Post by dexter on Sept 30, 2009 12:10:06 GMT -5
Matt
Matt was returning from New York, finally back in L.A. after a long time away. He'd been held up part way by a rainstorm that hadn't let up, but deciding he couldn't stop he'd pressed on, morphing and demorphing and constantly soaked. Now, in his horse morph, he could see the Haunt just throught the trees. Home. This is home right now and it feels good to be back.
He reached the back door and demorphed. The seventeen year old boy that immerged didn't look as good as he could have. He was worse for the wear after his cross country trips. He also looked a little pale, an off color for any human being, and had a redish nose. These hadn't gone away with morphing, though it seemed like with Matt not everything did. Unfortunately I wish this cold would.
He stepped up the steps and went into the Haunt. "I'm ba-a-achoo..... I'm back," he managed to get it all out the second time, calling through the house to see if someone would hear him. They all had to be around, they just weren't where he could see them. Maybe that's a good thing. I could be infectious. That wasn't a pleasent thought. Not when he had a faction to lead. He needed to get better soon.
Stevert:
Steve was flying in sky in blue jay morph when he saw Matt return. He circled down in front of him in greeting, saying, <<Hello stranger! How was your trip to the Big Apple?>> Steve attempted to land on Matt's shoulder but a massive gust of wind knocked him off. As he landed on the ground, he said, <<Woah! That is some sneeze Matt! You might want to get that checked!>> Then he broadcasted to every square inch of the Haunt, <<Hey! Matt's home!>>
He stood up in front of Matthew and thought, <<All hail Pale-face.>> Then he laughed to show his humour. <<So how did the meeting go? Who'd ya meet? What happ-?>> In their minds, Robert cut Steve off, << Shut up little brother. Can't you see how sick he looks? Are you blind? He's probably exhausted anyways. He doesn't need you cracking jokes or asking thousands of questions.>> Taking control of their shared body, Robert said with their mind, <<I'm sorry about Steve, Mattew. This is Robert speaking and I'll fill you in on what's going on with us later. Right now, I think you need to go lay down. You look terrible.>>
Matt:
Robert?.... Something told Matt a rather interesting event had occured during his trip to New York and it resulted in them having one less member in their faction than they could have had. Still, the elder of the two brothers did have a point. Matt felt pretty terrible too, though currently some of it was his immune system fighting the cold while he was exhausted from his second cross country trip.
"I think I might, though you'd definitely better fill me in on what happened to you soon. I'll be wanting reports on what happened while I was gone anyways." The end of the sentece was punctuate with another sneeze. Matt shook his head, strecthed, and walked towards the main rooms of the Haunt. As much as he looked and felt horrible he wanted to be sure the rest of the faction was still in one piece before he took a nap. Being the leader it was his job to be concerned.
Rian:
Rian came down from where he had been hanging out with Jullian in the attic. The past week had been hard and he was glad to just take some time to relax. Steve was out on patrol so-Steve and Robert his mind interejected. He shook his head, he still couldn't get used to that. What had happened to the two wasn't their fault. If it was anyone's fault it was his. He should have sent more back up with Robert. He shouldn't have sent Robert in the first place. He should- he had been using that phrase a lot the past couple of days.
As he was coming down the stairs he heard a large sneeze and then he heard Steve's announcement. He came into the common room and saw Matt standing there. He didn't think he'd been so happy to see anyone in his life.
"Welcome back." He smiled. But the smile disappeared as he saw the blue jay. "I see you've met our newest member." His eyes had been following the blue bird but they turned to look at Matt. "I think we have a lot to talk about but maybe you should lie down," he added taking in Matt's appearance.
Jullian:
Jullian followed Rian down after he heard voices in the common room. Even his normal high spirits weren't up to snuff in the aftermath of their first visit to the yeerk pool but when he saw Matt they rose again.
He ran over to the faction leader and hugged him. "Matt! You're back! Jeez, this place went crazy with out you." He let him go and looked over at Rian. He didn't blame Rian for what had happened though he knew Rian was blaming himself. Blame wasn't Jullian's thing. It just made people feel bad so what was the point.
He turned his attention back to Matt. "Matt you look like you should be in bed. Red is not your color but it has taken over your nose."
Matt:
Jullian and Rian entered the room from the loft, Jullian hugging Matt as he came in. Matt hugged him back lightly before Jullian backed away, smiling at the statement about red not being his color. Matt knew he didn't look that great in red, esspecially with his pale face right now.
"Okay, okay, you win. I'll lie down," Matt said. He raised his hands in surrender. Jullian's statement had been the third time someone had mentioned how that he looked sick. Fourth if you counted Steve and Robert separately. The arms didn't stay up long as he pulled one down to cover his face as he sneezed again, not wanting to pass whatever he had on to the others. "It's probably just me being tired combined with running into a rainstorm on the way back. I couldn't exactly let that keep me from getting back here."
He glanced at Rian. "I will get a full report from you, right? I might have Robert and Steve explain why they are the way they are now, but the rest I want from you since you were in charge. However, I don't want you to blame yourself for what happened while I was gone, esspecially this happening to them. There was no way you could have foreseen it and everyone makes mistakes. We can beat ourselves up for a little while, but eventually we need to just learn from the mistake and move on." He'd put a hand on Rian's shoulder as he said this, looking into his faction member's eyes.
He turned and headed towards his room. "Where is everyone else," he asked. He felt he needed to know. No, you WANT to know, you NEED some rest.
Ember:
"We're around." Ember appeared behind him, having freshly come back from patrol. She'd been facing down the storm in her horse morph, which meant that by the time she returned back to her normal form she'd already gotten soaked since the horse wasn't allowed in the house. But even with her mascara running, and hair dripping wet, she still looked better than Matt did. "Oh man short-stuff" She frowned at him when he turned back, "what happened? you look like you had the same kind of week we did."
Rian:
He just nodded to Matt. Matt might tell him not to beat himself up but that wouldn't stop him from doing so. But at least he could try to be private about it and not bring everyone else down.
Ember came in from the rain storm and Rian realized that now no one would be on patrol. He was about to call someone to do it when he realized that he didn't have that power anymore. He was no longer the leader. He was partially relived.
In a storm like this no one is going to be sneaking up on us anyway. He thought as a justification for not telling Matt about the lack of patrols.
"So since my story is quite long how 'bout you go first. What happened in New York? What was the big emergency?"
Kat:
Kat was on the couch in the living room that doubled as her bedroom. Headphones covered her ears, allowing a stream of music to enter her ears. She didn't have it up loud so she could hear if something happened that would call for her to get up and head out, but it was up enough so that it took a bit for her to realize faction members were flocking to Matt upon his return.
I wanna rob you of your game face- "full report from you right" So I can cower beneath your words- "might have Robert and Steve explain..."
The lyrics blended with the voices coming from nearby. Kat slid the head phones off and started to sit up, catching sight of their pale leader now back from his New York trip. Oh boy did he have a lot to catch up on, but he should probably rest up first..
"Hey Matt." She called, started to put the MP3 player away and walk over to the group.
Bane:
<<Hey! Matt's home!>>
Leave it to Steve to be the first to notice and announce to everyone that Matt was back. He made his way to where everyone was greeting him and waved, sticking back a bit. "Hey," He said, leaning against the wall. While their leader had left he'd taken to being alone more than with others. He wasn't even sure why himself, but he had been doing a lot of thinking.
Taking in the faction leader's appearance, he chuckled. "I'd spare you another comment on it, but man do you look crappy." The black-haired boy's blue eyes studied Matt's face a moment. Colds sucked, and Matt seemed to have it pretty bad with the one he'd caught.
Matt:
Okay, add two more people saying he needed rest now that Ember and Bane had commented on his appearance. The results of the poll are in, most of the faction says their leader needs sleep, Matt thought sarcastically. They were only looking out for him though and he'd do the same if it was any of them in his place. Admittedly it was his job to look out for them, but there wasn't really anyone who's job it was to look out for him so it sort of fell back on them.
"New York was fine. I didn't really learn anything I hadn't heard already from talking to Raven when she visited here from Chicago, but I met Cassie and Matthias. Matthias is the Vancouver leader. Kind of weird for me being there since I was the youngest faction leader. Still, most things were okay except the Matthias' report. The Vancouver faction was found out and their hideout got blown up killing half their faction or more." Turning to Jullian he said, "I did find out that Helena survived, but she's in New York now with Cassie because she got separated from the others and didn't know what else to do. She was actually trying to get here, but apparently that didn't work."
He finished this and sneezed again. "And you guys are right, I really should go lay down. One last note though. Kudos to us, Cassie likes our efforts to map the sewers and use them for getting around." With this he again turned towards his room as he'd turned back into the room when everyone had shown up. He went inside and shut the door after saying. "Going to rest now. If something needs doing, Rian is the go to person for the moment unless it's an extreme situation, just so I actually can get some rest."
In his room he changed from his wet morphing suit, drying himself off with a stray towel and hanging the suit and towel up to dry, into the shorts from his old morphing suit. He really didn't need more than that on to sleep. He mostly just needed the shorts so he was decent if anyone ever tried to wake him up for something. He climbed into the bed, and up until then hadn't realized how much he really needed the rest since he was out like a light.
Matt woke up, it was too cold in his room. Another windy Chicago morning and mom had forgotten to turn the heat on before she left. He didn't want to get out of bed and turn it on. He wanted to stay as warm as possible.
Rubbing the sleep from his eyes he panicked. This wasn't his room in Chicago. It took him a few minutes to remember where this was. It was his room, but in the Haunt, the base of the Animorphs faction of L.A. He hadn't slept in his bed at home in months.
If this is L.A. then why is it so damn cold? He thought. He was shivering and the blankets on his bed should have been plenty of warmth even as close to the water as the Haunt was. This isn't good. I think I'm worse than I thought I was. I can't be sick. The others need me, I'm the leader. He was panicking now. Morphing hadn't worked to get rid of this, besides which it had still been raining here so he'd been constantly wet no matter what form up until entering the Haunt.
He lay back down with a sigh, touching his forehead which was hot even to him. If I get better we're fine. If I get worse..... we're screwed.
Jullian:
When Matt had said that Vancouver had gotten blown up Jullian had stopped breathing...literally. Have you ever had that happen to you? Just hear something that you can't even begin to try to comprehend so you just stop. That is what happened to Jullian. Then he had gone on to say, "Helena survived.'
He could have hit Matt. He didn't care that he looked terrible he still could have hit him. I mean, give a guy a heart attack why don't you. He could have started with Helena survived. Who cares if it wouldn't have made any sense without the other news from Vancouver. At least he wouldn't have had that horrible moment when his mind started to edge towards the slight possibility that his sister was dead. It sounded small but even being that close to that reality was way too close for Jullian's comfort.
He sat down heavily on the couch next to Kat and just put his head in his hands.
Stevert:
Steve was asleep in their shared mind so Robert was currently in control. Everyone else but Matthew was awake and doing all sorts of things. Robert looked at Steve's watch. 11:00 AM. Wow, Matthew must have been pretty tired. He maneuvered Steve's body over to Matt's door and knocked. Without waiting for a reply, he walked right on in. He saw that Matt was awake but still laying down. "Hey Sleepyhead." he said with Steve's voice. "This is Robert. It's 11:00 and you've been asleep for almost a day as it is."
Walking closer, he was about to shake Matt when he saw his face. "Oh, Matt. I think you need to see a doctor or morph or something. You look worse than last night." By now, Steve was waking up. He went to sleep late last night. <<What's going on?>> he thought to his older brother. <<It's 11:00 and Matt looks like he just woke up. Plus he looks worse than yesterday.>>replied Robert. Steve said, <<Let me take over now.>>
Robert relinquished control and their body automatically got clumsier."Woah," said Steve to Matt, "You do look worse. Rob was right. Stay here, I'll go get Rian." With that, Steve ran out of the room searching for Rian.
Bane:
Bane was just coming in from outside. He'd been practicing and was heading for the kitchen now. He saw Steve running out of the room, more like he almost ran into him as he was exiting where Matthew was.
"Hey Steve, what's wrong?" He asked, seeing the concerned look on the boy's face. His eyes darted to Matt's room. Was he worse than before? Couldn't he just morph it away? Probably not if he still had the cold...What were they going to do? If it continued to get worse, that was bad, but it wasn't like they could just take him to a hospital.
Luce:
Luce had travelled with Matt back from New York. She wasn't too happy about the torrential downpour that was happening and the fact that Matt seemed to be getting sick so she had told him to go on ahead and she would carry both their bags (they had brought supplies from New York since they were traveling overland) the rest of the way. It slowed her down some but not much. She got to the Haunt a couple of hours after Matt and walked in after demorphing.
"Knock, knock."
Matt:
Matt climbed out of the bed after Steve/Robert had run off down the hall to find Rian. It was Steve in control, wasn't it? Didn't matter right now. Both of them changed control just like Esor and Sara did now that Robert was stuck in a yeerk morph. That had to be a hard way to live life, though maybe not. Anyways, right now he was going to try and morph this away. It hadn't worked before, but maybe it would work now.
With a blanket from the bed draped over him he got down on his hands and knees on the floor. An easy animal to morph indoors would be his ferret. He focused on the DNA and the changes started taking place. After a while he was completely ferret and completely healthy. So I morph and I'm fine..... for the two hour period I can morph for. What happens when I demorph now?
Matt focused on his human self. He began to expand beneath the blanket. Please let me be fine, he thought silently. No such luck came. As soon as he was human he sneezed and collapsed onto the floor. Morphing was draining and had taken way too much of a toll on his body right now. "Damn!" he groaned as he lay on the floor, shivering under the blanket and trying to get up without the energy to do so.
This isn't good. Why can't I just morph away some of the things that happen to me? I have to get better. We have no way to fix this if I don't.
Rian:
Matt had gone to bed a couple of hours ago and everything had been pretty quiet in the Haunt since then. Too quiet and he was the nervous type, at least when it came to security, Kat had taught him a valuable lesson, so he was about to see if anyone would volunteer for the dismal duty of watch in the rain storm, maybe I should just do it when the door to the Haunt opened and a young woman walked in, drenched and carrying bags.
"Knock knock." Rian was up in about two seconds and on his way to wolf. If he had been trying to go fox he might have been a little faster but wolf was a new morph and he didn't have as much practice with it so he was morphing at the normal rate. Too slow. <<Kat, Ember!>> He restricted his thought speak to those two knowing that they were still awake and closest, Kat in the living room and Ember down the hall, <<Trouble.>>
************************************************************************
Rian was outside. He had been hoping to do some morph training with Ember today. She might be able to transfer her mystical knowledge of flight morphing and maybe he could help her with that cat morph of her's. But before starting he heard Steve yelling for him.
He ran back inside, past the New Yorker animorph that was sleeping on the living room floor and towards Steve's voice. "Steve, uh, Robert? Stevert? What's wrong?"
Ember:
Ember RAN, flat out, tumbling out of the bathroom in her night shirt , down the hall to the door. In her flight she passed over Rian in wolf form, dodged a sharp corner, and slammed full on into the intruder. Ever since their little field trip to the yeerk pool she'd been fairly strung out, and had used the energy to go on patrol or train until Matt could get back. But their leader was out of commission and Rian had signaled trouble. Which, in Ember's mind, meant one thing. Yeerks.
Her arm was shoved under the taller woman's chin, her other hand fumbling open her pocket knife until she could hold it at the intruder's eye level "Don't move!!" Ember snarled, trying to get better footing now that's she'd caught the supposed controller off guard. The woman had dropped several large bags that clunked when they hit the floor. "Rian!" Ember called behind her, trying to see if he was watching her back, knowing that if this woman was a controller than there wasn't much she could do to hold her.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Toss... a graceful pillow hit the wall as Ember completed her morning nightmare routine and awoke like clockwork at 11:15. "Ugh..." Rian had wanted to train today, she'd forgotten. In the rush of last night and the ah, misunderstanding with the New York faction member, the fact had simply slipped her mind.
Kate:
Kat was still on the couch, the headphones back on her ears. She'd glanced over at Jullian a few times as he sat with his head in his hands and after a bit had asked if he was alright before going back to her music. Several songs had played and she was back to having most of her attention on the lyrics.
It's not like I'm walking alone into the valley of the shadow of death, Stand beside one another, 'cause it ain't ov- <<Kat! Ember! Trouble.>>
"Again!?" She muttered, instantly pulling off her head phones and tossing the MP3 player aside. It landed on the couch cushion as Kat jumped off the couch and started to bolt from the living room. "Where are you Rian?" She was already starting to morph as she moved, unsure of how exactly that was going to work out as her legs changed, but she'd have to deal with that later since she was already focusing on the coyote's image.
This was the second time unexpected trouble seemed to have come their way. The first had just been recently and Kat had been hoping things would calm down for a little now that Matt was back. She stumbled a bit mid run then took a slight dive to the floor as her human legs shifted to that of a canines, though she managed to catch herself a bit and start up her run, this time on four legs.
***
Kat was searching the fridge for some food. The last grocery trip hadn't gone as planned so they weren't well stocked but Kat was sure there was something she could put together. They'd been laying low since the incident with Robert, but soon they would really need to go out again to get food.
She closed the fridge after a few moments and moved to the cabinets. She found the remnants of the poptarts that had been finished off not long ago and threw the empty box away. She found half a packet of Ritz crackers in a box and went to the table to munch on them.
Luce:
Luce walked in and saw the kid start to morph. She took the time to put her bags down since he would take a while and she figured she had time to explain the situation. Wrong. Luce saw the young woman running down the hall towards her but she was half bent over the bags and didn't have time to get into position.
Instead of trying to stay on foot she let herself fall and rolled away from the attacker. She drew the knife at her hip and held it in front of her, the gut hook glittering nicely on the end. As the other woman recovered Luce had the opportunity to lunge for her, maybe get the knife in her throat, the cut would be messy but-she stopped her train of thinking as her mind remembered that she was among other animorphs.
Right, allies. In the rush of adrenaline she had forgotten. She stood up slowly, knife still in hand though she lowered it to her side. "Look, controllers don't use knives. I'm from New York, I'm traveling with Matt but he was sick so I sent him ahead and said I'd carry the bags."
Stevert:
When Steve heard Rian, he automatically responded, "Stevert? What kind of a name is that? Oh wait, I get it. Steve and Robert. Stevew Robert. Stevert. Catchy. I like it." <<Shut up and tell him about Matthew, Steve.>> "But anyways, Matt looks alot worse than he did last night. And he also slept fot almost an entire day as well. And I don't think morphing will cure him because he looked sick last night and he had just demorphed. Maybe he should see a doctor?"
<<You're starting to get bossy, Rob. You know that? Besides, you've got to admit, Stevert is catchy.>> "Oh, yeah Rian, you may want to take a look at him." Then Steve bolted off towards Matt's room.
Kat:
Kat came into view, not fully coyote, but certainly nothing near human either. She had the four legs, complete with paws, and her body was now the basic shape of the coyote. The fur was still in the process of emerging, and as she made an appearance the ears just started to form . There was no sign of a tail yet, and her inside's were moving around as she moved causing a discomfort she tried to ignore as she pushed out a low threatening growl.
Her first catch of the scene was Ember with her pocket knife confronting an unknown visitor who was also holding a knife, though this one was much more intimidating. Kat bolted forward and passed the still forming wolf, to get at Luce before she had a chance to attack her fellow faction member while she regained her position after being evaded. Had Luce actually lunged at Ember, Kat would have been ready to catch her, but Luce had restrained herself, which left Kat snarling fiercely from between the two females.
She'd been prepared to lunge when Luce quickly began to talk. Kat was reminded about the misunderstanding that had a occurred when she and Steve had first come to the haunt so it wasn't too difficult for her to try to calm down a bit and think over what had been said. It made sense to her but she wasn't ready to lower her guard just yet. The knife in the girls hand made her uneasy though. She let out another low growl, baring her teeth.
<<Why were you traveling with Matt?>> Ember was still at one side of Luce, and now Kat moved wearily to the other side so they could surround her.
Rian:
Rian finally completed the morph. He reminded himself to remind himself later to practice. If this was going to be his main weapon then he had to get the morphing time down. He knew it was possible with practice he just had to practice.
Now fully wolf he padded to stand between Ember and Kat, leaving Luce surrounded on three sides, only the door at her back. But he didn't attack. He too remembered what had happened with Kat and he didn't want that knife of her's to end up stuck in anyone by accident.
He waited for her to answer the question.
Jullian:
Jullian had gone to bed shortly after Matt had and was soundly asleep when he heard a thud downstairs. It sounded like maybe someone had fallen. Hoped they were alright. He turned over and went back to sleep.
'''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''
He stretched and came into the kitchen to find Kat munching on some Ritz. "Morning Kat." He walked by the living room where he saw an odd lump stretched out on the floor under some covers. A dark head of hair was the only thing that stuck out from underneath them. "Um, Kat, did you bring a friend home last night? If so, way to go I guess."
Ember:
Ember blinked, "New York faction?" That was a long way from Los Angeles, but it was true that Matt had made the trip from there and she could have come back with him. But he hadn't said anything about company and like Kat and Rian, who now surrounded her, Ember was wary of the hooked knife in the woman's hand. That thing put Ember's little switchblade to shame. And she noted that the stranger had been eying her throat when they'd been fighting.
The young woman knew her stuff, that was for sure. Ember knew self defense moves and kiddy karate, even a little gymnastics, but it was barely more than the average sports player and in her normal years she'd used to to keep in shape not fight wars. The stranger moved fluently, like her fighting style was set to classical music. Like she was performing a slow dance to anyone on the outside, but to the person caught on the receiving end it was impossible to predict. And Ember knew that if she was lying and it came to a fight, they would all be beaten.
The thought made her a little sour and she glared at the newcomer without lowering her weapon.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Rolling out of bed, through her bathroom routine, and out the back door, Ember made it outside just as Rian looked about ready to give up on her. "Sorry I'm late, I slept longer than I thought I would.. guess i got a little worn out last night." She ran a hand through her hair, glancing away in thought.
Luce:
Luce's body was screaming at her to get into some sort of defensive position but she kept herself from doing so. She didn't want to look the least aggressive while facing a wolf, a coyote and a young woman with a knife. Maybe she could have taken one of them but she didn't like the odds of taking on all of them.
She looked around at the three, trying to figure out who to talk to. She had heard one thought-speak voice, female, but she didn't know which one had spoken, the wolf or the coyote, or even if the person who had spoken was in charge. She decided to talk to the one other human in the room and the one person standing directly in front of her.
She locked eyes with the knife wielder and spoke very calmly and very carefully, her voice coming out with the Brittish accent that often confused people, "I'm traveling with Matt because I was assigned to a new faction but don't have a flying morph to get there. Matt and I travelled over land as horses."
Rian:
Rian peeked his head into Matt's room and saw him lying on the floor. He walked over and offered him a hand up. Steve hadn't been exaggerating. Matt did look worse than he had last night. But if Matt was sick and morphing couldn't cure him then what were they going to do. They couldn't exactly take him to a hospital unless they wanted him to walk out of it with a yeerk in his head.
A glimmer of an idea started in Rian's mind. But it wasn't fully formed yet and refused to make itself clear when he tried to concentrate on it. He let it go. It would either grow, somewhere in the back of his mind until it was an actually idea or it would pass. Only time would tell.
Matt looked like he needed sleep so Rian quietly backed out of the room and went back outside to wait for Ember. She came out soon enough.
"Yeah," he answered her, "that was a little crazy. But I guess it worked out for the best. So I wanted to talk to you about Las Vegas. I know Luce said that Cassie assigned you but I don't want you to come just because you were assigned. Do you want to come?"
He was a little afraid to hear her answer. He was a little afraid in general. He had been beating himself up about what had happened to Robert and Steve. He had pretty much decided that he should never be put in a leadership position again and then Matt and Luce shows up and he finds out he will be a faction leader. Yeah, he was scared.
************************************************
Rian let his hackles fall as he heard Luce's explanation. Maybe another night he would be more suspicious, demand more proof, but it had been a very long week and his instincts weren't screaming at him that he was making a mistake. That was good enough for him at the moment.
<<Fine. He didn't tell us, but he was pretty out of it when he came in so he might have forgotten. We'll have to ask him about it in the morning, though honestly I don't see a controller making up that story and going through all this trouble just to be thrown out when Matt doesn't back it up. It wouldn't be smart.>>
Privately to Kat and Ember he said, <<What do you think? Should we let her stay?>>
Kat:
The coyote's ears twitched as the answer came. Kat kept the animal body alert and prepared for a sudden movement of any sort but her growls were starting to grow quiet. The New York faction member was no longer an aggressive position and her words did make sense. She knew Matt hadn't looked too good, and Matt had been in New York not long ago. Matt hadn't said anything about someone coming behind her though.
<<Matt looked pretty worn out when he got back, but do you think he'd actually forget to tell us something like this? It's kind of an important detail... Her story doesnt sound like something that would be made up though, like you said. The details all fit together and sound reasonable. We could keep a close eye on her until we can confirm it with Matt I guess...>> Her thought speak was private, directed only to Ember and Rian.
---
"Morning," Kat answered from her place at the table. She was caught of guard by his question, raising a brow as she looked over to where he was looking at. His gaze was aimed at the living room and after a moment she understood what he'd seen. "Guess you didn't hear about the commotion from last night." She said with a grin. "That's some faction member from New York heading for Las Vegas. I think she said her name was Luce. She had Rian, Ember, and I on edge last night when she just showed up out of no where. Apparently she was traveling with Matt but he went ahead and he forgot to tell us she would be coming behind him..."
Ember:
"If she wanted to," Ember answered Rian's thought-speak question out loud, not bothering to lower her voice or even look away from the stranger's piercing gaze, "she could have attacked us and won by now." Lowering her guard, she flipped the blade back in on itself and tucked it away into her waistband, which didn't look half as impressive in her nighties. "That's good enough evidence for me. Welcome to the LA faction. My name is Ember Rosalind, formerly of Beverly Hills." Striding forward she boldly stuck out her hand to the woman, giving her the perfect opportunity to kill her if she so chose, but through the disarming accent and forceful air about her, Ember trusted her intuition that the stranger wouldn't take advantage of it.
If not.. well, she'd had enough of fear. If something was going to happen, it would happen.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Ember didn't respond to Rian right away, and instead took a moment to glance back at the Haunt. It was true she'd made her home here... but staying in one place had never held any appeal for her. It wasn't the place that made it her home, it was the people, and leaving everyone behind when she felt she'd only just gotten to know them.
Heck, even Kat had grown on her. But there was one person she didn't want to leave in particular. "I... I'm not sure yet. Las Vegas... well it's not like I haven't been there before, and it's not so far away but..."
Jullian, he'd been the first normal human she'd met and forever after that she'd been making it up to him. The Kid had really made her life enjoyable again... and since no one else had needed her, she'd watched over him and taken care of him as best she could. They'd chatted and gone on patrols and missions, even gotten into a death trap together. Leaving him alone made her feel like she was breaking their bond they'd built up. Ember never had any siblings, but if she did she imagined it would feel like this if she'd had to leave them.
Luce:
Luce looked at the offered hand in surprise. I mean, they had to accept her presence since she was a fellow animorph but they didn't have to be nice about it. She sheathed the knife and shook Ember's hand though she let go fairly quickly. She just wasn't sure how to treat such a gesture, better to get past it.
"I'm Luce. Formerly of Brooklyn since we are sharing hometown pride. But I came from one of the developping parts of Brooklyn were the new rich people were living so I guess it is not something to be proud of and my parents definitely weren't." She trailed off. Her family simply wasn't worth enough to talk about.
"Look, I'm got assigned to Las Vegas which is apparently going to be a new faction led by someone named Rian. And you're going as well," she said looking at Ember. "Is he around here anywhere?"
Rian couldn't have been more shocked if she had said that the yeerks were using dragons has host bodies. He began demorphing immediately but he didn't wait for speech to kick back in, <<Rian? Are you sure the name Rian was used in the same sentence as faction leader?"
He had reached human but as always he had another morph to go. He almost forgot about it and so started it a second after asking Luce about her statement.
Now, finished he faced her, "Are you sure?"
Luce:
She looked at him dispassionately. For a second he had seemed like he was 13 and she seriously questioned Cassie's judgement but then he finished demorphing she guessed and she figured he was about 16 or 17 and she questioned Cassie's judgement slightly less.
"I take it you're Rian and no, I didn't get the name wrong. Though maybe there is another Rian around here." She didn't think so. They weren't enough animorphs around to have names repeat. "Look, I think I shouldn't have said anything. Maybe Matt wanted to tell you himself or something." This consideration hadn't even occurred to her at the time but she knew that ceremonies and important moments and such meant something to others. "I don't want to ruin this for you or anything and if you want to know all about it you should ask Matt but I've had a really long day and a really long trip across the country and I wouldn't mind getting some sleep if the festivities are over for the evening."
A wolf, a coyote and a woman with a knife. An odd faction they had here. But obviously a close knit one. The coyote had actually jumped in front of the woman and blocked her line of attack. She didn't think anyone would do something like that for her in New York.
She nodded to the young woman whose and to her teammate who was currently a coyote. To Rian she bowed slightly. It wasn't a full formal bow by any means but it was a bow. She didn't really know why she did that. Too many years spent in dojos had made it the appropriate response in her mind. She would even nod instead of wave in most circumstance since a nod was the beginning of a bow.
Good nites handled, at least in her mind, she turned and pulled her sleeping bag out of the pack and stretched it on the floor, got in it and pretended to sleep until the real thing overcame her. She hadn't lied, she was tired.
Jullian:
"Las Vegas uh? I didn't know there was a Las Vegas faction," he said as he opened the fridge and went looking for food. Finding nothing edible he started searching the cabinets but didn't find anything there either. He opened another cabinet, nothing. He walked into the closet that they had turned into a pantry but didn't find anything in there either.
His stomach growled audibly and he turned back to the kitchen. "We have no food. I think a grocery run is needed but I don't want to bring it up since the whole Robert/Steve thing. Mind if I have some of those crackers?" he asked, coming to sit at the table.
Kat:
It was settled. Luce's story was viewed as reasonable and they would allow her in the haunt without the presence of bared teeth and knives pointed in her direction. Kat started to demorph as Ember stepped forward extending a hand forward. She still felt a bit on edge from suddenly being called for trouble but it was fading, just like the amber color of her eyes that were now melting back to their normal gray hue.
Once human again, Kat realized she was a little winded, more so then usual after morphing that particular morph. It was odd, but she realized she'd sprinted to the room and morphed along the way. She'd never done a move like that before, and wasn't sure if she could do it just right again unless she was powered by the adrenaline that had surfaced when she'd gotten word of trouble.
Luce's words at reached her mid morph but she'd been preoccupied at first. When she realized what she'd heard she glanced to Rian, then to Lucy a moment. "Seems like Matt forgot to tell us quite a few things." Now that the commotion appeared to be over, it looked like she could go back to the couch and the music of her MP3 player. She offered a congratulations to Rian then headed back to the living room.
---
"I don't think there was a Las Vagas faction until just recently. Apparently Rian's gotten a promotion. It's his faction now according to what Luce said last night."
Kat watched as Jullian searched the kitchen just like she had, coming to the exact conclusion she'd come to. The kitchen had became pretty bare since the chaos of the last grocery run. She held out the packet of crackers for him to snatch some. They certainly wouldn't last long with seven current residents.
"I know... but we're not going to have anything to eat if someone doesn't head out soon." She said with a sigh.
Jullian:
"I was suppose to map that section of sewers over by Disneyland this afternoon. Maybe I'll pick up something on my way back," he said as he munched on some crackers. He hadn't actually been on a mission alone yet and was a little nervous about the solo mapping. Adding food to the list seemed to be pushing it but they did need food and Matt was too sick to get it. Maybe he would bring it up with Rian and Em later.
"So Rian's going to be leaving I guess. Wow, that'll be weird. Do you know if anyone's going with him?" Jullian asked casually. Jullian wasn't stupid. He knew that Rian had come with Matt when Matt got promoted and he knew who was the logical choice to send with Rian and he didn't want to hear the answer but he figured he had to know.
Stevert:
Currently Steve was in charge so he was somewhat clumsy as a result of just waking up. Robert had been awake for hours. Steve shuffled into the kitchen. He got there just in time to catch what Jullian said. In a sleepy tone he said, "Huh? What? Where is Rian going? What are you guys talking about? I thought I heard something about Vegas. And you're going to Disneylan, Jullian? cool. Sounds fun."
Steve tried walking to the fridge but Robert took over. Brother, you are to tired. you'll make a mess or something. I'll take over until you wake up. Immediately, their shared body began moving with a bit more grace. Robert manuevered over to the fridge and pulled out the milk. After pouring a glass for Steve, he put it back and noticed, "Maybe we should go on a shopping mission soon. We're kinda running out of stuff."
Rian:
Rian wanted to shake Luce awake and demand more answers but he had a feeling he might get hurt if he did so. Added to that she really had looked exhausted, dangerous, but exhausted. He struggled to convince himself that he would just have to wait till morning and a chance to speak to Matt before he did anything.
"I guess that's a night. Does anyone want to handle patrol or should we just leave it for the night?"
******************************************
Hearing Ember's answer he couldn't blame her. He had friends here as well. Leaving Matt was an especially painful thought. Matt was the first person he had ever opened up to about what had happened to his family. And Matt was the first person, besides for Raven who had found him, to know about his human morph.
But thinking about Matt brought an odd thought into Rian's head. "You, uh, you aren't worried about leaving someone behind are you, I mean like um, Jullian or you know Matt?" He wondered why he had even asked that question. Of course she was worried about leaving someone behind, so was he. So why should he care who it was.
Ember:
Ember sighed, "I'll cover it. Can't sleep now anyway." At the least the rain had let up a little since Matt's arrival, she might even be able to get by with a smaller morph since her race horse was a bit obvious. With another sigh she went and changed back out of her PJ's to her suit.
That night she spent as a cat on the roof, making sure to switch back before the two hour mark, and lasted until the sun rose at six in the morning. By that point she switched off with one of the early risers and collapsed into bed without any trouble...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
That was... an oddly direct question coming from Rian. "Ah..? Well yes, there's Matt." She felt a little bad about not regretting leaving his faction, especially since it hadn't felt very long and she'd grown accustomed to his leadership. But Rian had been a fine leader while Matt was away, and Short-stuff had plenty of new recruits to handle without her crowding the Haunt. She was old enough to realize that she could help Rian in Vegas more than Matt here in LA.
But the way Rian had said it was... "But it's mostly Jullian." Ember admitted, "I don't know.. the Kid kind of grew on me and I'm..." She sucked in a deep breath. "No it's fine, he'll be fine, and i'm fine about being assigned with you. So... Yeah... everything's fine."
Rian:
"Oh yeah, Jullian." He had no idea why he felt relieved. "I'm worried about leaving him too. I mean, next to you and Matt he's the one I'm closest to. That sounds wrong, placing him third. I mean I do care about him, and we have been in the same faction for a long time. I mean, it is not just that we've been in the same faction. Like it's not just that we've been thrown together and I wouldn't like him otherwise. Jeez, why does everything I say seem to sound mean? I like Jullian. That's what I mean. No, I mean, yeah whatever." He gave up. When he started babbling there was just no going back. It didn't happen often but he had learned that the best way to stop was just to shut up or change the subject.
"We have a while before we leave I think. i don't want to leave Matt or LA while he's so sick so we'll be around here for a while. We should practice morphing I guess. Do you want to start with the cat morph or even your new morph or do you want to work on the flying thing first?"
Ember:
Ember gave Rian a fairly questioning look as he blathered on. What was he talking about? She'd never seen him look so flustered, even when they were facing down certain death he'd acted calmer. "Um, yeah. I guess it would be hard to number your friends..? But I'm sure Jullian will be fine with Matt around to watch his back..."
She noticed as Rian quickly changed the subject. And of course, it was back to training as usual. "Well as much as I'd hate to give away a trade secret, I guess it wouldn't hurt to help you give it a try. But honestly I don't know why that particular morph is so easy for me." Ember shrugged and headed around the Haunt to get a better angle on the roof. "er... maybe we should start smaller?"
Jullian:
"I'm going to be mapping the sewers over by Disneyland today. Maybe you can handle the shopping? I was just talking to Kat about that. That and other things. Did you hear that Rian made faction leader? He will be going to Las Vegas and since Matt brought Rian with him to Los Angeles I'm guessing he's going to be taking one of us," 'and I can guess which one.' "I don't suppose you've heard anything about it?
He chewed on some more crackers but they were going pretty quickly and he had a pretty big appetite for someone so small. They definitely needed groceries today.
Kat:
Kat was staring in Steve's direction as he headed for the fridge, noticing instantly as Robert took over. The change in posture and the way his movements became smoother were a dead give away. It was kind of cool to watch.
"I might be able to head out on a grocery run or something.." She said in an absent minded tone. Soon after speaking she realized the thought made her a little uneasy after what had happened to Robert. She tried not to think about the incident and push it from her mind before it could get to her too much.
Her gray eyes looked to Jullian as she heard him inquire a second time about who would be leaving with Rian. Jullian and Ember seemed close so she wasn't sure just how he would feel with her leaving. Luce had said Ember was assigned to Las Vagas and as far as Kat knew Ember hadn't gone against the change.
"...Luce said last night that Ember's supposed to head out there with Rian," She said hesitantly. She took one last cracker then decided the remaining few could be for Jullian or whoever else happened to want some. She was good for the time being.
Jullian:
"Thanks," he said taking the rest of the crackers but he didn't sound grateful at all. Ember. He knew it would be her going. It made the most sense. He was happy for her. She was pretty much getting a promotion too since she would be a senior member in a smaller faction. 'But what about me?' a selfish voice asked. He wouldn't have minded if he was going with them. He liked everyone here but Ember was, well, he had always grown up with an older brother or sister watching out for him, and he felt like he was losing one.
No not one, two. He was closer to Ember than he was to Rian but they had all been through a lot together. If it wasn't for Rian he might not be here. Now they were both leaving.
"I'm going to get started on that mission." He pushed himself roughly away from the table and stormed outside, smack into a Ember and Rian themselves.
"Oh, I guess you two are together now. Already separating yourselves from the rest of us who will be left here." He glared at Ember. "Glad you guys told me."
Ember:
Ember's mouth fell open. "Jules... that's not... look, I didn't..." She trailed off, unable to think of anything right to say. So instead she just took to looking at the ground, feeling guilty although she'd done nothing wrong. It was an assignment right? It wasn't like she had a choice... even though Rian had said it was up to her. She was torn, between one right thing and another.
If she left, she would be second in command, possibly with a chance to follow in Rian's footsteps and branch out the resistance on her own. She would be crucial to helping the new faction thrive. It would give her purpose... something very few people in the world ever truly experienced, and now when the world needed them, she could be one of the heroes to reclaim it. Back in Beverly Hills, before all of this, she hadn't had anything to do and went out to do idiotic things to try and find it. Now it had fallen into her lap, and strangely enough... she felt like maybe this was what she was meant to do.
But... Jules... She looked over at him and felt a deep pit grow like a void in her stomach, swallowing anything good she might have felt. Her tongue tied itself up, refusing to allow her to speak.. explain.
Jullian:
"Whatever," he said harshly. "Have fun in Vegas. I don't care." He ran past the two and headed in the direction of the city. He wished he could morph the way some of the others could, while he was running. Then he could just fly away. But on second thought it felt good to run as a human.
He took comfort in the feeling of his feet hitting the ground even though it hurt because they were bare. His arms pumped at his side and his lungs sucked in air to keep his body going. All of it was normal, all of it was familar. It had nothing to do with this new life they were leading. It had nothing to do with his sister abandoning him and now Ember too.
'She didn't even stop by LA on her way to New York!' That's when he realized that his anger was not just with Ember and Rian but with Helena as well. How long had he been out here, how long had she known about his existence and she couldn't even bother to say hi, to send word, nothing. She just did her Helena thing and didn't talk to anybody. Even when she had a cell phone she hadn't used it. She was a black hole of communication. And she didn't care, she didn't care if he lived or died. She just left.
And now Ember was doing the same. Obviously helping Rian with his faction was more important than staying here, than staying with him. Well good then. She must think that he could take care of himself. Isn't that what he had fought to prove to everybody all this time? Fine, if she wanted to leave, let her. He would be just fine all on his own.
Stevert:
"Oh really?" Said Robert in response to Jullian and Kat's answers. "That's pretty cool. I mena, it's a new faction and all. That means we've got more Animorphs right?" By now, Steve was wide awake. <<Okay, Rob, I'll take over now.>> "This is Steve now. Rian's leaving to start a new faction? THat's good although I'll kind of miss him...and Ember. They kind of grow on you." Steve watched as Jullian left. "Uh, maybe Rob and I should go after Jullian? He looked kind of mad and he's probably not going to be thinking clearly and that can be fatal in a city full of yeerks."
He walked out of the Haunt and saw Rian and Ember practicing. "Hello mguys. What's up? Did you guys happen to see which way Jullian went? Oh never mind. I see him. Have fun in Las Vegas guys!" Steve walked a few feet away and morphed his blue jay. He flew off in the direction of the white blob that was Jullian. He flapped as hard as he could until he was in thought-speak range with Jullian. <<Hey Jullian! Wait up! I'm coming with you! You'll need help carrying all of the groceries.>> Besides, you might need help in case the Yeerks discover you. Robert chuckled at the thought.
Rian:
Rian hadn't expected Jullian to take it like that. It wasn't that they hadn't told him. They had only found out just last night after all and normally the kid slept in. But then he remembered that he had assigned Jullian to a section of the sewers today to map on his own. He had been a little hesitant to send anyone out on their own after what had happened to Robert but he had also known that Jullian could handle it.
"I forgot he would be up this early. I'm sorry. I don't know why but for some reason that sounds like the appropriate response. Do you want to go after him. We don't have to do this now, I can find something useful to do."
Kat:
It was obvious Jullian wasn't happy with the answer Kat had given him, but he needed to know. She watched as the boy pushed away from the table and got up, telling them his plans before heading out. "Good luck," came Kat's response, then she sighed when he was out of site.
She got up, grabbing the wrapping that the crackers had been in and threw it away. Groceries was definitely high on the to do list and she'd have to- "Aw crap!" She said loudly, realizing a flaw in her plan. "I've already been seen in public." She'd just remembered the fiasco in the sewers and how she and Ember had exposed themselves. She let out an irritated noise as she exhaled. "So much for that plan.."
Ember:
"No..." Ember replied, another set of feelings shoved off on another day. "It's fine, I need to practice anyway. It's strange how good you can get when you're facing down death, but its nearly impossible to replicate that reaction for practical purposes. Of course practical in our book means facing death anyway but still..." She let the thought wander off on its own, tired of trying to chase down something useful to say.
Dammit. Why had Jullian run off? Why hadn't she thought to tell him herself? But.. then again there was the chance that she didn't have to leave... No, who was she fooling? If she told him that it would only make things worse when she left. Better to let him just blow off some steam and have a heart to heart later... hopefully...
Rian:
Back on solid ground, "practice it is. What you can do with your cardinal morph is quite amazing." He waited a moment so that she could enjoy the compliment before moving on, "but that morph will only help you run away and we want to do a bit more than running. Let's see if you can do that with everything else starting with the cat that seems to give you so much trouble."
"We know that morphing time can be reduced with practice but I don't think it has to do with how much you work with a morph. You could do that with your cardinal from the beginning and I can morph my human body almost effortlessly. I've been thinking lately that it has more to do with how well we sinc with the form we are trying to become. The fact that we get faster with time probably has to do with the fact that the longer we have a morph the more we understand and connect with it. So try to find your inner cat." He looked up at the roof. "I'm gonna go up there and work on finding my inner kestrel. Jeez, we sound so L.A."
Jullian:
If Jullian had been human he would have glared at Steve but he wasn't. <<I'm not weak Steve. I can carry some groceries on my own. And I can take care of myself. I'm not foolish enough get myself captured!>> He stopped abruptly realizing what he'd said. He hadn't meant to reference Robert's situation with the comment. He hadn't been thinking of Robert at all. He had only been thinking of himself. Selfish.
<<Oh, uh, Steve, Robert, I'm sorry. I didn't mean...Um, my foot likes to live in my mouth these days.>> And he had just been getting to know the other member. And it looked like the two members he was closest to were leaving. 'Really great time to alienate people Jullian.'
Stevert:
Steve flapped hard to keep up with Jullian. Maybe I should have gotten a humminbird instead. <<I wasn't saying you were weak, I was...uh...merely saying that you may not have enough arms to carry it all. Last time I checked, nobody in our faction has an Octopus morph.>> Then Steve responded to Jullian's second remark. <<Aww, that's alright. I think I was born with a foot in my mouth.>> Then Steve laughed at the thought. <<My turn to answer, little brother.>> <<Alright Rob.>>
Robert took over and said to Jullian. <<Jullian, this is Robert. And I forgive you for the remark. Robert remained in control since Steve hated endless flapping. He soared above Jullian and tried to get more altitude. Then he realized a mistake. The higher they went, the air pressure got lower so they had to beat the blue jay's wings a lot harder. Robert dipped down and flew about ten feet below Jullian. It was a lot easier down there. THe Kinley brothers knew that Jullian was mad that Rian and Ember were leaving. Robert guessed it was because they were close to Jullian, based on Steve's memories and what he had seen with Steve's eyes. Steve thought it was because they didn't tell him, according to what he had heard outside of the Haunt before the brothers left. Either way, they decided to leave the topic alone.
Luce:
Luce had been aware of the conversations going on around her. She was a light sleeper by inclination and living in New York had only made her more paranoid. But she had learned to block things out when needed and she needed sleep so that is what she was concentrating on getting. But when she heard Jullian slam the table when he got up she decided she wouldn't be getting any more sleep today.
Jullian was someone she at least wanted to meet before leaving, if only because he was Helena's sister and Helena was the only person, besides for Cassie, that Luce had spent an extended length of time around and managed to not piss off. So she was slightly curious as to what a brother of hers would be like. But not that much.
She got up, running her hands through her messed up hair and crawled out of bed. Mornings were not her forte. She just could not manage to be decent before a certain hour. She rolled up the bedding and stored it back with the saddle and her packs.
She looked up at Kat, who seemed to be yelling at herself about something and then back down at the packs. She looked around until she found the yellow and blue whetstone she had been looking for and then she went and sat at the table. She put one of her feet up on an empty chair and began sharpening the knife that had gotten her out of more bad situations than she could count.
"That kid, the angry one, he was Helena's little brother right?" Her voice had a slight growl to it so she coughed to get rid of the sleep effect.
Kat:
Kat had been about to leave, but turned around to find Luce sharpening her knife with one foot on a chair. Her eyes went to the sharp knife a moment, a bit uneasy. If they were wrong about this girl and she wasn't really from the New York faction, though it seemed unlikely, she easily start using that thing before Kat would have time to morph. She didn't like the thought of that.
"Yea, I think." She remembered that Helena was spoken about by Matt and how Jullian had reacted. She didn't know a whole lot about Jullian, but the connection seemed to make sense. "He's not usually angry like that though. Normally he's pretty mellow but I think he's getting worked up with Ember leaving.."
Luce:
Ember was one of the ones she had met last night. The woman with the knife. Not the most dangerous weapon but so far she was one of the few animorphs Luce had seen carrying weapons. She didn't know what most of the animorphs had against weapons. Their ability to morph was only one weapon. Why did they have to throw the others away? It seemed extremely foolish to her. Being able to turn into a bird just wasn't the best solution to every problem. People who recognized that got more respect from her than others, though no one really got a lot of respect out of Luce.
"The knife totting one right? And Rian was the wolf kid? So I guess that makes you the coyote. Nice to see you human. So what's Rian and Ember like? I figure I should know something about them if I'm suppose to be working with them."
Matt was returning from New York, finally back in L.A. after a long time away. He'd been held up part way by a rainstorm that hadn't let up, but deciding he couldn't stop he'd pressed on, morphing and demorphing and constantly soaked. Now, in his horse morph, he could see the Haunt just throught the trees. Home. This is home right now and it feels good to be back.
He reached the back door and demorphed. The seventeen year old boy that immerged didn't look as good as he could have. He was worse for the wear after his cross country trips. He also looked a little pale, an off color for any human being, and had a redish nose. These hadn't gone away with morphing, though it seemed like with Matt not everything did. Unfortunately I wish this cold would.
He stepped up the steps and went into the Haunt. "I'm ba-a-achoo..... I'm back," he managed to get it all out the second time, calling through the house to see if someone would hear him. They all had to be around, they just weren't where he could see them. Maybe that's a good thing. I could be infectious. That wasn't a pleasent thought. Not when he had a faction to lead. He needed to get better soon.
Stevert:
Steve was flying in sky in blue jay morph when he saw Matt return. He circled down in front of him in greeting, saying, <<Hello stranger! How was your trip to the Big Apple?>> Steve attempted to land on Matt's shoulder but a massive gust of wind knocked him off. As he landed on the ground, he said, <<Woah! That is some sneeze Matt! You might want to get that checked!>> Then he broadcasted to every square inch of the Haunt, <<Hey! Matt's home!>>
He stood up in front of Matthew and thought, <<All hail Pale-face.>> Then he laughed to show his humour. <<So how did the meeting go? Who'd ya meet? What happ-?>> In their minds, Robert cut Steve off, << Shut up little brother. Can't you see how sick he looks? Are you blind? He's probably exhausted anyways. He doesn't need you cracking jokes or asking thousands of questions.>> Taking control of their shared body, Robert said with their mind, <<I'm sorry about Steve, Mattew. This is Robert speaking and I'll fill you in on what's going on with us later. Right now, I think you need to go lay down. You look terrible.>>
Matt:
Robert?.... Something told Matt a rather interesting event had occured during his trip to New York and it resulted in them having one less member in their faction than they could have had. Still, the elder of the two brothers did have a point. Matt felt pretty terrible too, though currently some of it was his immune system fighting the cold while he was exhausted from his second cross country trip.
"I think I might, though you'd definitely better fill me in on what happened to you soon. I'll be wanting reports on what happened while I was gone anyways." The end of the sentece was punctuate with another sneeze. Matt shook his head, strecthed, and walked towards the main rooms of the Haunt. As much as he looked and felt horrible he wanted to be sure the rest of the faction was still in one piece before he took a nap. Being the leader it was his job to be concerned.
Rian:
Rian came down from where he had been hanging out with Jullian in the attic. The past week had been hard and he was glad to just take some time to relax. Steve was out on patrol so-Steve and Robert his mind interejected. He shook his head, he still couldn't get used to that. What had happened to the two wasn't their fault. If it was anyone's fault it was his. He should have sent more back up with Robert. He shouldn't have sent Robert in the first place. He should- he had been using that phrase a lot the past couple of days.
As he was coming down the stairs he heard a large sneeze and then he heard Steve's announcement. He came into the common room and saw Matt standing there. He didn't think he'd been so happy to see anyone in his life.
"Welcome back." He smiled. But the smile disappeared as he saw the blue jay. "I see you've met our newest member." His eyes had been following the blue bird but they turned to look at Matt. "I think we have a lot to talk about but maybe you should lie down," he added taking in Matt's appearance.
Jullian:
Jullian followed Rian down after he heard voices in the common room. Even his normal high spirits weren't up to snuff in the aftermath of their first visit to the yeerk pool but when he saw Matt they rose again.
He ran over to the faction leader and hugged him. "Matt! You're back! Jeez, this place went crazy with out you." He let him go and looked over at Rian. He didn't blame Rian for what had happened though he knew Rian was blaming himself. Blame wasn't Jullian's thing. It just made people feel bad so what was the point.
He turned his attention back to Matt. "Matt you look like you should be in bed. Red is not your color but it has taken over your nose."
Matt:
Jullian and Rian entered the room from the loft, Jullian hugging Matt as he came in. Matt hugged him back lightly before Jullian backed away, smiling at the statement about red not being his color. Matt knew he didn't look that great in red, esspecially with his pale face right now.
"Okay, okay, you win. I'll lie down," Matt said. He raised his hands in surrender. Jullian's statement had been the third time someone had mentioned how that he looked sick. Fourth if you counted Steve and Robert separately. The arms didn't stay up long as he pulled one down to cover his face as he sneezed again, not wanting to pass whatever he had on to the others. "It's probably just me being tired combined with running into a rainstorm on the way back. I couldn't exactly let that keep me from getting back here."
He glanced at Rian. "I will get a full report from you, right? I might have Robert and Steve explain why they are the way they are now, but the rest I want from you since you were in charge. However, I don't want you to blame yourself for what happened while I was gone, esspecially this happening to them. There was no way you could have foreseen it and everyone makes mistakes. We can beat ourselves up for a little while, but eventually we need to just learn from the mistake and move on." He'd put a hand on Rian's shoulder as he said this, looking into his faction member's eyes.
He turned and headed towards his room. "Where is everyone else," he asked. He felt he needed to know. No, you WANT to know, you NEED some rest.
Ember:
"We're around." Ember appeared behind him, having freshly come back from patrol. She'd been facing down the storm in her horse morph, which meant that by the time she returned back to her normal form she'd already gotten soaked since the horse wasn't allowed in the house. But even with her mascara running, and hair dripping wet, she still looked better than Matt did. "Oh man short-stuff" She frowned at him when he turned back, "what happened? you look like you had the same kind of week we did."
Rian:
He just nodded to Matt. Matt might tell him not to beat himself up but that wouldn't stop him from doing so. But at least he could try to be private about it and not bring everyone else down.
Ember came in from the rain storm and Rian realized that now no one would be on patrol. He was about to call someone to do it when he realized that he didn't have that power anymore. He was no longer the leader. He was partially relived.
In a storm like this no one is going to be sneaking up on us anyway. He thought as a justification for not telling Matt about the lack of patrols.
"So since my story is quite long how 'bout you go first. What happened in New York? What was the big emergency?"
Kat:
Kat was on the couch in the living room that doubled as her bedroom. Headphones covered her ears, allowing a stream of music to enter her ears. She didn't have it up loud so she could hear if something happened that would call for her to get up and head out, but it was up enough so that it took a bit for her to realize faction members were flocking to Matt upon his return.
I wanna rob you of your game face- "full report from you right" So I can cower beneath your words- "might have Robert and Steve explain..."
The lyrics blended with the voices coming from nearby. Kat slid the head phones off and started to sit up, catching sight of their pale leader now back from his New York trip. Oh boy did he have a lot to catch up on, but he should probably rest up first..
"Hey Matt." She called, started to put the MP3 player away and walk over to the group.
Bane:
<<Hey! Matt's home!>>
Leave it to Steve to be the first to notice and announce to everyone that Matt was back. He made his way to where everyone was greeting him and waved, sticking back a bit. "Hey," He said, leaning against the wall. While their leader had left he'd taken to being alone more than with others. He wasn't even sure why himself, but he had been doing a lot of thinking.
Taking in the faction leader's appearance, he chuckled. "I'd spare you another comment on it, but man do you look crappy." The black-haired boy's blue eyes studied Matt's face a moment. Colds sucked, and Matt seemed to have it pretty bad with the one he'd caught.
Matt:
Okay, add two more people saying he needed rest now that Ember and Bane had commented on his appearance. The results of the poll are in, most of the faction says their leader needs sleep, Matt thought sarcastically. They were only looking out for him though and he'd do the same if it was any of them in his place. Admittedly it was his job to look out for them, but there wasn't really anyone who's job it was to look out for him so it sort of fell back on them.
"New York was fine. I didn't really learn anything I hadn't heard already from talking to Raven when she visited here from Chicago, but I met Cassie and Matthias. Matthias is the Vancouver leader. Kind of weird for me being there since I was the youngest faction leader. Still, most things were okay except the Matthias' report. The Vancouver faction was found out and their hideout got blown up killing half their faction or more." Turning to Jullian he said, "I did find out that Helena survived, but she's in New York now with Cassie because she got separated from the others and didn't know what else to do. She was actually trying to get here, but apparently that didn't work."
He finished this and sneezed again. "And you guys are right, I really should go lay down. One last note though. Kudos to us, Cassie likes our efforts to map the sewers and use them for getting around." With this he again turned towards his room as he'd turned back into the room when everyone had shown up. He went inside and shut the door after saying. "Going to rest now. If something needs doing, Rian is the go to person for the moment unless it's an extreme situation, just so I actually can get some rest."
In his room he changed from his wet morphing suit, drying himself off with a stray towel and hanging the suit and towel up to dry, into the shorts from his old morphing suit. He really didn't need more than that on to sleep. He mostly just needed the shorts so he was decent if anyone ever tried to wake him up for something. He climbed into the bed, and up until then hadn't realized how much he really needed the rest since he was out like a light.
Matt woke up, it was too cold in his room. Another windy Chicago morning and mom had forgotten to turn the heat on before she left. He didn't want to get out of bed and turn it on. He wanted to stay as warm as possible.
Rubbing the sleep from his eyes he panicked. This wasn't his room in Chicago. It took him a few minutes to remember where this was. It was his room, but in the Haunt, the base of the Animorphs faction of L.A. He hadn't slept in his bed at home in months.
If this is L.A. then why is it so damn cold? He thought. He was shivering and the blankets on his bed should have been plenty of warmth even as close to the water as the Haunt was. This isn't good. I think I'm worse than I thought I was. I can't be sick. The others need me, I'm the leader. He was panicking now. Morphing hadn't worked to get rid of this, besides which it had still been raining here so he'd been constantly wet no matter what form up until entering the Haunt.
He lay back down with a sigh, touching his forehead which was hot even to him. If I get better we're fine. If I get worse..... we're screwed.
Jullian:
When Matt had said that Vancouver had gotten blown up Jullian had stopped breathing...literally. Have you ever had that happen to you? Just hear something that you can't even begin to try to comprehend so you just stop. That is what happened to Jullian. Then he had gone on to say, "Helena survived.'
He could have hit Matt. He didn't care that he looked terrible he still could have hit him. I mean, give a guy a heart attack why don't you. He could have started with Helena survived. Who cares if it wouldn't have made any sense without the other news from Vancouver. At least he wouldn't have had that horrible moment when his mind started to edge towards the slight possibility that his sister was dead. It sounded small but even being that close to that reality was way too close for Jullian's comfort.
He sat down heavily on the couch next to Kat and just put his head in his hands.
Stevert:
Steve was asleep in their shared mind so Robert was currently in control. Everyone else but Matthew was awake and doing all sorts of things. Robert looked at Steve's watch. 11:00 AM. Wow, Matthew must have been pretty tired. He maneuvered Steve's body over to Matt's door and knocked. Without waiting for a reply, he walked right on in. He saw that Matt was awake but still laying down. "Hey Sleepyhead." he said with Steve's voice. "This is Robert. It's 11:00 and you've been asleep for almost a day as it is."
Walking closer, he was about to shake Matt when he saw his face. "Oh, Matt. I think you need to see a doctor or morph or something. You look worse than last night." By now, Steve was waking up. He went to sleep late last night. <<What's going on?>> he thought to his older brother. <<It's 11:00 and Matt looks like he just woke up. Plus he looks worse than yesterday.>>replied Robert. Steve said, <<Let me take over now.>>
Robert relinquished control and their body automatically got clumsier."Woah," said Steve to Matt, "You do look worse. Rob was right. Stay here, I'll go get Rian." With that, Steve ran out of the room searching for Rian.
Bane:
Bane was just coming in from outside. He'd been practicing and was heading for the kitchen now. He saw Steve running out of the room, more like he almost ran into him as he was exiting where Matthew was.
"Hey Steve, what's wrong?" He asked, seeing the concerned look on the boy's face. His eyes darted to Matt's room. Was he worse than before? Couldn't he just morph it away? Probably not if he still had the cold...What were they going to do? If it continued to get worse, that was bad, but it wasn't like they could just take him to a hospital.
Luce:
Luce had travelled with Matt back from New York. She wasn't too happy about the torrential downpour that was happening and the fact that Matt seemed to be getting sick so she had told him to go on ahead and she would carry both their bags (they had brought supplies from New York since they were traveling overland) the rest of the way. It slowed her down some but not much. She got to the Haunt a couple of hours after Matt and walked in after demorphing.
"Knock, knock."
Matt:
Matt climbed out of the bed after Steve/Robert had run off down the hall to find Rian. It was Steve in control, wasn't it? Didn't matter right now. Both of them changed control just like Esor and Sara did now that Robert was stuck in a yeerk morph. That had to be a hard way to live life, though maybe not. Anyways, right now he was going to try and morph this away. It hadn't worked before, but maybe it would work now.
With a blanket from the bed draped over him he got down on his hands and knees on the floor. An easy animal to morph indoors would be his ferret. He focused on the DNA and the changes started taking place. After a while he was completely ferret and completely healthy. So I morph and I'm fine..... for the two hour period I can morph for. What happens when I demorph now?
Matt focused on his human self. He began to expand beneath the blanket. Please let me be fine, he thought silently. No such luck came. As soon as he was human he sneezed and collapsed onto the floor. Morphing was draining and had taken way too much of a toll on his body right now. "Damn!" he groaned as he lay on the floor, shivering under the blanket and trying to get up without the energy to do so.
This isn't good. Why can't I just morph away some of the things that happen to me? I have to get better. We have no way to fix this if I don't.
Rian:
Matt had gone to bed a couple of hours ago and everything had been pretty quiet in the Haunt since then. Too quiet and he was the nervous type, at least when it came to security, Kat had taught him a valuable lesson, so he was about to see if anyone would volunteer for the dismal duty of watch in the rain storm, maybe I should just do it when the door to the Haunt opened and a young woman walked in, drenched and carrying bags.
"Knock knock." Rian was up in about two seconds and on his way to wolf. If he had been trying to go fox he might have been a little faster but wolf was a new morph and he didn't have as much practice with it so he was morphing at the normal rate. Too slow. <<Kat, Ember!>> He restricted his thought speak to those two knowing that they were still awake and closest, Kat in the living room and Ember down the hall, <<Trouble.>>
************************************************************************
Rian was outside. He had been hoping to do some morph training with Ember today. She might be able to transfer her mystical knowledge of flight morphing and maybe he could help her with that cat morph of her's. But before starting he heard Steve yelling for him.
He ran back inside, past the New Yorker animorph that was sleeping on the living room floor and towards Steve's voice. "Steve, uh, Robert? Stevert? What's wrong?"
Ember:
Ember RAN, flat out, tumbling out of the bathroom in her night shirt , down the hall to the door. In her flight she passed over Rian in wolf form, dodged a sharp corner, and slammed full on into the intruder. Ever since their little field trip to the yeerk pool she'd been fairly strung out, and had used the energy to go on patrol or train until Matt could get back. But their leader was out of commission and Rian had signaled trouble. Which, in Ember's mind, meant one thing. Yeerks.
Her arm was shoved under the taller woman's chin, her other hand fumbling open her pocket knife until she could hold it at the intruder's eye level "Don't move!!" Ember snarled, trying to get better footing now that's she'd caught the supposed controller off guard. The woman had dropped several large bags that clunked when they hit the floor. "Rian!" Ember called behind her, trying to see if he was watching her back, knowing that if this woman was a controller than there wasn't much she could do to hold her.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Toss... a graceful pillow hit the wall as Ember completed her morning nightmare routine and awoke like clockwork at 11:15. "Ugh..." Rian had wanted to train today, she'd forgotten. In the rush of last night and the ah, misunderstanding with the New York faction member, the fact had simply slipped her mind.
Kate:
Kat was still on the couch, the headphones back on her ears. She'd glanced over at Jullian a few times as he sat with his head in his hands and after a bit had asked if he was alright before going back to her music. Several songs had played and she was back to having most of her attention on the lyrics.
It's not like I'm walking alone into the valley of the shadow of death, Stand beside one another, 'cause it ain't ov- <<Kat! Ember! Trouble.>>
"Again!?" She muttered, instantly pulling off her head phones and tossing the MP3 player aside. It landed on the couch cushion as Kat jumped off the couch and started to bolt from the living room. "Where are you Rian?" She was already starting to morph as she moved, unsure of how exactly that was going to work out as her legs changed, but she'd have to deal with that later since she was already focusing on the coyote's image.
This was the second time unexpected trouble seemed to have come their way. The first had just been recently and Kat had been hoping things would calm down for a little now that Matt was back. She stumbled a bit mid run then took a slight dive to the floor as her human legs shifted to that of a canines, though she managed to catch herself a bit and start up her run, this time on four legs.
***
Kat was searching the fridge for some food. The last grocery trip hadn't gone as planned so they weren't well stocked but Kat was sure there was something she could put together. They'd been laying low since the incident with Robert, but soon they would really need to go out again to get food.
She closed the fridge after a few moments and moved to the cabinets. She found the remnants of the poptarts that had been finished off not long ago and threw the empty box away. She found half a packet of Ritz crackers in a box and went to the table to munch on them.
Luce:
Luce walked in and saw the kid start to morph. She took the time to put her bags down since he would take a while and she figured she had time to explain the situation. Wrong. Luce saw the young woman running down the hall towards her but she was half bent over the bags and didn't have time to get into position.
Instead of trying to stay on foot she let herself fall and rolled away from the attacker. She drew the knife at her hip and held it in front of her, the gut hook glittering nicely on the end. As the other woman recovered Luce had the opportunity to lunge for her, maybe get the knife in her throat, the cut would be messy but-she stopped her train of thinking as her mind remembered that she was among other animorphs.
Right, allies. In the rush of adrenaline she had forgotten. She stood up slowly, knife still in hand though she lowered it to her side. "Look, controllers don't use knives. I'm from New York, I'm traveling with Matt but he was sick so I sent him ahead and said I'd carry the bags."
Stevert:
When Steve heard Rian, he automatically responded, "Stevert? What kind of a name is that? Oh wait, I get it. Steve and Robert. Stevew Robert. Stevert. Catchy. I like it." <<Shut up and tell him about Matthew, Steve.>> "But anyways, Matt looks alot worse than he did last night. And he also slept fot almost an entire day as well. And I don't think morphing will cure him because he looked sick last night and he had just demorphed. Maybe he should see a doctor?"
<<You're starting to get bossy, Rob. You know that? Besides, you've got to admit, Stevert is catchy.>> "Oh, yeah Rian, you may want to take a look at him." Then Steve bolted off towards Matt's room.
Kat:
Kat came into view, not fully coyote, but certainly nothing near human either. She had the four legs, complete with paws, and her body was now the basic shape of the coyote. The fur was still in the process of emerging, and as she made an appearance the ears just started to form . There was no sign of a tail yet, and her inside's were moving around as she moved causing a discomfort she tried to ignore as she pushed out a low threatening growl.
Her first catch of the scene was Ember with her pocket knife confronting an unknown visitor who was also holding a knife, though this one was much more intimidating. Kat bolted forward and passed the still forming wolf, to get at Luce before she had a chance to attack her fellow faction member while she regained her position after being evaded. Had Luce actually lunged at Ember, Kat would have been ready to catch her, but Luce had restrained herself, which left Kat snarling fiercely from between the two females.
She'd been prepared to lunge when Luce quickly began to talk. Kat was reminded about the misunderstanding that had a occurred when she and Steve had first come to the haunt so it wasn't too difficult for her to try to calm down a bit and think over what had been said. It made sense to her but she wasn't ready to lower her guard just yet. The knife in the girls hand made her uneasy though. She let out another low growl, baring her teeth.
<<Why were you traveling with Matt?>> Ember was still at one side of Luce, and now Kat moved wearily to the other side so they could surround her.
Rian:
Rian finally completed the morph. He reminded himself to remind himself later to practice. If this was going to be his main weapon then he had to get the morphing time down. He knew it was possible with practice he just had to practice.
Now fully wolf he padded to stand between Ember and Kat, leaving Luce surrounded on three sides, only the door at her back. But he didn't attack. He too remembered what had happened with Kat and he didn't want that knife of her's to end up stuck in anyone by accident.
He waited for her to answer the question.
Jullian:
Jullian had gone to bed shortly after Matt had and was soundly asleep when he heard a thud downstairs. It sounded like maybe someone had fallen. Hoped they were alright. He turned over and went back to sleep.
'''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''
He stretched and came into the kitchen to find Kat munching on some Ritz. "Morning Kat." He walked by the living room where he saw an odd lump stretched out on the floor under some covers. A dark head of hair was the only thing that stuck out from underneath them. "Um, Kat, did you bring a friend home last night? If so, way to go I guess."
Ember:
Ember blinked, "New York faction?" That was a long way from Los Angeles, but it was true that Matt had made the trip from there and she could have come back with him. But he hadn't said anything about company and like Kat and Rian, who now surrounded her, Ember was wary of the hooked knife in the woman's hand. That thing put Ember's little switchblade to shame. And she noted that the stranger had been eying her throat when they'd been fighting.
The young woman knew her stuff, that was for sure. Ember knew self defense moves and kiddy karate, even a little gymnastics, but it was barely more than the average sports player and in her normal years she'd used to to keep in shape not fight wars. The stranger moved fluently, like her fighting style was set to classical music. Like she was performing a slow dance to anyone on the outside, but to the person caught on the receiving end it was impossible to predict. And Ember knew that if she was lying and it came to a fight, they would all be beaten.
The thought made her a little sour and she glared at the newcomer without lowering her weapon.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Rolling out of bed, through her bathroom routine, and out the back door, Ember made it outside just as Rian looked about ready to give up on her. "Sorry I'm late, I slept longer than I thought I would.. guess i got a little worn out last night." She ran a hand through her hair, glancing away in thought.
Luce:
Luce's body was screaming at her to get into some sort of defensive position but she kept herself from doing so. She didn't want to look the least aggressive while facing a wolf, a coyote and a young woman with a knife. Maybe she could have taken one of them but she didn't like the odds of taking on all of them.
She looked around at the three, trying to figure out who to talk to. She had heard one thought-speak voice, female, but she didn't know which one had spoken, the wolf or the coyote, or even if the person who had spoken was in charge. She decided to talk to the one other human in the room and the one person standing directly in front of her.
She locked eyes with the knife wielder and spoke very calmly and very carefully, her voice coming out with the Brittish accent that often confused people, "I'm traveling with Matt because I was assigned to a new faction but don't have a flying morph to get there. Matt and I travelled over land as horses."
Rian:
Rian peeked his head into Matt's room and saw him lying on the floor. He walked over and offered him a hand up. Steve hadn't been exaggerating. Matt did look worse than he had last night. But if Matt was sick and morphing couldn't cure him then what were they going to do. They couldn't exactly take him to a hospital unless they wanted him to walk out of it with a yeerk in his head.
A glimmer of an idea started in Rian's mind. But it wasn't fully formed yet and refused to make itself clear when he tried to concentrate on it. He let it go. It would either grow, somewhere in the back of his mind until it was an actually idea or it would pass. Only time would tell.
Matt looked like he needed sleep so Rian quietly backed out of the room and went back outside to wait for Ember. She came out soon enough.
"Yeah," he answered her, "that was a little crazy. But I guess it worked out for the best. So I wanted to talk to you about Las Vegas. I know Luce said that Cassie assigned you but I don't want you to come just because you were assigned. Do you want to come?"
He was a little afraid to hear her answer. He was a little afraid in general. He had been beating himself up about what had happened to Robert and Steve. He had pretty much decided that he should never be put in a leadership position again and then Matt and Luce shows up and he finds out he will be a faction leader. Yeah, he was scared.
************************************************
Rian let his hackles fall as he heard Luce's explanation. Maybe another night he would be more suspicious, demand more proof, but it had been a very long week and his instincts weren't screaming at him that he was making a mistake. That was good enough for him at the moment.
<<Fine. He didn't tell us, but he was pretty out of it when he came in so he might have forgotten. We'll have to ask him about it in the morning, though honestly I don't see a controller making up that story and going through all this trouble just to be thrown out when Matt doesn't back it up. It wouldn't be smart.>>
Privately to Kat and Ember he said, <<What do you think? Should we let her stay?>>
Kat:
The coyote's ears twitched as the answer came. Kat kept the animal body alert and prepared for a sudden movement of any sort but her growls were starting to grow quiet. The New York faction member was no longer an aggressive position and her words did make sense. She knew Matt hadn't looked too good, and Matt had been in New York not long ago. Matt hadn't said anything about someone coming behind her though.
<<Matt looked pretty worn out when he got back, but do you think he'd actually forget to tell us something like this? It's kind of an important detail... Her story doesnt sound like something that would be made up though, like you said. The details all fit together and sound reasonable. We could keep a close eye on her until we can confirm it with Matt I guess...>> Her thought speak was private, directed only to Ember and Rian.
---
"Morning," Kat answered from her place at the table. She was caught of guard by his question, raising a brow as she looked over to where he was looking at. His gaze was aimed at the living room and after a moment she understood what he'd seen. "Guess you didn't hear about the commotion from last night." She said with a grin. "That's some faction member from New York heading for Las Vegas. I think she said her name was Luce. She had Rian, Ember, and I on edge last night when she just showed up out of no where. Apparently she was traveling with Matt but he went ahead and he forgot to tell us she would be coming behind him..."
Ember:
"If she wanted to," Ember answered Rian's thought-speak question out loud, not bothering to lower her voice or even look away from the stranger's piercing gaze, "she could have attacked us and won by now." Lowering her guard, she flipped the blade back in on itself and tucked it away into her waistband, which didn't look half as impressive in her nighties. "That's good enough evidence for me. Welcome to the LA faction. My name is Ember Rosalind, formerly of Beverly Hills." Striding forward she boldly stuck out her hand to the woman, giving her the perfect opportunity to kill her if she so chose, but through the disarming accent and forceful air about her, Ember trusted her intuition that the stranger wouldn't take advantage of it.
If not.. well, she'd had enough of fear. If something was going to happen, it would happen.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Ember didn't respond to Rian right away, and instead took a moment to glance back at the Haunt. It was true she'd made her home here... but staying in one place had never held any appeal for her. It wasn't the place that made it her home, it was the people, and leaving everyone behind when she felt she'd only just gotten to know them.
Heck, even Kat had grown on her. But there was one person she didn't want to leave in particular. "I... I'm not sure yet. Las Vegas... well it's not like I haven't been there before, and it's not so far away but..."
Jullian, he'd been the first normal human she'd met and forever after that she'd been making it up to him. The Kid had really made her life enjoyable again... and since no one else had needed her, she'd watched over him and taken care of him as best she could. They'd chatted and gone on patrols and missions, even gotten into a death trap together. Leaving him alone made her feel like she was breaking their bond they'd built up. Ember never had any siblings, but if she did she imagined it would feel like this if she'd had to leave them.
Luce:
Luce looked at the offered hand in surprise. I mean, they had to accept her presence since she was a fellow animorph but they didn't have to be nice about it. She sheathed the knife and shook Ember's hand though she let go fairly quickly. She just wasn't sure how to treat such a gesture, better to get past it.
"I'm Luce. Formerly of Brooklyn since we are sharing hometown pride. But I came from one of the developping parts of Brooklyn were the new rich people were living so I guess it is not something to be proud of and my parents definitely weren't." She trailed off. Her family simply wasn't worth enough to talk about.
"Look, I'm got assigned to Las Vegas which is apparently going to be a new faction led by someone named Rian. And you're going as well," she said looking at Ember. "Is he around here anywhere?"
Rian couldn't have been more shocked if she had said that the yeerks were using dragons has host bodies. He began demorphing immediately but he didn't wait for speech to kick back in, <<Rian? Are you sure the name Rian was used in the same sentence as faction leader?"
He had reached human but as always he had another morph to go. He almost forgot about it and so started it a second after asking Luce about her statement.
Now, finished he faced her, "Are you sure?"
Luce:
She looked at him dispassionately. For a second he had seemed like he was 13 and she seriously questioned Cassie's judgement but then he finished demorphing she guessed and she figured he was about 16 or 17 and she questioned Cassie's judgement slightly less.
"I take it you're Rian and no, I didn't get the name wrong. Though maybe there is another Rian around here." She didn't think so. They weren't enough animorphs around to have names repeat. "Look, I think I shouldn't have said anything. Maybe Matt wanted to tell you himself or something." This consideration hadn't even occurred to her at the time but she knew that ceremonies and important moments and such meant something to others. "I don't want to ruin this for you or anything and if you want to know all about it you should ask Matt but I've had a really long day and a really long trip across the country and I wouldn't mind getting some sleep if the festivities are over for the evening."
A wolf, a coyote and a woman with a knife. An odd faction they had here. But obviously a close knit one. The coyote had actually jumped in front of the woman and blocked her line of attack. She didn't think anyone would do something like that for her in New York.
She nodded to the young woman whose and to her teammate who was currently a coyote. To Rian she bowed slightly. It wasn't a full formal bow by any means but it was a bow. She didn't really know why she did that. Too many years spent in dojos had made it the appropriate response in her mind. She would even nod instead of wave in most circumstance since a nod was the beginning of a bow.
Good nites handled, at least in her mind, she turned and pulled her sleeping bag out of the pack and stretched it on the floor, got in it and pretended to sleep until the real thing overcame her. She hadn't lied, she was tired.
Jullian:
"Las Vegas uh? I didn't know there was a Las Vegas faction," he said as he opened the fridge and went looking for food. Finding nothing edible he started searching the cabinets but didn't find anything there either. He opened another cabinet, nothing. He walked into the closet that they had turned into a pantry but didn't find anything in there either.
His stomach growled audibly and he turned back to the kitchen. "We have no food. I think a grocery run is needed but I don't want to bring it up since the whole Robert/Steve thing. Mind if I have some of those crackers?" he asked, coming to sit at the table.
Kat:
It was settled. Luce's story was viewed as reasonable and they would allow her in the haunt without the presence of bared teeth and knives pointed in her direction. Kat started to demorph as Ember stepped forward extending a hand forward. She still felt a bit on edge from suddenly being called for trouble but it was fading, just like the amber color of her eyes that were now melting back to their normal gray hue.
Once human again, Kat realized she was a little winded, more so then usual after morphing that particular morph. It was odd, but she realized she'd sprinted to the room and morphed along the way. She'd never done a move like that before, and wasn't sure if she could do it just right again unless she was powered by the adrenaline that had surfaced when she'd gotten word of trouble.
Luce's words at reached her mid morph but she'd been preoccupied at first. When she realized what she'd heard she glanced to Rian, then to Lucy a moment. "Seems like Matt forgot to tell us quite a few things." Now that the commotion appeared to be over, it looked like she could go back to the couch and the music of her MP3 player. She offered a congratulations to Rian then headed back to the living room.
---
"I don't think there was a Las Vagas faction until just recently. Apparently Rian's gotten a promotion. It's his faction now according to what Luce said last night."
Kat watched as Jullian searched the kitchen just like she had, coming to the exact conclusion she'd come to. The kitchen had became pretty bare since the chaos of the last grocery run. She held out the packet of crackers for him to snatch some. They certainly wouldn't last long with seven current residents.
"I know... but we're not going to have anything to eat if someone doesn't head out soon." She said with a sigh.
Jullian:
"I was suppose to map that section of sewers over by Disneyland this afternoon. Maybe I'll pick up something on my way back," he said as he munched on some crackers. He hadn't actually been on a mission alone yet and was a little nervous about the solo mapping. Adding food to the list seemed to be pushing it but they did need food and Matt was too sick to get it. Maybe he would bring it up with Rian and Em later.
"So Rian's going to be leaving I guess. Wow, that'll be weird. Do you know if anyone's going with him?" Jullian asked casually. Jullian wasn't stupid. He knew that Rian had come with Matt when Matt got promoted and he knew who was the logical choice to send with Rian and he didn't want to hear the answer but he figured he had to know.
Stevert:
Currently Steve was in charge so he was somewhat clumsy as a result of just waking up. Robert had been awake for hours. Steve shuffled into the kitchen. He got there just in time to catch what Jullian said. In a sleepy tone he said, "Huh? What? Where is Rian going? What are you guys talking about? I thought I heard something about Vegas. And you're going to Disneylan, Jullian? cool. Sounds fun."
Steve tried walking to the fridge but Robert took over. Brother, you are to tired. you'll make a mess or something. I'll take over until you wake up. Immediately, their shared body began moving with a bit more grace. Robert manuevered over to the fridge and pulled out the milk. After pouring a glass for Steve, he put it back and noticed, "Maybe we should go on a shopping mission soon. We're kinda running out of stuff."
Rian:
Rian wanted to shake Luce awake and demand more answers but he had a feeling he might get hurt if he did so. Added to that she really had looked exhausted, dangerous, but exhausted. He struggled to convince himself that he would just have to wait till morning and a chance to speak to Matt before he did anything.
"I guess that's a night. Does anyone want to handle patrol or should we just leave it for the night?"
******************************************
Hearing Ember's answer he couldn't blame her. He had friends here as well. Leaving Matt was an especially painful thought. Matt was the first person he had ever opened up to about what had happened to his family. And Matt was the first person, besides for Raven who had found him, to know about his human morph.
But thinking about Matt brought an odd thought into Rian's head. "You, uh, you aren't worried about leaving someone behind are you, I mean like um, Jullian or you know Matt?" He wondered why he had even asked that question. Of course she was worried about leaving someone behind, so was he. So why should he care who it was.
Ember:
Ember sighed, "I'll cover it. Can't sleep now anyway." At the least the rain had let up a little since Matt's arrival, she might even be able to get by with a smaller morph since her race horse was a bit obvious. With another sigh she went and changed back out of her PJ's to her suit.
That night she spent as a cat on the roof, making sure to switch back before the two hour mark, and lasted until the sun rose at six in the morning. By that point she switched off with one of the early risers and collapsed into bed without any trouble...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
That was... an oddly direct question coming from Rian. "Ah..? Well yes, there's Matt." She felt a little bad about not regretting leaving his faction, especially since it hadn't felt very long and she'd grown accustomed to his leadership. But Rian had been a fine leader while Matt was away, and Short-stuff had plenty of new recruits to handle without her crowding the Haunt. She was old enough to realize that she could help Rian in Vegas more than Matt here in LA.
But the way Rian had said it was... "But it's mostly Jullian." Ember admitted, "I don't know.. the Kid kind of grew on me and I'm..." She sucked in a deep breath. "No it's fine, he'll be fine, and i'm fine about being assigned with you. So... Yeah... everything's fine."
Rian:
"Oh yeah, Jullian." He had no idea why he felt relieved. "I'm worried about leaving him too. I mean, next to you and Matt he's the one I'm closest to. That sounds wrong, placing him third. I mean I do care about him, and we have been in the same faction for a long time. I mean, it is not just that we've been in the same faction. Like it's not just that we've been thrown together and I wouldn't like him otherwise. Jeez, why does everything I say seem to sound mean? I like Jullian. That's what I mean. No, I mean, yeah whatever." He gave up. When he started babbling there was just no going back. It didn't happen often but he had learned that the best way to stop was just to shut up or change the subject.
"We have a while before we leave I think. i don't want to leave Matt or LA while he's so sick so we'll be around here for a while. We should practice morphing I guess. Do you want to start with the cat morph or even your new morph or do you want to work on the flying thing first?"
Ember:
Ember gave Rian a fairly questioning look as he blathered on. What was he talking about? She'd never seen him look so flustered, even when they were facing down certain death he'd acted calmer. "Um, yeah. I guess it would be hard to number your friends..? But I'm sure Jullian will be fine with Matt around to watch his back..."
She noticed as Rian quickly changed the subject. And of course, it was back to training as usual. "Well as much as I'd hate to give away a trade secret, I guess it wouldn't hurt to help you give it a try. But honestly I don't know why that particular morph is so easy for me." Ember shrugged and headed around the Haunt to get a better angle on the roof. "er... maybe we should start smaller?"
Jullian:
"I'm going to be mapping the sewers over by Disneyland today. Maybe you can handle the shopping? I was just talking to Kat about that. That and other things. Did you hear that Rian made faction leader? He will be going to Las Vegas and since Matt brought Rian with him to Los Angeles I'm guessing he's going to be taking one of us," 'and I can guess which one.' "I don't suppose you've heard anything about it?
He chewed on some more crackers but they were going pretty quickly and he had a pretty big appetite for someone so small. They definitely needed groceries today.
Kat:
Kat was staring in Steve's direction as he headed for the fridge, noticing instantly as Robert took over. The change in posture and the way his movements became smoother were a dead give away. It was kind of cool to watch.
"I might be able to head out on a grocery run or something.." She said in an absent minded tone. Soon after speaking she realized the thought made her a little uneasy after what had happened to Robert. She tried not to think about the incident and push it from her mind before it could get to her too much.
Her gray eyes looked to Jullian as she heard him inquire a second time about who would be leaving with Rian. Jullian and Ember seemed close so she wasn't sure just how he would feel with her leaving. Luce had said Ember was assigned to Las Vagas and as far as Kat knew Ember hadn't gone against the change.
"...Luce said last night that Ember's supposed to head out there with Rian," She said hesitantly. She took one last cracker then decided the remaining few could be for Jullian or whoever else happened to want some. She was good for the time being.
Jullian:
"Thanks," he said taking the rest of the crackers but he didn't sound grateful at all. Ember. He knew it would be her going. It made the most sense. He was happy for her. She was pretty much getting a promotion too since she would be a senior member in a smaller faction. 'But what about me?' a selfish voice asked. He wouldn't have minded if he was going with them. He liked everyone here but Ember was, well, he had always grown up with an older brother or sister watching out for him, and he felt like he was losing one.
No not one, two. He was closer to Ember than he was to Rian but they had all been through a lot together. If it wasn't for Rian he might not be here. Now they were both leaving.
"I'm going to get started on that mission." He pushed himself roughly away from the table and stormed outside, smack into a Ember and Rian themselves.
"Oh, I guess you two are together now. Already separating yourselves from the rest of us who will be left here." He glared at Ember. "Glad you guys told me."
Ember:
Ember's mouth fell open. "Jules... that's not... look, I didn't..." She trailed off, unable to think of anything right to say. So instead she just took to looking at the ground, feeling guilty although she'd done nothing wrong. It was an assignment right? It wasn't like she had a choice... even though Rian had said it was up to her. She was torn, between one right thing and another.
If she left, she would be second in command, possibly with a chance to follow in Rian's footsteps and branch out the resistance on her own. She would be crucial to helping the new faction thrive. It would give her purpose... something very few people in the world ever truly experienced, and now when the world needed them, she could be one of the heroes to reclaim it. Back in Beverly Hills, before all of this, she hadn't had anything to do and went out to do idiotic things to try and find it. Now it had fallen into her lap, and strangely enough... she felt like maybe this was what she was meant to do.
But... Jules... She looked over at him and felt a deep pit grow like a void in her stomach, swallowing anything good she might have felt. Her tongue tied itself up, refusing to allow her to speak.. explain.
Jullian:
"Whatever," he said harshly. "Have fun in Vegas. I don't care." He ran past the two and headed in the direction of the city. He wished he could morph the way some of the others could, while he was running. Then he could just fly away. But on second thought it felt good to run as a human.
He took comfort in the feeling of his feet hitting the ground even though it hurt because they were bare. His arms pumped at his side and his lungs sucked in air to keep his body going. All of it was normal, all of it was familar. It had nothing to do with this new life they were leading. It had nothing to do with his sister abandoning him and now Ember too.
'She didn't even stop by LA on her way to New York!' That's when he realized that his anger was not just with Ember and Rian but with Helena as well. How long had he been out here, how long had she known about his existence and she couldn't even bother to say hi, to send word, nothing. She just did her Helena thing and didn't talk to anybody. Even when she had a cell phone she hadn't used it. She was a black hole of communication. And she didn't care, she didn't care if he lived or died. She just left.
And now Ember was doing the same. Obviously helping Rian with his faction was more important than staying here, than staying with him. Well good then. She must think that he could take care of himself. Isn't that what he had fought to prove to everybody all this time? Fine, if she wanted to leave, let her. He would be just fine all on his own.
Stevert:
"Oh really?" Said Robert in response to Jullian and Kat's answers. "That's pretty cool. I mena, it's a new faction and all. That means we've got more Animorphs right?" By now, Steve was wide awake. <<Okay, Rob, I'll take over now.>> "This is Steve now. Rian's leaving to start a new faction? THat's good although I'll kind of miss him...and Ember. They kind of grow on you." Steve watched as Jullian left. "Uh, maybe Rob and I should go after Jullian? He looked kind of mad and he's probably not going to be thinking clearly and that can be fatal in a city full of yeerks."
He walked out of the Haunt and saw Rian and Ember practicing. "Hello mguys. What's up? Did you guys happen to see which way Jullian went? Oh never mind. I see him. Have fun in Las Vegas guys!" Steve walked a few feet away and morphed his blue jay. He flew off in the direction of the white blob that was Jullian. He flapped as hard as he could until he was in thought-speak range with Jullian. <<Hey Jullian! Wait up! I'm coming with you! You'll need help carrying all of the groceries.>> Besides, you might need help in case the Yeerks discover you. Robert chuckled at the thought.
Rian:
Rian hadn't expected Jullian to take it like that. It wasn't that they hadn't told him. They had only found out just last night after all and normally the kid slept in. But then he remembered that he had assigned Jullian to a section of the sewers today to map on his own. He had been a little hesitant to send anyone out on their own after what had happened to Robert but he had also known that Jullian could handle it.
"I forgot he would be up this early. I'm sorry. I don't know why but for some reason that sounds like the appropriate response. Do you want to go after him. We don't have to do this now, I can find something useful to do."
Kat:
It was obvious Jullian wasn't happy with the answer Kat had given him, but he needed to know. She watched as the boy pushed away from the table and got up, telling them his plans before heading out. "Good luck," came Kat's response, then she sighed when he was out of site.
She got up, grabbing the wrapping that the crackers had been in and threw it away. Groceries was definitely high on the to do list and she'd have to- "Aw crap!" She said loudly, realizing a flaw in her plan. "I've already been seen in public." She'd just remembered the fiasco in the sewers and how she and Ember had exposed themselves. She let out an irritated noise as she exhaled. "So much for that plan.."
Ember:
"No..." Ember replied, another set of feelings shoved off on another day. "It's fine, I need to practice anyway. It's strange how good you can get when you're facing down death, but its nearly impossible to replicate that reaction for practical purposes. Of course practical in our book means facing death anyway but still..." She let the thought wander off on its own, tired of trying to chase down something useful to say.
Dammit. Why had Jullian run off? Why hadn't she thought to tell him herself? But.. then again there was the chance that she didn't have to leave... No, who was she fooling? If she told him that it would only make things worse when she left. Better to let him just blow off some steam and have a heart to heart later... hopefully...
Rian:
Back on solid ground, "practice it is. What you can do with your cardinal morph is quite amazing." He waited a moment so that she could enjoy the compliment before moving on, "but that morph will only help you run away and we want to do a bit more than running. Let's see if you can do that with everything else starting with the cat that seems to give you so much trouble."
"We know that morphing time can be reduced with practice but I don't think it has to do with how much you work with a morph. You could do that with your cardinal from the beginning and I can morph my human body almost effortlessly. I've been thinking lately that it has more to do with how well we sinc with the form we are trying to become. The fact that we get faster with time probably has to do with the fact that the longer we have a morph the more we understand and connect with it. So try to find your inner cat." He looked up at the roof. "I'm gonna go up there and work on finding my inner kestrel. Jeez, we sound so L.A."
Jullian:
If Jullian had been human he would have glared at Steve but he wasn't. <<I'm not weak Steve. I can carry some groceries on my own. And I can take care of myself. I'm not foolish enough get myself captured!>> He stopped abruptly realizing what he'd said. He hadn't meant to reference Robert's situation with the comment. He hadn't been thinking of Robert at all. He had only been thinking of himself. Selfish.
<<Oh, uh, Steve, Robert, I'm sorry. I didn't mean...Um, my foot likes to live in my mouth these days.>> And he had just been getting to know the other member. And it looked like the two members he was closest to were leaving. 'Really great time to alienate people Jullian.'
Stevert:
Steve flapped hard to keep up with Jullian. Maybe I should have gotten a humminbird instead. <<I wasn't saying you were weak, I was...uh...merely saying that you may not have enough arms to carry it all. Last time I checked, nobody in our faction has an Octopus morph.>> Then Steve responded to Jullian's second remark. <<Aww, that's alright. I think I was born with a foot in my mouth.>> Then Steve laughed at the thought. <<My turn to answer, little brother.>> <<Alright Rob.>>
Robert took over and said to Jullian. <<Jullian, this is Robert. And I forgive you for the remark. Robert remained in control since Steve hated endless flapping. He soared above Jullian and tried to get more altitude. Then he realized a mistake. The higher they went, the air pressure got lower so they had to beat the blue jay's wings a lot harder. Robert dipped down and flew about ten feet below Jullian. It was a lot easier down there. THe Kinley brothers knew that Jullian was mad that Rian and Ember were leaving. Robert guessed it was because they were close to Jullian, based on Steve's memories and what he had seen with Steve's eyes. Steve thought it was because they didn't tell him, according to what he had heard outside of the Haunt before the brothers left. Either way, they decided to leave the topic alone.
Luce:
Luce had been aware of the conversations going on around her. She was a light sleeper by inclination and living in New York had only made her more paranoid. But she had learned to block things out when needed and she needed sleep so that is what she was concentrating on getting. But when she heard Jullian slam the table when he got up she decided she wouldn't be getting any more sleep today.
Jullian was someone she at least wanted to meet before leaving, if only because he was Helena's sister and Helena was the only person, besides for Cassie, that Luce had spent an extended length of time around and managed to not piss off. So she was slightly curious as to what a brother of hers would be like. But not that much.
She got up, running her hands through her messed up hair and crawled out of bed. Mornings were not her forte. She just could not manage to be decent before a certain hour. She rolled up the bedding and stored it back with the saddle and her packs.
She looked up at Kat, who seemed to be yelling at herself about something and then back down at the packs. She looked around until she found the yellow and blue whetstone she had been looking for and then she went and sat at the table. She put one of her feet up on an empty chair and began sharpening the knife that had gotten her out of more bad situations than she could count.
"That kid, the angry one, he was Helena's little brother right?" Her voice had a slight growl to it so she coughed to get rid of the sleep effect.
Kat:
Kat had been about to leave, but turned around to find Luce sharpening her knife with one foot on a chair. Her eyes went to the sharp knife a moment, a bit uneasy. If they were wrong about this girl and she wasn't really from the New York faction, though it seemed unlikely, she easily start using that thing before Kat would have time to morph. She didn't like the thought of that.
"Yea, I think." She remembered that Helena was spoken about by Matt and how Jullian had reacted. She didn't know a whole lot about Jullian, but the connection seemed to make sense. "He's not usually angry like that though. Normally he's pretty mellow but I think he's getting worked up with Ember leaving.."
Luce:
Ember was one of the ones she had met last night. The woman with the knife. Not the most dangerous weapon but so far she was one of the few animorphs Luce had seen carrying weapons. She didn't know what most of the animorphs had against weapons. Their ability to morph was only one weapon. Why did they have to throw the others away? It seemed extremely foolish to her. Being able to turn into a bird just wasn't the best solution to every problem. People who recognized that got more respect from her than others, though no one really got a lot of respect out of Luce.
"The knife totting one right? And Rian was the wolf kid? So I guess that makes you the coyote. Nice to see you human. So what's Rian and Ember like? I figure I should know something about them if I'm suppose to be working with them."