We were a mess.
Melissa's hair was a bit tangled and had some strands of hair going up wildly around. Her dress certainly won't be used after today either with some parts of it being ripped up by the stress the seams were put through. And her makeup wasn't any better.
I guess, I also looked the same with my clothes not being in the same condition as when I came in. My hair was a mess too. But it wasn't something that I couldn't fix with my hands.
We were heading back to the gym when I heard Jake's voice.
((GUYS. We found the entrance to the Yeerk Pool by accident and now Cassie's in trouble.)) The thought speak was faint, but it was uninterrupted. They must be somewhere in the school. But I couldn't do anything right now, I couldn't though speak and I couldn't think of an excuse to leave Melissa right now.
"I'm going to the restroom to fix myself up. I'll see you back in the gym," the god's must've been paying attention to what was going on.
I watched as Melissa turned the corner, then I checked all the classrooms until I found one unlocked. I placed a trash can to stop the door from closing when I began to morph.
The process felt a little bit faster. I guess the more you morphed, the easier it got.
((Where are you guys?)) I asked.
((There's a staircase…)) before I got to hear the rest, Rachel and James walked into the room.
It would've been a scene to behold. A Jaguar sitting on top of a nest of shredded clothes staring calmly at a girl and a boy. One of which was just about ready to piss their pants. One guess at who it was. Yep. It was James. The little shit was a coward. I just held my gaze with him as he began to tremble. Rachel was just staring at James too, calmly with a slight smirk forming on the corners of her lips. I just licked my chops to further freak James out. I don't think anyone would be able to stand a predator licking their lips after all.
"There's….a—there's a… Cheetah, in," and just like that, he dropped to the floor, face first. I waited a few seconds before proceeding to piss on his face. That woke him up and sent him barreling down the hall screaming like a madman.
((You know. I never understood why people often think Jaguars are Cheetahs. I mean, sure we're all the same colour. And our patterns look similar. But we are completely different animals. Cheetahs are smaller and are more built for speed. Jaguars, on the other hand, are much bigger and muscular. We can tear other animals to pieces and… What?)) Rachel was looking at me with a stern look.
"Jake? Remember?" she opened the door.
((Oh yeah, I forgot. Sorry.)) I apologized.
I trotted behind her as she leads the way. I didn't hear where Jake said they were, but I guess Rachel knew.
"Thanks for that though," Rachel smiled.
((No problem. I don't like James anyway. I'd think he's a controller were it not for him not jumping and shouting about Andalites the moment he saw me. So I guess he isn't the worst person.))
"Well. Bad person or not, he's a jerk. And I very much enjoyed him pissing his pants at seeing you on top of shredded clothes. I think that he thinks you murdered someone," she chuckled.
We stopped at the entrance to the janitor's closet next to Chapman's office. I noticed something strange was going on with the door as I sniffed around. There was a sour smell wafting out and I could feel a breeze coming from the crack on it. I pawed at the doorknob but my paws just slipped off. I looked at Rachel as I sat down and curled my tail around me.
((Uh, Rachel? A little help?))
"Oh yeah, sorry. I was just thinking." She jiggled the doorknob a bit before starting to ram into it.
((Thinking about what?))
"Well— We haven't exactly fought any yeerks." She hasn't, but Me, Jake, and the others have when we went to the zoo. But then again, those were just a few guards. Human, guards. So she had a point. "And I'm afraid that if we do fight them, things will get worse, and fast. We might lose our humanity. Like war vets do when they come back—" she let out a nervous laugh, "And I wanted to join the military. The irony in that."
This time I had no clue what to do to comfort her. I just sat in silence until she finally knocked the door off its hinges.
"How long do you have left in your morph?"
((About an hour and 47 minutes. I just morphed.)) I answered.
I followed the feeling of the breeze until I found its source. A small chute connecting to a slide. It must be where the Pool is. Underneath the school all this time. And we never thought to look for it here. Marco would be disappointed. But we wouldn't get to hear his remarks today as he didn't come to Prom. Poor dude.
((Found it, I'll go first.)) I rushed into the chute before Rachel could protest and started running down the thing. I'd slide down but my paws would just stick to the metal so I had to use my legs instead. It was surprisingly big enough to fit a huge running cat, so this must be one of the main entrances to fit any controller. Well, not the most obese, but there weren't any of those people in our town.
Once I reached the floor, I called for Rachel to come down. We were in a small room with a door letting in some light from somewhere. The only things separating us from the entrance were some weird looking detectors with strange symbols printed on it.
((Do you think that's a scanner for Andalites? Or morphing? Or maybe even both?)) I turned to Rachel.
"Maybe, I mean we don't even know what this thing even is. For all we know it could be an incinerator if the real detectors don't get what they want."
That was a nice thought.
((Just to be sure…)) I started to demorph and I guess Rachel noticed cause she stopped me.
"Wait. You're going to be naked so. Uh—can you turn around?" I obeyed her request. There was some noise of struggle making me want to turn around, but I resisted the temptation to look at what was going on.
The lights suddenly went out and I started to panic. I stumbled around in the darkness trying to find a way to escape this eternal darkness. For the first time, my grip over the animal mind threatened to let loose. Then there was some laughter. I forced myself to stop and gather my bearings and I slowly noticed that the lights didn't go out, instead there was something covering my face. Now it made sense why Rachel was laughing instead of panicking.
"There—Now you can—you can. You can demorph." She was struggling to breathe over her laughter.
Now I began to demorph with her permission and I underwent the familiar ghost sensations and sounds of my body rearranging itself. Once I was human again, I put on what Rachel had given me.
I turned around once I was finished dressing up in the dark and instantly turned away. Panic washed over me as I realized what was going on. Behind me, she was standing without any clothes because I was wearing them. She'd given me her dress and now she was right there standing in the dark wearing nothing other than her underwear.
"What's wrong?" she asked.
"You're—you're not wearing anything."
"What? I'm wearing a bra and some boy shorts. That's more than what I've worn at the beach!" she complained.
"That's different," I argued.
"Let's just, go on in," she sighed giving up.
"And really? A dress?" I asked as my cheeks heated up.
"Did you want to go on ass naked?"
"No, but. Ugh, this is so humiliating," we both went through the metal things and as we did they lit up in a strange colour that I've never really seen before. I can't even begin to describe it.
Rachel then began to morph on the other side and that's when I allowed myself to stare. Her skin turned from her pale pinkish colour to a greyish tone. White tusks protruded from her face in a disgusting pop! It sounded like someone sucked a candy as they pulled it out of their mouth. Her ears became leathery and lengthened until they hung like earrings. A tail formed out of skin that was sticking out of her but and surprisingly her boyshorts changed along with her while her bra just popped off.
I was sure that I would have to turn away when that happened, but the morphing had thankfully already taken care of an awkward situation. Her changes were erratic and random but once they were done an 11-foot tall elephant with sharp tusks was standing in the middle of a proto cavern.
"You got an elephant morph?!" my surprise echoed in the immediate area snagging the attention of a few controllers.
"Hey, you there! What are y— Andalite!" they screamed as they noticed Rachel.
Fuck. And they've seen me. Too late now. I grabbed one of the metal poles supporting a small plaster wall and used it to knock down a few controllers.
It must've looked ridiculous to see a boy wearing a prom dress while fighting a bunch of people with a long metal pole.
Some of the controllers finally got their acts together and pulled out their dracon beams though. I dodged several plasmablasts but some found their way towards Rachel. She roared in pain and trumpeted her trunk as she barreled into the controllers. I could see that the plasma bursts hadn't really done that much damage to Rachel, just some severe burns. Considering what I saw those things do to a metal fence, I considered her as lucky.
((Come on. I know where Jake is.)) Rachel rushed down the opening with me behind her.
"What? How!?"
((While you've practised your morphing. We've been practising our thought-speak.)) she explained.
"Don't you need to morph to practice thought speak?"
I then caught a glimpse of Jake ahead of us and Cassie. Jake was busy talking to a Controller while Cassie was at the edge of a pier struggling against several Policemen. I let Rachel take care of the situation with Jake while I ran down to help Cassie. Before the Controllers even knew what was happening, I had them out cold on the floor.
"Thanks," Cassie sighed.
A moment later the controller bothering Jake sailed over us and splashed into the murky water.
"Is that?"
"Yeah, that is the Yeerk Pool," Cassie's gaze was different than mine, for one, there wasn't any disgust over the slugs swimming around in the water. And another thing was her surprise at what I was wearing. "Isn't that?"
"Yeah, it's Rachel's dress, I'll tell you later. Have you seen Tobias?" at that moment a hawk flew by screeching carrying some keys in his talons.
((Yeah, I'm here Danny.)) he replied.
He dropped the keys into one of the cages filled with prisoners. A short while later the cavern was filled with screams and cries as people tried to escape through a different tunnel from which we came through. There were also beams of plasma that radiated light in the dim cave. These weren't like the dracon beams. They were near continuous.
"It would've been helpful to have Elfangor here," I said.
I turned to Cassie and saw that she was frozen. She was petrified. All the horror of people being killed and turned to dust by the plasma was too much for her I guess. I pulled her with me as I struggled to fight off the dizziness caused by all the movement and flashes of light. There was a tiger in the fray, it had to be Jake. It was his favourite animal.
I was about to shout out his name when I noticed that Tom was with him. That was one of the Sub-Vissers.
"Cassie, you have to morph. Morph into a wolf and get out of here," I shook her.
She finally nodded and I let go of her as I saw her changes start. People pushed and shoved past us and since her feet had started to become the wolf's, she lost her balance and fell over.
So far, the only aliens down here were the slugs in the pool. But since the riot was starting to get out of hand, the need for actual aliens grew necessary, I guess.
A large creature covered in blades from head to toe emerged from the stairway. Some people still managed to push past it but not without suffering some injuries. Another one similar to it but with a bulky head instead of a snakes came out near us. Many others also came out around us, each looking different from one another. They began to scoop as many people up and made their ways to cages to lock them up.
I'm not sure how many people were in here in the first place, but I was sure that there were several hundred. And not all of them had been released so that shrank the ones who escaped down to around a hundred or two. And these things were capturing them again.
((NO!)) Jakes scream echoed in my head. I looked up to see the tiger roar at the alien that had his brother in its bladed arms.
Cassie now fully morphed launched herself up to the alien and mauled one of its arms. Blood was seeping from her from where the blade jabbed itself in, but the alien just threw her off into Jake and I watched as the crowd swept them away.
Now full of anger myself, I jumped at one of the aliens that Rachel was attacking but after a brief struggle, I was launched myself into the Yeerk pool.
((Daniel! Cover your ears!)) Rachel ordered as I sank into the murky depths.
I remembered the conversation Visser 6 had with Chapman. Cats aren't able to be infested. And with that, I began to morph. I felt the dress be pulled off me by the slugs as they tried to force themselves past my hands which were covering my ears. The last things to change were my hands thankfully, so when they turned into paws, the Yeerks weren't able to squeeze into their desired area. But they still wouldn't let go. I sank to the bottom as they pushed against me towards the floor.
I clawed and sank my teeth into their bodies as the sour water rushed into my jaws. I was finally able to push past them into a tiny space where there was a pocket of air, but I couldn't reach the surface.
((Tobias?! Rachel!?)) I called.
((Yeah?)) Tobias was the one to reply.
((I can't get out of here. I'm trapped underneath the pool.)) I said panicking. ((Are they? Are they safe? Are they gone? Why isn't Rachel replying? Did she come out of morph?))
((No. She's safe. She escaped along with Cassie and Jake. I'm hiding in the rafters. The Hork-Bajir are scanning the area. We can't do anything right now. They closed the exit.)) He informed me solemnly.
((This was supposed to be a happy night. We graduated. We went to prom. It wasn't supposed to turn into this nightmare. What would Melissa say if I died? We're trapped here.)) If cats could cry, that's what I would be doing right now.
((I know.)) Was all that Tobias said.