Prologue: Origins

[FuBar]

Eddie:

"Well... I'm quite attached to this chair, but mainly due to how long I've had it... I guess if I'm gonna be able to walk again it won't be necessary to keep it other than for nostalgia... Hang on though: Don't places like this provide buggies and things for disabled visitors?? I mean, if we haaereeerer..." the rest of my intended speech was garbled as my mouth suddenly changed shape and normal speech became impossible. I tried 'thinking' what I had intended to say, getting the impression that I was actually transmitting my words telepathically, like Brit had done. It was intriguing... <If we have to peg-it out of there, a generic chair or buggy provided by The Gardens themselves won't seem too out-of-place, comparatively-speaking... What d'ya reckon?>

While I 'spoke', I watched my hands as webbing started to form between my fingers... I gradually became aware that I'd been semi-consciously controlling what parts of me were morphing and at what rate... Curioser and curiouser...

[Damien]

Damien nodded at Eddie,"He is right, they always have those buggies.... we could use than in a quick getaway if we have to..." He looked at Jess,"Now that leaves the clothes.. anyone not planning on morphing will climb over carrying some clothes with them..." the way he said it it sounded like ti bordered on a question/suggestion and order. "I'll climb over first if that is alright with everyone.

The teen walked over and grabbed Brit's clothes, he would have grabbed Eddie's but he was still in the process of morphing. "Hang on,"Damien said to Brit as he grabbed onto the wall. It was then when he shivered slightly, Brit would have felt it like a minor earthquake,"Did anyone else just get a shiver down their spine?"he asked no-one in specific and began climbing,"See you on the other side," he said as he progressed.

[Brad the Brit]

<Guys! Less talking more action!>. Brits said loudly into everyones minds. <There's someone comeing from the headges!>.
The small red lizard scrabbled across Damien's shoulders and launched himself onto the latticework.
Brit scaled the wooden lattice and perched himself on the top. He could see a dark shape moving through the hedge. But his eyes where too weak in this morph to be able to see who it was.
<Morph. Hide. Climb, decide and lets go!>

[Kit Cloudkicker]

Kasey starts at Brit's message. She quickly gathers Eddie's clothes and scales the latticework as Damien reaches the top. She scrambles over the top and drops down on the other side, landing in some greenery. She holds her breath, crouching silently in the bushes and waiting for her friends.

[Breekan1]

Reese sees the others scramble over the edge, and whispers to whomever is left, "I'm gonna go forward to stall these guys for a bit. Get over while you can." He jogs forward past the hedges, trying to keep calm.

[Seryna]

Torrence hurries after Kasey, pausing at the top to look back down at Reese. 
"He's sort of got a saving people thing, huh?"

She wondered aloud as she slid over to the other edge of the wall.  She frowns down at the ground a good nine feet down.

"I really hate heights!"
She complained before lowering herself over the edge and hanging down, cutting the height she'd free fall down to four feet.  Wincing, she let go and fell down to the ground.

Christina gave a jerk and jumped up after Torrence and began to climb hurriedly.  When she was two feet off of the ground, she gave a scream as something skittered over her hand. She released the lattice work, shaking off the spider that had been traversing the latticework. As her foot left the latticework, it caught on something unseen.  Christina was hung up as her upper body hit the ground, her leg suspended two feet above her at a painful angle.

"Hey!" A flash light wielding man came around the corner.  A portable radio was attached to his belt, which completed the black Dickies he wore and the black jacket with a security patch on it. The guard shined his light into Reece's face, blinding him.

"What are you kids doing here? Park's closed. You could be arrested for trespassing."

[Breekan1]

Reece throws his arms up in front of his face. Flashlights, talk of arrest. Being a shape-shifting freedom fighter was hard. He yanks something out of his head. "Help!" he yelps. "My sister! My kid sister, I lost her!"

[Seryna]

"Your sister?"  The light lowers.  "How old is she?"He turns, swinging his light about.  It narrowly misses the struggling Christina.

"Here, come back to the office with me so that i can radio the others to search the park."

[Breekan1]

Search the park? "Oh farts," he thinks to himself. He stammers. "Erm, no, no no. We lost her in the parking lot, but none of us has a phone so we were breaking in to call the cops. We don't know if she wandered off or what." Reece tried to cope with the sensation that this situation was headed downhill at a steady clip. It was one of the few times in his life where he'd have been better off as a naked salamander.

[Brad the Brit]

Brit the naked salamander fell from the top of the latticework and landed on the top of Christina's foot. < You dont half get yourself into some bad situations. Nearly getting yeerked... getting stuck on latticework... You eather clumsy or you have a thing for being saved >. Brit mentally chuckled < im jokeing. I think...>.
As he mentally talked he scuttled over the soul her shoe and tryed to find how she was stuck. <OK if you can grab hold of something you could probably leaver youself off... But it would be easyer to morph while the guard is destracted. Have you got anything?>

[Damien]

Damien had instantly began morphing when he heard the guard. He was just swinging his leg over the top of the wall and nearly jumped down on the other side, so he was half hanging on the wall half laying down. The changes had began taking place, the very first thing to happen was his body was shrinking rapidly making him lose grip on the wall and plummet to the ground, and he continued morphing in mid air. When he was halfway towards the ground he was now a human an inch bigger than a salamander. The rest of the morph was invisible to others eyes since he was falling inside a bundle of his clothes and Brit's. However he hit the ground safely in a cushion of clothes. It was then that the salamander instinct flicked on. It was dark inside the bundle of cloth shielding him from the sun's rays, normally the perfect hiding place for the salamander, only there was one problem. Body heat, he was wrapped in a mass of clothes still warm with body heat. Damien instantly began flailing aorund inside the clothes trying to find a way out, but couldn't, they were too heavy and it was dark all over. Practically a maze of cloth. To the salamander brain that was the equivalent of being inside a predator. <Ahhh!> Damien began screaming out in thought speak. amazingly somehow he managed to limit the thought speak to Brit, Reece, Alice, Christina, Eddie, and the others subconsciously leaving the security guard unaware of his panic. However the others wouldn't know that and would think the guard heard the screaming too.

[Seryna]

"Parking lot?"  The guard turned his flash light. "Come on kid, lets go find your sister. It's getting chilly."

Indeed, the temperature was beginning to drop.  The guard waited for Reece in the parking lot of r a moment before turning and starting to head out.  He unlatched the radio from his belt, bringing it to his lips in preparation to speak.

"It's stuck." Christina hissed, jerking her foot. Her foot slid out of her show a bit as the girl braced herself on the ground, pulling her leg.  There was a crunch as her foot came shooting out of her shoe and she flew backwards onto the ground.

Brit realized with a start that the latticework was tearing- the cross piece below him was falling with Christina's shoe. The one that he was one shifted and lurched, beginning to fall as well.

[Brad the Brit]

Brits tiny stomach gave a lurch as he suddenly found himself in midair again. He landed with hardly any sound. He had landed on something soft, but his salamander eyes couldn’t make out exactly what.
<Errr Christina is that you...> He asked sheepishly before something hard and shoe shaped landed on him pinning him down.
This is the last time I try to help people out. Brit thought trying to lift the shoe huge of his small body.     

[Breekan1]

Reece sees the guard pick up the radio and recalls the sedated salamander. He places a hand gently on the guard's arm, and begins to acquire his DNA. He holds his breath.

[Kit Cloudkicker]

Kasey starts to laugh at Torrence's comment, but quickly scrambles out of the way as the laticework falls.  "They're coming for sure now, MORPH!" she hisses at the others. By the time she finishes speaking, her skin has turned a shade of dark red, and webbing has begun to grow between her fingers, she's already begun the process herself. Her body quickly begins to shrink as her legs and arms grow shorter, and her hair disappears; she resembles a three-foot-long tail-less lizard. As the morph completes and her tail shoots out of her backside, the lizard instincts kick in, and she propels herself under a bush and into a pile of leaves. PANIC! LIGHTS! HIDE! She remains there motionless for a moment before managing to gain some control.


<<What a...rush? Wow...Wow. Who's in the gardens, who's still out?>>