A/N: WHY IS FFN BEING SO STUPID??? Okay, yeah, now that I have that out… I'm on vacation now, so I won't be updating as often. However, I will update whenever I can. And to ____, I explained at the beginning of The Carried that the Murkra evolved from the Mercora, and though they are almost totally identical, the name has changed slightly. The relationship between the Murkra and the Mercora is like the relationship between us and the people of the Middle Ages – genetically almost identical, but we speak different languages, have different customs, etc. So yeah. Oh, and I have discovered that another one of my friends is an FFN writer! Go read her stuff, her penname is Olympian. Anyway, here's the chapter.
Chapter 4
We finally made it back to the camp where we had left the rest of the Murkra, General Doubleday, Menderash, Sandra, and Guide. We were beaten, bloody, tired, and dirty, a pretty pathetic group. However, our friends were overjoyed to see us.
Sandra ran out to meet us the second she saw us, hugging Marco first, and then hugging everybody else for a shorter amount of time. She was both laughing and crying, running around with boundless energy.
The General came to us more slowly, but once we met, he cracked a grin and slapped Jake on the back, nearly knocking him off his feet and onto the ground. General Doubleday also greeted Yahal,
Menderash stayed back at the camp, waiting for us to come to him. However, when we finally got there, he smiled. He didn't use his mouth, and for a moment, I swore that he had managed to smile the subtle Andalite grin with his eyes, even though he was in a human body.
"You are alive, my Princes," he said to both Jake and Ax, lowering his head.
The Murkra greeted their leader and his lieutenants in their own way, opening many eyes at once and blinking rapidly. From the way they gathered together to form their own group, I guessed that they were discussing the events of the past two days in private thought-speak. For the most part, they ignored us.
Guide shuffled to us, and after eyeing us to make certain that we were ourselves, asked if he could buy whatever memories we had made of the last couple of days when he went back to his own world and had a memory copier.
Toby followed Indi and the other Hork-Bajir warriors to the main Hork-Bajir settlement to tell them about what had happened.
I landed on Rachel's shoulder while we greeted everybody, exhausted from flying so far. Most of the time we had been walking, it had been night, and there were no thermals coming up off of the cliff walls. I had been navigating dead air the whole way.
When at last Menderash, General Doubleday, Sandra, and Guide had finished assuring themselves that we were alive, we sat down near the group of Murkra. The non-morphing humans and Guide had many questions that needed to be answered. They had started to notice the changes in our group.
Before we could say anything, Menderash cut us off. "What is he doing here?" he spat, gesturing toward the fatigued, bleeding, and quiet Bavaritun.
"And what happened to The One? Did you find him? Where is he?" demanded Sandra.
"Where's Sergeant Santorelli?" General Doubleday asked, his voice quiet. I had a feeling that he already knew the answer.
They looked at Jake expectantly, their eyes wide with fear.
"Did your filthy master absorb him?" Menderash demanded of Bavaritun.
"No, The One did not absorb Sergeant Santorelli," Jake cut in before some sort of fight broke out. "On our way to find The One, there was a battle with many Garatron. Sergeant Santorelli was killed."
General Doubleday immediately lowered his head, his fears confirmed. Sandra's face twisted in horror, and Menderash's eyes grew wide, and then he glared at Bavaritun. The only thing keeping him from attacking the wounded alien was the fact that Bavaritun had a lightning-fast, scorpion-like tail, and Menderash didn't.
Hey, it's okay, just calm down for a second, I said to Menderash in private thought-speak. He looked at me and nodded almost imperceptively to show that he understood, but he was still bristling with tension.
"We did finally find The One, right after he betrayed all of the Garatron by absorbing them," Jake continued.
But he did not absorb Captain Bavaritun, Ax added somewhat helpfully.
"Right. Anyway, then there was a short battle between us and The One. Right when we thought were going to die, Tobias and Ra-"
Rachel cut Jake off in midword, her cheeks red. I was sure that if I was human, I would look the same way. "What Jake was going to say was that we were lucky and destroyed him! Yeah. We were about to die, and suddenly he just disappeared."
Marco started laughing hysterically, delighted that he had a chance to embarrass me and Rachel. "What she means is that she and Tobias had a little make out session, and after they went 'smooch,' The One was defeated by their love. Isn't that sweet?"
I shifted uncomfortably on Rachel's shoulder. Why was it that everybody had to know what had happened to destroy The One?
Rachel's face looked like a beet. "Yes, that's exactly what happened," Rachel said with a steel edge to her voice. "Marco, I still haven't forgotten what you said about me, Cassie, and Sandra, either. You really shouldn't have told everybody what you told them just now."
"What did he say about me?" Sandra demanded.
"Oh…" Marco said, backing away from Rachel. "I really am sorry…" With that, he sprinted toward Cassie, holding her in front of him for protection. "Help me," he squeaked.
"Uh-uh. No. I don't think so," she responded, twisting out of his grip. "I agree with Rachel."
"What did he say about me?" repeated Sandra.
"I'll tell you when you're a bit older," Rachel assured her with a grin, but at the same time, Ax said, Marco stated that he wanted to see you dressed up like Xena.
Sandra's eyes grew wide, and her jaw dropped open. She was definitely not pleased.
Marco groaned, looking at Ax like he wanted to both instruct him on why that sounded extremely bad out of context, and also strangle Ax. Not necessarily in that order.
Jake, in a lame attempt to put some order into the chaos and save his best friend's face said, "Anyway, after we destroyed The One, Drode came to us to tell us that now Crayak can expand, which is really not good. Uh, Crayak is an all-powerful being who likes to destroy everything. If he takes over the universe, everybody dies. Period. Then Bavaritun woke up, said that he wanted to join with us, and we came here."
"We can trust him?" Menderash asked hesitantly.
Yes, Ax answered, still oblivious to the daggers Marco was staring at him.
Areyoualwaysthisdisordered? asked Bavaritun doubtfully.
Rachel laughed harshly. "Welcome to the life of being an Animorph."
Isee, Bavaritun said, obviously not understanding at all.
"You get used to it," Tom said cheerily.
"It may take a while," added Jeanne, "because there are some people in our little group with less sanity than others. But it will happen eventually."
Captain Miaker finally came back to our group of mostly Andalites and humans, having just been on the ship. I noticed that he remained as far away from Bavaritun as possible. My technicians need only another day to repair the ship of the damage that the Garatron inflicted before we leave, he reported, opening many of the eyes on the side of him facing Bavaritun when he said "Garatron".
"Fine," Jake said, choosing to ignore the subtle challenge to the Garatron. "We have some time to kill, everybody, so go ahead and do whatever. Don't go to far, we don't want you to be eaten by a Jubba-Jubba monster."
We broke formation, the majority of us who had been there to destroy The One trying to find a stream or something to clean up in and then rest, and everybody else sitting in little groups, chatting. The scene of Sandra avoiding Marco, running from Marco, and ignoring Marco caught my eye, and I made up my mind to explain to Ax why what he had said was so bad, and then tell Sandra the context of the situation.
I'll be right back, I told Rachel, spreading my wings and taking off from her shoulder.
"Where are you going?" she questioned.
I need to go find Ax.
A/N: Hehe, poor Marco… I love teasing him so much, it's almost sad. Anyway, sorry I don't have more to post than this, but lately I have had a ton of inspiration on my new original fantasy story Both Sun and Moon (I've written four new chapters in the past week, and learned a lot more about where that story is going), and barely any on this one. Also, the more I think about the idea I was going to use on this book, the more convinced I become that it sucks. Anyway, because of that, I need to brainstorm and come up with another idea, one that I can fit in some details that I've already put into the story that were going to work for the original idea. Hopefully it won't take me too long! :-P I do, however, know what's going to happen in the next few chapters, so I'll be working on those. And finally, because I am on vacation and am separated from all my wonderful Animorphs books, I don't have a description that I need… If any of you could please go find your Ellimist Chronicles for me and, in a review or email, give me the description of Crayak before he followed Ellimist through the black hole, Z-Space, and regular space to become the four-dimensional being he now is, I would be eternally grateful. Thank you!