Post by dexter on Sept 28, 2009 23:36:56 GMT -5
Rian:
Ok, so Ember and Kat have fought their way right into trouble on the surface. They are prevented from going back into the tunnels because of a Taxxon. Rian and Bane followed said Taxxon to their location in time to see them go up but are distracted when they hear Matt's thoughtspeak. Jullian and Steve have heard something far off. Um, I'll update this to include whatever else happens before this thread starts but I figured we could rejoin them soon and have a big finale.
Matt:
<<Matt? Is that you?>> Rian! That was Rian! Matt sent out another burst of echolocation and spotted two foxes, a taxxon, a human on a ladder...... Oh god, what was he getting himself into the middle of? This has to be a mission, one I would have initiated. So who's my faction...... and what are we doing? Mentally he pummeled against the fog that hid his most recent memories.
<<Rian, I've got a problem. I hit my head and I can't remember anything past leaving Chicago.>> Matt let a bit of panic slide into his mental voice. He couldn't help it. He had the feeling he was the leader here...... and he didn't even know where here was. He guessed it was L.A., but why were they in the sewers? This is bad..... very, very bad.
Rian:
Not good. So not good. <<Chicago! That far back.>> Panic was in his own voice. He shut it down and took a moment to breath. Wait, ok, explain. <<Matt, we're in LA. You're the faction leader. The fox is Bane, a member. The girl who just went up there is Ember, at least I think it was Ember.>> He turned to look up the ladder but he couldn't see anything. The light was blinding him after being so long in the dark.
Stupid, don't use your eyes, use your ears. He concentrated the fox's keen hearing on trying to catch what was going on on the surface. "Ember! Stay down there! Ha! You'll have to try better than-.............We come in peace?" He heard it all but it made no sense whatsoever. But it did tell him that Ember and Kat were up there.
<<Uh, ok Matt, short version. There are seven of us down here including you. Five of us are here or at least three of us are here and two up there though I have no idea what they are doing up there and two are not accounted for at the moment. You were traveling with those two. Jullian and Steve. We're down here mapping the tunnels because traveling on the surface isn't safe. Which leads to the question of why Ember and Kat are up there.>> He realized he was throwing a lot of names and information at Matt and if he really couldn't remember anything since Chicago then he might not catch it all. <<Matt, please tell me some of this is ringing a bell?>>
Matt:
So he was in L.A........ and they were mapping the sewers? Had that been his idea? if so it was certainly both odd and good at the same time..... probably wasn't. He wasn't that good.
He tried to take in everything Rian was throwing at him. Bane.... Kat... Steve.... Ember..... Jullian..... the names meant...... something. Jullian, that was the boy they'd found on the way. <<Damnit! The names mean something, but I can't get it clearer than that. I know Jullian, we ran into him heading to L.A......>>
Matt wracked his brains, circling the scene. He got a glimpse of the face of the girl on the ladder. I know that face. I recognize that face..... why can't I remember who she is? <<It's all familiar, but it's like a fog that I can't see through.>> He wasn't paying enough attention to where he was going and found himself slamming into the wall.
<<Ouch....>> The word came out as a sort of thought-moan as the bat plummetted to the floor. Demorph! Demorph! Everything was going black again, but as he hit the floor he regained human shape...... and darkness fell in his mind.
Stevert:
<<Now that you mention it, Jullian, I do hear voices. Let's go check it out. It might be the others in trouble or a free human or something. These dog morphs are perfect for this mission, We can get there fast, find out what's going on, possibly take a few people down, and get back out. Let's go.>> Steve took off down the tunnels.
Suddenly, in his mind, he heard Matt's voice. <<Matthew! Where are you?>> As Steve and Jullian kept running through the tunnels, Steve started hearing voices ahead. As they turned a corner, Steve saw, smelled, and heard two foxes, one red and one black, a retreating taxxon, and an unconcious human who could only be Matt. He recognized the foxes. Rian and Bane. <<Rian, what is going on here? What happened?>>
Rian:
Rian ran over to Matt when he hit the wall. Ironically he felt relieved. He hoped that the hit would fix whatever had happened to Matt's memory. That was how it worked in the movies right. He hoped so because this situation was getting worse.
Then Steve arrived with Jullian. Well at least they were accounted for. <<Um, not sure, just got here myself. Matt is an amnesiac but hopefully not forever because that would be bad.>> He was stating the obvious but he couldn't think of anything else to do. <<Ember and Kat are up above. Speaking of which,>> he projected his thoughts so that the two team mates would hear him, <<why are you guys up there? Whatever is going on give us a few minutes to get rid of this Taxxon and then I think you should come back down. There might be controllers up there, who knows where we are under the city.>>
He looked at Steve and Jullian. Both of them were in more powerful morphs than himself at the moment. <<Do you think you can drive off that Taxxon so that Ember and Kat can get back in?>>
Stevert:
AS he heard Rian explain about Matt, Steve said, <<Ooo, that must hurt. But maybe the hit on the head will cure him.>> Then he listened to Rian's instructions. <<Yes sir! Come on Jullian. That's something we can do.>> Steve bolted down the tunnel after the running taxxons. H manage to get within a couple of feet from it so he bunched up his leg muscles and jumped on the alien. Although, his mouth coulod bite through bone, that was the only heavily built part of the African wild dog. So his idea to squash the alien under his weigth didn't exactly work. Instead, he got a death grip on its nech and tried shredding it with his claws.
When Steve and Jullian were done taking care of the taxxon, Steve trotted back to Rian. His paws and muzzle were covered in the taxxon's blood. <<Ohhhh. Never bite a taxxon. They taste horrible!>> Then he arrived by Rian. <<Now what, oh Fearless Leader? I could morph squirrel or blue jay and check out what is going on up there.>>
Jullian:
Jullian ran behind Steve. When they found Rian, Bane and Matt in the sewers he had been relieved. Hopefully this meant they would be getting out of here soon. And they even had an assignment. Get the Taxxon. Of course get meant kill and he'd never killed anything before so when Steve shot down the tunnel and jumped on the thing, Jullian held back.
But he looked like he could use some help so Jullian darted in and started taking bitefuls out of the Taxxon as well, using his agility to dart around the thing and avoid getting hit. The combination of Jullian's strike and run tactics to Steve's rip and tear was no match for the one soft skinned Taxxon and they left it bleeding in the tunnel.
<<You got that right.>> Jullian said in response to Steve's comment about the Taxxon taste. <<But maybe we shouldn't go up there. An animal coming out of the sewers would be a dead give away.>>
Ember:
Ember heard the echoes of conversation being bounced around down there as she regained her feet and stood next to Kat, opposite from the now dozen or so controllers who were slowly advancing on them. Shoot. Everyone was here, somehow, but they had no idea what they were getting themselves into.
"STOP" The shout apparently came from Ember's mouth, though she couldn't remember doing it. Quick! Recover, recover! Ok, think, if the guys were down there they must have gotten rid of the big bug. That was good at least.
"Stop right there!" Her hand whipped upward, pointing viciously at the controllers who, surprisingly did what she said if only out of shock. "Take one more step and I'll turn into a.. a vicious man-eating Lion!" Out of the corner of her eyes she looked over at Kat. The girl was closest to the man hole, but if they fled now the yeerks would just follow and endanger everyone. A plan slowly started to form and she inwardly groaned at how ironic it was going to be. She almost rolled her eyes, but she had to keep her focus on the controllers. "Kat.." She hissed out of the side of her mouth "Run. Now."
Matt:
Matt didn't take quite as long to come out of the blackout this time. The first thing he noticed was a throbbing headache. It was dark, but he could just make shapes out. Bane and Rian were there in fox, the dingo was Jullian, and the African wild dog was Steve..... Wait! He remembered! Forget the headache, he knew what was going on again!
Climbing to his feet, again covered in slime from landing on the floor, he glanced upward. Rian had said Kat and Ember were up there. That wasn't good. Still, no one could really go up and help. Matt went into town as a human all the time to shop, so if he went up now he'd no longer be able to use the guise of Promin 861. Everyone else was in morph, and not forms that could climbe a ladder.
Ember's smart. She can't get her and Kat out of it. We need to get out of here ourselves. They saw Kat and Ember come out so even if they don't go back down someone might think to investigate. "Time to split guys. Kat and Ember can take care of themselves. Besides, the yeerks won't be dumb enough to not look down here and see us." This alone would let them know he was back.
Wiping some slime out of his hair he focused on the bat DNA. It would be his best morph for moving around down here, it already had proved that. As he felt his mouth change he sent a thought speak message. <<And yes, I've got my memory back. I've also got a throbbing headache to boot. Please don't try to argue with me.>>
Stevert:
<<I know Jullian. But I was thinking that if I used a small morph, No body would see me very well. But it probably wouldn't work anyways.>> Then he said in excitement, <<Yay! Matt's back! But can't we demorph first? I'm covered in slime and alien blood. And my fur is matted. But you are right. we do gotta go.>> As he turned around to run back down the tunnel he and Jullian had come from, he sent a private thought-speak to Ember and Katrina. <<Good luck guys. See ya later hopefully.>>
Steve knew that the Yeerks would be coming down the manhole soon. If they saw two people come through it, why wouldn't there be more people down there? <<Come on Jullian. We need to go now.>> With that, Steve took of running down the sewers, finding his way by smelling the parts that he and Jullian ahad marked. When he was on the edge of thought-speak range from Matthew, Rian and Bane, he called back, <<Rian, Bane. Jullian and I marked our parts of the sewers with pee. If you need to come back, just follow it.>>
Bane:
Bane whimpered softly. He wanted to do something other than just run away, but he knew they had no choice. He didn't like the thought of leaving Kat and Ember behind, no matter the chances. <<Is there absolutely nothing we can?>> He asked. There had to be some small chance...
Maybe like Jullian had said, some small morph...would they notice a little lizard? He knew he wouldn't be able to do anything...but atleast knowing what was going on...
His thoughts were interrupted by Steve and something about pee...lovely. Just the thing he wanted to think about now. He shook his head in disgust, still hesistant to just run.
Rian:
For the first time Rian found himself extremely reluctant to follow an order. Steve and Jullian had already gone down the tunnel and he was expected to follow but he just couldn't make his fox body move. Was he suppose to just leave her, uh, them here? What if they were in trouble. He could hear that something was going on up there.
He tried to figure out what to do and that is when he noticed that he wasn't the only one not running off. He looked at the other fox. <<Is it just me or do you think maybe we should do something to help. I don't have a morph small enough to go unnoticed except maybe my blue jay but you have that lizard morph right?>> He couldn't believe what he was about to suggest. It went directly against what Matt had just told them to do. Well maybe not directly.
<<Maybe you can just take a peak really quickly. Then we'll follow the others after we know they are alright.>>
Matt:
Rian and Bane weren't moving. Jullian and Steve had already gone, Matt was circling above waiting for the other two to go. I can understand not wanting to leave Kat and Ember, but there isn't anything we can do without risking our own necks as well, he thought.
<<Guys, we have to trust Kat and Ember can get out of this. The only way we can get up that hole is human or bird. Our bird forms can't do much damage except for Rian's kestral and we can't risk being seen as humans. Anyone who is seen can't go back into the city without being in danger. That already means Jullian, Kat, and Ember can't because they've been seen. I definately can't because my guise as Promin 861 for shopping trips will be compromised.>>
He tried to talk reason. He knew loyalty to the faction was a big thing, loyalty to friends was too. He knew all about being loyal, it was a part of his nature. So was being logical and knowing the right risks to take though. <<I'm the one making this decision and it's the hardest one I've ever had to make. I don't want to leave them, I defintely don't want to lose them, But as we are we can't do anything but get ourselves into danger along with them.>>
Rian:
<<Bane has a small lizard morph. That might not be noticed and we can just wait down here. I just want to take a peak, to see if they are in any kind of trouble. I'll even morph wolf so that if trouble follows them down here we can ambush it but if they are ok then we can just run. Maybe you can go crocodile, that won't look out of place in a sewer.>> The last part was a joke obviously and he was hoping bringing hilarity into the situation might make Matt more amenable to the suggestion.
The truth was he knew that they should leave too. He knew it put the least amount of people at risk and Ember was certainly good at taking care of herself and he knew that Kat could do damage so they should just leave. But he really didn't want to leave and the situation wasn't an emergency yet.
Matt:
Matt could see he wasn't going to convince Rian to leave. This isn't like you Rian. You never question an order. You know I don't take risks unless we need to. Right now we don't need to. He kept these thoughts to himself though. Outwardly he sent two messages. To Rian he said <<Fine. We stay, but if I think we're in over our heads I will expect you to leave when I say to.>> And to Steve and Jullian he said <<Rian won't go. Bane's going to go up and check on Kat and Ember. Rian and I are going Wolf and Crocodile in case the controllers try coming down here. If you two want to keep running go ahead and we'll meet you back at the Haunt.>>
The circling bat landed on the wall just above where it started to get slimey and began turning back into the seventeen-year-old faction leader. As soon as the demorph was done he started into the saltwater crocodile morph, without much of a pause between demorph and morph. As his skin spread in a pattern of scales and his body started expanding Matt thought, I think there might be something to look into here. Rian's reluctance to leave Ember may mean something I hadn't noticed yet.
Kat:
Kat's eyes finally moved from the group of controllers, snapping to Ember. A million things popped into Kat's head, the first being that Ember couldn't be serious, but she knew she was. She hesitated a moment, opening her mouth slightly to utter that she wouldn't run and wouldn't leave Ember to deal with a huge group on her own, but what good did that actually do? In movies it was always a touching scene but movies were scripted so the good guys won no matter what. In reality if she stayed they would both be shot. Neither would have the time to morph and if Kat ran at least one of them would have a chance. There wasn't time to argue about who would be given that chance. Katrina bolted and she hated herself for it.
She could hear controller breaking away from the initial group as her legs pumped to get her away from the manhole. She didn't look back to see what Ember would be faced with now that she was alone. Her eyes needed to remain ahead and on the look out for a way to get rid of her pursuers and find a spot to morph. All she needed was three minutes. Just three! But three could be far too late.
If Ember was killed it would be her fault. The thought weighed Kat down. She'd almost killed Rian with her own hands and now she could possible have killed Ember. This was her first mission and already things had gone so horribly wrong. This was all such a huge mistake. She should have never jo-
FOCUS She screamed at herself, hearing her own internal noise much clearer then the thoughts projected from her faction.
An odd sound rang out, followed by a searing pain in her shoulder as a red light grazed it. She picked up her pace and started to swerve as she rain, forming unstable waves to throw them off when they tried to shoot. Crap! Crap! Crap! RUN. FASTER.
Her eyes darted around for any means of escape. There had to be some place she could duck into and hide just long enough to get her coyote morph out. She was causing a scene from booking it as fast as she could in such a populated area. This was so bad..
Finally she spotted it. An alley between two large buildings that looked like it had an open way out at the other end. Maybe if she darted through it quickly there would be a place to hide at the other end. She went for it and darted as fast as she could until she reached the other end, busting out into another street, though there was an underground stairwell leading to a subway. Kat was down the stairs before the controllers had reached the end of the alleyway. They would probably guess this was the way she'd come but once down she found a hiding spot and crouched low in it.
She didn't know if the hiding spot would work, but she instantly starting to think of her morph anyway. Three minutes later the coyote burst from the spot, surprising the controllers as they searched. Their shock gave her enough time to get back up the steps before they could recover, not like they could even catch her with her knew legs.
Kat wasn't focused on the controllers that had been after her. She was more worried about the ones she'd left behind with her teammate. She and Ember hadn't exactly acted the part but that's what they were, teammates, and as Kat raced back to where she had just been she hoped Ember was ok.
Bane:
Bane couldn't help but let his tail wag when Matt said they'd go ahead with what Rian and he had been planning. He began to demorph immediately and morphed as quickly as he could, wishing it didn't take three minutes each way.
Once he was a skink, he crawled his way up the ladder and scampered to the surface. No one noticed the little lizard as it moved to a spot that wasn't very noticeable and watched. He was just in time to see Kat bolt. <<Kat's taking off..some of them are following her...>> He sent the message only to Matt and Rian, unsure of where Jullian and Steve were and if he could project his thoughts to them without involving anyone else. He didn't know what Ember was going to do, but he was worried for both of them, and it had shown in his thoughtspeak.
He hoped Kat would be okay...He turned his attention back to Ember, watching to see what she had planned.
Ember:
Oh, so this is what it feels like for your insides to turn to jelly? Ember thought dimly as Kat made a break for it.
"Ok" She muttered under her breath, "If I'm planning to die stupidly, nows the time to do it." She'd already heard Matt's order to leave, which meant she and Kat were casualties of war if they couldn't handle it themselves. Any further thought speak from there she simply blocked out, concentrating on living instead.
A controller darted after Kat, pulling the gun from his hip and leveling it at the girl's head. "NO!" Just under the elbow, she caught him with an upward cut of her palm, the shot veering wide. It could had still hit Kat, but three more ignored her and chased in that direction so hopefully that meant she'd gotten away. Good. If anyone was going to hurt her team mate it would be Ember herself, not some slug infested sci fi lackey. The other controllers pulled their own weapons, beads of light aimed at her heart. Whipping out her hand she caught the first guy's shirt and pulled herself in front of him, holding off his dracon beam with the other. Four shots fired at once, but all she saw was a red flash and the man's eyes widen in shock before his entire body crumbled to dust in between her fingers.
The courage drained out of her. There was no way she could win... Kat was gone, Matt and the others had left, and Rian... Dammit. She flung herself off the street behind a rusted mail bin, feeling the heat as pops of red light followed her heels and made a mockery of her cover as they slowly filled it with ping pong ball sized holes. They were toying with her... after all, there was nothing she could-
The metal burst, seemingly from within, shattering under the impact of so many well aimed shots. It was terrifying, being exposed like that in the face of certain death. Her heart sped up, her limbs trembling as nearly five of them bared down on her. And then... time slowed. A click went off in her head as her plan came together. She had, maybe five seconds. More than enough. Ember stood, the dracon beams following her ascent up, up... up? In a split second, almost too fast to be caught, a cardinal appeared where a girl had been. The controllers fired, but it was too late, they hit air. Or... more accurately, they fired upon air and two of them hit each other by accident. One lost an arm, the other.. not so lucky.
Surprise. That was the only weapon she had. Keep them on their toes, don't attract any more attention, and seek a way out at the same time.
Rian:
Given permission to do what he wanted Rian rushed through his demorph. It was easy because the fox was a long time friend and he considered it his body as much as his human one. Going wolf took a bit longer since the morph was new but he was getting there with it so he was ready and under the manhole when Bane was reporting on the situation.
Rian's heart sank as he heard what was going on above. The situation was pretty much as bad as it could get. Not only had they gone to the surface but controllers had seen them come out, controllers with guns. He didn't need Bane to tell him that, he could hear them firing.
<<Matt, we can't do anything from down here.>> His frustration was obvious. <<We...we have to go. Unless Ember can get back through the manhole then we can't help her at all. And Kat might not even be in the area anymore.>> His tactical mind was coming up blank. Even if Ember led them down here, a hard thing to do in a bird morph, would they have enough man power, or animal power, to take them out when they followed her. <<Your call Matty.>>
Jullian:
Jullian hadn't been too happy about leaving Ember behind so he hadn't exactly raced off after Steve. In fact he let Steve get pretty far ahead of him and then found a manhole of his own. He demorphed from his dingo form and climbed up the ladder. The manhole was almost to heavy for him to lift but he kept working at it until he had it open enough that he could peek out. He looked all around and only pushed it aside when he didn't see anybody around.
He gratefully climbed out of the sewers and into the Californian sun, never so grateful for it in his life. He only took a second to relish the feeling of sun and fresh air before getting back to what he was doing. He pushed the manhole cover back on, though he left it open slightly so he could get back in if he had to, then he took anothr look around and morphed dingo after seeing the coast was clear. He hoped that the dingo would be taken for a stray dog and go unnoticed.
Then he ran back in the direction where Ember and Kat had been. Ember hadn't left him behind when he was captured. He wouldn't leave her. But now that he had made up his mind to do this he heard Matt's thoughtspeak and realized his disobedience had been unneccessary. Great, now he would get in trouble for no good reason. Well maybe, <<uh, Matt, I'm on the surface. We found a way out. I'm heading back in that direction now. What should I->> he cut himself off when Kat raced by as a coyote, a group of controllers trailing her.
Jullian raced after the controllers. They didn't see him as he came up behind them and leaped at the first one's back. 70 lbs of wild dog landed on the human's back. The guy went down with Jullian on top of him. His dracon beam got knocked out of his hand and went flying. He wasn't out for the count however. He began trying to shake Jullian off but he didn't have to try very hard since Jullian jumped off and kept running, picking up the dracon beam as he did so so that the controller wouldn't get it.
<<Matt, Kat is ahead of me, heading back towards Ember. I'm right behind her. Can't see Em yet.>>
<<Kat, I'm behind you. You've got two controllers running after you but they are so slow,>> he said as he started to catch up to them. But being slow wouldn't be a problem for them since they could aim those dracon beams for quite a distance. <<I've got your back.>> He dropped the dracon beam in his mouth in a sewer grate as he ran past and leaped for the second controller, jaws coming down hard on her wrist, teeth ripping into flesh. Jullian only held on long enough that she let go of the dracon beam. But he had their attention now. Both controllers stopped chasing Kat and focused on him. The one he had knocked down came running up as well. He was surrounded and one still had a dracon beam.
Stevert:
Steve whirled around and saw a flash off Jullian going back. Steve took offafter him and watched as he climbed up through a manhole cover. <<Jullian! What are you doing?>> he yelled. Jullian left the manhole and dissappeared above the sewers. Steve demorphed and climbed up. He didn't see him anywhere. He morphed back to the wild dog and started sniffing the air.
There. He had Jullian's scent now and the scent of the dingo. He followed the scent until he caught the scent of several other people. Steve peaked around the corner and saw Jullian surrounded by three controllers. And one had a Dracon beam. Just great. I knew I should follow him. <<Okay Jullian. This is Steve. When I count two three,>> he said as he circled around the building and came out on the street behind the Controllers. <<duck.>> With that, Steve became a multi-colored blur and he streaked across the ground and jumped onto the back of the controller with the gun. As they fell, the Controller let loose a blast but it hit the top of a building. <<Jullian! Run!>> Steve hopped off the person's back and grabbed the Dracon beam in his mouth.
He took off after the scent of Kat's coyote morph, since he doubted that a normal coyote would last two seconds in a Yeerk infested city.
Bane:
Bane felt useless, absolutely useless, as he heard Jullian saying he was on the surface now, helping Kat. Kat was a coyote, racing back. Ember was a cardinal, distracting and evading the controllers. Rian and Matt were a wolf and crocodile, waiting to act if they needed to. Steve was probably with Jullian...
All he could do was sit there and watch. Even if he could have snuck off to remorph, neither a fox nor magpie was going to be able to help. He couldn't do a thing to help any of them. He hated that feeling, the feeling of helplessness....it made him...annoyed. Maybe he could ask Matt about a new morph...No, he'd just wait...he was sure Matt would give him something strong eventually. He just needed to wait..
Waiting seemed to be all he could do lately.
Matt:
Crap. This mission was going to hell in a handbasket now. <<Jullian, be careful up there. You've already been seen as a human on that shopping trip. Steve, wherever you are you be careful too. They haven't seen you yet and with Kat, Ember, and Jullian having been seen we need to keep the rest of our identities secret as best we can.>> As he finished this he noted that he'd been right. The light from the manhole was getting blocked as several controllers started to climb down the ladder.
<<Rian, looks like we're going to see some action too. I hate to say this, but do whatever you need to. I'm not extremely in favour of killing controllers since their sort of the victims, but that might be the only thing we can do.>> A controller stepped off the ladder, right next to Matt's nose. Actually, almost landing on Matt's nose. The croc opened it's mouth and a hissing breath was let out. The controller glanced and Matt saw fear coming to his eyes as he made out the shape of the saltwater crocodile. That's right, be afraid. Be very afraid.
As the guy leveled his dracon beam at Matt a few more made it down the ladder. Rian could take some of them on. For now Matt struck and the coppery taste of blood filled his mouth. The crocodile mind liked it, the human mind of Matt felt like he was going to hurl. The controller screamed and dropped the dracon beam to favor holding his leg which was only half there now.
<<Bane. Keep an eye on what's going on with Ember. It sounds like Jullian's found Kat. Ember, if you can hear me we're all still here. Bane's watching in lizard morph and Kat's apparently headed your way in coyote with Jullian in dingo after her Rian and I are taking care of the ones coming down into the sewers..>> A battle, that's what this mission had turned into. Amazingly Matt was taking everything in stride with an almost calm head on his shoulders. He mentally shouted orders while still tearing into controllers himself. Part of him wondered whether that was actually a good thing though.
Ember:
Ember circled, swerving as best as she could around and over the controllers, trying to get them to hit each other again. But apparently that kind of trick only happened once in a lifetime, and now that they knew what she was they weren't going to make another mistake. Something was happening on the ground, and she paused to listen as a thought speak message was shouted up to her.
The guys were back! Ember could have jumped for joy if she hadn't been flying. Thank god for that because she was running out of-
Daggers of pain ripped through her left wing. Down, too rapidly, trying to keep flying... hopeless. Hit.. she was hit.. she was... The thought blurred as she impacted on the pavement, several yards away from help. Red feathers, sticking out at angles and thick with.. with... The Cardinal panicked and tried to flap itself upright, causing her to loose control of her actions. The youngest controller was almost there, a bit faster than the others. From the look in her eyes, Ember suddenly knew what it felt like to be truly hunted...
Get out of the morph. Her own words echoed back to her. Get out of it! right... right.. yes, good idea.. before i get killed. With a strange jerking shudder she eased out of her form, back into her natural body. Not that it did any good. In the few minutes it had taken her to change back the young controller was on top of her and she doubted if she would only get clipped at this distance. Time didn't slow down, she didn't have an escape.. she didn't have a choice. If she moved, she was dead. If she stayed, she was dead. Her muscles wouldn't work, she couldn't think enough to force herself...
Here and now, that was how she was going to die... all because of some stupid fight. It was like how she always got in trouble, loosing her temper. Only this time it would stick. Flat on her back she saw the barrel of the gun level over her face...
Jullian:
And then it was violently jerked away as Jullian ripped into the arm holding it with all the fear, anger and power the dingo's formidible jaws and teeth could contain. Jullian had never felt what he was feeling now. It was fear, but for the first time ever there was absolutely no fear for himself. He wasn't even thinking of himself at the moment. It was as if his fear for Ember was taking up too much space and there was no room for any other emotion.
Jullian had been surrounded back in the street but Steve had come to the rescue, clipping the one guy that still had a weapon. After that it had been child's play to outrun some out of shape humans and get back to this manhole.
And when he had gotten here he had seen Ember demorphing, and about to die. He didn't think, he just reacted and the controller's arm wound up in shreds.
But the controller fought back, hitting him with the strength inherited from ancestors who swung through trees and fueled by panic. Jullian let go, but not before that particular controller had lost the use of his arm, maybe permantly.
He stood in front of Ember so that she would have a chance to get up and remorph. And as he faced all the controllers who still had their weapons he was really glad that Kat and Steve were close by.
Stevert:
As Steve came upon the entrance of the manhole cover where KAt was, he saw, smelled, and heard a growing, shifting mass of Ember demorphing into a human, Kat and Jullian standing over her, and several Controllers aiming Dracon beams at them. <<Jullian! Can't you go two seconds without having me to come around and get you out of trouble? You're like a two-year old kid. Always getting into stuff!>> As he said that, he jumped onto one Controlelr's back, knocking her down. He he lunged at the guy beside her and clamped his jaws down on his arm.
The guy swung him off so Steve barreled into the guy's legs. The result knocked the guy down, but on top of Steve. As he struggled to get up, the woman he knocked down fired at him. She burned an ear off and fortunately hit the guy's leg Steve was under. Steve scrambled up and tried jumping on the lady again but she sliced a leg off. Steve limped over to the manhole cover and tried to demorph before he died off blood-loss.
Kat:
Katrina hadn't even been paying attention to what was behind her. She was sure the controllers were there but she was relying on her speed to keep them at bay and had her attention on what lay ahead. Her ears twitched as she heard the commotion behind her but ignored it until she heard Jullian.
<<I've got your back!>> She was grateful to hear it.
<<Thanks Jullian. Where is Ember!? We need to get to her! She was surrounded!!>> Her voice was urgent but as she spoke she could see Ember. There was something moving in the sky and although she couldn't make out the bright red coloration of the bird with her coyote sight she knew it had to be her ill tempered teammate.
And then she was falling. The bird was plummeting after a shot to the wing, getting closer to the ground as the three canines got closer to her. She hit the ground and the controllers advanced. Ember was starting to demorph but the dracon beam would take her out before she had a chance to even get half way back to how she should be.
Kat picked up her pace but Jullian was faster. The Dingo had ripped into the arm of the controller, getting Ember out of immediate danger, but in doing so he'd place himself in a bad position with the other controllers. There was still a number of them. Kat saw Steve jump in to help Jullian, knocking a guy down only to have him land on top of him. Then he was fired upon and a his leg became injured soon after. Now it was Kat's turn to come in.
She leaped and her teeth sank into the soft tissue at the woman's throat. She'd taken Steve's leg, but Steve would be good as new in no time if he demorphed. The woman wouldn't be so lucky. The dracon beam dropped, as did the woman's body and Kat jumped to the man who know had one leg and was reaching for a dracon beam just out of his grasp.
CRUNCH. The bone made a sickening sound as her teeth clenched down tightly at the hand. She jerked her head and yanked the mans arm away from the beams direction, dragging him some by his injured hand as he screamed. From behind her a beam of light shot from the gun of another controller and Kat's tail was gone, leaving a bleeding stump at the base of her rear. She yelped and leaped back, quickly recovering her wit and launching herself at another controller, trying to direct the attention from Steve and Ember so they could demorph safely.
<<We need to start working on getting the hell out of here!>>
Rian:
Rian was doing as much damage as he could in the sewers, trying to stay away from Matt since the crocodile was pure, viscous instinct and Rian didn't want to get caught in any friendly fire. He ripped into arms for the most part, trying to disarm controllers instead of killing them.
Arms and legs got broken between his jaws as he disabled controllers and moved on, getting them out of the fight as soon as possible. Only a couple of times was he forced to go for throat shots. And one of those times he missed and ended up taking off half the guys face. That would not be an experience that he would forget anytime soon.
But he wasn't sure if they were winning anything. He didn't have to be on the surface to hear the fight and smell the blood being spilled. <<Matt, we have to get them back down here,>> he said taking a moment to report, not sure what a crocodile's senses would tell him.
Bane:
<<Yeah..it's getting pretty bad up here...>> Bane said, agreeing with Rian. <<First Ember got hit, Jullian protected her so she could demorph, then Steve jumped in to help Jullian, but he got hurt pretty badly and lost a leg...he's demoprhing now. Kat came in too and did some damage..but there's still more controllers..>> Bane explained the situation to Rian and Matthew, not wanting to distract the others with information they already knew.
He had to control the temper in his voice. He was annoyed that all he could do was watch his friends get torn apart. <<We need to find some way out of here...people are only going to keep getting hurt.>> Controllers and animorphs alike. He added, but didn't 'voice', keeping it to himself.
Ember:
For a second, it was like the movies... a dull thrum over shadowed everything she heard, her entire being focused only on the weapon aimed between her eyes. And then a ball of fur leaped on top of her would be assailant, ripping into skin and bone... She didn't have time to see what else. Snapping out of the shock she recognized that she was back as a human, meaning she was a bigger target. But right behind her savior came two more canines in their LA pack. They descended upon the enemy, letting the instincts take over for one insane moment after another...
Ember rolled onto her side, feeling the world turn topsy, the light of the sun blinding, flashes and fresh waves of blood... And then... there was red. A brilliant red spot right there in her vision. A smile curled itself on the corner of her lips.
She turned back to the fight, still on her knees to avoid being hit by a stray shot. Her horse was too big, and her cat and snake too small, she didn't have a morph for such close combat battles. That didn't matter... her team mates were there to watch her back. And as she watched another controller went down under Kat's maned wolf, costing her tail in exchange. But the man's dracon beam clattered to the ground... Keeping as low as she could as the war zone increased, Ember looked around to seek out the situation. She couldn't use thought speak, but for what she had in mind she doubted if they wouldn't take advantage even without her prodding. They desperately needed an exit , the sewer was the best chance if they managed a good head start.
The metal felt slick in her hand, she didn't bother to look why. Her entire focus was on that one red spot in the distance... Like a sign from the angels... If they made it out of here Ember reminded herself to take up religion. And on that thought she bit her lip, leveled the gun into the crowd of her faction and the swarming controllers, waiting for the one... good... shot...
Kat had launched to the side, Steve had fallen to the ground, Jullian barely moved an inch to her right... The trigger squeezed. The short flash of light burst from the muzzle, once, twice, three times for good luck. The first went wide, the second hit the shoulder of a controller who had bad timing. But the third.. ahh, that's the charm. It struck the red sign plastered to the gas tank, ironically a warning sign. And albeit it was a long shot that the yeerks had left enough in that decrepit station to actually make an explosion, but by whatever power had kept her alive this long decided that there was just enough to spark a reaction. The entire corner block when off in an explosion worthy of a july fireworks display.
Stevert:
Steve was trying to demorph when an explosion happened. Shards of metal ripped through the air and several of them sliced through him. Steve raised his head and saw Ember with a Dracon beam. <<Not helping Ember.>> Steve moaned right before he lost thought-speak. a couple minutes later, he had finished demorphing. Now he was a regular human in an open brawl involving a tailess coyote, an out-of-place dingo, a bunch of enslaved humans with Dracon beams, and a blood-thirsty Ember who had just caused an explosion.
He rolled over as a beam of light stabbed into the cement where he had been laying two seconds ago. He jumped to his feet and imitated Ember by grabbing a Dracon beam. He fired into the mess of Controllers, aiming high so he, hopefully, wouldn't hit a teammate. He managed to slice a few arms and legs off, not to mention blasting the walls of several buildings down before the Controllers noticed him and began firing. He yelled to Ember, "I'm going down below!"
He grabbed the ladder of the manhole and slid down. Strangely, it was slick with some liquid that Steve didn't want to look at. He landed at the bottom on a controller's head and they both went down. Steve used the end of the Dracon and hit the Controller several times on the head to ensure a headache when he got up... after several days in a hospital. If he was lucky. Steve got up and backed away out of the pool of light. Looking through it, Steve managed to glimpse a growling wolf tearing and clawing at a knot of Controllers will a deadly crocodile was going berserk.
Steve tried finding a shot but the brawl was to close. It would be to risky since there was a very high chance of hitting his teammates. He backed up into the tunnel where it seemed that nobody was at and he concentrated on his most recent morph.
Matt:
Matt refocused his mind at what Bane and Rian told him. For a moment he'd been lost, letting the shear viciousness of the crocodile morph take over as he went into full combat mode. As his human mind regained control he stared at the mess he'd made. Several controllers were missing legs. A few the croc had completely torn apart.... literal shreads of them remaining.
<<Oh lord what did I do?....>> He hadn't meant to say that, but fortunately only Rian would hear it since he wasn't projecting much. His normally peaceful self was kicking in again and didn't like what he'd felt was necessariy to get this battle done. <<Bane. Try and get them down here. Rian's right, we've got to get out of hereAUUUGGGGHHHHH........>>
The last part was said as Matt's tail got severed off by a dracon beam from a controller near Rian. Jerk. Too bad that won't slow me down..... wait, no. Don't let the croc take over. You can't go over there or you might hurt Rian. <<Rian, let's get rid of these last few. And sorry about that scream, I just lost my tail.>> Matt bit into another leg near him as the controller aimed at Rian. This time the blood lust didn't take over, Matt remained in control. I'm a killer now. How can I justify some of what I did in this morph? I didn't have to rip them to shreads..... He'd worry about that later. Now they had to get back to the Haunt in one piece.
He spotted Steve just in the light from the manhole morphing into his wild dog. One member off the surface. Three more to go.
Kat:
Kat had been sent flying back with a loud yelp in mid leap by a large hunk of metal that had been sent flying in the explosion. Fortunately for her, the controller she'd been attacking had also been hit by a flying object after Ember's stunt. The Coyote hit the ground and rolled a few feet before stopping on its side where it was motionless a moment. It was a good thing Steve regained himself to shoot a few of the remaining controllers, because it took Kat a moment.
Her ribs definitely didn't feel right. The metal had collided with her rib cage, making a few sickening cracks as she was thrown to the ground by its momentum and now she was having trouble breathing. As much as she wanted to stay in the coyote morph and continue to take controllers down to help the others, she needed to demorph now.
<<..uughh... what the heck was that...>> She groaned as she started demorphing, trying to make her focus on the image of herself overtake the pain she felt.
When she had demorphed she started to stand and take a look around. The entire block was a complete wreck. Now adding to the collection of controller bodies and blood their was a massive amount of debris and twisted metal chunks, along with flames dancing on the remains of what had once been on the street. She could see the number of controllers had dwindled considerably now, most having been taken out in the explosion. Unlike the faction, they couldn't morph away their injuries.
Steve had taken down a few of the remaining controllers on his way to the manhole before going down. The ones remaining were scrambling for dracon beams or trying to pull themselves together and ignore their horrible injuries. "Jullian, Ember, Lets go!" It was a good time to get the hell out of here. Kat bolted for the manhole and in moments was on her way down the ladder. At the bottom her feet stepped on something squishy instead of the hard cement floor and stumbled on it as she tried to jump back and get away from it, falling backwards and landing on her rear end as she let out a startled yell. She'd been expecting the solid cement.
The light pouring in from the manhole showed Kat she'd stepped on the body of the controlled Steve had landed on then beaten in the head. She calmed down a bit and quickly got to her feet, her hands dabbling in something warm and sticky as she pushed off the ground. "..aw gross.." She muttered, looking around a bit though to see the wolf and crocodile working on the last of the controllers.
Ember:
Ember easily ignored Steve. After all, she couldn't help but notice that if there were any uninjured controllers left before... there weren't any now. The fire bloomed upward after the initial shock, massive amounts of ash and smoke pouring into the sky and creating quite a spectacle... the strange contrast of the flickering heat making the bodies on the ground twist and writhe in her vision.
But now wasn't the time to worry about how many lives she'd just taken. Jullian was still in morph nearby, this was their chance to run. From the look of it Kat and Steve had already headed back underground. Once they turned back into humans she hadn't been able to hear their shouts, but it didn't take a genius to figure out that it was time to leave. "C'mon Kid!" Ember bodily picked Jullian's dingo up off the ground and less than graciously dumped him back down the manhole, confident he'd find his footing. The important thing was that he was safe, the little idiot, jumping into a fight like that...
Ember took one last look around, easing herself halfway back down before scratching at the sewer lid, managing to claw it almost shut. The thing was heavy, but she was desperate. On the way down she slipped a few bars, cutting her hands and feet on the metal in order to stop from falling and probably breaking her legs. "That'll buy us some time." She panted through gritted teeth, "Now we just have to out run them."
Matt:
Finally everyone was below ground and Matt, Rian, and Steve had dispatched the last of the controllers. Matt had lost a leg in the process besides his tail and needed to seriously demorph before he lost too much more blood. He focused on his human self and the crocodile started shrinking. At the same time the leg started regrowing into Matt's left arm. The whole process took three minutes, maybe more since the crocodile was the morph Matt had the biggest disconnect with.
As he kneeled in a puddle of blood from his last kill as well as from his own wounds Matt again felt the strong urge to throw up, and in fact did. Standing up, with his face burning though no one would see it, he glanced around the darkness at the shapes that were his faction members. "Lets go. It won't take them too long to find another manhole and come after us. Everyone morph whatever form works best for you down here and lets go."
He tried to brush it off as he morphed his familiar bat form, but couldn't. Raven had told him he was a lot like Cassie.... she was the leader of New York and of all the Animorphs really. The only remaining original Animorph. How did she deal with it I wonder? How can anyone deal with the knowledge that they just took a life if it could have been prevented? The only answer he had was they just do. They roll with the punches and do what needs to be done. That's what he'd done..... he hoped.
Stevert:
Steve tore across the small space that seperated him from the other Controllers and Rian and Matt. He hurled himself onto the back of a controller, knocking him down. Steve jumped off the man and grabbed another person's arm with his bone-crunching jaws. He heard a loud crack and the arm in his mouth stopped moving. Steve let go and momentarily frooxe in the midst of the battle at what he had just done.
He started moving again as a Controller knocked him over. Steve rolled along the ground for a few feet before regaining his footing and rejoining the fray. Soon, there weren't any Controllers left. They were all dead or retreating. Steve was covered in cuts, scrapes, and bruises so he began to demorph since he was in no condition to do anything.
When he was human, Steve looked around in the dim light at the bodies littering the sewers. He fell to his knees on the realization that he would have had a hand, or more accurately a jaw, in the deaths of these people. Then he heard Matthew's to remorph so Steve became his African wild dog, after several minutes of catching his breathe, getting over what had happened, and remorphing.
Bane:
Bane wriggled in his skink morph, moving in a very snake-like manner as he scampered back into the sewer. He was glad for the speed of this morph, as it didn't seem anyone was going to check to make sure he'd gotten back in. He saw Rian and Matt has taken care of the controllers down there, and began demorphing. His skink may be quick, but not quick enough to keep up with the others in these sewers.
He began morphing fox without saying a word to the others. He didn't like the strong smell of the blood now mixing with the rancid sewage, but he would be able to get out of this situation. He was slightly bitter at the fact that he'd been useless.
Jullian:
<<You're welcome,>> he said sarcastically as Ember threw him down a hole. <<Maybe saved your life. Definitely saved your life. You totally owe-ug, what is that smell?>> Jullian hit the bottom of the sewers to find them slick with blood along with the normal set of bodily fluids found in sewers.
<<Ug, gross.>> He didn't demorph since his dingo was in pretty good shape. His fur was a little singed from the explosion and his ear felt funny. He tried to twist his head so that he could see it but couldn't. <<I'm so ready to get out of here. And oh yeah, let's never do this again.>>
Ember:
Ember didn't say anything.
This was... This was all her fault. Everything. She'd started the fight, forced Kat above ground, and got the others involved because she couldn't take care of it herself. People.. people were dead. Her friends were injured. The yeerks would be looking for the LA faction even more now that they'd done actual damage. All those lives, and any ones in the future were all... her... fault...
A chill shudder arced up her spine and she didn't dare to look any of them in the eye. Even without seeing exactly what had happened with the others.. the emotion seemed to sweep over her in a wave, bringing the whole thing back down to earth. This was real life.. wasn't it? Her heartbeat slowed dangerously, feeling the effect of a hallucinated battle that was real all along. And the others... what had they been forced into? Because of her.. because of...
Dammit there was no time. Ember physically shrugged it off, building walls around those dark thoughts and boxing them deeply away. Them or me! The voice in her head cried, it was them or me! Her faction had handled themselves well in the sudden war zone. That's all she could have asked. If they felt regret now.. and she knew they did... then that was what separated them from all other evil. She should be more worried if they hadn't acted, or didn't care about the lives they took. And as for it being her fault... Nope, still in the box.
Weirdly she'd already morphed into her cat, only realizing it as the nauseous wave of sewer smell hit her sensitive nose. It had almost gone as smoothly as her Cardinal since, for once, the cat wanted to share her emotion and gladly joined the other faction members, although normally she would have been completely aloof. She even enjoyed the run back, letting Ember fully realize the power she'd been missing from this form. It was a lovely distraction...
Kat:
" Everyone morph whatever form works best for you down here and lets go," came Matt's instructions, and Kat shuffled through her arsenal of morphs. Raccoon was excellent for the dark but she wanted to be faster then that. Her Coyote was a little big but it would do and she was sure the dark wouldn't bother it too much. She began to concentrate on it, trying to block everything else out.
Once situated she started moving, hustling down the tunnel. Her nose caught her human scent along with Embers amidst the various other aromas. Soon she could pick out the Raccoon and Cat as well and began to follow the trail, ignoring the unpleasant stench of the sewers that accompanied them.
Kat had the slightest urge to call out to Ember. A voice in her head just wanted to yell, 'happy now?', but she pushed it aside. What good would that do other then stir up more bad feelings. It certainly wasn't going to help and seemed pretty immature, which would in turn make her a hypocrite for accusing Ember of being immature in the first place.
Matt:
It didn't take too long for them to reach the entrance they'd used to get into the sewers. All the while the group ran in silence. Matt kind of figured everyone was lost in their own thoughts. Some, like him, weren't doing well with what they'd just done. Others probably had other things on their mind, or were just being quiet because they figured other people didn't want to talk. What happened exactly? It wouldn't have been so bad if it had just been the taxxon, but why did Kat and Ember go to the surface?
It was his own fault really, or that's what he figured as he demorphed and climbed the ladder out. At the top he waited for the others. They probably knew what to do, morph a flying morph and head back. Matt and Steve would use the horse and pronghorn again like when they come in. I put Kat and Ember together and I didn't give them enough time to deal with stuff. I asked for a fight between them to happen and it's probably what lead to them surfacing somehow. So much death, so much pain, and it was his fault. It didn't sit well with him and his only thought was, It's a good thing I threw up in the tunnel. There's nothing left in my stomach to throw up now.
Rian:
Rian stretched after demorphing. He was a little disgusted to find blood splattered on his clothing. Once he had morphed himself dry after getting wet. But he guessed that was because the water hadn't morphed with him and just fallen away from his shifting body. But the blood had been stuck in his fur and now it was stuck on his morphing suit.
He looked around, glad to see that everyone had gotten out of their first fight ok if shaken. That was enough for him, he was ready to go home. He began his next morph to kestrel, waiting for Matt to give the order to fly.
Ok, so Ember and Kat have fought their way right into trouble on the surface. They are prevented from going back into the tunnels because of a Taxxon. Rian and Bane followed said Taxxon to their location in time to see them go up but are distracted when they hear Matt's thoughtspeak. Jullian and Steve have heard something far off. Um, I'll update this to include whatever else happens before this thread starts but I figured we could rejoin them soon and have a big finale.
Matt:
<<Matt? Is that you?>> Rian! That was Rian! Matt sent out another burst of echolocation and spotted two foxes, a taxxon, a human on a ladder...... Oh god, what was he getting himself into the middle of? This has to be a mission, one I would have initiated. So who's my faction...... and what are we doing? Mentally he pummeled against the fog that hid his most recent memories.
<<Rian, I've got a problem. I hit my head and I can't remember anything past leaving Chicago.>> Matt let a bit of panic slide into his mental voice. He couldn't help it. He had the feeling he was the leader here...... and he didn't even know where here was. He guessed it was L.A., but why were they in the sewers? This is bad..... very, very bad.
Rian:
Not good. So not good. <<Chicago! That far back.>> Panic was in his own voice. He shut it down and took a moment to breath. Wait, ok, explain. <<Matt, we're in LA. You're the faction leader. The fox is Bane, a member. The girl who just went up there is Ember, at least I think it was Ember.>> He turned to look up the ladder but he couldn't see anything. The light was blinding him after being so long in the dark.
Stupid, don't use your eyes, use your ears. He concentrated the fox's keen hearing on trying to catch what was going on on the surface. "Ember! Stay down there! Ha! You'll have to try better than-.............We come in peace?" He heard it all but it made no sense whatsoever. But it did tell him that Ember and Kat were up there.
<<Uh, ok Matt, short version. There are seven of us down here including you. Five of us are here or at least three of us are here and two up there though I have no idea what they are doing up there and two are not accounted for at the moment. You were traveling with those two. Jullian and Steve. We're down here mapping the tunnels because traveling on the surface isn't safe. Which leads to the question of why Ember and Kat are up there.>> He realized he was throwing a lot of names and information at Matt and if he really couldn't remember anything since Chicago then he might not catch it all. <<Matt, please tell me some of this is ringing a bell?>>
Matt:
So he was in L.A........ and they were mapping the sewers? Had that been his idea? if so it was certainly both odd and good at the same time..... probably wasn't. He wasn't that good.
He tried to take in everything Rian was throwing at him. Bane.... Kat... Steve.... Ember..... Jullian..... the names meant...... something. Jullian, that was the boy they'd found on the way. <<Damnit! The names mean something, but I can't get it clearer than that. I know Jullian, we ran into him heading to L.A......>>
Matt wracked his brains, circling the scene. He got a glimpse of the face of the girl on the ladder. I know that face. I recognize that face..... why can't I remember who she is? <<It's all familiar, but it's like a fog that I can't see through.>> He wasn't paying enough attention to where he was going and found himself slamming into the wall.
<<Ouch....>> The word came out as a sort of thought-moan as the bat plummetted to the floor. Demorph! Demorph! Everything was going black again, but as he hit the floor he regained human shape...... and darkness fell in his mind.
Stevert:
<<Now that you mention it, Jullian, I do hear voices. Let's go check it out. It might be the others in trouble or a free human or something. These dog morphs are perfect for this mission, We can get there fast, find out what's going on, possibly take a few people down, and get back out. Let's go.>> Steve took off down the tunnels.
Suddenly, in his mind, he heard Matt's voice. <<Matthew! Where are you?>> As Steve and Jullian kept running through the tunnels, Steve started hearing voices ahead. As they turned a corner, Steve saw, smelled, and heard two foxes, one red and one black, a retreating taxxon, and an unconcious human who could only be Matt. He recognized the foxes. Rian and Bane. <<Rian, what is going on here? What happened?>>
Rian:
Rian ran over to Matt when he hit the wall. Ironically he felt relieved. He hoped that the hit would fix whatever had happened to Matt's memory. That was how it worked in the movies right. He hoped so because this situation was getting worse.
Then Steve arrived with Jullian. Well at least they were accounted for. <<Um, not sure, just got here myself. Matt is an amnesiac but hopefully not forever because that would be bad.>> He was stating the obvious but he couldn't think of anything else to do. <<Ember and Kat are up above. Speaking of which,>> he projected his thoughts so that the two team mates would hear him, <<why are you guys up there? Whatever is going on give us a few minutes to get rid of this Taxxon and then I think you should come back down. There might be controllers up there, who knows where we are under the city.>>
He looked at Steve and Jullian. Both of them were in more powerful morphs than himself at the moment. <<Do you think you can drive off that Taxxon so that Ember and Kat can get back in?>>
Stevert:
AS he heard Rian explain about Matt, Steve said, <<Ooo, that must hurt. But maybe the hit on the head will cure him.>> Then he listened to Rian's instructions. <<Yes sir! Come on Jullian. That's something we can do.>> Steve bolted down the tunnel after the running taxxons. H manage to get within a couple of feet from it so he bunched up his leg muscles and jumped on the alien. Although, his mouth coulod bite through bone, that was the only heavily built part of the African wild dog. So his idea to squash the alien under his weigth didn't exactly work. Instead, he got a death grip on its nech and tried shredding it with his claws.
When Steve and Jullian were done taking care of the taxxon, Steve trotted back to Rian. His paws and muzzle were covered in the taxxon's blood. <<Ohhhh. Never bite a taxxon. They taste horrible!>> Then he arrived by Rian. <<Now what, oh Fearless Leader? I could morph squirrel or blue jay and check out what is going on up there.>>
Jullian:
Jullian ran behind Steve. When they found Rian, Bane and Matt in the sewers he had been relieved. Hopefully this meant they would be getting out of here soon. And they even had an assignment. Get the Taxxon. Of course get meant kill and he'd never killed anything before so when Steve shot down the tunnel and jumped on the thing, Jullian held back.
But he looked like he could use some help so Jullian darted in and started taking bitefuls out of the Taxxon as well, using his agility to dart around the thing and avoid getting hit. The combination of Jullian's strike and run tactics to Steve's rip and tear was no match for the one soft skinned Taxxon and they left it bleeding in the tunnel.
<<You got that right.>> Jullian said in response to Steve's comment about the Taxxon taste. <<But maybe we shouldn't go up there. An animal coming out of the sewers would be a dead give away.>>
Ember:
Ember heard the echoes of conversation being bounced around down there as she regained her feet and stood next to Kat, opposite from the now dozen or so controllers who were slowly advancing on them. Shoot. Everyone was here, somehow, but they had no idea what they were getting themselves into.
"STOP" The shout apparently came from Ember's mouth, though she couldn't remember doing it. Quick! Recover, recover! Ok, think, if the guys were down there they must have gotten rid of the big bug. That was good at least.
"Stop right there!" Her hand whipped upward, pointing viciously at the controllers who, surprisingly did what she said if only out of shock. "Take one more step and I'll turn into a.. a vicious man-eating Lion!" Out of the corner of her eyes she looked over at Kat. The girl was closest to the man hole, but if they fled now the yeerks would just follow and endanger everyone. A plan slowly started to form and she inwardly groaned at how ironic it was going to be. She almost rolled her eyes, but she had to keep her focus on the controllers. "Kat.." She hissed out of the side of her mouth "Run. Now."
Matt:
Matt didn't take quite as long to come out of the blackout this time. The first thing he noticed was a throbbing headache. It was dark, but he could just make shapes out. Bane and Rian were there in fox, the dingo was Jullian, and the African wild dog was Steve..... Wait! He remembered! Forget the headache, he knew what was going on again!
Climbing to his feet, again covered in slime from landing on the floor, he glanced upward. Rian had said Kat and Ember were up there. That wasn't good. Still, no one could really go up and help. Matt went into town as a human all the time to shop, so if he went up now he'd no longer be able to use the guise of Promin 861. Everyone else was in morph, and not forms that could climbe a ladder.
Ember's smart. She can't get her and Kat out of it. We need to get out of here ourselves. They saw Kat and Ember come out so even if they don't go back down someone might think to investigate. "Time to split guys. Kat and Ember can take care of themselves. Besides, the yeerks won't be dumb enough to not look down here and see us." This alone would let them know he was back.
Wiping some slime out of his hair he focused on the bat DNA. It would be his best morph for moving around down here, it already had proved that. As he felt his mouth change he sent a thought speak message. <<And yes, I've got my memory back. I've also got a throbbing headache to boot. Please don't try to argue with me.>>
Stevert:
<<I know Jullian. But I was thinking that if I used a small morph, No body would see me very well. But it probably wouldn't work anyways.>> Then he said in excitement, <<Yay! Matt's back! But can't we demorph first? I'm covered in slime and alien blood. And my fur is matted. But you are right. we do gotta go.>> As he turned around to run back down the tunnel he and Jullian had come from, he sent a private thought-speak to Ember and Katrina. <<Good luck guys. See ya later hopefully.>>
Steve knew that the Yeerks would be coming down the manhole soon. If they saw two people come through it, why wouldn't there be more people down there? <<Come on Jullian. We need to go now.>> With that, Steve took of running down the sewers, finding his way by smelling the parts that he and Jullian ahad marked. When he was on the edge of thought-speak range from Matthew, Rian and Bane, he called back, <<Rian, Bane. Jullian and I marked our parts of the sewers with pee. If you need to come back, just follow it.>>
Bane:
Bane whimpered softly. He wanted to do something other than just run away, but he knew they had no choice. He didn't like the thought of leaving Kat and Ember behind, no matter the chances. <<Is there absolutely nothing we can?>> He asked. There had to be some small chance...
Maybe like Jullian had said, some small morph...would they notice a little lizard? He knew he wouldn't be able to do anything...but atleast knowing what was going on...
His thoughts were interrupted by Steve and something about pee...lovely. Just the thing he wanted to think about now. He shook his head in disgust, still hesistant to just run.
Rian:
For the first time Rian found himself extremely reluctant to follow an order. Steve and Jullian had already gone down the tunnel and he was expected to follow but he just couldn't make his fox body move. Was he suppose to just leave her, uh, them here? What if they were in trouble. He could hear that something was going on up there.
He tried to figure out what to do and that is when he noticed that he wasn't the only one not running off. He looked at the other fox. <<Is it just me or do you think maybe we should do something to help. I don't have a morph small enough to go unnoticed except maybe my blue jay but you have that lizard morph right?>> He couldn't believe what he was about to suggest. It went directly against what Matt had just told them to do. Well maybe not directly.
<<Maybe you can just take a peak really quickly. Then we'll follow the others after we know they are alright.>>
Matt:
Rian and Bane weren't moving. Jullian and Steve had already gone, Matt was circling above waiting for the other two to go. I can understand not wanting to leave Kat and Ember, but there isn't anything we can do without risking our own necks as well, he thought.
<<Guys, we have to trust Kat and Ember can get out of this. The only way we can get up that hole is human or bird. Our bird forms can't do much damage except for Rian's kestral and we can't risk being seen as humans. Anyone who is seen can't go back into the city without being in danger. That already means Jullian, Kat, and Ember can't because they've been seen. I definately can't because my guise as Promin 861 for shopping trips will be compromised.>>
He tried to talk reason. He knew loyalty to the faction was a big thing, loyalty to friends was too. He knew all about being loyal, it was a part of his nature. So was being logical and knowing the right risks to take though. <<I'm the one making this decision and it's the hardest one I've ever had to make. I don't want to leave them, I defintely don't want to lose them, But as we are we can't do anything but get ourselves into danger along with them.>>
Rian:
<<Bane has a small lizard morph. That might not be noticed and we can just wait down here. I just want to take a peak, to see if they are in any kind of trouble. I'll even morph wolf so that if trouble follows them down here we can ambush it but if they are ok then we can just run. Maybe you can go crocodile, that won't look out of place in a sewer.>> The last part was a joke obviously and he was hoping bringing hilarity into the situation might make Matt more amenable to the suggestion.
The truth was he knew that they should leave too. He knew it put the least amount of people at risk and Ember was certainly good at taking care of herself and he knew that Kat could do damage so they should just leave. But he really didn't want to leave and the situation wasn't an emergency yet.
Matt:
Matt could see he wasn't going to convince Rian to leave. This isn't like you Rian. You never question an order. You know I don't take risks unless we need to. Right now we don't need to. He kept these thoughts to himself though. Outwardly he sent two messages. To Rian he said <<Fine. We stay, but if I think we're in over our heads I will expect you to leave when I say to.>> And to Steve and Jullian he said <<Rian won't go. Bane's going to go up and check on Kat and Ember. Rian and I are going Wolf and Crocodile in case the controllers try coming down here. If you two want to keep running go ahead and we'll meet you back at the Haunt.>>
The circling bat landed on the wall just above where it started to get slimey and began turning back into the seventeen-year-old faction leader. As soon as the demorph was done he started into the saltwater crocodile morph, without much of a pause between demorph and morph. As his skin spread in a pattern of scales and his body started expanding Matt thought, I think there might be something to look into here. Rian's reluctance to leave Ember may mean something I hadn't noticed yet.
Kat:
Kat's eyes finally moved from the group of controllers, snapping to Ember. A million things popped into Kat's head, the first being that Ember couldn't be serious, but she knew she was. She hesitated a moment, opening her mouth slightly to utter that she wouldn't run and wouldn't leave Ember to deal with a huge group on her own, but what good did that actually do? In movies it was always a touching scene but movies were scripted so the good guys won no matter what. In reality if she stayed they would both be shot. Neither would have the time to morph and if Kat ran at least one of them would have a chance. There wasn't time to argue about who would be given that chance. Katrina bolted and she hated herself for it.
She could hear controller breaking away from the initial group as her legs pumped to get her away from the manhole. She didn't look back to see what Ember would be faced with now that she was alone. Her eyes needed to remain ahead and on the look out for a way to get rid of her pursuers and find a spot to morph. All she needed was three minutes. Just three! But three could be far too late.
If Ember was killed it would be her fault. The thought weighed Kat down. She'd almost killed Rian with her own hands and now she could possible have killed Ember. This was her first mission and already things had gone so horribly wrong. This was all such a huge mistake. She should have never jo-
FOCUS She screamed at herself, hearing her own internal noise much clearer then the thoughts projected from her faction.
An odd sound rang out, followed by a searing pain in her shoulder as a red light grazed it. She picked up her pace and started to swerve as she rain, forming unstable waves to throw them off when they tried to shoot. Crap! Crap! Crap! RUN. FASTER.
Her eyes darted around for any means of escape. There had to be some place she could duck into and hide just long enough to get her coyote morph out. She was causing a scene from booking it as fast as she could in such a populated area. This was so bad..
Finally she spotted it. An alley between two large buildings that looked like it had an open way out at the other end. Maybe if she darted through it quickly there would be a place to hide at the other end. She went for it and darted as fast as she could until she reached the other end, busting out into another street, though there was an underground stairwell leading to a subway. Kat was down the stairs before the controllers had reached the end of the alleyway. They would probably guess this was the way she'd come but once down she found a hiding spot and crouched low in it.
She didn't know if the hiding spot would work, but she instantly starting to think of her morph anyway. Three minutes later the coyote burst from the spot, surprising the controllers as they searched. Their shock gave her enough time to get back up the steps before they could recover, not like they could even catch her with her knew legs.
Kat wasn't focused on the controllers that had been after her. She was more worried about the ones she'd left behind with her teammate. She and Ember hadn't exactly acted the part but that's what they were, teammates, and as Kat raced back to where she had just been she hoped Ember was ok.
Bane:
Bane couldn't help but let his tail wag when Matt said they'd go ahead with what Rian and he had been planning. He began to demorph immediately and morphed as quickly as he could, wishing it didn't take three minutes each way.
Once he was a skink, he crawled his way up the ladder and scampered to the surface. No one noticed the little lizard as it moved to a spot that wasn't very noticeable and watched. He was just in time to see Kat bolt. <<Kat's taking off..some of them are following her...>> He sent the message only to Matt and Rian, unsure of where Jullian and Steve were and if he could project his thoughts to them without involving anyone else. He didn't know what Ember was going to do, but he was worried for both of them, and it had shown in his thoughtspeak.
He hoped Kat would be okay...He turned his attention back to Ember, watching to see what she had planned.
Ember:
Oh, so this is what it feels like for your insides to turn to jelly? Ember thought dimly as Kat made a break for it.
"Ok" She muttered under her breath, "If I'm planning to die stupidly, nows the time to do it." She'd already heard Matt's order to leave, which meant she and Kat were casualties of war if they couldn't handle it themselves. Any further thought speak from there she simply blocked out, concentrating on living instead.
A controller darted after Kat, pulling the gun from his hip and leveling it at the girl's head. "NO!" Just under the elbow, she caught him with an upward cut of her palm, the shot veering wide. It could had still hit Kat, but three more ignored her and chased in that direction so hopefully that meant she'd gotten away. Good. If anyone was going to hurt her team mate it would be Ember herself, not some slug infested sci fi lackey. The other controllers pulled their own weapons, beads of light aimed at her heart. Whipping out her hand she caught the first guy's shirt and pulled herself in front of him, holding off his dracon beam with the other. Four shots fired at once, but all she saw was a red flash and the man's eyes widen in shock before his entire body crumbled to dust in between her fingers.
The courage drained out of her. There was no way she could win... Kat was gone, Matt and the others had left, and Rian... Dammit. She flung herself off the street behind a rusted mail bin, feeling the heat as pops of red light followed her heels and made a mockery of her cover as they slowly filled it with ping pong ball sized holes. They were toying with her... after all, there was nothing she could-
The metal burst, seemingly from within, shattering under the impact of so many well aimed shots. It was terrifying, being exposed like that in the face of certain death. Her heart sped up, her limbs trembling as nearly five of them bared down on her. And then... time slowed. A click went off in her head as her plan came together. She had, maybe five seconds. More than enough. Ember stood, the dracon beams following her ascent up, up... up? In a split second, almost too fast to be caught, a cardinal appeared where a girl had been. The controllers fired, but it was too late, they hit air. Or... more accurately, they fired upon air and two of them hit each other by accident. One lost an arm, the other.. not so lucky.
Surprise. That was the only weapon she had. Keep them on their toes, don't attract any more attention, and seek a way out at the same time.
Rian:
Given permission to do what he wanted Rian rushed through his demorph. It was easy because the fox was a long time friend and he considered it his body as much as his human one. Going wolf took a bit longer since the morph was new but he was getting there with it so he was ready and under the manhole when Bane was reporting on the situation.
Rian's heart sank as he heard what was going on above. The situation was pretty much as bad as it could get. Not only had they gone to the surface but controllers had seen them come out, controllers with guns. He didn't need Bane to tell him that, he could hear them firing.
<<Matt, we can't do anything from down here.>> His frustration was obvious. <<We...we have to go. Unless Ember can get back through the manhole then we can't help her at all. And Kat might not even be in the area anymore.>> His tactical mind was coming up blank. Even if Ember led them down here, a hard thing to do in a bird morph, would they have enough man power, or animal power, to take them out when they followed her. <<Your call Matty.>>
Jullian:
Jullian hadn't been too happy about leaving Ember behind so he hadn't exactly raced off after Steve. In fact he let Steve get pretty far ahead of him and then found a manhole of his own. He demorphed from his dingo form and climbed up the ladder. The manhole was almost to heavy for him to lift but he kept working at it until he had it open enough that he could peek out. He looked all around and only pushed it aside when he didn't see anybody around.
He gratefully climbed out of the sewers and into the Californian sun, never so grateful for it in his life. He only took a second to relish the feeling of sun and fresh air before getting back to what he was doing. He pushed the manhole cover back on, though he left it open slightly so he could get back in if he had to, then he took anothr look around and morphed dingo after seeing the coast was clear. He hoped that the dingo would be taken for a stray dog and go unnoticed.
Then he ran back in the direction where Ember and Kat had been. Ember hadn't left him behind when he was captured. He wouldn't leave her. But now that he had made up his mind to do this he heard Matt's thoughtspeak and realized his disobedience had been unneccessary. Great, now he would get in trouble for no good reason. Well maybe, <<uh, Matt, I'm on the surface. We found a way out. I'm heading back in that direction now. What should I->> he cut himself off when Kat raced by as a coyote, a group of controllers trailing her.
Jullian raced after the controllers. They didn't see him as he came up behind them and leaped at the first one's back. 70 lbs of wild dog landed on the human's back. The guy went down with Jullian on top of him. His dracon beam got knocked out of his hand and went flying. He wasn't out for the count however. He began trying to shake Jullian off but he didn't have to try very hard since Jullian jumped off and kept running, picking up the dracon beam as he did so so that the controller wouldn't get it.
<<Matt, Kat is ahead of me, heading back towards Ember. I'm right behind her. Can't see Em yet.>>
<<Kat, I'm behind you. You've got two controllers running after you but they are so slow,>> he said as he started to catch up to them. But being slow wouldn't be a problem for them since they could aim those dracon beams for quite a distance. <<I've got your back.>> He dropped the dracon beam in his mouth in a sewer grate as he ran past and leaped for the second controller, jaws coming down hard on her wrist, teeth ripping into flesh. Jullian only held on long enough that she let go of the dracon beam. But he had their attention now. Both controllers stopped chasing Kat and focused on him. The one he had knocked down came running up as well. He was surrounded and one still had a dracon beam.
Stevert:
Steve whirled around and saw a flash off Jullian going back. Steve took offafter him and watched as he climbed up through a manhole cover. <<Jullian! What are you doing?>> he yelled. Jullian left the manhole and dissappeared above the sewers. Steve demorphed and climbed up. He didn't see him anywhere. He morphed back to the wild dog and started sniffing the air.
There. He had Jullian's scent now and the scent of the dingo. He followed the scent until he caught the scent of several other people. Steve peaked around the corner and saw Jullian surrounded by three controllers. And one had a Dracon beam. Just great. I knew I should follow him. <<Okay Jullian. This is Steve. When I count two three,>> he said as he circled around the building and came out on the street behind the Controllers. <<duck.>> With that, Steve became a multi-colored blur and he streaked across the ground and jumped onto the back of the controller with the gun. As they fell, the Controller let loose a blast but it hit the top of a building. <<Jullian! Run!>> Steve hopped off the person's back and grabbed the Dracon beam in his mouth.
He took off after the scent of Kat's coyote morph, since he doubted that a normal coyote would last two seconds in a Yeerk infested city.
Bane:
Bane felt useless, absolutely useless, as he heard Jullian saying he was on the surface now, helping Kat. Kat was a coyote, racing back. Ember was a cardinal, distracting and evading the controllers. Rian and Matt were a wolf and crocodile, waiting to act if they needed to. Steve was probably with Jullian...
All he could do was sit there and watch. Even if he could have snuck off to remorph, neither a fox nor magpie was going to be able to help. He couldn't do a thing to help any of them. He hated that feeling, the feeling of helplessness....it made him...annoyed. Maybe he could ask Matt about a new morph...No, he'd just wait...he was sure Matt would give him something strong eventually. He just needed to wait..
Waiting seemed to be all he could do lately.
Matt:
Crap. This mission was going to hell in a handbasket now. <<Jullian, be careful up there. You've already been seen as a human on that shopping trip. Steve, wherever you are you be careful too. They haven't seen you yet and with Kat, Ember, and Jullian having been seen we need to keep the rest of our identities secret as best we can.>> As he finished this he noted that he'd been right. The light from the manhole was getting blocked as several controllers started to climb down the ladder.
<<Rian, looks like we're going to see some action too. I hate to say this, but do whatever you need to. I'm not extremely in favour of killing controllers since their sort of the victims, but that might be the only thing we can do.>> A controller stepped off the ladder, right next to Matt's nose. Actually, almost landing on Matt's nose. The croc opened it's mouth and a hissing breath was let out. The controller glanced and Matt saw fear coming to his eyes as he made out the shape of the saltwater crocodile. That's right, be afraid. Be very afraid.
As the guy leveled his dracon beam at Matt a few more made it down the ladder. Rian could take some of them on. For now Matt struck and the coppery taste of blood filled his mouth. The crocodile mind liked it, the human mind of Matt felt like he was going to hurl. The controller screamed and dropped the dracon beam to favor holding his leg which was only half there now.
<<Bane. Keep an eye on what's going on with Ember. It sounds like Jullian's found Kat. Ember, if you can hear me we're all still here. Bane's watching in lizard morph and Kat's apparently headed your way in coyote with Jullian in dingo after her Rian and I are taking care of the ones coming down into the sewers..>> A battle, that's what this mission had turned into. Amazingly Matt was taking everything in stride with an almost calm head on his shoulders. He mentally shouted orders while still tearing into controllers himself. Part of him wondered whether that was actually a good thing though.
Ember:
Ember circled, swerving as best as she could around and over the controllers, trying to get them to hit each other again. But apparently that kind of trick only happened once in a lifetime, and now that they knew what she was they weren't going to make another mistake. Something was happening on the ground, and she paused to listen as a thought speak message was shouted up to her.
The guys were back! Ember could have jumped for joy if she hadn't been flying. Thank god for that because she was running out of-
Daggers of pain ripped through her left wing. Down, too rapidly, trying to keep flying... hopeless. Hit.. she was hit.. she was... The thought blurred as she impacted on the pavement, several yards away from help. Red feathers, sticking out at angles and thick with.. with... The Cardinal panicked and tried to flap itself upright, causing her to loose control of her actions. The youngest controller was almost there, a bit faster than the others. From the look in her eyes, Ember suddenly knew what it felt like to be truly hunted...
Get out of the morph. Her own words echoed back to her. Get out of it! right... right.. yes, good idea.. before i get killed. With a strange jerking shudder she eased out of her form, back into her natural body. Not that it did any good. In the few minutes it had taken her to change back the young controller was on top of her and she doubted if she would only get clipped at this distance. Time didn't slow down, she didn't have an escape.. she didn't have a choice. If she moved, she was dead. If she stayed, she was dead. Her muscles wouldn't work, she couldn't think enough to force herself...
Here and now, that was how she was going to die... all because of some stupid fight. It was like how she always got in trouble, loosing her temper. Only this time it would stick. Flat on her back she saw the barrel of the gun level over her face...
Jullian:
And then it was violently jerked away as Jullian ripped into the arm holding it with all the fear, anger and power the dingo's formidible jaws and teeth could contain. Jullian had never felt what he was feeling now. It was fear, but for the first time ever there was absolutely no fear for himself. He wasn't even thinking of himself at the moment. It was as if his fear for Ember was taking up too much space and there was no room for any other emotion.
Jullian had been surrounded back in the street but Steve had come to the rescue, clipping the one guy that still had a weapon. After that it had been child's play to outrun some out of shape humans and get back to this manhole.
And when he had gotten here he had seen Ember demorphing, and about to die. He didn't think, he just reacted and the controller's arm wound up in shreds.
But the controller fought back, hitting him with the strength inherited from ancestors who swung through trees and fueled by panic. Jullian let go, but not before that particular controller had lost the use of his arm, maybe permantly.
He stood in front of Ember so that she would have a chance to get up and remorph. And as he faced all the controllers who still had their weapons he was really glad that Kat and Steve were close by.
Stevert:
As Steve came upon the entrance of the manhole cover where KAt was, he saw, smelled, and heard a growing, shifting mass of Ember demorphing into a human, Kat and Jullian standing over her, and several Controllers aiming Dracon beams at them. <<Jullian! Can't you go two seconds without having me to come around and get you out of trouble? You're like a two-year old kid. Always getting into stuff!>> As he said that, he jumped onto one Controlelr's back, knocking her down. He he lunged at the guy beside her and clamped his jaws down on his arm.
The guy swung him off so Steve barreled into the guy's legs. The result knocked the guy down, but on top of Steve. As he struggled to get up, the woman he knocked down fired at him. She burned an ear off and fortunately hit the guy's leg Steve was under. Steve scrambled up and tried jumping on the lady again but she sliced a leg off. Steve limped over to the manhole cover and tried to demorph before he died off blood-loss.
Kat:
Katrina hadn't even been paying attention to what was behind her. She was sure the controllers were there but she was relying on her speed to keep them at bay and had her attention on what lay ahead. Her ears twitched as she heard the commotion behind her but ignored it until she heard Jullian.
<<I've got your back!>> She was grateful to hear it.
<<Thanks Jullian. Where is Ember!? We need to get to her! She was surrounded!!>> Her voice was urgent but as she spoke she could see Ember. There was something moving in the sky and although she couldn't make out the bright red coloration of the bird with her coyote sight she knew it had to be her ill tempered teammate.
And then she was falling. The bird was plummeting after a shot to the wing, getting closer to the ground as the three canines got closer to her. She hit the ground and the controllers advanced. Ember was starting to demorph but the dracon beam would take her out before she had a chance to even get half way back to how she should be.
Kat picked up her pace but Jullian was faster. The Dingo had ripped into the arm of the controller, getting Ember out of immediate danger, but in doing so he'd place himself in a bad position with the other controllers. There was still a number of them. Kat saw Steve jump in to help Jullian, knocking a guy down only to have him land on top of him. Then he was fired upon and a his leg became injured soon after. Now it was Kat's turn to come in.
She leaped and her teeth sank into the soft tissue at the woman's throat. She'd taken Steve's leg, but Steve would be good as new in no time if he demorphed. The woman wouldn't be so lucky. The dracon beam dropped, as did the woman's body and Kat jumped to the man who know had one leg and was reaching for a dracon beam just out of his grasp.
CRUNCH. The bone made a sickening sound as her teeth clenched down tightly at the hand. She jerked her head and yanked the mans arm away from the beams direction, dragging him some by his injured hand as he screamed. From behind her a beam of light shot from the gun of another controller and Kat's tail was gone, leaving a bleeding stump at the base of her rear. She yelped and leaped back, quickly recovering her wit and launching herself at another controller, trying to direct the attention from Steve and Ember so they could demorph safely.
<<We need to start working on getting the hell out of here!>>
Rian:
Rian was doing as much damage as he could in the sewers, trying to stay away from Matt since the crocodile was pure, viscous instinct and Rian didn't want to get caught in any friendly fire. He ripped into arms for the most part, trying to disarm controllers instead of killing them.
Arms and legs got broken between his jaws as he disabled controllers and moved on, getting them out of the fight as soon as possible. Only a couple of times was he forced to go for throat shots. And one of those times he missed and ended up taking off half the guys face. That would not be an experience that he would forget anytime soon.
But he wasn't sure if they were winning anything. He didn't have to be on the surface to hear the fight and smell the blood being spilled. <<Matt, we have to get them back down here,>> he said taking a moment to report, not sure what a crocodile's senses would tell him.
Bane:
<<Yeah..it's getting pretty bad up here...>> Bane said, agreeing with Rian. <<First Ember got hit, Jullian protected her so she could demorph, then Steve jumped in to help Jullian, but he got hurt pretty badly and lost a leg...he's demoprhing now. Kat came in too and did some damage..but there's still more controllers..>> Bane explained the situation to Rian and Matthew, not wanting to distract the others with information they already knew.
He had to control the temper in his voice. He was annoyed that all he could do was watch his friends get torn apart. <<We need to find some way out of here...people are only going to keep getting hurt.>> Controllers and animorphs alike. He added, but didn't 'voice', keeping it to himself.
Ember:
For a second, it was like the movies... a dull thrum over shadowed everything she heard, her entire being focused only on the weapon aimed between her eyes. And then a ball of fur leaped on top of her would be assailant, ripping into skin and bone... She didn't have time to see what else. Snapping out of the shock she recognized that she was back as a human, meaning she was a bigger target. But right behind her savior came two more canines in their LA pack. They descended upon the enemy, letting the instincts take over for one insane moment after another...
Ember rolled onto her side, feeling the world turn topsy, the light of the sun blinding, flashes and fresh waves of blood... And then... there was red. A brilliant red spot right there in her vision. A smile curled itself on the corner of her lips.
She turned back to the fight, still on her knees to avoid being hit by a stray shot. Her horse was too big, and her cat and snake too small, she didn't have a morph for such close combat battles. That didn't matter... her team mates were there to watch her back. And as she watched another controller went down under Kat's maned wolf, costing her tail in exchange. But the man's dracon beam clattered to the ground... Keeping as low as she could as the war zone increased, Ember looked around to seek out the situation. She couldn't use thought speak, but for what she had in mind she doubted if they wouldn't take advantage even without her prodding. They desperately needed an exit , the sewer was the best chance if they managed a good head start.
The metal felt slick in her hand, she didn't bother to look why. Her entire focus was on that one red spot in the distance... Like a sign from the angels... If they made it out of here Ember reminded herself to take up religion. And on that thought she bit her lip, leveled the gun into the crowd of her faction and the swarming controllers, waiting for the one... good... shot...
Kat had launched to the side, Steve had fallen to the ground, Jullian barely moved an inch to her right... The trigger squeezed. The short flash of light burst from the muzzle, once, twice, three times for good luck. The first went wide, the second hit the shoulder of a controller who had bad timing. But the third.. ahh, that's the charm. It struck the red sign plastered to the gas tank, ironically a warning sign. And albeit it was a long shot that the yeerks had left enough in that decrepit station to actually make an explosion, but by whatever power had kept her alive this long decided that there was just enough to spark a reaction. The entire corner block when off in an explosion worthy of a july fireworks display.
Stevert:
Steve was trying to demorph when an explosion happened. Shards of metal ripped through the air and several of them sliced through him. Steve raised his head and saw Ember with a Dracon beam. <<Not helping Ember.>> Steve moaned right before he lost thought-speak. a couple minutes later, he had finished demorphing. Now he was a regular human in an open brawl involving a tailess coyote, an out-of-place dingo, a bunch of enslaved humans with Dracon beams, and a blood-thirsty Ember who had just caused an explosion.
He rolled over as a beam of light stabbed into the cement where he had been laying two seconds ago. He jumped to his feet and imitated Ember by grabbing a Dracon beam. He fired into the mess of Controllers, aiming high so he, hopefully, wouldn't hit a teammate. He managed to slice a few arms and legs off, not to mention blasting the walls of several buildings down before the Controllers noticed him and began firing. He yelled to Ember, "I'm going down below!"
He grabbed the ladder of the manhole and slid down. Strangely, it was slick with some liquid that Steve didn't want to look at. He landed at the bottom on a controller's head and they both went down. Steve used the end of the Dracon and hit the Controller several times on the head to ensure a headache when he got up... after several days in a hospital. If he was lucky. Steve got up and backed away out of the pool of light. Looking through it, Steve managed to glimpse a growling wolf tearing and clawing at a knot of Controllers will a deadly crocodile was going berserk.
Steve tried finding a shot but the brawl was to close. It would be to risky since there was a very high chance of hitting his teammates. He backed up into the tunnel where it seemed that nobody was at and he concentrated on his most recent morph.
Matt:
Matt refocused his mind at what Bane and Rian told him. For a moment he'd been lost, letting the shear viciousness of the crocodile morph take over as he went into full combat mode. As his human mind regained control he stared at the mess he'd made. Several controllers were missing legs. A few the croc had completely torn apart.... literal shreads of them remaining.
<<Oh lord what did I do?....>> He hadn't meant to say that, but fortunately only Rian would hear it since he wasn't projecting much. His normally peaceful self was kicking in again and didn't like what he'd felt was necessariy to get this battle done. <<Bane. Try and get them down here. Rian's right, we've got to get out of hereAUUUGGGGHHHHH........>>
The last part was said as Matt's tail got severed off by a dracon beam from a controller near Rian. Jerk. Too bad that won't slow me down..... wait, no. Don't let the croc take over. You can't go over there or you might hurt Rian. <<Rian, let's get rid of these last few. And sorry about that scream, I just lost my tail.>> Matt bit into another leg near him as the controller aimed at Rian. This time the blood lust didn't take over, Matt remained in control. I'm a killer now. How can I justify some of what I did in this morph? I didn't have to rip them to shreads..... He'd worry about that later. Now they had to get back to the Haunt in one piece.
He spotted Steve just in the light from the manhole morphing into his wild dog. One member off the surface. Three more to go.
Kat:
Kat had been sent flying back with a loud yelp in mid leap by a large hunk of metal that had been sent flying in the explosion. Fortunately for her, the controller she'd been attacking had also been hit by a flying object after Ember's stunt. The Coyote hit the ground and rolled a few feet before stopping on its side where it was motionless a moment. It was a good thing Steve regained himself to shoot a few of the remaining controllers, because it took Kat a moment.
Her ribs definitely didn't feel right. The metal had collided with her rib cage, making a few sickening cracks as she was thrown to the ground by its momentum and now she was having trouble breathing. As much as she wanted to stay in the coyote morph and continue to take controllers down to help the others, she needed to demorph now.
<<..uughh... what the heck was that...>> She groaned as she started demorphing, trying to make her focus on the image of herself overtake the pain she felt.
When she had demorphed she started to stand and take a look around. The entire block was a complete wreck. Now adding to the collection of controller bodies and blood their was a massive amount of debris and twisted metal chunks, along with flames dancing on the remains of what had once been on the street. She could see the number of controllers had dwindled considerably now, most having been taken out in the explosion. Unlike the faction, they couldn't morph away their injuries.
Steve had taken down a few of the remaining controllers on his way to the manhole before going down. The ones remaining were scrambling for dracon beams or trying to pull themselves together and ignore their horrible injuries. "Jullian, Ember, Lets go!" It was a good time to get the hell out of here. Kat bolted for the manhole and in moments was on her way down the ladder. At the bottom her feet stepped on something squishy instead of the hard cement floor and stumbled on it as she tried to jump back and get away from it, falling backwards and landing on her rear end as she let out a startled yell. She'd been expecting the solid cement.
The light pouring in from the manhole showed Kat she'd stepped on the body of the controlled Steve had landed on then beaten in the head. She calmed down a bit and quickly got to her feet, her hands dabbling in something warm and sticky as she pushed off the ground. "..aw gross.." She muttered, looking around a bit though to see the wolf and crocodile working on the last of the controllers.
Ember:
Ember easily ignored Steve. After all, she couldn't help but notice that if there were any uninjured controllers left before... there weren't any now. The fire bloomed upward after the initial shock, massive amounts of ash and smoke pouring into the sky and creating quite a spectacle... the strange contrast of the flickering heat making the bodies on the ground twist and writhe in her vision.
But now wasn't the time to worry about how many lives she'd just taken. Jullian was still in morph nearby, this was their chance to run. From the look of it Kat and Steve had already headed back underground. Once they turned back into humans she hadn't been able to hear their shouts, but it didn't take a genius to figure out that it was time to leave. "C'mon Kid!" Ember bodily picked Jullian's dingo up off the ground and less than graciously dumped him back down the manhole, confident he'd find his footing. The important thing was that he was safe, the little idiot, jumping into a fight like that...
Ember took one last look around, easing herself halfway back down before scratching at the sewer lid, managing to claw it almost shut. The thing was heavy, but she was desperate. On the way down she slipped a few bars, cutting her hands and feet on the metal in order to stop from falling and probably breaking her legs. "That'll buy us some time." She panted through gritted teeth, "Now we just have to out run them."
Matt:
Finally everyone was below ground and Matt, Rian, and Steve had dispatched the last of the controllers. Matt had lost a leg in the process besides his tail and needed to seriously demorph before he lost too much more blood. He focused on his human self and the crocodile started shrinking. At the same time the leg started regrowing into Matt's left arm. The whole process took three minutes, maybe more since the crocodile was the morph Matt had the biggest disconnect with.
As he kneeled in a puddle of blood from his last kill as well as from his own wounds Matt again felt the strong urge to throw up, and in fact did. Standing up, with his face burning though no one would see it, he glanced around the darkness at the shapes that were his faction members. "Lets go. It won't take them too long to find another manhole and come after us. Everyone morph whatever form works best for you down here and lets go."
He tried to brush it off as he morphed his familiar bat form, but couldn't. Raven had told him he was a lot like Cassie.... she was the leader of New York and of all the Animorphs really. The only remaining original Animorph. How did she deal with it I wonder? How can anyone deal with the knowledge that they just took a life if it could have been prevented? The only answer he had was they just do. They roll with the punches and do what needs to be done. That's what he'd done..... he hoped.
Stevert:
Steve tore across the small space that seperated him from the other Controllers and Rian and Matt. He hurled himself onto the back of a controller, knocking him down. Steve jumped off the man and grabbed another person's arm with his bone-crunching jaws. He heard a loud crack and the arm in his mouth stopped moving. Steve let go and momentarily frooxe in the midst of the battle at what he had just done.
He started moving again as a Controller knocked him over. Steve rolled along the ground for a few feet before regaining his footing and rejoining the fray. Soon, there weren't any Controllers left. They were all dead or retreating. Steve was covered in cuts, scrapes, and bruises so he began to demorph since he was in no condition to do anything.
When he was human, Steve looked around in the dim light at the bodies littering the sewers. He fell to his knees on the realization that he would have had a hand, or more accurately a jaw, in the deaths of these people. Then he heard Matthew's to remorph so Steve became his African wild dog, after several minutes of catching his breathe, getting over what had happened, and remorphing.
Bane:
Bane wriggled in his skink morph, moving in a very snake-like manner as he scampered back into the sewer. He was glad for the speed of this morph, as it didn't seem anyone was going to check to make sure he'd gotten back in. He saw Rian and Matt has taken care of the controllers down there, and began demorphing. His skink may be quick, but not quick enough to keep up with the others in these sewers.
He began morphing fox without saying a word to the others. He didn't like the strong smell of the blood now mixing with the rancid sewage, but he would be able to get out of this situation. He was slightly bitter at the fact that he'd been useless.
Jullian:
<<You're welcome,>> he said sarcastically as Ember threw him down a hole. <<Maybe saved your life. Definitely saved your life. You totally owe-ug, what is that smell?>> Jullian hit the bottom of the sewers to find them slick with blood along with the normal set of bodily fluids found in sewers.
<<Ug, gross.>> He didn't demorph since his dingo was in pretty good shape. His fur was a little singed from the explosion and his ear felt funny. He tried to twist his head so that he could see it but couldn't. <<I'm so ready to get out of here. And oh yeah, let's never do this again.>>
Ember:
Ember didn't say anything.
This was... This was all her fault. Everything. She'd started the fight, forced Kat above ground, and got the others involved because she couldn't take care of it herself. People.. people were dead. Her friends were injured. The yeerks would be looking for the LA faction even more now that they'd done actual damage. All those lives, and any ones in the future were all... her... fault...
A chill shudder arced up her spine and she didn't dare to look any of them in the eye. Even without seeing exactly what had happened with the others.. the emotion seemed to sweep over her in a wave, bringing the whole thing back down to earth. This was real life.. wasn't it? Her heartbeat slowed dangerously, feeling the effect of a hallucinated battle that was real all along. And the others... what had they been forced into? Because of her.. because of...
Dammit there was no time. Ember physically shrugged it off, building walls around those dark thoughts and boxing them deeply away. Them or me! The voice in her head cried, it was them or me! Her faction had handled themselves well in the sudden war zone. That's all she could have asked. If they felt regret now.. and she knew they did... then that was what separated them from all other evil. She should be more worried if they hadn't acted, or didn't care about the lives they took. And as for it being her fault... Nope, still in the box.
Weirdly she'd already morphed into her cat, only realizing it as the nauseous wave of sewer smell hit her sensitive nose. It had almost gone as smoothly as her Cardinal since, for once, the cat wanted to share her emotion and gladly joined the other faction members, although normally she would have been completely aloof. She even enjoyed the run back, letting Ember fully realize the power she'd been missing from this form. It was a lovely distraction...
Kat:
" Everyone morph whatever form works best for you down here and lets go," came Matt's instructions, and Kat shuffled through her arsenal of morphs. Raccoon was excellent for the dark but she wanted to be faster then that. Her Coyote was a little big but it would do and she was sure the dark wouldn't bother it too much. She began to concentrate on it, trying to block everything else out.
Once situated she started moving, hustling down the tunnel. Her nose caught her human scent along with Embers amidst the various other aromas. Soon she could pick out the Raccoon and Cat as well and began to follow the trail, ignoring the unpleasant stench of the sewers that accompanied them.
Kat had the slightest urge to call out to Ember. A voice in her head just wanted to yell, 'happy now?', but she pushed it aside. What good would that do other then stir up more bad feelings. It certainly wasn't going to help and seemed pretty immature, which would in turn make her a hypocrite for accusing Ember of being immature in the first place.
Matt:
It didn't take too long for them to reach the entrance they'd used to get into the sewers. All the while the group ran in silence. Matt kind of figured everyone was lost in their own thoughts. Some, like him, weren't doing well with what they'd just done. Others probably had other things on their mind, or were just being quiet because they figured other people didn't want to talk. What happened exactly? It wouldn't have been so bad if it had just been the taxxon, but why did Kat and Ember go to the surface?
It was his own fault really, or that's what he figured as he demorphed and climbed the ladder out. At the top he waited for the others. They probably knew what to do, morph a flying morph and head back. Matt and Steve would use the horse and pronghorn again like when they come in. I put Kat and Ember together and I didn't give them enough time to deal with stuff. I asked for a fight between them to happen and it's probably what lead to them surfacing somehow. So much death, so much pain, and it was his fault. It didn't sit well with him and his only thought was, It's a good thing I threw up in the tunnel. There's nothing left in my stomach to throw up now.
Rian:
Rian stretched after demorphing. He was a little disgusted to find blood splattered on his clothing. Once he had morphed himself dry after getting wet. But he guessed that was because the water hadn't morphed with him and just fallen away from his shifting body. But the blood had been stuck in his fur and now it was stuck on his morphing suit.
He looked around, glad to see that everyone had gotten out of their first fight ok if shaken. That was enough for him, he was ready to go home. He began his next morph to kestrel, waiting for Matt to give the order to fly.