Picking Up the Pieces

[Leroy]

Agent Sheen waited patiently as the animorphs arrived that they had managed to scrape together from the other cities. He wasn’t exactly pleased with who was chosen, but then again, it wasn’t his choice to make. Nope, his job was to follow orders and right now his orders were to brief these people about the current situation.

As they got comfortable around the kitchen table of their new apartment, Agent Sheen reminded himself of who was who. He had looked over their files beforehand.

The easiest to recognize was Hope. She was going to be assigned to Arbella before the recent events took place, but luckily for her she wasn’t here. If she had been, she would have likely ended up just as dead as the other animorphs who were here.

Next he managed to place the faces of the two who had arrived from Mariposa. They had been chosen because of their… lack of contribution. They were the weak links. Hopefully they would be stronger here, but if not, then at least it wasn’t quite as crucial for there to be weak links for what the Arbella group was doing. The Mariposa group on the other hand… they would need some good teamwork in the near future.

The group from Hemington was chosen with a much less straightforward goal in mind. Some were chosen for the morphs they were known to possess, some for their apparent attitude, some for their knowledge, and some for their group cohesion. All in all, they were the more well-rounded group. That is, if you ignored the fact they were all male.

It was finally time to begin. “I suppose we should start with introductions. You may call me Agent Sheen.” He straightened out the arms of his glossy blue suit as he spoke. “And this is Hope Watson. She is new, so the rest of you are expected to show her the ropes. These two here are Roxanne Cranston and Johnathen Wayne. They came from a group set up in Mariposa, Texas. And lastly we have Keith Michaels, Mark Lonile, and Leoplold Asden, from Hemmington, Maine. You must all work together in order to bring down a new threat that has presented itself here, in Arbella, California.”

Agent Sheen began pacing back and forth. He wasn’t nervous, but he wasn’t used to being so direct with information either. But he pressed onward. “Here in Arbella, there was a group of animorphs before you. They are dead. Not more than two days ago one of their members, Sarah, had a sudden change of heart and was responsible for the deaths of her entire group. We were unable to react fast enough to this sudden turn of events, and she escaped.”

Agent Sheen let all of this information sink in. He felt no need to tell them that Sarah hadn’t literally killed her whole group. That Agent Vamoose had done at least some of the killing (it was still unclear how much was her doing). He felt no need to tell them that they had only discovered Sarah’s betrayal at all because the apartment had been bugged. No, they didn’t need to know all that. All they needed to know was that Sarah was ultimately responsible for what was happening now.

“Your task is now to find this rogue animorph and bring justice to her. We would prefer if she could be taken alive for questioning, but as that seems unlikely… Lets just say she can’t be allowed to do her own thing.” Agent Sheen passed out a picture of Sarah, then said what he had been dreading most. “Any questions?”

[Johnny]

From his place on the counter, Johnny looked at everyone who arrived. He wished he could have stayed in Mariposa. There were more girls there and he was only starting to get to know Naomi. Oh well. I've got her cell number and e-mail. Same with Leroy, Allie, and Nadia. Here there was only the Hope girl and Rox. He was betting on getting to know Hope. If only SPECTER had read their files or something, then they might kow that he and Rox kinda clashed.

As he started looking around again, the guy in the suit began to blab on about something. He heard his name mentioned so he gave a huge smile and wave began settling back to a slight smile and mostly blank face. At least, until the guy asked for questions. Piping up, Johnny said, "Yes, I have two questions. First of all...where's the bathroom? I couldn't go on the plane 'cause the line was long and people in black picked us up before I could use one at the airport. As for my second question, do you have Sarah's phone numnber? I mean, she is hot!" He was planning on trying to copy that photo later.

[Mark]

((Heh, 'the spice is life! shot))

Mark hadn't been looking forward to the transfer in the slightest, but here he was now. He felt kind of like a ping pong ball, he'd been bounced from Virginia to somewhere in Ohio, to Maine, and now to California. The same way it had tended towards too bloody cold in Maine, his newest morph would have died, it was overall too hot in Arbella. And it was getting more humid! Even if this was the site of the new space program, the home state of the originals, and overall one of the most beautiful stretches of coastline in the nation he knew he'd be sweating whenever he went outside for the next few months. At least they'd let him keep the projector he'd been building back in Hemington. No need to tell them it was a, mostly unsuccessful, attempt to recreate Shredder technology.

Listening to this agent's debriefing honestly shocked him, however. Talk about out of the frying pan and into the fire! The lot of them had been transferred from relatively easy posts in a tourist town and a fishing hole, respectively, to a state known for its crime where they were expected to hunt down a known murderor and turncoat who knew how to change into things. One hell of a job. ((Yeah, I'll stop with the heat puns.))

He looked around to see how the others felt about the situation and paused at John's question. He chuckled as he considered the fact that his compatriot evidently wanted to date their target. If you get worked up over every little thing it makes it impossible to live life the way it should be. Focus on the positive. It was beautiful here, they were close to a number of newly famous places, and it was possible to buy just about anything.

"Are we still expected to take on the roles we filled in our own cities, namely hunting criminals as possible, or are we going to focus on this girl?" He frowned for a second before he asked another. "Um... We aren't going to be living in a place she knows how to get into right? I have no desire to be killed in my sleep. Or at all really."

[embergryphon]

This, really, was more like it. When SPECTER had first approached Keith in Maryland, and told him he was going to be shipping out to some new place, he'd been hoping for somewhere with lots of sun and beach and nightlife- not, really, a little fishing-town in Maine. He'd resigned himself to Hemington, and really, it hadn't seemed so bad once he'd gotten used to it...

But then he was told he was being shipped off to California after all- leaving damp, chilly Maine and the East Coast behind. This was it- the original home of the Animorphs and possibly the most beautiful stretch of land in the country.

And so Keith was wearing a contented smile as he reclined back into his chair, listening to Agent Sheen introducing all the new Arbella Animorphs. Keith was terrible with names, but, luckily, there were only three to remember this time- he knew Leopold and Mark pretty well, already; he considered them friends. As for these others...

Johnny's second question caught him off-guard, and he struggled to stifle laughter. "Dude," he said, definitely amused; sure, the girl was attractive, but she had also turned around and, for seemingly no reason- at least, no reason Agent Sheen had given- killed all of her comrades. "Rule one of the opposite gender," the red-head said, smirking, "you don't mess with crazy. Never, ever turns out well."

Mark's questions made a little more sense, and Keith was somewhat interested in hearing the answers to them, as well. He couldn't think of any questions of his own, though- his mind had already moved forward to getting out of this stuffy room and into the sun. At least this mission would give him an excuse to try out his leopard morph- he hadn't used it, yet, and it seemed like it would be fun.

[Leroy]

Agent Sheen put a hand to his forehead and sighed after hearing Johnathen Wayne's questions. While the first one at least served a functional purpose, the second one was completely unwarranted. "Please, Mr. Wayne, try to take this seriously. For it is truly a serious matter." He declined to answer his questions, even the bathroom one, since Mr. Lonile asked some more pertinent questions just then.

"Are we still expected to take on the roles we filled in our own cities, namely hunting criminals as possible, or are we going to focus on this girl?" He frowned for a second before he asked another. "Um... We aren't going to be living in a place she knows how to get into right? I have no desire to be killed in my sleep. Or at all really."

"Ah, I'm glad you asked. As before, you are asked to help provide services to the community when possible. While retaining your secrecy, mind you. However, locating Sarah is your primary objective. All other tasks come second. As for your living quarters, there is no need to worry there. This apartment is where you will be staying, and it is in an entirely different part of the city as the last animorphs' base. In fact, this place is actually much nicer than the last place. This high-rise apartment was the cheapest place we could find on short notice that would be able to accommodate all your needs. As well as the needs of new members who will likely arrive in the near future."

Agent Sheen stopped himself there. He realized he was talking about matters that were not very relevant. He refocused his attention, then looked at their faces once again, waiting for any more questions.

[Rox]

Rox sat in her chair with her arms crossed, taking in the news. She wasn't liking it. Not one bit. SPECER was incompetent enough to hire some crazy killer, and then their solution is to send in even more people to take her out? How were they supposed to do that anyway?

"Hey Mr. Sheeny, how are we supposed to get rid of an animorph that is known for getting rid of animorphs? I don't know about most of these other guys, but unless this Sarah person is out taking a swim, I got nothing that can stand up to an armed woman. Hate to break it to you, but I'm no weapon's expert, and I don't have any killer morphs that are usable in a city. You gonna help us out in that department or what?"

[Mark]

He smiled at Roxanne's question. "At least you have a morph that can fight. What am I supposed to do spit at her?" Hopefully when they got rid of his old records SPECTER hadn't decided to keep a copy of his work files. Talk of things like 'weapons experts' or mentioning tech problems he could fix always made him wonder how much these agents, and the animorphs themselves, knew.

"Do we have any knowledge of her capabilities? Namely what morphs and training does she have. I mean if she wants to find us and morphs, say, a pigeon I don't think we're going to find her first." He glanced over at Keith and shrugged. It was hard enough to find a parking space let alone a person. Wait... He reached into his bag and pulled out the little notebook he'd taken to keeping his designs and plans in. Paying close attention to what everyone else was saying, he turned to a blank page and quickly jotted down a quick note:

Respectfully request delivery of palmprint lock to be placed on balcony door as well as installation of emergency beacon and small arms locker in case of attack.

He tore it out of the book, folded it in half and handed it to the suited agent. Some things always looked better in writing.

[embergryphon]

"I don't know how much knowing her morphs will help us find her," Keith pointed out, lazily, still leaning back in his chair and sort of watching the ceiling. When he'd first seen Mark writing something he hadn't been able to see on a piece of paper and slip it towards the agent, he'd immediately been curious about it- what was so important Mark couldn't say it out loud? But then, what he and the dark-haired girl, whose name he already had forgotten, were saying hit him. They were dealing with another Animorph, after all- and that implied a number of kind of disturbing things. "I mean, sure, maybe if she has something big and scary and dangerous, we'll want to know about it, and she probably can't break into zoo exhibits every other day, so the likelihood of her getting a new scary morph is slim. But there are pigeons galore around here- she could always catch'n acquire one. Or, I don't know, a housefly. You morphed a wasp once, so she could do a fly. Hey, she could be in the room now." Just because Keith only had two morphs didn't mean this Sarah person would be so conservative, right?

He grinned and glanced over at Mark. "I think we're gonna have to find her before she finds us. But hey, there's six of us and only one of her, right? It can't be that hard to hunt down one measley super-villain."

[Leopold]

Leopold was glad he'd been able to set the hawk free. She wouldn't have been able to come with him to Arbella, he was sure. And thus, he was quite happy with the move, though he'd miss the others. He'd gotten rather attached to Mark and Keith, and liked being friends with the two; they worked well together, so he was so happy that they were here with him. He took a look at the others, noticing how attractive the girls were, but not really thinking much about that; he was they type of guy to be more focused on missions. After all, SPECTER had given him the chance of a lifetime.

When the agent spoke up, Leopold immediately listened; he didn't like making mistakes. Luckily, he knew two of them already; he would just have to get along with the other three. He hoped he would; Leopold wasn't that great with people, but was a nice, and loyal, kid. As he listened further, he grew a little worried. This was...very serious. And it was, officially, to be his first mission. Why me? he wondered. I haven't had a chance to fight. I have no experience. And this girl is apparently armed and dangerous, whoever she is. Whether "armed" meant with morphs or weapons, or both, he didn't know.

His first reaction to the image of Sarah was...well, she looked rather evil. Though he was taught not to judge a book by its cover...well, he just got that vibe, and couldn't shake it off. Then, Johnny asked two irrelevant questions, and though Leopold had to admit, she was indeed a hottie, he honestly didn't care. A question formed in his mind, but he didn't dare say it aloud: What are you going to do? F*** her and kill her in her sleep? He opted to remain silent as the others asked questions.

Finally, after Rox's and Mark's stream of questions, Leopold spoke. "Yes. Any information you have on her, Agent Sheen, would be very useful to us. After all, it'll take more than combat to bring her down." All his knowledge, really, he had from TV shows. He was extremely grateful for his team-mate, Mark's, intelligence and ingenuity, and his friend Keith's ability with interaction; those were things he'd noticed with them, in his days here. "I'm sure we can find some useful morphs around town. And maybe we should look into using aliases? In that regards, SPECTER's help with that would be useful. You're an agency, after all; aren't you capable of...um, providing us 'secret agent' stuff?"

He frowned, sure that the agent really wouldn't help them that much; things were cryptic as they were. His final words were, "And Johnny, it's a house; I'm sure you could find the bathroom easily if you tried, and if you've really gotta go." Ridiculous as Johnny was, Leopold liked to see people getting along...he just hoped he hadn't infuriated others with his words.

[Leroy]

The corner of Agent Sheen's mouth curled up in a slight smile as he listened to what these animorphs had to say. It was almost as if they though Sarah was out to get them. "I want everyone to take a moment to relax. I don't want the lot of you to start getting paranoid about this rogue animorph. She is most definitely dangerous, but we have no reason to believe that she even knows of your existence. At this moment you still have a large advantage. You know what she looks like, but she doesn't know what you look like. And as long as you keep the presence of a new animorphs group under a veil of utmost secrecy, she should remain unaware of your presence. Even if she were to guess that we would bring in new animorphs to replace the ones she terminated, she has no way of knowing who or where you are."

After saying all that, he picked up Mark's piece of paper and read it. He had to hold back an impulsive burst of laughter. He liked where the guy's head was, but he doubted a palmprint lock would be able to stop a determined animorph. Not to mention that its presence could possibly tip Sarah off as to their location. The beacon and arms locker on the other hand... He may have to inquire about that one. He stuffed the paper into the inside pocket of his suit.

"The only morph we know for a fact that Sarah has is a mouse morph. However, it is extremely likely that she also has a morph that is extremely dangerous, but we don't know what it is. The only agent who has seen it, we assume, is no longer among the living. However, it is entirely possible that she has many many morphs to choose from by this point, so do not underestimate her. And as for helping you out with weapons and morphs and whatnot," he said, looking at Rox, "you will have to find those 'killer morphs' on your own. And we have never stopped any of you from locating firearms or other weapons by your own means."

Agent Sheen straightened out his suit one more time. He was getting anxious to leave. They were starting to ask for things. And the longer he stayed, the more likely it was that they would ask the questions that he couldn't give the answers to. "So unless there is anything else, I think it is almost time for me to leave." He looked at his watch even though he already knew what time it was.

[Mark]

"...All this time and there's been no restriction on getting weapons?" Besides the obvious problems of having new identities, the difficulty of gaining things legally, and the possibility of getting arrested returning to the apartment with said weapon. I wonder if I could get some assault rifles and attach them to the camel's hump when I morph. Maybe a grenade launche... Nevermind that wouldn't work at all. He sighed. "Let's not keep you, we still need to figure out rooming and everything else of that nature."

He looked at Leopold after the 'secret agent stuff' remark and smiled. "What need have we for disguises and aliases? We're all 'dead' and we have the ability to change our shape at will. I mean I wouldn't mind having an ID that says 'if you arrest me the government will make you let me go' but that's it." He was already making plans to leave and get some of the material he needed for his current project. Bigger cities and almost explicit permission to obtain weapons ment he'd be able to get back to work. First things first. Tomorrow I buy a proper glass shaping kit. After I find a new job.

[Johnny]

Johnny decided to act very mature about being ignored. With Shiny looked at someone else for a moment, Johnny stuck his tongue out, flared his nose, and pulled his cheeks to the side. He put on a blank expression with the guy looked back. So he repeated the process for the next couple of minutes while people talked until he began laughing at what one of the guys said.

A fly on the wall? That doesn't sound like a stalker at all. And besides, what could a little fly do? My gecko would eat it anyways, uhg. Johnny really wasn't that worried about Sarah anyways. From what the suit guy said, she didn't even know that they existed, much less know where to find them at. But he did want her phone number. Maybe he liked living dangerously?

Then another guy, Leopard, he thought, talked and later addressed him about going tot he bathroom. "Huh, good idea. Maybe that could work." He spoke friendly enough but Johnny didn't move right away. He wasn't done with Tall, Dark, and Shiny yet. He raised his hand like a middle school student and just blurted out, "Okay, I'm going to assume you don't have her phone number. What about her e-mail? I'm flexible." Then Johnny slipped away before he could get shot or something and went to wash his hands in the bathroom.

[embergryphon]

Keith was kind of amused by SPECTER's methods. A morph-capable, possibly trained traitor was roaming the streets of Arbella, and the solution was to send in six Animorphs, one of them brand new and at least three without combat experience, in after her, without making any effort to arm or equip them, or help them find any possibly vital information.

With luck, the unlikely odds would make it all the more fun.

"I'm going to poke around this place," Keith announced, getting up from the table just after Johnny inquired after the traitor's e-mail address- the remark brought a surprised smirk to the red-head's face; so, these were the guys he'd be living with, then?- and darted off. "See where everything's laid out. Oh, one more thing before you leave- I kind of was wondering..."

He almost didn't want to ask, because some part of his subconcious believed he would be happier not knowing. But the fact that all SPECTER knew about Sarah was that she had a mouse morph- that had to mean she wasn't combat experienced, didn't it? Keith wasn't ready to even half-heartedly believe that part of the government wasn't watching their movements, and so if she'd fought with SPECTER before, they would have recorded, somewhere, what morph she used, right? He didn't think most people charged into battle in mouse morphs.

So how had she managed to overpower her peers- who had to have had as much or more experience than her?

"How on earth did that one girl manage to kill an entire group of Animorphs on her own? Where do you find an animal hardcore enough that not even one animal-morphing superhero could even just escape?"

[Hope]

Hope had stayed silent for quite some time in this discussion. She was not only new to the city, but she was the new girl to the group in a lot of ways. She was the newest recruit Animorph, everyone else had had their powers for some time now it seemed. Great. Agent Cassidy roped me into the perfect situation. Start out in a new city where the only other girl seems to be a bit of a witch, at least one of the guys is thinking with a certain part of anatomy, and I'm the least experienced person. Great, just great.

She glanced around the group again, taking in mind everything about this group in Arbella, California. The previous group here had been betrayed and killed by one of their own. What a lovely thing to learn when none of the new team knew or trusted the others..... or at least Hope didn't. She had to remember that the rest had been in Hemmington and Mariposa previously so at least they knew one person. She, however, was on her own.

"I have one more question. Agent Cassidy told me when I was recruited that Arbella was the city I was going to be sent to. How.... how close was I to being in that group that was killed by Sarah?" It was the first words out of Hope's mouth since the whole group had arrived. A part of her had to know how close she'd come, if only because she was here now with this new team instead of dead. Lucky, lucky me. I'm not sure which is worse right now.

[Mark]

Mind abuzz with ideas and possibilities, his pen flew across the notepad furiously writing out notions as they came to him. First places to check: Military surplus store and pawn shops for possible armament~ Probably can swing some low grade body armour online~ Need an acetylene or arc welder and mask~ Nickel Cadmium battery pack, at least 6 cells needed~ Can we morph with identification or money~ Poison possible cause of death~ Poison arrow frogs/Gila monster~ Need to aquire an otter or badger~ Home made obstacle course for possible prep~ May need vehicle, check price on new/used in area~ Check job listings for recently opened positions, ask about S.~ Find local firing range for practice and familiarization~ A voice he hadn't heard cut through his focus.

"how close was I to being in that group that was killed by Sarah?"

Looking up he found the speaker to be the girl that the agent had said was recently hired. I actually forgot that she was there... He shuddered to think of what might have happened. It was far better to know there was an enemy out there then to just have someone start killing everyone.