be nervous. Just the fact that I am indicates that I'll be just fine.
Jullian
Morph away dirt? A new innovation. Well, we'll certainly get a chance to see how well it works. He didn't really have much to do before they left. He wanted to wish Rian and Ember good luck since he wouldn't be with them but he was worried that if he did then it would show that he didn't care about Kat, Bane and Steve, which wasn't true. He was just closer to Ember and Rian, that was all.
He settled for looking at them before heading outside. Then he began to shrink as his body was replaced by a seagull's.
Katrina
Ten minutes. She had only ten minutes to try to say something that wouldn't end up making the only other female faction member hate her more? Was that even possible? It was going to take a hell of a lot longer then that to get things worked out. She'd been hoping the mission would be tomorrow, that way she'd be able to corner Ember after the meeting and then give her most of the night to think things over and maybe calm down after whatever might possibly happen.
Any subtle way of bringing up the topic wasn't going to happen in the short amount of time she was given. Why couldn't Matt have given her some kind of warning? Would it have been hard to swing by quickly and say something like, 'Hey, I'm pairing you up with Ember in a day or so, maybe you should get a move on with working things out..' Kat held back a groan and tried to keep the unease off her face. This should have been resolved by now...
She glanced to Ember a moment then looked away as if she hadn't. With a deep breath and no idea of what she was actually going to say, she stood up. She mustered up confidence and forced herself to seem calm now, then began to slowly head in Ember's direction.
Rian
Rian went over to Bane after Matt and Jullian had left. He had yet to really talk to the other faction member and looked forward to this mission as a way to get to know him. He mentally tried to remember what morphs Bane had at his disposal, black fox, magpie and, if he wasn't mistaken, some type of lizard. As he reached Bane he held out his hand.
"I know we've already met but, except for one awkward conversation, we haven't really got a chance to get to know each other. I'm Rian."
Stevert
Since the meeting was obviously dismissed, Steve took the oppurtunity to run to the bathroom. After about a minute or so, he joined Jullian and Matt outside and began to concentrate on the blue jay DNA inside of him.
He felt his bones hollow out and his vision increase. His nose and mouth stretched out and became his beak. A cool-looking tattoo of feathers appeared all over his skin. Steve watched as they became 3D and become blue, white, and black feathers. The feathers on his butt stretched out and became wings at the same time his legs reversed direction and became scaly. By now, Steve was a human-sized blue jay with arms instead of wings and scaly legs with human toes. Then he concentrated on his feet as two of them melted together and another one traveled to the back of his foot. His toes grew claws and his legs were complete. Then he concentrated on his wings and thirty seconds later, he as a human-sizeed blue jay. <<Ha this is so-->> as he broke off thought-speak and began to talk, "cooooool!" <<Hey, I wonder if I can fly like this.>>
With that, Steve tried to fly but quickly discovered that he couldn't.<<Rats! I'm probably to big and heavy for flight. Ow well, it would have been cool.>> he said in open thought-speak.
Bane
"Bane, and I guess now we'll get the chance to really know each other," The black-haired boy said, clasping Rian's hand in his own to shake.
His eyes wandered over to Kat, seeing her moving towards Ember. Good luck... He thought, hoping things would work out between them. He returned his gaze to Rian, unsure of what to say to his teammate, and they had ten minutes to prepare...
First Magpie, then Fox. He made a mental note of which morphs he'd be using. Won't get much of a chance to try out that skink I guess... His newest morph was one that he hadn't had much practice with, though maybe that was a good thing...
Matt
"Keep track of your time in morph." Matt said to Steve and Jullian as he noticed the two morphing. He wasn't going to morph yet. His bat hated the daylight but kept up with the bird morphs of the other faction members a lot better than his hummingbird morph was capable of. He personally was going to wait as long as possible to force the bat to work in an environment that wasn't natural for it.
For now he'd wait and hope the groups still inside weren't made at him for throwing them together the way he did. Matt could see Bane and Rian talking, which seemed to be going well, and Kat approaching Ember. Matt felt bad only giving them ten minutes to work out the issue between them, but they really should have worked it out already or at least attempted to. As far as he knew they hadn't even brought it up. You're doing fine. Raven said that you could do this when she came and she wasn't lying. You can lead a mission and eveyone will survive.
Rian
"I hope so. And we'll be able to test the fox morphs. I had a teammate back in Chicago who had a fox morph but his was a gray fox. We had fun testing out the differences. Hopefully we won't run into anything too bad in the tunnels. Our foxes should be able to outrun most things." He stopped for a second wondering if there was more to say about the mission but couldn't think of anything. "Are you ready because I think maybe we should go," he said glancing over to where Kat was approaching Ember.
He knew Ember wouldn't do anything too bad especially since she had been given a leadership role in this mission and could use the opportunity to make up for what she perceived as a failure of the shopping trip. Yeah, she wouldn't do anything too bad, uh, he thought. Still better to let them sort it out on their own.
Jullian
<<Oh, right,>> he said, a little embarrased that he hadn't thought of something that simple. He started to demorph. He knew they only had to wait 10 minutes but what if 10 minutes was the difference between being his own wonderful self and being a seagull.
When he was fully human he looked down at the blue jay and then at Matt and then back into the house. He started to whistle a little and tap a foot. Ok, so he was a little impatient but he was excited.
That thought stopped him. Excited? About crawling around in a sewer in his brand new clothes? Ok, maybe excited wasn't the best word. But he really wanted to do something to fight the yeerks. He had a feeling he wasn't the only one glad that they were striking back.
Stevert
Steve heard Matt's voice and said, <<How long will it take us to get to the sewers? I still have about an hour and 50 minutes in morph.>> Without waiting for answer, Steve followed Jullian's example and started to demorph. About three minutes later, he was his normal hpyeractive talkative self again.
Then he said to Matthew, "do you think It would be possible for us to find a watch that we can morph? Like put a small tight watch on Jullian's or Rian's leg in their bird morphs since theirs are the only ones probably big enough to hold one. That way when they are birds, they have watches on but when they demorph, they are gone. How about it? We could also do the same on other morphs that can hold it, like the foxes, the wolf, the dingo, the coyote ((I'm assuming Kat would have the coyote by this point)) the horses, and the pronghorn. I think that those are our only morphs that could use a watch since we would also have to be able to see it. That's a lot of watches though and where would we get them? And all of the watches would have to be tight and not that big or else they won't morph. Well I think my squirrel, Jullian's monkey, and Kat's otter could all support a watch. For my squirrel, the watch may have to go on its stomach but I would still be able to see it."
Steve took a breathe and thenjogged over to Jullian, who seemed as excited about the mission as himself. "I can't wait to get started! " he said to Jullian, "we're finally doing something on the offensive!"
Bane
(Steve I don't think...things can demorph away like that...like...yeah, it morphs with the person, but I don't think it demorphs...but...I'm not 100% positive...)
Bane nodded in agreement to Rian. "Yeah, I'm ready." It would be easier for Kat and Ember if they could talk without anyone else there, and he doubted anything too bad would happen, especially right before a mission like this. He wished for the best before heading outside where Jullian, Matthew, and Steve were already waiting.
He kept the image of the Magpie in his head, but didn't concentrate on morphing it yet. He thought about what Rian had said, their fox morphs out running most things. Fox, small bird, lizard...none of his choices were very good offensive morphs, though fox was probably his best bet, plus it's speed was better than the others as well.
Matt
"Not to be a party pooper but what you're suggesting is impossible. We can morph clothes from human to animal and back because they're part of our natural state of being before we morphed.They go into z-space with the rest of the matter we aren't using from ourselves when in morph and come back when we demorph. With the animals though, if it isn't in their DNA we can't morph it onto them. It would have to be something we can wear both as an animal and a human for it to work which would mean one per person so actually a lot less watches, but I don't know if you could find something that would stretch enough while remaining comforable."
Matt had turned to Steve as he was talking. He didn't know a lot about morphing, but he had explained what he could that had been passed onto him from Raven who'd learned it from Cassie. He didn't really understand some of it himself, but he knew enough to know Steve's idea wansn't possible.
Matt's eyes drifeted back to the water. A few more minutes and they could be going. "It won't take us too long to get into the city," he said, answering the question Steve had asked but had seemed to decide didn't matter. Rian and Bane were coming out now. That just left Kat and Ember. I don't know if Kat was going to try and patch things up now or not, he thought. I can only hope whatever happens goes well.
Rian
Rian walked out of the Haunt and joined Matt, Steve and Jullian. He didn't morph yet but he did demorph so that he would be ready to go whenever Ember and Kat came out. As always Rian felt extremely uncomfortable and self conscious when he had to return to his female form around others so he wondered away and sat under a tree away from the group.
He stared at the ocean and waited for Ember and Kat to come out of the Haunt. The water was choppy today and the sky was slightly overcast. Not exactly your normal southern california weather. He hoped it wasn't an omen.
Bane
Bane was...needless to say...very confused.
Had he just watched Rian turn younger or something? He was very, very confused...
He watched Rian walk off, doing his best not to stare curiously. It was certainly...different..
He forced himself not to stare, to concentrate on other things. It was rude, and really none of his business anyway. He knew his curiousity would be nagging at him, but he could easily push it away. What mattered was the mission, not Rian's sudden change. He was actually really excited for some reason, but he kept that under control as well. After sitting in a room for three days tied to a chair and then being confined to a small area, a little excitement would definitely do him some good.
Jullian
"I know!" Steve's obvious excitement broke down Jullian's reluctance to show his own. That's when Rian and Bane came out and Rian demorphed and wondered away. He saw Bane looking slightly confused and knew that Rian probably wouldn't want to explain the situation himself. That and he couldn't resist the opportunity to tell a secret, that actually wasn't a secret at all if he thought about it.
"Rian's a transguy. I was surprised too, when I first found out on the road here. Apparently that means you're born into one body but don't feel right or something like that. I'm not exactly sure, I just know he morphs a boy body all the time but has so demorph to girl before he can morph anything else. He doesn't like talking about it though. Isn't that weird? I don't mean weird in a bad way just weird in an odd way. I mean how many transpeople are out there anyway and yet one ends up in the animorphs. The only one I know of is Alexis on Ugly Betty but she's a tv character so I guess the only one I know is Rian 'cause he's a real person."
He looked back in the house. "Do you think Kat and Ember will take a long time?"
Ember
Dangit. The last thing Ember wanted was to be left alone in the Haunt with Kat, but when she next looked around that was exactly what had happened. Quick, she subtly turned around to search for an escape, find a distraction or something, anything that would help her avoid the growing tension.
Bugger this, she thought peevishly, a heart felt talk was not what she wanted before going out on a mission and she'd be damned if Kat managed to do anything other than make her more annoyed within the ten minutes they'd been given. There was nothing for it. Ember had to call it off before the girl got any ideas. "Ok, pick your morph. I'm going Cat so don't form anything i'd eat, that's all i ask . Now c'mon we need to go, the boys are waiting." She kept her comments curt, directing them at the door. What she wanted was to go ahead and morph, but she couldn't risk the time limit just to avoid talking so instead she walked with as much purpose as possible toward the door and so help the girl if she called her on it.
Katrina
Ember spoke first which got rid of Kat's dilemma over how best to begin speaking. It was clear from her behavior that she wasn't all for being alone with Kat or even speaking to her. Yea.. This mission's gonna go great.. Kat thought, not feeling very optimistic at the moment about the current situation.
"Mine's Raccoon," She said, trying to keep her manner calm and relaxed even though she didn't feel that way.
Ember was already heading to the door quickly, making a break for it. Kat wondered if she was aware of just how easy it was to read her actions. It was clear she didn't want to sort anything out in the ten minutes they'd been given, which probably meant she still had bad feelings about what had happened. Maybe trying to talk would start some kind of a fight... that wasn't exactly what they needed. She felt like she was just making cowardly excuses again. Damn it.
As she started to follow she decided to ask one thing. "..Are you ok with this?.." She was a bit apprehensive about how her question would be answered.
Stevert
Steve kind of felt embarrassed by his somewhat stupid question. "Oh, I just thought that since we morph into animals with no clothing and demorph into ourselves with clothing on, why couldn't we morph into animals with watches on and demorph into ourselves wihtout watches on. But if that won't work, than I guess it was only worth a shot."
Steve was extremeley hyper now. He was really tempted to go squirrel and burn the energy off. Or maybe go blue jay and start flying around. Then he walked towards Matthew and said, "Do we have to fly? Can't we run? I'm super energetic, on the off-chance that you haven't noticed which I highly doubt since you guys seem to think I'm hyper when I'm asleep but back to what I was saying. Flying doesn't seem to take much energy, especially today with this good wind. Running however takes a lot more work. Besides I want to use the Pronghorn. It's fast. Probably faster than your horse. Jullian could ride on our backs or be our eye in the sky. Besides, I don't think our birds can keep up with a seagull. Too small. Our ungulates would have better chances. So how about it? But if we do have to fly, I'm okay with that to since I'm not as energetic as I was a minute or so ago. Maybe it is because of me talking. Oh well. When do we start?"
Matt
Matt considered Steve's suggestion about using the horse and the pronghorn morphs to run below the others in bird morphs. He'd been intending to use his bat, though it wasn't a large morph really. It was better than using his hummingbird in a case like this, but maybe the horse would also be a better option than the morph that had earned him the nickname Bruce from Tim.
"I guess you're right," said Matt. "I was planning on using my bat morph rather than the hummingbird anyways since the the hummingbird is so small it would get left behind by everyone else. Still, we both would have a better chance of keeping up with everyone if we used the pronghorn and the horse. Being the only ground members though you'll have to hold back on the speed so we can stay together in case something happens." Whatever worked to get them into the city, Matt didn't really care what it was. He would make sure the group stuck together as much as possible between the haunt and L.A., but if running got rid of some of Steve's energy then they might be less annoyed by him in the sewers. That and Matt's horse morph wouldn't be so annoyed about being out in the daylight.
Bane
Bane just sort of...stared at Jullian, barely able to comprehend all that he'd heard before the boy had started talking again. Transguy? Demorph? Ugly Betty? Kat and Ember?
He took a moment to respond to Jullian, trying to sort his thoughts. So Rian was really...female? He'd thought he'd just looked younger..and he had never even considered the possibility of morphing a human. Maybe it was a bit weird...like Jullian said, how many could there be in the world?
"Uh...I guess...it's a bit strange...but I mean...there's nothing really wrong with it..." He didn't think Jullian thought there was, but he just wanted to make sure his comment was taken wrongly. It did make him a bit uncomfortable thinking about it, but that didn't make Rian a bad person or an overly strange person.
He was about to answer Jullian when he noticed Ember, then Kat, heading for the door. The way the too walked...it was obvious they'd gotten no talking done. He frowned a bit, though not very noticeable, disliking the fact that it was obvious Ember was avoiding it. What was so bad about just talking to Kat?
Matt
Matt saw Kat and Ember coming. They hadn't gotten over the issue yet. Ember had, in fact, wanted to aviod discussing it. Matt only hoped it wouldn't become a problem when they were in the sewers. He knew he hadn't given them enough time, but the feeling that everyone in the faction was waiting on them would have been odd for both of them and would have made the topic harder to discuss..... or so he'd thought at the time. It was too late to take what he'd said back though, so he'd need to live with his decision and whatever it's results were.
"Okay everyone. Morphing time. We stick together until we get to the city because we'll be mapping the sewers in our groups. Steve, do you still want to run or are we flying too? LIke I said, we run and we need to stay with each other and with the group and I will remind you of this if you start getting too far ahead." Matt was mostly making a point. Steve may be energetic and may be fast in his pronghorn, but staying together came first in a team. That was one thing Matt had worried about with Steve, the fact that he liked to be so fast in his morph and that he'd be forced to stick to the pace his group members set. Would he be able to do it?
Stevert
"Oh, goody! Let's go!" Steve said to Matthew, "Sure let's run. Our air morphs wouldn't keep up with the others as well, except for your bat but it is still bright out. And I'll try not to get to far ahead of you. I've been practicing my morphs so it should be a little easier to control the pronghorn."
With that, Steve began to morph into the pronghorn. Orange-ish fur appeared on his back, neck, head, arms, and legs as tan fur appeared on his belly. White fur shot out onto his butt. "Wow, this is sooo attractive." he said as his spine lengthened and a short tail appeared over the patch of white fur. Steve started to say, This is so cool but he only managed "This is sogh cohlgg" as his mouth and nose stretched out in front of his face. His vision enhanced itself and his eyes moved to the sides of his face. His ears moved to the top of his head and grew longer. <<I love the senses on this animal!>> Steve exclaimed through thought-speak. Steve tried walking towards Matthew but he fell forward as his hind legs thinned and transformed. Then his arms become a pronghorn's front legs. Steve said, <<For some reason, this morph doesn't feel right. Wait! I know what I did wrong.>> Steve focused on the antelope one more time and two pronged antlers shot out of his head. <<Much better.>> He thought.
By now Steve was pretty hyped about the mission. <<Hey Matthew, I have a question. How are we going to map the sewers exactly? I don't think my pronghorn can write very well. Nor can it hold a map or a piece of paper.>>
Jullian
"Oh no. Nothing wrong with it. I mean being, like, gender non-comforming is like the new gay. Well, I mean, he is gender conforming just not his birth gender but whatever. Works for me. I do wonder where he got the human morph though. He's never told me. Maybe you could find out while you guys are in the sewers."
The thought of running around in the sewers reminded Jullian of the mission. It made him excited and grossed out at the same time. Both of these emotions flashed across his easy to read face.
"Good luck on the mission." It seemed like the right thing to say. He turned to Matt, ready to go.
When Jullian heard that Steve and Matt were going ground morphs he thought about using his dingo morph but on second thought it probably wouldn't be a good idea. The horse and antelope might not be too cool with a dingo around so he began morphing his seagull instead.
Rian
Jullian wasn't the quietest person and Rian heard his whole explanation. He smiled at the Ugly Betty comparison and then at Jullian's insistence that being trans was trendy. It wasn't really, or at least it didn't feel that way but if that was how Jullian chose to look at it that was fine with Rian. It was better than rejection or awkward silences.
He turned and saw that Ember and Kat were coming out of the Haunt and began morphing his kestrel, glad to be free of his birth body.
Ember
Ember stopped dead short of the door, Kat's words freezing her to the bone. Was she ok with it? Hell no. Did she want to give up a leadership position just because she had a personal problem? She pursed her lips into a sharp frown, the idea was becoming more and more attractive. But no, if this was how she was going to live, then she had to step up and take the responsibility. Even if that meant being miserable the entire trip and doing her best to hide it. Ergh, that was going to be the most difficult part. Ember would be the first in line to say just how little she could hide her emotions.
Ok, well maybe she couldn't outright deny that she had a problem with the girl, but if she set this out alright then they could at least be professional. Moving her head without turning around, she spoke over her shoulder, "We don't have to be awkward about this. This is a mission, and any personal issues you and I might have aren't relevant. But if you think you can't work with me, Matt is right outside and he does need someone to watch Steve's brother if you'd rather stay behind."
Katrina
Kat had tensed a bit, coming to a stop as well behind Ember. For a brief chaotic moment in her head she flew through different scenarios and how she would deal with them based on the different reactions Ember could have. The reaction she received was about the best she could have hoped for. At least she hadn't got punched, which was one of the options she'd thought about in that brief moment of waiting. She'd just said that she could put her personal feelings aside to work with Kat during the mission. That was good enough.
" I can work with you. I was just wondering if you could work with me. If you're willing to put personal issues aside and go ahead with this, then I have no problem going ahead." Kat said calmly.
She wondered if Ember really would put all personal issues aside, but she wasn't about to turn back. She'd have to try to trust Ember, and Matt's decision to put her in charge, even if it was a bit nerve racking to be placed with her.
"Let's do this," Kat said, flashing a slight grin before heading past Ember and exiting the haunt to join the others.
Ember
The second-thought of punching Kat again flashed through Ember's mind, but she roughly pushed it aside before it got the better of her. "Right." She muttered her response through gritted teeth, following the girl out the door. This might be harder than she'd thought...
"Matt!" Ember walked over to him, giving Bane an odd glance as she passed by him. What on earth could have given him that soured expression? "Hey Matt..." She spoke, finally tearing her eyes away, "Are we ready to go?"
Matt
Matt had begun morphing the horse as soon as he'd given the order to morph. His hands changing into hooves as his hair lengthened and lightened, turning into the horse's mane. He always felt weird when his size changed, growing from a teenage boy with a thin frame to an adult horse. He wasn't sure if that grossed him out more or if it was worse when his bones, veins, and internal organs shifted around inside him to arrange like the horse's. The gold mane was now spreading over the rest of his his body, as the morph continued. After a few minutes he was fully transformed and actually glad he was going along with this morph. The horse didn't mind the daylight as much as the bat so the instincts wouldn't be complaining at him. The horse was perfectly content to come along for the ride into L.A.
Remembering a comment he'd overheard Jullian make to Bane, he sent Jullian a private thought-speak messge. <<Jullian, Rian told me once that he had a twin brother. Considering how similar the human morph looks to Rian's birth body I think he accidentally acquired his twin's DNA.>> Matt wasn't sure what he thought about that. He'd tried comparing it to what it would be like to morph Sara, but a female body would have felt unatural to Matt whereas the male body actually felt more natural to Rian.
Next Matt answered Ember's question. <<We're ready when you two have morphed into your bird morphs so we can leave.>> he said so all could hear. Even as he said this he wished he'd changed his mind and given them more time. I don't want to push them into reconciling about the issue if they aren't ready and I somehow think maybe I'm doing that as it is. Putting them in a group together is forcing them to get over it in a stressful situation. Am I asking for something to go wrong? He wasn't quite sure, all he knew was he had to live with the choice he'd made. It was too late to take it back now.
Bane
Bane wished he could have switched places with Kat somehow. Though there wasn't much in common between them other than the fact that they were both newer members, he'd formed a friendship with Kat. He didn't want to see her have to suffer during this mission, but he knew there was nothing he could do.
He then heard that they were going and began morphing into the Magpie. In about three minutes, black feathers had replaced skin, a beak was in place of a mouth, wings were held tight to the body rather than arms, feet became claws, and his size had shrunk drastically. He now stood as a black-billed Magpie rather than a seventeen year-old boy.
Ember
Rian laughed but only so Ember could hear. <<It's kinda funny that you haven't forgiven her for something she did to me. Not that I have exactly forgiven her, that would require thinking about the whole thing and coming to a mature decision to put it behind me, which is impossible considering I'm not thinking about it.>>
He fluffed up his feathers in an bird body language attempt to shake it off. <<Anyway, good luck in the sewers.>> Then he launched himself into the air. Thinking about the other day and his morphing attempts he added, <<do you think you can show me that flying-morphing thing that you do?>>
Katrina
Kat refrained from glancing to Matt. She didn't want him to think she couldn't handle this, and she wasn't sure if the calm, sure look she'd put on would hold if she looked at him. Thankfully the mask wouldn't need t oremain their for long since she would be morphing in a moment. They were mostly waiting for her and Ember to morph so they could go.
She started to focus on her goose morph, closing her eyes as she usually did. She made a mental note to try to get out of that habbit. If she got into a situation it would probably be good to be able to see while she morphed. The feathers rushed up to cover her body as the her arms formed wings and her bones hollowed out. Her organs moved themselves around in an uncomfortable manner. Her body shrunk and her mouth and nose stretched forward then hardened to form a beak. Soon the canadian goose had taken the brown haired girl's place.
A pair of black eyes glanced around at the others a moment as she waited for Matt to tell them to head out. She was preparing herself for the awkward flight that was soon to commence. She didn't think Ember would strike up a conversation along the way so it would probably be a quite journey.
Ember
Ember easily ignored Rian's first statement, not keen to hear anything that might break her concentration on ignoring her problem with Kat altogether. But her mood brightened immediately at what he next said, reminding her of the one skill she'd honed past anyone expectations. "Oh? You mean, like this?"
The Cardinal's mind rose unbidden to her, not needing an image to call forth the spirit. His energy was the first thing she felt. Bolting toward the ocean, away from the haunt and the others... away from Kat, letting the anger ebb away as the wind flowed beneath her wings. Like water running rapid through her skin, the feathers grew and fluttered charmingly. The transformation taking less than five seconds, shifting in fast paced liquid movements that left onlookers with nothing more than a red blur as she shot off into the sky with one final leap from the grass.
Maybe she couldn't get her other morphs past three minutes, but her Cardinal was all she needed to raise her spirits, only slightly regretful that she had to turn back to pick up her team mate.
Matt
<<Okay folks>> Matt projected to all after Ember and Kat had morphed <<we're off. Stick together as a group as much as you can, but don't draw attention to yoursleves. Basically, keep at least one other member of the group in sight at all times. Steve, you and I will use each other. Someone can get ahead of me if they like, but it will mostly be me leading because it's easier for you all as birds to stay with me than me to look up so I stay with you.>>
Okay, that should have taken care of any possible way this could go wrong. That was all he had to say, so he reared up and then started out towards the city. Hopefully they could avoid looking too odd, though that was almost impossible all things considered. A horse, a pronghorn, a seagull, a magpie, a goose, a kestral, and a cardinal normally did not travel as a group. That was why he'd said keep one person in sight. Hopefully that would still leave them spread out enought to look somewhat ignorable.
Stevert
Steve answered Matthew, <<Gotcha Matt!>> and in open thought-speak he said, <<If anyone up there hhets tired, you can always land on my back and ride on me for awhile.>> Steve craned his head up and looked at everyone in the sky. If pronghorns could've smiled, Steve would've been. Steve was laughing inside at the sight of all the different birds flying overhead. By now, Matt had gotten a somewhat big head start so Steve took of in pursuit.
When he had caught up with Matt, Steve slowed down so he wouldn't get chewed out. Staying side by side, Steve said to Matthew, <<Umm, Matt? How are we going to map the sewers? I don't really have much of a photographic memory and I forgot to pack a piece of paper and a pencil. I was just wondering, you know, in case that was an important part of the mission or something. Just in case it is, uh, what will we do? And what will happen once we're in the sewers?>>
Rian
Rian wasn't flying very close to anyone. If yeerks saw any birds in the air they would get suspicious since they had killed the birds but having 5 in the air was down right dangerous. So Rian was as high as he could get, right below the lowest cloud layer and hoping that they wouldn't be spotted. Jullian's white body wasn't too conspicuous and neither was Bane's black and white. But Kat's goose was pretty big and noticeable and Ember's cardinal was bright red though small.
He just hoped nothing would go wrong this early in the plan. If it did he would feel responsible. It was true that it was Matt's job to see this plan through but it was Rian who had come up with it and he wouldn't know what to do with himself if it went horrible wrong and someone got hurt.
He started going over everything in his head one last time. Had he checked out the sewer entrance they were going to be entering through? Yes, ok, good. Had he remembered to put the paper and pencils in his morphing suit to morph and bring with them so that they could map the sewers? For a panicked moment he thought the answer was no because Jullian had made him change into the new morphing suit. Had he switched the stuff over? Wait, yes he had. They were in his pockelt ((pocket/belt)). Alright. Did everyone know where to meet up? Not yet but Matt would make sure everyone knew the deal when they got there. Had he missed anything?
<<Matt, I keep feeling like I forgot something or like something might go wrong. Do you have that feeling at all?>>
