A/N: More things I don't own here in Part Deux of the Alternamorphs spinoff. You really thought I'd do an Ax/OC pairing with no setup? I'm a cynical romantic, not a luster. Or at least that's all I'll admit to in public. ;)

Your Bright Future, Part 2

I awoke on the grass, something hard and bony poking at my ribs. {Demorph.} Ugh, I hated trying to concentrate on a form straight from a dead sleep. I wasn't even sure I knew what I was supposed to look like when I was going more off of fear than consciousness. Well, I had five fingers, at least, I remembered, knuckling my eyes - of which there were only two simple ones, no housefly-style broken-funhouse-mirrors here, thanks - and wiping a bit of drool from my mouth. It might not be glamorous, but a mouth was good for a few things, at least. Like getting me into trouble with an Andalite…

That had just been a dream, right? Jake, Marco, and the others had rescued me from the Yeerk attack and brought me to the barn and given me the power to morph and being a horse was so crazy that I'd passed out and dreamed about Iskroot and pacifist androids and killer Howlers and kissing Ax and seeing my parents in New York… Yeah, and maybe everything since logging on to the web had been a dream, too, while I was at it. My skin was supposed to be brown, not blue. It was cooler in the woods than the balmy New York spring, but it wasn't that cold. Better fix that.

{You have five of your minutes to explain where you acquired that form.} Ax was being a paragon of patience and restraint, to judge by that clipped tone and the tail-blade hovering less than a quarter of a foot from my neck.

"The Andalite?" I asked, drawing myself up to a fetal sitting position despite the unsubtle threat of his tail. Sleepiness and fear combined to render me stupid. "The Ellimist offered me three morphs." I knew I should have gone with a shark. I didn't have a good water morph yet, and Ax looked as if he'd rather I slept with the fishes, if I was going to be without gills, anyway. "I wanted to be able to hide and get away, but I wanted one thing that Visser Three and the Yeerks might be scared of, if only long enough for them to be able to see it wasn't you." If only long enough for Ax to send my borrowed head rolling. "Just once, I want them to be scared of me for a change. I want them to be powerless for once."

"You're not powerless, Susan." Cassie wrapped her arms around me from behind before I had the chance to look around. I'm only a little embarrassed to admit I jumped.

"Yeah, you're excellent at screwing things up," Marco pitched in with snide cheeriness.

"Marco, shut up." Jake put a hand to Ax's shoulder, not exactly calling him off, but not turning his serious gaze away from me in disgust, either. "You didn't know what you were getting into with that box. You didn't choose to sign up for this war. None of us did."

"Except Ax. And Xena would have signed up even if we'd had a real choice about this."

"Shut up, Marco." Rachel was taking this pretty quietly. And also angrily. If Ax was a sharp tail-blade tightly straight-jacketed by military training, Rachel was a mother bear with wounded offspring, waiting for the slightest scent of weakness from whatever had messed with her cub. And Tobias was a hawk, so I had no idea how the hell to read him.

Jake ignored the others' commentary. "You can't go back to what you had before. We can't risk you and what you know about us falling into enemy hands, but you don't have to fight. You're no good at stealth, and we don't have time to train you. It'd be best if you stayed in the woods with the free Hork-Bajir and kept out of the way." He pinched the bridge of his nose. "It… It sucks, it really does, but you'd be safe." And out of their way, where they wouldn't have to worry about babysitting the new kid, the coward who just freaked out and got Jake's girlfriend killed, nearly got them all killed…

{Hork-Bajir are pretty tough characters. They might not be intentionally built for fighting, but pound for pound, they're better battle morphs than Andalites,} Tobias observed in the lingering silence. {They've got more blades, Ax. They're good at climbing trees. Plus they blend in with the enemy,} he added with the telepathic hawk version of a shrug. {I wonder why you didn't go with the third one in the set if you just wanted to scare Visser Three.}

Nothing I could ever possibly acquire would ever scare Visser Three. Not really. "The Andalites are still free. All but Visser's host."

Cassie had loosened her hold on me, but she squeezed my shoulder. "Honestly, it would worry me a little to have to blindly choose either Hork-Bajir or Andalite. They're sentient creatures, and I don't like morphing someone without their permission. If the Ellimist gives you their form, you had no chance to talk to them about it, and there's no telling whose life you're borrowing when you morph." Part of me wished we could really borrow lives, with family and memories and a future ahead of us, not just be their brain-deficient twin, but that sounded too much like what the Yeerks did when I tried to put the longing to words. "I can understand why Ax would be upset about that happening to an Andalite. He asked us and we all asked the Hork-Bajir before morphing, so it would have been best if you could have done the same for him."

She glanced between me and Ax, deflating my protests before I could assemble much more than it's not fair. Nothing was.

"Well, what's done is done, so if you don't use the morph, there's no reason to worry about you having it, is there?" Cassie concluded optimistically, hoping to leave it at that.

"If you do, however, remember that we've fought worse than Andalites." Rachel wasn't as content to leave it on a peaceful note. Her knuckles crackled, and while I'd never be exactly sure who had knocked me from the car, she had been the closest one who wasn't trying to morph.

{Susan would not count as an Andalite even if she did complete the morph. She knows nothing about our people.} Ax pawed the dirt contemptously, then turned and left with a cold expression in the single stalk-eye he deigned to leave on me. Tobias launched himself from the barn rafters to follow after his friend. If he made excuses or apologies, he kept his thought-speak private.

Marco sighed, digging his hands into the pockets of his bike shorts. "Well, so much for Ax getting a girlfriend. Pity I didn't even get the chance to offer him any tips."

With Ax gone to work off some steam and Rachel hovering protectively in range of Cassie even as the victim of my stupidity tried to comfort me, Jake's demeanor softened back to that of high-school jock, joking around with his best friend. "I don't think he needs any help scaring women off."

"So I haven't found someone like Cassie yet." The shorter of the two just smiled cheekily. "You'd think having another Andalite around would convince him to take the tail-blade out of his butt."

"Marco, be nice," Cassie cut him off warningly. I sagged lower against her supporting arm. Honestly, I think I was starting to get a little numb, now that the adrenaline that had yanked me from unconsciousness was starting to wear off. The back of my head ached, and it was spreading to the rest of my body.

"Yeah, I know she's a screw-up, but it's the best anyone can do for several hundred light-years. Hey, Sue, out of curiosity: is your morph a guy or girl?" Honestly, I had no idea. I just shrugged in response. "So that's why: you're confusing the poor boy." He clucked his tongue. "And here I thought you were good at distracting us."

"We've got better things to do than waste our time baiting her." Rachel was dismissive, but she was on the move and I was almost grateful to get swept up in her wake. At least it meant I still had some direction. "Even you, Marco."

"We'll take you to the valley." Jake started on his falcon morph, the steely outline of feathers tattooing and erupting from his skin. "Toby will help you settle in."

"I ought to talk with her," Cassie murmured absently. She gave me one last encouraging smile before starting her own morph, her wings as large as an angel's before she dropped back to the form she'd died in. Jake and Rachel were already birds, but both of them had to turn away. Cassie had noticed, but kept her tone light and reassuring rather than asking what she couldn't be sure she wanted to know. I don't know how much she remembered of our visit from the Ellimist. I'm not sure how much I want her to remember. {The Hork-Bajir aren't the galaxy's greatest thinkers, but they'll welcome another who's lost her home. I think you'll like them.} I was still a burden, but at least the Hork-Bajir didn't resent me… yet.

"Yeah, Rachel's right. I got some stuff to do. I'm gonna go check in with Erek, do some homework, maybe even catch up on sleep." Marco stayed human, waving us off. "Catch you later, Jake."

The Ellimist had said that I'd changed the timeline by joining up with them, but it affected far more than just me. I was glad that Marco was still trying to piece together the bigger picture, even if only for the selfish reason that it got him off my back.

"You don't all have to go with me." I held back from morphing for a minute. It was a different group of birds, a different destination, but it still seemed too close. Cassie was waiting for me.

{We don't. You two go on,} Rachel agreed. She sounded almost too eager to see her best friend and cousin off, leaving just me and her larger bald eagle in the air. {I can take care of this.}

{Rachel, you know I love you, but you're the worst diplomat. Ever,} Cassie teased her gently. She and Jake had taken up perches in the same tree, despite how incongruous his peregrine looked settled next to an osprey, an even larger eagle twitching restlessly in the braches above me. {Go get some rest; it's been a long day.}

I felt exposed as I dropped down to the size of a hawk beneath Rachel's golden glare. I wasn't that much smaller than her, but her talons looked huge. {Which is why we're going to do some girl-time as soon as possible; just let me straighten Susan out first. Meanwhile, if you've had a shorter day than I have, it certainly isn't making me or our fearless leader rest easy. You guys go catch up; I'm stealing her back once I've done these last little chores, Jake.}

I could watch individual feathers ruffle as Jake considered this. Somehow the hawk's super-vision struck me as more of a curse than an advantage right now. {Better let me handle this, Rachel.} The peregrine took off from the trees and I clumsily flapped my way off the ground. {I'll call if I need backup.} I didn't know whether to feel appreciated or insulted, but his tone made it clear that he wouldn't be needing it for me.

{I really ought to do some chores,} Cassie admitted, {but while we're already in bird morph, there's no harm in patrolling the skies for a while, is there?}

{Especially over the beach. You never know what the Yeerks will get up to when confronted with sand and sunshine,} Rachel agreed, launching herself off the tree and rapidly climbing over my head on a current of warm air. While the hawk's instincts allowed me to keep myself aloft, I was nowhere near as talented a flier as Marco, let alone Tobias's girlfriend in her larger eagle body.

{Just be careful,} Jake said, circling on a distant updraft of his own.

There was a hint of relieved laughter from Cassie. {You too. And Susan? Thanks for saving my life. I know you didn't have to choose me.}

{Hey, I owed you one.} I still owed them several. {You did the same for me.}

Jake was silent as we flew; stooping from his thermal deeper into the woodlands. I couldn't hold his pace, especially on a dive, but if I zoned out and let the inner hawk take over, I required less flapping than those knife-point dark wings. {So, the Hork-Bajir, eh?} I awkwardly tried to start a conversation. {You're letting me around a lot of your allies.}

{Believe me, if we didn't already owe the Chee too many favors as it is, you'd be scooping poop in the world's largest underground dog park,} Jake said. {I can't trust you yet, but I'm trying to give you a chance.}

I hesitated too long for the next wing-beat, dropping below him towards the tree-line. I spotted something moving far below us in the underbrush; my stomach grumbled in reminder of the bird's high metabolism. Ax, Tobias, and the Hork-Bajir all lived out in the woods, but all of them could find stuff to eat out there. I would probably be getting used to the berries, fish, and small rodent diet if I didn't want to get caught dumpster-diving at the edge of the park. So long, mall food. Even the MREs Dad occasionally brought home were a luxury beyond this new life. Dad and Mom were beyond this new life.

Someday, I promised myself. Someday, I'd get them back, and we could really go to New York.

First I'd have to convince the others that I could pull my own weight in this fight. First I'd have to convince myself that I could fight.

The Hork-Bajir still looked like Visser Three's bladed dinosaur minions, even the small (meaning only about five feet tall instead of the usual seven or eight) one that waved Jake and me into the valley as we passed through a wooded narrowing in the rocky hills. I could understand why Tobias thought that they would make excellent battle morphs, perhaps even better than an Andalite. But for all that these allies of the Animorphs secretly terrified me, they weren't the creature at the center of this nightmare.

Jake and the little Hork-Bajir, Toby, made introductions; I admit I didn't tune in as well as I should, but I swear the same big bruiser with the scar across the side of his cranium asked me my name four times, so I guess I wasn't the only one. Jake left to catch up on his rest, suggesting that I settle in and do the same. "We never know when the next attack will be, after all," he told me. It was at once sweet and terrifying of him to think that it would matter to me while I was in the valley for my own protection, for their protection. Then he'd remorphed and flown away.