A world on fire (open)

[Mark]

*beep* *beep*
The annoying sound was familiar, a heartbeat monitor. As his thoughts cleared he managed to open his eyes to stare at the blank white ceiling above. "Where am I?" He asked as he sat up slowly and rubbed his eyes with both hands. "Am I in a hospital?"

"Ah, good you're awake." A female voice said. He turned his head to look at someone wearing scrubs. "I don't know why, but the old government sure took a lot of care to keep you alive." She smiled and glanced over her clipboard. "Since you appeared to be the eldest of them we decided to wake you first."

He looked around the small room and asked without thinking. "What others? I don't see anyone."

She smiled again as she motioned to the door. "They're in the other rooms, silly. You think we'd stuff that many people in one room?" She picked up the clipboard and nodded. "Now, can you answer a few questions for me?" He nodded. "Alright, name?"

"Mark Aaron Lonile."

She wrote this down. Another nod. "Alright, age?"

"Thirty-three last time I checked."

She looked at him quizzically "You look older, no offence."

"None taken, war does that."

"Ah! On to the next point." She took a deep breath. "What is your date of birth."

"August fifteenth." She made a 'keep going' motion. "Um... -seventy-seven."

"Nineteen seventy-seven?"

"Yeah of course, why?" He was getting a bad feeling about this.

She sighed and shook her head. "One last question. What was your profession in the... What do you remember your profession being?"

"I was a..." Now that he thought about it he hadn't really kept a steady job since moving to Arbella. He frowned. "Well I guess you could say I was in weapons research." He said, remembering his old life.

"I see..." It was her turn to frown as she looked at him. "What kind?"

"Um... Small arm and field research. Most complicated thing I've worked on is an AR-15." He shrugged.

She brightened up. "That's okay then. Someone will be in shortly to tell you what happened. I'm going to start waking up the others." As she left the room, someone else in mangled looking body armour walked in.

"Lonile right?" He nodded. "The year is 2146. A little more than a hundred years ago, about 2025 if we've got the timing right, a cataclysmic war ruined the world. Humanity survived, barely, and we've managed to eke out an existance since then." He shiverred slightly. "I have it on good authority that we're in the middle of Los Angeles, though you'd never be able to tell to look at it. We found you and the rest of your group frozen in bunkers belonging to a group called S.P.E.C.T.E.R. Still trying to figure that one out."

"You see when the war came it wasn't just nuclear weapons that were used." He chuckled. "A few bigwigs had heard about the 'quantum viruses' the Andalites had been able to cook up and decided that we could use something like them tuned to 'a particular race'. A foolish and expensive mistake to make. There is no genetic race as they called it. That and the fact that there was no real way to control the mutation of the virus." He smiled. "I guess you could say that it could have been worse. Maybe."

He offered Mark a cigarette and, after the animorph had taken it, continued. "When the war started, the galaxy as a whole pulled back and abandoned us. The andalites did kill the worst of the infected areas before it could wipe out the world though. What's left of the area is smooth enough to skate on. An entire country worth." He chuckled again, as if reminiscing. "Problem is that they're back now. I mean there may be equal weapons on both sides, and we are holding the line but I have to say that this is a losing war."

"Wait... Who's back?" Mark said.

"The Yeerks. Landed one of their big ships in the gulf five years ago and started grabbing people. We have the manpower, the determination, the grit. They've got spaceships." He took a long drag of his own cigarette. "Plus the andalites haven't talked to us since we bombed ourselves half to death. I guess we crossed the 'too stupid to live' line once too many." He smiled as he held out his hand to the man in bed and pulled him upright. "Don't believe me?"

"Not especially, no."

"Take a look." He pointed with his smoking hand towards the window.

Mark walked to the window and looked out... And quickly stepped back, feeling faint. "Who... Who are you?"

The other man smiled. "Derek. Mayor of Los Diablos. We thought the new name was fitting. Welcome to the end of the world."

((OOC:: This is not real! Though it is open, it's one of the mental games like what happened to Jake. Even if you aquire something weird or die here it will not matter in the long run. Yes, I do have permission to do this...))

[ebonyfox]

She knew it before she opened her eyes that something wasn't quite right. There was a slow beeping sound beside her, and the humming of some machine. Xylia slowly opened her eyes and gazed up at a ceiling not like her own.Had she dozed off in the living room? No, even then the surroundings weren't familiar. Xylia heard the door to her side open. She shut her eyes and pretended to be asleep.
She could hear the sounds of heels. Obviously a woman. Then came heavier footsteps, "Is the patient awake?"

"It does not appear so." The woman spoke from her side, "Perhaps the anesthesia has not run its course?"
Anesthesia? Xylia pondered, but remained quiet. The woman was leaving her side and returning to the door again, "That's fine, we should go check on the others."
"Yes sir." When the door had closed Xylia sat up.

Where is this place? What happened? What's going on? She wondered frantically. The last she recalled she was watching a movie at the apartment and then she went to bed.
Her blood ran cold. Was I kidnapped? Had the apartment been ambushed and I got caught? Xylia roughly shook her head. No, it would do no good to panic. She needed to stay calm.

"I have to get out of here." She whispers to herself while sliding out the little bed. For some reason she felt a bit taller, but she shoveled that concern away for later. Right now she had to escape. Then find Leroy and Jeremy.

She paused before opening the door. Would they have been captured? The girl shook her head, "No way, they're better at this than me." she whispers sternly to convince herself. She looks around before finding a vent. Standing up on the bed she works at removing the cover, "No problem." she says climbing inside before replacing the metal.

[Rox]

Rox's mind slowly drifted into consciousness and her surroundings began to creep into her senses.

Beep

Beep

Beep

Rox opened her eyes suddenly and blinked twice. No! She was back in the hospital. Had it been all a dream? Was she still paralyzed in a hospital room?

No, the ceiling tiles were different. And she could feel her toes. Barely, but she could.

She tried to open her mouth and speak, but it was too dry. She moved her lips and tongue until she worked up enough saliva then tried again. "Hello?" she called out. Nobody responded.

She worked up the energy to sit upright and looked around. The lights were off in the room and there was someone else laying in a bed next to her. She couldn't make out who, but didn't really care. Rox slid her legs out from under the covers and planted them on the floor. She put a little bit of weight on them and, when she was sure she wouldn't fall over, stood up. Slowly she made her way to the door and pushed it open.

"Where am I?" she asked a passing nurse. The nurse stopped and looked at Rox, who was leaning weakly against the door frame and wearing nothing but a hospital gown.

"What are you doing out of bed?" the nurse finally asked, ignoring Rox's question. "You shouldn't even be conscious yet, let alone walking around." The nurse moved to try and help Rox back to her bed, but Rox brushed her away rudely.

"Where am I?" Rox asked again. This time a bit more forcefully.

Realizing she wasn't going to get anywhere with Rox, the nurse stopped trying. "I'm sorry. I'll need to go get someone who knows how to answer that question for you. Stay here. I'll be right back."

As soon as the nurse was out of sight, Rox scoffed and started heading slowly down the hallway. She kept one hand on the wall for support, and the other on the back of her gown to keep it closed.

Rox hated hospitals.

[Mark]

As he looked out at the shattered landscape, buildings fallen in on themselves and crushed by the weight of years, he had to shake his head. There were even trees growing from what had probably been a major road, easily cracking the ancient pavement. "What started it?"

"What always starts these things? Greed. Can't find any real records since it happened so fast though. Now, my turn for a question." The mayor leaned against the wall. "We thawed you guys out because you were supposed to be good against the slugs. Know stuff about fighting them that we don't. That was apparently part of SPECTER's job, though we don't know how they did it. Heck, we only got that bit through luck. Now, do you think the rest of your team would be willing to help us fight?"

Mark coughed self conciously. "They're not my team. I'm not in command of anything."

"You look about forty, isn't age usually a sign of authority? Don't tell me we made a mistake there." His voice was suddenly hard.

"I've looked old since I hit thirty. It's a result of stress caused by being freed of infestation. Those of us who were controllers for a long time... We all bear the weight of the years stolen from us." He sneered at the thought of the Yeerks. "As for whether I myself am willing to fight? You'd have to work to keep me out of this war."

"That's what we need. Willingness to fight and the ability to do so." He smiled. "Now, I'm not quite sure if it's because of your cryo techniques or our lack of technology but we had to knock you and the others out for awhile after we unfroze you." The mayor shuddered. "First guy we thawed went completely psychotic afterwards. Some kind of side-effect or something, I dunno. I just know that since we started knocking you icicles out for a full eight hours afterwards you haven't been trying to kill everyone." He blinked, catching himself rambling. "Anyway, the others should be waking up soon."

"Earlier than that." Mark chuckled as he spotted a familiar looking face at the door. "Come on in, sleeping beauty. Oh, and try not to look out the window if you can help it." He waved his hand in a 'come here' motion. "I'm sure someone will find clothes for all of us soon."

The mayor nodded and said "I'll let you fill everyone in. I need to find provisions for you all." before leaving.

"Alright, short version or long version?"

[Rox]

When Rox heard someone call her sleeping beauty, she looked through the doorway she was passing by and saw Mark standing inside. She stared at him blankly. She was still in a slight daze from having woken up from who-knows-what. But still, a familiar face was a familiar face. Rox stepped into the room.

"I'll take the short version first," Rox finally said. She sat down in a chair that was probably meant for visitors. "Then you can tell me the long version."

Rox glanced out the window she was told not to look out but from her angle she could only see the top of a building that looked condemned. She was more worried about why they were here than where 'here' was. She also wondered if anyone else from their animorphs group was at... wherever it was that they were.

[Sarah]

Sarah slowly stood up from the strange creature she stood over. It had a strangely shaped head and had kept saying something over and over again. Larva-something. She hadn't payed it any mind until it apparently materialized rocks in the middle of the forest and threw them at her. Then she'd grabbed and aquired the annoying thing.

Focusing, she shrank down and became the beast and felt a strange power rise inside her. Blinking, she tried to ask herself what it was but all that came out of her mouth was "Larvitar." That's when she heard it.

"Go! Walrein!" and heard something huge fall behind her.

Oh... this can't be good.

Sarah sat up in the bed gasping for breath. It was that dream again, it had been haunting her on and off since she'd become an animorph. It wasn't going to happen, but that didn't make it any less of a nightmare to be trapped in the little ball.

Glancing around, she found herself in a hospital bed hooked up to a bank of machinery. Half snarling, she ripped the leads off her body and readied herself. When nobody came to check up on her she relaxed. So, I'm not a prisoner here, or if I am they don't know what to expect.

Stretching, she pryed the cover off a vent nearby and slid inside before replacing it. If she was going to be here she was going to scout out what was here first. She didn't expect to run into another person as soon as she made it into the main ventilation ducts though. Looking at her, both of them garbed in hospital gowns, she had to chuckle. "Wow, this is awkward. Who are you?"

((If I'm correct, only the people in Arbella were briefed on who Sarah is, so Xylia shouldn't know.))

[ebonyfox]

Crawling through the vents without making too much noise was starting to prove hard. It wasn't like she was an expert at this after all. Half of her mind was telling her she should go ahead and morph fox to make this easier. She was starting to agree with that side.
Closer to the main ventilation system now she was starting to feel pretty confident in her decision to morph. Until she heard some noises she wasn't making.
Slowly, Xylia crawled towards a crossroad and stopped when she found herself face to face with another girl in hospital garbs.
"Wow, this is awkward. Who are you?"

This was awkward. Someone else had be nutty enough to use the vents? She wasn't sure whether to be relieved or...freaked out.
"Uh Xylia." The girl replies with eyes carefully running over this new girl. She smirks, "So I'm guessing you woke up strapped to a strange bed too." Could she be trusted? Was she an animorph too? Xylia quickly decided not to take the chance.

There could be others who weren't animorphs trapped in here. Best not to let the fox out of the bag at least until she found Jeremy or Leroy.
"So who are you? And you mind fillin me in on the party we crashed? I think I drank too much." she smirks.



ooc:// Yea, no idea who Sarah is. I myself don't really know either...

[Nancy]

((Sarah is an rogue Animorph wanted by SPECTER for killing off her former team. But Nancy doesn't know her either ))

Her eyes opened and she bolted upright, clutching her bedsheets until her knuckles turned white. Her eyes frantically darted everywhere, trying to orient herself after the sudden shock to her body. For several seconds, Nancy did that until her body was able to process what it was sensing. The pungent smells of sanitizers and cleaning supplies rolled over her as she looked around stark white walls with papers and charts all over them. She looked down at herself and saw that her clothes were white with tiny green check marks all over them. Her sheets were white, as was her bed.

And there were two people standing beside her bed. Then she realized that she was hearing them speaking. "...name?"

Nancy stared for a second, scrambling to figure out what the woman with the clipboard had said. My name? "Nancy Adkins," she said automatically. "Now could you tell me why I'm in a hopsital? What's going on? Am I sick or injured? But that can't be right unless it's some--" Nancy realized she was babbling and on the verge of saying too much. Despite her completely unfamiliar surroundings, Nancy reverted back to what had been a common practice while working for SPECTER: never trust anyone and be careful what you say.

"You can go," the older man said, the doctor...Hanz Freeman? The nurse left the room after a scrutinizing glance towards Nancy. When the nurse left, the doctor turned back to Nancy. "I know this must all be very startling to you. I might as well start at the beginning about what I'm certain happened." He proceeded to give Nancy a smilar story as the one told to Mark, albeit with less military info and more about the viruses. When he was done, he smiled at Nancy and left, allowing her to "digest the new information and to get settled in".

Nancy was planning on doing just that, but she had an order of business to do first. According to the doctor, she hadn't been responding to any of the drugs used to wake her up from the heavy anesthetics and sedatives after they had thawed her out. They had used a new type of stimulant on her, which had caused her to become alert so fast. Nancy wasn't sure if there were going to be any side effects (heck, the doctor hadn't known) so she decided to morph.

As her figure wasted and withered away into the slender strength of the eyelash viper, nancy turned her mind toward what on Earth she was going to do. Well, Dr. Freeman said there were other animorphs. My memories are pretty fuzzy before the thaw, at least any recent ones. I don't remember who was with me. But maybe we can get together and figure something out.

[Mark]

"Well, the short version is that we're in a dystopian future at war with an aggressive alien race with no allies after a self created apocalypse. Oh, and we're in LA. Not that it's obvious or anything." He was still leaning on the windowsill looking outside. "Plus the cigarettes suck and I'm wearing a paper dress."

He took another drag. "Got to admit, though, being immune to lung cancer has its perks. You want the long version?"

He began to repeat what the mayor had told them, only pausing briefly when someone brought in a pair of worn air force jumpsuits and when one of the nurses started shrieking about someone missing. He shrugged and flicked the butt out the window before picking up the larger jumpsuit. "Now I'm going to get something resembling real clothes on if you don't mind."

As he was walking out to find a bathroom, a nurse stopped by and said "There's a shop down the street where you can get something more substantial. This is just what we had available."

"So? Clothes then shopping?" He looked back at Rox.

[Rox]

Rox stood up and stared out the window as Mark gave her the long version. If she wasn't staring at what used to be L. A. she would have never believed him. And the fact that he flicked his cigarette out the window proved it wasn't just some realistic television screen.

It was a lot to absorb all at once. They were in the future, the human race was nearly doomed, and best of all, they were probably expected to help save everyone. Somehow.

Whatever. Right now all Rox was going to focus on was getting her jumpsuit on. "Yeah, clothes then shopping," she replied. Then stepped out of view and pulled on her jumpsuit.

As she stepped out into the hall, Rox wondered who else had been woken up. Was Leo here? Hope? What about Johnny? She wasn't sure if she should hope he was or hope he wasn't, but she probably wouldn't complain either way.

[Sarah]

"Strapped to a bed? Hardly. The name's Megan." She said, supplying the name on her newest ID without thinking. After living with this for months, it might as well be. "As for where we are, no idea but it looks like a hospital. Though it's lacking the reek of antiseptic an plastic." She closed her eyes as she took a deep breath. "Faint, earthy smell. Some mold, but mostly just old dust and a touch of soap."

She shook her head as she opened her eyes. "We're in the vents so we would be able to pick up anything major. No blood, nothing overly chemical. No scents that would indicate anything other than what it appears to be." She shrugged and answered the obvious question. "I've got a good nose, or at least I can tell a hospital when I smell one." No need to mention training or spending time as a hunting cat. Nope, nothing unusual here.

"What do you say we try and find something interesting to listen to instead of..." She blinked. "...the complete absence of fans to draw air through these vents. This is getting weird." She eyed the other intruder and tried to remember her old touchstone. "You ever here that poem? Still air in the night, a sign of wonder and of fright... forget how the rest goes." Come on, Specter Agent In Need... I mean who else would be stupid enough to poke around in a ventilation system.

[ebonyfox]

Wow this girl was better than scooby doo. Xylia shakes her head as Megan describes the scents and lack of scents surrounding them. Xylia wanted to say that she had been paying attention to all of that, but in all honesty after waking up in a different environment than she had fallen asleep in she already knew this place wasn't quite right.

She could say that she had noticed the lack of ventilation fans. Old television shows always said the exit was determined by the vents, but without them she was left to take guesses. The young woman sighed to herself knowing she was going to have to leave the vents and find a map in order to escape this place.

Megan mentioned finding some one to listen in on she nods, "Yea, figuring out what the heck is going on is probably a good idea..." she agrees before making a face, "Poems? I was never a book worm." she says waving her hand in front of her before crawling forward, "I had too many other things to worry about." That's right, she was an apartment manager, restaurant keeper, cook, waitress, and stand-in mother to her brothers and father the last thing she had time to do was read and memorize poetry.

There were voices coming from one of the rooms. Xylia looks up before crawling in its direction, "hey, I hear a conversation that way. Maybe they're talking about something useful." she says before turning around to look at this new girl, "You comin?"

[Nancy]

Nancy slithered out of the gown she had been wearing, complying with the snake's wishes to find warmth. She had thought the room a bit cold as human, but the snake felt it a bit more. She moved off the bed and onto the desk beside the bed, coiling herself under a lamp. That would satisfy the snake's mind and wants for awhile. Nancy turned her thoughts outward, to the hospital in general.

<<Hello? To any Animorphs in the area. Where are all of you? I'm with the opinion that we all need to get together and brainstorm. I myself am in room D114.>> She kept her thought-speech short, knowing full well that just about everyone in the hospital had just heard her and her interest in joining back up with her teammates. But it did not matter much to her. It was highly unlikely that she would know any of the people in the hospital or see them, with the exception of the other Animorphs.

But until they could all get together, it wouldn't hurt for her to get comfortable. She relaxed control over the viper, mixing her thoughts with its own. The heat of the lamp felt very good. It made her wonder why she had never used the snake much before. It was very relaxing. Nothing surprised it, its instincts were simple, all it wanted was heat or food, but food wasn't much of a problem. In fact, the only time Nancy had difficulty in control over the serpent was when it was faced with a threat.

[Mark]

Mark pinched the bridge of his nose as he 'heard' the thoughtspeech. "You guys call me paranoid and overly cautious..." He was practically glaring a hole through the door as he pulled on the jumpsuit as fast as he could. "But then you get a blatant disregard for operational security and common sense!"

He ignored thoughts of shoes and jogged down the hallway towards the room the voice had spoken of. "We're not supposed to exist at all according to the public. Broadcasting your location, your status, and the fact that there are more of you is... It's completely idiotic and-" He shook his head as he pushed open the door.

"What in the hell are you thinking?!" He said to the snake lying on the desk. "Those rules about secrecy are to give us an edge that we would otherwise lack. If nobody knows about us then they can't plan for us. If they can't plan for us we are more likely to survive long enough to do something. What will you have done if there's a Yeerk plant in this hospital or just someone out to sell information to the highest bidder? Your lack of thought could cost us our lives! They know what morphing humans did to them last time and I would bet that they'd be more than willing to glass the entire city to make sure it doesn't happen again. I mean don't you think?" He looked down at his hands for a second. "If you do anything like this again I promise, God help me, I will kill you myself so everyone else might have a chance to survive. Am I being clear?"

((Yeah... Mark is pissed off, though it does makes sense.))

[Rox]

When Rox heard the thought speech, she rolled her eyes when she realized it was being broadcast to everyone. She didn't recognize who it was, but whoever was speaking would do themselves a favor by stopping. She started calmly walking in the direction of the voice's room. Just to see what sort of effect the message ended up having if for no other reason.

She could hear Mark's yelling long before she reached the room. Rox didn't feel the least bit sorry for the, judging by the thought speech voice, girl who was getting yelled at, but didn't really see the point of Mark getting so worked up either.

"You aren't being all that discreet yourself, Mr. Stealth. You probably woke up a couple people down in the morgue with your yelling." Then another thought occurred to Rox that almost made her laugh. Almost.

"And did you ever think that maybe the thought speech message could have been a trap used to lure us out? I sure didn't recognize that voice. Did you? Are you sure that isn't a real snake? A real poisonous snake?" Rox leaned against the door frame and couldn't help but let a smirk creep across her lips.