Disclaimer I do not own Animorphs or Ben 10
Chapter 14: Shock
Marco's POV
(Do you think it saw Tobais?) I asked Ax as we both flew back to his scoop. We had just some back from the field and found what had caused all the destruction there. We couldn't locate Tobias and after being in the war for this long I assumed the worst.
(I don't think so, but we can't be sure.) He answered. (The flaming creature could possibly be able to cremate his body if he was caught.) He continued. (All we can do is hope that he is alright and the creature didn't catch him.)
(Yeah, hope.) I said bitterly. I used to hope that we could rescue my mother, but I was starting to give up that hope.
It was an hour or two after lunch time, so I was starving. Morphing and flying will do that, let me tell you.
(We must inform Prince Jake.) He said while we landed next to the stream near his scoop. (If this creature can morph we need to be extra careful.) He started to demorph.
(Yeah, and what if there are more of them?) I asked while I started started demorphing
(Then we must be doubly careful.) He said, and through thought speech I could tell that he was dead serious.
(I'm going to te-) I was cut off, I reached the point where I couldn't use thought speech, and my mouth was far from anything that could make any words. My head was mostly human, but tongue and throat were still bird like. I heard small popping noises and felt my teeth come back and into place. I continued when my tongue was back to normal. "Tell Jake, he needs to know about this."
(I will accompany you.) Said Ax.
"I think it'd be better if you stayed here." At this point I was fully human, wearing my morphing suit, a skintight tank top and cycling shorts. I started to remorph.
(Why is that, Marco?) He said. (Prince Jake can get a more accurate idea of our situation if both of us go.)
"You should wait here, in case Tobias is alright." Ax and Tobias were really close, and I was kinda worried about the little guy too. "You never know he m-squawk!" i continued to morph and finished in thought speech. (Might have seen more of this thing's morphs.)
Ax looked thoughtful at what I said then he made his decision. (I will wait for Tobias, if he is alright.)
(Great Ax-man) I flared my wings open, ready to take flight. (See ya later.) I took off and quickly gained altitude.
My head was filled with all the what-ifs and the could's. If the Yeerks have somehow managed to steal the morphing technology, then we have lost one of our greatest advantages. The morphing ability is whats kept most of us alive throughout this war. It was the only weapon that we could use. When you think aliens and war, you think some kind of Star Wars thing with blasters and spaceships. But we don't have anything. The Yeerks on the other hand have everything. The weapons, the spaceships, and the manpower. So you can see why this thing that can morph is really freaking us out.
I flew until the old abandoned construction site. That was where we first met Elfangor and where he gave us the morphing ability.
I went into one of the unfinished buildings and quickly demorphed. We've been hiding stashes of clothes in the construction site and in a few other places around the area. This was where I stashed my clothes before heading off with Ax to scout the area.
I walked out of the construction site through a gap in the fence and walked out into the sidewalk. I unchained my bike from where I stashed it and went to the school. I know, going to school on a saturday? What am I doing? Well, if me and Ax didn't discover that thing, then I would have been there around thins time anyway. Like I said before, Ben invited me and Jake to go and watch him do his forced tryout for the basketball team. Jake said that he could make it, and that I couldn't. I checked my watch and saw that it was about twenty minutes passed two. Ben said that his tryout started at two.
When I made it to the school gym I chained my bike and walked to the door of the gym. I could hear the squeaking of shoes and the thumping of balls and feet. The door was slightly ajar, I opened it a bit wider and poked my head inside. I could see the same guys practicing back when Jake had tried out for the basketball team. Damn, that seems so long ago. I could see Jake leaning over the railing at the stands watching them. I climbed the stairs and walked over to him.
He didn't look at me, he just kept his eyes at the players. "Aren't you supposed to be helping your dad?" He said. That was the excuse that he made up for me when Ben invited us to watch him.
"My dad said he could handle it by himself." I said just as easily. You'd be surprised you easy lying became for us, heck I used to think I was a pretty good liar before the war, now it's almost second nature to me.
"Shoots" Said Jake. I looked over at the court and Ben got the ball in. He was doing pretty good, not pro, but he was holding his own.
"We found it." I said quietly after taking a quick look around.
"Where?" He asked. There was just a slight shift in his voice that made me know he was all ears.
"The field." I answered.
"Same one?"
"Yup."
What did it look like?"
"It can morph." I informed him.
He stiffened, he knew what it meant. I kinda expected him to have a bigger reaction, but he took the news stoically. "It can?" He asked.
"It can." I assured him. "And this thing's got some crazy morphs."
"You sure it wasn't Visser three?"
I shook my head. "There was no Blade-ship and none of the guards that he usually keeps close by."
"This is bad."
I nodded silently.
We both watched as Ben and the other guys started doing drills. I've seen Jake do some of the same ones while waiting for him to finish practice and head back to my place and play some video games.
We didn't talk about the thing after that, we made some small talk to help pass the time. But it was just on the outside, we both knew that we were planning or wondering what we were going to do about this new threat.
The practice finished about an hour after I arrived. The coach shouted to the guys on the court. "Alright, into the showers and quick meeting afterwards!" We watched him walk into what I assumed was his office. After they got changed and had their meeting, Ben walked up the stairs to the stands after he said goodbye to the other players.
"Hey Marco." He said jovially. "I thought you were helping out your dad with some stuff."
"Yeah well, after a while he said that he could handle it himself." I answered.
"Well, it's great to see you here. Lets head over to the mall, I'm starving."
We went to the mall and went straight to the food court. Me and Jake each got a burger and a drink, and Ben got about as much as Ax did whenever he came with us to the mall, which was A Lot.
"Dude, you're hungry." I commented.
"Yeah, I could eat a horse." He said after swallowing some fries then tearing off a piece of fried chicken. He had bought about two large fries, three burgers, six pieces of chicken, a large soda, two donuts, and a large sundae on the side. The only thing missing was a dozen Cinnabons and that's what Ax would probably get at the mall. "I don't normally get to run around like that so much, but the basketball made me real hungry." He was taking his time with the mountain of food, Ax would've just gobbled it all down in minutes.
We hung out with Ben for a while longer, checked out some of the new games that came out and checking out some chicks. We went our separate ways, me and Jake heading in the same direction. We had a lot to discuss.
We found a bench in the park that was far enough away from the others to avoid any eavesdroppers. We both sat there casually, the picture of two best buddies just hanging out.
"What did you and Ax see?" Asked Jake, his eyes casually scanning for anyone who might be listening.
"Well not much." I answered. "We both had to leave before our times ran out."
"What else can this thing do?" He asked.
"Well apart from being able to morph it can go straight between them." I answered, he didn't say anything about that, but then he asked.
"What happened to Tobias?" Concern colored his voice.
"We didn't see him." I said. "Me and Ax thought that he might have been caught, but maybe he wasn't. Ax stayed behind to check if he's okay." Jake frowned, I knew what was going through his mind. He would never forgive himself if anyone of us died during this war, on the outside it might look like he would accept our death as something that he couldn't do anything about, but inside he would be blaming himself even though it wasn't his fault. He was just that kind of person. I gave him a friendly punch on the arm. "I'm sure he's fine." I said, but my words were hollow we didn't know what happened to Tobias.
The next day I got a call from Jake.
"Marco, could you head over to Cassie's place. We have a lot to talk about."
I knew that was urgent, normally when we have conversations over the phone we spoke kinda in code. But when Jake speaks this explicitly over the phone then it's really important.
"On my way." Wait a minute, that sounded really cliche, didn't it?
I headed towards the front door, but my dad called out to me. "Marco, headed out?" He asked.
"Yeah, gonna hang out with some friends."
"Alright, just." He paused for just a moment. "Just be safe."
"I will. See you later dad."
"See you Marco."
I went out of the house. My dad wasn't usually this, this, protective? Yeah, thats it. Over me, he knew that I could take care of myself and I was old enough that he trusted me. Be safe. Yeah, being in a war with parasitic aliens secretly taking over the Earth was really something safe to do.
I biked all the way to Cassie's house. On the way I met up with Jake and we both made our way there.
"Tobias came to see me last night." He told me on the long stretch of road.
"Is he okay?" I asked him.
"He's fine, he told me more about the thing you guys saw at the field." I was relieved that he was okay.
"What'd he tell you?" I was really curious what else did this monster could do.
"I'll discuss it later in the barn."
We made it to the barn, Rachel was already there and Cassie was cleaning up a few cages. Tobias flew in.
"Tobias, great to see you alive, buddy." I said.
"We got some bad news." Said Jake.
"Yeah, real bad." I repeated.
"What happened?" Asked Rachel. "Did you guys find whatever trashed the field?"
"We did." I said.
"What did it look like?" She asked.
(Well that depends.) Said Tobias.
"What do you mean?" Asked Cassie.
To put it simply, this thing can morph." I said, with deadpanned humor.
Rachel's reaction wasn't what I thought it would be, she almost falling off her seat, a goofy grin crawled over my face. "Are you sure? Couldn't it just be Visser three?" She asked, I also wished that it Was Visser three, but no luck.
"No, and to make things worse, Marco and Tobias told me that this thing can go straight between morphs." Said Jake.
Rachel and Cassie were silent as we digested the information. I knew exactly what was going through their heads, I had the very same thoughts. How could the Yeerks get their hands on the morphing technology? Not even the Andalites were able to go straight between morphs, how were the yeerks able to?
"And this thing has badder morphs than Visser three." I informed them. "Remember that thing he morphed the night they went after David?"
"That huge, purple, ugly, four armed thing, that shot traffic cones from its arms? Yeah, how could I forget." Said Rachel.
"Well its got something like that, but it's like Mr. Universe on steroids. It lifted a freaking tree without breaking a sweat!" I mean that was scary and I've seen a lot of things that was beyond scary.
(Not to mention a velociraptor looking thing that runs a lot faster than the garatron.) Said Tobias.
"Greeaat." I said, pouring as much sarcasm in my voice as I could. "And I thought the walking campfire was bad enough."
"What else did you guys see?" Asked Cassie. "I mean, if this thing can morph, we got to know what we're going up against."
(Well, there was something that looked like it was made of the same crystal that was saw, A red fourarmed thing that lifted an entire tree, a walking ball of fire, a giant fly looking alien, and the velociraptor thing.) Said Tobias listing them. (We're not sure if this thing has more morphs and what they can do.)
"So, when are we meeting up with this thing?" Asked Rachel, a hint of excitement in her voice. Great and here comes Xena warrior princess.
"We'd better keep a lookout for this thing at the field. Now that we know it comes back, we don't need to keep flying around the forest." Said Jake.
"I say, we go to back to the field. Who knows guys. That thing could come back and we can jump it before it really goes after us." She argued. It made sense to me.
"Well, for once I agree with Rachel." I'm pretty sure i surprised Jake with that. "If we found this thing today, we'd have surprise on our side. That thing wouldn't know what hit it."
"Actually, I'm having some doubts that this thing is actually Yeerk." Said Cassie. "What if it's just some alien that came to earth."
(I highly doubt that any species sophisticated enough for z-space travel and, though I'm skeptical, has a superior version of the morphing technology, would have any interest in this planet. The exceptions though, would be the Yeerks and Skrit-Na.) Said Ax.
"Skrit-Na?" I asked him, what the hell were those? At first I thought he said 'screwed now'.
"I agree with going back to the field, just in case that thing would come back, but we shouldn't try to fight it yet. Cassie's right, if we wanna go up against this thing, we have to know what it can do." Said Jake, cutting Ax off.
"If this thing really is something that the Yeerks have, then we should go after it as soon as possible, before it goes after us." She said
"And what if it morphs something we can't handle?" He retorted.
"Yeah, it's not like it can morph some 800 foot tall alien." I said trying to break them up.
Rachel gave me an angry glare and looked back at Jake. "Alright." I said. "We'll just keep watch."
We morphed birds and flew to the field. When we made it there, it wasn't as messed up as I thought it would be, but it was worse than it used to be.
(What happened to the crystals?) Asked Rachel, to be honest I had been wondering the same thing.
(I have no idea what happened to them. When it turned into that crystal-like alien, I guess it can control the crystals.) Answered Tobias. (It's really hard to explain, but it can create those crystals and somehow control them.) Oh so that's how.
(Have you heard about anything like that Ax?) She asked Ax.
(No, that sounds impossible.) Then he said. (But it might be, Andalites haven't been looking out for new species on other worlds since the war started. I'm not an expert in Xeno-zoology.)
(Ax, how much time do we have left?) Jake asked.
(We still have 70% of our time left before we need to demorph, Prince Jake.)
(Alright, if all of us will be keeping a lookout for today, when it reaches an hour, Rachel and Cassie will get out and find a place to demorph while we keep watch.) He said. (Then, when when our time is almost up me, Ax, and Marco will go demorph.)
(Got it.) I told him.
Time passes quickly as we stayed at the field. We all made some small talk to keep from getting too bored. It slowly turned routine as some of us flew out every hour to refresh out time limits. Then we spotted it.
(Guys it's here!)
My head twirled and I scanned the field looking for it, then I saw it standing in the middle of the field. It looked like a blue and black velociraptor wearing a helmet
(Is that it?) Asked Jake.
(Yup, pretty much.) Said Tobias.
(What's that under its feet?) Asked Cassie.
(Looks like it's standing on some small balls.) Said Tobias. Hehe small balls. . .
(Well I guess we found out what made those tracks, Ax.) Said Jake.
(Yes, I think we did, Prince Jake.)
(How much time do we have?) He asked Ax.
(You, Marco, and I have 1 hour and 40 minutes of your time left before we need to demorph. Cassie and Rachel have approximately 50 of your minutes.)
(Ax, on Earth, they're everyone's minutes.) I said.
(Guys, it's morphing!) Announced Rachel.
The velociraptor thing morphed into a kind of humanoid plant. Must be one of it's morphs, we knew that Visser three had dozens of morphs being able to travel around the universe getting morph after deadly morph. But this thing didn't look that dangerous.
(Did you guys see it morph that thing before?) Asked Rachel.
(No, this is something completely different.) I said.
(Well, if it decides to morph that when it goes after us. At least, we're prepared.) Said Cassie.
(She's right. Ax, tell us if Cassie and Rachel are getting close to the 2 hour mark.) Ordered Jake.
(Yes, Prince Jake.)
(And stop calling me Prince.)
We watched it silently as it looked at its hands, then chest and feet. It's hands sliding down its arms.
(What is that thing doing?) Asked Cassie.
(I don't know, but keep watching.) Said Tobias.
It raised it's arms up and started shooting a few tiny fireballs. Well they didn't seem that dangerous from way over where I was. They only went a short distance before hitting the ground. It kept shooting more fireballs for a while longer. then it suddenly stopped and walked away from where it was standing. While it walked away it started morphing again. The alien started to get smaller and shorter. It's greenish skin was lightening into a light tan color, it's texture too seemed to change. It's legs thinned and it's shoulders narrowed. The kind of red and yellow petals on it's head started to turn brown. It was walking away from us, and it was just far enough that we could still make out it's face. The rest of us knew already what it was morphing. It had a human morph. Of course it had a human morph, even Visser three and Ax had to have one when they had to go out in public. But something was off, it wasn't just a gut feeling, but there was just something. Why did it morph human when no one's around? And another thing, it was wearing jeans and a kind of white jacket. How the hell was it able to do that? We could only morph something skintight, and it even had shoes! Well, it if could go from morph to morph why can't it morph actual clothes, not a tight tank top and bike shorts.
Then it finally turned around and we got a good look at its face. And what we saw left four of us speechless.
It was Benjamin Tennyson.
No, it can't be him. It just can't, there's no way it can be him. The thing just happened to have acquired Ben's DNA that's all. But wait didn't these signs start showing up right after he moved into town?
(Is that?) Asked Cassie.
(Ben?) Finished Jake.
(Think so.) I said. Rachel was silent the entire time.
(Is that the same Ben you have spoken about Marco?) Asked Ax darkly.
(Okay, is anyone going to tell me what're you guys talking about?) Asked Tobias. (Who the hell is Ben?)
(He's the new kid from school.) Explained Jake.
(When did he arrive?)
(Just before all the weird sightings.) I said.
(It can't be Ben.) Said Rachel. (That thing has to have just acquired his DNA.) Rachel's tone was clear that she was in denial.
We were all silent after that, keeping and even closer watch on him, it, whatever!
He started stretching his arms and legs out, then he quickly morphed, I mean really quickly. Even faster than Cassie, who was the best morpher out of all of us. He finished in almost no time and was again the velociraptor alien with the helmet and dashed through the trees, faster than our birds of prey eyes could follow.
A few minutes after "Ben" had left the field, Ax spoke up. (Prince Jake, I suggest that we return to Cassie's barn.)
(Yeah, we need to discuss this.) He said, taking off from his perch. The rest of us followed after a short break between each of us.
We quickly made it back to Cassie's barn and we all demorphed and put on our clothes.
We all took our seats around the barn and we were all silent. None of us sure how to start discussing about the great guy who we've made best buddies with, that we just found out could morph.
(What is our plan, Prince Jake?) Asked Ax, being the first one to speak.
"We'll do what we always do, just act normal and Tobias can tail him if he goes to any of the yeerk pool entrances for the next three days." He looked at all of us. "Like what we always do."
"But what are we going to do about Ben?" Asked Cassie. "We can't just suddenly start ignoring him, he might think something's up." That was really Cassie, even if there was the slightest chance that Ben was the morphing thing she didn't want him to be hurt. But I also knew that if we started acting cold to him and he was the morphing thing, then the yeerks would find out that we were human and not Andalites.
"Just act like nothing's wrong we should pretend that we don't know a thing." Rachel didn't say anything, which was weird. I thought at the moment that Jake said that she's say that it was something I didn't need to pretend since I didn't know anything anyway.
There wasn't much to discuss after that. I mean the yeerks don't know that we were human, they just thing that we are a rogue group of Andalites that survived the battle up in space. Me, Jake, and Rachel went back to our houses, Ax and Tobias back into the forest.
Man, monday is gonna be really awkward.
Authors Notes: Hello! I would like to apologize for the late chapter. Things have been crazy around here, getting used to college, all the homework, me getting sick and such, and worst of all wordless procrastination. You have no idea, I write a couple sentences then leave to check on random stuff. Also I want your opinions, is this going too slow right now? Right now this is only the start and about a quarter of the way through this story. But I just can't help getting everyones reactions and thoughts on the situations. My first goal was for this to be as long as the "Prequel" Evil will always find you. But at the rate of story progress I'm making, I think that it will be a lot longer and I am also sorry if the conversations are kinda getting old, but I con't do much about them, just glaze over them if you want. And since I am super busy the uploading schedule will be changed from once a week to once every two weeks on friday evening my time, but don't worry if I get the writing vibe for 4 hours straight and finish a chapter early then the chapter will be released on the week's friday.
Now, for the people who have left me reviews.
Kaprycorn Hunt- So they meet. . . But the tension builds! Mwuahahahahahaha! And how'd you like the chapter?
Pokeario- I know right! Just wait for what's coming
Moka Thorwham- I'm glad you love it, don't forget to review this chapter!
and finally "Guest"
Please stop leaving reviews telling me to hurry up. I haven't been getting the writing vibe that often, but when I do, I don't have my laptop with me. If you want to pester me about hurrying up and get the next chapter out early then make an account and PM me, at least then I can reply and you aren't spamming my review page. Now honestly I don't monitor my anonymous reviews because I'm lazy, so please just PM me if you are getting impatient and other people won't know how excited you are for the next chapter.
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