Chapter 6
On Saturday, Jake and Marco took Ax to Radio Shack again, hoping to have better luck with him than we did. They asked me, Sam and Tobias to stay on the roof in case something went wrong.
I had to morph to Falcon and Sam had to fly up there by himself. When I got there, I immediately demorphed and saw sam sitting there, talking to Tobias.
"Well, I guess this party will begin soon." He said as I became fully demorphed. We were all right by the skylight waiting for Marco and Jake to give the ok symbol.
They asked us to watch them until they came out, in case something happened. In case he did what he did with us again.
So we stood there, looking over the skylight into the food court. There was a bunch of skylights over the entire mall.
The vent from the food court was right beside us so we got the irresistible smell of Cinnibon, Chinese food, and other assorted grilled and barbecued food. It smelled good, but it was distracting. I ended up focussing on the food and drooling on the glass rather than looking for Jake and Marco.
"Ewwww." Sam laughed as I let a big drip of drool fall down the slanted glass.
"What?" I said, appalled.
"You just drooled over the entire glass. Food already made it's way to the stomach, or are you just going a little retarded?" Sam asked, then started laughing.
"Shut up. It happens. Like you've never drooled." I sat back and crossed my arms.
"Sorry, it's just that you always drool. All the time. Can't your brain focus on two things at once?"
[Come on, not even I drool. Tobias added.
I looked at him funny and asked, "Do birds even have saliva?"
[Of course. Most things do. It's just a first step in the digestive process. And since I can only eat meat, I need a lot of it. Maybe if I spit, it will burn you. he opened his mouth and screeched. There was no spit. [Did I get you?
I couldn't help but laugh. "Tobias you've gone nuts."
"Maybe he's high." Sam suggested.
[Yeah, I'm higher than a kite, literally. he laughed again.
"This group has gone to the birds." I said. I continued to laugh. It was just really funny at the time.
"Anyone seen Alfred Hitchcock's 'The Birds'?" Sam asked, then laughed again.
After we all settled down, I leaned back on the glass and looked back into the food court. They were still nowhere to be seen.
After a while, I started looking around again in all the other areas. Me, Sam and Tobias all split up and went to different skylights. Eventually, I did see Jake, Marco and Ax They were all were going up the escalator to the RadioShack. It was just a few stores down.
They went in and bought their stuff. It took them about ten minutes to get the supplies. When they got out and Ax just kinda veered away, staring at all the pretty lights. Constantly stumbling, he slowly made his way back to the escalator. I looked back and saw Jake and Marco frantically searching for a missing Ax.
"Well, Tell him where he is." Sam suggested. Duh, how could I be so stupid?
[Jake, he is halfway down the elevator. I informed him. Jake looked up at me and shielded his eyes, then he grabbed Marco and dashed over to the rail beside the escalator. Ax was just a the bottom, drinking coffee again.
Jake and Marco dashed down the stairs after Ax, pushing past old midgets and elderly cripples to get to him.
[AX! I yelled. [STOP NOW! I yelled. He was really pissing me off with this crap. We really didn't need him to be messing with this. [Ax, you are a soldier.....ACT LIKE ONE!
I saw Jake and Marco get to the bottom of the escalator to see that they couldn't see Ax. Come to think of it, neither could I from the skylight I was in.
"Ax is over here in the food court." Sam informed me.
[It looks like he is enjoying himself. Tobias added. I got up and went over to the skylight that they were both looking in.
And there he was, alone in the food court, was Ax. Running from table to table eating all the leftovers. All the sane people had pulled away leaving him alone. It was a mess, if I say so myself.
It wasn't long before the mall security had caught up to him and were attempting to get him to stop and settle down. Jake and Marco had just got there and were running towards him, hoping to calm him down as well. Neither party was succeeding.
And then Ax must have got scared, because he started running. Or at least trying to. He was stumbling over his own feet.... and that's when he got really scared.
You see, andalites have four feet, and are unsteady when only on two. And as I stared at him, he began to grow blue and tan fur all over his body while growing a tail and hind end. This was going from bad to worse. First Ax was being immature, now he was morphing in front of an entire crowd of interested onlookers and civilians.
As soon as it was made obvious that he was morphing, a few people in the crowd started pulling away and chasing after him. I assumed they were controllers trying to kill him.
As the chase was on, Ax cut the pressing clothing off his body with the still emerging tail blade. Then the manic really caught on.
"Oh, crap!" Sam said as he got up and went to the next skylight. "They are headed to the grocery store!" I got up too and met up with him in the big skylight over the middle of the grocery area.
It was a little while before Ax made it there. By then, he was a full andalite with a shirt on running through the mall. He eventually had the entire store empty. Then he was all alone until Jake and Marco caught up to him. It was just the three of them now.
For some reason, nobody was coming in after them. They used this time to look around for an exit. Unfortunately, there was only one way out, and that was to where an angry mob was probably waiting for them.
"They're screwed." Sam said. "Unless they morph."
My eyes lit up. I had an idea. [Hey guys! I have an idea. You know the seafood section? Go there. There should be live lobster there. You can morph to one of those! I said.
They all looked at each other with a look of horror, but they eventually gave in and ran there. I could just barely see them when they got to the seafood section. Which kinda sucked. I could only see flashes of them as they began the morph to lobster. And I let my imagination take care of the rest of it. It was a horrible image, but it worked.
It took a good ten minutes to have the cops finally make it into the grocery area. And when they did, it was apparent that they were already morphed. Because there was no hassle. The Cops looked around the store for another ten minutes until they decided that there was clearly no andalite around.
After this, we had to wait around for another half hour until the people were able to get back in, although people were constantly going in and out. There was no real chance to get out of there.
This was when I saw the flaw in my master plan. You see, there was going to be no way out. Between the cops and curious onlookers, there was no window of opportunity. This became painfully evident when an hour into the ordeal, the grocery store was opened to all again. Hundreds of people were in and out all the time.
[Jake, I don't think this is looking good. People are in there all the time now, like nothing has happened. I don't know how to get you out of there. I told them.
[Join the club. This blows, can't you make a distraction? Jake asked.
[I wish I could, but what could I possibly do to distract an entire shopping mall? Short of morphing to an andalite..... I trailed off, thinking that could maybe be just the thing. Aliens again. Then, of course, I realized why that wouldn't work. I would have no place to hide in the middle of town filled with controllers. It just wouldn't work.
[What was that? Marco asked. ['Cause if you have an idea, that would be great. I don't
[Nothing. I said.
[It wouldn't work. Tobias added. [There is no way. Where would he go? What would he do? Morph human then expose our fraud. No way, we need to find a different way. Tobias Fluttered over to me and sat on my shoulder.
"Don't Poop." I told him. He just stared at me with his intense hawk glare. I could see sam crack a smile off to the side of me. But this was no time to screw around.
[Well, I am fresh out of ideas. Jake said. [We definitely need a distraction. Sam, Can you make a bomb in less than an hour?
[Jake, now you are talking crazy. There's no way. "But Sam, can you? Just enough to do some sort of terrorist threat. People are wimps and will run away from anything." I switched so only Sam and Tobias could hear me.
"Well, no. I couldn't get there and back in an hour. Sorry." Sam answered.
Crap. We were really in deep shit this time. No way out unless we let ourselves known. And that wasn't happening, not yet.
[There are 54 earth minutes left in morph. Ax said.
[Ax, they're your minutes too now, and how are you able to do that? Marco asked.
[I can tell time. It is an andalite sense, trained and improved by training. It is especially useful in situations like this. You see, we have a magnet sensitive....
[That's okay ax, we don't have time for discussions now. We need to get out of here. Jake said. [Wait, what's this?
[What? Tobias asked, clawing up my shoulder.
[I am being lifted up and my claws are being held shut. Jake answered.
[Wait, me too. Marco said.
[I am also being lifted out of the water. Ax.
That was the window of opportunity. [Guys, stay together. I will get you.
"I don't think they are going anywhere, they are lobster. Good with coleslaw." Sam said. Either way, we need to find the next person leaving here with a bag full of lobster." Sam levitated off the ground and flew to the ridge of the building and waited, looking over the side.
I began to morph to peregrine falcon and Tobias took off from my shoulder. I was almost instantly morphed, and I flew to the side too. I saw nothing.
"Maybe you should call them, Tobias, see if they can help?" Sam suggested.
[Jake, Marco? Can you tell where you are? Tobias called. No answer.
[Maybe they've already gone? I thought.
"No, not enough time. Maybe they've passed out from lack of water?" Sam said.
If that was the case, we had to do this on our own. That would suck. But with our laser sharp eyes, we could see the bag with lobster in it.
It took another ten minutes to see any interesting bags. I saw one with a bunch of lobster and ice. It was a thick bag. [I think that's it. I told Tobias.
[I think so too. and we were all off. Sam hovered and we flew, following the car the girl that had it was in. We were going to attack them in the parking lot, but there were too many people in the parking lot. Damn I hate people. Always getting in the way of heroes.
I lost track of time, but I was sure there could only have been like fifteen minutes left in the morph when we finally hit one of the suburbs at the edge of town. The person went inside and took the groceries with her. We were at a loss again. How to plan an animal attack on a suburb at 5 o clock in the afternoon?
That question was quickly answered as a loud yell came from inside the house. [AHHHHHHHH! Get Me out of here. I heard Marco yell.
[We have approximately 12 minutes left in Morph. Ax said calmly. I guess they had awakened.
[Well, screw this shit, I am getting out of here, I don't need to be a lobster the rest of my life. Marco said. Sam, Tobias and I were all on the roof, with nothing to do. We were clueless, I looked at Sam blankly and he looked back. (I was demorphed.)
[Come on out through the door on the second floor, we can get you. I told them. There was a balcony that I could reach from the roof.
[We have already demorphed. The human that had us is quite shocked to see us. He is obviously not a controller. Ax said calmly. I wondered if maybe he was trained to be calm in any situation.
It was only a few seconds later when Jake and Marco burst through the dual doors. Ax following right behind. Sam and I helped lift Jake and Marco up onto the roof. They had already begun to morph feathers by the time I grabbed them. We both needed to get Ax, but his arms were just too weak. Sam helped me by using his Telekinesis.
A few moments later, we were all in the sky flying away. Apparently, the ice in the bag knocked them out, so that was why they didn't respond. Then when she tried to cook them, the heat woke them up and they decided to demorph. They didn't have much of a choice.
Either way, we were all safe and sound. The next day we had o go back to the store to retrieve the clothes and stuff they bought. They were all together hidden in one of the aisles in the fish section.
On Saturday, Jake and Marco took Ax to Radio Shack again, hoping to have better luck with him than we did. They asked me, Sam and Tobias to stay on the roof in case something went wrong.
I had to morph to Falcon and Sam had to fly up there by himself. When I got there, I immediately demorphed and saw sam sitting there, talking to Tobias.
"Well, I guess this party will begin soon." He said as I became fully demorphed. We were all right by the skylight waiting for Marco and Jake to give the ok symbol.
They asked us to watch them until they came out, in case something happened. In case he did what he did with us again.
So we stood there, looking over the skylight into the food court. There was a bunch of skylights over the entire mall.
The vent from the food court was right beside us so we got the irresistible smell of Cinnibon, Chinese food, and other assorted grilled and barbecued food. It smelled good, but it was distracting. I ended up focussing on the food and drooling on the glass rather than looking for Jake and Marco.
"Ewwww." Sam laughed as I let a big drip of drool fall down the slanted glass.
"What?" I said, appalled.
"You just drooled over the entire glass. Food already made it's way to the stomach, or are you just going a little retarded?" Sam asked, then started laughing.
"Shut up. It happens. Like you've never drooled." I sat back and crossed my arms.
"Sorry, it's just that you always drool. All the time. Can't your brain focus on two things at once?"
[Come on, not even I drool. Tobias added.
I looked at him funny and asked, "Do birds even have saliva?"
[Of course. Most things do. It's just a first step in the digestive process. And since I can only eat meat, I need a lot of it. Maybe if I spit, it will burn you. he opened his mouth and screeched. There was no spit. [Did I get you?
I couldn't help but laugh. "Tobias you've gone nuts."
"Maybe he's high." Sam suggested.
[Yeah, I'm higher than a kite, literally. he laughed again.
"This group has gone to the birds." I said. I continued to laugh. It was just really funny at the time.
"Anyone seen Alfred Hitchcock's 'The Birds'?" Sam asked, then laughed again.
After we all settled down, I leaned back on the glass and looked back into the food court. They were still nowhere to be seen.
After a while, I started looking around again in all the other areas. Me, Sam and Tobias all split up and went to different skylights. Eventually, I did see Jake, Marco and Ax They were all were going up the escalator to the RadioShack. It was just a few stores down.
They went in and bought their stuff. It took them about ten minutes to get the supplies. When they got out and Ax just kinda veered away, staring at all the pretty lights. Constantly stumbling, he slowly made his way back to the escalator. I looked back and saw Jake and Marco frantically searching for a missing Ax.
"Well, Tell him where he is." Sam suggested. Duh, how could I be so stupid?
[Jake, he is halfway down the elevator. I informed him. Jake looked up at me and shielded his eyes, then he grabbed Marco and dashed over to the rail beside the escalator. Ax was just a the bottom, drinking coffee again.
Jake and Marco dashed down the stairs after Ax, pushing past old midgets and elderly cripples to get to him.
[AX! I yelled. [STOP NOW! I yelled. He was really pissing me off with this crap. We really didn't need him to be messing with this. [Ax, you are a soldier.....ACT LIKE ONE!
I saw Jake and Marco get to the bottom of the escalator to see that they couldn't see Ax. Come to think of it, neither could I from the skylight I was in.
"Ax is over here in the food court." Sam informed me.
[It looks like he is enjoying himself. Tobias added. I got up and went over to the skylight that they were both looking in.
And there he was, alone in the food court, was Ax. Running from table to table eating all the leftovers. All the sane people had pulled away leaving him alone. It was a mess, if I say so myself.
It wasn't long before the mall security had caught up to him and were attempting to get him to stop and settle down. Jake and Marco had just got there and were running towards him, hoping to calm him down as well. Neither party was succeeding.
And then Ax must have got scared, because he started running. Or at least trying to. He was stumbling over his own feet.... and that's when he got really scared.
You see, andalites have four feet, and are unsteady when only on two. And as I stared at him, he began to grow blue and tan fur all over his body while growing a tail and hind end. This was going from bad to worse. First Ax was being immature, now he was morphing in front of an entire crowd of interested onlookers and civilians.
As soon as it was made obvious that he was morphing, a few people in the crowd started pulling away and chasing after him. I assumed they were controllers trying to kill him.
As the chase was on, Ax cut the pressing clothing off his body with the still emerging tail blade. Then the manic really caught on.
"Oh, crap!" Sam said as he got up and went to the next skylight. "They are headed to the grocery store!" I got up too and met up with him in the big skylight over the middle of the grocery area.
It was a little while before Ax made it there. By then, he was a full andalite with a shirt on running through the mall. He eventually had the entire store empty. Then he was all alone until Jake and Marco caught up to him. It was just the three of them now.
For some reason, nobody was coming in after them. They used this time to look around for an exit. Unfortunately, there was only one way out, and that was to where an angry mob was probably waiting for them.
"They're screwed." Sam said. "Unless they morph."
My eyes lit up. I had an idea. [Hey guys! I have an idea. You know the seafood section? Go there. There should be live lobster there. You can morph to one of those! I said.
They all looked at each other with a look of horror, but they eventually gave in and ran there. I could just barely see them when they got to the seafood section. Which kinda sucked. I could only see flashes of them as they began the morph to lobster. And I let my imagination take care of the rest of it. It was a horrible image, but it worked.
It took a good ten minutes to have the cops finally make it into the grocery area. And when they did, it was apparent that they were already morphed. Because there was no hassle. The Cops looked around the store for another ten minutes until they decided that there was clearly no andalite around.
After this, we had to wait around for another half hour until the people were able to get back in, although people were constantly going in and out. There was no real chance to get out of there.
This was when I saw the flaw in my master plan. You see, there was going to be no way out. Between the cops and curious onlookers, there was no window of opportunity. This became painfully evident when an hour into the ordeal, the grocery store was opened to all again. Hundreds of people were in and out all the time.
[Jake, I don't think this is looking good. People are in there all the time now, like nothing has happened. I don't know how to get you out of there. I told them.
[Join the club. This blows, can't you make a distraction? Jake asked.
[I wish I could, but what could I possibly do to distract an entire shopping mall? Short of morphing to an andalite..... I trailed off, thinking that could maybe be just the thing. Aliens again. Then, of course, I realized why that wouldn't work. I would have no place to hide in the middle of town filled with controllers. It just wouldn't work.
[What was that? Marco asked. ['Cause if you have an idea, that would be great. I don't
[Nothing. I said.
[It wouldn't work. Tobias added. [There is no way. Where would he go? What would he do? Morph human then expose our fraud. No way, we need to find a different way. Tobias Fluttered over to me and sat on my shoulder.
"Don't Poop." I told him. He just stared at me with his intense hawk glare. I could see sam crack a smile off to the side of me. But this was no time to screw around.
[Well, I am fresh out of ideas. Jake said. [We definitely need a distraction. Sam, Can you make a bomb in less than an hour?
[Jake, now you are talking crazy. There's no way. "But Sam, can you? Just enough to do some sort of terrorist threat. People are wimps and will run away from anything." I switched so only Sam and Tobias could hear me.
"Well, no. I couldn't get there and back in an hour. Sorry." Sam answered.
Crap. We were really in deep shit this time. No way out unless we let ourselves known. And that wasn't happening, not yet.
[There are 54 earth minutes left in morph. Ax said.
[Ax, they're your minutes too now, and how are you able to do that? Marco asked.
[I can tell time. It is an andalite sense, trained and improved by training. It is especially useful in situations like this. You see, we have a magnet sensitive....
[That's okay ax, we don't have time for discussions now. We need to get out of here. Jake said. [Wait, what's this?
[What? Tobias asked, clawing up my shoulder.
[I am being lifted up and my claws are being held shut. Jake answered.
[Wait, me too. Marco said.
[I am also being lifted out of the water. Ax.
That was the window of opportunity. [Guys, stay together. I will get you.
"I don't think they are going anywhere, they are lobster. Good with coleslaw." Sam said. Either way, we need to find the next person leaving here with a bag full of lobster." Sam levitated off the ground and flew to the ridge of the building and waited, looking over the side.
I began to morph to peregrine falcon and Tobias took off from my shoulder. I was almost instantly morphed, and I flew to the side too. I saw nothing.
"Maybe you should call them, Tobias, see if they can help?" Sam suggested.
[Jake, Marco? Can you tell where you are? Tobias called. No answer.
[Maybe they've already gone? I thought.
"No, not enough time. Maybe they've passed out from lack of water?" Sam said.
If that was the case, we had to do this on our own. That would suck. But with our laser sharp eyes, we could see the bag with lobster in it.
It took another ten minutes to see any interesting bags. I saw one with a bunch of lobster and ice. It was a thick bag. [I think that's it. I told Tobias.
[I think so too. and we were all off. Sam hovered and we flew, following the car the girl that had it was in. We were going to attack them in the parking lot, but there were too many people in the parking lot. Damn I hate people. Always getting in the way of heroes.
I lost track of time, but I was sure there could only have been like fifteen minutes left in the morph when we finally hit one of the suburbs at the edge of town. The person went inside and took the groceries with her. We were at a loss again. How to plan an animal attack on a suburb at 5 o clock in the afternoon?
That question was quickly answered as a loud yell came from inside the house. [AHHHHHHHH! Get Me out of here. I heard Marco yell.
[We have approximately 12 minutes left in Morph. Ax said calmly. I guess they had awakened.
[Well, screw this shit, I am getting out of here, I don't need to be a lobster the rest of my life. Marco said. Sam, Tobias and I were all on the roof, with nothing to do. We were clueless, I looked at Sam blankly and he looked back. (I was demorphed.)
[Come on out through the door on the second floor, we can get you. I told them. There was a balcony that I could reach from the roof.
[We have already demorphed. The human that had us is quite shocked to see us. He is obviously not a controller. Ax said calmly. I wondered if maybe he was trained to be calm in any situation.
It was only a few seconds later when Jake and Marco burst through the dual doors. Ax following right behind. Sam and I helped lift Jake and Marco up onto the roof. They had already begun to morph feathers by the time I grabbed them. We both needed to get Ax, but his arms were just too weak. Sam helped me by using his Telekinesis.
A few moments later, we were all in the sky flying away. Apparently, the ice in the bag knocked them out, so that was why they didn't respond. Then when she tried to cook them, the heat woke them up and they decided to demorph. They didn't have much of a choice.
Either way, we were all safe and sound. The next day we had o go back to the store to retrieve the clothes and stuff they bought. They were all together hidden in one of the aisles in the fish section.