The Crossover
By Deep Roller
Author's Note: I really should not be writing this. If it shows up in any of those ever popular badfic communities, not only will I not be surprised, but maybe even somewhat honored in a weird…sort of way. The only things to keep in mind when reading this are that I haven't read Animorphs in like, forever (and I didn't finish the series but I know how it ends) and my knowledge of the Buffyverse is somewhat spotty. That mix adds up to make me repeat the first sentence. I really should not be writing this. But I am.
Oh well. It takes place before Oz left in Buffyverse and after David in Animorphverse. So it's kind of…odd. Yes, I'm probably warping canon timelines.
Disclaimer:
Animorphs and all its characters are the property of K.A. Applegate. Buffy and all her pals (and not-so-pals) are Joss Whedon's. No profit is being made from this. None of the characters involved in this story are mine minus the occasional truck driver or ice cream vendor. My….pants are mine, though. That's always a bonus.
Chapter One: Marco
I suppose this whole thing is really my fault. But don't go around saying that, okay? If it got around that I actually admitted it, I'd never live it down. Rachel would most definitely see to that, saying "I knew it!" or "Well, we all knew THAT, Marco," in that annoying way she has. Jake would probably read me the riot act if he really knew how it started. When we're on a mission we're not supposed to stop for refreshments, it's one of Jake's Big No-No's.
But hey, a guy gets hungry! It's not an easy job saving the world from those brain stealing little worms, and it's certainly not a task you can go about doing on an empty stomach. But I better back up a little, and begin at the beginning, which is always a good idea.
This all started when Cassie, CASSIE of all people, got called into Vice Principal Chapman's office. While she was in there, she saw that he had a flyer for the Sharing on his desk. When Chapman stepped out of the office for a moment (he does that so that you get more and more nervous about what he's going to do to you when he comes back into the room) she snagged the flyer and made a copy. Then she put the original back where it had been, and when she told us she made it sound incredibly Mission Impossible. I repeat, Cassie, of all people.
"What were you doing to get called into Chapman's office?" Tobias asked her, incredulous as the rest of us. So incredulous in fact, that he had actually shown up for the meeting following the paper discovery. He's been kind of bad about showing up to meetings lately, what with a pair of Harris hawks trying to muscle in on his territory. But enough about hawk-world. Back to Marco-world.
"Well, we were having a debate over offshore drilling, and Deanna Reagan just got me so upset, a couple words just slipped out. Very un-Cassie words. Even the teacher was shocked." Cassie seemed a bit embarrassed still, and Jake gave her a look like he was going to reprimand her, but couldn't get past the smile. He probably thinks Cassie is cute when she's angry. Lots and lots of MUSH people, it tends to get to your brain.
"I don't blame you," Rachel said. "Because Deanna Reagan is a huge un-Cassie word."
"About the letter?" I inquired, trying to get everyone back to what the meeting was initially called for. I mean, I had TV shows I couldn't possibly miss, and my dad is notorious for screwing up the taping process. Nothing worse than kicking back with a good episode of Letterman and having it cut to C-SPAN or something equally boring. So you can see how I was feeling pressure to be the responsible one.
"The letter, right!" Cassie said, fishing it out of her backpack. "You guys look it over, I have to feed this new litter of five week old fox cubs that just came in." Count on Cassie to have to feed or bandage something during one of our meetings. The barn, though a reasonably private place to have said meetings, was also rather distracting when particularly noisy animals were staying there.
The flyer was passed from one person to the next, each of us looking for some sort of hidden clue as to sinister Yeerk activity. It said, word for word:
'The Sharing invites you to Bowling Night!
Free sodas and nachos for everyone who shows up! Bring a friend!
A free backpack and baseball cap to all who sign up!
From 7 pm- 9pm at Creekside Lanes
Don't be late!
3o45354efgdtrertyfdsr
"Other than that they went a little heavy on the exclamation marks, I can't really make anything out. Oh, and they need to clean up that little computer burp at the bottom of the page, looks a bit messy." Tobias said, handing the letter to Ax.
"I bet the Sharing has horrible, mustard colored backpacks," I ventured, trying to picture anyone ever wanting to wear a Sharing backpack. Or baseball cap for that matter. "I wonder if the baseball cap is to make the Yeerks have team spirit, like a baseball team."
"Oh Marco, stop, no one wants to hear you babble." Rachel said without much conviction. Her mind clearly seemed to be elsewhere.
"What's the matter, Rachel? Your comebacks don't have that particular bite to them this afternoon."
"I could be shopping my heart out at Valley Acres right now, so many stores are having sales today. But instead, I'm sitting here, reading about Yeerk bowling night."
"Prince Jake," Ax suddenly said tersely, the letter clutched in his hand as his eyes slid to regard each one of us, centering on Jake. "It is not a computer 'burp' as Tobias said. I do not think those machines could ingest the food or soda needed to make such a noise. Oise. Nuh."
"Practicing your pig Latin, Ax?" I asked mildly.
"What is it, Ax?" Jake asked before Ax could respond to my comment.
"It is code. Deciphered it reads 'Discussion of new pool security mandatory. Valley Acres unsuitable? Meet in front of Valley Acres.' Unsuitable. Sooooootable."
"They've built a new Yeerk pool? What's the matter, tired of the same old-same old? Need a little bit of luxury? The Visser probably needs bubbles and some jets to massage away the bumps in his slug body, am I right?" I asked, thinking that maybe if I just kept talking, Jake wouldn't say what I knew he was probably going to say anyway.
"We need to check this out." Great. Jake is the king of checking things out. It's a wonder he hasn't gotten a job as a clerk at a grocery store by now. As a check out clerk, in case you didn't catch that joke, since my humor is so advanced. "Tonight, if we can. Good job, Ax, but how did you know that code?" Jake asked, taking the flyer and studying it again. A baffled expression, like a monkey regarding a steering wheel, came over Jake's face. That's his thinking face, which is almost always fun to watch.
"Even as young children, we Andalites are taught to read code, all kinds of code from many species. Yeerk code is easy, and fun to decipher. Fer. Fur." He looked incredibly pleased with himself at Jake's praise and I suddenly felt a rocking sensation in my stomach. I suddenly and clearly knew who was going to be doing the checking out. It would all play out just as it was doing in my head.
"I'll go!" Rachel instantly volunteered. " I don't have any homework tonight so I'm not skipping anything, plus Sarah and Jordan are with mom in the city. And maybe I can make that sale at the Limited." Rachel always goes, no matter what. It's almost disturbing how eager she sounds when she volunteers, too. Like she's expecting to get cookies or something.
"I can't," Cassie sighed, "I have to stay with these little guys and feed them every four hours. Plus I'm grounded for the whole vice principal's office thing."
"English project tonight, worth fifty percent of my grade. Due tomorrow." Jake said, holding his hands up in a "what can I do?" sort of way.
"I have to go home and look out for Harris hawks since they don't seem to want to find their own tree."
"If Prince Jake wants me to, I will go along with Rachel and Marco." Ax said, nodding.
"Whoa whoa, what about this 'and Marco' business? I never said I was going! I might have….an important episode of Passions…to watch." I tried, grabbing on to any sort of hold I could. Of course, now everyone was looking at me pointedly.
"Passions, Marco? That's not even ON on Wednesdays, anyway." Rachel snorted. I shot her a death glare before I looked imploringly at Jake. "Aren't Rachel and Ax enough?" It wasn't that I was lazy, you understand. It was just that being near Rachel and Ax for long periods of time tended to get on one's nerves. Mostly because Rachel can get whiny if we're near a shopping area she isn't allowed access to and Ax is….well…Ax.
"Come on, Marco. It's just recon. In fact, I'll insist that you don't morph unless you have to. For that reason, Ax, I'm afraid you'll have to stay behind this time. Can't risk anyone seeing you demorph in a strip mall."
"Jake! Buddy!" I tried my puppy dog face, which oddly made no impact on him whatsoever.
So that night, Rachel and I headed out to the Valley Acres strip mall at seven, just two kids out looking for a party. Rachel looked longingly into the windows of the Limited, pressing her nose up to the glass and sighing heavily.
"Fifty percent off. Look at those jeans. Look at that belt!"
"Yeah, yeah, love the beadwork. Listen, Rachel, we're here to do some recon. Why don't we actually go walk around?" Rachel sort of waved her hand at me to dismiss me. I could have just left her there. I should have, probably. Instead I tried a different tactic. "Hey, I think I heard something!"
Rachel whirled around, immediately going into pounce mode. "Where?" She asked, almost tensing as she looked from side to side. Valley Acres strip mall was closed for the night, the parking lot empty and bathed in the glow of stadium lights. The stores were dark, and there were alleyways between them that were heavily shadowed. There was a covered walkway lit dimly by orange lights every few feet or so, making the whole place kind of shadowy and mysterious. Figures the Yeerks would want a pool around here, it's convenient to so many different places, like Starbucks or the pizza place, or the Limited, of course.
"I think it's coming from that alley over there. Let's split up and meet back here, in front of the Limited." I said, catching something in my peripheral vision that I wanted to go investigate further. Wow, that's a way to use a big word in a sentence. And people say I'm dumb. Anyway, Rachel of course liked the idea of tearing off after some black clad baddie Yeerk, and was instantly on her way down the alley. "Remember not to do that thing unless you absolutely have to!" I called after her before heading toward the thing I had spied. A snack machine.
I fished in my pockets for some change because I saw a bag of Gardetto's sitting half in and half out of the little hooks they hold the food in place with. That's snack machine pay dirt, and I was going to get two bags of Gardetto's. See, I hadn't had any breakfast, and lunch was the usual thrilling 'corn in mystery sauce with a side of mustard and peas' that our cafeteria calls nourishing. Two bags of Gardetto's would definitely tide me over until this little recon mission was over. Thunk! One bag, the bag some other sucker had shelled out money for, and then here came the second bag. No! It got caught on the treacherous metal hook, hovering half in and half out of the balance.
Suddenly I whirled around, hearing the sound of footsteps on the concrete. Someone was coming my way. I ducked down out of sight against the snack machine's side, curling to stay in the shadow. The person hadn't seen me, hopefully. And the footsteps sounded as if they were going down a different alleyway. With a sigh of relief, I opened the bag as quietly as I could and ate one of the pretzels. Crunch, crunch, was that me or…? The footsteps had returned, and now they were walking faster toward me. I was in the shadow, and I reasoned that I could probably deal with whatever was walking toward me, provided it was alone.
So I started the gorilla morph.
I always had a sneaking suspicion that Andalites developed morphing technology to scare the crap out of their friends and amuse each other at parties, the game "What Am I Turning Into?" was probably a bigger hit than charades, because morphing is so darn RANDOM. It's never first the fur and then the gorilla body follows, or a hairless gorilla body that gets coated in fur. And this time, my teeth changed first, from small flat human teeth to the powerful grinding teeth of the dominant male gorilla, complete with surprisingly sharp, longish canines. My face sort of lengthened and stretched as I reached up to feel that my eyebrows had disappeared, replaced by a huge mass of bulgy skin. I chanced a look at the person coming toward me and immediately stopped the morph. Long blond hair, thin gymnast figure, it was Rachel. Guiltily I shoved another handful of Gardetto's into my mouth, the gorilla teeth making much shorter work of the crispy food than my human teeth would have. I shoved the bag behind the soda machine and rose to greet Rachel, prepared with an explanation.
"Rachel, I.." my voice sounded funny, mangled a little bit by the facial and dental changes, causing me to laugh at my own self. But suddenly I was up against the cold hard brick wall of the building with a hand under my throat and a pointy thing aimed at my chest. "Jeeze, what's the deal, Rachel?! Where'd you get that pointy thing? It's me, Marco?" I asked, worried that at last this crazy hidden life had gotten to her. But then my eyes adjusted to the shadowed face framed by the lights and I freaked a little bit. Because, see, whoever had me backed up against this wall wasn't Rachel. And that startled me into shoving back out at the blonde girl enough to unbalance her, leaving me to make a dash for the snack machine again. I wanted to be a big hairy primate with the strength of twelve men when I faced her again so perhaps she'd faint and make my job easier. Most certainly a Controller, and she'd have to come with us to get the Yeerk out of her head. She'd seen me mostly human, and I'd said both my name and Rachel's.
It seemed to take forever, but by the time she had come running back at me, I was ready to face her. I seized the arm with the pointy thing, and then the pointy thing. It was a stake! I was this close to getting staked! Breaking it, I called for Rachel, the real Rachel. This girl was fighting my hold on me, and doing a pretty good job, so I made a scary gorilla noise and called again in thoughtspeech.
Rachel! Wherever the heck you are, get over here by the snack machine and help me out! Come in your biggest, baddest morph, alright? Of course, if there were other Controllers around, they'd hear me since my thoughtspeech wasn't exactly very quiet. But I was looking at the parking lot and seeing no cars or people, and no aliens were coming up on us just yet. Of course, the Rachel-alike had heard me, and she was now looking at me in earnest confusion. It wouldn't hurt to let her knew I was in on her little secret. If you're thinking of yelling, Yeerk, don't. I'll snap your neck like a twig.
"What's a Yeerk?" The girl asked, to which I merely snorted derisively. Where the heck was Rachel, anyway?
I needn't have worried. A large African elephant was heading straight toward us. A gorilla, okay. People might look twice and dismiss it as a costume. An elephant? Come on, no one is that stupid.
I came as quickly as I could, it's not easy getting through those alleyways when you're half elephant. Rachel said, her thought speech rather like panting. Then she regarded the girl I was holding onto and if an elephant can look puzzled, this one sure did. Marco, this is no time to be picking up girlfriends, okay?
She's no girlfriend. She's a Yeerk. A Yeerk who…saw me morph. We have to take her back with us and see what to do about it. Jake will know.
"Take me where? HEY! I'm right here you know! I can hear you do your…mind talking type stuff." The girl protested. In my defense, she really did look a lot like Rachel.
She attacked me and with my lightning quick reflexes I caught her. Don't mess with Marco the Fearless. I told Rachel. But I don't think there's a meeting here tonight. Or it's later. If there was, we'd be swarmed with Hork Bajir and Taxxons right about now, or at least other Sharing people. She must have just come early. The early bird-
"Saves nine." The girl finished. "I'm not a whatever you say I am. So, magic talking animals, please let me go." She talked very calmly, as though she were used to being around this kind of thing. Probably was trained to recognize Andalite bandits and react accordingly. Definitely a Yeerk anyway, no human would be prowling around a strip mall at night with a wooden stake in hand. It was just not normal.
Nice try, Yeerk. I know you were about to kill me. So let's go on back nicely to Rachel's house, okay? Back roads, Rachel, cause I think we'll need your elephant morph. Your mom is away for the weekend, right?
Right. We can tie her up and see where to go from there. Rachel asserted as we headed back to her apartment. And Marco? Jake is definitely not going to like this.
Tell me something I don't know. Hey, Yeerk, what's your human's name? I asked as we walked along. The answer came defiantly enough.
"For the last time I am not a Yeerk. I don't even know what a Yeerk is! MY name is Buffy Summers."
By Deep Roller
Author's Note: I really should not be writing this. If it shows up in any of those ever popular badfic communities, not only will I not be surprised, but maybe even somewhat honored in a weird…sort of way. The only things to keep in mind when reading this are that I haven't read Animorphs in like, forever (and I didn't finish the series but I know how it ends) and my knowledge of the Buffyverse is somewhat spotty. That mix adds up to make me repeat the first sentence. I really should not be writing this. But I am.
Oh well. It takes place before Oz left in Buffyverse and after David in Animorphverse. So it's kind of…odd. Yes, I'm probably warping canon timelines.
Disclaimer:
Animorphs and all its characters are the property of K.A. Applegate. Buffy and all her pals (and not-so-pals) are Joss Whedon's. No profit is being made from this. None of the characters involved in this story are mine minus the occasional truck driver or ice cream vendor. My….pants are mine, though. That's always a bonus.
Chapter One: Marco
I suppose this whole thing is really my fault. But don't go around saying that, okay? If it got around that I actually admitted it, I'd never live it down. Rachel would most definitely see to that, saying "I knew it!" or "Well, we all knew THAT, Marco," in that annoying way she has. Jake would probably read me the riot act if he really knew how it started. When we're on a mission we're not supposed to stop for refreshments, it's one of Jake's Big No-No's.
But hey, a guy gets hungry! It's not an easy job saving the world from those brain stealing little worms, and it's certainly not a task you can go about doing on an empty stomach. But I better back up a little, and begin at the beginning, which is always a good idea.
This all started when Cassie, CASSIE of all people, got called into Vice Principal Chapman's office. While she was in there, she saw that he had a flyer for the Sharing on his desk. When Chapman stepped out of the office for a moment (he does that so that you get more and more nervous about what he's going to do to you when he comes back into the room) she snagged the flyer and made a copy. Then she put the original back where it had been, and when she told us she made it sound incredibly Mission Impossible. I repeat, Cassie, of all people.
"What were you doing to get called into Chapman's office?" Tobias asked her, incredulous as the rest of us. So incredulous in fact, that he had actually shown up for the meeting following the paper discovery. He's been kind of bad about showing up to meetings lately, what with a pair of Harris hawks trying to muscle in on his territory. But enough about hawk-world. Back to Marco-world.
"Well, we were having a debate over offshore drilling, and Deanna Reagan just got me so upset, a couple words just slipped out. Very un-Cassie words. Even the teacher was shocked." Cassie seemed a bit embarrassed still, and Jake gave her a look like he was going to reprimand her, but couldn't get past the smile. He probably thinks Cassie is cute when she's angry. Lots and lots of MUSH people, it tends to get to your brain.
"I don't blame you," Rachel said. "Because Deanna Reagan is a huge un-Cassie word."
"About the letter?" I inquired, trying to get everyone back to what the meeting was initially called for. I mean, I had TV shows I couldn't possibly miss, and my dad is notorious for screwing up the taping process. Nothing worse than kicking back with a good episode of Letterman and having it cut to C-SPAN or something equally boring. So you can see how I was feeling pressure to be the responsible one.
"The letter, right!" Cassie said, fishing it out of her backpack. "You guys look it over, I have to feed this new litter of five week old fox cubs that just came in." Count on Cassie to have to feed or bandage something during one of our meetings. The barn, though a reasonably private place to have said meetings, was also rather distracting when particularly noisy animals were staying there.
The flyer was passed from one person to the next, each of us looking for some sort of hidden clue as to sinister Yeerk activity. It said, word for word:
'The Sharing invites you to Bowling Night!
Free sodas and nachos for everyone who shows up! Bring a friend!
A free backpack and baseball cap to all who sign up!
From 7 pm- 9pm at Creekside Lanes
Don't be late!
3o45354efgdtrertyfdsr
"Other than that they went a little heavy on the exclamation marks, I can't really make anything out. Oh, and they need to clean up that little computer burp at the bottom of the page, looks a bit messy." Tobias said, handing the letter to Ax.
"I bet the Sharing has horrible, mustard colored backpacks," I ventured, trying to picture anyone ever wanting to wear a Sharing backpack. Or baseball cap for that matter. "I wonder if the baseball cap is to make the Yeerks have team spirit, like a baseball team."
"Oh Marco, stop, no one wants to hear you babble." Rachel said without much conviction. Her mind clearly seemed to be elsewhere.
"What's the matter, Rachel? Your comebacks don't have that particular bite to them this afternoon."
"I could be shopping my heart out at Valley Acres right now, so many stores are having sales today. But instead, I'm sitting here, reading about Yeerk bowling night."
"Prince Jake," Ax suddenly said tersely, the letter clutched in his hand as his eyes slid to regard each one of us, centering on Jake. "It is not a computer 'burp' as Tobias said. I do not think those machines could ingest the food or soda needed to make such a noise. Oise. Nuh."
"Practicing your pig Latin, Ax?" I asked mildly.
"What is it, Ax?" Jake asked before Ax could respond to my comment.
"It is code. Deciphered it reads 'Discussion of new pool security mandatory. Valley Acres unsuitable? Meet in front of Valley Acres.' Unsuitable. Sooooootable."
"They've built a new Yeerk pool? What's the matter, tired of the same old-same old? Need a little bit of luxury? The Visser probably needs bubbles and some jets to massage away the bumps in his slug body, am I right?" I asked, thinking that maybe if I just kept talking, Jake wouldn't say what I knew he was probably going to say anyway.
"We need to check this out." Great. Jake is the king of checking things out. It's a wonder he hasn't gotten a job as a clerk at a grocery store by now. As a check out clerk, in case you didn't catch that joke, since my humor is so advanced. "Tonight, if we can. Good job, Ax, but how did you know that code?" Jake asked, taking the flyer and studying it again. A baffled expression, like a monkey regarding a steering wheel, came over Jake's face. That's his thinking face, which is almost always fun to watch.
"Even as young children, we Andalites are taught to read code, all kinds of code from many species. Yeerk code is easy, and fun to decipher. Fer. Fur." He looked incredibly pleased with himself at Jake's praise and I suddenly felt a rocking sensation in my stomach. I suddenly and clearly knew who was going to be doing the checking out. It would all play out just as it was doing in my head.
"I'll go!" Rachel instantly volunteered. " I don't have any homework tonight so I'm not skipping anything, plus Sarah and Jordan are with mom in the city. And maybe I can make that sale at the Limited." Rachel always goes, no matter what. It's almost disturbing how eager she sounds when she volunteers, too. Like she's expecting to get cookies or something.
"I can't," Cassie sighed, "I have to stay with these little guys and feed them every four hours. Plus I'm grounded for the whole vice principal's office thing."
"English project tonight, worth fifty percent of my grade. Due tomorrow." Jake said, holding his hands up in a "what can I do?" sort of way.
"I have to go home and look out for Harris hawks since they don't seem to want to find their own tree."
"If Prince Jake wants me to, I will go along with Rachel and Marco." Ax said, nodding.
"Whoa whoa, what about this 'and Marco' business? I never said I was going! I might have….an important episode of Passions…to watch." I tried, grabbing on to any sort of hold I could. Of course, now everyone was looking at me pointedly.
"Passions, Marco? That's not even ON on Wednesdays, anyway." Rachel snorted. I shot her a death glare before I looked imploringly at Jake. "Aren't Rachel and Ax enough?" It wasn't that I was lazy, you understand. It was just that being near Rachel and Ax for long periods of time tended to get on one's nerves. Mostly because Rachel can get whiny if we're near a shopping area she isn't allowed access to and Ax is….well…Ax.
"Come on, Marco. It's just recon. In fact, I'll insist that you don't morph unless you have to. For that reason, Ax, I'm afraid you'll have to stay behind this time. Can't risk anyone seeing you demorph in a strip mall."
"Jake! Buddy!" I tried my puppy dog face, which oddly made no impact on him whatsoever.
So that night, Rachel and I headed out to the Valley Acres strip mall at seven, just two kids out looking for a party. Rachel looked longingly into the windows of the Limited, pressing her nose up to the glass and sighing heavily.
"Fifty percent off. Look at those jeans. Look at that belt!"
"Yeah, yeah, love the beadwork. Listen, Rachel, we're here to do some recon. Why don't we actually go walk around?" Rachel sort of waved her hand at me to dismiss me. I could have just left her there. I should have, probably. Instead I tried a different tactic. "Hey, I think I heard something!"
Rachel whirled around, immediately going into pounce mode. "Where?" She asked, almost tensing as she looked from side to side. Valley Acres strip mall was closed for the night, the parking lot empty and bathed in the glow of stadium lights. The stores were dark, and there were alleyways between them that were heavily shadowed. There was a covered walkway lit dimly by orange lights every few feet or so, making the whole place kind of shadowy and mysterious. Figures the Yeerks would want a pool around here, it's convenient to so many different places, like Starbucks or the pizza place, or the Limited, of course.
"I think it's coming from that alley over there. Let's split up and meet back here, in front of the Limited." I said, catching something in my peripheral vision that I wanted to go investigate further. Wow, that's a way to use a big word in a sentence. And people say I'm dumb. Anyway, Rachel of course liked the idea of tearing off after some black clad baddie Yeerk, and was instantly on her way down the alley. "Remember not to do that thing unless you absolutely have to!" I called after her before heading toward the thing I had spied. A snack machine.
I fished in my pockets for some change because I saw a bag of Gardetto's sitting half in and half out of the little hooks they hold the food in place with. That's snack machine pay dirt, and I was going to get two bags of Gardetto's. See, I hadn't had any breakfast, and lunch was the usual thrilling 'corn in mystery sauce with a side of mustard and peas' that our cafeteria calls nourishing. Two bags of Gardetto's would definitely tide me over until this little recon mission was over. Thunk! One bag, the bag some other sucker had shelled out money for, and then here came the second bag. No! It got caught on the treacherous metal hook, hovering half in and half out of the balance.
Suddenly I whirled around, hearing the sound of footsteps on the concrete. Someone was coming my way. I ducked down out of sight against the snack machine's side, curling to stay in the shadow. The person hadn't seen me, hopefully. And the footsteps sounded as if they were going down a different alleyway. With a sigh of relief, I opened the bag as quietly as I could and ate one of the pretzels. Crunch, crunch, was that me or…? The footsteps had returned, and now they were walking faster toward me. I was in the shadow, and I reasoned that I could probably deal with whatever was walking toward me, provided it was alone.
So I started the gorilla morph.
I always had a sneaking suspicion that Andalites developed morphing technology to scare the crap out of their friends and amuse each other at parties, the game "What Am I Turning Into?" was probably a bigger hit than charades, because morphing is so darn RANDOM. It's never first the fur and then the gorilla body follows, or a hairless gorilla body that gets coated in fur. And this time, my teeth changed first, from small flat human teeth to the powerful grinding teeth of the dominant male gorilla, complete with surprisingly sharp, longish canines. My face sort of lengthened and stretched as I reached up to feel that my eyebrows had disappeared, replaced by a huge mass of bulgy skin. I chanced a look at the person coming toward me and immediately stopped the morph. Long blond hair, thin gymnast figure, it was Rachel. Guiltily I shoved another handful of Gardetto's into my mouth, the gorilla teeth making much shorter work of the crispy food than my human teeth would have. I shoved the bag behind the soda machine and rose to greet Rachel, prepared with an explanation.
"Rachel, I.." my voice sounded funny, mangled a little bit by the facial and dental changes, causing me to laugh at my own self. But suddenly I was up against the cold hard brick wall of the building with a hand under my throat and a pointy thing aimed at my chest. "Jeeze, what's the deal, Rachel?! Where'd you get that pointy thing? It's me, Marco?" I asked, worried that at last this crazy hidden life had gotten to her. But then my eyes adjusted to the shadowed face framed by the lights and I freaked a little bit. Because, see, whoever had me backed up against this wall wasn't Rachel. And that startled me into shoving back out at the blonde girl enough to unbalance her, leaving me to make a dash for the snack machine again. I wanted to be a big hairy primate with the strength of twelve men when I faced her again so perhaps she'd faint and make my job easier. Most certainly a Controller, and she'd have to come with us to get the Yeerk out of her head. She'd seen me mostly human, and I'd said both my name and Rachel's.
It seemed to take forever, but by the time she had come running back at me, I was ready to face her. I seized the arm with the pointy thing, and then the pointy thing. It was a stake! I was this close to getting staked! Breaking it, I called for Rachel, the real Rachel. This girl was fighting my hold on me, and doing a pretty good job, so I made a scary gorilla noise and called again in thoughtspeech.
Rachel! Wherever the heck you are, get over here by the snack machine and help me out! Come in your biggest, baddest morph, alright? Of course, if there were other Controllers around, they'd hear me since my thoughtspeech wasn't exactly very quiet. But I was looking at the parking lot and seeing no cars or people, and no aliens were coming up on us just yet. Of course, the Rachel-alike had heard me, and she was now looking at me in earnest confusion. It wouldn't hurt to let her knew I was in on her little secret. If you're thinking of yelling, Yeerk, don't. I'll snap your neck like a twig.
"What's a Yeerk?" The girl asked, to which I merely snorted derisively. Where the heck was Rachel, anyway?
I needn't have worried. A large African elephant was heading straight toward us. A gorilla, okay. People might look twice and dismiss it as a costume. An elephant? Come on, no one is that stupid.
I came as quickly as I could, it's not easy getting through those alleyways when you're half elephant. Rachel said, her thought speech rather like panting. Then she regarded the girl I was holding onto and if an elephant can look puzzled, this one sure did. Marco, this is no time to be picking up girlfriends, okay?
She's no girlfriend. She's a Yeerk. A Yeerk who…saw me morph. We have to take her back with us and see what to do about it. Jake will know.
"Take me where? HEY! I'm right here you know! I can hear you do your…mind talking type stuff." The girl protested. In my defense, she really did look a lot like Rachel.
She attacked me and with my lightning quick reflexes I caught her. Don't mess with Marco the Fearless. I told Rachel. But I don't think there's a meeting here tonight. Or it's later. If there was, we'd be swarmed with Hork Bajir and Taxxons right about now, or at least other Sharing people. She must have just come early. The early bird-
"Saves nine." The girl finished. "I'm not a whatever you say I am. So, magic talking animals, please let me go." She talked very calmly, as though she were used to being around this kind of thing. Probably was trained to recognize Andalite bandits and react accordingly. Definitely a Yeerk anyway, no human would be prowling around a strip mall at night with a wooden stake in hand. It was just not normal.
Nice try, Yeerk. I know you were about to kill me. So let's go on back nicely to Rachel's house, okay? Back roads, Rachel, cause I think we'll need your elephant morph. Your mom is away for the weekend, right?
Right. We can tie her up and see where to go from there. Rachel asserted as we headed back to her apartment. And Marco? Jake is definitely not going to like this.
Tell me something I don't know. Hey, Yeerk, what's your human's name? I asked as we walked along. The answer came defiantly enough.
"For the last time I am not a Yeerk. I don't even know what a Yeerk is! MY name is Buffy Summers."