Rachel laughed. "Go on Cass, I'll wait for you in the barn." With those words, Rachel turned and walked back into the barn. Once she was back inside, Rachel climbed up the ladder the way Cassie had earlier.
At the top, Rachel looked around. Not seeing Slade anywhere, Rachel started searching for him. Rachel shivered slightly as she felt something like a cold wind pass through her mind, then she saw Slade stick his head out from behind a bale of hay.
"Hi," he said. "You're Rachel, right?"
"Yeah, that's who I am," Rachel smiled. Then her expression turned curious, even concerned. "Did you feel that weird, whatever-it-was that just passed through here just now?"
"The what?" Slade asked, then his eyes unfocused slightly for just a moment, and Rachel felt that same strange momentary coldness passing through her mind that she'd felt just a few minutes ago. "Oh, you meant that," he said, nodding with apparent unconcern. "That was kind of my fault."
"How was that your fault?" Rachel demanded, looking at Slade like he'd just said something impossible. As far as Rachel was concerned, he had.
I'm… well I guess you'd call it… my telepathy. Slade said.
To Rachel, it felt as if Slade had somehow painlessly opened her skull and spoke directly into her brain. Adding to the creepiness factor was the way Slade's eyes glowed a bright emerald-white all through the time he was talking. Rachel also thought she could just make out a small, indistinct dot of green-white light flickering on Slade's forehead, but his eyes were what held her attention.
Rachel took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. After she felt calm enough, she answered. "Oh, so that's what you call it." It was a little disconcerting at first, to be sure, but Rachel had had a lot of on the job training in dealing with weirdness.
A few seconds later, Rachel and Slade both heard the distinct flapping of wings that meant a bird was coming into the barn. Both of them looked up at the same time, just as two birds-of-prey swooped and circled their way into the main area of the barn. One was an Osprey, the other a Red-Tailed Hawk. Marco and Tobias.
Oh, there you are, Tobias said calmly, evidently having spotted them on the edge of the hayloft.
The Red-Tailed Hawk and the Osprey landed in front of Slade and Rachel, and one of them started changing in the same way that Jake had done so many days ago. Slade thought at first that this was him, and was about to ask Jake why he'd went through all the trouble of acquiring a new bird morph when he had a perfectly good one already. But this new bird… this new bird was changing into something subtly different.
Whereas Jake had been nearly as tall as Slade himself, this new boy's height seemed to be leveling out somewhere near the lower part of Slade's shoulders. Whereas Jake had had a fairly pale complexion, this new boy's skin was almost halfway as dark as Cassie's. Whereas Jake's hair had been lightish brown, this new boy's hair was almost as black as Slade's own.
Once the new boy was completely demorphed, Slade got quickly to his feet, drawing himself up to his rather impressive height of just over six feet. He didn't know who this new comer was, but since he had the same power that Jake, Cassie, and Slade suspected Rachel shared, Slade felt that he could at least give him the benefit of the doubt. "So, who're you?" Slade asked in a neutral voice.
"I'm Bart Simpson, who the hell are you?" the smaller boy said in a falsely nasal voice.
"Marco, don't confuse him," Rachel said, standing up next to Slade.
"Sorry," Marco grinned smugly. "I just couldn't help myself."
Slade huffed, rolling his eyes at Marco's antics. Sure, in a weird kind of way it was funny, but it was also kind of annoying that this Marco guy reminded him of someone. Like Cassie had reminded him of someone. Slade sighed, sitting back down. That was when Cassie came back into the barn. She was carrying something, but Slade wasn't really sure what.
She climbed back into the hayloft, and Slade, Marco, and Rachel all stood back up and moved out of her way. Once Cassie was back in the hayloft, she handed Slade what she had been carrying. It was another bundle of clothes. Slade gave Cassie a questioning look.
"And… these are for… what, exactly?" Slade asked, since he was already wearing a perfectly good set of clothes.
"This is your new morphing outfit, Slade," Cassie said. "Rachel already told you how we can't take bulky things like normal clothes along when we morph, right? Well, this is what we've figured out how to do instead. You just put these on under your clothes, and they'll somehow come with you when you morph."
"Oh. Okay," Slade unfolded the second bundle of clothes that Cassie had given him. Slade couldn't help feeling like this was déjà vu all over again. At least these look a lot better than the last set. The shirt was solid white, and looked like one of those spandex things that people used when they were racing bikes. The pants, or rather shortened leggings, were a dark enough blue that they could be mistaken for black if someone didn't look close enough.
