Chapter four
Disclaimer: the only thing I own is the current Animorphs - yeah, that's right, all ten of them. The surviving four might be mentioned occasionally, and there might be a time when one of them will join with this gang - soon enough.
A/N: Change of plans - Nick and the Co go and sabotage a Mother Ship...sorry, I got seriously disoriented with all the new stuff
Nick
My name is Nick. I'm in my seventh year in Hogwarts. What I saw and heard one fateful evening on the abandoned construction site changed my whole life forever. I'm not just a seventh - year Hufflepuff now, but I'm also an Animorph.
Like the original five, the few sixth - and seventh - years, my friends and I saw the landing of both spaceships. Since then, we were spying on the new enemy - the Yeerk front organization called the Sharing.
From what we understood so far, this was the only branch of the so - called Empire. The very first branch on this planet was destroyed by the first Animorphs about ten years ago. It was easy to figure out that they wanted revenge.
I briefly scan the outskirts of the valley they have one of their sites in. Perfect. Nobody's close. I turn around and motion to others.
"Let's go, folks."
It's enough for Sam, Karen, Sandy, and Alex to follow suit. They honestly don't care what will happen if we get killed, or worse - caught. They just file out from the nearest hill beside me, glancing in awe at the ominous building.
"Look at the size of that thing!" Sandy whispers, at the same time trying to find the guard. "What the hell is that?"
"Looks like their Mother ship," I reply. "Try staying quiet, okay, guys?"
"You're joking, right, Nick?" Alex whispers. "You seriously want us to go in and sabotage the thing?! You're nuts."
I raise my eyebrow in amusement, then turn back to the ship...Or rather, the task at hand. "Let's go."
Behind me, Alex shakes her head, as if to say, Nick Anderson, you're the most insane Hufflepuff there have ever been for years. Honestly, I've already learned to ignore her.
We scramble abroad, since seemingly nothing is guarding the ship.
"Now, watch it," I warn quietly. "It's not magic anymore, it's technology. True, we could use magic to attack and counter-attack, but we cannot use it to protect. So be extra-careful, and try to avoid blasters...or whatever it is that will strike you as a potentially dangerous wearpon."
"Errr...Nick...What about those things?" Karen's voice was extremely shaken, as she pointed to her left with a shaking hand. I gaped, as did the others, then Sandy swore.
"Potter and I have run into one of them in the construction site last evening," he says. "Rather...we ran from it, and it tried to get us."
"Any advice on how to avoid them?" I ask, measuring the thing with deadly-looking ridges. It reminds me of the Norvegian Ridgeback from the pages of Hogwarts: A History. There was one drawn as an illustration of what was the First Task in the infamous Triwizard Tournament of 1995. That was not so weird, and I thought that I'd rather face any of those four dragons than what was standing in the corridors. See, I'm only a Hufflepuff...
"Stunners at the ready," I whisper. "We have to find the bridge. Karen, you go with Sam and Sandy." I figured that while she'll be a sort of a peacemaker between a Gryffindor and a Slytherin, she'll also have more protection, if it worked. "Alex, with me."
"Do you think it's wise to split up?" Karen asks.
"Yeah, I know it's not very wise," say I. "But it will help us to locate the bridge faster."
Sam
"Of course, it's not wise," I mimic. "I't plain stupid, Nick."
Oh, I forgot to introduce myself, didn't I? Well, the only several things that you need to know are these: I'm Samantha (I prefer when people call me Sam), I'm sixteen-and-a-half years old, I'm a sixth-year in Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, and I'm an Animorph. This means secrecy. Oh, and I'm in Gryffindor House, as are Rojer Finnegan and Terry MacMillan of the original quintet. Oh, and did I mention that right now, the five of us are on a suicide mission?
All of that being covered now, I also glance at the people who are going to be with me for this part of the mission impossible - Karen and Sandy. Sandy already has his wand at the ready, as do the rest of us.
"You can ask all the questions once we're through with this," says Nick Anderson, our asshole of an unofficial leader. Yeah, I know, swearing is not good for a brave and noble Gryffindor, but hey, the Sorting Hat wanted to put me in Slytherin first. When I start acting all weird, people around me say: "Sam's Slytherin Side is out. Beware!" Then, everyone bursts in laughter, myself including.
"Go," says Nick, and off we go.
"Or maybe, just until the things...Yeerks, or whatever...will finish us first," I mutter, as the three of us duck into the first tunnel on our right. Nick and Alex turn into the next one on our left.
"Oookayyy..." says Sandy, as we face a bunch of humans in weird clothing with what looks like guns. "Anyone has Plan B?"
It was not what I was expecting, either.
"Stupefy!" yell we, while Karen stands stock-still. Some of them drop dead...well, Stunned...and that drives Karen into action.
We bail into next corridor, and I'm quite surprised to find myself in a garden. My two teammates are no less shocked.
"Wow," breathes Sandy. "You can hide a whole army here."
Karen looks at him reproachfully.
"It's a hydrophonic garden," she explains. "They normally grow the vegetables, or some other stuff..." her lecture ends in a gasp as one of the beams hits her shoulder, which also spurs Sandy and I back into action.
I grab the nearest deadly-looking thing and thrust a startled Karen in hands of a likewise startled Sandy. "Get the hell outta here, I'll cover up."
"Do you have the slightest idea of how to use this thing?" Sandy demands after an extraordinary fast recovery.
"I'll figure it out. Go, go, go!"
"You stupid Gryffindor, we don't have the bloody time for the bloody heroics!" Sandy snarls, as he grabs my hand with his free one and pulls the two of us down the corridor and into some large room. We soon realise where we are, as Nick and Alex dash out of the corridor opposite of us, both of them bleeding lightly with nothing that a simple Healing spell won't help with - once we have the time for it.
That's when we realise where we are. The bridge of the Mother ship.
Alex grabs her wand.
"Everyone, just use whatever you know!" she yells, knocking over the operator with the Stunner. We follow suit until a purple blade-like beam from Karen's wand blasts the control board (or what I think was a control board) to pieces.
"Okay, let's get out!" Nick shouts over the din of voices.
We dash to them and stumble into a corridor that is empty for now. It leads us to another, highly guarded room. We enter after disabling what seems to me like a ton of security signals, thanks to Nick's genius (both of his parents were Ravenclaws, and honestly, I'm very surprised to find him in Hufflepuff). There, we stand stunned.
The room is empty, except for a pool of steaming water. There is something in that water, tinted with red light, but I'm not in a terrific hurry to find out what it is. Do not touch the object if you don't know if it has brains, is a saying in my family. I have a vague idea that whatever is that thing, it definitely has brains. Very deadly ones.
"Nobody even dare to go for a swim!" I warn my friends, as they stare at the water. "Best boil it up!"
The others agree, and Karen deliberately fries the few wires running from the pool into the nearest wall.
"Incendio!" whispers Sandy, pointing his wand on the pool. The fire springs up under it, and the water is soon boiling up. We stare at it, having no clue as to what damage we did to our new enemy.
The noise from the room startles us.
"Let's get out of here," Alex sing-songs, moving to the room's opposite exit. We agree with her and follow at the top speed.
Sandy
My name is Sandy.
I lie sprawled on the grass near the lake, safe and sound on Hogwarts grounds. Well, I did have some patches, but thanks to Alex, none of them hurt anymore, because none of them even exist.
I glance towards Karen, who leans up against the tree. Nick is lying with his head on her lap, gazing up at the sky, and Sam is fast asleep with her head on my shoulder. That was too much for all of us, and we are taking a break before going fishing out the other Animorphs. The full-fledged Animorphs, as Alex refers to Cedric's gang.
It's peaceful for a moment. We have sabotaged the Mother ship, I think. It's really hard to believe, but it's true. Maybe, it's indeed time to join with the others.
I stare at the bright midday sky. It's hard to believe that all of the adventure took just one morning. Well, I knew it was not the end, but rather, just the beginning.
Nick got up, I gently woke Karen, and the five of us headed back to school.
A/N: Up next - while Nick's group was doing their sabotage, what was Cedric's group up to?
