Title: Childhood Friends
Author: Josephine Summers
Disclaimer: Characters taken from the Animorph books. Melanie and Sail are mine.
Distribution: Sure, just let me know.
Feedback: Please. This was the first fanfic I ever wrote.
ONE (MEETING OLD FRIENDS)
"I still don't get it," Marco complained. "Why, why do we have to spend a perfectly fine Sunday walking through this stupid forest."
Rachel sighed. "Tobias thought he saw someone morph. It's worth checking out."
"Where is he anyway? At least he could show up after putting us through this."
A sound made everyone look up. A hawk came sailing down.
Did I hear someone say my name
"No Tobias, but when I want a rat, I'll let you know." Marco mumbled.
Nice to see you too, Marco. Any sign?
Cassie answered. "Nope, nothing at all, but we did see this beautiful fox running.." She stops in mid-sentence when she gets a look from Rachel.
"Tobias, are you sure you saw something. I mean, your eyes are good, but.."
Positive! Almost..
"Hear, hear, the bird boy isn't even sure."
"Marco!" Rachel was just about to give him a piece of her mind, but stopped as the forest suddenly turned from quiet to noisy in an instant.
"Please, just.. I don't know what you're talking about. LET ME GO!"
The gang ran towards the noise and saw a bunch of Hork-bajir controllers and some humans surrounding a young girl. She was facing them, but behind her there was an edge and a fall about 50 meters. The Animorphs hid behind some bushes and could only watch in horror as the controllers slowly forced her towards the edge with guns pointed at her.
" I swear.. I have no idea what you're talking about. Please, just let me go and.. Ill do anything.. just.."
One of the human controllers spoke to her. "Why don't you morph back and save yourself, Andalite."
"I've already told you, I don't know what that means."
Jake turned towards the others. "We have to help her!" he whispered.
Marco just glared at him. "And how, o' great leader, are you planing to do that. Without dying?" he finally said.
Jake looked at him for a while, before nodding. There was nothing they could do. The girl had almost reached the edge, and the controllers just kept pushing her closer.
"Last chance, Andalite" the man said.
"I DON'T KNOW WHAT AN ANDALITE IS" the girl screamed. She was now two step from the edge. The man lifted his gun.
"Three.. two.." he started to count down.
Cassie hid her face and Jake put his arms around her. Rachel just watched in shock and Marco looked sick.
"One" he finally said.
The girl took one step backwards and fell. Rachel gasped. Marco turned away. Jake lowered his face and waited for the sound of her body hitting the mountains below. The sound that came was rocks hitting rocks and he felt a tear down his cheek. The Hork-bajirs made a laughing sound and the humans looked pleased. The one who had spoke to her said: "Well, well. That was one Andalite less to worry about."
"Sir, how can you be sure she was an Andalite?" one of the men said.
"Dare you question my actions? Didn't I see her kill that controller after forcing him to tell her about how we found that Andalite up north?"
"Yes, Visser. Sorry, Visser."
The controllers left. The Animorphs looked at each other. Jake was just about to say something when Tobias interrupted.
Look!
A white swallow flew up from where the girl had fell.
"Do you guys think.." Rachel didn't finish the sentence.
"That the Yeerks were telling the truth?" Marco said. "That would have been the first time."
Should I try and send her a message? Tobias asked.
Jake nodded. "Sure, it's not like we got nothing to lose."
"Don't listen to him. Try, Tobias. If she can morph, she has to be a friend or else the Yeerks wouldn't be after her." Cassie said.
They all watched as Tobias tried to make contact with the swallow. It slowly turned around and came towards them.
"Oh my God.." Rachel whispered.
Who are you? The voice of the girl startled them all.
"We.. we're the Animorphs." Marco said kinda goofy.
The girl started to laugh. So you are not Andalites.. or Yeerks. She added, her voice was full of hatred as she said the word 'Yeerk'.
"No, we are fighting them, and.." Jake said as he looked at the other. He was about to give away their biggest secret. "And we are not Andalites."
Then I will trust you enough to demorph
The swallow flew back to the edge and in an instant, just by shake a little extra with the wings, it became a beautiful young girl dressed in white trousers and a pastel pink top.
"Wow," Cassie was stunned.
"Double wow," Marco added, looking at the pretty girl.
"So," the girl said. "You can morph too. I take it it's because of Andalite technology?"
Yes Tobias was the one who answered.
The girl looked frightened around. "Who said that?"
Tobias came flying down. I did
"Ohh. Oh.. I'm sorry, I thought for a second there I'd flied right into a trap. Why are you in a morph? The controllers are gone."
I'm not in a morph. I.. I went over the two hour limit
"I see... and I also understand you guys are fighting the Yeerks, is that right?"
Jake took a step forward. "That's right, but I think we should be the one asking questions. How did you learn to morph?"
"That's none of your business, besides I won't stay long."
"What do you mean?" Rachel said.
"I'm here to finish a mission, when it's over, I'll leave. Simple as that."
"Mission?"
"I'm here to kill Visser Three."
TWO (THE PROPOSAL)
"What the...?"
"But... that's..."
"Are you serious..?"
"Hold it, everyone!" Jake screamed.
Everyone went quiet.
"Listen," he said. "We're not getting anywhere here. Please, tell us what you want and we'll tell you our story."
"I told you, I'm here to kill Visser Three."
"We got that part," Rachel interrupted. "We want to know why."
"He... he killed a friend of mine."
Cassie looked sad. "I'm sorry. We have all lost people we love in this war."
Killing him isn't the answer
The girl turned against Tobias. "And what would you know! He took away my life, everything that mattered to me... everything..."
Tobias started to morph into human. The girl just watched him in amazement. When he was almost full human, she said: "Why are your morphing taking so long? When I do it, it only takes..." She stopped in mid-sentence. "Tobias!" she whispered.
Tobias has become full human and just stared at her. "How did you.. how do you know my name?"
She smiled softly. "Don't you remember me?"
He looked at her for a long time before shaking his head. "I'm sorry..."
"It's ok, it's been a long time. About 5 years I think."
"5 years... Then I lived with my uncle.. Melanie!?"
She smiled again.
"I can't believe it..." Tobias continued. "I..."
"Erm... Excuse me, do you two know each other?" Rachel asked, not looking too happy.
"Well, yeah." Tobias tried to explain. "Melanie was my neighbor when I lived at my uncle's, but she and her family moved... I haven't seen her since."
"That's right, we moved up north, and... this is such a surprise. How did you learn to morph, Tobias?"
"Long story."
"Yeah," Marco said. "We met an Andalite who told us to save the world. So here we are."
"I see."
"We have already told you too much." Jake said. "Now you have to tell us your deal with Visser Three and how you learned to morph."
"Okay, fair enough. I was given the power by an Andalite too. His name was Sail and he had crashed on earth a couple of months before I found him. After moving," Melanie said, with a look at Tobias. "I was pretty sad and walked around in the forest a lot. I was just a kid, and when I found Sail oddly enough, I wasn't scared. He became my best friend and he gave me the power to morph. We had a lot of fun, and as time went by he became my everything. My own family was falling apart and Sail was all I had. One day, I was walking home from school, I wanted to drop by Sail's to see how he was doing. He still lived in the forest. When I got there..."
She stopped. Everyone looked sad, and no one dared to ask the question.
"So I'm asking you, no I'm begging you, please help me find Visser Three. If you are what you said, the only people on earth who can morph, please help me."
Jake looked doubtfully at her. "Melanie... we... we're not killers for rent, you know. We're trying to save the planet, not..."
"Not killing the one responsible for it?"
"When you put it that way..."
She looked over at Tobias. "Tobias...?"
"Melanie... I...I..." The others looked at him. He made a decision. "I'll help you, Mel."
"Tobias!" Rachel gasped.
"I'm sorry guys, but... My dad... I have to help her."
"Thank you, Tobias." Melanie said.
"Well," Jake started. "If Tobias is going to help her... sure, why not?"
"Jake!" Cassie and Rachel said at the same time.
"With finding him, we do not kill anyone unless we have to."
The girls sighed with relief.
"And since no one asked me, I guess I should just go with the flow. You know, first guy in the line to get killed." Marco said jokingly.
"That's just his way of saying he's in," Tobias explained.
Melanie started to go backwards. "Thank you guys."
"Hey, anytime. Next time you have a death wish, just let us know," Marco said.
She laughed and started running.
"Hey!" Jake screamed after her. "Where can we find you?"
"I'll find you!" she said as she reached the edge, made a couple of moves with her arms and a second later a swallow flew away.
"Wow, I've gotta learn that" Cassie said.
"I've gotta find a girl like that," Marco said.
Jake pushed him in front of him. "Are you dreaming again, Marco?"
Rachel turned to Tobias as the gang started to leave. "Are you coming?"
"I don't think so," he said, still looking the way Melanie disappeared. He turned to her. "I've gotta take care of something. See you later."
Rachel left as Tobias started to demorph. Minutes later, a red-tailed hawk flew towards the sunset.
THREE (MEMORIES)
Melanie
I couldn't believe I'd found Tobias again. All the memories came back, I guess I kinda had blocked them out to spare me from the pain of missing him. He was my best friend. No, he was so much more than that. I smiled at the thought of the two of us. We were just kids, nine or ten, and by the way the other kids acted around us, you should have thought we were really popular. I couldn't have cared less about what other people thought and didn't thought about us. We completed each other in a way I had only felt somewhat with Sail. I guess the reason why the other kids wanted to hang with us was because we simply refused to play with them. We didn't need to because...
"What am I doing?" I said to myself. I had found an old mansion deep in the forest to call my home for the while I was here. I had just flied in when the memories came back to me. I went over to an old mirror and sat down in front of it.
"Tobias is a finished chapter of your life, you have moved on, remember?" I said to my reflection. "Besides, what are the odds he would want you now?"
A sound made me turn around, frighten I looked over at the window. I sighed as the hawk landed at the window frame. One the so-called animorphs, I thought to myself. Or rather hoped, cause if it was Visser Three I was in big trouble. The hawk started to demorph and I kept quiet till he was finished. And there he was. Tobias.
We just looked at each other and suddenly I couldn't take it anymore. I had to break the silence.
"How did you find me here?" my voice was nothing more than a whisper.
"Oh, I know you pretty well, don't I?" he said with a little half smile. I smiled too, I couldn't help it. I mean, Tobias was standing right in front of me and he was the same Tobias I had known five years ago.
"I guess you do."
The silence that followed wasn't a bad silence. It felt comfortable, like it used to. But it couldn't last forever and finally Tobias broke it off.
"You scared us pretty bad today."
"Well, I'm sorry! I was only trying to save my life."
"Come on, Mel. I didn't mean it like that. I just meant... you've changed."
"It's been five years Tobias. The last time I saw you, you weren't a hawk either."
He looked down. My comment had obviously hurt. I fought the need to put my arms around him. "Tob..." I started, but he stopped me from saying anymore.
"I didn't come here to fight. What I meant was you have changed, the person I knew wouldn't dream of hurting anyone. Now you're here to murder someone."
"He isn't a *someone*" I snarled. "He's a slug who destroys everything in his way."
"What about the Andalite he has captured? Don't you care about him either?"
"Of course I do! Tobias, the reason I'm doing this..."
"... is because your Andalite friend was killed." Tobias finished. "You don't have to tell me about it, I know exactly what you're going through."
"Right..." I said.
"Melanie" For the first time he saw directly at me. "My father was an Andalite. The Andalite who gave us our power. Visser Three killed him right in front of our eyes."
Now it was my turn to look down. "Tobias, I'm so sorry. I... I didn't know."
He smiled his soft smile and came towards me. "How could you?" He lifted my chin carefully and looked straight into my eyes. "I haven't seen you in five years."
Tobias had left and I felt just like a silly teenager. Well, I was a teenager, but I was hoping the silly part wasn't true. Tobias had stayed with me for hours, we had talked, laughed, even cried some. For the first time I could really talk about my feelings and so could he. I mean, I got the impression that he knew he could talk to his other friends, but I also knew he hadn't. Tobias was the only one I could really talk to and I was the only one he could talk to. Simple as that. It was just now that I realized how much I had missed him, and how special our friendship had been. Been... isn't that a terrible word? It means something is over. It means you will never have it back. Our new friendship may seem like the one we use to have, but I knew something was wrong. At that time I just didn't know it's name.
FOUR (THE ADVENTURE BEGINS)
"...And that concludes what we know about the Yeerks." Jake looked around at the others to make sure he hadn't left anything out. Cassie nodded.
"Thanks, you don't know how much this means to me."
"Melanie... can't you just become one of the Animorphs, and save the earth instead of being a coldhearted killer?"
I smiled at Marco. I still couldn't believe that 5 teenagers thought they could save the world. "Maybe I will one day, Marco." If we live that long, I thought.
"So, are we all done here? Good. I have to go."
"Rachel, what's the hurry? It's Saturday."
"Yes, and unlike you, Marco, I have a very demanding social life. So...bye!"
Rachel left and actually slammed Marco's bedroom door shut.
"Geez... what's up with her? Tobias?" Marco asked.
"Don't look at me, I haven't spoken to her all week."
"And maybe that's the problem," Cassie mumbled.
"What?" Tobias looked confused.
"Nothing. Erm...so, Melanie, what are you going to do now?"
"I don't know. What's this Yeerk pool like?"
"Oh, you really don't want to go down there!"
"Why not, Marco?"
"Let's see...Take all the scary movies you've seen in your whole life, and that will be like a second down there. And all by yourself? You wouldn't stand a chance. No offence."
"Right...What about this Ax you keep talking about. Didn't he once try to kill him? With like a snake morph?"
"Yeah, that was actually a good idea...Not! It's not safe to go after Visser Three alone."
"Well, I don't have much choice there. So what if I die trying? It's not like anyone's gonna miss me."
"What about your parents?" Tobias. Of course.
"I don't think they would mind either."
"What are you talking about?"
"They're controllers."
"Oh... I'm sorry, Mel. I didn't know..."
"It's okay. I'm over it."
Cassie stood up. "How can you say something like that? Don't you care about anything? How should we know YOU'RE not a Yeerk?"
"Because I'm not, okay. I don't care what you think, what none of you think! I just... I just..." I stopped. Why should I tell these people anything. It's not like they...they just accepted you as a friend and you're being an total ass to them. But they don't... What, they don't know how it feels to fight the Yeerks?
"You just...?" Marco asked carefully.
"Forget it." I JUST WANT MY LIFE BACK!' my brain screamed.
Tobias looked at the clock hanging on Marco's wall. "I have to demorph." He turned to the others. "See you later, okay." He gave me a puzzled look. I nodded. He saw right through me. He knew something was wrong, but what could Tobias do? What could anyone do?
"I have to go too." I said.
"Let us know how things work out, Melanie. You're not alone, just so you know it." Jake. What a fabulous actor. As I walked out of the room, I could hear Cassie saying: "Why should we risk our lives for her to get her way?" and Jake answering: "This is not a normal situation, Cassie. I don't know how to handle it."
Normal situation'. What's a normal situation in a world gone mad, a world under attack by aliens? But still they, Jake, sounded like a military officer giving a normal' order.
Hidden by Marco's dad's garage we morphed. Well, I morphed. Tobias demorphed.
Ready to take off?
I laughed. You asking me? I was ready 2 minutes ago!
Arg...I hate you. How did you learn to morph that fast?
Practice and more practice, my friend. You'll get the hold of it too. In twenty years time.
You should be careful. My hawk's faster and bigger than your swallow.
Ah, but mine's better looking.
You always were obsessed with how you looked. Even as a bird.
Before I had the chance to answer, a load noise reached our sensitive bird ears, and I quickly looked around. What was that?
I think it's a...
It felt like something huge just flied over our heads. The swallow in my wanted to run...or fly for cover.
It's a Bug fighter!
To be continued...