Here it is folks. How did the date end? Does Visser Three FINALLY confess his feelings and smooth Visser One? Does Edriss FINALLY get revenge on the subordinates? And do the Animorphs FINALLY get screwed over by an animal?

And a good friend of mine makes a guest appearance.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Part 3: Swimming and Running

Visser Three

"Okay, let's review how this night's been running. Shall we?" I muttered, driving the Subaru this time, WHILE demorphing the second time this night. Visser One leaned forward in her seat as my tail coiled around her. (We were forced into this damn date, then our pals and enemies trashed a Ponderosa, set loose all hell in the mall, and wrecked the theater while you and me of ALL people were kissing.)

Visser One snorted. "I still say you should've morphed a T-Rex and smashed that place to rumble."

(Ugh. This night has been one chaos after another,) I grumbled.

"You know, this has got to be some Yeerk reality TV setup," Visser One suddenly mused. "Think about it: two hateful Vissers, put onto one night on the town, must go through Limbo and Hades to finish up a harmless bet. I see it all now. I wouldn't put this past Councilor Three…and Nine…and Eleven… They're all on it!"

(Yeah, it makes sense…) I thought. (Oh not again. You people are morphing me into a paranoid psychopath again.)

"What were you before?" Visser One sneered.

We were driving out of the town, towards the woods bordering the city. Dark pines and elms stood as sentries on each side of the road…. There I go with the nonexistent poetic side again. Alloran's influencing my speech too much again. Maybe I should zone out to The Godfather or Scarface or some other human comedy after this.

"Let's go for a swim," Visser One suggested.

(You're kidding me,) I muttered.

"No. I haven't been able to swim anywhere but the Pool in months. Well, there was the party, but I had to give you CPR after Norm nearly drowned you," she rambled. "Come on. Don't you ever just have some fun?"

(Yeah, but some of us actually WORK. Besides, I thought you hated this date-thing,) I grumbled.

"Who cares? Like I said, we should at least TRY to have some fun. And I doubt they'll find us all the way in the dark back here," she grinned.

(Yeah, like I'm going to go swimming with you…) I said. (Not for a thousand Yeerk coins. You can burn or sever my limbs, but no, never, not in a million years spent in Purgatory. You can kiss my tail right there, sista.)

Visser One grinned. "You know, Rissa, Ellie, and Sargimf aren't the only ones who spent a couple hours pouring over your diary…"

Strangely enough, I succumbed to the idea of taking a dip in some river. We finally spotted a decent sized lake and I parked the car over in the grass. I crawled out on my hooves, while Visser One simply had to slip off the seat in that ever flexible human body. It was DARK, as in, despite the stars and moon, the trees were so frickin' tangled we could barely see a thing, except the lake that had a freakishly ghostly glow. Off in the distance, a pack of wolves howled and something shrieked in either pain or bloodlust.

I rolled my left stalk eye. (This is like one of those cheap horror movies Iniss makes us watch on Saturday nights. This is just like the part where two people are traveling through the woods, when some werewolf or ax murderer sneaks up behind, ready to splatter the unsuspecting lovers' guts across the ground.)

"Thank you for that input, West Craven," Visser one sneered. "Good thing we aren't lovers."

It took a moment for the words to hit. (Huh? Ah, yeah, whatever. Let's just get this over with already, shall we?)

Here's a news flash for future generations of Yeerks in biology classes: Andalites can run, Andalites can jump, to some extent Andalites can climb, but Andalites CAN'T swim. Ever watch those Planet's Most Funniest Animals that Ellie and Rissa are OBSESSED with? Especially the ones where some horse or cow gets stuck in a backyard pool or something, jerking around in the water like an idiot? Don't forget to add that in your reports, kiddies.

I contented myself by sitting on the bank of the lake, hooves sunk into mud and grass and God knows what else being sucked up my legs. I watched Edriss churning the water into small spirals, front flipping, back flipping, twisting, and basically having the fun of her life, while at the same time making me feel like even a clumsier moron in the water. And yeah, it might be slightly lazy, but I wasn't going to use up any more morphing energy so I could pretend to be a Shamu wannabe.

Edriss swam towards me in a graceful front crawl, skin gleaming under the moonlight and hair a flowing mound of black, silky seaweed. She grinned at me and splashed me. "Come on, you old grump, the water's warm."

I snorted the droplets out of my nostrils. (You're INSANE. It's FREEZING in there.)

"For the first two minutes," Edriss snorted. "And you can keep track of time, can't you? Two minutes, that's it."

I roughly agreed after she yanked me into the water. Did I say freezing? I meant arctic, sub-zero temperature! (COLD, COLD, COLD!) I shouted, but was unable to leap out due to the thin fingers wrapped around my tail and holding on no matter how much I struggled for escape. (Where're the polar bears? This is COLD!)

"Aw, wa wreat Wisser Wee, scared of a wittle water?" Visser One asked.

She screeched when I responded by freeing my tail and using the blade to scope up water to splash in her face. She countercharged my attack with a small tidal wave that drenched whatever had been still dry on me. She front crawled away from me, bursting into giggles as I struggled after her with landlocked hooves.

"You look like a hydrophobic blue deer," she shouted.

(Well, you look like a fish woman!) I spat.

She blinked a couple times, confused. She rolled her tiny, little eyes at me, wrinkling her brow. "Do you mean a 'mermaid'? One of the human myths that involved a human upper half and a fish lower half?"

(Yeah, except it's vice versa with you,) I said. (Screw this.) I started morphing into a shark-like beast, maybe fifteen feet long with red skin that gleamed like blood in the starlight. Funny thing, it was vegetarian. Then again, Alloran acquired it from his home world, so what do you expect?

Even though she clearly WOULDN'T know that fact, Visser One laughed at my circling form and started singing a familiar song. "She came down from Cincinnati. It took her three days on a train. Lookin' for some peace and quiet; hoped to see the sun again. But now she lives down by the ocean. She's takin' care to look for sharks. They hang out in the local bars, and they feed right after dark."

I shook my elongated head in amusement, demorphed and went back into my human body, joining in the chorus. Who cared if I sucked at singing? Only Visser One was here and she was worse than ME. "Can't you feel 'em circlin' honey? Can't you feel 'em swimmin' around? You got fins to the left, fins to the right, and you're the only bait in town. You got fins to the left, fins to the right, and you're the only girl in town."

She swam around me once, splashing icy water on my now furless face. "She's savin' up all of her money Wants to head south in May; maybe roll in the sand with a rock'n'roll man, somewhere down Montserrat way. But the money's good in the season; helps to lighten her load. Boys keep her high as the months go by. She's gettin' postcards from the road."

We continued the song until I finished it with the closing lines, "Just behind the reef are the big white teeth of the sharks that can swim on the land." She came closer, except this time she wasn't readying up to freeze me again, swimming to the lyrics of the song. "You got fins to the left, fins to the right, and you're the only girl in town."

I kept staring into her eyes, and felt weirdly thankful she didn't at me about being a perverted, brain-dead dapsen. That was how I was acting, I guess. They resembled so much like twin black holes, except not just cold and sneering, but hiding something, having pulled in planets and stars unable to escape those depths. I leaned closer to her, remembering the brief sensation at the cinema of her lips brushing mine--

"Well, didn't expect this bit of a scene tonight, did you?" someone cried. "No, lookee here! Put down the witch craft. It's the hating lover duo!"

Visser One and I snapped out of our daze, with her pushing me away and down into the blackened water. I gasped for air and clawed at the silvery line between air and lake, only to see a pair of girls with amused looks on their faces.

"Oh wonderful, and who would you two dapsens be?" I growled. "Does Iniss have this country, no, this WHOLE PLANET staked out?"

"We've been chased by a couple lunatics all night," Visser One explained calmly.

"Hey, you butt hole, it's me, remember?" one of the girls said. "Sinister Shadow. And don't worry, this meeting's by accident." Sinister giggled at us as we crawled out of the lake, spraying water everywhere. "And I completely approve of this, believe me. It's your life and the others should butt out, right Psycho Path?"

Phycho Path tossed back curly, brunette locks. "Yeah. If you want to hang out with this loser, that's your business, Visser One."

"Hey!" I snapped. Before I could add more to that lame comment, I heard footfalls in the distance. I groaned and turned to Visser One, who happened to notice it as well.

"Lovely, the Bandits and Idiots have caught our scent again. What're we in? A Jason X movie all of a sudden?" Visser One moaned, turning to the pair of girls. "I don't have any clue why either of you girls are up here, but mind doing a Visser a favor?"

"SURE!"

"Make a slight diversion, alright?"

She received a creepy grin from them.

---------------

Visser One

Both of us stopped at a gas station, not even caring anymore at the couple of people who dropped unconscious at seeing Visser Three in his host's body. I rummaged through the glove compartment, pulling out a pack of Kool cigarettes, and lit one in my mouth, puffing on it. What? Have some freaks chase you and things like lung cancer and death are no longer fears, but goals.

"You think we gave them the slip?" I asked, sucking on the stick. "This is getting too weird. How do they keep finding us?" I nervously blew out a breath of hazy smoke, which flew into his face.

(Watch it! Not all of us has twelve billion hosts to replace ours with,) he muttered, opening the door and started checking underneath the vehicle. (I just thought of something! Wait a minute here!)

"Esplin, what're you searching for?" I asked.

(AH HAH!) he cheered himself, plucking out a blinking, red device that was no bigger than my pinkie nail. (I think I've figured their scheme out. Two points to Visser three.)

"That's one of our homing devices," I gasped.

(They must have stuck it on while I was getting you from your apartment room,) he mused. (Sneaky little bastards.)

I smirked with a sudden idea, grasping it out of his fingers and sticking it onto a trailer, one which the owner had yet to see Esplin standing there like, well, like a deer in front of a bunch of redneck headlights. I scampered back to the shadows by Visser three as the fat, balding driver came out of the gas station store and drove off.

(I've never seen an Ohio license plate,) Visser Three said.

"That'll keep them occupied for a while," I giggled. A car full of college bound seniors pulled up, looking exactly like the ones from the theater and raced after the trailer. I waved at the disappearing car. "Bye bye, hope ya get run over and die!"

(So what do we do now?) Visser Three asked.

I surveyed the area around us, noting the forest standing back from the store and gas tanks. I ran over to the Andalite-Controller and tapped him on the shoulder. "Tag, you're it." I ran off into the darkened woods, shrieking a cry of utmost freedom. The one thing better than swimming was definitely running. "Run, run, as fast as you can, you can't catch me, I'm the top Visser woman."

(What about the Subaru?)

"Fuck the damn car!" I yelled. "Let a lizard come by and pick it up."

----------------

Visser Three

I chased after Visser One, far quicker on my hooves and deer-like agility, but she was nimble and easily climbed over obstacles like rocks and trees and bushes. For a moment, I was sure she'd gone crazy, screaming and flailing her limbs like a wild animal, but before I knew it, I was acting the same way. Maybe there really was something to this Soul Fest thing.

At last, we reached a clearing, me whipping my tail and shouting out nonsense cries, feeling like an idiot once again, but not giving a damn. This was FUN. Visser One twirled a moment on her feet and fell backwards on the knee high grass, panting and sweating. My Andalite body was exhausted, triple hearts beating crazily, so for the FOURTH and FINAL time tonight I morphed into a human male, laying not too far away from Visser One.

She closed her eyes for a second. "I kind of wish I had an Andalite host myself. I don't even care about gender. It would just be awesome running with those four legs and looking in all directions while it was raining." She made a noise that was half-sighing, high-laughing, chest rising up and down in rhythm.

I shrugged. "Not really. At first, it's cool and everything, but you get used to it. Like having host eyes, I guess."

She shook her head at me in what might've been wonder and amusement. "You actually got USED to eyes? Wow, you're an insatiable fool. And running like that? I still my first time as a host, leaping about in the rain. It was complete Nirvana."

I shivered slightly, wondering why she'd suddenly become so open about things tonight. I digested her words, gazing up at the stars of Draco and Leo. "Well, yeah, there is something pretty cool about running so fast and tireless, I guess. Geez, can we recap and remember for a second that we're enemies?"

"Who said I forgot?" Visser One asked.

"Well, um, I, eh, you should SHUT UP NOW. You should be telling this crap to Councilor Eight or Two. Why do you even care what I think? Scratch that. Why do I even care what you think?" I howled. "We're frickin' mortal enemies here. We could use whatever we say here as black mail to the other and remember this night as the worst fucked up thing imaginable. I probably wouldn't have thought of doing this twice if my diary hadn't been on the line-- Woah!"

The witty, devious female had snuck up on me and pressed her lips against mine. A sense of cursed giddiness came over me and I leaned back as she pressed closer. And to top it off, she pulled away and SLAPPED me. "I told you I'd tell you a secret tonight, didn't I?" she growled.

I nodded dumbly.

She distanced herself from me, but was still close enough that I could reach out an arm and touch her. "Please, I don't care what you choose, I really don't. I just want to know. It's been clawing at me for weeks and I can't put it out of my mind." She looked up and her eyes were sparkling sadly. "What was it?"

I sighed, her scent still clinging in my nostrils. "I choose…." Of course, she'd want a verbal answer, but I decided to answer differently. I closed the space between us and planted my lips back on hers. Instead of the expected slap, I felt her smile against me.

Click!

"What-was-that?" I hissed.

Edriss had a dangerous look in her eyes. "I have HAD ENOUGH OF THIS." She stomped over to a rowan bush, pushing the foliage aside.

"Say cheese, or oatmeal!" Iniss chirped as he clicked the camera again in Visser One's face. "You're on Candid Camera, Visssers!"

My eyes and fists started twitching. "I..AM…GOING TO MURDER YOU!"

Rissa appeared up in a tree, shaking her head. "I told you that you were making too much noise, Iniss," she hissed. "I thought you would listen to me after I got us away from my not-so-sane best friend and Sin."

"I thought we ditched you dapsens!" Visser One snapped.

"No, you ditched the Bandits," Sargimf corrected, emerging from behind a maple. "We happened to use good sleuth detecting, skills that Sherlock Holmes would--"

"We spotted your car," Iniss explained.

"And, like, the fact that, like, you were screaming like a bunch of howler monkeys," Ellie said. "Now, like, would you kiss this ditz, like, already? It's, like, freezing out here."

"Ellie," Visser One hissed. "Would, like, you, like, SHUT LIKE UP!?" She stomped towards the pink girl and slugged her cold, one fist smashing into her eye. Ellie collapsed noisily to the earth.

"That's a good left hook, but I--OWIE!" Iniss cried, as Edriss tackled him to the ground, starting to knock his lights out. "AW! Help me, please! Save me! Not the face! Wait, no, not the balls! Visser Three help me!"

I wisely retreated as Visser One viciously assaulted him. After all, hadn't Iniss always wanted her on top of him? Like I said before a hundred times, be careful what you wish for.

"Sorry, but I don't think you could hurt me," Sargimf scoffed as Edriss marched like a demon out of hell towards him. "Come off it. I'm a Hork-Bajir, AAAR, and you're a puny… OW! YAHHH! MOMMY!"

Rissa climbed higher up the tree as Visser One chased after her. "Call her off! Call her off!"

Iniss was twisted into a pretzel. "Please…ambulance…"

"I think we should all be leaving now. It's pretty late," I said, finally taking pity on them. They were just idiots, after all. "Come on, everyone." I grabbed Visser One and started leading her towards the direction of the parking lot with the car.

In the distance I could still hear the others.

"Is she gone?" Iniss whimpered.

"Wow, her eye looks like an Oreo," Sargimf commented. "And ahhhh. My omysadda muscle!"

"I'm going to saty up here if you don't mind," Rissa called. "I wish SHE was helping us hunt the Bandits. Wonder where they are now?"

---------------------

Marco

Situation: we had probably crossed three state lines so far, Jake was driving, Tobias needed to use a toilet, and Rachel and I were in a fierce battle. Jake and I were up front, while the others were crammed in the back, not so comfortable with Ax demorphed and ready for action.

"Can we just stop and ask for directions?" Rachel drawled.

"No!" I snapped. "They've got to be around here somewhere!"

"That's what you and Jake said an hour ago!" Rachel hissed.

"Uh, I gotta go to the bathroom," Tobias announced for the FORTIETH time, hopping up and down in his seat.

"Ax, please stop getting gum all over my morphing suit," Cassie said.

(It is not my fault, Cassie,) Ax informed. (My species have the rather annoying ability to have an assortment of objects cling to our fur. I think it was once used to protect our hides before we grew tails by running through thorn bushes and--YOUCH!)

"Yuck. It's all over you," she grumped.

(OW! Cassie--ow--please--LET GO! You're tearing my fur out by the roots,) Ax whined. (Stop, stop, stop! I thought you told me you were a vet! This hurts!)

"I'm sorry," she apologized. "There's this big clump of gum right here I can't get loose."

"Guys! I gotta go!" Tobias whined.

"Crap out the window, chicken legs," I said.

"Even we birds have more dignity than you," Tobias grumbled. "Think dry places… Sahara, desert, algebra teacher's heart…"

"Niagara Falls, rain drops falling, and sprinklers," I added helpfully.

"Shut up, Marco," Rachel snapped. She turned back to Cassie pinching at Ax. "That isn't gum, Cassie. That's his skin!"

"Bathroom, bathroom, bathroom," Tobias buzzed off.

(I believe my flesh is starting to bruise…no, that's just blood,) Ax said.

Jake turned angry eyes at all of us. "Shut up, all of you, or I'm turning this vehicle around this minute!"

"Yes, Dad," I said. "I mean, Prince Jake."

"Don't call me--"

"JAKE WATCH OUT!" Cassie cried.

A squirrel ran up in front of the car, beady eyes flashing in the headlights, and Jake swerved the car off the road, hitting into a tree. No one was hurt, but all six of us busted out of the now smoking tin can.

"I swear I heard that squirrel laughing at us back there," I moaned.

"TREE! TREE! TREE!" Tobias cried with joy and relief, racing around the other side. A dull, sprinkling noise was heard.

Rachel threw her hands up in the air. "Go back in the woods! We aren't in a fricking dog pound!"

"I knew I should've stayed home," Cassie groaned. "I had the funniest premonition. Stay home, be safe, or go out stalking Vissers and end up as hitch hikers."

(What'll we do, Prince Jake?) Ax asked. (And could I have a bandage perhaps? I'm feeling…a little…lightheaded.) The Andalite started to sway.

"I hate my life," Jake mumbled, hitting his head against the car. "I hate it! I hate it!"

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

THE END.