July 10, 2000 1:15 PM

Tobias

>Ug. How long was I out?> Marco said groggily as he woke up.

>Almost twelve of your hours.> Ax answered.

>I feel like I've been asleep for a year and a half.>

>Ax, do you know where we've been headed?> Rachel asked.

>We're not moving. We've been parked at this location for all of the morning. We are located in a body of water about two hundred miles from California, New Jersey.> Ax explained. >I have reason to believe we are not in an ocean, per se. Most likely a large bay of some sort.>

>Three hundred miles?> Cassie repeated. >The Chesapeake Bay.>

>We're in Virginia?> Marco wondered aloud.

"Maryland." Toby corrected.

>We're in Maryland?> Marco wondered.

Well, my first time as leader and I've done a piss-poor job of it. Not only have I gotten myself, Rachel, Cassie, Marco, Ax, Toby, and five of her fellow Hork-Bajir captured, but all of us Animorphs have been injected with something that freezes our morphing. Ax, in his own body, couldn't morph. The rest of us were in various rodent morphs that we couldn't demorph from.

David had put Toby and us Animorphs in one room and Toby's soldiers in another. Toby was jittery.

>What's the matter, Toby?> Cassie asked.

"What?" Toby blurted, being pulled from her funk. "Oh, I'm worried about my people."

>Your uncle Toma should keep them calm.> I said.

>Or are you worried about Garik?> Cassie pressed.

Garik was a young Hork-Bajir who was the size of an adult Hork-Bajir. He is going to be huge when he grows up. Garik got very angry when David put a finger on Toby.

That's when it hit me.

>He's your boyfriend!> I blurted.

Toby fidgeted. "Don't tell my father."

>A secret boyfriend will only get you into trouble.> Rachel grumbled, a thinly disguised allusion to David's relationship with her friend, Melissa.

The door to our cell opened. David walked in.

"A secret love will not necessarily get you into trouble, Toby Hamee, but it will cause problems for someone." David said as he walked in.

Ax stood up. He seemed unsure about whether or not to put his tail blade to David's throat. He looked to me and I said nothing. So instead, he just asked.

>Why have you imprisoned us, David? Why have you trapped our friends in morph, however temporary?>

"Friends, Aximili? Do friends break into each other's homes?"

>We didn't know it was your home, David.> I lied.

"Don't feed me a line a shit and call it mouse-guts, Feathers."

>Friends may break into a friend's home if said friend was about to engage in self-destructive behavior.> Cassie said.

"So this is like an intervention?" David mused. "Now, what destructive behavior could you be referring to? Let me think. . . . . . OH! You must be referring to visiting an ex-girlfriend who wants to kill me!"

>Usually,> Rachel said, >but let's be wacky and tack on kidnapping innocent people.>

"Hildy Gervais and the husk of Essam 293 are hardly who I'd refer to as 'innocent', Rachel." David said as he took what Ax later told me was a Holographic Cylinder, or in Andalite vernacular, a holo. He pressed a button and some overhead shots of a little dark-haired girl swinging on a swing by a beach-front church. She was about nine or ten years old. "Now, Madra Kelly on the other hand. . . ."

>Madra Kelly? You found out where she went?> Cassie asked.

"And who adopted her. Her DNA is a match for Hildy Gervais, but she's the daughter of John and Donna Kelly now."

"What are you going to do with her?" Toby asked.

"Just some insurance." David said mysteriously. "Just to make sure Edriss behaves herself."

>David, this is a bad road to go down.> Cassie warned.

"Ha!" David responded. "You ain't seen nothin' yet!"

>Are you actually going to kidnap this girl?> Rachel accused.

"No, see, that ain't it at all. Watch. David said as he motioned toward the holo.

In the holo, a man in jeans and a t-shirt approached Madra. David. David then grabbed her arm and the poor girl started to freak out. Then Madra fainted.

>You acquired her.> I realized.

"Yep." David said.

David then morphed into a woman in her mid-thirties. When he morphed, his jeans and T-shirt were replaced with a conservative dress.

>You can morph fully clothed?> Marco asked surprised.

"The dress was a pain in the ass, cause I had to press it against myself for it to morph with me."

David, in the morph of the woman, woke Madra up and said something to her, and then walked away with her.

"Mrs. Squires is Madra's CCD teacher. She's someone she trusts. Madra will think twice before talking with strangers again. That'll be unfortunate for any idiot Controller who tries to nab her." David explains.

>David, this is terrorism!> Ax said.

David turned around to face Ax. "What's your point?"

>This is not how we want to win this war!> I said.

"Maybe it's not how you want to win this war." David countered. "Me? If I have to choose between being respected and being feared, I choose being feared. A bullet can stop an enemy from attacking. Fear can stop an enemy from attacking again. And fear is what will grip my enemies: Stephanie and Visser Three!"

>David,> I said, >you aren't going to try to kill the visser, are you?>

"No," he said as he picked me up, "you are!"

>Tobias!> Rachel yelled as David carried me out of our cell.

>David, stop this. You're acting like some super-villain.> I reasoned.

"I was going to do this myself, but since you had to invite yourself to the party . . . ."

David stopped at an opening door and stepped in. Inside there was a cage.

With a leopard in it.

>Whaaa!> I thought-yelped in surprise. >What's that leopard for?>

David looked into my rabbit eyes. "You."

David unlocked the cage and threw me into it. I immediately started to freak out. >David! What is this? I'm your friend!>

"I know that." David said as he fiddled with a device the size of a graphing calculator.

I felt my body start to change. I realized I was demorphing.

>Are you doing that?>

David only smiled devilishly.

As I became fully hawk I noticed the leopard was breathing heavily and sluggishly. It was sedated.

"Acquire it."

>What?>

"Acquire it. Let's its power join yours. It's a fearsome creature, don't you think? What it may lack in brute strength it makes up for in cunning. It's even more devious than a lion or a tiger."

>Why am I acquiring this creature?>

"Why not?"

>I don't like the idea of being a pawn, David!>

"Not a pawn. Knight, maybe." David muttered. "I've come to realize something, Feathers. One is either a chess player or a chess piece. I've been so worried and whiny about what to do about my ex-girlfriend and my current one. I realized 'why am I whining as if I were some powerless peon?' I have the most powerful spaceship in existence. I have the morphing power and I know how to use it. If I have a problem, I can take care of it. And take care of it I will."

>You don't have to take care of it alone! That's what I'm trying to tell you!>

"And what I'm trying to tell you is that I know I don't have to, but my point is I CAN!" David yelled. "And I was going to till you had to drop in. So if you guys are going to insist upon 'helping', then help! Acquire the cat!"

>I'm not your chess piece, David.>

"I know. Acquire the cat." David commanded.

I hawk-walked to the drowsy cat and placed one talon on its twitching tail. As I acquired the leopard, I wondered what David had planned. I didn't have a clue.

But I knew one thing was for certain.

David pressed something on his control device, and I morphed back into a rabbit. As he carried me back to the cell, he shouted, "Ayla! Fire up the engines. We're going to Peach Haven."

One thing was definitely for certain. I didn't know if it was going to be humans, yeerks, hork-bajir, or some other alien species I hadn't thought of, but one thing was definitely for certain.

People were going to die.

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Ok, so . . . . . . . I'm not dead. Just in case you were wondering. I started film school, and let's just say I'm on break.

Point of interest, madamflames1991, I'm a dude.