Chapter 21 (Jake)
We decided to let the Kelbrid pick which of us they each wanted to 'switch places' with. We didn't really care either way, and we wanted to keep the Kelbrid happy. Doua and Vuhl got the first pick.
Doua picked me. This was a surprise. I'd expected her to go for Ax. After all, let's face it, human bodies are pretty pathetic. But I guess she must have realized that I was the leader of our group. Or maybe she just didn't like Andalites. I don't know.
Vuhl picked Tobias. This was not a surprise. I figured she would go for the only one of us whose natural form had wings.
Bahm and Zu were then left with Ax and Marco, respectively. Which, quite predictably, infuriated Ax.
((This is an insult!)) he exclaimed. ((How can these Kelbrid consider an Andalite body to be less desirable than a human! It is absurd! No offense meant, Prince Jake.))
I rolled my eyes, but other than that I ignored Ax's outburst. Instead, I got right down to business. I turned to face Doua, and said, "Okay, remember, you just focus on me. Focus on my DNA flowing into you."
Doua gently, almost nervously held my wrist. I felt myself getting sleepy, as was normal for any creature being acquired. I yawned, causing Doua to give me a confused look.
"Did it work?" Doua asked.
"Yes," I said when I'd snapped out of the acquiring trance. Then I reached for Doua's wrist, and focused on her. She slumped, going into the same drowsy state that I'd just come out of. Once her DNA was inside me, I let go, but I kept focusing, holding an image of the Kelbrid in my mind.
The first changes were my insides. I felt a shifting, nauseous feeling as my organs rearranged. My bones made crunching noises as they shifted, reformed, and realigned. My lungs grew bigger and stronger, making it oddly easy to breathe.
My vision changed subtly as my eyes changed into red-glass Kelbrid eyes. There was a sickening jolt as my windpipe closed for just a split second, reforming my mouth into the Kelbrid's breathing holes. My skull shifted into the polygonal shape of the Kelbrid head, and my hair disappeared.
My arms and legs grew thin, and there was a crunch as my knees reversed direction. My feet flattened like paper, and each foot pinched out into three points, which stretched out to form the Kelbrid's blade-talons. With a slight lurch, my talons bent to point down, lifting me off the ground and balancing me by the talon-tips of each foot. I tried to move the talons, but my feet were rigid. I guess they didn't need to be able to grasp or flex, since their only purpose seemed to be as weapons.
The ankles and knees were a whole different matter. I suddenly had such easy flexibility, quite unlike any other creature I'd been before. I wasn't as graceful as a tiger, but my joints felt much looser, unhindered. I could move almost without any effort at all.
Wings unfurled from my back, and my chest muscles had to bulk up to support them. There were three joints in the wing, and as I tested them out, I noticed that they moved with the same easy freedom as my arms and legs.
Finally, the last change to occur was the appearance of the Kelbrid blade-feathers all across my body, sharp triangles sprouting out of my torso, my arms, my legs, my wings.
The morph was complete. I was a Kelbrid.
The first thing I noticed were two Kelbrid males, and a female. I wanted to take the males for myself. But was I big enough to fight the other female and win? I sized her up, and she did the same to me. We were almost evenly matched, but I thought I was-
"Aaaahhh!"
The strange sound caught both of our attention. The other female Kelbrid and I immediately turned to look.
It was a strange, pink-skinned creature. Not a Kelbrid.
Not Kelbrid! Different from me.
And different meant dangerous.
I flared my wings, ready to attack. The other female Kelbrid did the same.
((Uh, Jake, Tobias, Ax? Doua, Zu, Bahm, Vuhl? You guys all there? Um, Jake and Tobias, you better calm down. You look like you're ready to attack Doua. That's Doua. She morphed you, Jake, remember?))
Strange voices. Sound, but not sound. I looked around, trying to find the source.
((I am in control also, Marco. Prince Jake, Tobias, reassert your individual consciousnesses!)) another voice said.
((Okay, I'm okay,)) a third voice said. ((Wow. Didn't expect that. So, what, we're left with Jake and our Kelbrid buddies who still need to come around? Hey, Jake! Come off it!))
Were those voices coming from the other Kelbrid? How?
A flash of movement. A blur of blue.
Another kuldir! Foreign. Strange. Threatening.
I swung my wing at it. It saw what I was doing and swung its bladed tail at me. My wing and its tail collided, but we seemed to be evenly matched in strength. The blade nicked my skin, and blood began to seep out.
((Okay, Jake and Bahm, you're both lost in the morph. You're fighting each other! Stop it, right now! Jake, your name is Jake. You are human. Bahm, your name is Bahm. You are a Kelbrid. Snap out of it, both of you!))
The voice was familiar. Where had I heard that voice before? Marco, that's Marco! another voice in my head said. But this voice came from me. From . . . something inside me. Something that called itself Jake.
Jake! My name was Jake! I was human!
((Whoa!)) I shouted, suddenly aware of who I was. ((Okay, I'm in control now. Man, sorry guys. Wow. I didn't expect the Kelbrid mind to put up this much of a fight.)) I felt fairly embarrassed for getting so caught up in the morph. Normally, sentient beings didn't have much in the way of instincts. So the Kelbrid mind had caught me by surprise.
But it was something else, too. The Kelbrid mind was . . . alien. I can't really describe what it was that made it so strange, but it was. More so than a Hork-bajir or even a Yeerk. The Kelbrid mind just didn't quite think the same way as anything else I'd ever morphed. And so, unable to understand the mind, I'd been overpowered by it.
And, it seemed, the Kelbrid were experiencing the same problem with our minds. Vuhl, who was now a red-tailed hawk, flew frantically around our small cell, lost in pure raptor panic in the enclosed space. Bahm, in Andalite form, was also looking restless. Andalites don't like closed spaces much more than hawks do. His stalk eyes whipped back and forth at hyper speed, and he pawed the ground with his hooves. Every now and then, he would take off across the cell, bolting in panic before realizing he couldn't go anywhere.
Zu and Doua, morphed reflections of Marco and I, were especially odd to see. Doua was pacing intensely, yelling something incoherent every once in a while. Now and then, she'd press her hands against her head, as if trying to get a grip on a powerful headache. But then she'd just shout and start pacing again. Zu, on the other hand, was doing what Marco had always done best. Lounging. He just lay there on the cold floor, sprawled out like he was enjoying a day at the beach, with a serene smile plastered on his face.
Marco was laughing that weird Kelbrid laugh at the bizarre scene before us. "Hup hup hup hup!" He looked at me, still laughing, and said, ((It's just like looking in a mirror, isn't it?))
Author's note: I apologize for the late update. And I must apologize even more for what I'm about to say. Which is that I'm going to have to stop doing regular updates altogether for a while. Yes, I know, you all look forward so much to the new chapter every Monday, and there will surely be much weeping and gnashing of teeth for this, but fear not, for it is temporary. I hope.
There are several reasons for me needing to take a hiatus. One: I need to get caught up on the extra updates I owe (which I will continue to pay back whenever I can). I currently owe two extra chapters, and I seem to accumulate them faster than I can pay them back, and having to keep up with regular updates doesn't help me at all. Two: the new semester is underway, and I need to focus on school first, fanfics second. Three: I have writer's block yet again, and I have a very bad feeling that this is no ordinary writer's block. You see, every year or so I get what I have come to call Epic Writer's Block, which is writer's block that lasts for a few months, rather than just days or weeks. I can tell when it's happening, because, strange as this sounds, my artistic ability seems to be inversely proportional to my writing ability. And I've been drawing again, so that's not a good sign.
So, in the interest of writing quality chapters over quantity, I've decided to take a breather. I hope no-one is too disappointed.