Mark
Experienced
Former Animorph of Arbella
I don't care how much it costs, even my life... They will burn for what they've done.
Posts: 48
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Post by Mark on Jun 19, 2009 7:04:43 GMT -5
The yellow insect stopped moving as Mark retook control. Again. He didn't tighten his grip on the body as thoroughly this time and avoided falling off the glass since his human mind would be unsuited to controlling six limbs and their claws. He turned the word over in his mind. <Animorph... I've heard that term before, the ones who ended the invasion. So that means that I really am free? Ah! What's it doing?!>
Left with no instructions besides sitting still, the body turned to a necessity. The front limbs let go as one of the antennae swiveled into reach and started cleaning it. Cleaning habits kept the wasp alive and the sensitive organs in working condition, helping them live longer. It was little wonder that this compulsive behavior was so deeply encoded that any time that the wasp was necessarily still it would take care of itself. It was also kind of cute in an odd way.
Recognizing the action for what it was a split second after it started saved Mark from full out panic again, but just barely. <It feels almost as if I'm not entirely in control here. The body fights back if I try to do something against its nature.> With one finished, he moved onto the next antennae. <Elser is, was, my controller. The yeerk that kept me in a prisoner within myself for... Too long, lets put it that way. This whole scenario has the flavour of some of the things he used to do to keep me from fighting him for control.> The hard claws began to track their way across the insects face now, wiping invisible specs of dust from the hardened carapace.
<He didn't like human history because of what it showed us to be capable of, and Memento Mori was one of the few phrases that set him off. I don't think any of them ever liked to think about the inevitability of death, and the fact that our race accepted it as inevitable and even welcomed so far back in history was something of a shock to him. I guess he realized that given the chance most of us hosts would sooner kill ourselves then continue as we were. Gah! What else is there for this body to clean?> Finished with the head, the front legs gripped the glass and the two sets of hind legs began cleaning each other and the wings in turns to keep the wasp on the glass.
<Um... Minor question?> He somehow managed to make the body look vaguely sheepish. <How do I demorph?>
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Leopold
Experienced
Animorph of Arbella
Friends, flying, and freedom...it's worth a few changes.
Posts: 50
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Post by Leopold on Jun 19, 2009 12:32:46 GMT -5
As the wasp spoke again, Leopold realised he was feeling pretty helpless, being unable to communicate properly with this fellow. He got back up, and walked to the bathtub, climbed in, and started morphing hawk himself, his concentration on morphing, but still able to hear what was going on. As he explained Elser, and what it was, Leopold began to feel sick, and it wasn't the fact that his body was rushing towards the floor without hitting - it was the thought that, whoever this was, he had been trapped in his own mind, unable to enjoy freedom. Not just that, but it seemed this Yeerk would torture his host, which made things even more disgusting.
Freedom was an important thing to Leopold. It was his whole reason for loving flying. He hated the Yeerks for what they did to their hosts...even though he knew so little about them. He continued to listen to Mark, growing angrier by the second. But he could understand the analogy, and that made him realise: not all morphs would be as easy as the hawk was, to control. Leopold now had a great urge to become friends with Mark, to help him out here, and beyond.
His clothes did not billow around him. His recruiter had given him Morphing 101; he had a morphing outfit of a white skintight t-shirt and black bike shorts; it complemented his looks. Once he gained the hawk vision, he could see in the dim light that Mark was cleaning his legs. Not a very pretty sight; Leopold wondered how he could stand to be in the morph of a bug. He hoped they could help him out of it. At least he seemed much more in control. Then came a question that Leopold knew the answer to. <Um... Minor question? How do I demorph?>
The hawk was hungry. He had a sudden urge to eat the ferret - Keith - but unlike the wasp, the hawk's instincts were easy to control. He hoped perhaps, when he had some free time, he could show these guys the raptor centre, maybe show them flying, because spreading your wings and soaring on the thermals was what totally made all of this worth it. He suppressed the urges, replying quickly: <I can't believe SPECTER didn't tell you that; they told me. Complete focus. Imagine your human self. You must maintain complete focus, though. This is Leopold, by the way; I'm in hawk morph. I should be able to see if it's working.>
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Mark
Experienced
Former Animorph of Arbella
I don't care how much it costs, even my life... They will burn for what they've done.
Posts: 48
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Post by Mark on Jun 19, 2009 13:02:02 GMT -5
<Just focus on my self?> Wings fanned the air gently as he let his vision slip towards the hawk in the bathtub. He could see well enough in the pre-dawn light. Better than he would have suspected in fact. From his perch on the window he could see everything for a full hemisphere centered on his head as well as a bit behind him. Everything was coloured weirdly, an effect of the insect's colour sense including things beyond what humans arrogantly called the 'visual spectrum'. For some reason certain areas in the bathroom positively glowed with light. Namely around the edge of the tub and a series of straight lines that framed the corners of the door. <Huh. Remind me when we get out of this that there are major mold colonies in here.>
Having calmed down and found a modicum of control he thought about his human self and his body. Focusing, he felt his body begin to change. He began to rapidly grow as his legs all formed together to form human arms and his abdomen split to become something resembling legs. Unfortunately he was still on the window and the increased weight and decreased ability to grip anything led to him falling. He bounced off the window sill and landed on the floor, forcing the breath out of half formed lungs. The changes continued, antenna retracting, eyes growing and changing to form the shape of a forehead and the face beneath... It was good not to think about such things.
In the end, Mark was left lying there holding his side and laughing at himself. He looked at the hawk in the bathtub and bowed. "My name's Mark by the way. I think we met when we all moved in?" He reached for his robe on the door and put it on, a bit self conciously. "I didn't really listen to what SPECTER told me about morphing. There was this handbook there about technique and I just figured 'The originals didn't even have anyone to show them anything.' and tossed it." Then he looked to the ferret, studying the almost perpetually mischevous face that the kind shared. "And thanks, both of you, for helping. I don't like the notion of spending my life buzzing around a garbage can." I wonder if they'd consider helping me learn to distinguish speech in insect form? I knew that the vibrations I felt was someone talking, they just didn't register right for my mind to interpret them.
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Post by embergryphon on Jun 20, 2009 0:01:35 GMT -5
Keith kind of wished Leopold had warned him that he planned on morphing before getting into the bathroom and doing so- and also, told him exactly what his morph was. Not that it would have done that much good, anyway, and not that Keith would have thought to do it, either. The ferret mind that Keith was currently sharing a skull with did not like the sudden appearence of a hawk, and just as he was about to instruct Mark how to morph out, the little rodent brain started hammering out orders and he found himself, kind of embarrassingly, on his way to a corner before he'd grabbed control of his own stubby little legs again.
Luckily, Hawkman seemed to have a better hold on himself than Keith, and instructed the wasp on just how to regain his human shape. Keith didn't want to say anything about how it might have been too late, and break the guy's focus, and so he stayed silent and very tense as the little insect body started to grow.
As for Elser... Keith didn't really know much about the Yeerks. Okay, he knew about as much as the normal person- the government hated them worse than Cubans because they were evil freedom-stealers, but he hadn't had any personal connection with them, not really. Mark's story... it kind of hit close to home, closer than Keith had thought it would have been able to. That guy had lived through it. What they were trying to prevent- he'd lived through it.
That was kind of deep. He didn't know how Mark would respond to sympathy, though, and so he was just as glad to be a ferret, and be able to keep his emotions off his face.
<Hey, man, I understand,> he said, to Mark's expression of gratitude if not his personal war-story. <When I first morphed, I spent a good ten minutes trying to dig little tunnels in my bedroom floor. It's kind of a shock to the system, you know?> Then he, too, started to demorph- there wasn't much point left in being a ferret, at the moment, and the hawk was definitely still making the mustelid nervous. As his animal features melted into a more human aspect, he said, "And I'm Keith, if you forgot. It's cool if you did, I'm terrible with names." He grinned his normal, lop-sided grin.
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Leopold
Experienced
Animorph of Arbella
Friends, flying, and freedom...it's worth a few changes.
Posts: 50
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Post by Leopold on Jun 21, 2009 1:22:53 GMT -5
Suffice to say, this wasn't very pretty. Were he not a bird, Leopold would have been wincing. He knew that at some point, he'd be morphing a bug; he didn't look forward to it, but if it was needed, he would. He turned his hawk head away when the morph was nearly complete, wanting to give Mark the decency. When he learned Mark had thrown away the handbook, he wished he had a hand to facepalm with; that was such a stupid move. "My name's Mark by the way. I think we met when we all moved in?"
<Leopold. And yeah, sorta,> he replied. Leopold had eventually retreated to "shy mode" at the time. "And thanks, both of you, for helping. I don't like the notion of spending my life buzzing around a garbage can."
<No problemo,> he said, turning back to face Mark and Keith again. The hawk didn't like the bathtub. And she thought that ferret looked like a tasty morsel, though it was rather large for the creature. And then it hit him. Really, if no-one had gone into the bathroom...and two hours had passed, Mark would have forever been an insect. It freaked Leopold out a bit, and he would have been shaking were he human right now.
He demorphed now, reassuming his human shape and soon lying there in the tub, though not for long; he crawled out of it. "Bad with names, eh? Me too. Just call me Leo for short, by the way. Man, that was a close call." He gave another shudder. This was so real, and so dangerous.
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Mark
Experienced
Former Animorph of Arbella
I don't care how much it costs, even my life... They will burn for what they've done.
Posts: 48
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Post by Mark on Jun 21, 2009 11:49:57 GMT -5
He smiled. "K, L, M. We need to work on getting the rest of the alphabet together." He peered out the window for a second before continuing. "Now that was real, and that was fun, but it wasn't real fun. And much as I'd like to stay and chat I feel an overwhelming urge to eat maple syrup right now." Stupid insect instincts were hard to forget. Besides he really did like pancakes.
"Maybe we can talk again later. When we're not all half naked in a bathroom." He nodded again and wandered downstairs to start on the afore mentioned pancakes. Just goes to show, you find friends in the strangest places.
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