I didn't know if my cougar morph had night vision so I had to go with one of the morphs that I knew had it. The list was short: wolf, lion, Tasmanian devil, and leopard, I decided on the leopard. Rachel must have acquired some new morphs because I barely saw her changing into a lioness. Karen was morphing a Jaguar.

Spots began to break out on my body my skin turned brown then thickened to form fur. Pain, my legs turned inward an I fell but this time my paws had already formed so I "landed on my feet". I grew only slightly, (the leopard I had acquired was about and inch longer than me.) My fangs came in, causing my mouth to erupt in pain, then my head changed to the head of the leopard my tail began to grow out, when I was fully morphed I climbed a nearby tree.

My leopard eyes could see clearly in the night. Rachel was already in full loin morph and ready to pounce Karen was also ready to spring. The controllers were accompanied by Hork-Baijar this time. They looked like tall lizards walking on two feet with sharp blades on there arms and legs. The human-controllers were on ATVs and were approaching fast, they were within earshot of my morph pretty quickly.

"… gonna be pissed when he finds out that the transmitter is down." I recognized the voice as the man who was so courteous to the Nam vet at the hotel.

"Hey he can't complain about it, she's likely with the Andilate rouges that have been raising Hell all over the North Carolina, they would have found the transmitter pretty fast."

'Wait, if the transmitter is down then why are we still searching?"

"Protocol check the last position the bug was in hey maybe we'll get lucky."

(Your gonna get lucky all right he he he) Karen laughed in thoughtspeak this was the first but not the last time I suspected that her and Rachel were separated at birth.

(Be careful there's Hork-Baijar there too) I said.

(That may complicate things a bit…) Rachel said, neither one of them could see what I saw since I had the best vantage point, I looked to see if the Controllers were armed, each had a pistol but nothing else, the must have been relying on the Hork-Baijar.

(Don't worry I think we can take em, there are four of them , Rachel, and Karen take them on while I take care of Dumb and Dumber on the ATV's. Stay hidden until my go.) The ATV's grew closer, closer, closer… (GO). I jumped from the tree and hit the first controller (the Nam hater) square in the back, I broke his neck with a quick bite from by mouth. The ATV careened out of control and I barely had time to jump on the next guy (who hadn't noticed what had happened in the dark since he only had head lights to run by.)

I killed him in the same way thanking God for the stalking ability of my morph. Rachel and Karen had Engaged the Hork-Baijar it was two on one but they were both managing to stay clear of the fifty odd sharp blades. That didn't last long, one of the Hork-Baijar slashed Rachel in the side, she bellowed in pain and disemboweled the creature with her right paw. The other Hork-Baijar tried to take advantage of her distraction to cut off her head but her found himself with a 100 pound leopard on his back.

(I've got this one, go help Karen) I said having to dodge the Hork-Baijar's arm blades. I dug my claws into his skin and bit his neck. I was able to snap it, then I ran over and joined Karen's fight. Karen and Rachel were each taking on one of the Hork-Baijar I climbed a tree ready to surprise attack if I needed to.

I needed to, the Hork-Baijar got in a large slash on Karen's right side he moved in to make the attack worse, I jumped form the tree and landed a neck bike on him before he knew what was happening. I looked around, listened, and smelled with my leopard senses. I got no sense of further danger, I demorphed. I ran over to Karen.

"You okay?" She was bleeding rather profusely.

(Yeah) She began to demorph. (I'm) "fine". Her face was the first to reappear. After she finished demorphing I looked over at Rachel who had also demorphed.

"We need to get to our rest site, we can't get too far behind the others."

12:00 pm

Near the Piedmont Mountain Region border.

We rests at an outcrop with three caves, it was next to a river so we had a supply of water. We watched in shifts I had the first. It was difficult since I was tired. The waters soft gurgle almost put me to sleep several times but I jerked back awake.

"I'm here to relive you." Rachel said. She had come up behind me and almost scared the life out of me.

"Sorry," She said, I got up to leave but she stopped me. "hey I have to know what made you believe in the Yerk invasion?"

"When my parents were killed."

"I'm sorry, do you mind if I ask…"

"Why weren't they infested? My family has had a history of hearing problems, my father was a doctor and had created an inner ear hearing aid it, unfortunately for them, blocked the ear canals to Yerk entry, since the placement is permanent both of my parents had to be killed. Everyone in my group has that implant now, most of which are inactive."

"Are you saying?"

"Yes for all purposes me and Anna are deaf, but the hearing aids make it impossible to detect. We can hear just as well as you can."

"Don't' they pop out when you morph?"

"No, prosthetic attachments seem to follow from morph to morph, I think it's because the technology was designed to keep an Andilate's interpreter on during morphs."

"So you can't be infested…"

"I don't have anymore implants, I was lucky to get enough for my team, the Yerks destroyed them all, but yes I am immune to infestation, that's why I'm more likely to split up my team, I know that they can't be infested, you know I still didn't believe it entirely even after my parents were killed, it was made to look like a random street crime. I must have suspected something because I hid a lot of the implants that my parents had made.

"The thing that really brought it home, was when I saw the Yerk Pool, I found the entrance by following the cops that were supposedly investigating my parents murder they went into a Yerk Pool entrance, I heard the screams for myself, I saw the cages, saw entire families there crying, begging… It was after that, that I decided to fight.

"I met a man named Danny Esten he used to work for the CIA and he found out about the invasion in about the same way I did. He would get me information on Yerk activities, me and the rest if my team, which was short of Becky then, would sneak into various Yerk controlled business and the like, we'd mess up data, destroy records."

"Carry out assassinations." Rachel said.

"It was the only was for us to fight, we couldn't morph back then."

"I understand, I don't think I have the right to judge anyway. "

"Well," I went back to my story. "After we found Becky we were able to get the ability to morph, we went after the Yerks even more directly attacking full force on large projects, most of the time we lost, the few victories we won were short-lived, as you know the bastards are remarkably resilient, finally we decided it was best for us to go for an all out full front attack, but we weren't strong enough, I hope that you and the others will join us, with 14 morph capable people we may just stand a chance…"

"Save that speech for Jake and get some rest, you're probably going to need it. Jake is defiantly not going to be happy about me bringing home 8 people who somehow gained the ability to morph."

"Hey maybe we can just morph into dogs and you can say we followed you home." She smiled. I got up and went to sleep.