The Day before Yesterday was a day of triumph for the Animorphs, they have successfully breached the perimeter of the Controller's observation drones, and have spent the rest of the time aiding Ben in preparing the abandoned houses for the return of Tobias and the first wave of Old Bloods into the Sanctuary. But Jake and his friends, Marco in particular, demand answers. Upon Tobias' return to The Sanctuary, they launch their first attempt at trying to discern their allies' true intent while the Animorphs as a whole prepare to launch a mission to discern the true origin of the Anti-Morph Serum.
Probing Call III
Day 17, Evening
Our powers had progressed even further, just as I finally got a handle on my super hearing, my eyes were the next to recieve a software update. My vision became very superior to before, it was like someone had given me glasses, and on top of that the dark hid a lot less than it did before. The trek to the security room was a lot more interesting than last time, it's convinced me that Pemalites are a nocturnal species, or at least one that had very good night vision.
"Alright," I said, laying down the map of the city that I had drawn on the table, everyone took a good look at it. "These are the locations of all of the entrances to their stronghold that we've been able to discern."
Rachel was lounging in her chair, enjoying the fact that she got her morphing clothes and was wearing them underneath her normal outfit, Ben was sitting with his eyes closed, Cassie was looking closely at the map along with everyone else, while Marco was tapping the table, keeping to himself.
"Ha ha! It looks like a doughnut!" Harry said.
I blinked at his observation before looking down at the illuminated map again.
"How funny, it does. But maybe that's the point," I said.
"So far it looks like the entrances are arranged in ring patterns throughout the town," I observed. "All but one of the new entrances being built are deep inside the city limits."
"Thank goodness that the Controllers travel in big enough groups on their way inside the stronghold that we can notice their movements," Rachel said, smiling smugly.
We'd have never noticed them otherwise.
"So how many did you count?" Ellen asked.
I frowned at the information that came up.
"780," I said, shaking my head. "That's our current guess, but with how many other people there are walking about, we just don't know. We've IDed a few of them, they're all cops and construction workers."
Harry whistled, "that's a nice number of people to deal with, do you think we could smuggle a bomb in there?"
"No idea," I said, shaking my head. "All of those entrances are used frequently, if we did launch a surprise attack, or even some scouting mission, it would be very hard for us to not be noticed. Especially if they keep a good eye on the people in there."
"Book reading?" I heard Marco barely mutter to himself.
"Hey, what's so important about literature right now?" Harry asked, leaning forward to look at Marco directly. "Do you think you can read fantasy or something? The only reading we should be doing is on that map."
I heard a chair creak, I spared a glance and saw Ben open an eye to give Harry a pointed stare.
"I was thinking," Marco said. "Since we pretty much already know what we're going to do when we get here everytime. I was thinking that we tell our parents lies that aren't that far off from what we're actually doing. For that Shimmer Fish deal, I told my Dad that I was swimming, yesterday I said I was going on a hike with Rachel, which technically was true, it was just in the city. The point is, I think we should give our folks more than 'oh yeah, I'm hanging out with my friends today,' make our story a little more believable."
"That's a good idea," I said.
And the room fell into an awkward silence, Ben leaned back and closed his eyes again, seemingly asleep. Harry leaned back in his seat, awkwardly scratching the back of his head, which was definitely showing signs of hair growth.
"Well," Marco said, before breaking out in a sing-song voice. "If you're happy and you know it, please respond!"
"Pah HA HA HA!" Harry burst out in laughter that sort of hurt my ears before falling out of his chair, after which he was still laughing.
"Heh."
I widened my eyes in shock and saw Ben wearing the slightest grin, and his expression had actually softened up! I don't know how he knew we were staring, but he opened them and turned his slightly less murder-thug face towards us properly.
"What are you looking at me for?" He said. "Am I not allowed to laugh at something I find funny?"
Suddenly, an alarm began ringing above us that sounded like a ringing bell but way gentler, and a blue light began flashing overhead.
"What's happening?" I said.
"Someone's entered the gatehouse," Alice said, getting up. "Tobias is back!"
"Time for the welcome party, then!" I said, a smile on my face as I rose with more excitement than I thought I had.
And like that we ran off to welcome Tobias and the people he brought with him, we left the security room and the giant stone pillar it was in. We made our way to the outer gate, eagerly walking past the giant dust caked dog-person statues which flashed their eyes as we passed them again. We rushed up the stairs, a seemingly endless flight of stairs and as we did, the edges of the stair case started shifting.
CLonk. Sh-cing. Eee-boom!
"What's happening?" I said.
((If you're on the stairs yet,)) Tobias said. ((Then don't be alarmed. I'm just making it so that some of the people I brought with me will be able to go down.))
Be able to go down?
((Are their knees rickety, or something?)) Rachel asked.
((I'm going to need your help to get them in,)) Tobias said as we encountered the outer gate from the inside. ((And also, please widen the stairs.))
he stairs stopped and the last step was a lone stone square that ran for a distance long enough to comfortably hold a car. There were two consoles sticking out of the ground like large cactuses without thorns. The part of the wall that went into the room above looked like a crazy cave formation, the part of the wall next to the floor and cieling of the room looked like some strange ribbed pattern that oddly enough reminded me of extremely burnt ribs. The middle of the wall was comprised of some bizarre honeycomb-like pattern made of stone, and the grooves and holes were so deep that I couldn't see inside of them, even with my night vision.
I walked up to the one on the right while Marco went to the left and we both put our hands on it, the room all of a sudden began shifting, the walls began retreating, leaving the room wider. The walls revealed that the strangely textured barrier between us and Tobias and his guests was wider than I had imagined, and the corridor got somewhat taller too.
Open, I sent the command to the console.
((Jake,)) Marco said in private thoughtspeech.
((Yeah?)) I said.
((I'm going to ask Tobias some questions,)) Marco said. ((Wish me luck.))
((In front of everybody?)) I said.
((No better time to do it than now,)) he said as the room stopped shifting wider, and it was then I noticed that the door didn't begin opening until now.
It can't follow orders at the same time? I thought as I removed my hand from the small tower that controlled the gate, the wall in front of myself began rising, but also rotating until it turned into another part of the cieling.
((Hey, is it me, or are Marco and Jake a bit further apart from eachother than when this started?)) Harry asked.
I looked to my left and lo and behold, we are.
"Here we stand!" Marco began singing. "Worlds apart and hearts broken in two! Two! Two!"
"Sleepless nights," I joined in, reaching for Marco. "Losing ground I'm reaching for you! You! You!"
"Feelin' that it's gooooone!" We both broke out in song as the platform we were standing on turned into proper stairs, and a ramp at the edges. "Can't change your mind. If we can't go ooooooooon! To survive the tide. Love diviiiiiiiiiides!"
We stopped singing as the place above became accessible.
((What's that noise?)) An unfamiliar voice rang out in our heads as the transformation of the place became complete, and we made our way up the stairs.
"It's nothing," Tobias said.
"Welcome back," I said triumphantly as I entered the first chamber. The tunnel that was the entrance was still just as much some strange glowing black and white illusion that looked like what you'd find under a microscope.
Tobias was kneeled on the ground, helping a boy get into a wheelchair.
Oh, I realized as I looked around.
I didn't really believe Ben when he said these new arrivals weren't going to join the fight until I saw them myself. I figured they wouldn't be in good shape, but I didn't think they'd be this...wrecked. A lot of them look like they were about to drop dead at any second, only a few of them were really fit, and that's a very loose description, one of them wasn't even awake, only a few were standing on their own two feet, and a small collection had morphed into birds of prey. A lot of the ones in human form were coughing.
We were going to question Tobias on how the 'deformities' weren't deformities but might be biological differences that made their species different to humans, but I could see that the Old Bloods definitely weren't lying about that.
"Jake," Tobias said, getting up and walking to me as he finished helping the kid to his wheelchair, and he wasn't the only wheelbound person. As he stepped closer I could see more details on him.
Tobias' body was soaking wet, his hair and clothes shined with the glistenining when light hits water, his long hair was an utterly unruly mess, and his shoes squelched as he moved toward me, his breath left his mouth as visible puffs of white air.
"Tobias," I said, approaching him when I noticed how not fine he was. "Are you alright?"
"Forty two," Cassie whispered, apparently finished counting.
As we came to eachother Tobias spread his arms wide and embraced me in a hug, and I instinctively winced away.
"Jesus Christ, you're a popsickle!" I cried.
"Weather..." Tobias said in a voice slightly tinged with fatique. "Will put your toes in a blender to eat them with chips and fish..."
"Tobias, just morph into something, you're dying of hypothermia!"
"No, I'm used to the cold," Tobias said, backing away from his wet and freezing cold hug.
"Is it raining out?" Rachel asked.
Tobias turned to look at her and smiled, "It was last I checked. Rain's fun at this elevation."
"I travel in the stratosphere all the time. My body's used to it," Tobias said, turning back to me.
I was about to protest until I took a good look at him, his eyebrows and hair had melting frost in them, his breath left in visible puffs, but his skin wasn't turning blue or purple, his lips looked perfectly fine and he wasn't shivering. At a glance one wouldn't think he was as cold as he was.
"Are you sure you don't have frostbite? And how did you get them back here?" Cassie asked.
"He has a bunch of covered bird cages," the kid Tobias just helped into a wheelchair rolled over. "It was a cozy ride, made me think of igloos. But for real, he can take it."
He had blond hair and piercing blue eyes, but I could tell he was sturdy built, even though his legs were a pair of shrivelled twigs underneath the blanket he wore over them, I could tell when the morphing cube is done working its magic on him, he'll be pretty strong. He had a questioning face that didn't look happy.
"Nice to meet you," I said to the boy, extending my hand to shake with. "I'm Jake. Nice to meet another Old Blood."
"I'm not an Old Blood," the boy clarified, tilting his head. He was amicable, but not submissive. "My name is James, and I was just helping a good number of these people live in a way that was tolerable. I know everything, Tobias told me about it on the way."
I nodded in acknowledgment, hiding my surprise.
Marco pointed his thumb at me, "That means he's leader of the Animorphs, wheelie guy."
Marco turned his gaze to the left where Ellen was helping a girl onto a stretcher. I grimaced, the poor girl's skin was a very angry dark red, almost black, her neck and limbs were swollen mishapen logs and her belly was distended, her features had been devoured by her swelling face. The only way we could know she was a girl was by the long dress decorated with geometric line patterns she wore, I didn't ask what was wrong, none of us did, we already knew, Harry described it to us in all of its grisly detail.
Hemovorvoros.
Ellen leaned down and to my surprise, by herself, lifted the girl off the ground and placed her on the stretcher quickly.
"At least leader of these Animorphs," Marco finished explaining before turning to face Tobias again. "So, birdie de'boy, I have a few questions that need answering, some things that have been bothering me."
"Marco, do we need to do this now?" Cassie gently intruded. "He just got done ferrying forty two people here."
Cassie might sound ignorant, but she knows what Marco's trying to do. Her part is to play dissention, make the questioning look disorganized, or at least not deliberate.
Tobias turned again.
"It's okay, Cassie," Tobias said, smiling. "I think I can handle a few questions. I like them, as a matter of fact."
"Good. So, a few days ago we heard about Animorphs, other Animorphs, as in besides anyone in here," Marco said loudly enough for everyone present to hear.
Most of the new arrivals turned to Marco, their faces inquisitive.
"Animorphs? Oh, them," Tobias asked before his eyes narrowed in understanding. "Alice told me everything about that, nasty business, but I think we should go someplace private to talk about this."
"No, we're talking about this now," Marco said. "Ever since you and the help you initially brought showed up, it's been nothing but question stacking on top of another question in the world's tallest mystery sandwhich!"
"Marco, you're sounding angry," Cassie said, reaching over to put her hand on my best friend's shoulder. "I think you need to calm down."
"What's your relation to the Andalites, like, seriously!" Marco exclaimed in exasperation. "All of the chats we've had, and we never talk about the Andalites, and what details you do give are scarce. Are you even connected to them at all?"
"It was a long-distance relationship in most cases," Tobias said. "We were fighting alien invasions all the time."
"Understandable," Marco said, nodding. "But how does this Lotr and these other Animorphs connect to them? Who are the Animorphs? And what's the difference between them and the Old Bloods?"
"Uh, is this a good time to do this?" A girl said, using two walking sticks. "It feels like there's a semi-truck in my bowels and it's honking away, can we do this inside?"
"Go outside!" Marco turned to the girl. "It's closer than the toilets in here, trust me."
"In the rain?" The girl asked.
"Even better, it'll wash right away. We're not moving from this room until I get my answers!"
The girl grimaced before turning to the doorway, shaking her head of mousy brown hair as she advanced on her walking sticks.
"Dude!" James said indignantly. "Show some respect!"
"It's fine, James. Really," the girl said as she hobbled her way outside, wait, is it me or is her hair blue? "I can go outside, if anything it's to get away from all of this noise."
"Anyway," I butted in, taking over. "A lot of things have gone unexplained. The morphing technology is of Pemalite origin, you said that only the Andalites had it, yet there's an entire faction of maybe or maybe-not humans out there who also used the morphing cube, or a derivitive of it. I'm not trying to be intrusive, but what's going on with that?"
Tobias took all of this in, nodding gently.
"Okay, so, what species do you currently think myself and the other 'Old Bloods' are?"
"Human," Rachel said. "At least, we assume you're human."
"Yes," Tobias agreed. "By and large, we are, however, when our Andalite parents had us, we inherited a lot more genetic material from them than is immediately obvious. You already know this, but there are enough anatomical differences between Old Bloods and Pure Humans that functionally, we are a different species."
"Oh swell," Marco said. "the Cube turned us into you guys!"
"No! It didn't make you the same as us, the morphing technology reacts to our bodies differently than it does to yours!" Ben said. "We have different strengths and weaknesses, our heritage makes us a different end-product from when we touched the cube versus when you took the power."
"You're still human," Alice said. "A hundred percent, nothing's changed, and nothing is going to change."
Ben's expression soured further and he stared at Alice in annoyance, though to anyone who didn't know him it looked like he was intent on murder. Imagine this guy working at a McDonalds!
"Unbelievable," Harry muttered and chuckled, shaking his head.
"And what about the Animorphs?" I asked. "This faction of shapeshifters that clearly have existed for longer than we have, and is on ETCS' hit-list? Who are those guys? And how do they have the morphing power?"
Tobias shook his head, everyone was remining in the room, all of them fixated on this conversation, my eyes noticed that they were looking at
"Your guess is as good as mine," Tobias explained. "We have no idea who Lotr is, a purple-eyed man with exotic information and expertise, he's helped us, but we have no idea what his intent is. Not hostile...so far."
"And what about Warlike?" When I finished saying that name was the first time a response had been elicited out of the Old Bloods Tobias brought with him. The sounds were gentle, some gasped, others growled, but the whispers were obvious in my ears.
"Oh...no..."
"Warlike's back?"
"As if there wasn't enough bad news!"
"Wasn't he locked away?"
"Somebody tell me I'm hallucinating again..."
"Lotr's just as much a mystery to you as he is to us, but you clearly know Warlike," I said.
"He's a person who did horrible things that was supposed to be locked away, but somehow he broke free and is now laying waste to ETCS so badly that the Controllers have locked the entire place down," Rachel demanded. "That's if the information we're given is correct, but that's all we know, we literally know nothing on this Ballistic Animorph."
"Can you please give us answers on that?" Cassie gently asked.
A remorseful look entered on Tobias' face, he looked down, lips barely moving as he contemplated his next words. In a few moments he stopped whispering and nodded.
"Okay...okay," Tobias said in an emotional voice. "Clearly I haven't been straight enough with you."
"Some years before you were born," Tobias said. "The military forces of the United States had an incredibly violent encounter with an army of unknown origin, a shapeshifter army, neither human, Old Blood, Andalite or...Animorph. The Mercora took the morphing cube, and used it to make those...things. They were so quiet that we had no idea they existed until that madness erupted, once the violence started the Andalites noticed and intervened, storming their stronghold and...crushing the enemies."
Tobias voice broke, his voice becoming emotional, he put his hand to his mouth.
"It was...it was a slaughter, by the time the Andalites had gotten there...tens of thousands of American soldiers were dead, they toyed with the survivors. They clearly had defeated this army, but they didn't kill them, they tortured thousands of people like cats playing with mice, it was...it, it was so cruel. The Andalites caught them by surprise as they were 'playing,' this time the violence was one sided in our favor, a lot of the enemy perished, multitudes more were captured, and afterwards the humans were rescued. These military personell, led by Amin Torelli, would go on to form ETCS, the fiends were incarcerated in a specially made prison in a location I refuse to disclose."
Tens of thousands? I repeated in my head.
"Warlike himself was one of the first of these fiends to be defeated, and in previous interactions, he and my...Elfangor became close friends when both of them were disguised as eachother, Elfangor used a trick with his human morph to defeat Warlike, he convinced him to turn against the Mercora, and without their support he was captured."
"ETCS and the Andalites interacted for a long time, they gave the organization advanced technology in order to help fight off future extraterrestrial invasions, but as the organization grew, Amin Torelli changed his policies. Ethical disputes arose, their inhuman treatment of prisoners, the way they used their technology, their corruption, the divide was impossible to stop from growing until Torelli...he betrayed us all, Humanity included."
"How did he betray humanity?" I asked.
"ETCS isn't a planetary defense organization, " Ben said. "They're an alien extermination pact, do not confuse the two word's definitions. Their strategy has only induced more violence, more destruction. Were it not for them, the Nartec would've started signing peace treaties years ago and the Inner Worlders would've abandoned the planet entirely!"
We all gave Ben a fish-eye, my friends and I. Is he serious?
"We're getting off topic," Rachel said, tapping her foot on the ground. "Warlike; you said he's neither Human, Andalite, Old Blood, or Animorph, so what is he? What's an Animorph and why does ETCS hate them so much?"
"Believe it or not, it might originate from a clerical error," Alice said. "Warlike and his kind are Antimorphs, they were named this due to the incredibly unusual frequency of anti-shapeshifter weapons these guys held, which includes that serum with mutagenic properties. Animorph is a catch-all term for shapeshifters in general who use the Pemalite morphing power, Andalite Animorph, Old Blood Animorph..."
"And Human Animorph," Cassie said, nodding as she understood.
"So what really makes an Antimorph so much different from an Animorph? And where did their morphing power come from?" Rachel asked.
"Still Pemalite derived," Alice said.
"But what makes an Antimorph different from us is the fact that the morphing tech did change them, the Antimorphs might've been human in origin, but they're definitely not members of that race anymore," Tobias began explaining. "Anti-morph serum is produced by their kidneys, but they're immune to it somehow. The Mercora's abuse of the morphing power degraded them, it made them stronger, faster, and far more powerful, although too often it came at the cost of their intelligience, most of them were animals, but they were bred as an answer to the Animorphs, that's why it took us so long to defeat the Mercora. The dehumanization of the Antimorphs made them easier to control, they created them in factories where they continued advancing the Antimorph's blueprint, manipulating them to be stronger right until the day we finally took the cube back, destroyed the Mercora's citadel, and decimated the Antimorphs in a single move."
"As for why ETCS hates all Animorphs regardless?" Harry said, shrugging. "Amin Torelli betrayed us, he just doesn't see any point in discriminating between the two, their leaders care nothing for us, and nor do any of the other members of ETCS."
Harry gave Marco a pointed look.
"The vast majority of them, anyway."
"So..." Tobias said, his voice bitter. "Are you satisfied with your answers?"
Marco nodded, "I'm sorry, I didn't think this would've been a sour subject for you, but one last question; does Lotr really have what it takes to keep Warlike under control?"
"I don't know," Tobias said. "Warlike's spent almost two decades imprisoned, he could've changed a lot in captivity. But he has a reputation of being incredibly unstable, even if he seems calm and somewhat reasonable, we have no idea if this is because he's holding back his instincts or because Lotr's coercing him, there's no way to tell at the moment. If he has another manic episode-"
"Ooh man ooh mama," The girl on two walking sticks said when she came back, she was soaking wet, wearing a wide smile. "That was good!"
Her sudden entrance at the end was simply too perfect, I laughed a little, but the others laughed more, which led to me laughing a lot.
"Now that this is done," Ben said, smiling at the comedy. "Let's get everyone inside, they've waited long enough!"
Once we reached the bottom of the stairs and through the second gate, one of the sicker Old Bloods turned into a large draft horse and we strapped him to the cart Ben put together. With the new arrivals en-route to their homes, the houses we work our butts off to rehabilitate. We weren't sure that James and the other new arrivals would be able to adjust, but he assured us that they were fine. We left the newcomers to settle iand returned to the Security Room to discuss our next step.
"So everything went well?" I asked. "The mission was successful?"
Tobias nodded, smiling as he entered the room proper. Besides his damp hair and clothes, he now had no trace of suffering from being cold
"Indeed. 100% successful, as is everything else we've been doing so far. Nobody got hurt or sick, didn't lose anyone, and completely undetected. Good thing too, about that last one." At completing that report Tobias' expression darkened.
"What's wrong?" Cassie asked Tobias as he sat down at his spot on the table.
"Something had happened," Tobias said. "I didn't tell you because I believed everyone deserved to be present to hear it, it was the dead of night in the middle of a raging storm."
"Ooooh," Marco made a spooky sound.
"Five days after I departed, I almost became airborn roadkill."
"Like what? From a plane?" I asked.
Tobias stared at me.
"A ship."
A spaceship? I realized with a chill. He was still on North America, there was only one entity that could've been.
"Them," I said.
"What did it look like?" Marco asked.
"It was cloaked," Tobias explained. "That's how it almost ran me over, it was completely invisible, I didn't detect it until it was almost ontop of me, I basically had to do a deaddrop from the sky in order to get out of the way, and even then it nicked the top of my kite, and I spiraled out of control for a second in its jetstream."
"Are you okay?" Rachel asked.
Tobias nodded, "Yeah, I'm fine, nobody else was hurt either. I reoriented myself in time to catch a glimpse of it through the clouds."
"I thought you said it was invisible?" Marco asked.
Tobias nodded, "It was. And it may have been able to hide itself, but it couldn't hide what it did to the storm. When the lightning struck, I could see it just push through them, shoving the clouds aside like some colossal airborn snowplow. I couldn't guess is true size, but from Eyelizard's footage...Just see for yourself."
Eyelizard then crawled out of Tobias' coat and licked its eyes, staring at all of us before jumping onto the table and sprawling to the middle.
He raised his head above the table, to everyone's eye level, and then projected the image, it was video footage.
It truly was a dark and stormy night, Eyelizard was crawling on a metal pole, confidently putting one gecko foot after the other, and it at every turn it tended to a birdcade, one that was completely covered with a dome. It checked the chain, and checked the contents of the cage and found a morphed bird of prey sleeping inside. Then it moved on to the next one. Eyelizard's night vision made the scene a lot more visible, the clouds were rolling, rain was falling, and the addition of lightning made the scene look apocalyptic.
"It really was a dark and stormy night," Marco whispered.
"And you flew straight through this?" Rachel asked, amazed.
As Eyelizard moved onto the next cage it heard it, it was a buzzing noise that though wasn't obvious at first, it prompted the Eyelizard to turn back and climb back up to tobias, still looking at the approaching thing all the while. But it was too slow, it wouldn't reach Tobias in time, Eyelizard squacked, trying to gain his master's attention, with Eyelizard's line of sight unbroken, it didn't take me long to notice the giant invisible thing flying in, it was pushing the clouds aside.
"OH!" I heard Tobias cry out, and suddenly the kite and everything attached to it began falling to the ground in the face of the advancing invisible wall.
"Come on, get below this thing!" I heard Tobias spit in frustration on the video.
"What is that thing!" I whispered as I watched Tobias descend.
The invisible thing advanced closer and closer until the sound of the ship was deafening.
CLAANG!
"Aaah!" All of a sudden the world spun out of control!
"No!" Cassie automatically said.
It only took a few seconds for Tobias to stop spinning, and once he did he started levitating again. Eyelizard looked at the thing from behind, and throught he flashes of lightning I saw it pushing the clouds aside. At this point the thing was very obvious.
"That thing makes a 747 look like a finch!" Cassie whispered.
"How can we fight that thing?" I asked. How in the world can we take down a ship that size? Is that their mothership?
"The only one saying we have to is you," Marco pointed out.
"Marco's right," Ben said. "No matter what happens, what matters is that we're not on defense, the best part of being the attacker is the ability to pick your fights, you force the enemy to bring what they have to a place of our choosing, on our terms. They have to deal with it, and they have to scramble whatever resource is on hand to oppose us, and it's up to us to be able to stack up, and if we can't, make sure we can run away."
((And first thing we shall attack,)) I thought spoke to everyone in the room, slamming my fist down on the table for dramatic effect. ((Is the source of the Anti-morph serum, once the new arrivals are able to take care of themselves, we'll put a stop to the poisoning of our tap water once and for all!))
((Hear hear!)) Rachel said.
((Amen to that,)) Cassie said.
((Sooner the better,)) Alice said.
We know what we're dealing with, but we're still no closer to getting the answers we're looking for. What are Tobias and his people fighting for?
[3 Weeks before Jake, Rachel, and Cassie received the morphing power]
Twilight, Soon to Evening
A creature shambled in an alleyway, it was a large dog, its fur dark and matted. Nobody would've known it was actually covered in blood until a person got close enough, or if it stepped into a bright light. He heard the chopping of a helicoptor in the distance, ETCS.
Finally got their attention, Warlike noticed. They're disappointingly late.
He knew they were coming, the people of the town had been evacuated as he passed by the military vehicles. He was hunting for spare parts, and it didn't take him long to get them, the houses of ETCS members have a lot of advanced technology in them, the first town of ETCS' place he raided, he was entirely unnoticed. His second trip that day brought him an abundance of loot as well as raised eyebrows.
The third town he raided, he decided to change it up. Warlike assaulted many in there homes, plundered their houses, and set their residences to fire before moving onto the next one so fast, nobody had any time to prepare for him.
Now the sun was setting, and a dog covered in blood spilt by the Antimorph that turned into it rested in a random abandoned alley at the edge of town, waiting for the rush of military vehicles from ETCS to finish entering the town. He considered how his decoy was resting in a field, inert, waiting for the ETCS scouts to find it, and realize he was still in the settlement.
Soon enough, the human's efforts shifted from securing the town to search and destroy.
It seems a waste. Warlike was annoyed, as an Antimorph, he was well-versed in killing humans, he had no taste for it, but he was very good at it nonetheless. Unlike others of his race, Warlike saw no fun in killing, he tries to avoid it until it became necessary. And though to the humans, his wrath seems insane and furious, but in truth the Antimorph's decision was pushed forward by the cold gears of logic, which was a far better oiled machine than most of his race posessed.
Nobody noticed the dog covered in blood, Warlike smiled as he walked back inside the settlement, through the alleys only inhabited by trash, and the deserted stores, and the roads populated only by military men. He walked across the road when the next group of ETCS jeeps filled with their first response teams passed by, he moved across the road, within plain sight of hundreds of men. Men who were cautious, men who were ready to fight, looking for the enemy and fully prepared to destroy them at a moment's notice.
Warlike mocked them by walking past the humans, even moving right next to them as a small black dog nobody could tell was covered in blood, the best he got were a few wayward glances. But he moved deeper into the town without an issue. If Warlike had the mouth and throat for it, he would've laughed at their sheer ignorance. He moved back inside the pawn shop he so mercilessly sacked, the windows blasted out, robbed of everything inside. He went through the hole he blasted into the building on his way out and moved in, walking further until he reached the employee bathrooms, the door to the men's room had been ripped out of its hinges.
He walked underneath a stall, accessing the toilet inside without opening the door, then he demorphed. Warlike's body extended, the bones cracking and organs slupring, his hair retreated into his body with an uncomfortable scratching sound. His muzzle realigned itself and grew shorter, his skin turned from gray to pale ashy white, his tail retreated into his spine and the bones of his limbs rearranged themselves, the hair on his head changed from the short fur of a random stray dog to the long locks of a wild person. When he opened his eyes Warlike returned to the world as a walking war crime, he smiled.
Though to the humans, his wrath seems insane and furious, in truth the Antimorph's decision was pushed forward by the cold gears of logic, which was a far better oiled machine than most of his race posessed. Warlike did not dismiss or believe humanity to be beneath him, not anymore, he understands that mankind is not weak, nor something to be disregarded. He had seen things, things that had shocked him to his core, things that illuminated him to one single truth:
The Humans needed to know fear.
And with a smile, Warlike climbed out over the bathroom stall door with his taloned hands, and began getting to work. He climbed up above the door to the bathroom and lurked there, perfectly hidden, covered in the blood of innocents.
He already heard a group of soldiers entering the bathroom, and Warlike had destroyed all of the lights in here upon his sacking of this place.
He knew they were six, but they knew nothing. The ETCS soldier eventually entered the bathroom, rifle mouted flashlight peering into the darkness.
Alone.
Warlike jumped down from the cieling, landing silently behind the human, he loomed over behind the soldier, the human sensed something was wrong and turned around to face Warlike. When the soldier saw him, Warlike thrust his hands forward-
SNAP!
The Antimorph turned around to seek his next victim as the soldier fell to the ground.
He knew where the leader was by intently listening to them in the building, he could smell them all.
((You shouldn't be here...)) Warlike whispered in his ear as he.
"Who's there?" The leader shouted in a deep voice, laden with authority. "You can come out!"
"Are you scared?" His subordinate questioned as Warlike jumped up and clung to the cieling again next to the door to the storage room, where two more soldiers were searching.
((You don't sound like someone to be afraid of,)) Warlike said, gently growling loud enough with his mouth to alert the two soldiers inside to his presence, drawing them out.
"Whoever you are," the leader of the squad recognized the subtle hostility of Warlike's tone, and the fact that he wasn't hearing him with his ears. The two other men left the pawn shop's storage room, Warlike again dropped down, landing behind them silently as their commander shouted in the building. "Come out slowly-"
Warlike raised his hand and rammed his clenched fist down onto the back of the Human soldier's neck as their commander talked, crushing the bones of his neck, the other Human noticed immediately.
"-with your hands in the air."
Warlike reached out with his free hand and grabbed the soldier by the head, muffling his mouth before he could say anything, Warlike lifted him off the ground and adjusted the grip on his shiv.
"Whatever weapons you have-"
The last thing the human saw a a glint in the dark as Warlike drove his crystal shiv into his eye, the blade turning his brain into dark purple crystals that burst our of his eyesockets, the orifices, and then in between the fused bones of his skull with a sickening crunch. And now it was just the two of them left.
"-drop them onto the floor!"
"Sir, I don't hear anything!" The other soldier confessed.
((He's right, you know. Nothing. There's nothing here, you're on fool's errand. Chasing a unicorn, something that doesn't exist.))
The leader of the squad then contacted the rest of his team on the comms, Warlike rushed forward to the other door on all fours, his shiv still clutched tightly in his hand, where one of the ETCS soldiers was just entering.
Just as Warlike stabbed the man in the face and throttled him with his deathgrip his leader spoke on the comms.
"Daniels to Payout Team, come in, do you see any signs of hostile activity? Over," he said over the comms as Warlike carried the man by his neck, feet futily kicking, trying to attack the Antimorph as the crystals devoured his face. "What's going on? Respond, over!"
((Isn't it obvious?)) Warlike said, his voice completely calm despite how he was struggling to restrain the soldier long enough for either the crystals or asphyxiation to kill him. He was talking to the leader. ((You are alone.))
"We need to find the others and get out of here," Daniels whispered.
"Roger."
((Alone...))
The two soldiers made their way to the back of the pawn shop as Warlike dumped his dead victim in the storage room with the other two. The other two soldiers approached in the dark, lights on their rifles shining in the dark.
"McDerek, Reds, Carson, Days, respond!" Daniels called out for his team.
((You are alone...humanity is indeed alone in this universe,)) Warlike declared as he waited in the storage room, speaking to Daniels' partner for the first time as they entered sight of the doorway and saw Warlike in all of his inhuman glory.
"HURGHAAAAAAUUH!"
"Is there still no sign of it?" Chapman asked his lieutenants.
"No sir. It's like a ghost town."
"but he has to still be here, his transportation's been found-"
((Humans,)) Warlike's voice came in their heads as if he was talking through a loudspeaker; ((I am come. And know that it is time for you, whenever you gaze upon me, to fear us!))
Chapman and his forces heard the roar come from the inside of it. By the time the rest of them had come Warlike emerged from the front door, Torthon Rake bared and ready to fire. He looked at the human forces, and he was surrounded by jeeps and helicoptors he was covered in blood.
"Who is that?"
"Hey, you. Are you alright? Is something wrong?"
"Wait, where's Payout Squad?"
Warlike looked at the scene before him, face blank as he processed what they were seeing, and what that meant. Here he was, out in the open on the porch of a pawnshop, in the shadow of a building but still clearly visible by everyone present and they still didn't recognize him!
"Eha ha HA HA HA HA HA!" Warlike could only laugh at the ignorance of his opponents.
"Where are the Andalites?" Warlike asked through his laughter. "Are you sure you're not Andalites? You're too bold to be Human? Ah HA HA HA HA, oh this is too good!"
"Engage!" Chapman's order rang in their ears.
"But sir," the corporal present protested. "just look at him, he's not a threat."
"Shoot him!"
"Sir, this is a man, who looks hurt, is clearly deranged, and wearing nothing but an alien diaper. Are you sure he's not bait of som-"
"Fire! Payout Squad came in that building he came out of, and they're not responding! FIRE! OPEN FIRE!"
Immediately they fired on the Antimorph, Warlike, still laughing, spread his arms as if he was basking in sunlight, allowing their bullets to hit him, doing nothing to deflect or dodge. Every single last one of the projectiles whizzed past him into the building behind him.
Warlike's smile widened as he looked down fromt he darkening sky and blue clouds with pink edges to face at the soldiers firing on him with a savage smile.
"There's no effect!"
"He didn't get a scratch."
"Deploy the homing mines!" Chapman ordered.
Warlike raised his Torthon rake to the helicoptors and began running to the side.
Twutwutwutwutwutwutwutwutwu!
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
The helicoptors all burst into fire and spiraled to the ground, blades flying everywhere as the Antimorph's weapon perforated the airborn vehicles like wet paper. Warlike levelled his gun to the ground again and unleashed another barrage.
Twutwutwutwutwutwutwutwutwu!
ETCS found themselves scrambling away just to survive, the humvees were shredded into shrapnel, human soldiers turned to red mist without mercy.
BOOM!
Warlike was all of a sudden thrown to the ground, the round of a tank shell detonated beside him. He turned down the road and saw the offending armored vehicle standing defiantly, the tank didn't miss. Whatever force protected Warlike fromt h ebarrage of bullets also diverted the tank shell round away from himself, and protected him from the debris.
He took aim at the human tank crew as the turret's machine gun fire landed around his feet.
Twutwutwutwutwutwutwutwutwu!
The ETCS forces use a special tank that weighs 22 tons and boasted the best armor the humans could make. Reverse engineered from captured alien technologies and materials, thoroughly tested in many battles against the extraterrestrial invasions of Earth, the AEA-L24, or the Middle Tank, as it was commonly called, was the best breed of light tank on Earth. But as advanced and heavily protected as it was, it could only withstand the the Antimorph's fury for a few seconds before its inner cabin was perforated.
"AH HA HA HA HA HA HAH AH HAA!" Warlike crowed in victory as the Middle Tank went up in flames. And the ETCS personell who had survived his sweeping of the ground could only look on in horror at what they had seen. Once the human armor had been obliterated, Warlike spread his arms yet again, as if basking in the horrific glory of what he had done.
Sure enough, Warlike heard another sound coming from all around him, small spheres the size of basketballs flew at him from every direction. Homing mines. Warlike smiled, setting his torthon rake to spread fire and attacked the offending explosive drones.
Twtwtwtwtwtwtwtwtw!
The explosive drones were devoured by an absolute blizzard of light from Warlike, they exploded instantaeneously, and the storm of armor peircing alien light bulletsmoved past them and carved into the entire town like a million hot knives through butter. Warlike kept the heat on, spinning to destroy the rest of the drones, gutting more of the town, Chapman ducked in response to the roar of death eviscerating the building above him.
At the end of his rampage, he stood tall, breathing heavily, a smile on his face. He reared back, looked to the sky, and unleashed the loudest most guttural and bestial roar that could come out of his throat.
"HUUUUUUURGHAAAAAAAAGH!"
The few humans who survived his initial assault were frozen in horror as the near naked beast got on all fours and sprinted away, jumping off the ground on all fours and landing in one of the raging fires that had popped up all around the city.
"Sergeant Daniels to ETCS task force," one of Warlike's first victims reported after he woke up. "Me and my men have been attacked by the target, what's the status of allied forces and the strength of the enemy, over?"
"The enemy's gone, and the flying device is gone as well," Chapman reported.
Not a man, not an animal, and nothing like any of the alien invasions that ETCS had ever fought. Warlike was a feral monstrosity the like of which the humans had never seen before, but knew that would not be the last time they would see him again.