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Chapter Four

Marco, Ax, and Jake

Pinky and the Brain

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Jake

We fucked up. Again, except it was somehow bigger this time.

We'd been so preoccupied with the kid we hadn't spared his family a thought. We should have thought of them though, we should have had a little insight. I hate to think back to David, I never want to think of him again, the mistakes I made.

First was his family. He lost his family to the Yeerks. I think he was crazy from the beginning, or at least a nasty little prick, but letting his family get captured probably didn't help him out any.

Not only had this kid lost his family he had no chance of ever getting them back. We'd all seen the scene, his family being taken away in an ambulance, already dead.

We fucked up.

And it got worse, because we didn't know where he was. Cassie and Rachel said he'd gone off with someone, a man, but they didn't know to where. They'd decided to stick around and scope out the place for alien-type things.

Marco had remained in wolf morph and hadn't been able to get too close to the house let alone chase after the kid.

Did I mention that we fucked up? Yeah? Good.

We messed up in a multi-dimensional way actually. He'd lost his family, so now had the orphan thing going on. No one to watch over him, plus everyone was going to be looking for him, making it harder for us to do so unnoticed. He was alone. I had the feeling we were going to end up adding him to our ranks, which was the last thing I wanted to do.

But what else could we do with him?

"If he's so eager to die why are we bothering?" Rachel asked, playing with her hair thoughtfully. I had to admit she had a point. Why save someone who didn't want saving?

"Because whatever his issues are we can't let him be killed or infested." Cassie said sternly. "What kind of people would we be if we did?"

"Smart." Marco said, glancing up at them. "Let's not get involved. The Yeerks are going to 'dispose' of him, not infest him, so this won't come back to bite us in the ass. We won't get involved with him and he won't get involved with us.

"'We're already involved.' Tobias said. He was in the trees above us, speaking as he preened his feathers. He tended to do that a little more then necessary when he was thinking or nervous. 'I don't think I could live with myself if I knew we'd turned some kid over to the Yeerks because we didn't feel like doing anything. Isn't it bad enough we let his family, a bunch of innocent people, get killed because we weren't thinking?'

Tobias had a good point. So did Rachel and Marco though. Cassie too. Have I mentioned how much I hate being the leader of this band of idiots? Nothing ever gets accomplished this way. We always seem to be stuck in some kind of moral tie.

I turned to Ax, hoping for a change he'd have an opinion of his own. "Ax? Any ideas or contributions to this?"

'I will of course do whatever you think is best Prince Jake.' I sighed. This was obviously going to come down to me again. 'However-'

"Oh my god, hell has just frozen over and Ax has an actual opinion." Marco said tone indicating that this was a big thing. It kind of was though, thus far Ax just did whatever I told him and never expressed his view. Considering he knew more than I did about…oh, everything, I wish he'd say what he felt more often. Ax just stared at him with all four eyes and Marco swallowed. "You were saying Ax-man?"

Ax

'It would be wise to save this human. It is entirely possible he holds more information then we think and could be useful. At the very least he may have another copy of this picture that you could perhaps send to your state official or television station.' I said as I turned my gaze from the nervous looking Marco.

I understand that having all of my eyes trained on a person makes them very nervous. I might never really understand why, but it held true in this situation.'

You just wanna be on TV.' Tobias said privately

I was silent for a moment making it seem as if I had to think the accusation over. 'Perhaps. The idea is not wholly unappealing.'

Tobias laughed. I'm glad, this meant my attempts at humor were indeed successful. Being on TV is of course not my reasoning behind my decision; I believe it would be a genuinely good idea. In spite of this human's unique attitude towards his death there would have been no point in letting him die if in fact he had useful information.

Prince Jake smiled at me. "Well, that's settled, we're saving this guy. As soon as we figure out where he might be." He frowned then.

'He mentioned that he had given the picture to his Astronomy teacher. If the Yeerks know about it, his teacher must have told someone about it. It would make sense to find out who this teacher is and then find out if he knows where the boy is.'

Prince Jake looked at me then beamed. "You are a genius Ax."

I felt a brief surge of pride, but said nothing. It was…pleasant to be praised in such a way. I try not to think of what my people might say if they could see me, as I'm supposed to be humble and not accept praise, least I get a…big head I think it's called. But, as humans say, what they don't know won't hurt them.

Sadly I become more and more human as each day progresses. My parents would have been most disturbed if I were to act this way around them, though at that time I had no idea if I would ever so much as speak to them again.

I didn't hold out much hope, but I couldn't tell that to my friends. They would fight anyway, so I thought it better to let them believe my people would come.

"Not to call Ax's genius into doubt, but how do we find out about the professor?" Cassie asked worriedly. "We don't even know their name."

Jake looked at me and I shrugged, a human trait I had picked up. I couldn't possibly be expected to think of everything could I?

"Well we can go to his school and poke around." Marco suggested. "Find a directory or something. It shouldn't be too hard to do."

"That was the first intelligent thing you've said in a long time." Rachel looked a little awed.

Marco frowned. "As opposed to you saying nothing intelligent at all, as in ever, unless it involves a plan that will get us all killed?"

Marco sounds genuinely offended by her words. I'm not sure why, he and Rachel seem to insult each other all of the time. It was almost like that was the only way they could communicate with each other. Sometimes I'm not sure they are able to tolerate each other, but Tobias insists that they do. Perhaps it's another human trait I don't yet understand.

It isn't really important. Marco's idea on the other hand, made sense to me, as well as Prince Jake, though he looked very pensive.

"Alright, then we have a plan, thanks to Marco and Ax's collective genius."

At which Marco blinked before groaning. "Wait, I didn't mean it like that. I was just…saying. You know…to help Ax out. Not to form an actual plan."'It's a very good plan Marco.' I said. I'm not sure why I did since we were obviously going to use the plan whether Marco approved or not, as we always did. He disapproved about everything we did and we still went through with them

Marco blinked at me then coughed and looked away. "Well of course it's a good plan, like any plan that both of us had a hand in could be anything less, I'm just saying…never mind."

"Good." Jake said rubbing his hands together.

'Don't do that. You look like you're trying to take over the world or something.' Tobias said, sounding amused. It reminded me of a cartoon Tobias and I watched sometimes.

It involved two mice, one a supposed genius and the other very…special is the human word for it, I think. The genius comes up with plans for world domination, none of which seem as if they'll work out to begin with, and then the other one unknowingly foils the other's plans.

It's actually amusing; in spite of the way it sounds.

"But Brain, didn't we do that last night?" Marco whined. Jake just blinked at him. Marco shook his head. "I don't know why I even bother."

'Its okay Pinky, he knows you mean well.' Tobias said. It was more of a teasing manner then one to make Marco feel better, but it seemed to work anyway. He smiled.

"Finally, someone who does more then sit around and act like a thirty-year-old."

'Ax is more of a fan then me.'

"Really?" Marco raised an eyebrow at me. "Are you a closet cartoon watcher Ax?"

'I don't believe I'm a closet anything.' Marco's eye twitched and Tobias snorted. The others rolled their eyes, which indicated to me that it was some display of 'immaturity' and wouldn't be worth asking about.

"Can we concentrate?" Jake demanded. "Please?"

Marco

Sometimes Jake isn't any fun. He just doesn't always get the concept of not sulking around and waiting to be killed when you can just make jokes about it. Life is what you make it after all, and I'd prefer for mine not to be on par with some of after school special.

Not that it would be…then again. Boy loses mother, life sucks. Boy rescues dad from Yeerks a time or two, turns out mother isn't really dead but the head of alien organization boy must stop. Boy's father remarries to his math teacher, even though mother isn't dead, boy lures mother off of a cliff, etc. Not necessarily all on that order.

Just…replace aliens with some major company and the cliff part with some fluffy family reunion bit and you have every other feel good movie.

What was I talking about?

Oh yeah, Jake's boring sometimes. All work, no play.

But my idea…,okay Ax and my conjoined idea though the best part was all mine, turned out to be a major success. Relatively speaking anyway. We found the school directory pretty easily, managed to not attract too much attention in our spandex, and found that Mr. J. Hayes was the professor our vanished charge had given his photo to. A quick look in the phone book and we were headed for some apartment, blessedly close to the school.

I was really tired of walking around barefoot.

Ax, in harrier morph, and Tobias circled the building to see if they could look in any of the windows and see anything. We got nothing for a few minutes, unless an old lady staring at us, crossing the street, walking a few feet, then crossing back to our side, counted as something.

I felt a little…obvious standing out there, not to mention kind of chilly. I guess we were hoping that this branch of the Yeerk takeover wouldn't have anyone who would be able to identify Jake or Rachel as Tom's relatives or me and Cassie.

'Found him.' Tobias said, sounding faintly amused. 'Him and some guy, the teacher I guess. And…oh shit.'

Jake looked up, hoping to see Ax or Tobias or get a little more than 'Oh shit' out of them, but that was it. We couldn't shout up at them to give us a little more information, since that would have drawn more then a little attention to us. So we stood there for what felt like an eternity, waiting for someone to give us a heads up on whatever was going down.

'Uh, sorry about that.' Tobias again but now he sounded a little haggard. 'There was a bit of a situation. You can all come inside now.'

I looked at Jake and shook my head. This wasn't going to go well, it never went well. Jake ignored me, of course. So we trooped inside and up the stairs, happy to not be seen by everyone once again. We went into the apartment where we found what may have been a surprising sight had our lives not already been stark raving insane long before that point.

There was a man tied to an armchair unconscious, Tobias and Ax perched on the back of the couch and the boy we were looking for sitting on the table and holding a really big knife. And he looked just mildly upset.

Not that I can blame him.

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Dragon: Chapters should be more forthcoming, as I have more time to myself.

Mechante: Johnny isn't to be trusted…what with being a homicidal maniac and all. It's a comic book and it's…well, it's interesting, to say the least. Jono isn't really the sort to need the cavalry so much as the sort to yell at the cavalry for stopping his revenge plan. Yes, the pairing could have been awkward if Tobias was just Bird-boy twenty-four seven… Even more awkward than Marco and Ax, which promises to be interesting..