A Leeran, a Chee and an Andalite Walk in to a Bar
Not much time was spent in the last chapter on the cabal, so now you should meet them and learn why they serve the political consultant Merlin. The most recognizable was state senator Silver, a golden-haired man. But now, he was turning in to an Andalite. His arms became weaker as his stalk eyes extended; another pair of legs came out of his chest. As soon as he became comfortable on his hooves he brought his tail forward to test the blade on his blue finger. It was sharper that he had imagined.
The next most powerful was chairman Easten, who was becoming a Leeran. As his skin was turning yellow and his arms were turning into tentacles. He kept listening for the thoughts he was anticipating. Then he nearly leaped out of his new skin when the voices came. His new job was to hear the directions given by Merlin while he was in his new form.
The last was a lawyer in the employment of Easten that went by the name of Deli. His skin became metal and ivory as he morphed Chee.
Silver was the first to get over the shock enough to speak. <What are Merlin's next instructions?> he asked Easten.
Easten closed his eyes to filter through the thoughts his mind was being bombarded with. Silver and I are to acquire our human forms from the blood vials that we took earlier, while Deli caries him. After that we infest Yvonne with him.
-----
Rad left a farewell post in her thread explaining what she thought had happened to her and that she thought that she was going crazy. She planned to stay off RAF for her mental health. PM “whispers” floated around the cyber space that the forum occupied. No one believed her, but they all entertained the thought. J-Angel, or just J for short, started a thread called “If I became my RAFpersona...” where members contemplated what would happen to them if they turned into their persona.
A week passed with no changes to any more members. Enough time had passed though so that the virus learned its way around the parameters that Merlin had placed on it to keep it from effecting the other RAFians. It wanted to spread and it chose its next victim.
-----
Beth pushed her homework aside for the moment. RAF was calling her name. J's thread was on top of her unread post list when she logged on.
J-man> It happened to me. I'm a grammar angel.
donut> i'm all wrong. why am I a bird/
Myitt> Ok, I don't want to you to think I'm crazy but I'll need a Yeerk pool in three days. How can you type?
donut> with my beak. notice that I haven't been using shift.
Beth's eyes widened. This made no sense. How could this happen? She went to type a reply when her fingers began to melt in to flippers. “There is no way I'm going crazy too!” She went to stand up only to fall on her belly because her legs had turned into a tail. “Tim!” she called. Because her brother wasn’t a RAFian, he would be unchanged.
But she wasn't even at home any more. Wherever she was, she was not alone.
“Point!” A female voice said. She was dressed in white and had a mesh mask on, like her opponent. Said opponent remand frozen in mid block. “Tara?” she said looking at a woman with a narrow face.
The woman addressed answered, “She's here too. It was like my continence was being split in two and became different persons.”
The fencer took off her mask; her face was in shock. “I'm in a room with everything frozen and RAFians come out of nowhere. What's next, the Ellimist?”
A man appeared in the room. “You would be correct, Rad. Even if I'm adjusting to my powers.”
“You're Rad,” Seal said for the first time since she had arrived. “So you were telling the truth.”
A green dragon poofed close to Rad. She picked him up before continuing. “Yes, so I don't think it was overkill for me to poof, right?”
We all, even a boy Seal didn't recognize, shifted our feet. “It was pretty crazy, Rad,” the new boy said.
The Ellimist, whose screen name Grimluk, raised his hands. “We do need to stop this. For each person that has changed here I'm giving them a person that you must keep from logging on, except Rad. She's a mother now.”
“Wait,” Ma'at said, looking at the dragon in her host's arms. “I can't take Gymn to Rad's house. She has parents that will ask questions.”
Seal cringed at the sound of Ma'at's voice. It was lower than Rad's already too low voice and distorted, while hinting at Rad's voice.
“Who am I keeping offline?” the boy asked.
“J,” Grimluk said. “I'm sending you to Texas to watch your RAFbother, Bear.”
J was wide eyed. “I don't know what he looks like. How will I find him?”
“You'll know,” Grimluk answered. “All transformed RAFians will know other RAFians even if they aren't transformed.”
Seal looked back at J to see that he was gone.
“Myitt, you can keep Terenia offline”
“But she's staff...”
“I know what I'm talking about.”
“He is the Ellimist,” Gymn said.
Rad jumped a bit. “I thought that you'd be mute with only telepathy to communicate.”
Gymn tilted his head to one side and looked at Rad. Seal could imagine that they were talking to each other telepathically.
Donut pointed to where Myitt had been standing. “She's gone too.”
“I'm starting to think that is how it works,” Seal said. “We get sent to wherever the other RAFians are whether we want to go or not.”
“I have to do it before the rules of the Ellimist kick in,” Grimluk said.
“What?!”
The truth was coming to Seal. Adam, the real name behind the screen name, wasn't fully Ellimist yet. The changes happen over a period of time. She began to make a bubble of healing water, only to find herself drained of energy.
“Donut, you will keep Este preoccupied,” Grimluk said, massaging his temples. As Donut went Seal saw that he was looking strained.
“Send me there,” Seal said. “Don't explain. I can see the rules are kicking in.”
Grimuluk nodded and, with effort, pushed Seal to her new location.
She looked around her and saw him with his phone out. Blue had typed the URL for RAF already. “Stop!”
-----
Yvonne started crying. Merlin had slithered out of her ear again for Kandrona from Deli's Kandrona ray generator. “You can't get away with this.”
“Well, we are,” Silver said as kept his tail blade pointed at Yvonne. “You gave the best speech I ever heard at the nominations dinner. Announcing that you could no longer run for any public office takes guts. Did Christina have an idea of what was happening?”
Easten put a grin on his frog-like face. He had been demorphed during the speech a few nights ago. Both of her minds didn’t even have any inkling of what we were doing.
“She's keeping her cover too well,” Deli observed. We might need to post a quote from her what she wrote in her personal thread when it happens to her on the Begging Questions blog.”
Merlin agrees, Easton said, approaching the computer and touching the keys with his tentacles. I'll look at the post to get the URL and get inspired.
“No one believes your blog,” Yvonne shouted. “Especially if you post something like this. We'll shrug it off as always.”
At the name of the “Shrug it Off,” the opposing blog in the Brooklyn Blog War, Deli winced. Yvonne knew that Merlin hated the mention of the blog and was likely yelling in the Chee's head.
The whole forum will believe because it’s happening to the rest of them, Easton said slowly.
Deli's hologram changed to Merlin's form filled with anger on his face. “How did that happen?”
