Disclaimer: I do not own Animorphs, they belong to Scholastic
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"Jake! Help me!"
"Hrrrrrllll…GRRRRRLLLL."
"Hold him down!" Cassie yelped as I struggled to keep a hold of a young badger. It helped that it's front paws were covered in bandages but the thing kept on squirming as Cassie prepared a needle of antibiotics for the injured animal.
"I'm trying but he keeps squirming." I complained.
"Have you tried acquiring him?" Marco rolled one eye towards me as he laid back on a bale of hay.
Oh. Yeah. That.
I focused on the badger as I held it down on the table and Cassie quickly and carefully gave it it's injections.
"Alllllll done now." Throwing the used needle away into a sharps bin, she took the now calm badger from me and before it could do anything placed the badger back into its cage.
"Thanks." Cassie smiled as she dusted her hands off.
"No problem." I shrugged, blushing a bit from her smile. We both looked up as we heard a rustle of feathers come from the rafters, the sight of a hawk making the animals in the surrounding cages squawk and chatter loudly.
"Hey Tobias."
((Rachel 's on her way. She's bringing Ax with her. She took him out shopping by the looks of it.))
"What atrocity has that poor soul done to befall such a fate? Shopping, the worst hell to put a man through…" Marco put a hand to his forehead melodramatically. I threw a cloth at him. He just laughed and threw a handful of hay back.
"Please don't do that. I need to keep this place clean." Cassie tutted.
Marco opened his mouth about to come up with some reply when Rachel stepped into the scene, Ax stepping clumsily behind her in his human morph.
"Trust me Ax, you look very trendy. The latest fashion, and only thirty dollars all together. Perfect bargain." She seemed to look proud of what she chose for Ax's get up.
"Ax…. Man… What has she done to you?" Marco gaped in mock horror.
"I am getting to learn about human customs better. Ter. Ter. Ter. Cusssssss –tummmmss."
"What? He looks fabulous." Rachel crossed her arms giving Marco a scowling look.
"Fabulous. Perfect word for him. He looks like a fruit."
"You got a problem with that?" Marco only blew her a raspberry in reply.
((So, no-one's around now.)) Tobias observed, changing the subject. ((So what's up for the meeting today?))
"Erek contacted me. He told me the yeerks are bringing in reinforcements to Earth." Marco pushed himself up into a sitting position on the bale of hay he had been lying on.
"What? More yeerks?" I frowned, racking my brains on how we as a team would have to deal with that.
"Hork-bajir controllers." Marco clarified. "We're causing Visser Three enough of a nuisance he's calling for back-up."
"Not good for us." Cassie frowned.
"So, we blow them up before they get here." Rachel shrugged. "Bada bing. Bada boom."
"Is there any way we can free the hork-bajir when they get here?" Cassie put in.
"That's one idea…." I agreed. "They're not the only problem though." When everyone turned to me I continued. "I've been hearing Tom talk about the Sharing doing a lot of fundraisers lately. I've been keeping an eye on who he's been calling, and he's contacting several people who have high-class jobs. Lawyers, CEO's, the like. I think the yeerks are trying to get quite a bit of money to do something, something big, but I'm not sure what yet."
"They're up to something….." Marco put his finger on his chin in thought.
"It might be the same thing they're organising for. More Hork Bajir, more money, it may be related in some manner." Ax suggested, no longer playing with sounds now we were being serious.
((Do you know the names of the people Tom's been contacting? I could fly over and watch them, see what's up.)) Tobias suggested.
"Good idea. And take Ax with you." I nodded, giving Tobias the names and addresses of several of the people I had checked that Tom was contacting.
"Do you have any more details of this shipment of hork-bajir controllers that's coming?" I asked Marco.
"Erek said it wouldn't be coming for another two weeks, which gives us a pretty good heads up. He had a lot of details of the ship they're coming in. It was pretty nifty, he had this 3-D hologram display of it."
"Maybe we should get together with him tomorrow afternoon then and see what he knows."
"Are we going to attack it?" Rachel asked, looking hopeful.
"First off, we're going to gather more information to see what we're getting into."
"Sounds like a plan." Cassie sat back down on a seat, looking thoughtful.
"Anything else?" Marco asked.
"Nah, man. It's a school day tomorrow, so we should go home before the parents get worried.
"Awww, man. I almost forgot, that essay for Mr. Vines!" Marco slapped his forehead.
"You didn't do it yet? It's due tomorrow." I gave him a look.
"I'll help him do it." Cassie offered.
"Thanks." Marco let out a sigh of relief.
"I better get going. I promised my sisters to show what I got them today."
"Okay then, everybody go home. Tomorrows Friday, so we'll have plenty of time this weekend to make a battle-plan."
"Let do it then." Rachel grinned, and turned to walk back to her home, waving everyone goodbye.
I waved everyone off likewise, and began to morph into a falcon for my flight home. I had considered walking, but Cassie's barn was too far and would have taken too long. The sun was just setting and it was autumn now, the leaves turning orange and red against the pink and gold sky. It was a stunning sight, moreso with the vision of a bird of prey. The wind was cold and I had difficulty finding a thermal to glide on, so I spent most of the way home flapping.
I landed in a bush and demorphed there, worried if I flew into my bedroom my parents would wonder how I got in without them noticing. Or worse, Tom bursting in my room (as siblings wont to do) and seeing me mid-morph.
Turns out I didn't need to worry. I walked into the kitchen and saw a note on the fridge. My Mom and dad had gone to see a show tonight, and had planned to tell me only I was home late. Tom was at the Sharing. They had left me money for a pizza.
I took a look at the forty dollars they had left me and gave a small whoop. Ordering for a meat-lover's pizza, a bunch of sides and a large bottle of soda, I connected my game console and started to play where I had left off on Megaman X8, while playing Nine Inch Nails. Loudly.
A sore stomach and several levels later, I cleaned myself up and climbed into bed. It felt nice to just relax and be a kid for once. Sure, the yeerks were still out there, but I was only human.
I curled up into the blankets keeping warm, electric blanket on, and tiredness pulled me down to sleep as I watched the red numbers on my alarm clock as the moon lit up my posters of basketball players on my wall.
Darkness overtook me, for how long I don't know, and I drifted into a thankfully dreamless slumber.