Less Talk More Rokk

[Admin]

Less Talk More Rokk

Suji:
Suji's wings strained as she fought to hover. The signal went off, and internally, she felt the giddy nervousness fall away, much like the ground would once she soared out over the pool. Instead, inside, she was calm: like a motion picture will all the sound stripped away. Not cold like she'd had to be during the Toby and Sophia affair. Just... ready.

She had heard the banter before but had neglected to participate that much. Suji felt like this plan, at least this part of it, was completely her own doing. Not in the way that she could take sole credit for its success--nothing like that--but in the way that if it failed, she would be experiencing the brunt of responsibility. Their's to share in success, but all hers to wallow in if someone died.

Heavy thoughts that fell away too as she plucked the first stick of homemade dynamite into her talons. <<They picked the wrong planet tonight, boys and girls. Let's blow these slugs back to Mars.>> Tough talk, but it felt good, right. The kind of thing you were supposed to say at moments like this. Then, privately, to Drake and Stevert: <<Take care.>>

Suji picked up altitude, following Luce. Her thoughtspeak was reopened to all of them. <<Make sure you don't explode! We need waterboys with all giraffe tongues and lighters and bushy tails in working order!>> With that she laughed, and pulled her wings in tight.

((Cross-posted from Sweet Kaboom))


Luce:
Luce gripped the stick of dynamite with both talons though she really really wanted to be rid of the thing but they had to get as far out over the lake as possible or else they would lead the yeerks right towards Steve, Drake and Rob. She kept focusing her attention on the fuse all the same though. She wasn't about to get blown up. Shot, ok. Stabbed, fine enough. Eaten even though not much, but blown up? Not high on her list of ways to die.

<<So when did we decide that this was a good plan,>> Luce grumbled to herself as she flew though she knew intellectually that this was their best option. She spotted the vulture in the air about 40 feet away. <<So Suj, when did you pick up that wicked bird morph?>>


Suji:
Suji snickered in her head, and then began a dive. Not a full-throttle one, but it was the easiest way to cover distance faster. They were hitting a hell of a big target, so no worries about that, but she wanted to try to hit the middle first. It would do the most damage, and it just felt right. <<It was my reward for flying all the way to Chicago as that damn tiny owl. Congratulations! Have a bigger set of wings, after the fact!>>

They were totally over the pool now, the deep blue waters below looking calm, peaceful. The warmth of the sun reflecting off of the surface would make it easier and faster to get back up to Drake and Stevert. <<Let's both drop them at once. A nice big wake-up call. On zero. 3... 2... 1..."

Suji opened her talons, flaring her wings at the same moment. The warm air billowed into her large wings, and as the dynamite fell, end-over-end, she felt completely... peaceful. Whatever happened now was out of her hands, and even for someone who liked to control all variables, there was a serenity to just giving over to The Plan.


Luce:
Luce laughed quietly at Suji's comment about the owl. She remembered the morph. In fact she remembered that Cassie had wanted to give her a bird morph at the same time and Luce had pointedly turned her down. She hadn't wanted a small bird. She was all for utility but she just couldn't see that a small bird would be useful in the long term. Of course leave it to Suji to find the one small bird morph that had the potential of being useful. <<So they do migrate.>>

But then it was time to make their first attack. Luce began to angle into a slow, shallow dive that would take her closer to the dam when Suji suggested that they drop them at the same time. She hadn't exactly been prepared for it but saw no reason not to and just opened her talons and watched the stick of dynamite fall away as she turned around and headed back towards Drake and Steve.

She didn't see either stick hit the water but the wind from the explosion helped nicely in getting back up to a workable altitude. Those were Luce's only thoughts on the deaths of what was probably hundreds of yeerks below them.


Suji:
The two sticks of dynamite plunged into the water at almost the same time, each making a small splash. The effect of the explosion wasn't instantaneous: Suji was watching for a few moments before she heard a dull pop! from underneath the water. The a large bubble seemed to rise to the surface, and water was shot up in a six foot column at the site of the first explosion: the same thing happened for the second explosion. Though it didn't look colossal, Suji knew that the upward force it took to get that much water in the air, given how long the dynamite must have sunk before the popping sound of the detonation...

The water was fizzling, boiling, and little breathy sounds floated upwards as hundreds upon hundreds of gray bodies began to rise tot he surface. The pool sloshed a few feet onto the surrounding surface, and when the water receded back there were dead Yeerks left lying on the concrete, like jellyfish left on the sand after a high tide.

It was a breath-taking, mystical sight for Suji. Their first real retaliation. They'd certainly just killed more Yeerks than the Chicago faction had in her stay there, probably while she was in New York, too. And all at the cost of zero human casualties.

She spread her wings and left the heat off of the pool's surface carry her upwards for another run.


Luce:
Luce felt good. It had been a long time since she had just been allowed to kill things. This bombing was clean and it was simple. There was the enemy, kill the enemy. No worrying about if your enemy was also your love. No fear of betraying a team mate. And no worried about having to take care of your partners. Suji was the only person that had ever kept up with Luce %100 of the time. She even left Luce behind at times though Luce didn't really mind. She had no aspirations to leadership and she had a feeling that Suji did so she was fine with taking the back seat role to someone who could handle the mission better.

But even that was good. She didn't have to worry if she was being led by idiots. Rian was young and he made mistakes sometimes. But he had least seemed to have the right goal in mind. Defeat the enemy. And Suji certainly wasn't someone who would forget what the war was about.

All in all this was turning out to be a good day.

She saw Drake and Steve in the distance though she wasn't at a height to get back to them yet so she kept spiraling upwards on the heat wave from the explosion. She looked towards the dam and saw the cloud of smoke on one end so the attack had started there. That was good. Everything was good so far.

<<I could get used to this Suji. I think we missed our callings as Naval aviators.>>


Suji:
<<You know,>> Suji replied thoughtfully. She rose faster than Luce, already catching up to the smaller bird with ease as the air pushed her upwards. She didn't have to flap to hard, which was good. Wouldn't do for this big bird to be wearing out after the first run. There were still plenty of homemade pipe-bombs and other assorted explosive creations up there that had to be specially delivered to the helpless multitudes below.

And just how helpless they were probably would change sooner rather than later. She pumped her wings a bit faster. <<You know,>> she started again, this time passing Luce. <<I'm not even so sure that I'd rather be dropping bombs from a plane right now. At least not when this is so much more effective for its purpose. I mean, we don't have to worry much about crashing, we're harder to hit, and we don't run the risk of obliterating any humans unless they decide to take a swim. It's strange to think that I'd prefer morphing technology over high-end military technology on a seek-and-destroy mission.>>

She circled around, prepared to swoop in for another stick of explosive.


Luce:
<<Not me. Don't get me wrong, everything you're saying is true but, a part of me would have liked that life I think.>> She thought about it for a second. <<Well they say life on a navy ship was pretty terrible but...I don't know. Maybe I just grew up with too many stories about Naval Aviation. I always wanted to be a fighter pilot.>>

Luce realized that she was starting to sound...well naive or childish. At least that is how it sounded to her, talking about things that she had once hoped for like any of it still mattered. She fell silent surprised at the pang of regret and sadness she felt at her lost chances. She hadn't spent a lot of time looking back, it never helped.

They were level with the boys again and Luce set herself on a path that would take her past them so that she could do a u-turn and pick up another bomb. <<We're back. Time for round two.>>


Suji:
Suji was a little taken aback by how... talkative Luce was being. And not just the regular banter either. She was being surprisingly open, and that threw Suji a little. Things had changed for both of them since NYC, and she hoped this was a sign that they'd changed for the better for Luce. She was pretty sure they hadn't for her, but so far she refused to admit that anything that transpired could really work its way into her, change her.

Hearing the awkward, if faint, lilt of vulnerability in Luce's voice, and the way she abruptly stopped, Suji quickly moved to reassure her. Nothing sappy of course, but something simple to show that she understood, that such thoughts were worthwhile. <<A least you wanted to grow up to be something cool. All I could envision in my future was law or medical science. Lots of money with no time to spend it, but only after you're finished spending the best years of your life with your nose in a textbook and paying off student loans.>>

As Suji plucked up another bomb, she said hey to the guys, and turned back over the water. At least the two hadn't managed to blow themselves to bits yet. And still no response in sight... how many more runs could they slip in before the main group realized that the distraction was, well, a distraction? Suji didn't know, but she knew that she was determined to make it as many as possible. <<Race you while the skies are clear,>> Suji said, and without waiting for a response for Luce, she pulled her wings in and started to dive.

With a lit explosive in her talons.

The world had gone crazy.


Luce:
That it had.

Luce closed her own wings and dived towards the lake. She had just dropped the bomb last time but this time she dove. The exhilaration of diving was one of her favorite things about the bird morphs. She almost wished she were a nighthawk so that when she pulled up her wings would make a loud booming sound.

The wind whistled through her nares and primaries as she cut through the wind in a barely controlled dive, a bomb clasped tightly in her talons. As she reached the water, before she pulled up, she let go so that it would have the most downward velocity she could give it so that it would plunge deep into the lake.

She pulled up just enough so that her breast feathers were just above the surface of the lake. She didn't know how fast she was going but the water was rushing beneath her. In her head she was hearing patriotic music and imagining all the movies she'd seen of world war two ariel battles. It was stupid and slightly reckless but it was fun, god damnit. And she hadn't done anything just for the pure fun of it for a long time.

She didn't know if she'd beaten Suji there but she was determined to beat her overall before they got any resistance. <<That's 2! Race you to 20!>> She pulled up and began circling for height as fast as possible as the bomb exploded beneath her.

They were well on their way to 20 before anyone showed up.


Alora:
Alora stood with her back to Bryan inside the spacious Bug Fighter. She'd been hired by Tenaj as extra, off the books protection in th event that the human morphers would show at their little event. As a result she'd been given a first class, under the table, new generation Fighter a year before they would come into popular circulation. One of Orran's toys no doubt.

But lately Vanim had become infatuated with a pet project. His name was Bryan, and she knew nothing else, which drove her insane in the strangest, yet good, way. So she'd taken him along for no other reason than they would be forced to spend several hours in a fighter plane side by side.

"What do you think?" She mused, leaning her head against the front window to gaze lazily across the Empire's new waste of effort. "The next big kadrona project, with all the benefactors trying to bully their way into the Empire's spotlight. Ridiculous." She wrinkled her nose, adding scathingly, "Petty and worthless. I only wish I could personally rip their bodies apart to show them, in detail, how weak and pathetic they really are." Alora turned her eyes alone to gaze at the young man's back. But before she could continue a red light flashed on the dashboard.

Her personal hand held computer expanded it's holographic screen before her, showing two small blips moving rapidly over the lake. As she watched, the two dots hovered, and then circled around and moved back toward the shore. "Computer!" Vanim called out, using the newly integrated human technology, "bring up cameras three and five. There's activity in the sixth sector." As she commanded, the half of the front window changed from an immediate view of the outside, to a zoomed-in view from the third camera. It took a few minutes to focus, then centered in on the two moving objects.

Birds.

Alora quickly moved to the controls, but before she could enter in the command to shift position the communications board lit up like a fireworks display. Emergency on the Dam, Intruders, Explosions. "Damn they're here!!" Vanim snarled, thrusting the gears into drive. "Those two must be with them! The rest are a distraction! Their goal is the pool!"


Suji:
The pool below was almost like a living creature beneath them now: it had moved from lapping up over the sides of its confines, to sloshing freely. It was as if someone had taken a half-filled bowl of water and spun it hard--the water leaped and splashed as it hit its retaining walls. The racing had continued, but Suji wasn't really keeping track. She was ever checking the condition of the pool.

Thousands upon thousands of slug bodies had risen to the surface, so much that in some areas they looked close enough to be two or three deep. She doubted that anything could still be alive in there.

Suji dropped the bomb in her talons now, a pipe one that sank far down before exploding. It did, and as she pushed back upwards--the wind from off of the churning pool pushing her along nicely. And then, so dull that she thought it must have been from the distraction team at first (that noise came to them over the distance) was a deep cracking down. Like the sound of something pushed outside of its elastic potential. Something big.

It echoed up from the bottom of the pool.

<<Did you hear that?!>> Suji shouted to Luce.


Luce:
The exhilaration of flight and bombing hadn't completely worn off but Luce's excitement had slipped into a more focused and controlled determination as they dropped bomb after bomb into the pool. She almost didn't hear the crack Suji was referring to as she aimed her next and bomb to land in an area of the pool that she felt hadn't received enough action.

When Suji brought it to her attention though she did remember hearing something. <<Yeah I heard it,>> she said spiraling back up. <<Was that the dam?>>

She looked towards the dam and the smoke still rising from it though wind had blown a lot of it away by now and that was the only reason she spotted the bug fighter heading there way. <<Damn, looks like the fun is over. Bug fighter coming.>> She looked around for the egyptian vulture and spotted Suji a good distance away. At least they wouldn't make good targets this way. <<Should we head back to Drake, Steve and Rob? If we do we might lead the fighter to them but I don't like our chances in the open.>>


Bryan:
Bryan had no idea what he was doing here that is what he thought. He'd had that thought over and over again. Every place Alora dragged him to was worse than the last. And not because Bryan didn't like them but because he did. And he didn't like what that said about him at all. That fight a while ago had been terrible and yet....that fighter. And then there had been all the other places.

Why was he here? He used to have a mission, a purpose. Now he was just...floating. He did nothing with his time except attend a meeting or two. He was supposed to be representing Sub-Visser 27 during the launching of this dam project but he really didn't have any duties besides for be here.

And why was he here representing demons anyway. Or had he represented them all along? The visit in Vancouver. That damn visit in Vancouver. All of this had started because of that girl!

He stood facing the back of the bug fighter and looked out the window there like some emo kid in highschool. He'd even let his hair grown longer and now it just touched his eyelashes, often getting annoying though he couldn't bring himself to care enough to cut it.

With his arms crossed over his chest and his eyes still on the window he answered Alora's question about the project. "I don't really care."

He turned around slightly intrigued as the computer gave them the news of the attack. He hated animorphs but he probably hated yeerks more so he was glad to see that someone was fighting back against the eyesore and sin against god's good work that was the pool below them.

As Alora accelerated the fighter towards the birds Bryan took a seat at the weapons station and began firing at them when they came in range, deliberately missing each shot though he got close enough to make it look like he was trying. And if one of the birds accidently flew into his fire he couldn't say he'd lose sleep over it.

"Damn," he said a note of sardonic regret in his voice. "I missed."


Suji:
<<We've got to get close enough to warn them. They'll be sitting ducks up there if the Bug Fighter gets to an angle it can see them,>> Suji replied. Then again, Luce and Suji wouldn't be a lot better off down here.

The Bug Fighter opened fire, but all the shots went wide. Drake and Steve would surely be able to see that, maybe even the Fighter itself by now. <<Stay close to the pool for now!>> Suji flapped close to the water, which was still rolling underneath her. <<Maybe they won't shoot into it, and if they do-" If they did, what? Suji didn't know what laser fire into the already tumbling water would do, but she hoped it would cause more damage. If nothing else, it might heat the water up, get it moving faster. Or maybe just evaporate it. <<We can just hope that works in our favor.>>

They needed a plan, and fast. Suji looked up to where she knew the guy's were, but couldn't see them from here.


Alora:
"Look below..." Alora said aloud, staring hard at the millions of lifeless yeerk bodies clogging the surface of the pool. "They've already struck."

Vanim thought quickly. She knew that their split forces were meant to pull the yeerk forces apart, distract and confuse while the rest attacked. But they were already too late. If they didn't at least bring in a prisoner, Alora and Bryan, along with the rest of the forces stationed around the Dam, would be convicted of treason for their failure to act. They had to concentrate on only one enemy. The personal on the Dam would have to fend for themselves, Vanim had another target in mind.

"Keep trained on those birds! Wound, don't kill. We have to bring them in alive." She spat out the last words like distasteful poison. "Computer!" Alora shouted at the receiver, "Deploy the hunter-killer robots! Set to 'capture' mode."

From beneath the ship, six medium sized metallic spheres disengaged from their bunkers with a hiss. The balls sunk through the air before the each one's red lens lit up and the robots hovered inches from the pool's surface. Acting in unison, the machines scanned the skies and split into two groups of three, racing through the air toward each of the animorphs to circle and entrap them.


Luce:
<<I think they are on their own,>> she said as a dracon beam sliced past her wing and ripped apart the surface of the pool and the bodies of the dead yeerks that floated there. Luce wished she could have gone back for the boys but they knew what to do when resistance was spotted and hopefully they had spotted the fighter.

At Suji's order to drop to the surface Luce folded her wings and dropped like a stone hoping to throw the attackers off. As she leveled out with a strain on her wings she skimmed the surface of the lake. What she had done about two hours ago for fun she was now doing in deadly earnest, dodging right and left along the surface hoping not to get hit and heading for the cover of the cliffs.

Two hours. TWO HOURS! Damn it. They were supposed to have demorphed every hour so that they didn't run into this exact problem but they had both been a little caught up in the pure damage they were dealing. <<Suji, we got a problem. Our time limit is almost up.>> She did not mention that she feared it had pasted already. She felt like she would have known if she would be spending the rest of her life as an African Marsh Owl though she knew that there was probably no big alarm that went off when you passed the time barrier.

Her wings were screaming at her as she flew. They had been in the air for a long time, constantly stooping and climbing. The birds of prey were not meant for this type of endurance flying. They tended to like to lounge around in a tree, stoop once or twice and go back to lounging.

And the trick flying she was pulling was doing absolutely nothing to help the situation. She needed to demorph and she needed a better morph for this type of flying and she happened to have the perfect one if she could only get into it.

She looked at the lake below her. If she dove into it she wouldn't get out again. That muck was almost boiling and the dracon beams being fired into would only make it more dangerous. And even if it was normal water it would soak into her feathers and weigh her down.

She just had to hope she could get to the cliffs and demoprh in time.

She dodged another dracon beam.


Bryan:
Bryan nodded agreement but kept making his shots go wide and even aimed for the pool on some occasions. When she released the hunter robots he even shot one down. By accident of course. He didn't really want the animorphs to win but it was slightly better than the yeerks winning.

Still as the two birds manuverd away from him Bryan found himself trying harder and harder to hit them. It was too much like a video game. His natural response was to get better and so his aim became closer. Finally he gave up on the damn owl. It was smaller anyway and the hunter robots were about to close in on it.

Instead he went after the vulture. It was a much larger target and not as maneuverable in the air. Plus it was big enough to take one of the hunter robots down if it had to.

His eyes were narrowed in concentration as he aimed, fired, aimed again, fired. "Can you bring us in closer?" he asked Alora without taking his eyes of the screen, his voice almost a mutter since all of his concentration was focused on hitting that bird.


Luce:
Luce turned her head a bit and saw the spheres come after her. Damn, this situation had just gotten worse. She couldn't see Suji in the air but she was worried for her team mate. She didn't know how that bird handled in the air but she knew it made a big target. A big, powerful target. Still even if Suji could take down the hunter robots and avoid the dracon beams she doubted the young woman would appreciate spending the rest of her life as a vulture.

Luce had almost made the eastern shore of the lake. A shot fired past her head, burning off feathers. She cut north, away from the safety of the cliffs and the next shot missed her. She cut back east but she was getting herded away from the shore by the damn things.

Still, even though it was dangerous and they were in a bad way right now, it was exhilarting. She had told Suji that she wanted once to be a fighter pilot and now she was getting a chance to test her skills. Well, not yet, but when she got into her nighthawk the damn robots would see some fancy flying then.

A robot dropped down in front of her and Luce didn't even think about it, she just dove towards he surface. Her breast feathers actually touched water as the boiling lake surged underneath her. The water scalded her but she shut out the pain and kept flying, dodging around waves, not particularly eager to get scalded again.

Another hunter robot came in on her right and Luce threw herself that way, her feathered body hitting the hard metal of the robot and knocking it off course though she felt a burning sensation somewhere for her trouble. She spiraled out of the sky screeching her pain and landed, gratefully on the bank and not in the lake.

She plowed into the ground that was somehow not just cliff face and skidded in the dirt. She had no idea how hurt she was but she had a feeling it was bad. Her owl body was fading pretty quickly. She concentrated on her own form and slowly started to grow. She only had about a half a second to relish the fact that she was demorphing at all before she began thinking that if there was ever a time she wished she was good at morphing it would be now. She had seen some of the others morph and she knew they were getting faster at it but Luce had always been a reluctant morpher at best. She had always hated giving up her body and sharing her mind, even with an animal.

As she grew she felt the beams lock onto her and opened eyes that were fading from the large beady black of the owl's eyes to her own light green. As she suspected the beams on her now were green, not red. Capture, not kill. But fuck that! She wasn't going to be captured again. Not ever.

She began to stumble away in her half morphed form, pulling against the force of the beams. It felt like she was made of metal and the beams were gigantic magnets but she was determined and her will was stronger than any damn beam ever built.

She fell to her knees and continued to crawl away as her demorph finished. Her hands scraped against the dirt, skin peeling off against the rocks. Grit and sand dug into the sensitive skin under her fingernails as she dug for any purchase she could get. Her knees were being scraped raw but she just...kept...pushing.

She looked back at the hunter robots as she reached the edge of the cliff, her hair blowing in the strong winds over the lake, gratefully out of her face, her eyes flashing though whether it was with reflected sunlight or angry, an onlooker wouldn't have been able to tell. The whole scene was lost on the unfeeling eyes of the hunter robots as Luce threw herself over the cliff.

The beams lost their hold as gravity took her over. The boiling lake was coming up awfully quickly. Now Luce could only hope that she had learned as much from Ember as Ember had learned from her.


Suji:
At least the Bug Fighter was on them. That's all Suji could keep thinking. At least it was on them, not the guys. One shot up there, even if it didn't hit them, would be devastating because of all the explosives. And she would feel innately responsible, in a way that she'd never had to feel responsible for anyone before. Because this whole part of the plan had been her idea, she'd championed it, and if she had to get someone killed for it, let it at least be her. Especially when Steve hadn't wanted to do it in the first place.

They had a bit more time, Suji knew that, but it wasn't much. Just then, something silvery caught her eye--and then another, and another. <<WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT?!>> Suji yelled in thoughtspeech, and though her voice didn't hold true terror in it, it was surprised. And surprise, for Suji, was almost never a good thing. She'd never seen hunter-killer bots before, and even as she quickly was searching her memory, she was drawing blanks. She knew that she didn't like the look of it, and not knowing what it was began to eat away at her. At least she was bigger than they were.

Suji hadn't exhausted her stores of energy yet. Her big wings had easily caught the upwards heat of the pool on the return trips up, and diving didn't take as much energy as flapping. But she didn't have any doubt that aerial stunts would quickly drain her. The bird was too bird, not used to fighting in the sky. But maybe, maybe-

Suji picked up a bit from the surface of the pool, maybe six feet, and cut a hard left. The drone that had been trying to flank her from that side passed under her, in an attempt to switch to the right. If these were designed to kill, it would have had a free shot, but she assumed they weren't. After all, they weren't firing on her... though the Bug Fighter still was. The shots from the Fighter at least weren't stunningly accurate (which she was exceedingly grateful for). Maybe they didn't have a crack weapons-guy on hand.

As the drone passed beneath her, between her and the pool, Suji suddenly dropped low and raked it with her talons. The force of the blow--the drone was awfully light, probably needed to be to stay in the air--sent the metallic thing spinning into the pool. Suji banked upwards as quickly as she could, but a bit of the splash still hit her talons. The pain was incredible, and there was a spark of electricity that she only barely outdistanced--but the drone did not rise again. There was no time to think about that (though she did get a sudden swelling of pride): still two more drones, still a Bug Fighter that had determined she was the easier of the two targets. Which wasn't untrue.

From her peripheral vision she caught Luce's owl (still trailed by three of the robots) racing up along the cliffside. Probably looking for a spot to demorph. The cliffs--yes, they were probably the safest bet. But Suji didn't want to lead the enemies on her tail straight to Luce. So she picked a cliffside further in the distance... and hoped that there would be a place to land.

Allowing the heat (which seemed to be growing, rather than dissipating, which both unnerved and heartened Suji) to fill her wings, she rocketed upwards, flapping to propel herself in the right direction, not no more than that. At this point, flapping was less efficient than just letting the heat push her out-stretched wings. She looked back, seeing two of the hunter drones still following her, gaining ground. They were faster. But smaller. Maybe she could pierce one with her talons? At least knock it aside?

She was higher than Drake and Steve's initial hand-off point now, but still mostly over the open dam. She wouldn't make it to the cliffside she'd located before the robots caught up to her. She had to do something about them, right now.

Suji spun, something the vulture's brain would never have allowed in the wild, and flared her wings to kill her momentum. She planned to try to grapple one of the drones and fling it aside--or at least bump it hard enough that it bought her some distance.

Instead she saw a bright flash of red from the Bug Fighter racing to meet her.

<<Oh.>>

It was all she had time to think before the laser exploded in front of her.


Luce:
Luce was morphing. Her body shrank and her bones hallowed out. She was becoming a much smaller, much faster bird but she wasn't doing it nearly fast enough. Feathers spread over her skin and the cliff face just rushed past, growing in detail as her eyes morphed to the golden yellow of the nighthawks.

What had Ember said? What had Rian said? Be one with the morph. That sounded awfully stupid. She had certainly thought so when she first heard it and she had ignored the advice. But Ember could go from standing to flying in seconds not minutes and that was what she needed. And damn if that bright red, flashy, passionate, loud bird was not one with Ember. So she needed to be one with the nighthawk.

She dropped thoughts of feathers and wings from her mind and instead held on to the strongest memory she had of the nighthawk. It had been that very first night she had gotten the morph, the night she had pulled Sedra away from her fellow animorphs. But she didn't let thoughts of that old betrayal cloud her mind now.

Instead she thought of the flight back. The cool desert wind, the blindingly clear midnight blue sky, the full moon that blazed with pure white light, the stars that burned. She thought of the bluffs, the towers of rock rising from the ground like pillars of giants or gods.

She felt the wind flowing over her sharp wings and under it, giving her the gift of flight for the first time. She remembered how all the cares of the night, all the emotions, all the pain and confusion had just dropped away, too heavy to stay afloat with her.

Just her, just her wings, just the night.


Luce flapped hard, her wings making that satisfying booming noise as the air rushed through her wing tips. She soared into the air on the heat from the lake, her much smaller form zooming up faster than her owl had. She had cleared the cliff top before she knew it and saw the three drones that had been on her.

<<Round two,>> She thought as she turned and headed out over the lake.


Suji:
The only way Suji knew she was alive was from the lingering question, 'Am I dead?' that filled her mind. She was momentarily blinded, deafened, and all she could feel was wind. Wind in her feathers, those that she had left. No... not dead. Falling, though. Sight began to swim back to her, the bright white of the flash from the explosion fading as colors came back. She was shooting straight downwards, towards the pool. Not diving, not flying, just falling like a stone.

Suji quickly pieced together what had happened. The drone from behind her had exploded, and the blast had been enough to destroy the second nearby drone as well. The electricity field, or just the two drones absorbing the brunt of it, must have saved her. Then again, the shot never would have hit her if she hadn't of stopped. But was she just in for a more painful death now? At least the dracon cannon fire would have been quick. She had the feeling that boiling alive wouldn't be as merciful.

She looked around, trying to spot somewhere to land. She allowed herself to keep falling--mostly because she hoped playing dead would deter the Bug Fighter's fire (sorry, Luce, but I can't take another hit, she thought to herself), and partly because she was scared that if she tried to fly, she'd find herself unable to. Better to save that test until she absolutely had to do it; better to be terrified for as less amount of time as possible, if she found herself unable to move.

In the distance, she saw one of those bunker-looking structures built into the cliffside above the lake. They'd seen a few of them on their bombing runs, and they'd mostly seemed uninhabited. Maybe they would stay that way (it seemed unlikely Yeerks would need to use them for defense if they could have much more technical aerial defense), maybe not. Suji didn't have time to think about that.

The heat of the pool was racing up to her, and she was acutely aware of overwhelming main in her chest and in her left wing. Or at least what was left of her left wing--most of the feathered had been burned off, and she was certain there was shrapnel lodged in her chest. Breathing was becoming more and more difficult. Maybe a piece of the robot had found its way into one of her lungs.

But still, she waited. She'd only get one chance at this, and she had to hope that it would be enough. If not, there was no guarantee that she'd suffocated or bleed to death before getting roasted alive.

Her limbs began to feel heavier and heavier as less oxygen made it through her body. But she was almost close enough... almost...

Commanding her body with ever ounce of willpower she could muster, Suji righted herself, aiming for the dark opening of the building. Her left wing was almost useless, and she found herself heavily favoring that side. She was still falling more than she was flying, though the heat from the pool at least slowed her descent. Still, she was losing too much height--it was going to be close, and the closer she got, the more impossible it seemed that she'd make it to the opening, rather than just smashing into the side of the concrete.

With one last push of her deteriorated wings, Suji propelled herself into the window. She only barely made it, and even then it was more the momentum of her body than any act of flight that saw her though. Her right wing hadn't pull in quickly enough (she hadn't bothered pulling it in at all--she was too afraid she'd drop even further) and had snapped like a stick being struck against a block of concrete. Once inside she hit the back wall with only slight less force. Her thin rib cage was half crushed, and she flopped unto the ground.

<<Demorph! Demorph!>> It was too much like it had been with Toby. Too much. But still, her head was swimming, and Death was washing in like a dark tide, prepared to lift her away.


Stevert:
<<Ready.>> Steve confirmed as an owl hopped form where Steve had previously been standing to land on two grenades. He hovered there for a second which was just long enough to grab them in his talons before he took off.

He soared into the sky, his owl having no problems adjusting to the light. He wish they did have problems. Now he saw a Bug Fighter attacking a wounded vulture and chasing another owl. Not to mention the hunter robotss that were in there to harass.

<<Hurry Drake! Let's bomb the pool! Before they notice us! Suji and Luce can only distract them for so long!>> Steve cried to his partner. Then he quickly brought his beak down and jerked the pins out of the grenades. Then he dropped them towards the ship. <<After we get rid of this over sized cockroach first.>>


Drake:
<<The pool? The pool is dead.>> It was true that he doubted anything was still alive in there, but the dam and kandrona tower were both still standing. <<And if we do not get rid of that ship, we will be too.>>

Drake could see that it was still targeting the girls at the moment. That was good. He did not think he would be able to outmaneuver any shots it may take at him. He would only get one shot at this.

<<Bombs away!>> he said to no one. He dropped his grenade and it angled down towards the hovering spacecraft. If it did not move, it looked like it would be a hit. He just had to hope it did not have any high-tech shields like in the movies or something.


Luce:
Luce flied out over the lake. She dipped and dove avoiding the low power dracon beams and the green tractor beams both as the hunter robots tried to stun and capture her. She blessed the nighthawk's agility as another beam narrowly missed her and hit the lake. But even the nighthawk's abilities would not keep her safe for very much longer.

And worse, she had yet to see Suji's vulture form in the air around her. Granted she hadn't had much time to look around-she dove towards the surface of the lake to avoid a beam- but the bird was hard to miss -she pulled up and cut up and right- and she didn't want to think what its absence meant.

Suji was the one friend she had ever had and if she lost her-

A shot hit her wing and the red beam left the wing tingling and uselessly paralyzed. Luce lurched in the air and began to lose altitude as green beams shot out around her. The only reason they missed was because her flight path had become a bit unpredictable as she fought to regain control and the use of her wing.

Slowly the wing came back to life, pains shooting up through it. But it flapped and Luce was able to limp through the air. But she was going to get caught.

She headed back in towards the cliff face, hoping she could make it there before she was captured again. She had to find a way to end this and she would need some help.

She reached the cliffs and cut so that she could fly along them. It was too much to hope for that one of the things would crash into them and help her out and sure enough all three turned and followed her along the cliffs.

Her wing was working a bit better than it had been and she turned quickly, she turned to fly back the way she came, the turn taking her in a long arc away from the cliffs. The hover drones predictably did not need the arc and turned on a dime, trying to cut her off though one followed the arc to come in behind her.

Luce flew at the two in front of her and only pulled up at the last moment. The beams from the one behind her hit one drone in front of her and knocked out the large lens in front of it. It began flying erratically, its navigation system gone. It wasn't dead but it was out of the fight. Two to go.

Now both were behind her and she was flying towards the cliffs haven never gotten to fully complete the turn around. She began using her tail and wings to slow her down, the drones behind her catching up. As she came to the cliff face she broke so that she almost came to a standstill in the air and then closed her wings and dropped.

This time, miraculously, one of the drones messed up and smashed into the cliff face. The other followed her down though pieces of its companion fell down around them both, one piece of burning shrapnel going right through one of Luce's tail feathers.

Her head and beak were pointed towards the lake as it rushed up to meet her. The drone shot and got a green beam on her. Unlike the first time, where her fall had broken the beam's hold, this time the beam stuck since the hoover drone was keeping up with her.

But that was fine. As she rushed towards the lake she began to let out the tips of her wings, trying to slow herself down. She dare not let them out to their full span, knowing the pressure from the air would snap them in two, but a little at a time began to have its desired effect.

Little by little she let out her wings and slowed herself down until she was able to swoop away from the surface of the lake, the Hunter-killer robot's beam still on her as it followed. It began to exert force to bring her in but she was still going too fast for her forward velocity to be stopped completely.

Now, once again she found herself skimming the surface of the lake and dodging the surging waves of the disturbed surface. She had no more clever plans, she was just hoping that the thing would get hit by water or something.

And she got her wish. Something burning flew past her and hit the drone behind her. In fact burning pieces of metal began falling all around her and Luce had to dodge it all. What had happened?


Bryan:
Bryan's shots got more and more accurate as he actually began trying to hit the vulture. There was an odd ringing in his ears and adrenaline flooded his veins as his shots got closer. He didn't look around to see if Alora had acquiesced to his request to bring the bug fighter in closer, the evidence of that on his screens as it grew in size.

He wished the Hunter-Killers would get out of his way and the thought of one of them reaching his goal before he got there himself was almost unbearable. Unbearable enough to make him sloppy.

He had the vulture in his sites and he fired, a surge of joy going through his body at the anticipation of seeing it burn and fall, thoughts of human freedom fighters far from his mind, when a robot got between his shot and its intended target. The robot blew apart immediately showering the air around the vulture with burning bits of metal.

He saw the vulture get hit and go limping through the sky towards shore and a slight frown of disappointment and displeasure crossed his face. That wasn't exactly what he had wanted. He began to turn towards Alora to ask her to follow the thing when the ship was thrown sideways in the air.


Alora:
Alora's hands moved over the controls with a surprising expertise. She'd thought she would have lost a lot of her earlier training from the empire's programs, but it was just like killing a human. You never forget how.

Vanim wasn't paying attention to the fight though, her concentration was set on the ships controls and the constant chatter coming in from the Dam's radio. Finally she just shut it off so she wouldn't have to suffer through their stupid prattle about 'help us' and 'send back up'. Ha, they should have paid her more if they wanted her to rescue them. Otherwise they'd just have to handle it themselves. She had a much bigger prize in her sights.

But the brats presented more of a challenge than she'd expected. They were on the run, naturally, but they couldnt seem to capture or fatally wound either one. The hunter robots were useless, having been already mostly destroyed and- Vanim's train of thought was interrupted as another alarm went off on the radar. More? Two more of them, incoming, fast and low.

They were already on top of them. But what could two little birds do to an elite bug fighter? Vanim grinned. Then she heard the *ping* *ping ping* of metal bouncing off the glass window shielding. Alora squinted to see what it was... and realized too late that the tiny little green things were- The grenades blew, doing relatively little damage to the outer structure of the ship, but the sudden shock in air pressure threw the ship hurtling backward. Alora grasped at the controls trying to right the fighter mid air, but the calibrations had been thrown off. The flight mechanisms malfunctioned as she battered them with frantic commands. For half a second they were flying erratically over the lake, tossing both Alora and Bryan around the cockpit like dolls. Then the entire side scrapped the cliff face, bouncing off before ripping the ship entirely apart as it nosedived straight back into the rocks.

There was flames... shrapnel. Confusion. And pain, lots and lots of pain.


Drake:
Drake watched as his grenade exploded and seemed to do little more than rock the ship. But then he was completely taken by surprise when it seemed to lose control momentarily and ran into the cliffside. <<Booya! Take that!>>

Drake made a turn in the air. He was not sure if he should help the girls or if him and Steve should go back for more ammunition. <<You guys alright?>> he asked them as he headed back near the cliffs (away from the ship). He felt a bit too vulnerable out in the open.


Suji:
Suji tried to demorph, but couldn't get her mind to focus enough. It kept wondering to seemingly random thoughts... She wondered if coming back from the brink of death, demorphing or morphing as a way to twist out of the Reaper's icy claws, would ever get easier. Doubt it.

Probably got easier to overlook. Less important feeling after the fact. Probably became more familiar feeling.

But she bet it got harder and harder to face coming back.

After all, if you'd just end up smashed to bits again, what was the point? If you were just going to break yourself in some inglorious stunt to scrape by a little more time in your life, why bother? If you were just buying more time to hurt people, to live in a world where what was necessary came first, not what was right-

I should be dead, Suji thought, and it was startling in how hard it hit her. She was alone, the mission was a success as far as hitting the yeerks, and maybe that wasn't such a bad last hoorah. If there was history, one day some history written by a free human world, if this battle was remembered... it wouldn't be such a bad way to die. She'd be recalled for courageousness, strength, all that stuff war-heroes were attributed with. Her faults and flaws would fade away, be glossed over. After all, how many people remembered Abraham Lincoln's personal misgivings about the prospect of freedom for slaves? Not many. All they had to know was two words: Emancipation Proclamation. Instant hero, just add water and subtract negatives.

Suji had killed an innocent girl (at least, she hadn't been a murderer ) because she might have posed a threat, not just to the cause, but to her family, to the families of some of the Chicago faction. History wouldn't remember that, she was sure, because Suji was the only living soul who knew it. But how many more Sophia's would there be? And would the ends justify the means? If she killed a hundred yeerks, or freed a hundred humans, did that justify the death of one girl who had to pay for the sins of her loved one? Did killing this pool's worth of slugs even the scales?

If she died now, she kept her good name. Got to die a hero, if only for her comrades to know. Maybe died before she had time to do enough bad (necessary) things to change that, to die before she stopped being a war hero and started being a war criminal-

<<Stop being weak,>> Suji sneered at herself. All at once, the lid was back on, screwed tight against the chaos inside. The worms were effectively returned to their jar. <<You don't get to worry about your fucking legacy. You don't get to worry about balancing the scales. And you don't get to worry about your soul.>>

The calm returned. The level-headedness. The cool (if sometimes cold) strength. Suji began to demorph, sliding easily from the broken vulture's body to her human one. Once she was fully herself, she went to one of the openings--they were like windows, but there were no frames. The stone was chilly and slightly damp against her barefeet, and she climbed unto the ledge of the nearest window. For a moment she looked out over the lake, seeing and understanding how many "Sophia's" there might have been swimming in that pool. Slugs that might have been fresh from another planet, and never even given a host. Creatures killed for the threats they could become, regardless--and this was a hard thing to swallow, because she knew there were valuable Yeerk Peace Movement members, though she didn't trust the idea itself--killed regardless of any of the good they could have done, instead.

For all the resolve in her bones, a small part of her still felt like crying. Not to mourn them, because they were the enemy, and their loss would certainly be to her race's benefit. No... she wanted to cry for herself. To weep and throw a tantrum because it wasn't fair to have to accept doing the 'necessary' thing. It wasn't fair that people like Raven or Cassie got to act all superior and not ever have to stay awake at night, knowing that their souls' were damned, if anything like that mattered. Not fair to sacrifice yourself, your insides, your good parts in order so that other people, maybe sometime in the future, if you killed yourself and hurt yourself enough, wouldn't have to.

Not allowing herself so much as a sniffle, Suji remorphed her vulture.


Luce:
Luce dodged falling pieces of Bug fighter, though at the time she hadn't known what they were, and pretty much figured she was dead. There was flaming metal raining down from the cliffside which she hadn't left far behind, the stuff filling the air all around her, and she wasn't sure if it would be better to go up or stay down. Down almost certainly meant more falling debris but if she went up she might just go flying into it.

The decision was made for her when one of the pieces hit her and bounced off. It hurt but didn't do much more damage than that. Except for the fact that it set her feathers on fire. Luce began to shriek in pain, the small hawk panicking. Her first instinct was to go into the lake but that wasn't really an option. She flew through the air back towards the cliffs, her small body streaking out fire behind it like some gruesome parody of a falling star.

She prided herself on endurance. On just pushing through things, pushing through pain and past distractions and getting things done. But this time she couldn't. The hawk's mind couldn't think beyond the pain and her own wasn't doing much better. It wasn't about will at this point. Her mind was ripped away from logical comprehension and she fell towards the lake as she let go of her last rational thought and began to just thrash in the air.


Stevert:
After the Bug Fighter had been knocked around, Steve turned the heat rising off the pool to increase his altitude. He soared high off of the thermal. He soon could see the bug fighter and all of his allies. Drake was okay for now. He couldn't find Suji but he knew that she would make it. But he did see a phoenix of sorts falling towards the pool. However, he looked harder and saw that it wasn't a phoenix, it was a nighthawk on fire!

<<Hang on Luce! I'm coming!>> Stevert shouted in unison. Then Steve used the advantage of his height to convert it into speed. He dived.

He folded his wings in, just leaving enough of them out to control his direction as the wind screamed in his ears. THe pool was getting closer, but so was Luce. His peripheral vision was a blur as he dove as fast as possible to catch up. She was thrashing in the air and she couldn't fly straight. and she couldn't demorph now or she would fall into the pool. Fortunately, all of the metallic shards falling around her had mostly stopped. Fortunately.

He was still about thirty yards away but he was closing in. <<Hang on Luce! We're almost there!>>


Suji:
Suji was back in the air, beating her large powerful wings and using the heat from the pool to send her back to where the main action was. She couldn't hear the screaming of the dracon canons on the bug fighter any more, but she wasn't sure that was such a good thing. Could just mean they found all their targets... But no. No, that couldn't be. She'd taken too much time. Too much time to throw a fucking pity party. She pushed herself forward, the morph fresh, her mind strung out on adrenaline.

She came around one of the rocky bends, and her first sight was of the smoking bulk of the bug fighter dropping--not like a rock, but still heavily damaged and falling--from the sky. It was smoking and parts of it were on fire, and she could see through it in some places. Triumph rose in her heart, filled her entire body with elation--until she made out the streaking figure of a nighthawk on fire plummeting towards her (but still a distance off). There was an owl (she didn't know who it was, but obviously it was an Animorph) gaining on the nighthawk, presumably for a rescue. It was a large enough bird, might even be able to handle rescuing the nighthawk on its own, but Suji was already diving.

She was slower at it, but the nighthawk was shooting towards her (though also downwards). But that didn't matter: she recognized the morph, and all other thoughts in her head had gone blank. <<LUCE.>> She shouted, and it wasn't just a shout, it was an order, there was even a certain force behind it--people could share emotions via thoughtspeech as well as words, though it wasn't done very often. Now, however, it was a commanding tone, something like the booming authority of the man behind the curtain in the Wizard of Oz. <<OPEN YOUR WINGS.>> She had to hope that Luce was functioning enough to do at least that, because the thrashing would just keep her plummeting, while spreading her wings might help control the fall a little.

The owl would make it to Luce before Suji would--but Suji shouldn't be too far behind.


Drake:
Drake watched the events unfolding from the air. The bug fighter was still fighting for control, the kandrona tower was still standing, the dam was still in utter chaos, and the yeerk pool was still dead. Then he noticed Luce.

There was no way he could have reached her in time, even if she were a falling feather instead of a flaming raptor. Besides, there were two other birds on a course to intercept. He would have to find a different way to help.

All of this rushed through his head in a matter of moments. He did not wait to see if they were able to save Luce. He was slightly afraid of what the answer might be. Instead he turned to head back to their ammunition stockpile. He would find out if he had time for a second wave of destruction.


Luce:
Suji's voice broke through the panic and pain the way nothing else would have though she wasn't sure if that was because of the tone or the person using it. Whatever it was Luce snapped open her burning wings.

The air rushing over and under them that helped birds fly only fanned the flames but Luce was really beyond feeling more pain at the increase of the fire. She already couldn't think and couldn't do anything besides endure. The one decision to open her wings was the last one she had been capable of and she couldn't have closed them now even if someone had told her to the state less of an example of will and determination and more due to a lack of ability to make any move to determine her own fate.


Stevert:
The vulture was heading towards Luce as well but Stevert was going to reach Luce first. And it helped that Luce snapped her wings open. It greatly slowed her fall and instantly closed the gap between her and the Kinleys.

Twenty five yards. Twenty. Fifteen. Five yards away. Steve steadily, but slowly, began to extend his wings. If he opened them too fast, as he had learned form experience the hard way, his wing muscles would be pulled to hard and it would be very hard for him to flap after that.

He was slowling down, but he was still decreasing the distance between himslef and Luce. He opened his talons and brought them forth. He was only a fott or so away.

He struck! His talons wrapped around the smaller bird's back, but despite the owl's urges, Steve tried to keep the claws from digging into Luce very much. He fully opened his wings and veered upwards, using his gained momentum to turn into speed. But Luce was heavy. The owl body Steve had become did not normally prey on creatures as large as a nighthawk.

But Suji could then take over. Steve had done his part.

He angled his wings to take advantage of the pool's massive thermal and wearily flew upwards, towards the cliffs.


Alora:
Alora's nails scrapped on the sand colored rocks as she slipped down the face of the cliff. She'd flung herself from the burning wreckage as soon as the side had been ripped open. She'd hit a flat part initially, but the force had ricochet her fragile body, breaking her right leg and that side of her ribcage as well as damaging several other parts she hadn't had time to notice. There was blood over her left eye and her head felt swollen, but she was conscious and nothing had been cut off or burned as far as she could tell.

Her other bodies had suffered worse under her care, and pain was nothing new to her. She'd learned long before now how to deal with it by shoving it all onto her host's mind. Vanim would deal with only the necessary amounts of pain to know what she could and couldn't use anymore. But that would come after she'd regained stable ground. For now she was stuck clinging helplessly to the side of a cliff over a boiling lake of dead yeerks. And she did not like feeling helpless.

Alora was screaming, but her voice had become so dim Vanim barely noticed. Her nails broke off or cracked as she heaved her self upward, forced to place her weight on her broken bones.

[Admin]

Suji:
The owl grabbed Luce, though was obviously straining with the weight of trying to carry her. <<I don't think we're both going to be able to fit carrying her,>> Suji directed at whoever the owl was. <<You can take her, but let me know if you need help. I'm bigger, the weight won't phase me.>>

She pulled upwards, following the owl--the vulture wasn't necessarily made for the work of lifting birds, but all vultures were designed to carry around their fat, swollen guts after a meal. Sometimes vultures ate so much carrion that they couldn't fly... but it was still a decent amount of weight that they could haul, even if it tended to be in their stomachs.

<<Over there,>> Suji sat, trying to gesture with her head. <<I think you can land there and she'll have room to demorph. Let's get there quickly.>>


Drake:
Drake landed and pulled out another dracon grenade as quickly as he could. He was careful not to accidentally set it off, but otherwise acted with extreme haste. He used the same shrub as he did before to activate it, then prepared to take off again.

But he paused for a moment. He was wondering if he should try to bring more than one, but quickly decided against it. It was hard enough to try and carry the additional weight of one dracon grenade in his mouth. And he knew it would take to long to figure out a way to carry them in some other fashion. He took off and headed back towards the boiling lake to see if he could cause any more useful destruction...


Stevert:
<<Gracias Senor...ita,>> Steve added as an after thought with the same psuedo-false Mexican voice. <<Yipes! My talons are hotter than a chili pepper in a July summer wildfire!>> he finished as Suji took the weight of the Luce-phoenix into her talons. Steve's altitude increased dramatically from that point. And his feet felt batter.

He circled up above the Egyptian vulture nearly twenty feet so he could puzzle over where Suji had tried to point to. <<Do you mean that space right by a coiled rattlesnake? Or the clearing with enough for maybe two people to stand on? Or are you talking about the place with a Controller climbing up the side of the cliff for? Huh? You weren't specific eno-->> his voice trailed off as he realized what he said. <<A CONTROLLER! Aah! And this one especially!>>

Horrified, Steve unintentionally remembered the fateful experience that had caused him to leave LA behind. <<Sorry, Suji. I need to clear the area.>> Then he directed his thoughts and attention to the stumbling human.

<<Hello Alora. Say good-bye.>> he said as he dove through the air towards her.


Alora:
Alora heard her name. Well, Vanim did, Alora was busy at the moment.

That Boy! Vanim recognized the voice in her head as the animorph from LA she'd used to find out about the humans here in Vegas. She craned her neck just in time to see an owl swooping down at her. Apparently the boy thought he was going to take advantage of her weakened state and situation. Fool. Alora grinned, gripping tightly to the feasible grips on the cliff side. Her right knee cap was swollen, but she could stand on it. Some of her fingers were broken on both hands, but the only one dislodged was her middle finger on the left hand. She wouldn't need that one.

Swinging out from the surface, gripping with insane strength from her right arm, she flattened her back against the rock and found new footing. With her off hand she pulled her dracon beam from her belt, a modified version smaller than an average handgun. But it only had two settings, min and max, and she never used one of those.

She leveled the beam at the oncoming bird even as her grip started to break free, jagged edges tearing at her back like sandpaper. Deep inside she realized she could die. But somehow, Vanim just couldn't bring herself to care. 3...2...1... she counted out until the owl was almost on her and pulled hard on the trigger, aiming for his big glossy eyes.


Stevert:
Aaack! Steve thought as he folded his wings in and dropped. Hopefully that manuever had gotten him out of the gun's range temporarily. But Steve knew Alora had to be an excellent shot. After all, weren't all beautiful, backstabbing, Bug Fighter-flying, small Dracon beam wielding, persuasive, and amazing actors and brunnetes always an excellent shot?

The drop worked. The scarlet beam lanced through the air and only clipped off a dozen of so feathers off his back. way to close. He extended his wings quickly and caught an updraft of air and flew right up the side of the cliff. He blew right by Alora, maybe onlky ten feet away as he continue his upwards ascent.

He reached the top and landed on the ground. But just long enough to grab a heavy-ish rock in his talons. Why wouldn't a bombing run work? A rock was still a weapon.

Struggling against the newfound weight, Steve flapped his wings furiously to get off te ground and soon he was flying diagonally from ALora.

He dived again with the rock in his talons.


Luce:
Suji half-started to warn Stevert to stay close, but he was already flapping away, and she had her own problems to work with. Besides, if Stevert wanted to drop that Controller, that was his own business--though she did find it odd that he seemed okay with the idea of killing her (wasn't the idea to make her fall?) when he hadn't been okay with killing the yeerks in the pool, from a moral standpoint. That was his decision though: she couldn't be bothered with adding in more complications.

Suji flew towards the outcropping of rock that was snake-free, where she dropped the nighthawk in her talons as carefully as possibly. Using her large wings she began to sweep the sandy dust on the cliffside onto to Luce's morph, putting out any remaining flames. <<Luce, start demorphing.>> The bird's body was still alive, she just had to hope that Luce's mind was present. She continued to brush the sand and dirt onto Luce's body.


Luce:
Luce the whole time had just tried to concentrate on breathing. She figured if she was breathing then she was still alive and it was something so small that she could focus on it. She could no longer feel what was happening around her or the fire, her senses had been overloaded. It was all just one wash of pain and Luce just concentrated on breathing. In, out, in, out, in, out.

After a while she felt cooler and Suji's voice entered her head. Demorphing? But she'd fall, she'd fall into the lake. She had to stay a bird right? But she trusted Suji.

She began to demorph. Slowly new skin covered what had been burned away and bones began to fill in as they stretched and grew. The puncture wounds from someone's talons closed and healed over as human muscle grew to fill the holes. She had no idea what she looked like but as she demorphed she felt herself getting stronger, healthier and finally she was human.

She collapsed on the ground and just laid there for a moment, face in the dirt, eyes looking out over the lake but they had a glazed, shocked look to them. She blinked and rolled over onto her back so that she could see the vulture next to her. "Thanks," she croaked out as the fatigue from all the morphing began to hit her. She put her head back in the dirt, this time staring at the sky, and concentrated on breathing.

She laid there for a moment, just getting her strength back and then she sat up and looked out towards the dam where almost all of the smoke had dissipated. She began remorphing her nighthawk. The changes came slowly considering this was the third time she was morphing a bird today and the second time after having to demorph because she was dying.

When she was a hawk she flapped her wings and hopped to the side of the cliff. <<You know the worst thing about this day,>> she said looking back at Suji, <<that it isn't over yet.>>


Alora:
Stupid human boy. Fighting against a dracon beam with a rock? And not even a very big rock at that, the bird couldn't carry enough weight to do real damage.

But the edges Alora was clinging to were breaking free, the sandy rock not made to be climbed on and the structure in this section had already been damaged by the bugfighter. Her clothes were tough, when they weren't sliding up, and protected most of her skin from being scraped away though her back and arms were exposed. She dragged her hand on the surface, trying to get another firm grip, just to shoot that miserable human dead once and for all.

The owl swooped down, and she was ready. The dracon beam was pointed at his heart and there was no way she could miss! Her finger squeezed, her lips curling into a delighted smile.

As she tried to fire there was a hissing *CrrackKK!!* of electricity and her dracon beam dropped from her hand, clacking over the stone down into the waters below. Vanim shouted at the sudden pain, and the damned faulty machinery! Then she threw her head up toward the sky, searching for where the owl had gone. He was diving, too close, and she threw up her hands instinctively.

Her body plummeted, slipping from the slight incline and over the sheer drop of the cliff's face. Only one hand remained in sight, clinging helplessly to a brittle root as she tried desperately to save herself. Weapons gone, strength ebbing, Alora cried out. But she knew no help was coming.


Stevert:
Steve released his rock but it fell nearly twenty feet off to the side. His bombing manuever had failed. But oh well. Alora was falling anyways. And better yet, her weapon had gone bye-bye. He circled above her and images flashed through his mind of slicing the root in two, pecking her eyes out, scratching her and watching her fall, but he didn't act on any of of the plans, despite his wishes.

After all, his conscious was blocking him. He had helped in destroying the Bug Fighter because Suji and Luce's lives depended on it. That had been fine. Dropping rocks on Alora earlier had been fine. After all, she was attacking him as well. But now she was helpless.

He decided to have fun with her though. <<Having problems Alora?>> he thought in a taunting yet cheerful voice. <<what happened to all of your persuasion and beauty? Doesn't the rock listen to you? And whatever happened to your gun? oh, I'm sorry. You dropped it. Well, well. That is certainly a pickle you're in. Now I wonder what would happen if a certain owl accidentally severed your root?>>

He gave a hearty chuckle but he did not taunt her to much more. Afer all, the root wouldn't hold her forever and her life was in danger. A danger that he might be able to prevent.

<<Lucky yeerk. I've gotta give you credit. I'll let you live this time. After all, if you're dead, I won't be able to tease you or escape your pathetic traps now would I? By the way, I'm coming to your rescue. But if you ever cross me again...>> he let the threat hang. He didn't know what he would actually do but hopefully the yeerk didn't know that.

He fell towards the crumbling cliff and demorphed once he had hit the ground. Three minutes and a a lot less room to stand on later, Steve was lying on the ground with an outstretched arm that grasped a hold of Alora's. When their arms were locked, Steve began to pull her up as he struggled with her weight.


Bryan:
All that Bryan knew was something was wrong. He didn't know what and he didn't know how he knew, he just did.

Everything was dark, black. Bryan had been here before. He'd thought he was dead then but he'd woken up as a controller. Like then, he felt like he was in the darkest room snuggled under the warmest blanket. but the warmth was going and he was afraid of being left in the cold darkness. Somehow the cold was worse, scarier.

There was a sound like the pounding of a great drum coming to him as if over a great distance. A low rumbling washed over him again and again, but it was slowing down. That was wrong too. He knew that but, again, couldn't say how.

"Hello?" the words echoed and came back to him. "Hello?" He couldn't tell if he was actually hearing anything or if this was all just in his mind. "Hello?" Nothing but echos greeted his words.

Alone...he was alone. Please no. He didn't want to be alone. He'd been alone so long. Bryan looked around wildly. "Why?" He asked of the darkness that seemed to be the only thing he had to look forward to at the end of his life. Why is this all there is?

"Bryan?"

For once his words hadn't been echoed back to him. He searched for the source of the voice and suddenly he was looking at himself. He didn't know what the apparition meant. Was this some test? Was he being faced with himself now in some effort to make up for all he'd done.

"Who are you?"

For a second the thing in front of him hesitated as if even it was unsure of what it was. But when it looked back up it gave the one answer that Bry hadn't been expecting.

"Uh, Bryan, it's me. Ari, Rian." Bryan stepped back. Well there was really no place to step, he wasn't even sure if there was distance in this place but he pulled back. He recognized both names, he'd made up the second one, he'd christened his sibling with that name.

"Rian?" He held out a hand but it fell short of actually touching his brother, lost heart, lost courage, and fell back to his side at the last moment.

Rian looked relieved when he heard Bryan say his name. "Yeah Bry, it's me." Bryan didn't exactly know what to do. If there was anyone in the world he could still claim to care about it was Rian but it'd been so long. But Rian made up his mind for him when he basically threw himself into Bryan's arms.

It was something so familiar that Bryan just automatically hugged him back. Ri had always been the quiet one, the one not exactly willing to fight for what he wanted. Bry had always found himself standing up for him and comforting him when he was upset.

"I missed you." Rian's muffled voice reached his ears sounding for all the world like a small child and he held his twin closer.

"I missed you too Rian." He let the hug last, partly because he needed it too. He needed to feel like someone was there, that someone needed him, that he still existed. But it couldn't last forever and obviously he would have to be the one to lead, that had always been his role.

He pushed Rian away, though only to arm's length, and looked at him. "Where are we?"

"I don't know." Rian answered as if it didn't matter. That was something that had always frustrated Bryan about his little brother (by two whole minutes). He never seemed to take anything seriously. He had a go-with-the-flow attitude as if everything would just turn out ok. People often thought he was drugged. In a way he was, on his own optimism.

So at Rian's response Bryan felt a familiar annoyance coming forward but Rian's next words killed it. "I think we're dead...or dying."

Bryan was quiet for a moment and he too started paying attention to the thumping, to the cold. "Yeah, I think you're right," he said after a moment. The last thing he'd remembered was the exploding Bug Fighter after all, it made sense that he was probably dead...or dying. For some reason, in this place, that made perfect sense.

"Are you dead?" he asked turning to Rian, worried. For these past couple of months he'd known the chances of Rian surviving out in the world on his own were rare but he'd still had hoped.

Rian shrugged. Again with that crazy, non-chalant attitude. "I guess so, or will be soon." Bryan looked at him wondering how he could take it all so calmly and his next words seemed ludicrous to Bryan. "I met a girl," his brother had a dreamy look in his eyes though Bryan didn't know if that was because of the girl or because he was dying.

Bryan sighed. He could never stay mad at Rian for very long. Except for that one time when Rian had stolen his velociraptor figurine from Jurassic Park and broke it (they hadn't spoken for a month). "That's good but it doesn't matter if you die does it?"

"I think it does," Rian answered a hurt look in his eyes and Bryan regretted his hasty words. Just because he was cynical was no reason to bring Rian down. A part of him had always envied Rian his ability to see the good in things.

"It matters," he said, trying to make up for it. "That's why we have to get out of here." He smiled and punched Rian on the shoulder playfully trying to get him to lighten up. "I want meet her and see who would be crazy enough to like you."

Rian looked up at him and smiled but there was something hard about that smile and looking into his eyes Bryan realized that something had changed about him. He didn't know what it was but his brother seemed older now, tired. It hurt to see that look in his eyes and he wondered what had put it there.

"So how do we get back?" Rian asked him.

Now it was Bryan's turn to shrug. "I don't know. I guess we just go."

"Yeah ok," Rian said and Bryan almost flinched at his tone, it echoed the hardness in his eyes. "Goodbye Bryan," he said as he turned to go.

"Goodbye," Bryan responded but he didn't want to leave it that way. He suddenly realized that he needed to believe that this wasn't it. That this lonely darkness wasn't all that awaited him at the end, that he would someday see Rian again. "I'll, uh, we'll see each other soon." He said, almost turning it into a question.

Rian nodded and then turned away and disappeared.

For a moment Bryan was left in the darkness alone and then he too turned away and awoke to pain.


Suji:
Suji watched Luce demorph, and inwardly breathed a sigh of relief. It seemed strange to her to realize only now how close her friend might have just come to death. Neither of them lamented over it--there was no time, for one thing, and Suji doubted either of them would have even if they had all the time in the world. Both of them were individuals who accepted that death was a occupational hazard, and not even the worst out of the long list of Bad Thing That Could Happen To You.

<<Yeah yeah KFC, let's get going.>> Suji lifted off, but not before taking a long look over Luce's morph. Completely healed. Momentarily she wondered about the effect of battle trauma--at least in previous wars injuries left a mark that showed a physical reminder of what had maimed you. This certainly helped to keep fighting, keep alive... but healing your body just meant you had to be prepared to take on more mental strain, exhaustion, and frankly, terror.


Luce:
Luce stared at Suji. If she'd been human her mouth might have been hanging open. <<KFC...I>> then the hilarity of it hit her and she started laughing. It was all too much, too much strain, too much adrenaline. Her laughter had a hysterical edge to it and for a second she was really afraid she wouldn't be able to stop and she could only hope that Suji wouldn't think she was insane...maybe she was.

What type of person signed themselves up to get hurt, almost die, and then go right back out and do it again. Soldiers, her mind answered and normally reminding herself that she was a soldier in this war made her feel connected to a warrior tradition stretching back throughout human history (and maybe the universe's history) and it would give her the strength to go on. But not today, too much had happened. If soldiers were the type of people to throw themselves in the way of pain then they were either stupid or crazy, probably both. And saying she was doing it just because it was her job was not enough. There had to be a reason.

She looked out over the lake of death and for the first time that day it sickened her. This was all pointless, this destruction, what purpose did it serve? They had hurt the yeerks today but she was starting to feel like the people who were really getting hurt were themselves. Even if they survived who would they be? Murderers? War criminals? Certainly not children though Luce had had her childhood ripped away from her long ago in an almost empty apartment on a cloudy day. But she had made her peace with that. Had Suji, had Drake? What day was it for them? What day had their innocence been lost?

And weren't they just digging themselves into a deeper hole? If and when they died they would all have a lot to answer for and when they faced whoever judged their souls what would they be able to say? It was my job? I was saving some people by killing others?

Why are we doing this? She wanted to voice the question out loud but she didn't. What purpose would it serve to ask it now? They had made their choices for this day and now they had to follow through with them or their people would die.

Somewhere during all this thought her laughter had died and she was, if not ok, at least calm again. <<I guess it is time to really bring this fight home. Let's go blow that damn dam.>>


Alora:
The... the boy was helping her.. lifting her back onto stable ground.

"W-why.. why are you doing this?!" Alora gritted her teeth, half trying to pull her hand away. "You can't! You are my enemy! You are a free human, that cannot be... be allowed..." Bitter tears rolled down her dirty cheek, leaving a clean trail. "I'll! I'll kill you!" Her voice cracked as she shouted the words. But her body was so heavy, and his arm was strong. She couldn't let go without killing herself.

Slowly, between the two of them, she managed to pull herself halfway back onto the ledge. Alora looked up, finally meeting his eyes. "You... I hurt you..? But you're? Saving me..." All the anger, the vengeance, the stubborn hatred was gone. It was as if the near death meeting between them had shattered everything she believed in. "I can't accept this. You have to- to let me die!" She tugged her hand weakly, but stopped when she saw he might fall too. "I cannot fail the empire!" Alora cried out, suddenly sobbing, burying her head in her arm. "It's all I know! If... if i don't do as they say, they'll destroy me, and everyone I love. I have to be strong. I have to kill. I have to take away this poor woman's life because- if I don't..." She shuddered, her body wracked with conflicting emotions. Her once beautiful visage was torn with grief, her body broken, with her dark brown hair caked in dirt and singed from fire. If she'd ever been defeated in her life, she was now.


Stevert:
Eventually, she made it up. Despite everything she had tried to do to him, Steve smiled. She was alive. Yes, she could try to kill him. But it wouldn't work. After all, he was an Animorph. And if worse comes to worse, a simple leap of the cliff and then using Ember's flight trick would be all it took to get away.

"Ever heard of killing with kindness?" Steve said in a solemn voice. There was no humor to this situation. The controller who had attempted to kill him/enslave him to a real yeerk/use him to betray his friends did not understand why he would help her. In fact, Steve didn't fully understand it himself. It just felt right.

<<Steve! What are you doing?>> Robert silently shouted.

<<Saving her life.>>Steve curtly responded.

<<Why? She is the enemy!>>

<<Maybe for now she is. And maybe she will still end up the enemy. But her host is still human. And she isn't trying to kill me right now. And look at her! She can't deal with this! This might have been the most effective weapon against her. I doubt letting her fall would do this to her.>>Steve said with a bitter laugh.

The mental exchange happened in a few seconds.

Then her head was thrust in his arm. But this time, Steve felt that the emotions were genuine. Not like how she had ambushed Steve and Robert in LA. "How are you failing the Empire?" he said softly. "Is your mission to die? I doubt that. Surely they would not send such an effective warrior on a suicide mission any newborn grub could have done."

Steve just stood there after that. Silently, with Alora.


Bryan:
Bryan woke up burning or at least that is what it felt like though he couldn't see any fire. He looked down and saw that he was almost completely submerged in the boiling lake, floating on a piece of metal that had once been part of the Bug Fighter's skin. He tried to pull himself out of the water but there was no where to pull himself too.

He began to panic and started thrashing around and he almost overturned his not-boat and that would have sent him into the water all the way and it probably wouldn't have ended happily. Hell, at this point he was lucky if he got bittersweet let alone happy.

He looked around desperately and saw that he wasn't far from a beach of sorts. Closer to the dam the cliffs declined and leveled out into something that he could crawl onto if he could only get there.

He began paddling towards the shore as if he was three again and being taught to the proper way to kick while holding onto the flotation device they had given him except that each kick was through boiling water filled with dead slugs. He began crying and screaming, he couldn't help it, but he kept paddling. After a while it stopped hurting but he didn't think that was a good thing.

Finally he reached the beach and crawled just far enough so that he was out of the water before he collapsed. The rocks and sand were probably the worst thing imaginable. The sand and grit would work itself into the burns, that was probably bad. And he felt odd, like he couldn't breath exactly or maybe the air just wasn't getting where it needed to.

He looked down at his body. He wasn't a doctor but he was pretty sure that human bodies weren't supposed to look like pieces of raw meat. He looked away, disgusted and extremely frightened. This was bad and he knew if he didn't get help he'd die.

"Help," he called out weakly but it was all he could do and after that one word Bryan passed out.


Martha:
She woke up on the beach. There had been people rushing to get away from the battle on the dam. She'd been pushed over the edge and hit her head, hard. She'd blacked out. Only.... she didn't remember any of it. She didn't remember anything much. Right now, she didn't even know what her name was.

She sat up, hearing the chaos of the battle going on around her. In front of her she could see the boiling lake and the slug-like things floating in it. She didn't remember any of it. She didn't know why she was here or what exactly was going on around her. It was all gone and for several moments that bothered her. It bothered her not to know, not to understand. It scared her to have no idea why all of this was happening.

"Help," That voice shook her out of her fear. The boy on the beach, the boy she didn't recognize, he needed help. She glanced around, but no one was nearby. It was only her. She was the only one who could help him. That pushed her out of her own needs and she started to slowly make her way down the beach, not wanting to fall and end up tumbling into the boiling waters. She would be no help to him then.

She made her way to him, but he said nothing more. He hadn't said anything since the feeble help she had barely heard from her higher perch. "Help," she muttered, "how can I help?" He looked bad, not like he was supposed to. Something told him he shouldn't look so raw. She didn't look that way and they were the same, weren't they?

She looked over herself. Did she have anything that could help? She wore jeans, a t-shirt, and a large coat. All of them were dirty from her fall. "Pockets. Pockets hold things." So she fumbled through the pockets of the large coat she wore, pushing strands of her blond hair out of her face as they blocked her vision. In one of them was a cell phone. She held the phone in her hand. It was on and working, or she thought it was since the screen was lit somehow. She tried to think. What should she call?

<<911>> came a voice in her mind. She didn't know where the voice came from, but she listened to it. She pressed the buttons and put the phone to her ear. She heard it ringing and then heard as someone picked up on the other end. "I need help. I'm at the dam. There's a boy here, he looks bad."

"Can you please be more specific mam."

"He looks all raw. Please, I don't remember anything. I don't know what happened to him. There's all this fighting going on and no one notices him."

The voice on the other end must have thought she was crazy from the way it acted, but it reassured her help would be on the way. There was a click and then silence. Now what? She didn't know what to do. She took of her coat and laid it over the boy, hoping it would help some but not really knowing.

"Please be okay. I don't know who you are, but I'm trying to help. Really I am. Just please, don't die on me or anything. I promise I'll do whatever I can to help that not happen."


Alora:
"I don't deserve to be a warrior..." Alora spoke softly. "I've failed at the most basic task. To kill a human, it's so easy, your species is so weak... why can't I? The Empire will not forgive failure... Every yeerk must obey. Every yeerk must do as it is told. Every yeerk..."

Her voice faded away as though she could no longer even speak the words aloud. The human boy just held her so willingly, letting her fold into his arms and didn't once try to pull away or flinch. It was if he suddenly held no fear of her, as if her cries of help had flipped a switch and earned her an entire new relationship with him. After all she'd done to him, here he was, completely willing to give her a second chance. "Why?" She breathed, "Why are you doing this? you can't possibly trust me... humans don't trust yeerks, it's not true..."


Stevert:
Robert left Steve alone. Whatever happened would be Steve's fault. Rob had tried to warn him but Steve had shaken off his warnings. So he then amuzed himself by shifting Steve's direction he was looking at every once in a while, causing the teen to get a little miffed. In his mind, Robert was laughing up a storm.

Steve had stood silent while Alora murmered. He did not even communicate with Robert, althoguh Steve was getting annoyed at how his vison would somehow move to something else when Steve wanted to look at one particular thing. He knew a certain yeer was behind it, the one in his head.

But then Alora began speaking to him directly. "Why? Why am I doing this?" he repeated. "Because I want to give you a second chance. That is all. Even te lowliest yeerk grub deserves a second chance. And you are right. I don't trust you. You could possibly kill me right now. But you won't."


Alora:
"But I will."

Alora's eyes opened into slits, her mouth splitting into a grin. She grabbed Stevert's shoulders roughly and used the footing she'd gotten back while he'd been holding her to throw him off balance. He teetered backward and all that held him on the cliff face was her generosity.

"Stupid boy." She sneered, relishing his shocked expression. "Cute, but stupid."

Alora wrapped one hand in the front of his shirt and let go with the other, letting him get a taste of the death that waited below. The stench of the floating yeerk bodies that clogged the lake blew up to them on the wind, and if Vanim cared the slightest for the rest of her kind she might have enjoyed the irony. As it was, she only cared for the satisfaction his death would bring her.

"Hmm, I should say something clever here... but I doubt you'd get it. So I'll just say, goodbye." Snatching him back closely to her, Alora pressed her lips to his in a vicious kiss. Then she shoved him off the edge to a twenty second death in the boiling waters below.


Stevert:
<<I told you so.>> Robert gloated as Stevert fell off the cliff.

Steve face was still in a shocked look as he plummeted. He could still feel ALora's lips on his. Steve didn't bother to respond as his mind raced for opportunities to escape. A normal fall would probably kill him. Unless he morphed squirrel. That would lessen the impact. But he was falling towards sludge. Molten sludge. His birds wouldn't work. Not only would he not be able to fully morph them in time, they would become waterlogged and he would burn up.

A pronghorn and wild dog would be just as useless. So why not morph the one creature in his arsenal that would thrive in water? He rolled over halfway down, the tohughts only taken a second or so, and spread his body out, slowing his rate of descent. Then his skin began aquiring a rubber-like texture.

Thankfully, the skin had appeared first in the morph and by the time he hit the lake, he was completely grey.

The water/sludge burned a lot, but not as bad as normal skin would. He fought to keep his head above the surface as the rest of the morph completed. His legs fused together and his toes followed. Then his arms shrunk into himself as his fingers melted together. Suddenly, his mouth shot out way in fornt of his head as his nostrils fused and traveled up tot he top of his head. Then the giddiness appeared.

Steve echolocated and a severaly burnt bottlenose dolphin began swimming towards shore, way faster than the human had previously done. All thoughts were put on hold as he concentrated on staying alive. Except for the thoughts of the horrors his comrades had unleashed on the pool. With every sonic burst, Steve saw a sketch of thousands of dead yeerks all around him, parboiled by Luce and Suji.

He momentarily forgot about even that as the pain really began to affect him. The sludge was burning out his eyes and ears. It had filled his blowhole. He swam to the surface and leaped into the air, allowing it to temproarily cool his body and allow him to breathe. Then he landed with a splash.

Another echo "saw" the shore only about twenty or so yards away. Steve powered his flippers even faster as he slowly changed forms, trying to keep his skin for as long as possible.

(Continued in Danger of Deception)