Prologue: Origins

[Breekan1]

Reece nods. "Agreed. Do we split up, or go as one big happy family? We can cover more ground and look less suspicious if we split, but we're screwed if anything too big comes after us."

[SigardTormel]

Great just what I need.  More aliens possibly different from the ones in the other ship and maybe on a third side but whatever the case probably after Jethsa as well.  And of course she is the one who could defend against them and she is the one who is unconscious. *sigh*  Well I guess I should try to find somesort of weapon or maybe some way to reactivate the cloak or whatever it is that Jethsa had up to make it invisible. Vincent thought when he saw the screen showing the new aliens.  Of course these looked just as threatening being walking arsenals with blades on their heads, tails, elbows, and knees.  Not to mention what looked like nasty claws on their raptor like feet and on their hands.

Turning to the rest of the room he looked for anything on one of the tables or consoles that looked like weapons.  It seemed unlikely these aliens would travel into dangerous places without something like a hand held blaster or phaser.  Now if I were a group of telepathic deers with scythes on my tails where would I keep my laser beam weapons?

[Kit Cloudkicker]

[spoiler]

Now if I were a group of telepathic deers with scythes on my tails where would I keep my laser beam weapons?

I almost died reading that! [/spoiler]



Kasey shrugs. She looks at Sam and Alex. "You can acquire my dog. REGGIE! C'mere, boy!" Reggie bounds into the room, jumping into Kasey's lap. She grins, and hugs the dog, burying her face in his neck. "Good boy." she mutters, before looking back up at the newcomers. "Put your hand on him, and think about him. That should be all it takes." She squeezes the dog again, and kisses his wet nose.

[Seryna]

Torrence

"Okay, sounds good." Torrence nodded.  "I'll go bird and go with the folks looking for Jethsa. Dogs should be able to sniff out where Alec has been."

Alec

"Okay cool. Hey Reggie."  Alec moved closer to Kasey and Reggie, reaching out to touch the dog.  He acquired the dog, who went still.

"I think I'll step into the hall to.. change... three new dogs might get weird."

He stepped outside, unbuttoning his muddy shirt as he began to morph the dog, shrinking rapidly.

Christina

"Want a buddy?" She asked Reece cheerily.

GM
The aliens moved about the ship, revealed to Vincent on the sensors.  They didn't seem to see the ship. In fact, one had paused right beside the ramp Vincent had used to drag Jethsa and himself onboard and didn't seem to see it.

Moving around the ship, he couldn't see any sort of weapons. Not on Jethsa's unconscious form. 
Did he go near the bodies to search them?

[Myitt]

"Alright," says Sam hesitantly, patting Reggie's thick fur after Alec has left the room.  "Good dog."  She focuses on the dog, and he remains still.  "That's it?  I guess there's only one way to find out of it worked.  Is this your bathroom?"  She glances at Jas.  "Wish me luck."  Sam steps into the closest bathroom and leaves the door open just a bit, taking a deep breath and refocusing on the dog.  She tries to remember what Jethsa had said; picture the dog in your mind, imagine becoming the dog.  All very hippie chant-your-mantra kind of stuff.  What's to stop her from becoming a dog every time she watched Old Yeller?

But this was different.  At first nothing happened, but she cleared her mind and began to really think about turning into a dog.  She looked down at her furry arms and screamed.  "Yaahhh!  Whoa!  Whoa.  I'm okay," she calls, and just keeps going, shrinking and shifting.  She falls onto the floor and whimpers as her limbs reorganize into canine form, flesh and bone melting and reappearing in bizarre orders.  Sam doesn't dare to look at first, then she becomes almost interested, but by then her vision is a bit dimmer.  Her sense of smell, though--my god, who was baking cookies?  Surely not in this house.  Her nose was incredibly powerful and she wasn't even finished morphing! 

It took a few minutes of shifting, and she was up on her padded canine feet before her tail finally sprooted out of her backbone, covered in the same thick fur.  Finally she felt the whole process was complete, and she pushed the door open.  Her tail wagged unconsciously.  <People?> she thinks aloud, hopping into the room with the ragtag crew of kids, body wriggling.  <Hey, wow!  People!  Hi guys!  Whoa, play with me!  I would love you forever if you'd play with me, seriously.> 

[Breekan1]

Reece grins at Christina. "Any time, Chris! Without a doubt. So let's say that makes you, me, and Alec so far for the cube, and Torrence and one of the dogs for Jestha. Is that right?" Reece jumps up a bit as Reggie, or Alec, or Sam, bounds into the room. He looks down. "I'd pet you, but I feel like that would also be creepy."

[Kit Cloudkicker]

"I'll go to look for Jestha." Kasey responds, a scowl on her face.


Reggie notices the new Sam-dog enter the room, he stares at her, and ****s his head. He lets out a bar, and wags his tail, sniffing her.

[Myitt]

<Hey, back off, pal!> the human part of Sam cries, scooting away from Reggie.  The dog part of her is more interested in sniffing the floor.  <Oh, man, someone left breadcrumbs on the floor...>  Before she can stop herself she's licking the bedroom carpet.  <Augh!>  She stops and looks up, ****ing her head, ears tilted.  <Right.  Um.  Wow, this dog...it's like the dog is in here, in my head!  Almost.  Its instincts.  So weird.  Um.  What's the plan?  I'm going with whoever's trying to find Jethsa's ship.  Man!  I could smell that thing from here, I bet.>

[Kit Cloudkicker]

Reggie tilts his head, and whines when he hears Sam's tought-speak. He darts out of the room, and downstairs.

[SigardTormel]

A wave of relief came over him as he watched the new aliens walking around the ship as if they didn't even see it.  But why?  Wasn't the ship visible now?  And if not then why could he see it?

Hmmm... maybe it has to do with the psychic abilities that Jethsa and her people have.  Maybe the ship is able to tell the difference between people like Thor's hammer, Mjöllnir, supposedly could.  Of course Mjöllnir was just a myth but up until a few minutes ago telepathy and psychic powers were just science fiction.  Man I'm SO going insane.... but back to business for the moment. Vincent thought as he looked from the monitors to the dead aliens.  He bit his lip nowing that it would almost be grave robbing, something he abhord, if he took anything off the aliens bodies.  Not only would he be disgusted with himself who knew how Jethsa would react if she woke up and found him touching the bodies of her comrades.

But his first priority was to make sure they were safe, though he was more concerned about himself then Jethsa as she might die dispite anything he tried to do for her.  Taking a deep breath he slowly walked towards the bodies and kneeled down.  He lifted the edge of the cloth from one of the aliens.

[Seryna]

Torrence headed out into the hall, where she morphed to her bird morph.

<Alright, I'm ready.> She told the others. <Are we ready to go? What are we waiting for?>

Christina moved near Reece. "We doing birds and dogs?" She wondered.

As he inspected the first body, he could see that the alien didn't have anything on it. As he glanced over, he did notice something sitting on the corner of the display. It looked like some sort of gun.

Glancing upwards at the display, he saw the aliens head away from the ship.  They paused a few feet away from the ship. They split up and began to move through the woods, making tracking them difficult.

<Human?> Jethsa sifted, raising her head. Not seeing the human near her, she stiffened. <What are you doing?>

[Breekan1]

"Birds and dogs sounds fine by me- but we might want someone accompanying our dogs so people don't think they're stray..." He remembers Torrence's partially morphed face from earlier, scratches his chin, and concentrates. His brown skin lightens, not quite Caucasian, but definitely closer to it than usual. He puts on a few pounds, his skin wrinkles and his hair thins, and he halts the morph. He looks in the mirror, and MillerReece stares back. He shrugs, and pulls on his shirt. "I think this'll do." He begins to head for the door. "So, me, you, and Alec are on team Awesome searching for the box. Torrence, Kasey, and Sam are searching out the ship. Who're Jas and Alice with?"

[Myitt]

<Jas can come with us, if he wants, he knows where the ship is, too,> says Sam. 

<Besides,> Sam adds to Jas, trying out this private thought speech stuff, just thinking at him alone, <I'd rather not be alone with these kids.  Especially Alec.  Who knows.  I can trust you in a tight spot, though, Jas.>  Publicly she says, <Jas, are you going to stay human or go snake or what?  It's really safer if no one sees your face.  Maybe you can find a different morph?>

[FuBar]

I'd received no response to my Chee-net question, so I took that to mean I should come without the box.

As I was leaving Kasey's house, I recognised the sound of Eddie's Brittish car approaching. Sure enough, moments later, it appeared from around the corner and pulled into Kasey's driveway. The window nearest me wound down electrically to reveal his frown as he attempted to identify me, then his expression softened. Apparantly it had just clicked that it was me 'in morph': I was still projecting my Cseirouna persona.

"Hi Eddie! You're just in time - Everyone's inside right now, but we're all just on our way out. I have to go help Jenny with something back at you-know-where, but the others are splitting into two groups; One to recover the Escafil device, the other to hopefully rescue a possibly-injured female Andalite who was the mastermind behind the theft, and the person responsible for giving another 3 humans the 'gift'. They're also inside, but proper introductions may have to wait for a bit. I'll try to get back ASAP too; I need to ask the Andalite what that scanner is designed to detect..." I added the last bit in a kind of undertone, as if to myself.

"Hello Alice. That's a pretty morph you got there, where did you get it from?" I asked, with a wink. "More importantly: Is it ok for me to park here in Kasey's driveway, or should I find somewhere less conspicuous? Also, should I bother getting my wheelchair, or just morph in my car to go help them? - Rescue sounds more fun than retrieval, so that's the team I'd like to join."

I projected a polite blush to his compliment, then answered "I think you should probably park elsewhere, in case her parents come back. As for the wheelchair thing, well they are in somewhat of a hurry... Actually, so am I! I better go, ok?"

"Oh right, sorry I forgot." I explained. "Remorphing is quicker than dealing with my wheelchair, so I'll leave that in the car. Can I offer you a lift to..." I stopped mid-sentence as Alice interrupted me:

"No that's ok, I've got my scooter. Thanks for offering though. Goodbye Eddie." I said in a friendly tone, giving a little wave then turning away and jogging down the street a bit. Taking care that I wasn't being observed, I materialized a Scooter-hologram between two parked cars that would block it from Eddie's line-of-sight. Expertly faking mounting this holographic Scooter, I flawlessly mimicked the sounds of starting a Scooter-engine and matched engine note as I 'pulled away' and sped up the road and out of sight. I didn't bother 'demorphing' as I 'rode', but I did add a holographic helmet to help disguise Cseirouna's features a bit.

"Ok, bye then." I waved back and watched her figure shrink into the distance. I heard a Scooter start up and pull away, and she was gone.

Sighing at having such a short conversation, I backed out of the driveway and parked a few doors away on the road where my car wouldn't look suspicious.

I electrically wound one of the back windows down half-way, then I took my keys out of the ignition. I separated the alarm-fob from the rest of my keys and secured the keys in the glovebox, from which I retrieved a large elastic band to attach to the lone alarm-fob. That done, I stretched the elastic over my head to rest around my neck. It wasn't tight enough to cut circulation, but it would get looser when I morphed anyway.

Hunkering down in my seat, hidden by the dark tint of my windows and the opacity of the metal panelling, I started the morph: This time, the first thing to happen was the shrinking part, almost as if by design. As I shrank, black fur sprouted all over my body. I was shrinking inside my clothes, but of course my underwear now shrank with me as I'd practised keeping it as a 'morphing-suit'. Retractible claws replaced my nails as my fingers shrank into my palms, which were becoming paw-pads. Sharp incisors grew in my mouth as my jaw changed shape, and suddenly the world was a much lighter place as the pupils of my eyes changed into vertical slits. The last change to arrive was my tail. After my ears relocated, it sprouted slowly looking like a furry sausage or... Well, think up your own comparisons.

Once the changes were complete, I felt Pentium's instincts fold themselves into my mind. Because I'd practised morphing him, I was ready for them and could retain control. I used my front claws to pull and manoeuver my clothing into the driver's footwell where it wouldn't be seen, then I nimbly hopped into the back and out the half-open window.

I was pretty pleased with my planning until I realized the flaw - How was I going to press the 'lock' button on my alarm fob when it was hanging around my neck and I had no opposable thumbs?? I stared at the car for a few seconds, thinking, then tried to pull on the fob with a front-claw. On my fourth attempt, I managed to snag the keyring. I pulled it down so it was flat on the ground, then steppe on the button with my other front-paw.

BOP-BWIEKK!!!

I musta jumped 15 feet in the air at the sound of my alarm arming! - As a human, the sound wasn't all that loud, but with a cat's hearing? Yowch!!

I reigned in the fight-or-flight response in time to see the back window close itself. - It was a feature of the alarm that all electric windows closed themselves when it was armed. Now that my car was secure, I bounded over to Kasey's house.

Alice hadn't shut the door properly, so I nosed my way inside. I soon came face-to-face with a Forest Falcon. My heckles rose automatically as my feline instincts recognised a potential threat and I shrank back a bit before I regained control and reasoned it was probably someone in morph.
<Torrence?> I asked, hopeful my guess was correct. My thoughtspeak was fully open, not directed only at the bird I'd encountered.

[Luke Skywalker (Ossanlin)]

Jas looked up from his own thoughts as if coming out of a daze at Sam's thought.  "Well, I guess I'll go with the people looking for Jethsa.  Kasey?  Was that your name?  You're right, I don't have any really effective morphs, hopefully we'll remedy that tonight eh?  I guess the best I can do is recon once we get close to the ship.  Not many people notice a snake in the grass."  Jas grinned to himself at the addage made literal.

"Where do you want me to put my clothes?  Your parents might be a little more than put off if they found a loaded Desert Eagle in your room..."  While waiting for an answer, Jas began to strip, taking off his overshirt and folding it neatly.  He took off the harness and gun and laid them on the floor next to the clothes, then stripped off his shoes, jeans, and undershirt, standing again in his underwear.  He picked up the bike shorts off of the clothing pile and looked around, finding the door to the hallway.  He moved outside the door a ways and stripped off his underwear, again naked in a stranger's house...well inside was better than out in the middle of the street.  He quickly pulled the bike-shorts up to his waist, adjusting 'himself' until he was comfortable and came back in the room, setting his underwear on top of the pile of clothes, all neatly folded.  He looked at Kasey questioningly.