Chapter 4
We flew to town and I led the way. We morphed in that alleyway and did our thing. We did look kind of grubby. Ax had to go from hawk to andalite to human to soften the blow.
We ended up going in as roaches. Gross, I know, but it had to e done. We were at the college campus within the hour.
We figured it would be best to look like we were a bunch of kids just hanging out on the street, grubby kids. From there we would slowly make our way to the shed, which was probably locked. It was before when I first saw the guy open it.
We were lucky, and the door was unlocked. We all hustled in and stood there in the crowded shed. Ax being in there really made it crowded. We had to wait for him to demorph before we could go on.
"Alright, we need to get this thing going." Jake said as soon as ax was finished. He rubbed his hands together.
"Rachel, to the roach morph!" Marco said.
I rolled my eyes. "Marco, I appreciate you trying to lighten the mood, but we need you to put your mind to the task at hand right now." I said. He looked almost hurt.
{Umm, guys, you need to start morphing soon.} Tobias warned. {there is a guy that seems to be interested in the shed.}
"Let's go." Jake said.
{Hurry, he is almost there!} Tobias updated urgently.
{How close?} I asked. I had this weird thing to be able to use thought speak outside morph. Only I could do it.
{Like from the street to the shed. About one hundred feet. He is still on the sidewalk but he is glancing at the shack nervously.}
{Thanks. We are on the way, you won't be able to talk much longer.} I informed him.
But at this time, the others were already half morphed. Cassie was fully morphed. I opened the door in the back and went in. "Come on!" I urged the rest of the group, those one foot tall monstrosities that were non yet done.
{Morph, you idiot!} Marco hissed. He was right, but I had a job to do.
{Hurry up!} Jake urged.
"Just a second!" I said hurriedly. "Here." I grabbed one at a time and put them on the stairs of the corridor behind me.
{Hey!} Rachel cried.
{Shut up.} I said. As soon as I got them on the stairs behind me, I started to close the door and morph to cockroach.
{He is definitely interested!} Tobias said. {He has diverted course and is now only like twenty five feet away! I hope you have morphed.}
{Most of us are OK.} Cassie said. {Gordon is still morphing.}
But I was fast. In the time it took that guy to walk twenty feet, I finished my morph. As soon as I finished, I could vaguely hear the sound of a door first.
{On the walls, we don't want him stepping on us if he comes in here.} Jake advised. And he was right, the last thing we needed was to be squished. We all did what we were told and tried to climb the walls as best we could. It was surprisingly easy.
{Everyone safe?} Tobias asked, still worried about us.
The guy walked in the door and walked right past us and down the corridor. I could feel the vibrations as he moved and stomped down the stairs.
{We are safe.} Ax confirmed. {The human had ignored us and is going down to the yeerk pool.}
{Good, because he seemed to be in there a long time.} Tobias said. {Anyway, if you are all in the corridor now, then I will lose contact soon. I will be peeling off.}
{Bye Tobias.} Rachel called.
{So, let's go.} Jake said.
And we were off, following the big feet. I could still feel the thumping off in the distance. Over, down, over, down, over, down. That was the pattern I followed as I crawled down the steps.
After many more steps, we finally hit the ground, and Marco pointed out something we had all overlooked.
{What do we do if someone tries to step on us? I mean, there are so many people here, what are the chances of not one of them seeing us?}
Rachel answered, {Let's just hope that doesn't happen.}
{We can't take that chance.} Jake said. {We need to find a place to demorph.}
{But where?} Cassie asked. {Where here would we demorph? I think there is a flaw in the plan.}
{But we have to do this.} I urged. {It is Whitney, and I will go on even if you leave.}
{I know, but I cant think of a way to demorph. For now, stay hidden in the corners.} Jake advised.
So we all moved into the corner of the dirt and waited, having no clue what we were going to do. We just kind of huddled, thinking of things to do.
Then, out of nowhere, Marco came out with, {Toilets!}
{Huh?} we all asked.
But he explained. {A place this big must host people a good portion of the day, and people get hungry. That leads to restaurants, which leads to bathrooms. If we can get to a bathroom, we can demorph!} he was excited by the idea, but it may work.
{Alright, we will look for a restaurant nearby. We can see relatively well with these eyes, and w can figure it out. Rest assured, we don't want to be squished, so don't be seen.} Jake said.
We moved on along the side until we found something worth checking out. It was a building. And it had interesting smells coming out from it.
{I guess that is our best bet.} Marco said. Sure enough, we all went to investigate. Around the side and into the front door. There weren't many people around. I could tell by the lack ov vibrations.
{Stay close to the walls.} Jake advised. And we did.
But then I felt an odd feeling. It was like a hundred little feet hitting the ground in quick succession. It was like a mini earthquake to my roach body. {Do you feel that?} I asked.
But nobody got to answer. In the flash of an instant, I could feel a giant slimy thing stick on my back. It was red, and covered in a sort of goo.
In an instant, the thing had me glued and was pulling me off the ground. I flailed as I was put upside down and flung up.
But then I felt as if I was able to go on describing symptoms so long. And as soon as I noticed this rather odd truth, I fell from the red tape and landed on the ground. I then noticed I was growing. I was demorphing, but not on purpose.
{Umm, guys.} Marco said.
{What is going on here?} Cassie asked.
{I don't know, but it feels like deja vu somehow.} I said. And it did. It reminded me of the kid in the street thing.
And yet we continued demorphing.
{This is seriously not right.} Jake said.
{Maybe the yeerks were able to make some sort of anti-morphing thing.....} Rachel trailed off, terrorized by the possibility.
{Never!} Ax shouted, almost as scared as Rachel. {The yeerks never invent, they steal.} he seemed defensive to me.
{That is not the issue, whether they invented it or not. The point is that we are all demorphing and we don't want to.} Jake pointed out.
{there must be some sort of higher entity at work here.} Ax said.
I couldn't help but laugh. {Right, God is here to sve us from the yeerks.} I laughed again.
But by then we were all completely demorphed. Odd, considering Cassie and I were such fast morphers.
I was scared of who might see us but what we saw astonished us all. It was like we were living in a living picture. Everything was still, as in not moving.
"Odd." Rachel said.
I looked around. And yes, it was odd. Everywhere I looked, things were hanging in suspended animation. Burgers and pizza both held in the mouth, not moving or chewing. A spilled drink hanging in a bubble off the side of the table. There was a grand total of like three people in the room.
"Really odd." Cassie agreed.
"Well, we might as well take the time to get out of here." Jake suggested. I didn't need to be told twice.
But as soon as we exited the restaurant, we were shocked to see three things moving amidst all the slate of stillness.
One of them jumped up and waved. "Took you long enough!" Whitney yelled.
Beside her, a normal sized guy in a black leather trench-coat nudged her. "Shush, they can see us." Sam said. The third figure just stood there.
The group of us all just kind of gravitated towards them. We were more surprised to see who the third person was.
As I got closer, I could see it was a medium kid with rustled, dirty blonde hair.
I could see Rachel's eyes widen. "Tobias!" She shouted as she ran towards him. Tobias jumped back and put his hands to the side like he was pushing up off nothing. This unexpected movement made him land on his ass.
"Jeez, bird boy. We aren't in wing-land anymore" Sam said as he looked at him and rolled his eyes. Rachel helped him get back up on his feet, he looked a bit embarrassed.
"What is going on here?" Marco asked suspiciously.
"He will be here soon, I am sure of it." Whitney assured us.
"But you're here!" Rachel marvelled. "And you are not in danger!"
"No, I am quite alright." She said. "Just wait." which cleared up the whitney problem, we now had other things to do.
And of course, a few seconds later, I felt as if the world was opening around us. Like the area was a photograph and it was being cut open from behind.
Unfortunately, this feeling gave me an overwhelming feeling of nausea and my eyes rolled back in my head and I fell out of consciousness.
The last thing I said before I fell asleep. "Toomin?" I asked as I slipped into a dream-like state. I had no clue why I said it.
We flew to town and I led the way. We morphed in that alleyway and did our thing. We did look kind of grubby. Ax had to go from hawk to andalite to human to soften the blow.
We ended up going in as roaches. Gross, I know, but it had to e done. We were at the college campus within the hour.
We figured it would be best to look like we were a bunch of kids just hanging out on the street, grubby kids. From there we would slowly make our way to the shed, which was probably locked. It was before when I first saw the guy open it.
We were lucky, and the door was unlocked. We all hustled in and stood there in the crowded shed. Ax being in there really made it crowded. We had to wait for him to demorph before we could go on.
"Alright, we need to get this thing going." Jake said as soon as ax was finished. He rubbed his hands together.
"Rachel, to the roach morph!" Marco said.
I rolled my eyes. "Marco, I appreciate you trying to lighten the mood, but we need you to put your mind to the task at hand right now." I said. He looked almost hurt.
{Umm, guys, you need to start morphing soon.} Tobias warned. {there is a guy that seems to be interested in the shed.}
"Let's go." Jake said.
{Hurry, he is almost there!} Tobias updated urgently.
{How close?} I asked. I had this weird thing to be able to use thought speak outside morph. Only I could do it.
{Like from the street to the shed. About one hundred feet. He is still on the sidewalk but he is glancing at the shack nervously.}
{Thanks. We are on the way, you won't be able to talk much longer.} I informed him.
But at this time, the others were already half morphed. Cassie was fully morphed. I opened the door in the back and went in. "Come on!" I urged the rest of the group, those one foot tall monstrosities that were non yet done.
{Morph, you idiot!} Marco hissed. He was right, but I had a job to do.
{Hurry up!} Jake urged.
"Just a second!" I said hurriedly. "Here." I grabbed one at a time and put them on the stairs of the corridor behind me.
{Hey!} Rachel cried.
{Shut up.} I said. As soon as I got them on the stairs behind me, I started to close the door and morph to cockroach.
{He is definitely interested!} Tobias said. {He has diverted course and is now only like twenty five feet away! I hope you have morphed.}
{Most of us are OK.} Cassie said. {Gordon is still morphing.}
But I was fast. In the time it took that guy to walk twenty feet, I finished my morph. As soon as I finished, I could vaguely hear the sound of a door first.
{On the walls, we don't want him stepping on us if he comes in here.} Jake advised. And he was right, the last thing we needed was to be squished. We all did what we were told and tried to climb the walls as best we could. It was surprisingly easy.
{Everyone safe?} Tobias asked, still worried about us.
The guy walked in the door and walked right past us and down the corridor. I could feel the vibrations as he moved and stomped down the stairs.
{We are safe.} Ax confirmed. {The human had ignored us and is going down to the yeerk pool.}
{Good, because he seemed to be in there a long time.} Tobias said. {Anyway, if you are all in the corridor now, then I will lose contact soon. I will be peeling off.}
{Bye Tobias.} Rachel called.
{So, let's go.} Jake said.
And we were off, following the big feet. I could still feel the thumping off in the distance. Over, down, over, down, over, down. That was the pattern I followed as I crawled down the steps.
After many more steps, we finally hit the ground, and Marco pointed out something we had all overlooked.
{What do we do if someone tries to step on us? I mean, there are so many people here, what are the chances of not one of them seeing us?}
Rachel answered, {Let's just hope that doesn't happen.}
{We can't take that chance.} Jake said. {We need to find a place to demorph.}
{But where?} Cassie asked. {Where here would we demorph? I think there is a flaw in the plan.}
{But we have to do this.} I urged. {It is Whitney, and I will go on even if you leave.}
{I know, but I cant think of a way to demorph. For now, stay hidden in the corners.} Jake advised.
So we all moved into the corner of the dirt and waited, having no clue what we were going to do. We just kind of huddled, thinking of things to do.
Then, out of nowhere, Marco came out with, {Toilets!}
{Huh?} we all asked.
But he explained. {A place this big must host people a good portion of the day, and people get hungry. That leads to restaurants, which leads to bathrooms. If we can get to a bathroom, we can demorph!} he was excited by the idea, but it may work.
{Alright, we will look for a restaurant nearby. We can see relatively well with these eyes, and w can figure it out. Rest assured, we don't want to be squished, so don't be seen.} Jake said.
We moved on along the side until we found something worth checking out. It was a building. And it had interesting smells coming out from it.
{I guess that is our best bet.} Marco said. Sure enough, we all went to investigate. Around the side and into the front door. There weren't many people around. I could tell by the lack ov vibrations.
{Stay close to the walls.} Jake advised. And we did.
But then I felt an odd feeling. It was like a hundred little feet hitting the ground in quick succession. It was like a mini earthquake to my roach body. {Do you feel that?} I asked.
But nobody got to answer. In the flash of an instant, I could feel a giant slimy thing stick on my back. It was red, and covered in a sort of goo.
In an instant, the thing had me glued and was pulling me off the ground. I flailed as I was put upside down and flung up.
But then I felt as if I was able to go on describing symptoms so long. And as soon as I noticed this rather odd truth, I fell from the red tape and landed on the ground. I then noticed I was growing. I was demorphing, but not on purpose.
{Umm, guys.} Marco said.
{What is going on here?} Cassie asked.
{I don't know, but it feels like deja vu somehow.} I said. And it did. It reminded me of the kid in the street thing.
And yet we continued demorphing.
{This is seriously not right.} Jake said.
{Maybe the yeerks were able to make some sort of anti-morphing thing.....} Rachel trailed off, terrorized by the possibility.
{Never!} Ax shouted, almost as scared as Rachel. {The yeerks never invent, they steal.} he seemed defensive to me.
{That is not the issue, whether they invented it or not. The point is that we are all demorphing and we don't want to.} Jake pointed out.
{there must be some sort of higher entity at work here.} Ax said.
I couldn't help but laugh. {Right, God is here to sve us from the yeerks.} I laughed again.
But by then we were all completely demorphed. Odd, considering Cassie and I were such fast morphers.
I was scared of who might see us but what we saw astonished us all. It was like we were living in a living picture. Everything was still, as in not moving.
"Odd." Rachel said.
I looked around. And yes, it was odd. Everywhere I looked, things were hanging in suspended animation. Burgers and pizza both held in the mouth, not moving or chewing. A spilled drink hanging in a bubble off the side of the table. There was a grand total of like three people in the room.
"Really odd." Cassie agreed.
"Well, we might as well take the time to get out of here." Jake suggested. I didn't need to be told twice.
But as soon as we exited the restaurant, we were shocked to see three things moving amidst all the slate of stillness.
One of them jumped up and waved. "Took you long enough!" Whitney yelled.
Beside her, a normal sized guy in a black leather trench-coat nudged her. "Shush, they can see us." Sam said. The third figure just stood there.
The group of us all just kind of gravitated towards them. We were more surprised to see who the third person was.
As I got closer, I could see it was a medium kid with rustled, dirty blonde hair.
I could see Rachel's eyes widen. "Tobias!" She shouted as she ran towards him. Tobias jumped back and put his hands to the side like he was pushing up off nothing. This unexpected movement made him land on his ass.
"Jeez, bird boy. We aren't in wing-land anymore" Sam said as he looked at him and rolled his eyes. Rachel helped him get back up on his feet, he looked a bit embarrassed.
"What is going on here?" Marco asked suspiciously.
"He will be here soon, I am sure of it." Whitney assured us.
"But you're here!" Rachel marvelled. "And you are not in danger!"
"No, I am quite alright." She said. "Just wait." which cleared up the whitney problem, we now had other things to do.
And of course, a few seconds later, I felt as if the world was opening around us. Like the area was a photograph and it was being cut open from behind.
Unfortunately, this feeling gave me an overwhelming feeling of nausea and my eyes rolled back in my head and I fell out of consciousness.
The last thing I said before I fell asleep. "Toomin?" I asked as I slipped into a dream-like state. I had no clue why I said it.