Jake and Rachel's quest to acquire the mass to form an elephant continues, after spending all night in the town the pair's quest leads across the highway. In response to the significant decrease in yield, the location of another site to collect the dead is suggested and investigated. However, problems continue for Tobias.

To Take, Take, and Take

Day 7, Morning, Soon to Twilight

It was still night on the way home, and for these last few hours, we patrolled the highways for roadkill. I retracted my wings and plummetted, trusting the owl to take my unmoving prey. I fell to the ground at alarming speed, my fear saying hello, to put the brakes on my descent, but I trusted the bird to know what it was doing. I snapped my wings out just in time to stop falling, moving horizontally as I extended talons and grabbed the raccoon off the side of the road, thankfully it was further from the road this time

I flapped to gain altitude, wings powering to rise as quickly as possible, as a Great Horned Owl, the night was mine, and as a human being who owned this body, I could navigate the evening skies unchallenged by anything even as my wings legitimately struggled to lift the weight of the crushed raccoon. The humans on the road couldn't see me and wouldn't care even if they did. The treetops hid me so well that I only flew a couple dozen feet away before I found a sturdy looking branch and got daring.

Unlike the last times, I didn't flap to the ground, I landed with my quarry in one foot, tree gripped in the other. After adjusting my grip on the body, I demorphed, the change happened quickly, as my wings turned back into my naked pale arms I leaned into the tree and gripped it to support my weight. As I grew, the fear returned with the sound of the branch I was on creaking, when my nightvision disappeared I blinked away the spots that remained for longer than usual. The feathers itched as they retracted, and when my feet changed back into their human shape, my talons receded and gave way to human toes. I turned my right foot so that it was lengthwise on the branch, and the left foot still had the raccoon grasped in it, the furry scruff of its neck firmly clasped in my stubby human toes.

Once again I focused, and the raccoon began to ooze into my skin, the material being added to my biomass reserves. It took a bit of effort and time, but not as much as Skridge's meat did...man, I'll miss those burgers.

In time the raccoon vanished into my foot, allowing me to set it down onto the branch. One hand on the trunk, standing on a tree branch. I was deep down afraid of the heights, but the fear was more distant, less relevant.

I felt like a superhero! Despite my nakedness, perhaps a comic can be drawn where the superhero was completely nude when on the job? They'd just have to not show and censor the R-rated bits.

Once the dead animal was cgone I returned to the owl and resumed my patrol, silently cruising over the highway. Eventually I encountered another Great Horned Owl, flying straight towards me, following the road in the opposite direction.

((Rachel?)) I sent to the bird, when the response didn't come I felt stupid for assuming that the owl would be Rachel, there's still a good stretch of highway left to-

((Yep, it's me,)) the owl replied after a short couple of moments.

((Oh,)) I exclaimed. ((I didn't expect to see you here this soon!))

((How many did you get?)) She asked. ((I got three.))

((Only three?)) I repeated, shock evident in my voice. ((I just got my fifth one! Is there seriously that little roadkill? On this much highway?))

The second I said it I realized how truly wrong it sounded. What on Earth am I doing?

((Our night began with raiding a meat-shop, then we broke into an animal death camp's freezers, busted into the zoo to pet tigers and grizzly bears, and now we're patrolling the highway looking for dead things like vultures,)) I pointed out the absurdity of the situation as I met up with Rachel, prompting her to U-turn to fly next to me. ((What kind of person just...just has a day like this? I feel like Kirby with how much we're devouring!))

((It is what it is,)) Rachel took my words in swing. ((This thing's going to gety nastier than humanly possible, we're going to do nasty things, even be nasty things!))

It is what it is.

((I wasn't talking about how gross this was,)) I confided.

((Well, we're morphers now. Everything's a new frontier for us.))

((That aside, there has to be some other source of meat somewhere. We have to be missing something! Other than trailing helicoptors to see if they blender flocks of birdies, I'm out of options.))

Rachel was silent as we flew over the traffic, their lights illuminating the road and running on straight paths like a rivers running in parallel directions.

((I...do have one suggestion,)) Rachel finally admitted.

Madness, was Tobias' only thought as he thought back to the horrific car accident he had helped cause the sunrise after he met Alice Priester. It was isolated, but nowhere off of her usual routes, a freak accident, even more so since the resident freak did it. Thankfully only a single person "died."

This was turning out to be quite the unusual day for him, even by his standards.

He found an ETCS Cyber Warrior who was an Old Blood the entire time and successfully hid it, who not only asked him to help fake her death, but create a fake body to be buried.

All so they could have the freetime to help her break into the vault of a millionare to rob him of his fortune.

Tobias was pretty sure he knew where this was going, but considering this was the woman who he thought was held prisoner, and scoured the building until he half accidentally encountered her and found out she was a staffer at the base, he was also justified to not try to assume anything.

The penthouse's furniture could only be described as velvety, and populated by nine guards in the iconic black dress suits and glasses, each were stoic with faces that absolutely nobody wanted to make angry, all of them have concealed weapons. It was posh, luxurious, and not a single guard was taking advantage of it.

With that context it was even more ludicrous.

((I'm in position,)) I said as a mutant fly landed on the still spinning ceiling fan, and held on without issue. The world spun round fast enough that even my enhanced fly eyes were having trouble seeing straight.

Alice left no answer. But through the spinning chaos I caught the two guards in the room walk out, their shoes audibly hitting the floor even by the standards of deaf human ears.

Another two guards entered the room from the direction the previous set walked away from. I was able to spy their features through the disco chaos, one was female. I was sure that the lady was Alice, but due to her policy of radio-silence during this mission, I had no clue if the person was actually Alice in disguise. The fan's spinning was beginning to dizzy me, I started to grow concerned until I heard two voices. The new guards.

((Disengage,)) Alice said, and I jumped off of the spinning fan blade, flying up until I slammed into the cieling twice before getting my grip.

Then the other voice spoke up as I began to demorph slowly.

"You know," the lady guard started. "I've heard of a pretty sick restaurant in town that some immigrants opened up."

"Oh?" The man asked as his attention was fixed on the ceiling for all signs of wrong-doing.

The ceiling was bright enough to absolutely notice insects on it, especially the shifting growing abomination that was emerging, but an invisibility cloak is too much for his glasses to pick up. The Skrit-Na were merciless thieves that have a nasty affinity for breaking into secure locations and depleting them of all valuables. In response, private security and police had to get scary.

The man who didn't know he was looking right at me was armed with alien tech scavenged from fallen invaders, it was in his sunglasses that he wore inside, his strangely shaped boots that didn't fit in with the suit. My scanners left me the priviledge of not needing to guess that the multiple rings he had on was an array of forcefield generators, he had three holsters, one on each side of his hip. One for a regular human pistol, one for what was a side-arm of extraterrestrial origin, and the third hidden in his sleeve, a stun gun also made with alien tech. As well as a restraining device called a net gauntlet wrapped around his wrist on the other sleeve like a watch that could shoot out and snatch even the most unruly Mashtimee.

Humans like these were not opponents to joke around with, most aliens on Earth would struggle in a 1v1 with a single one of these Private Security guys and would have a very difficult time sneaking past them.

But whoever these Controllers are, they're too strong, even for ETCS to handle.

What they had done to us is proof enough that they're worthy of fear.

"Yeah, a friend of mine went there, and he loved it," the female guard said. "It'd be an excellent place to bring a friend, wouldn't you think?"

"I don't know," the man said, taking his gaze off of the ceiling as my invisible shifting rearranging mess of a body completed sloshing its organs into place. "What kind is it?"

"Japanese," she excitedly said. "And Italian."

"Ooh, that sounds nice," the man said. "I think I'll take you up on your offer."

((Jump,)) Alice ordered.

And so, I threw my invisibile self down from the ceiling. My fingers adjusted to be straight as nails as I attacked their pressure points. Neither the female guard or her would-be date noticed I was there until after they had fallen to the ground unconscious.

Once they fell to the ground I stood up and began scanning for the vault door.

A lot of these art pieces aren't man-made, I noted to myself. My eyes peered across the velvety room until I found it was behind the big and probably super detailed television. How could he have acquired such priceless artifacts?

((Alice, I've found the vault door,)) I reported, sending her an image of the location. ((Are you inside yet?))

((Right behind you,)) Alive responded. ((Just finishing my entrance.))

Blinking in surprise I turned behind me to the female guard...and found a strange oily liquid rapidly leaking from her eyes like a faucet on full-pour. It looked like she had cried herself to sleep with the most violent torrent of tears known to humanity flowing from under her eyelids.

((Did you jump her in the bathroom?)) I accused.

((Better than the guy, give me credit,)) Alice defensively replied in that unbreaking calm voice of hers. ((She didn't even know anything had happened when it was done.))

I nodded and turned away back to the direction of the vault as Alice finished exiting the guard's body and returned to her true form. She walked up behind me and rushed to the TV to examine it before stopping.

((That's not the vault,)) Alice commented, walking to the center of the room, grabbed the carpet and turned removed it fromt he floor with a prompt yank. Revealing the steel face of the vault, combination lock as well as a an alien firewall lock.

((Good decoy,)) I commented.

((Three minutes,)) Alice commented as she held her hand in my direction, palm open. I took the device from my satchel and she attached it to the tip of her finger, defeating the alien lock in a second before moving to the combination. She placed her ear next to the lock as she spun it, carefully listening for the telltale clicks.

Taking the large metal handle in hand, we entered the vault and found it a surprisingly deep dark shaft complete with a ladder. Halfway between the top and bottom of the shaft the ladder stopped, hanging over a twenty foot drop to the stainless steel bottom.

This guy just doesn't take chances, I observed with tight lips as I followed Alice. I followed her perfectly when she sidestepped into the gap in the shaft that led to another vault door, the process to break through went the same, and we finally hit the cash. There was a large amount of boxes, a stupid amount of money, Alice hastily hurried to one to the left, opened it.

Took out only a single hundred dollar bill, pulled another hundred dollar bill out of her pocket, and then put it back into the bundle she took it from, before standing up an closing the box.

"E-HUH?" I couldn't help but comment from such a sheer amount of slack-jawed duh one might've called me a Korla hatchling.

The Master of Shadows, the unquestioned God of Subterfuge on Earth, brought me to rob a billionaire. Not to get get resources, not to deny the guy his wealth, not even to bug anything, but to swap out a single hundred dollar bill for another one she happens to carry in her pocket!

((Mission accomplished,)) Alice said quickly in a rushed tone. ((We have one and a half minutes before the guards switch their shift. Hurry!))

And so we rushed to the ladder and climbed back up, and when my hand conqeured the final ladder rung and pushed the vault door wide open, I found eight guns pointed at me from all directions.

"We know you're there," one of the guards said. "Deactivate your stealth, you and your partner climb out of the shaft slowly, and put. Your. Hands. Up."

I had no choice but to comply, although my clothes repelled human guns good enough, I had nothing that would protect me from more advanced firearms, nothing intact. I deactivated my cloak, reavealing myself, dark clothes, dirty blond hair, pale skin.

And blue radiantly glowing eyes.

One of the guards gasped when he saw my face.

"Quiet!" the female gaurd I knocked out whispered through clenched teeth as I lifted myself onto the floor slowly. Alice followed shortly afterward, and put her hands up as well. Six of the gaurds escorted us through the penthouse.

Caught, I ran through my head. Caught. I've been caught, and for what? Just for her to play some sort of prank? Useless distraction! What in Lakofa's fury was she thinking?

Eventually we found a room with a big door, two more private security officials were standing guard, and upon seeing us, their faces turned into expressions of utter revulsion. They moved their hands to the ominous door's central handles and quickly pulled the door open. Clearly wanting us to get out of their sight as soon as possible.

The guards ushered us into the room, where a big conference table stood, made of some expensive wood I don't care to memorize the name of, all of the big windows were shuttered closed, making it very very dark in here. All of the chairs were empty. The doors closed behind us, but then I noticed that another opened in front of us, and a man walked into view. He was older, wearing a purple business suit, and compeltely shaved bald, the darkness hid nothing from me.

But I didn't need to see much to know he was angry as he stroked the backs of the chairs with his fingers. His stiff posture, the way he walked, his is an anger threatening to boil over to the surface.

"Boss, here are the intruders," one of the guards in front of us said. The other's weapons were still pointed towards us.

Alice, what were you thinking?

"The ones who possess...glowing eyes?" He slowly drawled, his deep voice throwing shivers down my back...I knew a man to not mess with I saw one.

"Yes sir," the head guard replied. "What'll we do with them?"

"Leave, take the others with you."

The head guard was taken aback, his mouth hung open in confusion for a moment.

"But, I thought they were-"

"You thought wrong, they're not them."

The man nodded and the others walked away, the door opened and closed behind us again. Leaving us alone with the man we tried to rob(?), he walked towards us, clapping his hands.

Profoundly confused, I could only gape.

"So, would your brains, pancreas, and femoral arteries explode if you tell me what the Clarjiatz you were doing busting into my vault, Alice?"

Day 7, Morning, Twilight

I saw the spinning blades, and I knew.

((The Windmills?)) I said in surprise.

((Wind Turbines,)) Rachel corrected. ((You know how flying animals react to giant spinning blades, right?))

((They fly out of the way?)) I responded.

Rachel was silent as we flew into the field where the wind turbines were placed, everyone knew about them, they looked, white, pristine, almost futuristic. They were spinning fast in the wind, a green energy source that wouldn't pollute the air. There were dozens of them, all standing solemn in the clearing.

((No, slice and dice,)) Rachel clarified in a dark, icy voice.

Slice and- I repeated in my head before it clicked. I turned my head and looked at the ground by the windmill's feet, and there they were, bodies, feathers and blood, birds broken out of the sky. They were everywhere, finches, falcons, ducks, even a few bald eagles were spotted in the piles.

Yes, piles. The amount of avian life littering the ground was so thick that you would need to remove it with a shovel.

I spotted movement to the right, a small fluttery thing was making its journey. The Owl brain instantly recognized it as a bat, the flying rodent fluttered on obliviously until a windmill blade slammed right smack into it, cutting the poor creature into two.

((All of this, for...)) I responded in shock. ((This is supposed to be environmentally friendly?!))

((Your guess is as good as mine,)) Rachel concluded.

((Let's land,)) I declared, wanting to get this over with. ((We'll cover opposite ends of the site and take as much as we can from there.))

((Right on,)) Rachel agreed, veering off to my right. Meanwhile I took myself to the left end of the field, tucking my wings in partially, steeing clear of the giant spinning blades. When my talons met cold dead feathers, I once more began to demorph, not even trying to step onto the grass. My organs sloshed as they changed position, form, appeared and disappeared. My eyes felt a tingle as they returned to their human shape, and my knees reversed. My feathers and receded, maknig way for my pink naked human skin. My deadly talons split and regressed into stubby human toes, the Owl's beak began to shrink before splitting apart into my lips and nose and my neck bones shifted to the stiffer and stronger human design.

Yet again I was a human, still naked, still awkward, even moreso should some rando just walk up and see us for whatever reason. But what kind of a person would trespass on this awful place this time of night?

I looked down and was abrely able to see anything past my feet, but I could notice the outlines of the birds littering the grounds.

It made me feel sick, feeling the bile rise to my throat I elected to look up, but to my surprise when I looked up I noticed that some of the more distant stars began to disappear.

((Wait, how long have we been out?)) I asked Rachel.

((Long,)) she answered, her voice betraying a strong amount of amazement. ((and I don't feel tired at all!))

Crazy, I couldn't help but think. But this was no time to gawk about, time's running out and we have a field to clear.

I thought of taking the avian wrecks, of using their ruined flesh, of needing it more than they did, and they gave themselves to me.

Oozing into my skin, they vanished as I touched them. I leaned down to the ground and my hands hunted for more, intact or otherwise. My skin greedibly absorbed it all, and when there was no more to take I crawled onto the ground, moving in the night like some naked human snowball, just acumulating more and more feathers and wings and breasts talons from the field of dead birds. This absorbing of biomass, now that I had time to think on it, it did feel like I was eating.

I was on a roll that could only get bigger, like enjoying the best plate of spaghetti that never ended I just kept consuming. My hands obsessively patrolled the grass for more remains, I learned that the fastest way to absorb biomass was to take a corpse, slap it onto a part of my skin that wasn't occupied, and the absorption process that begins that very second it made contact would keep it there until it was gone. My skin greedibly devoured every drop of blood, tuft of feathers, and scrap of ruined wild poultry that it tasted. I was so covered in the remains that I even had to begin slapping the dead matter onto my back and head and feet in order to swallow it as fast as possible.

The ultimate binge eater, nothing could beat me in an eating competition, desperate for more, I forced the absorption process to run faster. My hands depleted the morsels off of the dark grass with ever increasing frequency. I was on such a role that nothing could stop me until I slammed headfirst into one of the windmill's poles.

"Ow," I whispered, touching the part of my head that was hurt. I sat down, noticing all of the receding bird parts of my body were sticking out, I resumed the absorption process, and how the area around me was cleared of remains. Impressed at how fast the rate of cleanup was, I deigned to look behind myself to notice how much I had cleared.

I couldn't see it as clearly as I would've liked, but from the outlines, I could see my trail was very long and wide. My stomach grew more unsettled when I thought about how much dead material I had absorbed into my biomass reserves.

My eyes widened in realization.

"R-" I almost shouted instinctively.

((Rachel!)) I called out, trying to check if she was trapped in that same strange feeding frenzy I was. ((Rachel, can you hear me?))

((Yeah?)) She responded.

((Did you lose yourself?))

((I...oh, nuts, I think I did!)) she responded, clearly freaked out. ((What in the world was that? I feel like I'm going to be sick.))

Suddenly I heard something in the distance, my head snapped to look, and my body lowered to the ground.

((Wait!)) I warned Rachel.

((What is it?))

((Be quiet, hide! Someone's coming!))

((From where?))

((I don't know where, I think in between us!))

I didn't hear anything at first, the wind was gone, and with nothing to push them, the windmills no longer moved. My body was lying pressed into the ground, ears on high alert, and though they detected nothing, soon enough my eyes spotted a shape moving in the dim moonlight.

There! It was a person, I could recognize the tall humanoid shape. Someone was trespassing, but why? Are they some sort of garbage crew? Here to clean up the birds?

The figure looked around, their features completely obscurred by the night, their human likeness was on display...until it wasn't.

In an instant the silhoutte I was looking at changed, in a heart beat, like a slide in a slideshow, the person just silently and instantly changed. Their human torso was gone, now narrower and hard, the legs were no longer straight, but crooked like some animal I couldn't put my finger on. But the eyes, the eyes were the most obvious part. It was green, two orbs of bright green light glaring in the dark as its mishappen head turned. A crooked thing, the head, I don't know what shape it was supposed to be, but it was never human. The armor the creature wore was a glistening white and grey, however there was apricot colored fluid leaking down the suit at many places, and almost every surface of its armor had signs of being crushed, ripped, warped, even partially melted!

((Jake...something's wrong,)) Rachel spoke up.

((Obviously.))

((No, something's wrong with me,)) Rachel specified. ((I don't...I don't feel right.))

((Wh-)) I started in my cousin's head before I was interrupted.

Once the thing was done looking around, it stood straight as a nail and tucked its arms into its chest. It leaned down and tucked its arms in harder, lowering itself to the ground. The thing started shaking until it jumped, arms outstretched as if it exploded.

"Holy-" I said in shock before cutting myself off.

There was no flash of light, no sound, nothing at all came from the figure. But the result was obvious, I heard the massive clang right next to me, but stayed still, I looked up and saw a gash had been opened in the side of the windmill I was hiding next to. The only thing was though, was that if it was just a gash, the windmill wouldn't start leaning and groaning in a single direction, neither would all of the other windmills. All around me the forest of wind mills started to collapse beginning to fall down. Nervous at the idea that it would land on me, I watched my own, still not daring to move.

Groaning, creaking the windmill fell like a colossal white tree, almost landing on top of me.

Once the wind mills fell down, I turned to look at the entity, but it was just gone.

It was getting close to dawn.

((It's gone,)) I sent out.

((Yeah, yeah, cool. So we can continue...)) Rachel said woozily.

((Do you need help?)) I asked, standing up, makin sure not to touch the windmill pole. ((I'll come get you.))

I began to jog over to her, but midway, all of a sudden my legs gave out. I landed on my knees and hands, but that wasn't enough to stop me from falling to the ground. My head hurt, I found myslf heavily disoriented and lying down in a pile of dead birds. Surrounded by death, I realized that what was happening.

My arms had grown weak, my breaths were hard and shallow and my nose started to get stuffed. I was naked and had been scavenging for dead things for a good part of the night now. I had to struggle to not throw up.

All of a sudden the victims of the windmills were staring at me, eyes cloudy, bodies dismembered and broken as they were struck from the sky. Everywhere I turned were more and more dead bodies.

No!

I refuse to become just another dead thing in a pile!

((Rachel. Did you feel nauseas at all earlier?))

((Yeah...))

((For how long?)) I asked.

((Since...it started when we left the zoo.))

I cursed in my head.

((Crap, we need to get out of here. We're sick!))

((We are?))

((We need to go owl and get back home, pronto.))

((Oh no. We need to go, now. I can't stay out here like this!))

And so I morphed owl as fast as I could...but it was slow, a lot slower than the other times. The changes felt more...jarring, uncomfortable, this time I actually felt my bones, organs, and skin changing. Grinding, snitching, stretching! I trusted the owl to fly me home, and as I circled to gain altitude, I spotted another Great Horned rising to the skies. And knowing that Rachel had taken off, I went home to go to bed and ride out whatever bug I had gotten.

But this morphing power works in funny ways, you see. We thought we had a good grasp of its functions, but were barely scratching the surface of the blue box's effects on us. It had given us many many considerable strengths...but we were just now starting to suffer its first true weakness.