Tricks

[Jullian]

Jullian pulled the trigger but the disc continued to fly through the air. Without thinking about it, he adjusted his aim and took a second shot. This time the disk fell to the ground. He lowered the gun and handed it back to Kovu. "You sound a lot like my mother, and I mean that in a nice way, but just like I told her, this isn't really my thing. I can do it ok but I don't like it. And this has a ridiculously hard kick too," he said, massaging the palm of his hand.

Jullian heard a few footsteps outside the training room. The walkers sounded like they were trying to be quiet but a squeak of a sneaker had given them away. He looked past Kovu and towards the door that led to the rest of the hangar bay. "Do you think someone's here?" he asked.

[xander]

Xander glanced over at Gabe as soon as he heard the thud. His first instinct was to check to make sure he was okay. He’d seen plenty of nasty falls during training. One particular memory was of a kid who had fallen running from the yeerk and broken his neck and stood up with his nose to his chest, took three steps before falling again. The last thing he wanted was Gabe causing unneeded damage by moving. Before he could get a word out edge wise another gunshot range out.

He immediately returned to a crouch and looked around. After the third he figured that the shots weren’t aimed in their direction. Survival instinct satisfied he looked back Gabe.

“You listen to me,” his voice low in his adopted dialect, “you stay still and right where you are. You just took a nasty spill and if you do anything daft I will personally kick your ass back to LA. Ya hear mate? Stay down, I’m going to go check.”

Keeping low to the ground he inched farther out into the hanger. The lack of cover was disquieting but it wasn’t the first time he went against his gut. Where ever the shots came from, he couldn’t be sure and hadn’t seen anyone. Still the ship was supposed to be safe, only able to be found by certain people.

Xander put two fingers in his mouth and let out a high pitched whistle before accompanying it with, “I don’t know who the hell you are but if you don’t stop shoot and explain who the fuck you are, I promise to make you life inconvenient!” He took a knee and kept an ear out for a response or movement.

[Jullian]

Jullian looked at Kovu, his expression amused. "I guess the recruits are awake. Let's go say hi," he said as he walked over to the door and stuck his head outside. He didn't spot the person who had called out to them but he was guessing it was the French guy. His accent didn't sound French, it sounded Brittish, but either way it wasn't American and they only had one American and one Frenchman so far. Logic said it was the second one.

Jullian stepped out of the training room and farther into the hangar bay, looking for the source of the voice. "Hello?" he called looking around. "I'm Jullian, one of the trainers here. Who are you? Where are you?"

[xander]

The voice that came back to him was surprisingly light. Xander’s face contorted slightly in annoyance as he wondered how someone that fired a gun could sound so welcoming.

“Don’t matter who I am,” he pushed away the personals, “My mate took a fall and he may need medical supervision rather instantaneously.”

He looked up around the hanger. The place was large and he had no clue how to describe it. “I’m-,” he stopped and scratched his head, “Here? I don’t know, the hanger middle-ish.”

Xander stood and tried to look around still seeing no one. The mess left him frazzled. Adrenal pumping through his veins, fear of Gabe’s possible breaks or concussion and gunshots to top off everything.

“Where are you?”

[Jullian]

"Here," Jullian said, coming around the corner of a Bug Fighter. He'd followed the boy's voice as he'd talked. "Hey, my name is Jullian," Jullian said with a little wave. "Like I said, I'm a teacher here and you said your friend may have gotten hurt?" Of course they could get hurt, they didn't have the morphing power yet. No easy fix here.

"Where's your friend? Is he the other recruit?" Jullian asked. He didn't know who else it could be. Maybe Seiya. But Seiya was an animorph. He could have morphed any of his injuries away. Even if the recruit in front of him didn't know that Seiya would have told him. "I'm afraid we don't have many medical amenities here," Jullian continued. "As animorphs we don't need them but you'll figure that out on your own. Sorry, I know I'm talking too much. Where's your friend?"

[Kovu]

Kovu looked on in bemusement as Jullian compared him to his mother, not exactly a compliment he was hoping for, but he would take it. "We're not suppsed to like it." Kovu suddenly had a serious expression. "We're just supposed to do it, and if we're gonna win this war, we'll have to do alot of things we hate." Kovu took the gun from Jullian, strange, he thought, as long as he had the gun, he had never killed a human, only used it to disarm people.

Kovu heard the sneakers beore Jullian did, and was alreaady at the door as he spoke. As he heard the voice he relaxed, and his face turned up in a small smirk. He followed Jullian out and watched him mingle with the recruit. Kovu said nothing, he needed to keep a stern auora about him, he had decided on his teaching approach, and he would need to appear serious. As Xander spoke, he eased a bit, and said. "That's what I get for getting some target practice, lead us to your freind." Kovu waited for Xander to move.

[xander]

Xander started walking back towards Gabe and waved for the “teachers” to follow. “Yeah, he’s hurt but I don’t know how bad,” he said over his shoulder, “and from what I gather yes the other recruit. Don’t know who else would be down here.”

A shiver went through his body as he remembered where he was. Figures the place his life got turned upside down would be at the bottom of the world. He shot a glare at Julian over his shoulder. No medical? This place was bonkers.

“I was under the impression you lot were trained in everything,” sighing added, “If you can get me a pen light I can check his head. Beyond that I can only look for superficial injuries.” Conner had made sure each of his students could at least do that, it helped if one needed to self diagnose or if you needed to seem useful in a group.

[Jullian]

Jullian began following after Xander feeling self conscious at his unintended (or maybe intended) reproach. He was distinctly aware of the fact that he was only a 14 year old kid and this recruit was at least 16 (the new cut off age of these internationals) but he looked older than that. Maybe 18 or 19. Maybe even 20. How could Cassie think that he could make older grown up pay attention to him? But he had to try right? Well he was supposed to be a morphing teacher, here could be the first lesson.

"Animorphs don't need doctors as a general rule. The morphing process is based on DNA. So every time we demorph, that means turn back into a human and morphing is the opposite of course," he continued, babbling a bit, "our bodies are recreated from their DNA so no injuries. If any of us ever got hurt we would just morph to heal it. That is how you survive getting injured in morph too. I would say you'll never need to know that but I'd be lying," he finished sadly.

They came around the corner of a Bug Fighter and Jullian saw the other guy sitting on the floor. "Hi, I'm Jullian. Your morphing instructor if you didn't hear before."

[xander]

“What if you need to help someone who isn’t an animorph?” He asked while making his finale approach toward Legend. “I’m getting the impression your magic wand doesn’t fix every bloke you come across. What about them, eh?”

Xander wondered if he was starting to sound unappreciative of his recruitment. The morphing process sounded fascinating and cool. Not having to worry about injuries definitely sold him of the ability. He’d be able to do crazier jumps without fear of spraining or breaking his legs. One quick morph and problem solved. If he pissed off this kid though, that maybe a pipe dream.

“Listen Jullian,” he said his name in hopes he’d stop repeating, “I don't care what you are, can you help or not?” He stopped and looked down at Gabe.

“And my ears are fine, thank you,” He glared down at Jullian. That in itself was an odd experience, Xander usually looked up to glare. Another reason for why the Arctic academy was weird.

[gabriel]

"I think he was talking to me," Gabriel said from where he was lying prone on the floor. His fall hadn't hurt him that much, just bruised his ankles and knees and shins and other things that had collided with his heels when he'd landed. It was enough that he'd gotten the wind knocked out of him and when Xander had told him to take a knee he'd been more than happy to comply. He'd sat down and then laid down waiting for the pain that felt like it was deep in his gut to go away.

But sat up when the others came around the corner. "Nice to meet you Teach," Gabe said to the little kid. "I'm fine by the way. Just bruised my pride and my balls. Or my pride and my pride," he said laughing and laying back down. "I'm afraid our contest may have to take a rain check though. Good thing I was winning even though that last drop was insane kid," he said looking at Xander.

[Kovu]

Kovu's eyes narrowed as Xander spoke, he would have to fix that attitude, and preety quick. He remained under the guise of the hardened teacher as he spoke. "You'll soon realize we rarely have non-animorphs aboard here, and when we do, it's because we are about to recruit them, or they are one of our informants. Also, the average humans we do bring usually don't hurl themselves off of a railing."

"As for him, we have two options, we can either go get the blue box and bring it here, or take him to it." Lovu then remembered to explain about the box. "The blue box gives us the morphing ability, it would be the quickest and easiest way to heal Gabriel." Kovu lokked down at the boy, contemplating his options.

"i'm sure this is no time for your first morphing lesson but it seems we have no choice, Jules, explain the basic morphing process, I'll go get the blue box." Kovu returned in a few seconds with the box, it took only a small conversation with Seiya to get it. He ran down to where Gabriel was laying and began a bit of instruction.

"Put your hand on the side of the box and focus. After you finish the aquiring proccess, you'll be able to morph, and well, you know the rest." Kovu knelt down on one knee and held out the blue box with one hand. He waited for Gabriel to move, this was the only way to get him healed quickly, this had to be done.

[xander]

Xander crossed his arms and looked down at Gabriel. Mostly embarrassed that he didn’t notice that Jullian was talking to someone else, and also wondering how Gabe could still be cocky while laying on the ground.

“Got no problem with continuing at a later date, but you must’ve hit your head if you think you where ahead,” he crouched down and held out a hand with two fingers up, “How many digits?”

Standing he turned to Kovu. “I wasn’t talking about here,” Xander rolled his eyes. “I was talking about out there in the war zone that’s the world these days. Ain’t useful to a brother if you can’t help them.”

"Was he just on about a blue box?” He asked as Kovu ran off. “Is it a big blue box? Cause if it is, it’s about time I met The Doctor. All this talk of aliens I was wondering if the Time Lord was sleepin’ or something.” He laughed at his own joke not bothering to check if anyone else got it.

When Kovu came back with a small cube he frowned. As irrational as it had been to picture the Tardis from a television program he was still disappointed. A time machine would have been handy give the circumstance. He watched as Kovu handed the cube toward Gabe.

“Now what?”

[Jullian]

"You have a point," Jullian said quietly, glad that Kovu had stepped in instead of him. Kovu had been different ever since Ember had died. It wasn't necessarily an easy thing to see but Jules knew him well enough to feel it. He was harder some how and it made Jullian afraid for him and for himself. He wondered if this is what Kovu had been like when he'd had to live on the streets. It was almost like he'd shut everyone out again...except Jullian...so far. I just hoped it stays that way, he thought as Kovu left to get the morphing cube.

He sat down next to Gabriel but he addressed his comments to both of them since they'd both have to know it. "Well I don't know what you mean Xander but Kovu went to get the morphing cube. Blue box, iscafil device, whatever you want to call it. It gives us the morphing power. Once you touch it you can acquire animals DNA by thinking about them. We normally don't have the actual animal around so we use blood, which we have stored in a DNA bank here on the ship. Once you acquire the animal morphing is pretty simple. Just concentrate on an image of the animal and you'll become it. Concentrate on an image of yourself and you'll change back. There are some details to work out but that is all you need to know for now. I'll teach you the rest."

Kovu came back with the morphing cube and held it out to Gabriel.

[gabriel]

"What are you talking about Xe? One stunt does not put you ahead of the game. I was winning," Gabriel laid back down while Jullian went over the process of morphing. None of it was really knew to him. He'd seen Matt and some of the other Los Angeles animorphs come and go while he'd lived in Union. He'd never seen them morph but he'd seen them around and been aware of what they'd been capable of doing. He had even met Jullian once but he doubted the kid remembered and it had only been for a few seconds so Gabriel didn't bother to remind him.

When Kovu came back with the blue box Gabriel seriously considered jumping to his feet to show everyone that he was fine. He didn't like how they kept hovering over him as if he were made of glass or something. He'd come here to be a freedom fighter, he was sure he'd suffer a lot worse than bruised pride and he wanted to prove himself to these people. But if he said something they may not let him have the morphing power, at least not until later. So, for once, Gabriel kept his mouth shut and did what he was told.

He stuck his hand out and touched the side of the morphing cube. He felt a slight tingling sensation run up his arm and he jerked his hand away and inspected his fingers. He half expected the tips to be glowing like ET's but there was nothing. Nothing looked any different.

"That was it?" he said looking up at the teachers. "You should have a fog machine here. It would make it so much cooler."

[Admin]

"Yes, let's waste resources so that what we do looks cool," Seiya said as he walked up, a couple of vials of blood in his hands, his manner professional and up tight. He came up behind Kovu and looked over his shoulder at the new recruit.

"Hmm. I heard you two got yourselves into a bit of trouble. I was giving you all a day to rest before we started training but I see you don't need it. Still, he doesn't look as hurt as you said," he said looking at Kovu.

When Kovu had come to his office he'd reported that one of the recruits had taken a bad spill off of the second floor balcony and may need to be healed. Seiya had been a bit reluctant to give up the morphing power so quickly. He hadn't planned on given the morphing power to the new recruits until their last two weeks of the eight week training period. It was to protect them as well as the animorphs. If they washed out and didn't cut it he didn't want them to have the morphing power. There was only two things you could do with a morph capable person who wasn't going to fight. Kill them or nothlit them. That unpleasant bit of reality had partially motivated his decision to put the ship here. There was no where to run.

But he hoped to avoid that choice completely by making sure new recruits were suitable candidates for their force, something they'd have to prove to all the teachers here before they even got to look at a morphing cube let alone become an animal.

But if one of them was injured it forced his hand a bit so he'd given Kovu the morphing cube. But Kovu had forgotten to get some blood vials since they were located in another part of the ship. There was no reason to keep them in a cooler in his office when the Blade Ship had scientific facilities better suited to keeping the blood fresh and viable. So Seiya had gone down to the lab to pick up a few vials of blood and met the others here.

Now he looked down sternly at the recruit on the ground and then looked to his friend. "Explain what happened please," he asked politely but in a tone that made it clear they could answer or they could be shipped home.