Hi everyone, thanks for all the reviews and encouragement you guys (and gals of course) have given me. So I dedicate this chapter to everybody that has reviewed or followed my story so far. By the way, you might also like to check out my short drabble "Regrets" which I wrote when I got stuck writing this chapter. But anyway, here's the next chapter!
"Your planet is under attack."
Wow, that was news you didn't hear often. Normally this type of news was spoken by badly-dressed tramp in serious need of a fashion makeover and would be greeted with as much enthusiasm as I had for last season's clothes. But the fact that these words were being spoken by this alien who had just crashed in front of us made this as urgent as getting the newest Jimmy Choo shoes.
"What do you mean by 'under attack'? Who are we being attacked by? The Jedi Army, the creepy aliens on the posters in Troy's bedroom?" I asked while Troy shot me an accusing look. I supposed not everybody knew about his geeky interest in aliens.
The creature moved forward. He, or she looked vaguely human, expect he, or she moved differently. Anyway, I shall just refer to him as a he until I am proven wrong. He walked closer and I saw the reason for his strange movement. His legs were double-jointed, making him impossibly tall. His tail was long and ended in a vicious looking blade. His skin was striped and covered in black and red fur, making him look fearsome. His face looked like a human face, but it was his eyes that caught my attention. His eyes were big and almost sorrowful looking, with big and brown iris. His hands were just like a normal person's, except with more fingers.
He took another step, and stumbled. I rushed up to grab him and Troy did the same. We caught hold of him before he crashed on to the deck. I realized that he was injured, a large wound covered his entire right body and blood, or something was coming out of it. It smelled to burning iron, sickening and metallic.
"He's injured!" Gabriella yelled out, stating the obvious. I resisted the urge to make a sarcastic comment, reminding myself that she was my boyfriend's ex-girlfriend and my best friend now. Anyway, this was not the occasion to be sarcastic, not with a bleeding alien lying on my lap.
"Yes, I am dying." He said simply. There was none of that over-dramatic coughing and gasping as you see in the movies. "I have been attacked by the Yeerk Army."
"Yeerk?" Chad asked, "What are Yeerks? The things that are supposed to be attacking us?"
"Yes," He said, "They have come to destroy you. They shot down my ship, their army is moving in. Some of them are already here, thousand of them, maybe more."
"We should get you to a hospital, they can take care of your wound." Taylor said hurriedly, eyeing the horrible wound on his body.
"There's no need. The wound is fatal." He stated again. He looked up at me, a look that I would remember for the rest of my life, more than any other Madonna concert or Idina Menzel musical I have attended. I had been crying without even realizing it, and his look sent a glow of warmth through my entire body, making me feel safe and secure.
"Go inside the ship. Bring me the blue box you see on the first shelf." He said, still looking at me. I supposed he wanted me to go. I motioned to Taylor, who seemed the most trustworthy, to take my place and went into the spaceship, or what was left of it.
The inside was totally charred, with bits of wire and metal hanging from the ceiling. There was a huge hole in the floor and I carefully sidestepped it. It was hard to imagine how the spaceship had looked like before the crash. It must have been majestic, flying through space.
I reached the shelf, which amazingly, was still intact. In fact, it was the only thing that was intact. The blue box was about ten centimeters square and weighted quite a lot for such a small box. I struggled under the weight, mentally reminding myself to join Troy when he was working out in the gym. I stumbled towards to exit but something on the floor caught my eye. It was a holographic picture of four similar looking creatures two bigger and two smaller one. I supposed they were the alien outside and his family. They looked happy together, just like a normal human family. It suddenly hit me that he would be dying hundreds of thousands of miles away from his family, all alone, surrounded by a bunch of teenagers he had just met. I cried a little more but immediately stopped myself as I didn't want him to see me cry again. I did so quite quickly, all that theatre training did have practical use, unlike what Troy thought.
I returned to his side. His breathing was slower, more labored, each break between each breath longer. "Is this your family?" I asked, handing him the picture. He took it from my hands gently and nodded.
"I'm sorry." I added, not sure of what to say. The movies lines that I thought were poetic when I watched overpaid actors say then on screen were too cheesy for practical use, and I didn't want to act like all this was not real.
He fingered the photograph, brushing his fingers along the frame and touching the picture gently, a soft, sorrowful smile appearing on his lips. It broke my heart. He was dying, and there was nothing we could do about it, nothing at all. I had never felt so hopeless in my life.
He regained his composure and took the box from me. "Place your hand on this box. I am giving you the power to fight against the Yeerks, to have a chance at saving your planet."
"Shouldn't we all vote on stuff like this?" Ryan asked hesitantly. I could tell that he was having trouble accepting all this. He preferred things to be kept as simple as possible, and situations really could not get anymore complicated than the one we were in now.
"Ryan, we have no choice." Gabriella said sadly and deeply, holding onto his hand and placing both his and her hand to the box. Troy, me, Taylor and Chad followed, putting as much of our hands as we could on the tiny box.
I felt a tingling sensation run through my body. It was almost pleasure, and I had to fight back an urge to laugh. I saw the others do the same and felt less guilty.
"You now have the power to turn into any being whose DNA you acquire. Use it wisely to aid you in your battle." He said solemnly.
"Acquire, what do you mean? How do we..." I began, but a loud explosion prevented me from continuing my questions further.
"They're here!" For the first time I sense a strong emotion coming from him. His voice was full of fear, but it was drowned out by hate. A black wave of hate that made me feel like how Voldermort must have felt when he saw Harry. "Go, now!" He commanded, pushing me aside. The others ran, but I was glued on the spot, I didn't want to leave him to die alone.
"Sharpay, move now!" Troy was dragging me, and attempting to lift me up. I stayed on the spot, stunned.
"Go, my name is Eztasicdla, Ludgecusahns warrior, it was my honor to have met you. Find Serfohaylen at the Council meeting tomorrow." He said, and gave me a final push. Troy had lifted me up and was carrying me to where the others were, huddled behind the playground slide.
We stared up into the sky, and saw what was coming. Thousands of bright light shone in the sky, but there weren't stars. They were spaceships, piloted by the Yeerks. They had come to kill Eztasicdla.
They had come to destroy Earth.
One of then ships landed. It was shaped like a spearhead, a solid black block wide at one end, pointed at the other. The hatch opened and creatures stepped out, too far away to make out what they looked like, but they radiated an evil that made my blood boil even from this distance.
A single creature stepped out. It was apparent that he was the leader, because every creature turned to face him. He moved toward Eztasicdla. I could feel his glee, a predator having his prey cornered, and it made me feel sick inside.
A bright spotlight, like the one I was used to performing under, shone on the leader. His appearance was almost pleasant, but it evil radiating off him covered any beauty he had. He looked like a mythical centaur, covered in shiny black fur. But his hoofs were silver and looked like they were made of steel. A series of short spikes covered his back, the tips reflecting light in all direction, as if winking at us. But it was his tail that caught my attention. It was as long as his was and split into three about halfway through. Each section ended in a hard covering that glowed red at intervals.
"So who do we have here?" He said in a taunting voice. The rest of the creature cheered, at least I think that was what they were doing. It was a guttural roar which sent a shiver down my spine. Troy grabbed my hand and gently squeezed it. He must be as scared as I was, but he was still thinking about me. We briefly looked at each other, he gave me a slight nod and I returned a weak smile in his direction. I tore away from his gaze and returned to the bloody scene before me, it was like how Satine must have felt when she thought she was going to leave Moulin Rouge with Christian but then found out that she was dying. Okay, that analogy was stupid, it was a thousand times, a million times worse than that.
The creature took another step forward and reached down to grab Eztasicdla. He lifted him up with one hand and held him up as if his was some sort of trophy. He tightened his grip and I saw Eztasicdla arch in pain.
"So, what do we have here? The great Eztasicdla himself, commander of the Royal Ludgecusahns fleet." He said mockingly and I felt another wave of hate towards him. "How many of my ships have you destroyed? Seven, eight?"
"Fifteen." Eztasicdla smirked weakly. He knew he was doomed, but he wasn't going to let his opponent have the satisfaction of knowing he was afraid.
The creature gave and angry roar and tightened his grip again. I supposed he didn't like being told that he was wrong. I could feel Eztasicdla writhe in pain.
"It would not matter. Not after I am done with you." the creature decided. He made a motion with his hand. A group of the creatures moved forward. They were the most grotesque creatures I had ever seen. Their body were sluggish and a sick gray colour, about two metres long and 1 meter wide. Their face had two round red eyes, almost popping out of their faces. Their mouth, which covered about half of their face, was a mass of needle sharp teeth that jutted out of their mouth and covered every inch inside their mouth. They made Cujo look like a cute puppy that you wanted to take home.
"I would love to kill you myself, but I am afraid that would not inflict as much pain on you as I would have liked." The creature smiled, and tossed Eztasicdla towards the mass of monsters. The monster surged towards like a wave of death and began attacking, no, eating Eztasicdla alive.
At the last moment I heard him cry out, or I felt him cry out. It was a scream of raw pain and despair. It was a scream of horrible finality. It was a scream I would never forget for as long as I live. It made me angry, no, it was more than that. It made me so mad that my mind went completely blank and I didn't stop to consider my actions.
"You filthy, murderous..." I had jumped out of my hiding place and was trying to get to the creature. I wasn't thinking about what I was doing, to be honest, I was too mad to care. I would have charged at them like Braveheart in that instant.
Troy grabbed hold of my waist and pulled me down while Ryan grabbed on to my leg. Gabriella covered my mouth to stop me from screaming and pressed her cheek against mine. I realized that her cheeks were wet and that she had been crying non-stop.
"Don't, it's no use." Taylor said, and I could see that she was shaking and crying too.
I motioned for them to let go. I was still seething mad but at least I was in control of my actions now. I knew what was more important, like getting out of this place without the gathering of aliens noticing us.
"Search the area." The creature commanded, "Kill any creature you find."
"We've got to get out of here man," Chad whispered urgently, "They are going to kill us."
"Okay, we'll split in three directions. Nobody stop even if somebody falls down. Keep running no matter what." Troy said and grabbed my hand and pulled me towards the right side of the playground and ran. I saw Ryan and Gabriella move in one direction and Taylor and Chad in another.
I had never ran so fast in my life before. I ran about three times a week to keep up my stamina for singing. But I was running out of breath fast, I supposed being scared out of your mind could have the effect on you. Troy kept on pulling my hand, urging me forward.
"Troy... let go. You...you can run faster without...without me" I said breathlessly.
"Not a chance in the world. Even if we die, we are dying together." He answered without even pausing to think.
I stole a look behind, and immediately wished I hadn't. I could see about ten creatures chasing after us. They looked roughly like gorillas, but their bodies were covered in a mass of spikes and blades that made them look like moving amour.
We ran through a park. A few gardeners were watering the plants, or pretending to anyway. They were spraying water randomly in all directions but no really hitting any of the plants. We blasted through them, getting soaked in the process. I didn't even stop to think that my hair was getting all messed up and my clothes were splattered with mud. Being smelly and untidy was better than being sliced and dead on any day.
We stopped at the other edge of the park, unable to move any further. We had somehow managed to lose the creatures. We glanced at each other. We were quite a sight in our soaked and muddy clothes, panting heavily and looking totally petrified.
"It's okay, it's alright. We're alive. That's all that matters. I'll walk you home now." Troy said gently. I laid my head against his shoulder and cried. I cried my heart out. I had never cried so much in my whole life, a distant second time I had cried so much was when I was seven and saw Titanic for the first time. I was not usually a big fan of crying. Crying, in my opinion, was a waste of time as it made your eyes sore, your face blotchy, and your nose runny, but still did not solve any problem. But tonight I cried. I cried for Eztasicdla, the brave warrior who had died in the most horrible way possible, I cried for the terrible event I had witnessed, I cried for the evil I never knew existed. But most of all I cried for the news I had been given. Earth was not safe anymore, we were under attack. We were up against something more fearsome than we had ever experienced before.
Troy didn't say anything. He just held me close and patted the top of my head and sobbed softly with me.
As one of the reviewers (riley cryrus) as noticed, this story would be along a similar vein as the Animorphs series. But only the powers that Troy, Sharpay and the rest gain would be the same as the Animorphs and the Yeerks would remain the villains. But the alien species involved would be changed and the storyline would not follow the Animorphs series. This is so that Animorphs readers will not be bored by the repeated storyline and new readers would not be confused about the alien species.
So, what did you readers think? How successful was I in trying to figure of how Sharpay would have described and reacted to the situation? Were there too much movie anologies?Please leave me reviews to let me know how I can further improve this story. So now my target would be 9 more reviews as this is the longest chapter I have written so far and this chapter means a lot to me as Sharpay is, in my opinion, one of the hardest characters to figure out. So please leave a review, no matter how short. Every review counts.
P.S Did you notice something about the names of the aliens and places? Leave your answer in the form of a review (this shouldn't be counted as one of the 9 reviews. Sorry, but I really need to know how others think of my writing to progress in this story) or pm me. Hint: The names are anagrams of some words you would be very familiar with if you are a fan of High School Musical.