There was sense of total freedom that came with gliding almost effortlessly through the open sky. Feeling the drafts of wind under her wings that carried her up higher and higher brought an equally uplifting sensation to Tellion's sense of inner self. When she had escaped into Susan's body, Tellion had believed that she couldn't have possibly known any greater sense of freedom than that. But now, high above the earth, she couldn't have found herself to be more wrong. And that only made the guilt that still lurked in the back of her mind fester even more than it usually did.
She was not sailing through the air to enjoy herself. The boy and the Andlite morphing cube remained lost to her, despite Tellion's best efforts to locate them both. It had been two days since she had first acquired the power to transform, and she was still no closer to her goal of retrieving the cube. The only thing that she had managed to do so far was to map out the terrain that surrounded the abandoned construction site. Her first day had been nothing more than aimless wandering about, looking for either the boy or his bike, of which she had found nothing. The second day was a little more planned out, with Tellion taking sweeping circling patterns around the construction site. Almost half the day had been taken up, of which Tellion frequently had landed in secluded areas to morph back to her human self, then morph the crow again. She didn't know if she could still believe what Crayak had told her about being able to track the supposed two hour time limit. She hadn't felt or sensed anything within herself that even gave her some kind of telling of how long she had stayed morphed, but her best guess was that each time had lasted no more than one Earth hour. It was somewhat tiresome having to constantly find places to hide and shift forms back and forth, but Tellion didn't really want to test Crayak's warning. There was still so much about this ability that she didn't understand, and caution was her most useful course of action.
Damn how she wished that she had a way of contacting the Kings. If she could have passed on the knowledge that a morphing device had been found to the Andalite survivors, she wouldn't feel such a sense of desperation and despair at her current plight. But the Chee only contacted her when they needed to, and had yet to show her where they were based.
Then again, maybe it was for the best. Would the Andalites be able to understand, or even accept, the existence of another morphing capable Yeerk, even one that was somewhat on their side? No, she didn't think that they would. Odds were, despite what she had been told by the Kings, they would likely kill her to keep her from becoming a potential threat to them. If she somehow managed to get the morphing cube back from the boy, the safest course of action that Tellion could see would be to turn the cube over to the Kings the next time they contacted her and let them pass it on to the Andalites without giving a full answer on the where and how they had gotten it.
Having only morphed back just a few minutes ago, Tellion adjusted her tail feathers and folded her wings slightly. The momentary weightless sensation she felt every time she did that still exhilarated her, even though she still felt bad for feeling that. Tellion descended to her desired perch, following the crow's instincts to spread her wings out wide moments before touch down to slow her speed. Landing on the top of the metal lamp post, Tellion squawked several times to make herself appear to be just one of the many other kind of birds flying about. But her cone like vision wasn't focused on what was around her, but directly in front of her.
The main doors to the school she was staking out. She had spotted several different schools in her searches the other day, and had spent the rest of her free time before Mark came home to deduce the age divisions of each location. Tellion still had no idea exactly how old the boy she was searching for was, but her rough guess again was that he was near the same as Ellaine, and Tellion knew what grade of official schooling her age range attended.
She also knew when school officially ended each day as well. With any luck, her efforts would prove fruitful. They had to, because she didn't have any other leads to track down the morphing cube, and deep down, Tellion sensed that she was running out of time to get it before the Imperial forces discovered its existence.
The loud clanging of the end of school bell brought Tellion out of her inner thoughts and to the immediate present. Like a flood of wild animals escaping a predator, the main doors opened and children eagerly flooded out. Tellion's sharp eyes darted about at the mass, searching wildly for the familiar face of that boy. But there were hundreds of faces scurrying about, making it almost impossible for her to spot only one among them. And even then, there was absolutely no guarantee that she was at the right school. As time passed, and the children got into the yellow transport buses, or were picked up in individual vehicles by their parents, Tellion began to feel herself becoming both overwhelmed by the situation and depressed as her best effort appeared to be a complete failure. Then she remembered the bike.
Of course, if he lived near the school, it was all too likely that he would simply ride his bike there and back. Tellion shifted her focus away from the mass of leaving children around the motorized vehicles, and felt her feathers instantly ruffle with excitement.
There he was.
Calmly walking towards the section that housed a number of other bikes parked along a metal rack. But she quickly saw that he wasn't alone. Following after him was another boy, his lips moving in obvious conversation, but was much too far way for Tellion to hear what he was saying. But it was also evidently clear that the boy was not paying attention to the one following him. As he unlocked his bike and climbed on it, the other boy, who's darker skin tone and face were familiar to Tellion, grabbed the handles and attempted to speak to him in a far more serious tone.
It was as he was talking that Tellion remembered where she had seen him before. That time at the food court, the cousin of that strange boy Axel, or was it Philip? Axel's cousin appeared to be really trying to not let the boy leave, but a quick pulling away of the bike's handle bars followed by a sharp snap of words caused him to stumble back slightly. Once freed from the grip of Axel's cousin, the boy swung his bike about and quickly rode off. Axel's cousin tried to follow after him, but quickly gave up after a few steps when it was obvious that he couldn't hope to keep up. He quickly turned back rushed towards the main doors of the school, where others appeared to be waiting for him.
Tellion didn't have any more time to waste on Axel's cousin. She immediately swooped off of her perch, caught a small draft of wind, and rose high enough in the air to easily spot the boy. He rode along at a quick pace, but with her ability to now fly above him, as well as keeping the boy completely clueless of her presence, he didn't have a hope of her not tracking him back to his home. At least, that's where she hoped he was going. If he made any kind of detour, then she would be running the risk of pressing her time limit. And that was the very last thing that Tellion wanted to do in that moment.
Thankfully for Tellion, home was exactly where the boy went. Tellion watched from her seemingly inconspicuous perch in one of the surrounding trees. She observed as he went into his home, and took a few minutes before coming into view again. She watched him from an open window as he entered his room, tossed the same bag he had placed the morphing cube in onto his bed, before walking over to some kind of glass case that held a strange elongated creature that didn't have any arms or legs. Tellion's feathers ruffled when the Andalite morphing cube rolled out from the bag and onto the bed, of which the boy took no notice of. All of his attention was focused on the creature in the glass case. Tellion wasn't very well versed on the type of creatures that inhabited this planet, but she didn't very much care for the look or the temperament of the animal as it suddenly rose on its front third portion of its body by the boy's tapping on the glass surface of it encasement and repeatedly smashed its head into the glass wall with a blinding speed equaling Visser Three's tail blade.
As Tellion watched from her hiding spot, a sudden pressure surged through her body. Not really painful, but a definite discomfort crept just under her skin and through her wings. She had no idea what this unexpected sensation was or where it came from, but it definitely put her on edge. Not knowing what could happen next, Tellion decided to enact a temporary tactical retreat. She now knew where the boy lived, and that was enough for her immediate goal. She could always come back later and formulate a plan to retrieve the cube from the naïve boy. Flying away from the boy's home, Tellion spotted a secluded patch of foliage to hide in to change back. Landing in the dense space of vegetation, Tellion summoned up her understanding of the transformation process and willed herself to return to Susan's natural form. As she changed back, Tellion was able to somehow shift her arms out of her torso instead of them emanating from the blackened wings that formed her apendages. As she became more human than bird, a portion of her thought back to images of what human's considered 'divine' beings. Creatures that appeared human but had wings similar to the kind that her current morph possessed. As such, as the last portion of her morph finalized itself, Tellion somehow was able to shift her quickly receding black wings into being protrusions from her back even as her feeble arms pressed out from her body. Even though the entire process of shifting one's entire body was downright horrific for Tellion to contemplate, she still was able to somehow gain a semblance of control over the actual transformation process itself.
She wondered if Andalites held this level of control over the morphing process. They must have. They had invented the blasted technology after all. Still, once she was fully back into Susan's body, Tellion took a moment to contemplate her next course of action.
Tellion currently only had the single crow morph, and it certainly wasn't large enough to lift the Andalite device. She couldn't just fly in and carry it away. Maybe a stronger avian morph could do that, but Tellion didn't have the first idea of where she could find and acquire one in such a short time. Plus, she remembered how difficult it had been those first few moments after transforming, the struggle of the animal instincts to overtake her that had nearly resulted in a calamity. She didn't have the time to attempt another endeavor like that. She needed to come up with a plan to get in that house, take the device, and get away without being detected with just the crow morph she had available. It would have to be in the later hours of the day, perhaps even at night. The boy clearly carried the cube with him at all times, so it had to be when he was home. But sneaking inside and stealing back the morphing cube right out from under the boy would prove to be very problematic. She would need to observe and study him, and wait for an opportune moment to get it. That would have to wait till later though. She needed to get back home before Mark came back. An unexcused absence would be very hard to explain to him.
After taking a few more moments to regather herself before summoning up the crow morph, Tellion shifted quickly back into the bird and took flight. It took a few labored flaps of her wings before she caught a slight updraft and gained altitude. Once far enough off the ground, Tellion directed her trajectory towards her home and road the updrafts all the way back.
Swooping through the second floor window she had left open, Tellion ducked away into the bedroom closet and shifted back once again. Stepping out fully human, she shut the window and pulled the blinds before redressing herself into casual clothing. She thought about taking off the swimsuit before the change, but opted instead to keep it on. Tellion didn't know when or where she would need to be able to morph again, and she didn't have the luxury of assuming that she would be able to retrieve the swimsuit without getting caught.
She quickly checked the clock, less than a half hour before Mark would be home. She had cut it far too close this time. Tellion made a point to tell herself that she really needed to better manage her time and plan her future endevors far more properly. She just couldn't risk taking any unnecessary chances. She was all alone in this fight, no one was going to be there to save her if something went wrong.
She set about to get things ready to make dinner. She still wasn't very good at cooking food, but at least Tellion knew that she wasn't terrible at it either. Stupid thing to contemplate. She could construct mechanical and electrical devices from common items around the house that would make Mark's head spin in wild wonder, yet she was only mediocre when it came to cutting up meat and vegetation and putting it all together into a semi savory meal.
As she was finalizing the initial prepping of the food, the phone rang. Not knowing who to expect, Tellion curiously picked up the phone.
"Hello?"
"Honey…" came Mark's voice through the receiver, but it was different than his normal cheerful tone. It sounded strained, weary.
"Is everything ok?" Tellion asked, feeling her own concern starting to grow at his abnormal tone.
"No." Mark sighed. "It's not. Listen, I'm not going to be able to make it home till very late tonight. I might even have to stay at the hospital tonight. We just had a kid…I've got to get prepped for emergency surgery. I don't know how long this is going to take."
"I understand." Tellion said encouragingly, but she really didn't understand what was going on.
"I'm sorry." he said. "It's just, I have…"
"You'll do just fine. Everything will be ok."
"I hope so…" he trailed off. "I have to go. I love you."
"I love you too Mark." Tellion replied, which was the only thing really genuine that she had said to him in that conversation.
With no more words needed, he hung up the phone. Tellion slowly put the phone down herself. She didn't know what to make of that conversation. A part of her, only a small part, was terrified that he had just somehow been infested by her people. But then she remembered who and what her people were. If Mark had been infested, he wouldn't have been acting strangely. He would have simply acted exactly the same as he always had in front of her. Knowing that helped to put Tellion's mind at ease. At least a little. She wished Mark the best of luck with his efforts, and then went about putting all of the food stuffs back into the fridge. She microwaved a small frozen pizza and ate it while watching the local news.
Again, nothing of any major importance beyond the local happenings in the city and the upcoming summit. Dammit, what terrible timing of all of this. She was sure that if the Andalites didn't have to deal with Visser Three's plan, informing them of the morphing cube and letting them retrieve it wouldn't likely be such a burden. Well, at least the morphing cube's fate wasn't completely sealed. The Andalites had their mission, and she had her's. Tellion just hoped that she could prove at least half as successful as they had been against the invasion force.
Not having anything else to do but wait, Tellion went into the basement and planned out her next move. Since Mark wouldn't be a factor for this night, she would go after dark. Her best option was to simply land on the roof of the boy's home, above his bedroom, and wait until he had either gone downstairs to eat with his family or when he went to use the bathroom facilities. Once out of his room, she would either pry the window open or break the glass (she would make sure to bring a rock big enough to work) to gain access. Once inside his room, it wouldn't be too much effort to find and retrieve the morphing cube. Of course, she still couldn't carry the cube away in her crow morph, so she would have to jump out the window and make her way back home on foot. It was far from even an ideal plan, but it was the best one that Tellion could formulate with her singular morph and her knowledge of how to utilize it.
To say that the plan was risky was an understatement, but it was the best that she could formulate with what she had available to her. Tellion went outside and retrieved a rock that she estimated she could carry in the crow morph, then waited for the sun to go down. Once the darkness had encased the surrounding land, Tellion shed her normal outfit and morphed into the crow once more. Taking up the rock, she again flew through the open window and headed towards the boy's home. She honestly didn't know what to expect with everything that was happening, but she hoped that with the element of surprise on her side, she would be able to silently make her way in, steal back the morphing cube, and make her escape relatively undetected.
Flying at night, with the added weight of the rock, proved to be a far more different experience for Tellion than gliding through the air during the day. There were no natural thermal drafts to help lift her body, she was having to constantly flap her wings in order to stay afloat. By the time she made it close to the boy's home, her small body felt immensely fatigued. And worse, something was happening at his home.
There was some kind of commotion, with a lot of screaming that resonated throughout the night sky. As Tellion glided in towards the roof, she saw a trio of other, much larger birds, taking to the sky and making a hasty departure from the boy's home. As she started to descend towards a landing spot on the roof, the boy suddenly came running around from an obscure side of his home. His head was looking upward, clearly scanning the sky. Then his attention focused on Tellion.
"Another one of you damn thieving birds!" he shouted, lifting some kind of device and aiming it at Tellion.
She only had an instant to try and contemplate what he was holding before a searing pain erupted through the center of her left wing. Tellion screaming in mental agony as she dropped the rock and her left wing suddenly couldn't work the way it was supposed to. Tellion flayed about wildly as she plummeted to the ground as her wing refused to work. Somehow, against all odds of her fall, she somehow managed to crash into the upper branches of a tree in an adjacent yard. Hitting the various limbs slowed her decent, but they left her body a ravaged mess of complete pain as she slammed into the solid ground below.
Squawking in an agonizing cry of pain, Tellion weakly tried to move, only to discover that her left wing was a ragged mess of bloody flesh and feathers. She couldn't fly away, she couldn't do anything as she currently was. Then she remembered the injury to her head, it had somehow miraculously vanished with the morphing. Her only hope now was to morph back into Susan, and that the injury wouldn't carry over into her natural body.
Willing herself back into Susan's body, Tellion shifted as fast as she was capable of. Knowing that she needed to hide herself, Tellion focused her mental strength on forming her hands. Tiny little fingers protruded from both ends of her wings, allowing Tellion to grasp the ground and pull herself behind the tree she had just crashed into. The pain of her left wing gradually subsided, but that didn't take away from the memory of what she had experienced. Before long, she was back in her normal human form. Yet, looking down at the ground where she had fallen, Tellion felt her stomach turning at the site of blood, her blood, saturating the little grass spot where she had fallen. Weakly climbing to her feet, she heard noises coming from the other side of the fence and pressed herself against the trunk of the tree. Peering from around its edge, she saw the boy's head peeking over the top of the fence, looking about for the bird he had clearly shot.
"Little bastard must have gotten away. Well, whoever sent them will think twice next time!" he exclaimed to himself before dropping out of sight.
Tellion waited a few long minutes until she couldn't hear him anymore. Once sure that he wasn't outside anymore, Tellion opted that a retreat was her best course of action. This may have been the only night that she truly had that was free to operate, but the element of surprise was gone now. There was no chance that the boy would leave the cube unguarded now. There was nothing more that she could do this night. She had to get back home and plan her next move. Morphing back into the crow once more, Tellion fluttered up into the top most portions of the tree and took flight. She flew back home, feeling very confused and deflated. What were those other birds doing near that boy's home, and how had they set him off in such a way that he was willing to use some kind of projectile weapon against any avian creature he saw? Like always in her life, Tellion was left with far more questions than answers for what she was enduring.
She made it back home without any further incident. With nothing left to do, Tellion went into the basement and set up her makeshift Yeerk pool. She still had almost a day and a half before needing to feed again, but she didn't dare take a chance of not having enough free time to feed with the coming days ahead. Plus, she was already in the swimsuit. Once she had everything ready, Tellion intubated Susan's body and immersed herself into the metallic liquid. Crawling out of her slightly submerged ear, Tellion swam about in her natural blind and deaf state. Basking in the Kandrona rays, she thought back of the crow, and tried to will herself to morph it in her true body. But after a few moments of intense concentration, and not feeling anything about her changing, she finally surrendered to the thought of only Susan's body being able to transform. Whatever the morphing technology was, it had clearly only transferred to Susan body, and not to both of them. That was a bit disheartening for Tellion. But she accepted the facts of her situation. To continue to be able to morph, Tellion was going to have to also continue to infest Susan's body.
After swimming about aimlessly for a time, Tellion felt revitalized enough to return to Susan. When her eyes opened, Tellion wearily pulled herself out of the miniature Yeerk Pool and immediately set about covering up her tracks. As she put away the last bits of her disassembled Kandrona Ray generator, Tellion checked the time and saw that it was getting very late. She cautiously peeked out from the door and saw that Mark still hadn't come home yet. With the coast clear, Tellion went upstairs into the bathroom and took a quick shower.
She took a bit longer than normal, as the warm water helped Tellion to clear her head. If the situation permitted it, she would have to try and retrieve the cube again tomorrow. This time, she didn't have the luxury of waiting until an ideal time. She was going to have to break into that boy's home and snatch it by any means necessary. The fate of the entire galaxy likely depended on what she could, or couldn't, accomplish by the next day.
Tellion couldn't fail, and she wouldn't.
Stepping out of the shower, Tellion ironically heard the opening and closing of the front door just as she was drying herself off. Slipping into appropriate night garments, she wrapped the towel around her head and went downstairs. There she found a sight that was deeply troubling to her.
Mark was squatting on the edge of the couch, his head hung low and his hands shaking as they rest over his face. Slow, ragged breaths came from his hidden face. Something was wrong with him, very wrong. Tellion cautiously entered the room.
"Mark." she said weakly while stepping through the doorway. "Is…are you, ok?"
Mark lifted his head to face her, and she could see both the sadness and the weariness in his eyes.
"Hey honey." he spoke in a soft, drained voice. "It was just…there was a problem at work and…"
His eyes lowered to the floor and he didn't say anything else. Tellion had learned very quickly how to read human expressions, and she knew that he was attempting to hide something that was deeply troubling him from her. Feeling her own heart ache from his apparent pain, she silently paced over to where he was and sat down next to him. Placing her hand gently on his back, she rubbed his skin just between the shoulders.
"Mark, what is it? You can tell me what's bothering you." she asked.
He glanced at her from the corner of his eye. "I don't really want to…"
Tellion leaned over and wrapped her arms around him, pressing her head against his shoulder. "You can tell me Mark, no matter what it is. I'm here for you."
Mark brought his own trembling arms around her and held Tellion tight. She felt the pressure of his face resting on the top of her head as his grip tightened.
"There was this kid…he must have been about Ellaine's age. He got rushed in just as I was about to leave, and I had to stay and work on him. Some kind of freak bike accident. He was so…it reminded me of…"
"My accident…" Tellion finished for him, feeling the sharp stab of guilt within her knowing of how the Susan Mark loved so much was truly dead, and she was just pretending to be her.
"Yeah." Mark answered sadly, not saying anything else.
Tellion attempted to swallow what she felt like was an obstruction in her throat. It didn't help.
"Is he…going to be alright?"
"I don't know." Mark immediately answered, his voice distant and void of feeling. "He was really hurt. We almost lost him twice in surgery. I did everything I could, but even then, we just barely stabilized him. He's…just like you were, before you woke up. I don't even know if he'll…"
"You did everything you could." Tellion assured him, squeezing him tighter. "I…you…don't have to feel any guilt."
Mark grumbled from the back of his throat.
"It's easy for you to say that." he replied in what felt like a bitter voice. "You didn't have to look at his family the way I did after the surgery, and say the things that I did to them. Susan, I looked in his mom's eyes, the way she was practically pleading with me to say that he was going to be fine. I…I did something that I really shouldn't have…"
Tellion felt a sudden snap of worry go through her from his words. She pulled back slightly to make him look at her.
"Mark, what did you do?" Tellion asked him, her words bordering on panic.
"I…I told her about what happened to you, and how you miraculously woke up that night…" he said weakly.
Fearing that her story being told to anyone else and draw attention to her, Tellion weakly pushed herself away from Mark and stared at him with a mixture of shock and concern etched into her face.
"Mark, why would you tell her something like that?"
He stared at her with pleading eyes. "What else was I supposed to tell her Susan?"
"You could have told her…" Tellion began.
"And tell her what?" Mark snapped, his voice teetering on the edge of breaking as he stared at her with his world weary eyes. "I'm sorry Ma'am, but your twelve year old son is probably going to die!"
Hearing what he said, the situation, and the age of the child involved, felt similar to that punch to the gut Tellion had endured when she had helped the Hork Bajir escape the Yeerk Pool. A child, no older than Ellaine, was so badly hurt that it was all too likely that his life would end soon. Tellion couldn't imagine what that could have felt like. She knew the pain of loss, but not quite like this. This was a loss upon a level of which she couldn't imagine. Tellion just lowered her head and pressed it against Mark's face.
"It's alright. I…understand why you did it."
"She just needed, some hope." Mark said to her.
"Hope…is a good thing." Tellion said to him. "Maybe the best thing we have in this life."
"Susan…" Mark said, keeping his face pressed against her head. "I…she wants to see you. She wants you to talk to her."
"Mark…" Tellion said.
"Can you come with me? To the hospital tomorrow? They're so desperate, they need something to…"
"I can't. Not tomorrow." Tellion told him. "Or the day after."
"Why? You don't have…"
"I've got appointments, meetings…there's Ellaine's field trip. I can't…"
Mark pulled away from Tellion and looked at her desperately. "Just cancel them dammit! It's not like they can't meet you at another day! Ellaine's not a baby, she can go on a school trip without you!"
It's not any of those things Mark, I just can't wait another day. Tellion thought. I…any other time I would have come right to your side and been with you. But I can't let the morphing cube fall into imperial hands. This may be my last chance to save it. I'm sorry, but the life of one child doesn't outweigh the danger your entire world is in.
"I can't just cancel them Mark. I'm sorry…"
Mark's head dropped from her response and he weakly pushed her away from him. "Just go to bed. I'll sleep here."
"Mark, please understand…"
"They can call me back at any time if his condition worsens. I'll have to leave right away if that happens."
"I…"
Mark pulled away from her and looked away. "Just go to bed honey. I'll call you if I need you."
Tellion felt the despair of him pulling away from her. But she couldn't do anything else. Not without disclosing to Mark the truth of everything. She hated making him feel like she didn't care. She cared more than he could possibly imagine, but the fate of this world, and all sentient species in the entire galaxy, was far more important to Tellion's existence than this one child's life.
Not knowing how she could dare to explain it all to him, Tellion silently left Mark's side and exited the room. She went upstairs and laid in the bed, yet even in the complete darkness of the night, sleep evaded her. No matter how much she willed it, her eyes wouldn't close in an unnerving slumber. So Tellion just laid there in silence, throughout the entire night. As her thoughts jumbled about with her questionable decisions, all Tellion could do was lay upon those sheets and wait, for whatever was going to happen next to her. After what felt to her like an endless space of time, she heard Mark moving about downstairs through the open doorway as he left without saying goodbye to her. That part was what hurt Tellion the most. He always said goodbye to her, as if each time would be the very last that they could ever see each other. But now, he was just gone as if she meant nothing to him.
Again, it was a burden that Tellion, though she hated with every essence of herself, felt that she rightfully deserved. So she remained in the bed, even long after Mark had left, and the light of the rising sun had illuminted her room, before Tellion stirred from her bed.
She immediately set about making calls to her various appointments for tutoring that afternoon and canceling them, citing her husband having a difficult case he needed to deal with and that she needed to be there to support him. Even though they were only half lies, it didn't make Tellion feel any less guilty about what she was doing. But the guilt of not being there for Mark when he needed her was the least of her concerns. Tellion knew what was at stake, and she needed to focus all of her attention to the mission at hand.
It was almost a complete certainty that the boy wasn't going to leave the morphing cube unguarded now. It was going to be with him as long as he was in possession of it, now that he likely thought it was of greater value than he originally thought. That meant he was going to take it with him to the school for sure again, which also meant that her very best chance of getting it from him was going to be in the afternoon. She would just have to go a little bit before the end of school to make sure that the boy didn't slip past her again.
The remainder of the day pressed on like any other, with Tellion nervously watching the clocks in the home slowly roll towards the allotted time she had set aside to conduct her mission. She tried at midday to contact Mark, but the hospital told her he was still busy working on his patient, the badly injured boy. Tellion made a point to have them pass along a message to him that she was wishing for nothing but the best for him. She hoped that he would somehow understand that her not being there for him that day wasn't because a lack of caring. But as such, she couldn't let herself be distracted by her personal feelings. A matter of monumental proportions was before her, and she needed to accomplish her task.
When the clock neared her preset timetable, Tellion dressed in her swimsuit and morphed the crow. She took flight out of the open window and soared through the air towards the boy's school. Tellion had every intention of simply following him back to his house this day like she had before, causing some kind of distraction like changing back into her human self and ringing the front door bell, and sneaking into his house to steal back the morphing cube. She gave herself enough time to stake out the school a full hour before the allotted time of the classes for that day ended, just to make sure that the boy didn't slip past her without knowing about it. She had every intention of morphing back to Susan while she waited for him to for him to emerge. That would give her more than enough time to follow him and get the cube back. Tellion landed on the top of the lamp post like she had the day before and prepared herself for the coming operation. Then something happened that Tellion hadn't expected.
When the final hourly bells rang for the changing of classes, the boy busted through the front doors by himself and rushed over to his bike. Strange, Tellion thought, he still had at least one final class before the school day ended. So why was he daring to sneak away from his final class? Then it hit Tellion.
Oh crap. She thought.
She had overheard him talking about trying to 'sell' the box to anyone that was willing to pay the monetary value that he desired. He must have found someone that was willing to purchase his find. But how he had established such a thing was unknown to Tellion, unless he had used the primitive human wire based connection network of computers that linked all human devices to others across the world to make his desires known, of which Tellion knew that her people were continuously monitoring for any sign of human discovery of their invasion. All that mattered to her now was the full truth of the terror she suspected that had happened. The total fear of knowing what that likely meant spiked through Tellion's entire small avian body. The Yeerk forces on this world had discovered the existence of the morphing cube, and knew that this boy was in possession of it.
There was no more time left for Tellion. She had to get that cube back from that boy. Today. Now. There was no more room for second guessing and assumptions. She had to do this. It would likely push her to the edge of the time limit, but she had to take risks now. Taking flight the moment he mounted on his bike and rushed away from the school, Tellion was determined to not lose sight of him. But he was not making it easy for her. Unlike the last day, he was riding at a crazy and dangerous pace. As Tellion watched him hurrying along from high above, she saw something that clearly he didn't.
The truck heading down the road at a much faster speed that it should have been going in such a residential area. Her mathematical inclined mind only needed a few seconds to process their trajectories to know that if the boy continued to go at his present pace, he was very probably going to cross paths with the truck, with the end result being a calamity.
Remembering what Mark had told her the last night. What had happened to that child…the way he spoke of the mother's pleading for him to give her hope that her son would be alright…
No. Tellion thought. No matter what, that won't happen. Not here, not now. I won't let it!
Without another thought, Tellion folded her wings and dove straight at the boy's head. He was so entranced in his rush to get home that he didn't realize that Tellion was streaking down at him until she was almost on top of him. He by chance glanced over his shoulder, just in time to see Tellion mere feet from his face. His horrified expression would forever be etched into Tellion's mind as she brought her clawed feet out to slash at his vulnerable skin. She pulled out of the dive at the last moment, pulling back her clawed feet so as to not harm the boy. Even if he truly didn't know that. The boy cried in terror and jerked his bike instinctively away from her attack. The sudden action caused him to lose balance and crash into the grassy space of one of the uncountable lawns in the neighborhood. Tellion rose from her dive and glided over to a nearby branch. Once her talon feet grasped its ridged surface, Tellion observed the boy to make sure that he was alright.
He quickly recovered from his fall, his eyes darting about wildly until he spotted Tellion. A low, dangerous growl came from the back of the boy's throat as he scrambled to his feet and focused his attention on Tellion.
"You bastard birds!" he exclaimed, grasping some nearby objects. "You're not going to stop me from selling that cube! You're not going to keep me from getting my money!"
He threw several large and heavy objects at Tellion, of which she was easily able to avoid by leaping from one branch to another. Yet his aggression towards a seemingly insignificant winged creature was troubling to Tellion. She had never seen this type of behavior in a human child before. In fact, it was very similar to how some of her own people behaved. Not daring to see what fate would befall her if he actually managed to knock her down to the ground, Tellion flapped her wings rapidly and rose to the top of the tree and far out of the boy's reach of attack. Looking down at him, she saw him viciously shake his fist at her before climbing back onto his bike and rushing back home.
She took flight and followed him, using a thermal draft to climb higher into the sky. From her vantage point in the air, she could see the boy's house ahead. A car pulled into the driveway and a man ran from the vehicle and into the home. Then Tellion noticed something very unusual. In the streets surrounding the home there came a convergence of local human enforcement vehicles. She couldn't tell home many there were, enough to block off all the streets approaching the one that that the boy's house was one. But even as they were doing this, the boy had already ridden past the blockade that was being set up. Also, there was a van similar to the one Linda drove and a large moving truck that got through the perimeter. Strange, all three were converging towards the boy's home.
Not knowing what was going on, Tellion flew ahead of the boy to make sense of this confusing situation. As she closed in on the home, she spotted a trio of larger birds land in the home's backyard and vanish from sight. They appeared similar to the ones she had spotted yesterday before being attacked by the boy. Tellion veered her flight path to circle the home, but when she passed over the backyard, all of the birds had vanished from sight. Even at her height in the air, she could tell some kind of commotion was happening within the home, something chaotic and possibly violent. To make matters worse, the boy suddenly appeared and rode his bike right up to the front door of his home. Tossing the bike aside, he darted through the front door, also vanishing from her view. Just as she was contemplating going lower for a closer look to figure out what was happening, the big moving truck pulled into the driveway of the home, accompanied by a pair of local enforcement cars.
What is going on? Tellion thought.
As those thoughts passed through her head, one of the blue uniformed men ran to the back of the moving truck and lifted the back loading door. When it did, Tellion's tiny bird heart completely lost its rhythm. From the back of the loading truck leapt no less than seven Hork-Bajir shock troops.
Hork-Bajir. Here? In broad daylight? Had the Yeerk forces gone completely mad?
As the large reptilian shock troopers of the Empire charged into the home, something far more terrifying caught Tellion's attention. From where the Hork-Bajir had poured forth, leapt a large bright blue Andalite, his tail poised and ready to strike at anything that crossed paths with him.
Visser Three…Tellion whispered with absolute dread.
As the Hork-Bajir rushed into the home, one of Visser Three's stalk eyes fixated on the assembled human controllers.
Secure this entire street, no one approaches the dwelling. If you spot any natives in the area, target them for immediate infestation. No witnesses.
Even as he commanded them, gunshots rang out from within the home, followed by the sounds of horrific battle. Visser Three's head turned towards the home, yet his stalk eye never wavered from the troopers.
Get moving you idiots! Fail me, and I'll cut you apart piece by piece and feed those parts to wild Taxxons!
The soldiers immediately ran away from their terrifying commander. Even as Visser Three dashed in after his warriors, his Andalite body was already starting to transform into something else. Tellion watched helplessly as her former commander disappeared into the home, and the sounds of battle grew even more ferocious.
It couldn't have been that lone boy's father that was creating such havoc for the Hork-Bajir soldiers inside, that could only mean…
The Andalites! They were inside the house! Then they must have somehow found out about the morphing cube too. Where and how that had happened was a complete mystery to Tellion, and that was the very last thing that occupied her mind. Below her, out of sight for her to know what was going on, the Andalites and Visser Three's forces were battling for the fate of the morphing cube. And likely the entire galaxy as well. And all she could do was circle above it all and watch. She wanted to help them, she so desperately wanted to. But what could she do? Her crow morph was puny and almost completely useless in this situation. And if she made her presence known to either side, the confusion she would create in such a dangerous scenario could likely result in one or more of the Andalites losing their lives. As she tried to decide on what she could do, a back portion of the entire house exploded outward. Tellion's head instantly focused on the commotion, and saw a large brown furred beast charging through the backyard, half dragging, half carrying the boy away from the battle. He was clearly unconscious as he made no attempt to fight back. As the brown furred beast smashed through the puny wooden fence, several other creatures leapt from the gaping hole in the house. But among them was an Andalite, and in his hands he carried the morphing cube.
The cube! Tellion exclaimed.
As Tellion was about to shout for joy at the safety of the cube not falling into imperial hands, she spotted a human controller in a police uniform at the edge of the home, taking aim with his human pistol at the retreating Andalite.
No! Tellion cried, folding her wings and diving at the human controller without a single thought to her own safety.
As his finger squeezed around the weapon's trigger, Tellion dove into him and slashed his face with her tiny claws. They hardly did any damage at all, but it was enough for the human controller to lose his aim and not fire. Even as he fell back, clutching his bleeding wounds, he glared up at Tellion as she frantically flapped her wings to get away.
"Damn Andalite! I'll blow your head off!" he shouted, aiming his shaking gun at her.
Before he could fire, the van Tellion had seen earlier squeled to a halt in front of the home. A woman climbed out and started running towards the house. The injured human controller spotted her, and glanced once back up at Tellion before growling viciously and rushing to intercept her.
As Tellion circled back around, she looked for the Andalites, but saw no sign of them anywhere. Their trail of destruction simply came to an end a little way away from the destroyed home and they all seemed to have vanished. She had lost them. Tellion turned her attention back to the front of the house, and the woman as she frantically tried to push past the injured controller as he attempted to babble out some feeble excuse for what had just happened.
Tellion was about to shout out a warning to her to run away, not knowing how she would even be able to do that. Then she saw it was too late. From out of the house came a four armed monstrosity that had pincer/drill like ends on each of its arms. Clearly it was Visser Three. From behind him came his Hork-Bajir guards, they were dragging two of their own that were clearly dead, and the boy's father. The woman stopped mid-sentence at the sight of the other worldly creatures before her, she took one fleeting step backwards. Visser Three pointed one of his deadly appendages at her.
Grab that female you fool! She can't get away!
The injured controller immediately tackled the shocked woman and dragged her, kicking and screaming frantically, to the back of the moving truck. One of the Hork-Bajir grasped her coat and tossed her into the back like a weightless bag. Visser Three and the rest of his troops climbed into the back of the moving truck. He turned to face the injured controller.
Contact our agents in the administrative sector of the local security forces. Get a story, any story, out to explain all of this. And have them conduct immediate investigations for any witnesses. If even one of these natives escapes to tell others about this, you wish you had never come into existence!
The injured controller rapidly nodded his head as the back door to the moving truck shut and they drove off. Tellion thought to follow after them, not sure what she could even hope to accomplish. As she veered herself towards a tracking path, an unexpected pain jolted through her tiny body.
Aaarrrggghhh! she cried out in her mental voice as she lost control of her ability to fly. It was only through a desperate last moment crash into the top of a nearby tree that kept her from plummeting towards the ground. She grasped the closest tree limb with her talons and held on for dear life. As quickly as it had come, the jolt faded from her body, but a pain across her mind remained. It felt to her as if her brain had been placed within a vice and it was slowly closing in around her vulnerable mind.
What…what's happening? Tellion wondered. What was this?
She had never felt this before since she had started morphing. Was this something natural? What could it…
Now you too will be able to keep an internal track of how much time you will have remaining in each of your altered forms. Crayak's voice cackled through Tellion's memory. I have a strong suspicion that you'll find out before too long exactly what that will entail.
This pain, was so new to her. It had never happened before with her morph. But she had never been in the state for so long. It must mean that she was close to reaching her time limit in the morph. But that couldn't be right, she hadn't been morphed that long. Had she?
As she tried to contemplate this, another painful jolt coursed through her, even worse than the first one. It was an agony that felt sadistically similar to the Fugue, something that Tellion never, ever wanted to endure again. The pain was so intense that she almost lost her grip on the tiny limb she was perched on. Even when the agony subsided, the pressure on her mind remained, and was far worse than before. She needed to find a safe place to hide and demorph. Immediately.
Pushing herself through the pain, Tellion propelled herself off of the tiny tree limb and spread her wings, catching a gust of wind that lifted her into the air. Utilizing her superior vision, Tellion spotted a secluded spot that appeared to be safe for her needs. As she glided down towards her acquired hiding spot, the searing pain ravished her tiny body again. It took all of Tellion's strength to keep her wings spread so that she could continue to glide down to her hiding spot. Pain dug throughout her entire pitiful frame as she almost crashed into the ground. Hitting the grassy ground in a pitiful roll, Tellion pressed her wings into the soil to stop herself. Even as the agony wrecked havoc through her, she did her best to regain her senses and come back to the world.
Falling upon her back, Tellion stared up at the endless blue sky. It was such a contrast to how her body felt. So gentle, so at peace. She could just look up at that never ending blue mass and become lost in it. Just loose herself in it, where time and space meant nothing to anyone, even to a wretched slug like her. It was so overwhelming that she almost wanted to just surrender herself to the pain and become lost forever in the endless peace of existence. It was only her thoughts of Mark, of how much he meant to her, that brought Tellion back to her right state of mind.
Knowing that she didn't have much time left, Tellion focused her mind upon changing back into her human form. The pain was becoming overwhelming, so much that her mind had difficulty focusing. It was so consuming that Tellion had to focus her entire thoughts upon Mark, and her wanting to go back to him. It was only through those desires that Tellion was able to draw her mental capabilities into changing back to Susan. The suffering was so intense that Tellion wasn't aware she was changing back until the pain subsided enough for her senses to return to her. As she became aware of herself once more, Tellion looked down at her body to see the last bits of the crow disappearing into her human form. With long trails of sweat dripping down her face, Tellion weakly sat up and looked at herself.
Her hands were trembling, but she felt the relief wash over her at the sight of her human hands that shook with that fright. She brought her fingers up to her face, almost unsure if any of this was even real, before coming to the understanding that she was indeed her human self again. Though shaken, Tellion stared at the world around her. Weakly climbing to her feet, she thought of Crayak's words. As terrible as they were, everything now made a strange sort of sense to her. He was a horrific being, but Tellion sensed that he truly didn't want to see her come to an unexpected end. Not now at least. He clearly had some kind of plans for her in the future. Otherwise he would have simply left Tellion to her painful fate. She did indeed have an ability to tell the time limit of each of her morphs, but that knowledge came at the expense of physical pain to her nearly equal to that of the Fugue. That bastard, even in an act of helping her, Crayak still found a way to hurt her in retaliation to all the discomfort she had enacted upon his plans.
Tellion weakly pulled herself into a corner of the fence line, barely able to keep her body from shaking from the terror of what she had just endured. Even amidst of all that pain, she still couldn't believe that she hadn't been able to keep a sense enough of herself to not lose the Andalites in their retreat. Tellion didn't know if they would even accept something such as herself, but that didn't do anything to dissipate her desire to offer her help to them. Although it had been through a nearly impossible bit of circumstances and an extremely strange set of conincidences, Tellion had found herself with their morphing power. And she fully intended to use it to help them to save this world, and the people in it that she had grown to love. But that moment had clearly now passed.
The battle in the boy's home was over, and whatever fallout from that would come to pass without any interference from her. And there she was. Alone again, no one to call her their ally. No one to call her their enemy. Tellion sat up and thought of her situation. Sirens off in the distance alerted her to the rapidly approaching human forces. Just like Visser Three and his troops, as well as the Andalites, she too was going to have to make a hasty retreat.
Although feeling like a complete failure, Tellion took a vague little bit of comfort in knowing that both the boy and the Andalite morphing cube were safely in the hands of the Andalite resistance. What happened after that, she couldn't say. But for the moment, her dilemma was over.
That didn't take away from her fear of being caught. Tellion quickly morphed back into her crow form and took flight. Once up in the air, alone with her thoughts, she put a great amount of thinking into what she should do next. She didn't know how to contact the Andalites, except through the Chee, and she didn't even know if they would be willing to arrange such a meeting. One thing that Tellion knew for certain was that her singular crow morph wasn't nearly enough to meet the demands of her ever increasing involvement in this war. She was going to need new morphs. Ones far more powerful and useful in the conflict that was closing in around her.
Ellaine's class trip to the gardens the next day came to Tellion's mind. There would be a plethora of various animals for her to observe, and choose to acquire. No matter what, Tellion knew for certain that her involvement in this war had suddenly taken a far more active approach. And she needed to be ready to face whatever challenges that would come about from that.