Chapter Two – Cassie:
Ignore his injuries…I couldn't let him die, not while I was there. "Jake, Marco, one of you give me your shirts, I can use it as a bandage to –"
"Uh-uh,
I'm not getting myself involved in an intergalactic war, no way.
Leave this to the people who are involved." "I
will," Tobias said, followed by Cori, Rachel, and myself. Branden
looked completely disinterested, Jake was hesitating, and Marco still
flat-out refusing. "We
should take this to the authorities. Seven teenagers does not make a
good Army in any circumstances," Marco said. "I'm out. So very
out I was out before the baseball was even thrown." "Do you
really think any adults would believe us if we told them we saw an
alien spacecraft crash and a dying Andalite told us that another
alien species called the Yeerks were invading and asked us to help
defend the planet?" Rachel said, glaring at Marco. "They'd lock
us in a mental institution before we'd even finished the first
sentence." She turned to look at the Andalite. "What do we have
to do?" All eyes
fixed on Jake. "Wha-why
me!" he cried, holding his hands out and stepping back. "Because
you're the leader?" Cori said with a smirk on her face. "Hang
on, I never agreed to anything!" "Jake,
I believe you're the best one to lead our group," I said with a
smile, walking forwards and grabbing his hand. "If anyone's the
leader in this group, it's you." Coloring
up, Jake nodded and, resigned, walked into the alien craft,
reappearing moments later with the blue box. The Andalite took it
from Jake, and then held it in his open palm. We did
so, and the box began to heat up beneath my hand, eventually giving
me a small, but unexpected electric shock. Removing our hands, we all
looked at the Andalite, who seemed to be growing worse by the second. All of us
began walking away: Jake and Cori heading for his car, Rachel
following at a distance; Marco jogged away, heading for his house;
Branden snorted and stuffed his hands in his pockets, walking in the
opposite direction to Marco; I began walking away too, then changed
my mind and headed towards Jake, Rachel and Cori; Tobias… I looked
around, realizing that he wasn't walking away, and found himself
kneeling down next to the Andalite. The Andalite pressed one of his
hands against Tobias' forehead, and Tobias' eyes shot open before
he slumped back, unconscious. "Tobias!"
I yelled, seeing him wake up while I was shouting his name. I frowned, wondering
what the Andalite had done, before walking over to Tobias, grabbing
an arm, lifting him to his feet and mentioning that we were getting a
lift home thanks to Jake. ooooooooooooooo Despite it being
almost eleven PM, I managed to sneak back into my house, largely due
to being able to walk through the barn attached to our house without
being disturbed. I lived in a converted
farmhouse on the edge of the town, and the barn was where my father
worked, and where I occasionally helped him. He took in injured
wildlife, treated them and released them back into the wild. As a
consequence, we had numerous animals native to where we lived in
cages with varying injuries, as well as a couple of tame horses which
belonged to us. I opened the door
connecting the barn to the house, and stopped. The Andalite said we
now had the ability to morph into animals…I walked back, heading to
the stable section where we kept the horses. Calling over my favorite
mare, I stroked her mane and then moved to her forelock, unsure of
what to do next. Taking a deep breath, I concentrated on her image in
my mind, while I continued to stroke her forelock. After a half-minute or
so, during which the mare was extremely quiet, I moved my hand away
and began to concentrate on the same picture I had in my mind while I
was stroking her. The first thing I
noticed was that my head was starting to grow unusually heavy, so
much so that my neck was starting to bend forwards, forcing my chin
to my chest. Ignoring it, I continued to concentrate on morphing,
almost collapsing onto the floor when my hips changed, forcing me
from a bipedal primate to a quadruped equine. My hands began to melt
and merge together, forming hooves within a few moments, followed by
a sudden growth of my arms and legs. Fur covered the skin there, and
began to sprout all over my body, the hair on my head retracting and
forming a long, thin strip down the back of my head and down the back
of my neck. I heard a tearing
sound and looked over my shoulder as best as I could to see the
clothes I had been wearing as a human begin to shred, splitting at
the seams. Gives Rachel a good excuse to drag me shopping, I
thought to myself, rolling my now-horse eyes. Layers of muscle began
to be laid down, bulking out my body and making me look more
horse-like and soon, within about two minutes, I was no longer a
human but an exact replica of the mare I had gotten…no, acquired
DNA from. Despite the fact that my bones had been elongated and
twisted, and my internal organs changing and growing, I felt no pain. "Cassie? Is that
you?" my father called, and I fought down a wave of panic.
Demorphing (and finding myself changing back to a naked
Cassie), I grabbed my ripped clothes and hid inside one of the empty
stalls. My father walked in,
switched on the lights, and glanced around. Seeing nothing, he
shrugged his shoulders, turned off the light and walked out of the
barn, closing the door behind him. Breathing a sigh of
relief, I looked over my clothes and wondered if there was a way to
change with at least some clothes on: I didn't really want to come
out of a mission against the Yeerks, change back into a human, and be
naked in front of all the others, especially Jake. Once I was sure my
father had retreated to somewhere in the house, I moved out of the
barn and dashed to my room as fast, and as quietly, as I could.
Pulling on a ratty t-shirt which I slept in, I rummaged through my
wardrobe, finding a few tight t-shirts, shorts and an old leotard
from when Rachel dragged me to gymnastics a few times before I
decided it wasn't for me and quit. Dragging out the
clothes, I laid them on my bedroom floor, considering whether or not
to try my theory tonight, before I remembered that I still had school
tomorrow. Stuffing the clothes back into the wardrobe, I got ready
for bed.
