Chapter 15

I couldn't say anything right away. Anyone around us could have been a Controller. If I told my friends the truth then and there, unless we got very lucky, we were dead. I had to keep up the act.

"The full members are going to a separate meeting," I said, trying very hard to keep my tone neutral. "I want to try to get see what's going on there."

Blue had joined us by then. "They're going off in that direction," she announced, pointing a little way down the beach, behind a few dunes. Over the crest of one, I could see light from a smaller campfire. "Your dad is there, and a few other people we know."

"I'm going to see if I can get down there," I announced.

Silver looked around at us, confused. "What's the deal? I thought we decided there wasn't anything weird going on here."

Yellow looked equally bemused. "Yeah," she asked, giving me a questioning look. "Red, did you see something strange?"

I cringed internally. Yes, I had seen something strange. I'd seen something so strange that it made me want to go to sleep right then and there in the hopes that I'd wake up and what I'd seen wouldn't be true. But I didn't want to say that. I didn't want to talk about it.

Thankfully, Blue answered for me. "Everyone here is just so unnaturally happy. Well, the full members, I should say. They're just way too... 'normal' isn't the right word. 'Perfect.' That's it. They all act perfect. I haven't seen a single full member so much as frown, let alone express any negativity. Real people don't act like that. And..." She shivered a little. "And they just don't stop watching you. Everywhere you turn, one of them has their eyes on you. It's creepy."

"Huh..." Silver mused. "I hadn't thought about it until now, but yeah, you're completely right. And they're all talking about how their lives changed when they got involved with Team Rocket. It's cult-like."

When he said that, I had a momentary flash back to the construction site, when a similar thought had gone through my head as we watched the Taxxons and Hork-Bajir stand around Visser Three. The sick feeling in my stomach worsened.

"Oh God..." Yellow was beginning to look fearful. She had the same sort of light in her eyes as she'd had when she'd watched Visser Three morph into that hideous monster. To have convinced herself nothing was wrong here, that she was safe, only for us shatter the illusion and tell her she'd been standing alongside the enemy–the enemy that she'd only barely escaped twice already–could easily be enough to cause her to break down in panic. I knew for certain I would need some serious willpower to keep a cool head if I was put in that position.

I reached out and placed a gentle hand on her shoulder. "Hey, don't worry. Everything is fine. If we just don't draw attention to ourselves, nothing bad can happen. We don't know anything yet, anyway. We might be completely wrong." I desperately wanted to believe what I said, but I knew I was lying. For her sake, though, I had to say it. A necessary lie.

She took a long, deep breath, and let it out. Slowly, the panic drained from her eyes. "Right," she breathed. "Right. Just act natural, and nothing will go wrong. Got it." So saying, she forced a smile onto her face. It was a fake smile, all four of us knew it, but it would be enough to convince the full members that there was nothing to investigate. Another necessary lie.

"So how are you planning to get into that meeting, anyway?" Blue asked. "You're not a full member."

"And I don't think you want to be," Silver added darkly.

I shrugged. "Nobody's going to worry about some Zigzagoon wandering around on the beach."

He frowned. "What do you...? Oh," he said, realization dawning on his face.

"Good idea," Yellow said. "If my Ponyta morph wasn't so noticeable, I would come with you." She paused, and then added, nervously, like she thought I didn't believe her, "Really, I would."

I had no doubt she would have. But I knew that she'd be terrified out of her mind every step of the way. Bad enough to be among the enemy–even worse to immerse yourself in their inner circle. And her fears weren't unfounded.

She put on a brave face, but I knew she was nervous that at any second one of the members of Team Rocket would look at her and say, "Hey, you're that girl the police officer thought was turning into a Ponyta!"

And if she suddenly disappeared and a Ponyta showed up around that campfire, if that cop was here tonight...

"Thanks, but you're right," I said, giving her my best attempt at reassuring smile. "Suddenly having a Ponyta wandering around the beach would look pretty suspicious. I'm going to need all of you to keep a lookout for me, though."

Yellow gave me a relieved look, thankful I hadn't asked her to come with me anyway. "Of course!"

"We'll cause a distraction or something if something goes wrong," Blue promised.

"Like what?" Silver asked. "What could we possibly do that wouldn't make us look suspicious too?"

Blue shrugged. "I don't know. We'll figure something out." There was a glint in her eye that gave me a bad feeling that her idea of a distraction meant someone's arm was getting broken.

I figured I should let our eyes in the sky know what was going on before I morphed, so after taking a look around to make sure we were completely alone, I waved my arms above my head.

A few seconds later, Green, wreathed in shadows, pulled out of a dive and landed on a lifeguard's chair next to us. «What's going on, Red?»

"The full members are in some private meeting," I explained.

«Yeah, over there,» he said, jerking his head toward the fire. «I saw them a while ago.»

"Can you tell if there's any sort of..." I shrugged. "I don't know, security or something? If you can see that far, that is."

«If I can see that far,» he scoffed. «Red, I can see anything with these eyes. Speaking of, there are a lot of Ratatta out tonight in the dune grass... big, juicy ones.»

I didn't like how hungry he sounded when he said that. "Green, remember, you're not actually a Pidgeotto. You're just controlling the body. Don't start eating Ratatta."

He didn't defend against that statement. He didn't reassure me that he, the human, hadn't tolerated the thought of eating rodents. I wish he had. It would make the guilt I feel now so much more bearable. But he didn't, and instead carried on with the conversation as if nothing had happened. «There are a few guards here and there. I don't think they're armed.»

"Even if they are, I doubt they'll shoot a Zigzagoon," I decided. "Thanks Green. It's been over an hour. You should morph back."

«No, I have forty-five minutes at least. I can keep doing surveillance for a while–»

"No, Green," I cut him off. I didn't like how willing he was to stay in morph for risky amounts of time. It was time to check that. "You need to demorph. You've done your job, and you've done it well, but there's no reason to stay as a Pidgeotto any longer."

«But...» He hesitated. «There's a bit of a problem. I don't exactly have any clothes.»

"Silver has them in a bag," I assured him. "We picked them up on the way here. And the girls won't watch you while you morph."

Blue gave a sly grin. "I never said that." But when Green started to become human, she turned away with Yellow anyway.

While Green shifted and changed towards humanity, I stripped and started the change into a Zigzagoon.

This time was different than before. Instead of the fur, the first thing to change was my legs. Suddenly, my feet were much longer than they should have been, and it became impossible to stand upright on them, so I let myself fall forward onto all fours.

Next came the tail. A Zigzagoon's tail looks far thicker than it actually is. Really, the bulk of it is fur. What poked out of me as my tailbone extended wasn't fluffy or thick, but rather a short, thin appendage that couldn't do much besides wag back and forth.

I started to shrink until I finally reached the size of an actual Zigzagoon, making me into a tiny, hideously deformed human. I was suddenly very glad Yellow wasn't watching.

Finally the angularly patterned fur puffed out of my skin, covering my ugly form with a suit of brown and tan. My face protruded into a snout, my ears shifted, my eyes dulled, and my hands compacted into stubby little paws.

The morph was complete. I was fully Zigzagoon.

The Pokemon's brain emerged with just as much force as it had before, only far more terrified out of the gate, since now there were four unfriendly towers and no places to hide. This time, however, I was ready for it, and squashed the fearful instincts as soon as I felt them. I knew these towe–humans. I didn't have anything to be afraid of, not even their MOVEMENT!

Silver gave me a long stare. "I still don't like it," he decided. "One minute you're human, the next you're a Pokemon. It just doesn't seem right."

"It doesn't seem right that there are mind-controlling aliens taking over the world," Blue pointed out. "But it's still happening."

"Yeah, I know, but humans have been expecting aliens for a long time," Silver countered. "This morphing stuff...? Turning into Pokemon was all just fairy tale stuff until the Andalite told us about it."

"Oh, and I suppose Hork-Bajir and Taxxons just aren't weird enough for you..."

That was about where I stopped listening to them bicker, because Yellow had turned around and knelt down beside me. She looked at me, and with her face so close to my own, I noticed, far more clearly than I had before, that her eyes were very pretty, and that the way her bangs fell into her face was cute.

"Be safe, Red," she murmured, genuine concern in her voice and expression. "I don't want anything to happen to you." Hesitantly, she offered, "I-I can still come with you if you want me to. Really, I can."

«There's no need. I'll be fine,» I reassured her. «Don't worry.»

"I can't help it," she said simply. "Just be careful, okay?"

«I will,» I promised.

She petted my back once or twice, which felt surprisingly good, and then I set out across the sand toward the full members' meeting.

I'd been right to think that nobody would pay me any mind in my Zigzagoon morph. I crisscrossed down the beach, pausing occasionally to sniff things and dig a little (mostly to satiate the Zigzagoon brain's urge to forage), and barely anyone I passed said a word, save for, "Oh hey, look! A Zigzagoon!"

When I neared the dunes behind which the full members were meeting, I changed my course slowly toward them, making sure to double back on myself every now and then to avoid suspicion. The guards gave me a glance, but shrugged it off and went back to looking for real threats.

Since I had to play the part of an inconspicuous Zigzagoon, I couldn't get too close to the movement and fire, which made me worry that my sub-optimal senses would prevent me from understanding what they were doing. But when I set up camp and began digging in a nearby dune, I found that I could hear them just fine. Their words were muted, but perfectly audible.

I could vaguely see my dad through the blurry Zigzagoon's vision. It was easy to tell where he was once he moved. He and about thirty other people were standing around the fire, milling and muttering amongst themselves. There was an air of anticipation to the scene. They were waiting for someone, or something.

I stopped digging for a second or two when I noticed new movement apart from the gathering at the campfire. A new person was approaching. I let the Zigzagoon brain track the source of movement for a moment, decide it wasn't threatening enough to respond to, and then return to digging, making the actions seem perfectly natural.

"Quiet, everyone," The newcomer silenced the gathered crowd. "We have problems."

Shock struck me like a blow to the face. I knew that voice! I'd heard that voice many times. If I wasn't mistaken, I'd heard that voice every single morning over the school's PA system.

I stopped digging and looked squarely at the newcomer, focusing as hard as I could on the blurry form. When he moved and the blurred edges sharpened, my suspicions were confirmed.

It was Mr. Chapman, the assistant principal at my school.

My assistant principal was a Controller.

"First order of business," he said, his voice hard, uncompromising, and businesslike. "We still somehow have not managed to locate the teenagers from the construction site. This is the Visser's top priority. We need to find them. Does anyone have any leads?"

For a few seconds, silence. Then...

"I don't know anything for certain," my dad spoke up, "But I think it could be my host's son, Red. Even though my host has told him not to go through the construction site, he most likely does it anyway. I brought him here tonight to solve the problem. Either we make him ours... or we kill him."