Chapter 2: Cassie
My name is Cassie
Getting to England proved to be really easy. A plane was leaving for there an hour after we arrived at the airport and Erek expanded his hologram so we could walk through unseen. It was a little trickier finding seven free seats together, but fortunately there was a large group of them at the back of the plane and after that the flight was uneventful. Aside from Ax and Tobias' frequent morphing that is, if you call two boys turning to and from an alien and a hawk eventful. But that's just par for course for me.
I have to admit that I was excited with this mission. I mean, how often do we get to see sights like Big Ben or the Palace while fighting Parasites? And we would get to see an entire world filled with magic! It was like living in a fairy tale. I couldn't wait to see it for myself and all the animals in it. This was going to be amazing.
"So where are we meeting your friend?" Tobias asked, frowning as he scanned the streets for anything unusual, not that he'd find it. He was clearly annoyed by the pathetic level of human vision. Compared to his usual hawk eyes, he was blind at the moment.
"Between platforms nine and ten at King's Cross Station." Erek answered, leading the way through the busy streets. "From there he can direct us to the school or to the magical streets in London."
"And we'll be picking the school. We're here to give these guys a chance at saving their world, not go on a shopping trip." Marco stated, much to Rachel's annoyance.
"What? Why shouldn't we go shopping? Think of all the things that they could have. Maybe even a growth potion to help you with your height problem." She said teasingly, a sly smile passing her lips.
"Yeah, but I'd rather stay short than risk you buying a flying broomstick. You remind me enough of a witch already." He retorted with a fake shiver, his face alive with amusement. Giving an indignant cry, Rachel shoved him in the shoulder.
"Why don't you guys fly there?" Erek asked, pointing ahead of him. "Keep going that way and you'll spot it in no time. It's big, you can't miss it. I'll meet up with you guys there when you've got all the information."
"How will we know who the Chee is if you're not with us?" I asked unsurely. It would be hopeless going into a busy train station looking for a guy we knew nothing about. Chee blend in as well as we do in a crowd. Better if we're wearing our morphing outfits.
"He'll be right next to the wall between the platforms 9 and 10." Erek answered reassuringly. "When you get there, ask whoever's there if their name is Max Chee."
"Ok, there's a deserted alley over there we can use to morph." Jake said, pointing to his right. "Everyone morph seagull and we'll go from there. Can you take care of our clothes and the cube Erek?" He asked as we stepped out of sight and stripped off our outer clothing. Getting a nod from the android, four sets of clothes were piled into his hands before we started morphing.
Closing my eyes, I concentrated on the image of the seagull and an itchiness grew over my skin immediately, bringing feather patterned tattoos in existence along with it. They turned three dimensional and grew out of my skin just as I started shrinking, making me look like I'd just been pranked with glue and a broken pillow. Skin widened from my fingers and fused together as the crunching sounds of my bones hollowing and reshaping met my ears. My legs turned skinny as stick figures as my toes fused together to make three nails. It wasn't until I stopped shrinking and everything else was finished that my head changed. My lips hardened and exploded out from my face, creating a beak while my head reshaped to the bird's head. The result was a seagull with human eyes. I mentally chuckled as that image made its way into my head.
I was fully prepared for the instincts to appear as the morph finished and quickly shoved them down as I turned to the others. Morphing's never pretty and I didn't want to watch the others while they did it. Fortunately, other than Ax, who had to pass from human to Andelite first, they were almost all done, only having a few human body parts left. I couldn't help mentally snorting as I looked at Jake. I can't say that I've ever seen a bird with fingers at the end of his wings and what looked like a brown wig before.
/Yes, yes, morphing can have hilarious moments. Let's move on./ Jake grumbled as he finished his morph along with Rachel and Marco. Seeing as Tobias was clearly deciding to stay in his hawk form, we only had to wait for Ax to go through the process again before we took off into the air.
/Woohoo! I'm soaring majestically, like a candy wrapper caught in an updraft./ Marco cried cheerfully, flying higher into the air.
/Ok, no more Simpsons for Marco./ Rachel called teasingly, starting another of their bantering sessions. I didn't pay it any mind, I was too busy staring down at the world with glee.
London looked beautiful from the sky and only amplified the joy I got from flying. It looked a lot like home, but still had a foreign aspect to it. And of course, the seagull mind thought it was in heaven. There was plenty of food for it to steal everywhere I looked. Being a scavenger, and an amazing one at that, it easily noticed limitless targets I never would have seen.
/There it is guys./ Tobias called from a little above us, beginning his decent as a large build with train tracks coming in from multiple sides. I have to say, it was much more impressive than any station I'd ever seen before. No wonder Erek said we wouldn't miss it, it was absolutely enormous.
/Aww, we have to give up our wings already?/ Marco sighed as we followed Tobias, fighting the seagulls' panicked thoughts to get away from the raptor.
/Not necessarily./ Ax responded as we reached the tracks. /I cannot see a safe place for us to demorph. It appears that we will have to enter as seagulls and find the Chee first. We can demorph inside his hologram if we no longer need our wings./
/Let's go already./ Rachel called impatiently, dropping into a dive. The rest of us quickly followed her and followed the tracks right into platform 4. People stared and pointed to us as we flew over their heads, trying to find a place to land. The place was big for a reason; it was used by a LOT of people. We'd almost past platform 10 before we found a clear place to land, not that the seagull mind wanted to. The place was full of noise and far too many people. The perfect place for it to have a panic attack.
"Interesting place for a flock of seagulls to show up, eh mates?" A deep, male voice asked amusedly from behind me, scaring the seagull out of its tiny mind. Turning around, I found myself staring at a man in his early twenties with brown hair and sparkling blue eyes. "You wouldn't happen to be Erek King's friends, would you?"
/You are a smart one, aren't you Max?/ Marco replied jovially, squawking as he did. /Would you mind giving us a private bubble to talk and morph?/
"Not at all. I'm already getting weird looks." He said softly, but cheerfully, standing up straight. A second later, it appeared that a dome of static had appeared around us. I couldn't see anything but a fuzzy picture in any direction from four feet onwards. And on top of that, the man had disappeared to be replaced by a large, bipedal, robotic dog. "So, where am I leading you to first? I'm assuming you already have your moves in mind?"
/Yes, we do./ Jake nodded, a strange sight to see from a seagull, as we started to demorph. /We just want to go to the school. We'll get the people we meet and talk to there to come up with a plan for the rest of the world. We don't have the time or the numbers to deal with it all here and the problems back home./
"Fair enough." Max nodded, his eyes moving from one of us to the next, seemingly fascinated by our grotesque transitions. "I'll show you the path there as soon as Erek shows up. That shouldn't take long."
"What do you mean?" Rachel asked, human enough to talk again. "We left him at the airport. It could take ages to get here."
"In this lousy gravity, no way." Max chuckled amusedly. "Back on our home world that would be true. But here, he can leap entire buildings with a single bound. Where do you think the idea for superman came from? He'll be here in no time."
/So he told us to go ahead so we didn't slow him down?/ Tobias asked, not quite managing to keep the laughter out of his voice. /And here I thought it was so he didn't slow us down./
"So how far do we have to go to find the path?" I asked. "Is it far from here?"
"The school is, but the beginning of the path is only about ten feet away." Max responded, pointing to the barrier behind him. "This barrier is charmed. You can walk right through it and it will take you to another platform, 9 and three quarters. You follow the train tracks and they'll lead you straight to a village at the end. From there, you walk ahead and you'll find what looks like an old, dangerous ruin with a keep out sign on it. Ignore the sign and any feelings you get along the way of forgetting to do something and just head straight to it. Once you're at the boundaries, you'll pass all of the charms hiding it from sight and see a huge castle. That's the school."
"So we run through a solid wall, travel who knows how far and ignore every sign that we should stay away from the very place we're heading?" Marco summed up, grinning cheekily. "No problem. It's just like any other day in the life of and Animorph."
/Except it's the next part where it gets tricky./ Tobias sighed, effectively ending the amusement caused by Marco's comment.
"Unfortunately...Tobias right?" Max asked, getting a nod from everyone but the hawk in question. "Is right. After that there are spells designed to block even a wizard's path and protect the students."
"Not to mention that the school is a giant castle." I added, giving the others an apologetic look as their frowns continued to grow. "It'll be like a maze in there without any magic tricks added to the place. Without knowing our way around, we could easily get lost."
/And after we figure out how to deal with all of this, we must also find people who not only are not infested, but are courageous, competent and trust worthy enough to deal with the two enemies they will be facing at once./ Ax added, turning his main eyes to Jake.
"Kinda makes you miss the missions where we just rush in and destroy everything in sight, doesn't it?" Rachel asked, folding her arms.
"You know a mission sounds bad and impossible when I agree with Rachel on that one." Marco nodded, taking a deep breath and sighing.
"It might not be that hard to actually pick candidates." Max piped in, getting disbelieving raised eyebrows from all of us. "Just find the ones opposing the cruel staff members. With two Death Eaters, Voldemort's minions, in the building, the noble ones should be easy to find."
"Great, one less issue for them." I jumped as the familiar voice appeared out of nowhere, heralding the arrival of Erek. I gave him an annoyed look as I took a few deep breaths, trying to get my heart beat to go back down. He'd come right out of nowhere and for a second I thought we'd been caught. Seeing the look I was giving him, Erek sent an apologetic one back to me. "Here's your stuff guys. Are you ready to go?" He asked, as we took our clothes off of him, Ax grabbing the morphing cube firmly between both hands.
"Yep. First step's through this wall right?" Rachel asked Max, getting a nod in return. Grinning, she put her hand out and strode right to the barrier and disappeared right through it.
"Yay, that part's easy for once." Marco said excitedly, following her through. Chuckling at his behaviour, the rest of us followed suit. I had to smile as I came through the other side. Apart from the platform sign and what looked like old fashioned candle lanterns scattered around in place of light bulbs, it looked exactly the same as the rest of the station, except it was much cleaner and there was no one around. A good thing too. I'd been getting a little claustrophobic surrounded by so many people and having to huddle in such a small space.
"There are no alternations in the tracks. It's a nonstop trip from here to a village just outside of Hogwarts called Hogsmeade." Max told us as we jumped down onto the tracks. "Just follow it and you have no possible way of getting lost."
"Alright then. Thanks for the help Max." Jake smiled, nodding his head to the Chee.
"Not a problem. I want the Yeerks stopped too you know." Max said happily, chuckling as he looked at each of us in turn, his hologram's eyes sparkling with amusement. "Erek and I will be right here when you get back. You know, just in case something comes up."
"Alright, if you're sure you won't get bored." Jake responded. "I don't know how long this will take."
"All the more reason to get started." Erek said with a shrug.
"Yeah. So how are we gonna do this?" Marco asked, waving up the tracks before raising the clothes in his other hand. "Personally, I think it might be a little suspicious to bird watchers if a number of foreign birds of prey are flying along a railway track carrying clothes and a glowing cube."
"Then we travel on foot." I answered, a very particular grey furred form crossing my mind. "Wolves are native to Europe and they can run all day. We can carry our clothes in our mouths and we're a lot less likely to be seen on the ground, especially if the locations these tracks lead to are supposed to be a secret from most of the world."
And that was that. One transition later six wolves, four with clothes hanging from their jaws and one carefully clamping down on the morphin cube, were charging down track towards the country side. Off to the castle known as Hogwarts in a world like one we've never seen.