Animorphs: The Terrorist

This story is set a week or so after The Epidemic. For a fuller background of Sam and the other new characters, you might want to read The Fugitives series.

Disclaimer: all characters belong to me, apart from Sam, Philip, Ferdie and Maggie, plus any others you don't recognise.

Chapter One

"Go for it Sam!"

I tensed my muscles in response to Rachel's cry, wiping the hair out of my eyes, ready to face what was coming to me. A tall, muscular girl, with dark hair and even darker eyes, was glaring at me. I put my hands up to guard, never breaking eye contact with her. She jabbed with her fist, but I managed to block her movements. I stepped to the side, dodging another throw, ready to perform a counter attack. I placed my weight ion my back foot, ready to kick. Suddenly, she stepped forward, performing a graceful but powerful speedy roundhouse kick. Right into my ribs.

"Ah!" I gasped, doubling over in pain and collapsing to the floor. The girl laughed and walked over to me.

"Y'aright gal?" she smiled, pulling me to my feet. "Guess that last kick was kinda hard."

I stood up straight, still winded but trying to grin back. Barely ten seconds in and I'd already lost the round. My kickboxing partner was far more experienced than I was, but she was a good sport. She'd knew when to stop - unlike most of my enemies.

"Yeah, not bad, thanks," I said, wiping the sweat out of my eyes and trying to get my breath back. "I really thought I had you there, Charlene. I suppose that teaches me for getting all cocky."

"Hey, no worries!" Charlene said, taking a swig of water from her bottle before passing it to me. "You did great. Really. You've done this before, right?"

"Did it a bit at school," I replied. "I'm a bit rusty, though."

From the outside of the ring, Rachel snorted with laughter. Ok, so 'a bit rusty' was probably slightly inaccurate. I'd had plenty of practise fighting over the last few weeks. Just none as a human.

"Well, I'm sure you'll get back into it," Charlene said. She glanced at the clock, distracted. "I gotta be off in a minute. You coming next week?"

"Um, should be," I said vaguely, knowing these opportunities for sport were few and far between. "If nothing comes up."

"Sure," she nodded, like she cared. "Well, see ya later!" She grabbed her sweat towel and sashayed towards the changing rooms, followed by a group of girls.

I stepped out of the ring and walked towards Rachel. "Don't. Say. Anything." I told her, refusing to catch her eye.

Rachel put on hand on her delicate hip and smirked at me. "Sam," she said solemnly, her voice low. "All I want to know is, how can a girl who's second-in-command of an army against a load of mind controlling aliens, who's been in more battles than your average New York street punk, not take down Charlene Spearson?"

I grabbed my bag and headed towards the changing rooms. "I try not to get into fights unless I can help it," I muttered. "And when I do, they've generally been when I was in the body of a leopard. So I haven't had much experience fighting in my human body. Besides, Philip is usually the one who was responsible for the battle tactics. I tend to just roar and swipe."

Rachel cocked her head at looked at me. "Well, remind me not to call on you to save my butt unless you happen to be a leopard." A bunch of girls, in full earshot of our conversation walked by, but the way she phased the sentence wouldn't have aroused any suspicion from even the most keen-eared of Controllers. She paused when she saw my face. "Hey, I'm just kidding, Sam! At least you had the nerve to fight her. I didn't go within ten feet of the girl." She pulled her jeans out of her bag and began to get changed.

"Oh, so you weren't just dying to spar with her?" I retorted. "I saw your face, Rachel, continuously watching the clock, hoping there'd be time for you to go up there and show her what Xena is made of!"

"Don't call me that!" she laughed. "Only Marco calls me that, and I'm tempted to rip his head off every time he does."

"But you would have fought her if you'd had time?"

She gave me a quick shrug of her mouth. "Maybe."

Which of course, translated roughly to "Visser Three couldn't hold me back."

We left the gym, stinking of a hundred different brands of girls' deodorants, and headed across the road towards the shopping centre. It was a bright, sunny, Saturday in September, and I was glad to get out of the country and into the city for a while. Spending days down in a make-shift wooden hut in a valley, with the company of a load of giant lizards does begin to wear you down after a while. Jake and I had decided that since there were no missions or anything planned, we should take the weekend off. Relax and forget about fighting the Yeerks. So Rachel and I had attended a kickboxing lesson at her local gym. Cassie and Jake were spending some quality time together. Ferdie and the other original Animorphs were at the cinema watching some new film which had yet to be released in Britain. Philip would probably be planning lessons for the four of us in battle tactics or living in the wilderness. He's like that.

I took another swig of my water and crossed the road without looking. Whilst I was still red-faced and sweating from the exercise, Rachel was gliding gracefully along like she'd just come out of having a massage. Her pink sports bag was thrown casually over her shoulder, bouncing in time to her step, as her high heels clicked on the pavement. Her long, blonde hair fell into perfect place, compared to the messy frizz that was my own. How that girl managed to stay looking so perfect, even after an hours kickboxing, I have no idea.

"Want to pop into Express for a bit, before we meet the others?" she asked, her eyes caught by the attention of a large, red sale sign in the clothes shop window. I rolled my eyes. We'd been in the mall for less than three seconds.

"Yeah, sure," I replied, looking at my watch. "But we've only got ten minutes before we're supposed to meet the others. And knowing you, you'll see one thing you want and insist on finding a whole new outfit to go with it."

"Geez, you sound just like Cassie," Rachel laughed, entering the shop and immediately striding towards the sale section. "I'm just browsing, that's all. I probably won't even buy any-" she paused, pulling out a silky, dark blue halter neck. "Oh, I have got to get this!" she cried. I rolled my eyes. It's not that I don't like shopping - I used to enjoy it most of the time, but this girl put a whole new meaning on the word. She saw it as some kind of mission.

"And therefore a pair of jeans, some new shoes and a jacket too, I guess?"

Rachel ignored me and hurried towards the changing rooms. "Be back in a second!" she called.

"Hang on, I'll join you," I said, grabbing a handful of random tee-shirts from the rack. "Give you a second opinion." I took a ticket from the attendant and followed Rachel into the changing rooms. I had no intention of trying on the clothes of course, and Rachel knew that.

"Why did didn't you do it back at the gym?" she asked, as we took adjacent stalls.

"Too many people around," I replied. "Besides, I thought I had more time than I really did."

"Whatever," she replied absently, obviously immersed in her shopping now. I shut and locked the door, dumped the tee-shirts on the chair, and stood facing the mirror. See, I can't just go out and show my face in public. Far too dangerous. It would get me killed - or worse, infested. An army of alien Yeerks are on the look-out for me and my friends, and unfortunately for us, they know everything there is to know about me. And Philip. And Ferdie and Maggie. Including what we look like. We're fugitives, and, unlike Rachel and the other Animorphs who have yet to be recognised as humans, we have to be careful not to let any Controllers ever see us. Fortunately, we have a rather nifty ability which allows for quick and easy disguise. We can morph. I stared the unfamiliar face in my reflection; a mixture of heavily slanted, amber eyes, light brown hair, and olive skin, and forced my mind to focus on my original self. Immediately, the changes began to appear. My slanted cat-like eyes became more human and brown in colour. My olive skin became pale and pink, but still heavily flushed from the work out. My hair grew to shoulder length, turning dark brown, almost black in colour. I was Samantha Goddard again.

"You done in there?" Rachel called from the next-door stall.

"Hang on," I called back, my voice a little higher now that I had demorphed. "Just need to change back." I focused back on the leopard DNA inside of me, watching as my features shifted in accordance to the new information. I stopped the morph before my face looked too cat-like, and regarded my new form in the mirror. Partial morphs were a little tactic which Philip, Ferdie, Maggie and I would employ whenever we were in public. We were reluctant to acquire and morph another human, so had instead become adept in part-way morphing. Just enough to become unrecognisable as ourselves, but not so far as to look like half-human freaks.

"Ready," I said, stepping out of the stall. Rachel was already waiting for me.

"Your hair looks different to last time," she commented. "It looks darker. And your eyes are more green this time than gold."

"It seems to be different every time," I said. "I still haven't learnt to control it as well as Cassie or Maggie." I glanced at my watch, noting the time. I would have to de- and remorph again in two hours.

"I can't even do a partial one," said Rachel, handing the halter neck to the attendant, "let alone control it."

"Yeah, well, if you were in our position, you'd want to learn how to do it as well as you can," I said. "Are you not getting that top?"

"Too small," she replied, glancing at a pair of zebra-print jeans. I quickly grabbed her arm and pulled her away, leading her out of the shop.

"No more time for that now," I said. "Come on, we'd better find the others."

"You just want to go see Ferdie again," Rachel giggled. "Three hours apart and it's already killing you!"