Animorphs: A New Beginning

[Cloak]

Hu unsheathed his claws and pressed them against Bened's throat.  Bened had no fear, as he taunted Hu, "Go ahead, Hu.  Kill me."

Hu hesitated, blinked, wiggled his fingers nervously.  He killed your father.  He killed Lilas.  He killed your cubs. Hu told himself. You must do it, Hu.

Bened cackled, and sneered, "You can't do it, can you?  Even with nothing to lose, and everything to gain, you still can't do it! Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!"

Then Hu realized that something was blinking around Bened's waist.  A tracer!  He activated it before the vine . . . he'd let Hu capture him!  He had let Hu capture him in hopes of leading his new allies to Hu's allies!

Fortunately, Hu was wise enough not to interrogate Bened near Kelran's cave.  They were very far from that area.  Hu quickly and astutely sprinkled the Sleep Spore over Bened until he succumbed again.  Then he "accidentally" plunged his claws into Bened's right leg.  A flesh wound.  Bened would survive.

Then Hu left Bened, making sure to take a long, roundabout way back to Kelran's cave.

[Kelran-Isthinar]

((*waits for the others to find him* and oh yes, Kelran would do alot worse than blow up a massive dish in his current state...))

[Chad32]

Cody morphed a cat so he could tell where he was going, and Emily followed by scent as a buffalo. Eventually he and the others made it to Kelran's cave, where they found him resting. He definitely looked like he had been in a fight, and he sat under one of his lights.

"You went there by yourself, didn't you? Even when you knew they would be on alert!" Cody fumed. "You could have been captured, and we wouldn't know because we were busy elsewhere. Then everything would be over, once they put a Yeerk in your head and tell all of our secrets. You did this just because I said to wait, didn't you? You don't like that I'm in charge here, but I was voted leader. You're the only one who has a problem with me."

Emily was a bit calmer. "You aren't too injured are you, Kelran? Did you get what you were looking for?"

[Cloak]

Hu approached the cave, thinking whether he even could kill his brother.  Hu wasn't as fratericidal (sp?) as his little brother, but even now he wasn't sure that he would ever be able to take his little brother's life.  They were roughly two months ((roughly equal to one Earth year)) apart in age.

As he approached the cave, he noticed a ruckus coming from it.  With his ears flat against his head in apprehension, he entered.

[traycon3]

<Well, now that we know that Kelran's ok, I suppose that it's a good time to come to a decision. I quit. I'm not a fighter, after all, I'm 'too scared' to fight, so I'm a hinderance to the team. Have a great life, guys.> Privately, she added to Yarin, <Look me up if you want.> With that and a rustle of feathers, she took off, glad that birds couldn't cry. It had taken a lot for her to say that, but she just wasn't cut out for it. Her main goal in life was to finish school and hopefully start a career as a marine biologist. Assuming there was still a world left. All she knew was that she was through with fighting. Especially after having a taste of death.
When she got to the dorm, she went into the bathroom and dry-heaved, breathing heavily into the toilet.

[Kelran-Isthinar]

((oooh! Cody ticked off the physically powerful and emotionally unstable species....      dun dun DUN))

Kelran just sat for a moment after Cody's Tirade, Hu's entry, Nicholes exit....
Totally unresponsive. Then he stood.
Stood. on his hind legs, suddenly making everyone except Hu feel very very small.

He drew his sword, slowly. It came out of its stylized leather-like scabbard with a soft rasping hiss.
Its immense size and cold harsh light were even more apparent in the tension of the moment...

quicker than the eye can see, he brought the tip over to Cody's throaght. Within milimeters.
Before Cody could quite react to that, he lofted the sword, spun it around and stopped the blade even closer to his own head, drawing a pinprick of blood that tainted his neck feathers.
"I doubt if your Yeerk enemies are fast enough to capture one of my kind alive. no one has ever done it. no one ever will."

Kelran sheathed the sword, then made as if to sit down. Again he spun unexpectedly, this time placing his face directly in Cody's,
"Cody, leader of the human resistance to the Yeerks, you have two options.
You can accept my prescence on my terms, and I won't interfere with your leadership of *your* people, and I will place great consideration on your opinions and your orders to them in battle....
But my decisions will be my own."
the pitch of Kelrans voice dropped several octaves, to a dangerously low level,
"I do not care that I am little more than a senior cadet among my people, I still have more training than all of you put together can muster, I still know more of war, of death, of pain, of spilling blood, than any of you can *fathom*. I have lived a war for the past 5 years."

His next words were shouted at a thunderous volume, "DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA?! WHAT ITS LIKE! TO KNOW YOU WILL NEVER SEE YOUR HOME AGAIN?!?! TO HAVE ALREADY LOST YOUR MOTHER TO KELBRID SCUM?!?! TO HAVE A FATHER WHO ISNT THERE?!!"
His voice dropped again, and he sounded almost as though he would cry, and somehow it was just as painful as his shouting.
"Do you know what its like to have to decieve your brother, the only person youve ever really had there for you, knowing your actions will separate you forever... from *all* that you know and love?"

Kelran continued to stare at Cody, his voice deceptively normal again. at first.
"If you continue to act towards me as you have so far, entering my prescense again for the purpose of insulting, or ordering me... will be met with lethal force. I. Will. Kill. You." he gritted each word through his clenched beak.

He and Cody stood there for what seemed like hours, Kelran's distinctive golden raptorial eyes drilling into Cody's human ones, and vice versa.

At this point, no one dared to ask what Kelran had found, and the answer seemed self evident anyhow. If Kelran's venomous tirade hadnt been indicative enough, the image left running on his modified itouch summed the distance up pretty well.

((its going to be fun introducing Kelran to a dirty war. the kind of war he is used to is very bloody but all cast in terms of black and white ethically))

[Cloak]

Hu looked at Kelran, struggling to keep his claws sheathed.  But his voice betrayed his emotions.  He only really picked up one thing in Kelran's tirade.

"Kelran, you're not the only one who's lost their family.  The only one who may never see their home, their kind again.  You may have lost your loved ones to some faceless alien species, but my family's blood came from a familiar face.  I envy your closeness with your brother -- mine wishes for nothing but my corpse!  He killed my father.  My wife.  My cubs!"

Hu took a deep breath to steady himself.  Then he turned his back to the Gryphon, and, over his shoulder, said,  "So, Kelran, know this.  You know, at least, if this is even your home reality.  I do not."
Hu paused, thought, and replied, "We may have more in common then we know."

Then Hu walked a few feet out of the cave, sighed, and looked at the unfamiliar sky.

[Yarin]

(wait im confused traycon3  are you leaving the rpg?)

[traycon3]

((No. I'm pulling a Marco/Cassie. You know, the whole, 'I quit the Animorphs. This was my last mission. Oh, wait. There's something that makes me go back to the Animorphs' thing. I'm probably gonna have her have a conversation with her parents in her hometown in my next post. I'll probably have at least one of them infested, giving her a reason to fight. Plus, she needs to calm down. She just had her first kill.))

[Chad32]

((It's time for Cody to open the gates to his soul, and reveal his background.))

Cody's POV:

"Home? Home!? At least you have one. You have a family that loves you. You actually have a purpose in life. Me, I've just been living because I don't feel like killing myself. My parents acted like I was more of a hinderance than anything else. Between my mother drugging herself with anything she could get her hands on, and my father partying every cent the family made away."

"I never had a real family, or a real home. Ever since I was born, it seems, people have been kicking me around. The only reason not so many people kick me arund nowadays is because I started kicking back! The only kind of friends I had were thugs, and I guess that makes me a thug too. I've been leading the only way I know how to lead. I didn't really expect them to choose me as leader, but they did."

"I know what it's like to have parents who aren't there, and I never want to see them again. You've lived through a war for the past five years? I've been fighting to stay alive for my entire life! At least you have the convenience of being able to tell who the enemy is, and who might help you. Whenever anyone ever tried to reach out a hand to me, I couldn't tell if it was to help me up or rip my arm off."

"I see suffering and death on a daily basis, and I've sen fights break out just because someone looked at another wrong."

Cody was breathless. He had never just opened up like that, and when he was done he felt very embarrassed. He knew that if he got into a fight with Kelran, that he'd lose. The guy was better than his croc, even without the sword. So he left. He turned and walked out, and just kept walking. He wanted to be away from people, and he didn't even know where he wanted to go. Not to Yarin's place, and not after Nichole. His speech had unearthed all the memories of his life that he didn't want to remember. Kelran's words almost made him laugh. That guy thought he had it hard?


Emily's POV:

Emily started to give Cody another look when Nichole left, in the hopes that he'd go after her, but then Kelran started whipping his sword around and going into a tirade. After Cody's speech, she felt very uncomfortable. She left and went home. She didn't really know if she should go after Cody, Nichole, or anything. The group had just been torn apart, and she didn't know what to do.

[Kelran-Isthinar]

Kelran almost laughed. Cody's life sounded hard, but he lived among his own kind. He had no clue what real war was. what it was like for sparks, shrapnel, claws, teeth, beaks, and trillions of bolts of disruptor energy to be flying all at the same time.
The noise, the explosions, the gallons of blood.... killing again and again and again... watching entire planets stripped bare in seconds...

No. these 'Animorphs' had no clue and no experience. They had practically perfect lives compared to Kelran's situation, including Cody who had the luxury of living among his own kind.

'not for much longer. if these Yeerks have their way' he thought.
Kelran suddenly felt exhausted. he was far from home. So was Hu. Cody didnt have one, and all of the race he was now stuck with wouldnt in a few months or years time.

And there was no longer any organized resistance. at all.

Kelran stepped out to see Hu. They stood staring at the sky together for a long time.
"Youre right you know" Kelran said breaking the silence. "We are very much alike. our peoples, our situations. our personalities."
He sighed, "I say my brother... hes my adopted brother, we have gone through a blood-sharing bonding ceremony, so we share blood now, but we werent born to the same families."
they lapsed into silence again. "I think were going to be spending alot more time together. Youre erm... welcome to stay.. with me." Kelran said awkwardly. "I know we both prefer a more natural environment and neither of us are too attached to these 'animorphs' and... eh.. well... its lonely. here, among this new race."

[Cloak]

Hu sighed and accepted.  Then he spoke with much sadness in his voice.

"You know, I can't stop thinking about Lilas, Felios, and Tylos.  My father."  Hu's heart felt like it was being horribly squeezed and twisted and torn.  "I know that I will never see them again, in this life, but the pain will not fade. . . . I also miss Aruten.  The familiar smells and sounds.  That wormhole, for all I know, is gone, closed.  I do not know how to reproduce it.  No modern Smilodite does.  That's a secret that died with the ancients."

Hu gazed out into the forest.  "I should have seen Bened for what he was months ago.  But I didn't . . . didn't want to believe that . . . that . . . that he could be capable of such a thing."  Hu sighed again.  "But you're right.  You're the only Gryphon on this world, and I am the only Smilodite -- with a conscience -- on this world.  It would be lonely.  Lonely enough to drive any sentient being insane."

[Chad32]

Cody walked through the darkness until the break of dawn. When the sun finally rose, he found himself in the middle of nowhere. He sat down in the grass from exaustion, and watched the sunrise.

He knew he blew it. He had pretended to be something he wasn't, and now Kelran hated him and Nichole was gone. Once again he wondered why he didn't just leave everything. Nichole left because she had dreams of her own. Cody supposed he stayed because he had nothing left to do. No higher dreams or ambitions.

Kelran was a warrior, but he was used to big battles with high numbers on both sides. This wouldn't be that kind of war. This would be a covert war, with guerilla tactics. Cody wasn't fit to lead anymore than anyone else. But then what would he do? Go it alone like some superhero or something? He didn't have Superman's powers, or Batman's money and connections.

He needed to figure out how to hit the Yeerks where it hurt the most. They needed Kondrona radiation, so there had to be a generator somewhere. They had to get it into the pool, possibly through pipes. If he went to the pool itsself, and found some pipes, he could follow them to the generator.

A roach would be the answer. Something small, that could survive radiation. He morphed to bird, and flew to an abandoned building to search out roaches. After getting the bug, he went to Yarin's place.

"Hey Yarin. I've got a mission for us."

[Kelran-Isthinar]

((Now we have to figure out how to strike up a slowly growing friendship between Cody and Kelran    ))

Kelran sighed and thought. Thought about Cody, Nichole, Yarin, Hu and his brother, Emily....
thought about what would be possible if Cody didnt have such a huge chip in his wing (chip on his shoulder) if they could get past their differences...
it was apparent thy both had natural leadership skills, the important and ever elusive issue would be finding a balance between their skills and personalities that didnt involve killing eachother. Kelran started to think out loud,
"Well, I am of the opinion, that anything is possible. We might never see home again... but that doesnt mean we have to give up. Even if we never get there... isn't the attempt and the journey something worth living for?"

[Cloak]

Hu thought about that for a minute.  "Well, I don't exactly have anything else to look forward to.  I know now that I probably will never be able to kill Bened.  I've already broken Lagon's Law.  I used my claws to harm another Smilodite."