Start of Something... Tedious [Party, Nineteen]

[Drake]

Drake still couldn't understand the logic. Him, a faction leader? Why? Sure, he had as much experience as a lot of faction leaders had. And sure, he had been doing this a long time. And yes, he had come out of more life and death situations than he cared to admit, but this still didn't make any sense. Why him?

Drake rubbed his head as he roamed the halls. In the back of his mind he was vaguely steering himself toward the pool, wherever that was. He had seen a notice for a party posted up somewhere. But he wasn't really focused on finding his way to his destination at the moment. His mind was too preoccupied.

And now I'll be responsible for other peoples' lives. And coming up with strategies. And keeping us hidden. And keeping in contact with headquarters. Aragh! Drake's mind was reeling as he turned a random corner.

[Nineteen]

Nineteen couldn't miss the pool party. Really, she wouldn't miss any party that Jullian had a hand in, as a rule. As much as she'd worried about how 'lame' it was to party with teachers back when she'd been a recruit, now she found herself eager for whatever bit of excitement would break the monotony. When you were a recruit it was fun to bend the rules and see how much you could get away with. Normally it'd just be a teacher reprimanding you if you crossed the line. If you were a teacher who crossed the line, Seiya dealt with you. And even if he never raised his voice, it was a highly unpleasant experience.

On top of the pool party news, Seiya had informed her personally that as of yesterday, she was no longer an instructor at the Academy. She was joining the recruits, and would be assigned to the faction opening in Rio de Janeiro. As much as she complained about not being allowed to leave with the rest of her original class of recruits, Nineteen wasn't too sure how to feel about it. Part of her longed to be in the actual fight, but she wondered if it'd be weird to be a faction-mate with people she'd helped train. Oh well, she'd get used to it.

Up ahead, she saw as someone walked into the hallway ahead of her. It didn't take more than a few seconds to recognize the Animorph, even though they'd never spoken to each other. Drake Blear -- one of the Heroes everyone was talking about, and her new faction leader. "Hey, Drake, wait up!" As he turned towards his name, Nineteen jogged to meet him. When she reached him, she held out a hand. "My name's Nineteen. I'll be one of your factionees."

[Drake]

Drake looked up as he heard his name called. It was one of the people from his new faction. The one with the number for a name. Nineteen, she said as she introduced herself. Not wanting to be rude, Drake shook the hand that was offered to him.

"You are the one who was teaching Combat Training, right?" Drake couldn't help but think that she might have been a better choice than himself. At least she officially knew how to survive. "I bet that will be useful out in the field. Maybe you can teach me some stuff sometime."

Maybe you can teach me everything, he wanted to add. But instead he just asked, "What can I do for you?"

[Nineteen]

"Yeah, I've been teaching it for a few months. Not sure how effective it is unless you're stuck fighting with your bare hands, but I'm sure it'll come in handy one way or another. And yeah, I could show you a thing or two sometime." Now that she was standing next to him, Nineteen thought that he didn't really look that intimidating. If anything he probably looked the opposite. But she knew the stories as well as anyone else, and he wouldn't be a faction leader if he didn't have some secret weapon stored away, or whatever.

"I just thought I'd introduce myself, saw you walking." There were rumors that some of the crew had been attempting to weasel their way into the company of the veteran Animorphs, but Nineteen wasn't into that. If she wanted to talk to someone, she went ahead and did it, without making up some excuse. It probably also helped that she wasn't starstruck by hero worship. "Going to the pool party?" She gestured down the hall.

[Drake]

"Well, I'm glad you did introduce yourself," he said. It was mostly the truth. He didn't really want to be reminded that Nineteen's life was now at least partially in his hands, but he did need to get to know his faction members. All of them. Wether he liked them or not. But Nineteen seemed nice enough.

"And yeah, I am headed to the party, I guess. I'm just... not exactly sure how to get there." He turned down the hallway Nineteen had gestured toward. Naturally it was in a direction he wasn't planning on going in.

After a few steps, Drake asked Nineteen a question that he surprised himself by saying aloud. "Are you excited to go to Brazil, then?"

[Nineteen]

"Follow me, the pool is actually right next to the Combat Training room." It was strange to think that it'd not longer be her room, her classroom. Alain was right, too. Just when the pool was finishing up, and now she'd never get to practice with it. Damn it all.

Drake asked if she was excited to go to Brazil, and Nineteen flashed him a smile that was full of teeth. "You bet!" It wasn't just enthusiasm trying to impress him, either: she really was excited to be part of a faction. "I can't wait to leave the Academy. It's been nice, but it gets old fast. I can't wait to actually be in the action, you know?"

After a few more steps, she looked over at him again. "You're excited too, right?"

[Drake]

Drake was surprised by Nineteens extremely positive reaction to his question. He could see someone wanting to go, but he hadn't expected anyone to actually be excited. Drake was so surprised that it almost made him stop walking, but he caught himself.

But then she asked her own question, and Drake had to think about his answer for a moment.

"You know," he finally said, "until just a moment ago I was feeling a little reluctant to go be a faction leader." A gross understatement. "But your reaction... Well, you made it not seem so bad." A gross overstatement. While she had certainly improved his outlook, his outlook could still use some more improving.

"I'm not sure if you know this or not. Probably. But I haven't ever been a faction leader before. Not really. So... just, I guess, don't expect things to be too interesting right off the bat. Besides, I doubt the faction life will be nearly as glorious as you think," he said with what he hoped was a pleasant smile.

[Nineteen]

Nineteen snickered. She couldn't quite tell if he was pulling her leg or not, but he seemed all right enough. Then he said it'd be his first time as a faction leader. That may have come up with she was assigned, but it hadn't seemed important to her. It wasn't like anyone was a professional faction leader, except maybe Cassie. The widespread Animorph movement was barely half a decade old. Pretty much everyone was new to everything they were doing.

"Don't worry about it. Since I've never been in a faction before, I'm sure I won't even notice the difference. My bar's set very low." She winked at him. "Really though, it doesn't have to be glorious, as long as it's just somewhere else, doing real things. I'd rather be saving the world then teaching other people how to save it, any day."

They took another corner. Nineteen was taking them down a path that might not have been obvious, but she'd learned it was the quickest way. Or rather, it had the least possibility of meeting up with people who liked to make you chat with them for fifteen minutes when they saw you passing by. "So what can you turn into, then? What's your favorite or whatever?"

[Drake]

Drake wasn't sure he should believe her views on factions, but she seemed genuine enough. He decided to give her the benefit of the doubt. Besides, what she thought now wouldn't necessarily be what she thought later.


"Morphs, huh? I've got lots of those. Over a dozen now, I think." He said it as a fact, not as a form of bragging. "I have everything from a giraffe to an ant. I don't know if I have a favorite though. I have barely even tried some of them."

Drake thought for a moment. "Well flying is always fun, so turkey vulture or secretary bird is definitely in the running. And buffalo too. You don't want to be on the other end of one of those in full charge. I almost want to say sawfish too. Although I haven't really had the chance to give that one a proper test drive."

"What about you? What can and/or do you turn into?" Drake could hear the faint sound of music from the party coming down the halls now, but he tried to keep his focus on Nineteen. They would reach the party soon enough.

[Nineteen]

"A giraffe?" Nineteen grinned, clearly entertained by that news. "Man, that must be wild. Buffalo definitely sounds awesome too. I'd ask you to show off, but I don't think Seiya appreciates having animals in the hallway. Especially not big ones."

She gestured in the direction of the pool. "Maybe you can try out the sawfish though. I don't know what that is, but it sounds pretty damn cool. The pool -- pools really -- has both fresh water and salt water."

When he asked about her morphs, Nineteen smiled a little wanly. "Nothing that impressive. I've got a pretty cool horse though. We don't get to exercise our morphs to their fullest extent. Flying is all work in still air and there aren't any open spaces to really tear off running." She shrugged. "The pool is nice and big, a step in the right direction, but that's only if you've got a nice water morph to play with."

[Drake]

Drake laughed lightly as they walked. Nineteen knew just what to say to raise his spirits. He doubted she was doing it on purpose, but it was working nonetheless.

"I guess I could try that morph out. Possibly. I wasn't thinking that there would be morphing at this party, but I guess I shouldn't be so surprised. After all, there are a lot of animorphs here." Drake still wasn't sure if he would use his morph or not, but he was at least considering it now. He would have to see what the situation was like when they arrived.

"It sounds like you guys do a lot of hard work here, training. Even if some of the facilities may not be the best for certain morphs. Do you have a favorite exercise? Well besides anything Combat Training related. I can already guess that you like that subject seeing as how you were the instructor," he said with a harmless wink.

[Nineteen]

Nineteen snickered. "Well... I didn't really say that morphing was going to be encouraged. Better to beg forgiveness than ask permission, right? The folks who aren't Animorphs might not appreciate it, but hey. It's pretty obvious that pool was built for test driving water morphs. You'll see when we get there, it goes down to at least 40 feet."

Nineteen had snuck in on her own and spent quite a bit of time trying to swim to the bottom. She hadn't been able to do it; as much as Nineteen could take a proper beating, by 25 feet she felt like her brain was being crushed by a collapsing skull.

"I like to practice morph-running and morph-flying. Flying's actually been easier. Jullian thinks it's because I'm used to beating on a punching bag everyday so I know how to use my arms, but I think it's more because going from two legs to four while moving is just crazy."

[Drake]

Drake smiled when Nineteen suggested he beg forgiveness rather than ask permission. He had done that more than once before, so he was no stranger to that philosophy. He just hoped she wouldn't make it a theme while being a member of his faction. Especially with the important stuff.

But then the subject changed to the question Drake had asked. "Yeah, moving and morphing is pretty difficult. Running, flying, swimming, climbing. None of them are particularly easy. I have even practiced morph wrestling before. That... Well it was a unique experience, to say the least. Lots of bumps and bruises." He couldn't help but smile while remembering his, Suji, and Aubrey's practice session.

Drake stopped as they reached a doorway with a pool party sign hanging on it. "Well, here we are. Ladies first," Drake said as he opened the door and held it for Nineteen. "Lets make sure to enjoy this party. We may not see another one for quite some time."

[Alain]

Alain was being a bit of a wallflower. It wasn't that he disliked parties but he was both afraid of running into Suji and hoping he would. He really wanted to apologize but he was afraid she'd blow him off and that would just be that. Especially because he was about to be sent to a faction and not her's.

So he was hiding out around the food table, leaning along the wall a few feet away. He had a clear view of the constant line of Bladeship inhabitants picking over the food but no one really looked at him. He sipped on a glass of red drink and glanced around the party every once and a while.

He was a little surprised at the "pool" that the pool party was centered around. It was really more of an underwater environment, something you might find in a zoo. While he could appreciate how useful it would be for training but he couldn't help but wonder how exactly they had built a forty foot pool on a space ship. He'd seen the bladeships from the outside. They were big but they weren't thick. Pool ships maybe, but not Bladeships. So where had all the extra depth come from?

He'd finally grown curious enough to ask one of his friends in engineering and that's when he'd been told they had taken the old pool that had been here and built another one under the ship itself, digging into the ice. They'd connected the ships pool with the hole they'd dug and lined to create the much bigger pool. It looked seamless to Alain but, then again, he hadn't gone in yet. His friend in engineering had wished him luck and informed him the water was freezing. Not only was it melted ice, the same melted ice they'd excavated, but it was surrounded by ice. They'd had to take measures to ensure the pool didn't freeze over once again but that didn't mean the water was warm, especially not to a human.

Alain saw Nineteen enter with a person he didn't know by name but knew by reputation. Drake, one of Suji's old faction mates and his new faction leader. Since he didn't have much else to do at the moment he decided to introduce himself.

He walked over to the duo and waved a bit when they noticed him. "Hi," he said, coming to a stop in front of them, "Drake right?"

[Nineteen]

"What a gentlemen," Nineteen said dryly but with a smile, and walked through the door that Drake was holding open for her. Even though she'd seen it before, on more than one occasion, the size of the pool still blew her away. For someone who was used to spending time in cells, hallways, and regularly-sized rooms, the magnitude of it found a way to impress her every time. The idea of having so much space was undeniably appealing.

It didn't take long for Alain to spot them and wander over. Nineteen noticed that there were quite a few people hanging around. The presence of the "Heroes of the West", coupled with the new pool had made for a good turn out. Not too many people were swimming, though. Probably because it was colder than the lowest level of Hell.

Nineteen nodded a greeting to Alain, and stepped over to the side so they could preform their hellos. She was glad that Alain would be in her faction; out of all her students, he was the one she thought of most as a peer. He was older, for one, and he'd been a slave of the Empire at some point in time. Not that that was extremely uncommon, but hey. It was something she could relate to.