Jake and the others react to the ominous event that Cassie had played witness to, and debate what to do about it until they yet again have an unexpected encounter that will derail their day.
Sharing
Day 9, Morning
"Okay," Marco said once we were gathered in the barn, making sure not to shout loud enough to agitate the animals or Cassie's parents. "I know I said that Tobias should take his time, but I think he's taking too long! We've been doing what for how long? Nothing?"
"They say that war is 10% fear, 90% boredom," I pointed out.
"Obviously," Marco acridly replied, smacking the haybale he was standing next to. "My problem is that this boredom makes me want to scoop my eyes out with spoons and put them on Hannibal Lector's sundae! You can do stuff like morph and things, what am I supposed to do? That same nothing I've been doing!"
"Tobias is just two days late," I explained. "His new letter said that he was off to gather help, but that he's getting into contact with a little more help than anticipated."
"Well, what about giving us help? Huh? What in the world is happening to Cassie?" Marco mentioned the girl, who was taking deep breaths, sitting in the shade, eyes closed, concentrated. "Nobody just gets that worn out just from the short walk from that house to this barn. Since when did Cassie ever get a flu this off and on? And how do we know it's not morphing sickness, and that you have it to some extent as well?"
"It probably is," Rachel agreed. "I stopped feeling nauseas once I stopped morphing, I think Jake and I got ill because we absorbed so much meat. You know how when you eat something super sugary like a donut or a cake after not eating anything else all day, and you feels sick because of it? I think it's something like that, we stretched the morphing power to its limits."
"Well, that doesn't explain Cassie!" Marco motioned. "She hasn't been singing our theme song since the trip to the Zoo!"
"Well what would you do?" Rachel challenged.
"I say we do something, we investigate The Sharing," Marco said. "That sort of thing can't be just left alone, especially not after what I heard."
((Not yet,)) a voice spoke up in our heads spooking us all out of our skin. It sounded somewhat distorted, as if the person was speaking while wearing a breathing mask.
"Who's there?" I demanded, inching closer to Cassie instinctively. I looked everywhere, the cages, tool rack, the haybales, the rafters, the doors, the stables. There was no sign of the voice's origin.
My question was soon answered when I heard a fluttering noise, I looked up and saw a hawk land in the rafters, one with ruddy red tail feathers.
((That's a good first step, but not yet,)) the newcomer spoke up. ((There are other matters to take care of first.))
My eyes widened when I recognized...
"Tobias...?" I asked.
((Yes, it's me,)) the bird of prey answered, its fierce gaze piercing us all before fluttering down to the barn floor.
We all flinched when he promptly started demorphing.
"Ah, Tobias, your...clothes..." I tried to warn, however, the morphing process had completed in only a few seconds. Tobias stretched his arms and legs, bending his body as if doing a yoga routine, but not quite. I noticed that he came out of the morph fully clothed, as a matter of fact he was wearing the exact same black and very dark green attire that I saw him in at the ghost town.
His wary and sharp brown eyes scanned the surroundings from under the unruly dirty blond nest on his head, his hands were holding a black satchel that was hiding in plain sight at his waist.
"How are you doing?" Cassie asked.
"I should probably ask the same of you," Tobias said, his hands rifling through his bag even as his eyes looked at Cassie suspiciously. "I'm fine, by the way."
"It's just a little cold," Cassie dismissed, smiling. "I'm already feeling better than I was. Your little friend scared me half to death the other day!"
"It's the other thing that scared you the rest of the way to death I'm more concerned about," Tobias said, pulling out a strange device with a bunch of tubes attached to a small blue-white marble. "On this bug you've caught, I want to make sure it's nothing serious, so I'll need to take samples in order to see what's going wrong."
"Would you need a cup of her pee?" Rachel asked snidely, half-joking.
"Rachel!" I scolded.
"...That would be helpful too..." Tobias mumbled.
"Since when did you become a doctor?" I asked.
"My Mom knew a great bit about healing, after she married Dad she got knowhow on alien medicine. I can treat both...Andalites and Humans expertly, I saved my Dad's life before..." Tobias trailed off.
"Did you get through it?" Cassie asked.
"Yes," Tobias quietly responded, shaking his head in tiny nods, eyes closed. "Yes, I have mourned. There was nothing anyone could've done."
"So, I have a few questions," Marco started up, making a point to gently sit down on one of the haybales high up the pile so he was looking down on his old friend.
"Do you wish to take the power?" Tobias asked tentatively, his neutral expression betrayed by his eyes, which were genuinely curious while holding a hint of distrust.
Can't blame him, after how our last meeting went.
"Not yet, first up, I need to know for sure, what on Earth is going on with Cassie, Rachel, and Jake? They can morph, but when are their other powers supposed to kick in?"
At that point Marco relayed the entire story of what happened at the Windmills, during which Tobias collected his samples from Cassie's body, and had moved onto mine.
"If you only have the morphing then it's just as I've feared, something's wrong," Tobias asked, surprised and slightly scared. He looked around at us in worry. "Your internal clocks should've kicked in by now, and your compasses should be on the way, Cassie for sure should be just now phasing into her superior pain tolerance!"
"And that isn't normal?" Marco asked rhetorically as Tobias swabbed my gums. "Okay. Can it be fixed?"
"Once I know what's happening, I'm pretty sure we can take preventative measures to ensure this doesn't happen again," Tobiass hurriedly explained. "I'm pretty concerned about that stalker creature, and this robot character you described. You're saying it's responsible for erasing the wind turbines?"
"The windmills are gone?" I asked, surprised.
"The only trace of them left are their bases, that's all I saw flying in," Tobias explained.
"Oh, wow," Rachel whispered. "There's something freaky about that."
"You said you were getting help," Marco asked. "What kind of help did you mean? I don't think you contacted ETCS did you?"
"No, I've assembled a collection of Human descendants of Andalites, like myself, they learned various skills from their alien parents which will make our struggle a lot easier than it would've been. For one, you're not going to be saving the world dressed for skinny dipping. You'll get your own morphing clothes."
"Oh thank God," I whispered.
"Yes," Marco said suddenly. Looking straight at Tobias, who turned to look at him in response.
"The answer to your question is yes, I'll take the power, as I should've done a week ago," Marco concluded.
"Are you absolutely sure?" Tobias asked tentatively.
"I've had around nine days to just watch these idiots," he jerked his thumb our direction. "Have the time of their lives, leaving me to hang dry like some kind of new kid who drools everywhere. I know what I'm going to be a part of won't be fun, but that's not a pleasant feeling either."
"Okay," Tobias said, almost grimacing, he put the tool to collect the samples down, put his hand into his bag and got the cube out. The blue edges, the chromy interior covered with green geometric etchings. Only this time, the glowing markings were yellow.
"Hey, what's with the morphing cube?" Rachel asked, leaning down to squint at it, suspiciously. "It didn't glow that color before!"
"It's an indication of how much power it has left," Tobias clarified. "It can only be used so many times before its energy runs out, while I was gathering allies, I used the cube on them, the last person who had this used on them drained a fraction of the entire battery to-"
"So, the settings can be changed?" Marco accused.
"No! The morphing cube was designed to help mankind fight off hostile aliens. The Cube is not only a human morphing machine, it's also designed to function as a human repair machine. And repair this thing did...extensively, I assure you Marco, it wasn't used to repair something so easy as cancer. I can gaurantee it'll fix our friends if needed after I find out what's wrong."
Marco just nodded and walked forward, hand stretched in front of him. No questions, no judgment, no hesitation, but no hurry either, he walked slowly to Tobias and his dirty blond head. The animals were silent ever since Tobias returned to his human form, looming taller than most of us, maybe even Rachel, he would be a really scary person to be around if he wanted to be.
So different from the boy we played our stupid games with five years ago, now he held The Cube in his own hand, outstretched.
Marco gently reached forward and put his hand on the top of The Cube, the barn was better lit than the little house in that ghost town, I could see the metallic blue paste rise and grab onto Marco's fingers, his arm twitched once, and stayed in place. Suddenly, I was taken back to the Ghost Town, where Elfangor laid down on the table, bloodied, barely alive when we tentatively took this unbelievable power, and the terrible mission that came with it. Then the blue substance that enveloped Marco's hand receded back into The Cube's face, and he clenched and unclenched his fingers, smiling with satisfaction.
"It is done," Tobias gently announced.
It is done.
"Welcome to the team," Rachel said, putting her hand on my best friend's shoulder. "It was getting a bit stale with just the three of us!"
"He'll have to wait a short time until he can start morphing," Tobias said. "Right when the numbness in his arm wears off, in the meantime, you can ask me whatever questions you want."
Marco smiled, promptly taking a small notebook out of his pocket. "You're gonna eat those words."
Oh no!
Then the tiny thing was promptly dropped into the floor.
"Nuts!" Marco cursed, leaning down to pick it up...with the hand he used to get the morphing tech. He promptly dropped it again right after grabbing it with his numbed fingers. He got it the third time.
"Well, any questions that don't pertain to the 'greater scope,' since I will be taking you to see the other half of the team, I think we should confine our time here to asking more personal questions."
"Why did you leave?" I asked.
Tobias looked at me, his mouth opened before closing, he blinked a few times, looked down and sighed.
"Of course that's the first one you ask," Tobias remarked whistfully and bitterly. "Remember the last time you played with me?"
"Yeah, we were doing something called Super Trucks," I commented.
"Don't remember what it was about, but from what I could gather, it was unrealistically funny," Marco said, smiling.
"Well, you don't remember because you had your memory wiped, because literally seconds after we had gone inside, I had shut the door. But my pinky finger got caught in that little socket where the lock went on the door, and when I pushed the door shut, I moved it hard enough that, 'pop!' My pinky was gone!"
"Ooooh," Cassie and Rachel winced in sympathy, though my cousin was more vocal about it.
"Oh no," I said.
"Well, clearly it was reattached," Marco commented. "But why did that make you leave?"
"Ah, you see, as that was an injury that had happened in plain sight, Mom couldn't just reattach my finger discreetly and be done with it," Tobias explained, going into a part of the story that clearly upset him. "If she ever admitted me to a hospital, then they would've taken a blood sample, and run a DNA test, get a good look at my...Andalite genomes and jot that down on their records. And if the hospital ever decided to report those findings for whatever reason, that would've caused major issues for all of us. So...Mom d-wiped your memories and...we left. Couldn't even say goodbye."
"That sucks," Marco said, putting his hand on Tobias shoulder for sympathy. He looked up at my smiling best friend. "But now we can make up for lost time."
"Yes, we can..." Tobias agreed. "Is there anything else?"
"Where did you go exactly, after you left?" Rachel asked.
"Just about everywhere," Tobias admitted. "We fought the invasions wherever they existed, or were trying to exist, we went to Alaska, I spent a short while in Iran, Cambodia, Nigeria, Japan, Argentina, Russia was very favorable for us to lose tails in due to its size and anti-alien sentiments...Taiwan was the most challenging and safest area we've ever operated in."
Marco reclined against the stack of haybales he was sitting on.
"Did the Andalites ever encounter ETCS?"
Tobias blinked slowly, his eyes clouded, then looked down, trying to think.
"...No. No we haven't ever made contact with the ETCS, we always did our best to stay hidden, and that organization has a history of causing issues needlessly, I'll leave it there. If you want to know more, ask the others."
"So, which aliens gave you the most problems, other than the mercenaries-" I started.
"Mercora..." Tobias gently corrected.
"And them," Cassie softly let out, at first we wondered what she was talking about. But when we realized she was talking about the enemy, the warmth left the sunlight, and Marco's skin looked a shade paler.
"They were all bad in their own ways," Tobias confessed, scratching his arms gently. "The Mashtimee were the only ones I never had an encounter with, they took over Portugal, but never bothered trying to increase their territory further, only exchanging hostages and prisoners for resources, they never seemed interested in conquest and therefore cause the least amount of problems."
"I wish I could say the same for the others, the Skrit-Na hold Iran's southern Coast hostage, they try raiding places as far as Argentina and South Africa, looking for loot. The Korla as you know, are ripping South America a new one, the damage would be even worse if they weren't so busy going at it with The Inner Worlders," Tobias shook his head. "Those multi-eyed buzards just go so nuts, had to put a stop to their-"
"Alright, that's enough," I said.
"Everyone knows what the aliens are doing."
"What was that Eyelizard you had that delivered mail to me and played bodyguard?" Cassie asked. "And where is he, now?"
"Eyelizard? That's not what they're actually called, but it's an apt name. That critter as of current is helping with renovations at the base, I'll explain his existence when we get there."
"What is he, then?" I asked. "And where'd he come from?"
Tobias raised a finger, "Actually, he's a...uh, he's an...I...actually I don't know. Dad came back with him one night, he's sort of like a living camera?"
"How could you not know what his kind is? He has a stamp for a tongue, right? You could just ask him and he'd print it out on a napkin! He already knows how to type in English!" Rachel berated.
Tobias was still for a good few seconds, "Wait, he types in English?"
"So, what are these friends like?" Marco asked.
"Well, they're human descendants of the Andalites, like me," Tobias admitted, scratching the back of his head. "They were actually on a list Dad kept on his person, should we ever get the morphing tech back."
"You lost the morphing tech?!"
"I'll explain what went down when we get to the base!"
We talked a little bit more after that, but soon after Marco's arm stopped tingling. And soon enough he was a particularly bald fox in a stable we had altered for testing our morphs.
"So, what solution do you have for morphing large animals?" I asked.
"Morphing large animals? What's the problem with that?" Tobias turned around to ask us, a stack of buckets behind him.
"When we morph the large animals, like bears, tigers, and other creatures, how do you wake the morpher up without...you know, getting mauled?"
"Getting mauled?" Tobias asked. "That's easy, just keep your distance."
"...Tobias, screaming at a tiger is not going to help when the only thing you have in between it and you is trees!" I exasperatedly explained.
"Who's saying you have to stay on the ground?"
"Branch hopping won't help when trying to get away from a grizzly, or elephant either!" Rachel added in.
"Branch hopping...?" Tobias bewilderedly repeated. Then he blinked and a look of understanding lit up his eyes.
"Oh, I see now. You're not using thought bombing?"
"Thought bombing?" Cassie took her turn to repeat in confusion as the horse in front of her chuffed.
"As I suspected, of course you'd think there's an issue. It never occured to you that you could scream at it using thought speech, didn't it?"
All of a sudden, I felt very stupid. Rachel groaned and face palmed while Cassie awkwardly looked away, scratching the back of her head. Here I was, drawing plans to rig a collection of car alarms to stress an elephant into waking up when we could've just screamed at it as a bunch of birds flying where the morph can't get us.
"And for the record, thought bombing is only necessary for those of us who have morphed larger animals," Tobias confessed, holding a finger up.
((Hey you guys,)) Marco spoke up. ((I'm ready.))
Soon afterward we were soaring above the treetops as birds of prey, distanced a good distance from each other so as to make sure they won't realize we weren't actual birds of prey. Tobias was a good distance in front of us, leading the way, our clothes were in his bag, which blended in surprisingly well with the feathers of a red tailed hawk.
((Ah ha ha ha ha ha!)) Marco crowed. ((It's amazing!))
((I know, right?)) Rachel said.
((Try to catch a thermal!)) Cassie pointed out. ((It feels awesome! Just keepa lookout for pillars of shimmering air!))
((Are we headed to the mountains?)) I asked. We were already at the foothills, flying over a canyon a hundred feet deep.
((Yep,)) Tobias confirmed. ((There's a little bunker up there, it still needs a little work done on it, but the others are expecting you.))
((A bunker? Made by who?)) Rachel questioned.
((I know who, The Debunkers!)) Marco piped up, provoking a good chuckle from us.
((Maybe they're here to tell everybody the truth about area 51!)) I added in.
((It's where they teach the presidents of the United States how to eat using telepathy, so that everybody thinks they're perfect!)) Rachel piped up.
((I know, uh, uh, it's where they watch teletubbies!)) Cassie. ((And play with My Little Pony and Transformers dolls in their time off!))
((Ba ha ha ha! What?)) I responded.
((Ah, I love you guys!)) Marco said. ((That one takes the cake!))
((Speaking of cake, it's time to eat it, too, we're here,)) Tobias announced. We all turned to look at him in front of us, he folded his wings and dove below the tree line, pulling his wings out before disappearing. We followed, and by the time we saw him, Tobias was already demorphed and fully dressed. His black loafers were the only part of his attire that he was still putting on.
((Holy crap, that's fast!)) Rachel exclaimed.
((Yeah, transforming swiftly will be vital, especially if we're going to operate in situations where we may be witnessed, or other extreme situations, such as falling at terminal velocity...)) Tobias said as Marco landed first and began demorphing.
Then I came next, and then Cassie, and then lastly, Rachel landed and we returned to our human bodies. My peregrine falcon plumage disappeared in favor of my naked pink skin, my weak talons traded in favor of the long human pads resting on the pine needles, my knees reversed and my eyes returned to0 normal, my beak separated into my lips and nose, and soon enough I was a human.
But Marco was the last one to change back, even Rachel finished before he did, Tobias was looking our way, our hands instinctively moved to cover ourselves until Tobias threw bundles at us, our clothes.
"Oooh," Marco said, falling to his hands on the ground, panting. "Oh man, that just...gah, that took way too much out of me!"
"Ah, first demorphings are a bit rougher than they look on the outside, Marco," Cassie explained, putting her shortalls on.
"Indeed," Tobias said, holding up the cannister containing the samples he gathered from us. "And once I figure out what's going wrong, it won't get any harder."
"Hold up," Marco said, looking up. "I thought you already analyzed it!"
"The equipment to give it a super detailed analysis is back in the base, I merely took the samples, if the results haven't showed up by now, they will once this device is connected to the bigger machine."
Tobias threw Marco's bundle of clothes at him before walking away. They landed on his naked back, which elicited a groan from him as he began moving to dress himself.
"It's this way," he said, walking up the incline in front of us with a nearly unreal confidence, already on his way while we were trying to finish getting dressed. Soon enough we caught up with Tobias and continued our trek up hill for a few minutes.
"So, what sort of friends, did you get?" Marco asked, hopping towards us, his shirt resting on his shoulders, trying to put his other shoe on. Still out of breath as the incline flattened out into another patch of forest.
"I think they'd prefer to answer that themselves," Tobias walked up to a boulder in front of him and placed his hand on it. When Tobias' palm left the rock a glowing green print of his hand was left behind, the light then disappeared suddenly. Tobias walked forward confidently, and without flinching phased into the boulder.
"Huh?" Rachel asked.
"A hologram!" Marco declared as Cassie sneezed.
Of course, this must be the entrance, there were a lot of tall trees surrounding us, with bushes concealing the little clearing from view on the lower angle. This is the perfect place for a secret door!
"Was this just waiting here the entire time?" Cassie wondered.
All of a sudden, Tobias' dirty blond head poked out of the giant boulder.
"What are you waiting for? I'd prefer not to have to open this door again!"
At that we walked straight into the rock, with nothing else to do we phased through the stone like it was nothing. Cassie first, then Marco, Rachel and lastly I myself followed, and all of a sudden everything was dark and distorted like a shadowy watercolor painting.
"This is so cool! Imagine what hosting a party here would be like!" Marco marvelled at our surroundings, and unable to help myself, I stopped and did the same, staring at the mosaic that constantly shifted like a lava lamp made with dark amoebas created as if from shadow and dark energy. A dozen or so steps away and my friends ahead of me began disappearing.
I snapped out of my trance and quickly walked forward to join them, I caught up just as Rachel disappeared. And just like that I walked forward and found myself in a large dark room, the room in front of us was dominated by barricades and overhanging balconies, the floor was pitch black, and the poor lighting didn't help with visibility. Three figures stood silhoutted in front of us, side by side, another dropped down from a balcony above and turned to face us with his friends, the shorter one stepped aside very unsteadily. We were now inside the base proper.
This base was clearly not built by human hands...
"Where are the lights in this place, man?" Marco said, when I looked he was very visibly squinting to see the people in front of him. "It's like Pitch Black in here!"
"So this is the other half of the team," A somewhat tall lady remarked.
"Sorry for the darkness," the one who had just jumped down said. "The dim lights are a defensive measure.
"We're not actually in the base," the smallest one spoke out, revealing himself to be a teenager.
"Come on inside," Tobias said, motioning us forward before walking past the other group. "We can iget to introductions there."
With nothing else to do, we followed Tobias, we looked around, and in the beams of light shining down, I could swear I saw a few scorch marks. Past the barricades, which were tall, very thick, and came in eight rows, there was what looked like a wall with no features, no doors, no windows, absolutely nothing. But just like outside, I figured that not everything was as it appeared. The shortest one among the group put his hand on the face of the stone wall for a few seconds, and just like on the boulder when he stopped touching it a glowing green imprint was left on the wall, but then he took a few steps back and put his hand against the floor, and only then did the area in front of us change.
The boy backed away from the floor as bars of it slid away, making the section of floor in front of us look like some sort of strange stone alien grate. Then the dark bars in front of us collapsed in an orderly manner, like a row of dominoes falling onto eachother slowly.
"Ooh, spooky staircase of doom!" Marco regarded as he jumped back to his feet.
"What is this place?" Rachel asked as she hopped down back onto the floor, brushing off her pink dress when she realized she had gotten a large amount of dust and debris on it by sitting on top of the barricade.
"A little fort," Tobias explained as we started going down the stairs. "It's been abandoned for quite some time, but it still has some equipment, and it'll serve really well as our base of operations."
"Built by the Andalites, right?" I asked.
"Eh, no."
"So it was the Mercora who made this place?" Cassie asked.
"...Not them either, I'll explain when we get in," Tobias responded.
Soon enough we came to the end of the staircase and this room was far better lit than the last one, even still it was surprisingly cold. What was most peculiar was that this one highlighted on the door a giant depiction of a strange bird/fairy creature, made of a multitude of a rainbow of lines that never touched eachother or interesected. The floor was able to be seen in more detail as well, there were rectangular squares the size of small cars equally space throughout the room, far lighter than the black, almost blue floor. Rachel walked up to one and tapped her foot down on it, a thudding noise sounded out, confirming that they were indeed metal.
"What's that?" I asked about the figure depicted on the panel that I could only assume was the door.
"Let me guess, 'I'll explain when we get in?'" Marco sardonically remarked to Tobias and the teenage boy he came with, who walked up to the giant stone portrait.
"He's The Ellemist," the man explained quietly, now that we were in a properly lit room I could see his features, his nose looked hawkish, and his hair was a messy ruffly black nest on his head. He was tall and lean, with a pair of arms that I was willing to bet were deceptively strong, and his short goatee added to that look. His eyes were brown, or black? His face was still not lit up enough for me to be able to tell, but he had what Marco would call a; 'resting murder face.'
"The deity that both our alien ancestors, and the builders of this place worshipped," the lady explained. Her hair was equally as black as the man's, far smoother and taken care of, but only a little bit longer, I wasn't sure how old she was, and her button nose, freckles, and red bandana certainly helped.
"Name's Alice, by the way," she extended her hand to us.
"Nice to meet you," I took her hand first and shaked it.
"Glad we don't need to ask for an adult," Marco joked as he took hers next.
"You look cute," Rachel complimented.
"Thanks!" Alice cheerfully took Rachel's hand, Cassie backed away.
"Ah, thank you, but I'm still a little sick."
"I don't think you have the kind of bug that's liable to spread," Alice explained, hand still extended. Cassie took it and shook it.
Just as Alice finished shaking Cassie's hand, the giant stone slab depicting the figure began rising, confirming my suspicion that it was a door. Two pairs of lights flashed up on either side of the room in dark corners where I couldn't see them before, and all of a sudden I realized that there were two giant statues on either side o0f us. They were vaguely humanoid in design but with a dog's head, both were taller than a house, and just as wide at the shoulders as Rachel's S.U.V. Their bellies were very large, far wider than the rest of their body, making them look like a comically fat puppies, all veneer of harmlessness evaporated when we noticed that they carried gigantic scythes. The lights that lit up came from the eyes of those dog-headed statues...and now I suspect that they're not just statues.
I ignored them in favor of following Tobias and the others into the doorway.
And when we entered the slab lowered, this time we had entered the base proper.
The room wasn't as well illumianted as the last entrance, but it wasn't as dark as the first chamber either, but it was far more massive than both. There were multiple rows of circular barricades surrounding the entrance, immediately in front of us there was a massive column the size of a redwood tree that looked like it was carved from the mountain itself. At the walls to either of our side there were balconies with overhanging roofs, at either side of the pillar there were two wide paths circling around it, leading deeper into the base.
"Whoah," Rachel said, and her voice echoed throughout the cavern.
"A little bunker my behind!" Marco exclaimed.
"This place is huge!" Cassie remarked.
"This place is practically a city!"
"Yeah, it was built to hold a lot of people...and keep even more out," The man remarked. We all turned to the right and that's when I noticed that the pathways were actually roads, and the roads themselves diverted and seemingly ran into featureless granite walls, which themselves were populated by large archways carved into more of the flat featureless walls, like someone marked the place to carve doorways but then gave up. One of the roads diverted to the right and ran up a ramp that led to multiple terraces above the level we were walking on.
"In here," Tobias said. I turned to see him standing right next to the pillar at the entrance. "I think one of you guys should try opening the door here."
"What if it won't work?" Cassie asked.
"If you can acquire a living thing's DNA, then you'll be able to open the door to the snack cabinets, ha ha ha!" the elderly woman said, laughing, holding on a cane, but by no means actually needing to use it. Her pale features accentuated by the dim lighting in here.
Marco, the closest one to the gigantic column, walked forward and put his hand on it.
"Alright, can you feel anything different?" Tobias asked.
"No, not really,' he said.
"Focus, do the same thing you would do when acquiring an animal, and slide your hand around until you feel a connection," Tobias advised.
Marco then slid his hand around, moving them gently for a few moments.
"Found it!" He exclaimed. "What next?"
"Just keep your hand there until it sends you the signal."
Marco's hand remained on the giant column's surface for a few seconds longer before he yanked it back, and sure enough the glowing mark of his hand was on the surface, and faded as a doorway opened up. We promtply walked through.
"How much longer do we have to walk?" I asked.
"Not long, we're here," Tobias said, and then the room in front of us lit up, and it was a lounge of sorts, a circular room with very old looking furniture, and monitors dominated the walls as well as chairs and computers, alien computers. A wide and circular table made of very dark wood was in the center of the chairs, surrounded.
"So, I have some things to say to you," Tobias said, looking at the rest of his arrivals as we all sat down at the round table...heh. "First off introductions."
"This is Ellen King," Tobias motioned to the elderly lady, who rested on a chair in the center of the room. "Who is enormously skilled at operating a specific set of alien technology, she is the one who will be making all of our morphing clothing."
"And how do you plan on doing that, exactly?" I asked.
"Now that Ben's made sure the power won't go out, the special loom that I can use to make clothing should work fine. First up, I'll need your underwear."
We only gave her an awkward silence, until the man broke it.
"She only needs it to replicate your clothes, these aren't fashion accessories, they're supposed to be replications of your current selection of clothing!"
"Alice Priester," Tobias continued explaining, diverting the topic. "Who already introduced herself. A superior scout, and is wonderfully adept at handling information on top of that."
"Harry Sorell," Tobias motioned to the teen, who honestly looked like crap, shaved bald, pale expression, and a little shaky on the legs, nevertheless he waved cordially. "He's inexperienced but can do just about anything."
"Pleased to meet you," Harry said enthusiastically, extending his hand to me, I shook it. "It would be my pleasure to fight alongside you!"
"No offence to him, but can this guy even fight?" Rachel asked. "He looks like he's a bout to drop dead any second..."
"I may be a bit shaky, but I'm not in the shadow of death anymore. I'll only get stronger from here on out," Harry protested.
"And Benjaman Salad," Tobias motioned to the black haired man.
"Ah ha ha ha ha ha!" Marco burst out in laughter, holding his gut.
"Do you find names funny?" Ben asked in annoyance.
"Ah, no, I don't, but that really caught me off guard."
"Who is mechanically gifted, he'll be making our equipment, and soon enough, weapons and armor."
"Once I get the forge up and running," Ben remarked, hands crossed over his chest.
I looked over at everyone Tobias had assembled
"But who built this place?" I asked.
Tobias friends went silent, what cordiality was in the room vanished.
"Well, that's the thing, you were right, my Dad was lying," Tobias admitted. "Earth wasn't a sanctuary spot for the Andalites, it was used that way, but that's not the primary reason they're here."
Figures.
"Long before civilization had become a thought for the Andalites," Alice began. "A race known as the Pemalites were the dominant species of the galaxy, they had no desire for power, nor acted solely for their own benefit. They spread life throughout the universe, whether by terraforming planets and seeding them with microorganisms or pre-existing creatures, or giving a few select animal species alterations that uplifted them into sapient species, like you or me. They often even spread their religion to the natives of the world they visited, if they wished to partake in it, which is why the Andalites worshipped The Ellemist as a god as well as they did."
"Oh, great, so they forced conversion to their religion on the natives," Rachel accused.
"No, the worshippers of the Ellemist or not common throughout the universe, it exists on multiple planets other than the ones the Andalites inhabit, but nowhere close to the number of sentient races had ever converted for that to have ever been the case!" Ben countered, Ellen put her hand on his shoulder and gave him a gentle look before continuing.
"They spread life, and with it sowed peace wherever they went to the best of their ability, their ascendancy was assured by a closely managed and cared for network of alliances that saw mutual benefit for all participants, for the most part they left their alien neighbors alone except for trade and times of need. But The Pemalites were not pacifistic, in accordance to the religious mandate they followed, the Pemalites created life, and were also called to defend it, when the situation calls for it by war," Ellen explained.
"But everything went wrong when The Howlers attacked," Ben spoke. "Millions of years ago, The Howlers exploded onto the scene, forcing everyone they could into joining their crusade of death, and killing everything else. The Pemalites challenged the Howlers and did battle with them, in a conflict that encompassed hundreds of thousands of planets for millions of years, billions of lives fought and died for the fate of countless more. If the Pemalites lost, it would've meant the end of everything. It was truly apocalyptic, the violence of the conflict was so incredible that entire solar systems were vaporized, the galaxy was turned into a violent hellscape of all-consuming desperation wherever the war went. All just for the sake of denying the Howler's belief that they alone held the right to dictate who lived and who died."
"But at the same time, The Pemalites repaired what damage they could after the nomadic abominations killed and killed and killed and moved on to find more things to kill," Tobias clarified. "The Pemalites chased the Howlers for millions of years, trying to contain them, and finally, they eradicated them...however, nobody truly won that victory. The Pemalite's homeworld had been destroyed in the closing years of the war, and even theough The Howlers were vanquished, both species withered away and died, their only legacy the ruins they left behind."
"Which funnily enough, for whatever reason, they left truckloads of it here on Earth," Harry explained. "Including this place."
"The Pemalite's technology was more advanced than literally everything anybody else has," Ellen clarified. "Every alien race that knew the Pemalites actually existed wants to acquire their relics, and so the galaxy was in a constant mad-dash for the few scraps that remained."
My eyes widened. "And if so much of it is on Earth, then that explains why so many aliens are here! They're treasure hunters!"
Tobias nodded and snapped his fingers, "Exactly. The galaxy was in a pretty chaotic state until the Andalites brought things to order, and then in a way, replicated the system the Pemalites used to ensure peace, a carefully maintained network of alliances where all benefitted from participation, with...the Andalites at their head...of course sharing technology beyond a certain threshold of sophistication between all member states was forbidden, no exceptions. And when we...they, realized how much Pemalite tech this world had, we hid Earth from all alien sensor technology, and established a multitude of secret outposts to hide, contain, and study the relics of The Pemalites."
"Well, so much for the 'all technolgoy sharing being prohibited without exceptions,'" Marco pointed out, eyes narrowed with suspicion.
"It...okay, there are some exceptions in that, including how only Andalites and a few other trusted factions and individuals were permitted to handle Pemalite relics. But they're like nothing that's ever existed, take Eyelizard for example-"
At that mention, the aforementioned critter began scurrying out from one of the cozier looking chairs that wer empty, and looked at us with its strange bulbous eyes, so much like a dragonfly's.
"A perfect fusion of technology and biology, a living machine, or a machine made from biological components, he's made of gears and pistons as well as sinew, bones, and skin, he runs on both blood and circuitry."
"How do you know all this?" I asked. "How do you know the story of The Pemalites?"
"The Last Recorder," Tobias explained. "A few decades ago, The Last Recorder was discovered, a repository of all of the ancient knowledge of The Pemalites, it is a massive archive that size of a spaceship, and upon entry that was when we found their historical records at last. Gleaning anything from Pemalite technology isn't easy, it's actually incredibly difficult, but by virtue of the amount of material we have to work here, Earth is a gold mine...and The Last Recorder has all of the knowledge of The Pemalites."
"Including the location of all the relics on Earth!" Rachel realized.
Tobias nodded.
"The vast majority of the relics are too well hidden for most of the aliens to find them through anything but luck, but they're still looking," Emma said. "Thank The Ellemist none of them know to start looking for The Last Recorder, if they ever find it then we would need tens of thousands of people to move the relics to safety before the coming gold rush."
"So, we could find out what The Controllers are with it, too, and their weaknesses, right?" Marco asked. "So, where is the thing? Is it out in back? Hidden deeper down?"
"Uh..." Tobias began, taking a look at Alice.
"We don't know it is," Alice confessed, shrugging her shoulders.
"Its location was kept a secret by all but the highest ranked Andalite leaders on the planet," Ben said. "Nobody knows where it is except..."
"Elfangor..." I finished.
Tobias nodded gently, pulling out a piece of paper, a sticky note, really, out of his pocket and putting it on the table in front of us, "exactly, but before he died he gave us part of the coordinates."
40, 18'29.2 North 160 (?) West, the sticky note said.
"Which places it most likely somewhere on the bottom of The Pacific Ocean."
"What about my cold?" Cassie asked.
Tobias put the medical device on the table he used to sample us all and activated it, examing a tiny holographic screen that had popped up.
"Okay, let's see what's going wrong-" Tobias eyes scanned the display until they widened as he took it the results.
"Hello."
"What is it? What did you find?" I asked.
"That's Cassie's results, let me look at everyone else's too," Tobias said, tapping a button, causing the screen to flash and the alien symbols to change.
"What in the name of...Marco, also?" Tobias said in quiet outrage.
So, we all have it. Swell.
"I have it, too?" Marco sarcastically remarked. "Time of my life."
"What's going on?" Rachel asked.
Tobias looke d at us all in concern, his expression grave.
Oh no.
"The morphing technology is functioning as it's meant to, there's nothing wrong there."
"Than why are we sick?" Cassie asked.
"You're all being poisoned with anti-morph serum!"
You're all being poisoned with anti-morph serum! Tobias' diagnosis repeated in my head.
The blood drained from my face, and all of Tobias' guests blinked in surprise.
"Oh Clarjiatz," Ben said what was most likely an alien swear as Cassie started muttering.
"But...how? Why are we being poisoned?" Rachel asked. "Who could possibly be doing this?"
...they know, how do they know about us? That means we have to-" Cassie started panicking before Tobias put a hand on her shoulder.
"Cassie. Calm down," Tobias said authoritatively, but gently.
He looked at me as he retracted his arm and I nodded my thanks.
"I have my suspicions as to where you're being poisoned at, but in order to confirm it I'm going to have to examine your houses, and we'll need to figure out an excuse for me to be there...in my human form."
"So what can we do about it now?" I asked. "And what about this robot? And that freak that tried to stalk Cassie?"
"We have nothing on the robot, as for that thing that tried to attack Cassie...Eyelizard!" Tobias called his creature. And it jumped onto the table and scurried towards him, leaping into his outrstretched hand.
Tobias then pressed his finger in between its eyes, and a few beams of lights shot out, everyone turned to face them, Alice in particular held the deadliest, most hostile glare.
The hologram came in as a bunch of blurry squares, shifting acrosss the projected screen. They stopped, and then shook as if their resolution was clearing up.
But then they became blurry again.
"That's not supposed to happen," Ben said.
Alice squinted and clsoed her hands into fists.
Tobias stopped and stared at the hologram in confusion. "I'll try again."
The blurred squares then jittered again before ending up in a different arrangement.
Then again.
"It's useless," Alice concluded. "The images aren't forming. They'll never form because whatever tried to attack Cassie was protected by some sort of disruptive field!"
"Ah," Ellen slumped into her chair and shook her head in disappointment.
"Well, what can we do?" I asked.
Tobias smiled as he brought the cube out.
"It's time for you to get treated."
We all walked out of the shadowy place and into the grie where the entrance to the base was located, the team was fully assembled, me, Cassie, Marco, Rachel, Tobias, Ben, Alice, and Harry all stood in the sunlight. And I felt better in a way I didn't realize I was needing.
Tobias' last words came back to me.
"Touching the cube again will undo the effects," Tobias reassured me as Cassie's hand left the Cube's surface for a second time, and I waited for Rachel to go, before she motioned to me to take it first. The tingle rushed up my arm once more as the paste oozed up and enveloped my fingers.
"But its power is limited, if we want you to fully come into your powers as soon as possible, we need to find out where this poison is coming from, and stop it. I think someone is tainting the water supply."
But what do we do next?" I asked.
"Why not what we were going to do before bird-boy showed up?" Marco suggested. "We take a sneak-peek at The Sharing!"
"Are you ready? Guys?" I asked, taking off my shirt.
"Let's do it!" Rachel announced, lifting her pink dress above her head.
"Finally, we're getting some action!" Marco punched his left palm as he kicked off his shoes, feather patterns already showing up on his palms.
"Your positivity's so infectious!" Alice remarked, almost laughing, staring at Ben.
"We're finally taking the first step," Cassie softly said.
"How do you know we're stepping in the right direction?" Harry asked, wearing only some strange legless underwear that Ellen had made for him.
"This step's as good as any," Tobias said, collecting all of our clothes.
"Everyone get it out of their system?" Ben asked, eyebrow raised quizically, his clothes (which didn't include his shirt, much to Alice's enjoyment) morphing with him, pants, shoes, and gloves cahnging with his body and disappearing under his skin gradually. "Nothing else to say? No famous last words? No? Then let's go!"
((Animorphs! To the skies!)) I announced as I flapped my peregrin falcon wings, lifting off the ground as the others followed me in my adrenaline rush.
Animorphs? I asked myself. Did I really call ourselves that?
((That you did, Jake-man!)) Marco said, circling above as an osprey, catching a thermal.
((Don't know where you got the word from,)) Tobias spoke up as he flapped his red tailed wings above the grove. ((But I prefer it.))
((Even if it sounds cheesy, it also sounds a bit cool,)) Cassie remarked, her voice much livlier now that the poison wracking her body was gone.
((Same here!)) Rachel said.
((Animorphs...)) Ben mused, a golden eagle rising above the tree line. ((Ha. It just fits.))
((As far as names go, I like it!)) Alice complimented, a merlin who had already flown some distance ahead of us.
Animorphs... I repeated in my head, making sure nobody else would hear it this time. And after catching a thermal, I began to rise higher, and when I stopped my climb, I knew that my descent would take me back to the barn, Marco had already informed the others on the Sharing meeting happening today.