Chapter 4

GALE

((Gale?)) the wolf asked weakly, ((what happened?))

((Royal! Its you! You have to demorph now!)) I cried, already demorphing myself.

((I am.)) Royal said, ((I'm, I'm trying.))

I scanned his mangled wolf body, matted with blood, bones jutting out in awkward places, unchanged. ((Royal, you're, you're not changing.))

((I'm trying, I can't, trying…)) he said, drifting off. Blood was still slowly flowing from his body.

"You have to focus, oh god, please keep trying." What if he couldn't change back. Trapped in morph forever. No, not forever. I looked again at his damaged body, he was slowly dying. If he couldn't morph out of the injuries then he wouldn't last much longer.

I had to do something, but what? I was all alone again. I hadn't been able to save anyone, and I was losing Royal. He needed a hospital. Billions of miles from earth and he needed a hospital.

"Start engines!" I shouted, he didn't necessarily need an earth hospital.

Taking the controls, I lifted up off the canopy of trees, heading for the settlement that had been the team's original target. Surely there had to be someone who could help. The city was unusually small for the energy readings it was putting off. It was completely clear of the large trees around it, there seemed to be a large glass dome that barely extended over the trees. From what I could make out from so far above the dome, there seemed to be small buildings huddled all around a clearing. Just as I was trying to figure out where to enter the city, a force seized the Alliance, pulling it down toward the clear dome.

I tightened my grip on the controls, struggling to veer away from the imminent collision. I pulled back and tried to slow the ship down, but it only pitched back as I started to lose control. I had been doing okay so far, but I haven't had much experience flying, and I had never been in this kind of situation. MORPH! I thought to myself, the only way to survive the impact. I was nearing the top of the dome, almost completely out of control of the pitching and spinning ship. I could see the glass surface only feet away from the nose of the ship, and braced for impact. Then, I hit the dome, and kept going, cutting through the glass as if it was the surface of some large lake. I had made it into the dome, but I couldn't straighten the ship, and I was losing altitude fast.

Hopeless thoughts filled my head as I fell to my death once again. Why hadn't I just stayed home? This wasn't my cause, it never was. I just want to go back, forget this ever happened. Forget about all this death and horror. The ship kept spinning and spinning, falling faster all the time. I was still morphing, not longer to work the controls with my huge clumsy paws, but I had long since lost complete control of the ship. I saw flashes of the city below me, nothing distinct, closing in fast. Then, with a surprising CRUNCH, I came to a vicious stop. I was immediately thrown back into the far wall of the deck, cradling Royal in my massive arms. I could feel the ship break apart with the force of the crash, and I could feel my own body nearly broken by the force of being thrown twenty feet into a steel wall. Yet, I was alive, and if I sensed right, so was Royal.

I placed his body gently back onto the deck and lumbered toward the ramp, ((Hatch open.))

To my surprise, I found an extremely different atmosphere than anything I had been expecting. One of the first things I noticed, was that the purplish tint that had colored everything in the forest and the world outside the dome was gone. The world inside was full of bright vibrant colors, although nothing was colored quite the same as earth. The ground was covered in bright orange grass, with neat patches of bushes and vines that were a variety of greens and yellows. Everything seemed to blend into the colors all around it, even the buildings. Small little cottages, clearly built for a single family, littered the square that I had found myself in, there was no real organization to it, as though anyone was welcomed to build their house wherever they felt was an appropriate spot. And the trees, they were a vibrant mixture of every color I could imagine, or perhaps only a few colors, it was difficult to tell. Perhaps it was a trick of the light, but they too seemed to be blending into other colors and always changing, but never really changing. The overall view of the square was quite attractive, which said wonders for the people.

The first thing I noticed about the enormous crowd of people surrounding the ship, was that they were applauding. Stupid, giddy, applause. To me. They were short people, only about three or four feet tall. Half of their high was consumed by their overly large heads, which were extremely round and plump. Boyish, yet mousy, with large front teeth sticking out of their extended mouth and nose. Their legs stuck right out from the bottom of the head, two legs similar to a humans, but with two feet on the end of each leg. There were two arms as well. They looked like, well like cartoon arms, thin, with large hands and only four fingers. They were all a slightly yellowish flesh color, with rosy patches on the cheeks and about the face, contributing to the appearance of a large, disfigured baby.

Perhaps it was the sheer contrast of my stark white polar bear morph, it a world full of color, that made me so interesting. Then I realized what had broken The Alliance's fall, we had landed on another ship.

"Great beast!" one of the creatures wheezed in a high happy tone, "we owe you the highest debt of gratitude!"

((For what?)) I asked, unsure of how crashing down upon another ship could be considered a favor.

"The Destroyers!" another chimed in delightedly, "You have destroyed the Destroyers!"