*Love Hina: Adventures in Morphing!*

Andrew Joshua Talon

DISCLAIMER: Myu! Myuuh!

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Episode 3: Fire in the Night: Tact's What? Angst Action

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            My name is Tact Carter. And as I merrily flew away from the Hinata Sou in turtle morph, I was given to random thoughts.

            I wonder why people thought the moon was made of cheese? It doesn't look very cheesy to me. Then again, maybe people thought that some other theory about the moon was cheesy, so that the moon became cheesy by default.

            Yes, I actually think about things like that. It's generally when I'm so unbearably bored I can't do anything else.

            The move to Japan when I was in middle school had been the biggest event in my life before I became an Animorph. How Kanako came up with that, Animorph, I'll never know. I'm good at cheesy puns and lame humor, but clever contractions just aren't my thing.

            Anyway, with all this fighting finally over, I had no clue how I was supposed to get back to a "normal" life. I'd finished high school, in Japan no less, but after the war with the Yeerks and stuff college and anything after that just didn't ring with me. I honestly had no clue how to reintegrate myself back into human society.

            It's just like those soldiers who returned from the Second World War and Vietnam, or recently released prisoners from a long jail sentence. A near-total lack of rigid order and discipline, of purpose and specific meaning, not to mention the horrors they witnessed, haunted a lot of those guys for almost the rest of their lives. I zoomed through the trees, letting the turtle mind take autopilot while I was lost in thought.

            Just what was I supposed to do, anyway? Fight crime like Spiderman, become a super villain, be an outsider? Stop morphing altogether; do stupid animal tricks for TV? I envied Keitaro, my Fearless Leader, for his focused goal. Get into Toudai and keep a promise he made to a girl fifteen years ago. Sure, it was silly, ludicrous even, and made worse by the fact that the promised girl was seemingly this psycho bitch Naru Narusegawa.

            But, it was a purpose. It was clearly, terribly defined. It kept Keitaro sane. I couldn't even ask Kanako for help, because she too has a purpose to keep her sane.

            Kanako had confided in me that she was in love with her adopted brother. I had understood... Sort of. Actually, I had become close friends with Kanako because I had had a crush on her when we first met. I hadn't had time to be jealous, of course. I had to fight in a war.

            Kanako said that she loved her brother, and that she would go with him to Toudai to win him to her. After the war, of course. When she'd told me, we weren't even sure if we were going to survive in the next few days. That's war for you.

            War makes everything so simple, in a few ways. Yes, there are moral issues and ethical crap to muck things up, but at least you have a job. At least you know what you're supposed to do. But me, what the hell was I supposed to do? I had no sweetheart, no job, no life-time ambition or promise to fulfill. Hell, my mother didn't really care what I did. She loved me, of course, but she had a very off-handish approach when it came to parenting. She didn't force me into anything.

            I had nothing to do with my life.

            I had made it to my house. I landed on the windowsill, pushed the window open a crack with my blunt nose, and slipped through. I plopped onto the floor, and quickly demorphed. I was almost completely human, and still brooding; when a sound knocked me out of my reverie. I froze.

            So, what do we do? Thoughtspeak? I focused my mind on my tiger, and began to change. All the while, I listened.

            It's simple, lunkhead. The boss wants the bitch wasted. I blinked, my eyes becoming six times better in the dark room. Bitch? Wasted?

            Well, we did that. Anything else?

            Nothing more for you. Head on out, I'll finish the job.

            Okay.

            I was fully tiger now. I silently crept out of my room and headed down the stairs. I smelled something that sent a shiver down my spine; human flesh, blood. The stench of decay radiated through the house. I could smell human, female fear. It smelled old, but it was still there.

            MOM! I leapt and landed hard on the floor eleven steps below, but this was nothing to me. I dashed through the house, past the living room, and into the kitchen.

            I stared, disbelieving. Oh God, please, no...

            My mother lay across the floor, a puddle of her own blood surrounding her. I leapt to her side, and listened.

            No pulse. No breathing. Nothing. I still stared, refusing to accept it.

            This can't be happening, this isn't real, I thought, backing away. I backed into a warm, solid body. I spun around, slashing and biting and snarling.

            Who the hell are you?! There was "nothing" there, except a feeling and smell. This nothing dodged my attack and grabbed me by the paws. It then flung me over it's head, sending me out through the thin wooden wall and into the small garden outside.

            CRASH! I leaped up to all fours in a second, and jumped back through the hole in the wall in another second. The "nothing" bolted, leaving a small, red glowing device on the floor. A Dracon bomb.

            Oh fuck, I said, turning and leaping just as the thing went off.

            KABOOOOOMMM! The shockwave sent me flying into the bushes, unhurt thanks to my cat reflexes. I dared to look up.

            My whole freaking house was a tattered, flaming mess. The whole front of it had vaporized, and flames so intense they overheated me, even when I was thirty or forty feet away. The fires were consuming the rest of it. I stared, in disbelief. My mom, my house... Our memories...

            All gone. I couldn't smell a single damned thing of my mom anywhere.

            Good fucking God, I murmured, staring. I heard sirens and klaxons. Fire trucks and police cruisers. I didn't notice them, I just stared.

            My God, my God, my God, my God, I kept thinking, over and over. I turned and headed away, the firemen and paramedics teams surrounding the flaming frame of my house.

            What was my house.

            My God, my God, my God, my God...

            I sniffed, and caught a scent; the same scent as at the house. A car was driving away, up the road, toward the mountains surrounding the town.

            I abandoned myself to the tiger as he roared in fury. I let go of everything except my hate, my anger, my rage. The tiger's mind filled my own, and in an instant I feared nothing.

            I took off at top speed, chasing the car into the night. Away from the furious blaze.

            Away from my home, carrying only my vengeance with another roar in the darkness.

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Well, what do you think so far? I thought I'd stick with the single-character-narrating-per-chapter deal as in the real Animorphs book series. Any thoughts? Rants? Comments?

Tell them to me, please.