A New Home

[Brielle]

Brielle set down her old army bag that belonged to her grandfather on the floor of the hanger as she looked around at the place that would be her home until she was ready to face the world and fight the battle against the yeerks. She smiled softly to herself thinking about all she was about to do and how she wouldn't have believed any of this two years ago. In fact she'd have thought the person telling her that there were slugs taking over the world was insane and needed to be placed in the loony bin. But her she was, receiving the power to morph and learning how to use it. She had already had a few dreams about being able to morph, both nightmares and good dreams. The one about morphing a horse had been a good one but it made her fell homesick thinking about it.

Brielle picked up her bag and threw it over her shoulder and moved out of the way of the ships and other people. She wondered just where she was suppose to go but wasn't to worried. There was only so many places she should be at the moment. She just hoped that she wasn't sharing a room with someone. She rarely got along with other girls. They were too territorial for her. No she'd rather hang out with the guys. They get mad throw some punches then life's better again. Drama was not necessary and she would never understand why girls insisted on having it.

[Adrian]

Adrian was on welcome duty apparently. It was odd to him since he still felt like a newbie himself but Seiya had told him to wait for the new recruit down here and to show her the ropes, or at least her room. If anyone else had asked him Adrian might have made some joke about not having trouble soliciting invites to women's rooms. He was pretty good company and could be charming when he wanted to be. But you just didn't joke around with the Headmaster of the Academy and his level gaze always seemed to demand the best from you.

So Adrian was sitting on a crate with his deck of cards, waiting for the new girl. The hangar was pretty busy. The leader of the resistance had brought in her heavy hitters and the entire Academy was in the process of preparing to start two new factions. All of the current recruits had been assigned to Rio or Miami and would be leaving within the next few days. The girl arriving today was apparently the first of the third class of the Academy, Adrian being part of the second.

He watched the bug fighter come in for a smooth landing and a girl walked out of the hatch looking a little out of place and carrying a bag over one shoulder. The pilot, a woman named Summer, waved to her and nodded to Adrian before getting back in her ship and moving it off the landing dock.

"Hi," Adrian said, walking up to the girl. "Brielle right? My name Adrian."

[Brielle]

Brielle noticed Summer waving goodbye to her from the bug fighter and she gave her a nod in return before turning her attention to the guy walking towards her. She nodded to him in greeting, "You can call me Bri. It’s nice to meet you Adrian." She offered before grinning at him. She was glad that it was a guy who had been sent to show her around, she really didn’t feel up to gossiping. Summer hadn’t been too bad but still she’d rather not get into a conversation about whose cute and who’s not. She’d rather hear about the classes and just what to expect from this place.

"So what you do to get stuck on newbie duty? Draw the short straw?" She asked with a laugh and a smile. She could only imagine that it wasn’t the favorite duty around here. She glanced around the hanger and took in all the activity going around. “Is it normally this busy or is something going on?” Brielle asked curiously. She wondered just how long it would take until this would all seem normal to her. Then again, she hoped it never got that way.

[Adrian]

Adrian looked around at the hustle. Supplies were being loaded into Bug Fighters like summers and being dropped off, clandestinely of course, in the locations found for the hide outs of the two new factions so that no one would have to worry about things like food runs and bedding too early on. Adrian knew all of this because of a buddy of his in Supply Logistics, a apparently blossoming department in the expanding animorph forces. It wasn't as glamorous as the Animorph or the Air Corp. but it was arguably more vital.

"Two new factions are opening up," Adrian said, motioning for Brielle to follow him out of the busy bustle of the hangar bay. "So people are just getting things ready. As for newbie duty, I volunteered," Adrian said with a wink. He hadn't but he hadn't been that upset to get assigned to it. Everyone around the Bladeship seemed to have something to do besides for the actual animorphs. Classes had ended when the Bug Fighter had crashed except for a small graduation ceremony letting them all know they'd passed.

"So where are you from?" he asked as he headed towards the crew quarters.

[Brielle]

Brielle followed him out of the hanger, dodging out of the way of someone caring a box full of stuff. She gave the person a grin when they shouted sorry as they continued on their way towards one of the fighters. She turned her attention back to Adrian, "I'm from Texas." She said with a small frown. Dallas had once been a great city in Texas and now it was nothing because of the yeerks. She shook her head and focused on other thoughts. "I grew up both in Houston and on a ranch a few hours outside of it in the middle of no where." In some ways she already missed the ranch but it hadn't felt like home in a while. That was what had really gotten to her, the ranch had always been home, more so than Houston but the world had changed and unfortunately so had the ranch.

"Where are you from?" Brielle asked curiously. She had heard stories about animorphs from other countries but she hadn't met one yet. That she knew of at least. Not that she had met a lot of them either.

[Adrian]

"Persia," Adrian said quickly, motioning towards the general area of his mouth since he figured it explained the accent. "Or as it liked to call itself for some god-awful reason, Iran." Adrian shook his head. His country had always had problems relating to the West but maybe choosing a variant of Aryan so soon after World War II as the name of your country was not the best diplomatic move. Adrian had always supported the movement to rename the country Persia but his country had not been big on political activism so the few rallies he'd attended hadn't had much effect.

"Here we are," Adrian said as they turned into the hallway where the crew quarters were located. "You just pick any of the rooms here except for that one," he said, motioning toward's Simplicity's room. "Just put your hand on the pad by the door. The door should open and it should key itself to you so only you can open it. If it doesn't open the room is occupied but none of these are to my knowledge."

This hallway wasn't reserved for recruits. There weren't enough of them to warrant taking up that much space so many of the bladeship personnel lived here too. But this end of the hallway at least was reserved for recruits of which they currently didn't have many since everyone was leaving.

[Brielle]

Brielle couldn't help but think it was slightly odd that he called his country by its old name, but not in a bad way. She had an interest in history so she knew a bit about the history of the Persian Empire. Not a lot though, as Greek history was her favorite. But enough to realize the area he was referring to was Iran before he confirmed it by stating as much himself. "That would explain the accent but then again in your mind I'm the one with the weird accent, a mix of Texan and Italian."

She grew up in Texas but she picked up the use of a few words that she spoke with her Italian grandparents accents. She loved the language and thought it was beautiful to speak but at the time she was forced to learn it she didn't think so highly of it. But once she stopped struggling to understand the language she found it quite beautiful, after all it was one of the romance languages of the world.

When they reached the crew quarters she listened to his explanation of how to claim a room before looking at all the doors beside the one he said was taken. She finally decided to take the one in the middle on the right side. She strode over to the door, her boots clicking on the floor as she made her way, and placed her hand on the pad. The pad scanned her hand memorizing it before the door opened. She looked around the room that she had claimed and took in the spartan room that contained a bed, shelves and a desk. She set her bag down on top of her bed before turning towards Adrian.

"Is there any other places I need to be shown?" She asked curiously.

[Adrian]

"Hmm," Adrian said, giving the question some thought. Seiya hadn't exactly told him what his duties were except for showing her a room but he had nothing else to do right now. He supposed he could help her out a bit more than that. There were a lot of places on the ship that were specifically used for the academy but there were tons that weren't and it was pretty easy to get lost if you didn't know the light system.

"Well I can give you a tour if you want," Adrian offered. "Though," he pointed to the small lights that lined the corners between the wall and the ceiling, "those will help you get around to the main places. The greens head back to the hangar, the reds head to the mess hall, blues to the bridge, yellow to engineering and damage control, orange goes to the pool which happens to be close to where most of the classrooms are located."

[Brielle]

Brielle took in the different colored dots in the hallway and smiled. That would certainly help her seeing as she tended to get lost rather easily. But then again how big could this place be? Actually Brielle had a feeling she'd get lost quite a few times, even with the dots. "So greens equal hanger, reds food, blues the bridge and orange is engineering or is that yellow?" She repeated to make sure she got it all right. She was pretty sure she had screwed up yellow and orange but the others she was pretty confident about.

"And if you have time I'd enjoy a tour of the place." Brielle replied with a grin. Maybe she'd meet a few other people too on the tour. She glanced back at her room once more before fully stepping in the hall so they could head out of the tour. She'd put everything up later, not that she had brought much with her but hopefully when she was finished unpacking she'd feel more at home here. She missed the heat of Texas already.

[Adrian]

"Yellow," Adrian corrected with a nod. "Orange is the pool and the classrooms but you pretty much got it." He motioned for her to follow him and began to follow the orange path though he didn't need help finding the classrooms by now.

"So, how did they recruit you?" Adrian asked, looking over at Brielle with curious eyes. He was always interested to know why some people became animorphs and others chose the air corp or something else. A guy he'd known in France had gone into the air corp while he and Sim and chosen to be meat shields basically. Sometimes Adrian questioned his choice.

[Brielle]

Brielle sighed softly at his question, "Well there are several reasons I said yes to becoming an animorph. I don't know if you've ever met another Texan but we're a tad proud." She turned and looked at him, her eyes full of anger and hurt, "When they nuked Dallas, I knew that I had to do something." She looked away and clenched her fist tightly. Texas wasn't the same, though logically she knew the whole world was changed, its different when you see such a sign in your own backyard. One of Texas's beautiful cities wiped off the face of the earth. But if she was honest with herself it wasn't the only reason she joined. But she wasn't honest with herself.

She denied the fact that she cared about the fact that they took her parents from her. She shouldn't care, after all what's the difference? They didn't pay attention even when they could. She quickly pushed those thoughts aside and gave a sheepish grin, "Sorry about that but I get angry when people mess with my home. And thinking about it." She shrugged.

[Adrian]

"Hmm," was all Adrian offered in response. A lot of people seemed to get miffed that their home had been messed with. Adrian wasn't really one of them. He'd been all over the world and he'd keep going as long as he could find a way. That had really been his motivation for joining. He'd wanted to get out of France and it had seemed like the best opportunity. The air corp, on the surface, seemed to provide more of a chance to travel. But he'd once looked into being a steward on an airline and he'd realized that he may get to travel to other places but he didn't get to stay there. You hopped in, you hopped out. He wanted more than that.

So he'd joined the second most mobile branch of the animorphs and figured he'd get the chance to see the world. As for fighting the yeerks, he agreed that the world was a worse place with them in it. He held no particular personal grudge against them. He hadn't had anything for them to take, including friends and family, and he wasn't the type to get all riled up over vague ideological causes like "freedom" or "justice." He liked to keep things a bit more concrete than that. The yeerks had made his life more difficult, restricted his choices, and taken away potential friends and lovers. For that alone he would and did agree to fight them.

"Well now we're in the area where the classrooms are," he said, motioning to the doors they were passing. "That's Jullian's classroom. He's the morph instructor. He knows his stuff, don't let his age fool you. And that is the History classroom. Though they don't teach you much history. It's more like, this is how the world is and here a few reason why it is that way. History class tends to focus more on the present and how to survive than the past."

[Brielle]

Brielle nodded, "It makes sense. Why focus on the past when your fight to save the present? And morphing class, that sounds interesting. So I'm assuming that's where I'll go to morph for the first time?" She asked curiously as she looked around. The comment about Jullian's age made her curious but she wasn't one to judge based on age. Perhaps on gender but that's because most of her sex hasn't proven themselves to be worth much in her eyes. Well except her grandmother.

Bri turned and looked at Adrian, "So what's it like? Morphing I mean." She had been curious for a while. She was pretty sure it didn't hurt but then again it could. She was rather excited about her first morph but understandably nervous too. She wouldn't say she was afraid just unsure what to expect and she hated not knowing what to expect.

[Adrian]

Adrian shrugged and gave her question some thought. Was there a good way to describe morphing besides for just doing it? Which brought a metaphor to mind but he glanced at Brielle, the words stopped on his tongue. So many people were so touchy, especially Americans for some odd reason. They were known for their sexual freedom only slightly less than the French but apparently it didn't extend to their language.

"You'll have to see for yourself," he finally answered. "I hear its different for everyone," which was true enough. Everyone morphed differently and Jullian kept stressing that they had to feel their way through it. "But, yes, this is where you'd come for your first lesson. Jullian likes to do one on ones generally so he'll work with the other teachers and then set up a time for you when you should be free. Most of the time you'll be in here though he's been known to hold a few interesting exercises outside of the classroom," Adrian said, thinking back to his ferret obstacle course and the vent maze Simplicity had told him about.