Since I don't make money on this, I do not infringe on copyright laws. Just thought I'd share that.
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May 28, 1999 3:02 PM
Welcome to Lego Land.
I will buy your memories!
Come visit my execution parlor!
Give me your clothing and I will give you credit!
Here! Eat this larva! Let it gestate and we'll split the proceeds between your heirs!
You stink horribly! I will cleanse you!
Become my partner and we will sell your fur as a gachak poison!
Population: every fucking salesman in the known universe. These were the Iskoort. They had trianglar shaped heads with rounded edges, the point towards the top. Near the point, they had two stalk eyes, with irises pink in color. Their heads were an Aztec turquoise, including their small beaks. The beaks opened to revel a blue tongue and bluish white teeth. The heads were on off-white vulture necks which were on light purple shoulders. The shoulders were rectangular, but rounded at the edges. From the shoulders hung off-white arms, one on each side. The three-time jointed arms ended in a two-to-one opposable hand. The "thumbs" and outer fingers were claws. The inner fingers were tentacles. Their body was a pink accordion of flesh, making a sound like Janice's laugh on Friends. They had off-white legs that looked backwards. "Knees" to the ground, they crawled on their calves and feet pointed forward. Their feet had three toes. One long moveable toe in the middle and a claw on either side.
Not the kind of creature you'd buy something from.
Forgive us, strangers! the leader of the crowd said after Rachel asked to use the Ladies' room. We did not expect off-worlders today. Welcome to the City of Beauty! Do you require a guide? Do you wish to sell your memories, or perhaps any unnecessary body parts?
But beggars can't be choosers.
"You know, if they're serious about a guide . . ." Cassie said.
So we got Guide, Grub of Skin-seller, brother of Memory Wholesaler. Or Guide for short. In exchange for six inches of Rachel's hair. Let's just say Rachel was a little difficult during negotiations.
But as soon as we got Guide, a young iskoort, under control, Jake got us back on track looking for the eight howlers.
"One question, right up front: Have you seen any other off-world strangers?" Jake asked Guide.
Off-worlders? Of course! The City of Beauty is temporary home to many, many off-worlders.
"Probably drawn here by the charm of the residents." Cassie said sarcastically. She was in a bad mood today. Maybe it was just that time of the month.
We're looking for members of a species called Howlers. Tobias said.
Guide's diaphragm whine dropped an octave. He was hiding something. This species is not known to me.
"Don't lie to us, Guide." Jake said forcefully. "Have you ever met an Andalite before?"
No.
"Well, Andalites have the power to mind-meld with people. They can look right inside their thoughts and know if they're lying, and if you are lying, they make your head explode."
"Dark side of the Force and all." I added.
Now Ax is a Vulcan? Tobias commented.
Howlers? Did you say Howlers? There may be one or two Howlers around.
"Try eight." Jake said. "Where are they? And do you know why they're here?"
They've come to trade, like all who visit our world. They trade memories for boda salts. Howler memories are very valuable.
"What do Boda salts do, Guide?" I asked.
In most species, when ingested, they increase your strength. They're also believed to be able to render most poisons and diseases impotent.
"Well that's just great."
"What's this memory stuff? You guys keep talking about buying memories. What's that all about?" Cassie asked.
You have never seen a memory show? Then that must be our first stop! It is the greatest of entertainments!
"Obviously, you don't get the Super Bowl here." Marco said.
"Or Friends re-runs." I added.
"We always suspected the Howlers might have a collective memory." Erek said. "The Howlers may pass memory along, generation to generation."
Yes, yes. Guide agreed. This is why they command such a price. Their memories are long and clear.
"Guide, have you seen these Howler memories?" Cassie asked.
No. Not me. I am a Trader, a probationary member of the Guild of Traders. I am not interested in violence and killing and slaughter. No, it is the members of the Criminal Guild and the Warmaker Guild who buy Howler memories.
"We're not here to write a paper on the Iskoort." Jake said, royally annoyed. "We're here to take down eight Howlers so we can go home."
"It just seemed to me that if we have to have a battle," Cassie started, "we'd be better off if we knew where we were and what was going on."
"We need a place. A base of operations. We can't just stand out here in the open."
Then come, follow me! Guide said. I know the right place.
We walked down stairs to a new floor that had fields of yellow cylinders that Guide called energy storage. We walked a new flight of stairs to new floor, one with a mile-high ceiling. Iskoort with pale-white and pink colored heads were teaming to smaller buildings within this level. The buildings all had open fronts.
"It's the mall." said the quintessential mallrat herself, Rachel. "A bazaar."
"Bizarre Bazaar." I commented.
Yes, this is the level seventy-eight marketplace. Guide said. We must move quickly here.
"What? No shopping?" Rachel said.
We reached the ground-level and turquoise-headed Iskoort started mobbing us to buy their goods or offer to buy ours.
"I see what you mean by moving quickly, Guide" Jake said.
What? No, no, not for these honest Traders. But this market is a favorite gathering place for members of the Warmaker Guild.
BOOM! A bony Iskoort head bashed into me. Several more of these Iskoort bashed the nine of us.
"Howlers!" I heard Jake yell.
Howlers? Not hardly. I thought as I, morphing all the way into Hork-bajir, used my strength and grabbed the Iskoort by the horns and threw him.
"Erek! Are these Howlers?" Jake asked as he kicked an Iskoort away.
"No. Of course not." Erek said calmly as an Iskoort head butted him. Marco, halfway morphed to gorilla and already demorphing, grabbed that Iskoort and threw him into his buddies. The aggressive Iskoort backed up. Five of them. One had only one arm that was bleeding off-white blood. It really didn't look right, if you know what I mean.
Immediately I noticed that their heads were a different color. They were blood-red. (Well, human blood-red.) Their faces were shaped more like trapezoids then triangles. On the upper flat side of the trapezoid were two blunt horns. Their hands had long claws. As long as or longer than the tentacle. Their feet were flexed like grasshoppers.
These are Iskoort of the Warmaker Guild. This is why we must hurry. They don't like off-worlders.
They're going to like us a lot less if they try that again! Rachel said.
"Let's get out of here," Jake commanded.
About half-an-hour and several run-ins with gangs of Warmakers later, we were a quarter way down a stairway 300 feet long and about 10 feet across when suddenly,
"Howler!" Erek yelled.
"Yeah, right." Marco commented.
Erek's human projection was white with fright. A human expression. His projection must be on automatic. He pointed to a creature that was about a hundred feet down, walking up the staircase. The creature he fingered as a howler was the most humanoid creature I've seen.
Two arms. Two legs. One head. No tail. Very humanoid. It stood about 5'11 maybe 6'. It walked as if it were a cowboy. Its arms were longer than its legs. It had five-to-one opposable hands. From the wrists, there was a flap of skin and bone that extended four hooked, steel claws. He appeared to have a bearing on his waist that would allow it to turn all the way around if needed. It's skin was black with red lines. It looked as if it were a made from cooled lava.
"It looks like Dark Specter from Power Rangers in Space." I said. All of my human comrades (and ex-human comrades) looked at me strangely. "Not that I ever watched the show or anything."
Lastly, the creature had oddly beautiful eyes. Robin's egg blue. Each eye had a vertical iris of pale sky blue.
It saw us, but didn't seem to recognize us. The Howler wore a series of belts. On each belt was a weapon. He had many weapons. Beam weapons, projectile weapons, knives, boomerangs. The Yeerks felt that projectile weapons were primitive. Someone tell these guys.
I looked at Erek. His hologram was failing. He was losing control. The Howler focused on him. Of course, it knows a chee. The collective memory of the Howlers surely remembers the Chee.
"Erek, get a grip." Jake said.
Erek stabilized his hologram, but still the Howler watched as it walked up.
"Seven against one, Jake." Rachel said. "We won't get better odds."
Jake pursed his lips as he made his decision. "Morph. Ax? You take the lead. David, morph and follow. Tobias? Get some altitude. Guide? Back off, this isn't your fight. Erek? Stay out of the way."
We started our morphs. Within forty seconds, my hork-bajir morph was complete.
Aximili and I walked forward with Tobias in the sky.
"You must be careful of the Howler's voice." Erek said. "His howl will paralyze you and numb your senses. If he gets close he'll use the needle teeth retracted into his upper and lower jaw. He's not as fast -"
Erek, Jake interrupted as he finished his morph, what did you say about paralyzing?
"It's the reason they're called Howlers, Jake. The voice. Be ready to --"
The Howler grabbed its beam weapon.
"Hhhhhhhhhrrrrrrrooooooooowwwwwwrrrrr!" Jake roared in tiger morph. Rachel was behind him in bear morph. Marco behind her in Gorilla. Cassie was close to the edge as a wolf.
FWAP! Aximili sliced off the creature's hand. Its beam weapon falls to the floor, but already the hand starts to regenerate. I start slicing at its chest, but it starts defending itself with its claws.
David, watch out, I'm going to leap on him. Jake warned. The others backed him up.
Then the Howler replied.
"KEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE-row"
It was unbearable. My very brain was violently vibrating. My eyes and ears bleed.
"KEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE-row"
I ran. Hork-bajir blood seeped through the fingers clasps on the sides of my head. Aximili was running along with me. We stopped at the top of the stairs. I demorphed. I didn't see Guide anywhere.
That sound! That howl! It is too much! Aximili said to me.
"We've got to fight it Aximili." I said. My human head was hurting from the new howls. Even though they were relatively far away now.
We can't Aximili said, still clutching his head. He sank down on his knees. Not an Andalilte thing to do.
I slapped him. "On your hooves, Aristh!"
Aximili got up, and stared at me with three of his eyes. How can we defeat such a creature. The howls will destroy us.
"The howls are just sound. Maybe if we had a morph that was deaf." Than it hit me. After owning Spawn, I knew much about snakes. "Snakes. They don't hear conventionally. They hear through vibrations. Same as a cockroach. Do you have a snake morph?"
Rattlesnake.
"Me too. I hope a double dose of rattler venom is enough to take it down."
They have those Boda salts, what if it doesn't work? Aximili warned.
I did a fifty second morph to rattlesnake, Aximili was close behind me, well on his way to his rattlesnake morph. I'm going in. Follow me when you can.
I slithered down the stairs. The stairs were clear. All the Iskoort had ran away when the battle started. They wanted to get away from the howls. I slithered past Erek and into the battle. Marco, half-demorphed, was trying crawl his way up the stairs.
"Jake, demorph!" Erek yelled. I saw pictures, but more importantly I sensed heat. My tongue sensed heat. I had to find the Howler and bite him. Give a dose of Terra Firman Poison.
Bodies moved around me, but I controlled the snake's instinct to just bite away at any movement it found threatening. I had to find the Howler. Fortunately, the Howler's body temperature was much higher than the other creatures.
"Cassie, he's trying to stab you. Rachel, the Howler is within three feet of the edge, to your edge. Demorph, Jake! Demorph! Do it now!"
I found the Howler's leg and got ready to bite. At the time, I didn't know what had happened next, but in retrospect, the Howler must have saw me.
It howled. "KEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE-row"
ATTACK! FROM EVERYWHERE! AT ONCE! DEFEND! DEFEND! MAYBE IT'S FOOD!
For the life of me, I could not gain control of that morph. The howl, while not painful to the snake, confused the hell of it.
Then the howl stopped, and when my senses regained, I saw why. Aximili had bit it in the leg. The Howler was about to slice Aximili off with his claws.
Oh, no you don't! I bit him on the arm. Instantly, I found myself flying through the air. Still I hung on by my fangs. Then I got the feeling that I was being spun around.
David! Cassie yelled.
I was being spun around by the Howler. Soon the force was too much and I flew off ripping off one of my fangs in the process. It would remain in his arm. I hit a wall and fell. I was severely stunned. I swear to God, I saw stars.
When I got my wits about me, I demorphed. I saw that I had made it to the floor. This floor of the marketplace had been abandoned. Due to the loud battle, no doubt. Stores were closed up. I walked to the stairs. I saw the Howler walk clumsily down. It grabbed what looked like a bottle from its side and open the top. The bottle was filled with little white cubes. The Howler was about to take one of the cubes, when it spotted me.
It stared at me, and then it collapsed. And almost immediately, I smelled the stench. The Howler was dead. I took the bottle from his hand and capped it. "What was so important about this bottle, Howler?"
Guide and Erek walked down the stairs. Erek carried what appeared to be an unconscious tiger, but the tiger was slowly demorphing. Rachel and Marco were remorphed Grizzly and Gorrilla. Cassie was a human and ran alongside Erek holding Jake's paw. Tobias was in the air. Aximili walked behind. I ran along to Guide.
"Where are you taking us, Guide?" I asked.
A low-rent apartment. They should provide us with some protection.
We ended up in some room. The five of us who wore clothes stood around in our morphing outfits. Our regular clothes were shredded in the last battle. It was ok; the Iskoort Planet was very warm. Cassie coached a comatose Jake through his demorph. Now totally human, Jake was still unconscious, but not a nothlit. Aximili sulked away into a corner. I went to Guide and asked what was in the bottle I stole from the Howler.
You stole from the dead?! All possessions of the dead must be taken to the Law Enforcement Guild to divide among the heirs!
"Shut up, and tell me what these are!"
Boda salts.
"The things that increase strength and make you invulnerable to poison and disease?"
Yes, but as you can see, its effectiveness in the Howlers was less than satisfactory. It could have unforseen side effects in humans!
"Maybe." I said. I decided not to eat it.
"Cassie! Look out!" Jake suddenly yelled. Marco and Rachel each grabbed one of Jake's arms.
"Chill, chill. It's okay, dude, fight's over." Marco said.
"Cassie?" Jake asked.
"I'm here." she said and hugged Jake from behind. "It's taken you a while to wake up. You barely demorphed in time then it was like you were in a come, like you weren't going to wake up at all."
I popped a salt in my mouth. It tasted like I ate a block of pure salt covered in earwax and cigarette ash. Felt better than the constricting feeling around my heart. I felt strangely fine afterward, though.
Every time Jake and Cassie share some intimate moment, I feel a pit of jealousy. Not directed at Jake per se, because I find myself feeling similar feelings around Rachel and Tobias, and I know I have no strong feelings toward Rachel. Well, no strong amicable feelings. So I can't just be that I used to be in love with Cassie.
I miss Stephanie. Plain and simple. Everytime I've battled for my life, aboard the Rogin Gavic, at that roadside attraction hell for animals, the meeting place of the Sharing where I was shrank to the size of a flea, in the barren wasteland of the North Pole, I found myself grateful to be near Cassie.
And desperately wishing to be near Steph.
"The Howler." Jake asked.
"Dead." Marco said. "And you almost could have said the same for us."
"How?"
"Ax and David nearly killed themselves by morphing rattlesnakes and bitting the Howler."
"Risky move, David." Jake said.
"It won't work on the whole group." I stated. "Only three of us have poisonous snake morphs. Even if the three of us sacrifice ourselves (and I guarantee, that's what it would be, a sacrifice) that still leaves four Howlers left. Even if we could get them one-on-one, with a collective memory, they won't fall for the same trick twice."
Jake looked to Guide. "You stick with us after that?" He asked.
Oh yes, yes, yes, I will be able to sell the memory of that battle for a small fortune! And if each of you would sell me your own unique perspectives, I could buy my own corner with the profits!
Jake turned to Cassie. "What's with him?" He said pointing to Ax who was sulking a corner.
"He ran away." Cassie answered. "He came back, but I guess that's not enough. He won't talk to anyone."
"Let him be for a while, then I'll talk to him." Jake said. "What is this place?"
"Some place Guide got for us. This room and a bathroom-well, I think it's a bathroom. Hope it's a bathroom."
Ewwww.
"Jake, this is what the Howlers are using." I said tossing him the bottle. "Boda salts."
"Ok, so?"
"So, we should take one. Have the same advantages they do. Guide says they can increase strength and give you invulnerability."
But they could also have some side-effect we're not aware of. Tobias said.
Jake thought this over. "Sorry, David. I'm with Tobias on this." Jake said. "We don't know what it could do to us."
"Stop being such pussies! I took one, I'm fine."
"You took one?!"
"What?"
"You took one, without asking us?"
"What? Am I supposed to ask you every time I eat something? Fuck you!"
"David, I'm very tired of having this conversation with you, but when we are on a mission, you follow orders."
"You don't control me, Jake! Except that."
"David," Cassie said to me, "we have no idea what these boda salts would do to a human. What if you go crazy and kill Ax, or Tobias, . . . . or me."
Well, shit, when you put it like that.
"Jake, we should really try to decide what we want to do next." Cassie said.
"All in favor of telling the Ellimist to go do several of David's favorite words say 'aye'." Marco suggested.
He wouldn't have put us here if we weren't at least theoretically capable of winning. Tobias said.
"Unless there's some other, deeper game the Ellimist is playing." Cassie said. "He's fighting a battle for entire species, entire planets. We're just pawns."
"Pawns can become Knights, bishops, rooks, even queens." I said.
"It's still a rotten, stinking deal." Rachel said. "We're leaving our own planet defenseless to save these Iskoort."
"I think Ellimist will drop us where we left off," I said, as if I were the fucking expert, "you know, assuming we survive."
"They're faster than we are, stronger than we are, better armed than we are, but are they smarter than we are?" Cassie asked.
"Erek?" Jake prompted.
"They had faster-than-light ships at a time when humans still thought the wheel was a radical new invention." Erek said.
Doesn't make them smarter. Tobias said. The Ellimist said some species evolve quickly, others slowly. If you get a billion years' head start, of course you have better weapons and technology than a species that started later. Doesn't mean you're smarter. Maybe it just means you started earlier.
"Toby's smarter than most us. Doesn't change the fact she's still primitive." I brought up.
"Erek? Tell us all you know about the Howlers." Jake said.
"I only saw them from the point of view of the victims." Erek said. "I can use my holographic systems to recreate what I saw, but there may be a way to get even more information."
Yes! Guide said, bouncing up and down like a rabbit. Yes, of course. You could purchase Howler memories! I can load memories directly into your android friend, here, but they will be expensive. Guide opened a panel in the wall, and began typing away at a console.
"You're not getting anymore of my hair. Not a kidney or and arm, either." Rachel gripped.
"Take her ovaries. Please." I said, getting another dagger look from the psychobitch.
Ok, no more pissing off Rachel, today.
I will pay for you to view the Howler memories. Guide said. In exchange for harvesting your own memories.
"What is this memory-selling? Does it mean we lose our memories?" Jake asked.
Of course not. Why would it? We simply make a copy.
"They Xerox our memories?"
Can't do it. Tobias said. Those memories could end up reaching the Yeerks.
Jake turned to Aximili. "Ax? Ax!" Aximili was not answering, he was still lost in thought. "Ax, we need you."
He looked up.Yes, Prince Jake.
"How far are we to the closest Yeerk outpost?"
I . . . . I don't know where we are. I don't have a star chart.
Guide decided to be helpful and he pulled up a chart of what I believed to be his home system. Aximili zoomed out until we could see the arms of a spiral galaxy. Actually, our spiral galaxy: The Milky Way.
We are more than five million light years away from Earth. Aximili explained. Before the yeerks could spread a tenth of this distance they would have had to swallow not only Earth, but my planet as well.
Jake nodded and made the deal with Guide, who just about had a heart attack. I think we have just turned him into Bill Gates or George Lucas or someone to that effect. Erek interfaced with the panel Guide had been messing with since we got here. Even though, his hologram had been dropped, He could see that the downloading of the Howler memories into Erek had taken a toll with the android.
Jake asked to see a Howler attack. Erek, declining to show the slaughter of his creators, the Pemalites, he showed us an attack the Howlers made on a species called Graffen's Children. This particular attack happened around the late 1970's.
Via Erek's hologram, we saw a rain forest. A forest filled with two-headed rodents. Worms with spikes and worms with feathers and wings. Rain forests are just plain weird. We then saw a creature, again, oddly humanoid. Blue, rough skin. Two arms, two very stiff and lumpy legs. Two eyes and a mouth.
"Gumby" Jake commented.
More creatures followed. A Howler hand came into view, several of us jerked in surprise. Of course, we were seeing this planet through Howler eyes. One of the Graffen's Children spotted the Howler and walked toward it with open arms. That's when the rest of the Howlers came.
They howled. Erek filtered out the harmful sounds, but the poor creatures were hit full force. They began to blow apart!
"Erek, stop it!" Jake snapped. The hologram was gone. "I shouldn't have let you do this, Erek. Can you erase this stuff from your memory?"
"No Jake."
"I'm sorry." Jake said. "How much more did you absorb?"
Erek emitted his human hologram. Human expressions of terror and sadness marked his face. "I have memories of seventeen Howler attacks. All successful. They have never been defeated. They have attacked highly advanced civilizations and simple people like Graffen's Children. They have never taken a prisoner. They simply kill and kill and kill until there is no one left to kill. Then they go and find something else to kill."
"That's insane!" Cassie yelled. "No one does that. It doesn't make sense. There's no logic to it. You're not talking about predators who kill to eat, or prey animals who kill in self-defense. Even humans have reasons, no matter how sick. Even humans have limits. Why would evolution result in a species that kills for no apparent reason?"
"It wouldn't. It didn't." Erek said. "The howlers didn't evolve. They were created."
"Crayak." I said.
Erek confirmed. "Graffen's Children and dozens of species were annihilated by Crayak's Children."
I slept. Hard to sleep when you're dealing with a group of warriors who have never been beaten. True, we had killed one of them, but soldiers still die on successful missions. I wonder how many Howlers have ever actually died in battle, but eventually I slept.
The city lay in ruins.
I was in New York for some reason. The streets had been ripped apart, revealing the Yeerk Pool underneath. It was the Howlers. It was they who ripped the streets. The started blasting their Star-Trek-Phaser-looking Beam weapons into the pool itself, boiling Yeerks. Everywhere I saw carnage.
Howlers and Hork-Bajir locked claw-to-blade in mortal combat. Howler howls were bursting Taxxons and killing Gedds at an alarming rate. Humans were there too. Howlers were slicing, disintegrating, stabbing, any and all of the above methods of murder were being used to kill humans.
I saw my parents. My best friend Jason. All of my aunts, uncles, and cousins. My entire family. Even my grandparents, which is odd because all four of them had died within the last three years of various illnesses. The Howlers had chased them into a large hole. The howlers then howled at them. All of my family members began to blow apart!! My father. My mother. My uncle Terrance on my dad's side who taught me how to swim. My cousin Magda on my mom's side who used to babysit me during those five months we lived in San Francisco. My cousin Kelly on my dad's side who has cystic fibrosis. All of them were blowing apart!
"No!!!"
Then he arose. Visser Three was there as a giant Dule Fansa. He stepped on Howlers and controllers alike to get to a small contingent of Howlers who were already firing beam weapons at him. The Visser let loose two powerful cones, exploding the asphalt it hit. But soon the Howlers overcame the Visser and them brought him down.
NO!!! I am the mighty Visser Three! You can't destroy me! No!!!!
David! We must go now! Aximili said to me. I looked up and saw Bird & Blue in their human morphs, but they were flying in the sky with the help of very large bird wings.
Let's go, David! Hurry! Tobias said as he flew off. The two of them flew over a church. A couple of angels flying over a church, but the cross was different. Instead of Jesus nailed to it, the Ellimist as the silver-haired human was their instead.
"That's not right." I said confused.
"David, let's go." Jake yelled at me. Jake was carrying an unconscious Cassie. His skin was orange with black stripes. "We have to go, the Howlers are annihilating all of us. Cassie! Wake up!"
"David?"
I turned around. Stephanie was running toward me. There was a large red eye following her. Closing on her. Crayak.
"Stephanie! Watch out!" I yelled as the Crayak caught up to her. Crayak's eye opened into a row of razor-sharp, steel teeth. He opened his mouth over Steph. He bit down. WHAM!!!!!
"Stephanie!!!" I yelled, but I yelled it out in the dark. I was in an Iskoort Apartment. Everyone else was up, almost as if they had the same dream I did.
WHAM!! Something was banging against the latched door. Oh, them. The door held, amazingly.
See! Guide said triumphantly. I told you-
TSEEEEW! A red circle appeared in the door. They were trying to burn their way in.
"Oh no you don't!!!!!" I yelled as I bashed the door down with my human shoulder.
"David!" Cassie yelled.
"David, stop!!!" Jake yelled.
I flew myself at the nearest Howler. I was a rattlesnake before the Howler caught me and sent himself with me overboard.
We fell. I bit him in the neck. After a good ten seconds of falling we landed on some kind of ground. We were both stunned, but alive. The Howler walked toward me, towering over me. The venom didn't seem to be working. He aimed his Dart weapon at me, but then the Howler started getting smaller.
No . . I was getting bigger. I was demorphing? Now? No! I was going Hork-Bajir. How is that possible?? I tried to talk, but hissing came out. I was a Hork-Bajir with a snake head!!! The Howler howled at me. ENEMY! STRIKE!!! said my snake instincts (or was it Hork-Bajir?).
I rushed after the Howler with my blades. It defended itself with its claws. I snapped my snake head and broke a fang on his head. Immediately, I noticed an error. It was dark, and neither snakes nor Hork-Bajir see well in the dark. I couldn't defend myself against the Howler and it started taking chunks of my flesh away.
Suddenly I could see. I couldn't understand it. It was as if someone had turned on a light. My Hork-Bajir flesh was growing back. I was healing myself! I was fighting with a vigor I had never experienced before. It was like I was on fucking steroids! Between my blades and my ever-snapping fangs, the howler had a hard time getting a hold of me.
But the Howler found a way. I snapped my head too far, and a kick from the Howler sent me falling into the ground. I laid their on my back, my limp hork-bajir tail offering no protection from the twin knifes of the Howler that would skewer each one of my hearts.
FWAP! My hork-bajir tail sliced off both of the Howler's hands. What? My hork-bajir tail can't do that! All at once, I had two stalk eyes looking down my back. It was an Andalite tail that severed the Howler's now-reforming hands.
What's happening to me? I can't mix-and-match morph like this!!! Four Dayang tentacles sprouted out of my back and wrapped itself around the Howler. I threw him about four yards. I got up and the tentacles slurped back into my back. Bad enough I was fighting this thing one-on-one, but now I had lost control of my morphing. It was those damn boda salts!! I realized. My legs had changed again. Familiar legs. Human legs.
My legs? I wondered, but no. They were larger and had darker skin. African Male. The police officer I acquired. The Howler fought me claw-to-blade similar to that in my dream. As long as my head remained serpentine, it would not use its howls.
Our fight seemed to be a stalemate. I had Hork-Bajir blades on my arms. An Andalite tail. Andalite stalk eyes, and what I assumed to be owl eyes on my serpentine head. I had lost my fangs, my face grew a beak (Eagle or otherwise, I couldn't tell you). My human legs grew feathers. Then my back grew a hard shell. It opened up to reveal large gossamer wings that actually started to lift me up slightly.
Cockroach wings? They could barely lift a cockroach! Still, just because I had morphed a cockroach shell, don't mean these are cockroach wings. Due to my crazy morphing, they could be either fly wings or the wings of that dragonfly I acquired the other day.
I got control of my new body parts and continued fighting. The Howler was winning points, but got no closer to victory. Again, due to my out-of-control morphing, every skin cell it ripped, every bone it broke, every internal organ it '-ectomyed', grew back.
Then it happened. I felt my head change. Something furry. Something with good hearing. It could be any number of things I acquired from the forest: raccoon, fox, beaver, chipmunk, hedgehog, squirrel. My head was also shrinking. I think it was when the big-ass deer antlers flew out of my shrinking head that howler thought it would be a good time to howl.
Funny, my first instinct was that I had frightened it.
The howls sent me back against a wall of some sort. The wall had a large opening. A window. The Howler fired a gun with a very large barrel and hit me with some kind of gas bomb. Whatever the gas was, I didn't stick around to find out. The impact of the large pellet itself sent me flying out that window. I landed into a pool about fifty feet down. My body began to sink. It was my antlers and stalk eyes. They were weighing down my head which, from what I gathered from my reflection I saw in the water moments before I hit it, was raccoon.
I began to suffocate. In response my body started to change again. My Hork-Bajir arms and torso started growing denticles. Shark scales. Antlers retracted but stalk eyes remained. My head changed. A dorsal fin rose up between my cockroach shell. Oddly enough, my wings (which were most likely dragonfly) remained dry underneath. My Andalite tail became a shark tail fin, but kept the Andalite bone-blade between the two fins. From my Hork-bajir shoulders grew large flippers. They were rubbery. Either dolphin or orca. My head was completely hammer head save the andalite stalk eyes. I could breathe. The gills had saved me. I began to swim. My shark tail and marine mammal flippers got me through the water at a very good speed. I was an experienced enough swimmer to know that my Hork-Bajir arms and half-human half-bird legs were causing drag. My legs were birdie enough that I could hold them up to my body as if I were flying. As for my arms, I started doing the breaststroke arm stroke and I actually increased my speed.
I figured I had somehow landed in the Iskoort plumbing. Sooner or later I would end up at another one of their scenic pools. I could get out then. After a few minutes of swimming peacefully, I started to wonder how long do I have left in morph?. Was my morph time affected by all the rapid morphing? I found one of the pools and was about to just leap out when I thought differently.
Is it safe? I thought. I came up with a really silly idea. I floated to right below the surface. I raised one stalk eye above water level. A very comically periscope. I saw that the sun had risen over the Iskoort world. I saw a large, off-white, pyramid with a neon-rainbow-colored archway.
No Howlers. I sank down and then rocketed up toward the surface. I shot out of the water like a dolphin. Immediately, my gills ached for air. I tried breathing using the Hork-Bajir lungs I still had, but they weren't working properly.
Nonetheless I opened up my cockroach shell and spread my wings. I flew. I could actually fly. Oversized dragonfly wings plus about 300 lbs of support/weight still equaled flight. I flew toward the pyramid. I decided I wanted to land through that opened window. It wasn't until to late that I noticed that the window was in fact, not opened.
CRAAAAASSSHH! Once my Hork-bajir blades and bladed shark tail made little nicks in the plastic window, the rest of my weight shredded it. I landed on a red carpeted floor. Two slender and very purplish Iskoort came to me.
My my! Do you need some help? Maybe a medic and some food?
We can take you over to the sick bay where you'll be treated by our best doctors!
A gaggle of creatures came around the corner with two more servant iskoort.
"No. We don't want any food." said a familiar authoritative voice. "Just the room, but if you hear any news about an off-worlder who looks like us and can change his shape, can you te-"
The small gaggle of familiar creatures stopped when they saw me.
Hey guys. I said.
"David?" Cassie asked.
"What the hell happened to you?" Rachel asked.
Long story. I'll tell you later. Is everyone all right?
"Now that we have you, everyone is accounted for." Jake said.
"How are you feeling, David?" Cassie asked.
Like shit. What's going on?
"Oh, we're fine considering that we still have to kill seven monsters to protect a bunch of people who happen to be Yeerks!" Marco stated.
I blinked my stalk eyes. Shark eyes don't blink. Ok. You're telling your story first.