Hunting Season Is Open (Open)

[Charles]

Charles walked through the zoo's main entrance with a smile on his face for two reasons. One, he was getting a new morph today that should be very entertaining in his mind. Two, there were no annoying kids near him. He really did not like the idea of having to listen to a kid cry about something or ask what the animals were doing. Charles was not really good at dealing with little kids in a way that would be considered good.

His first thought upon entering the zoo was what area should he go to first. This was like going to the grocery store without a pre-written list to follow. Charles looked back for Bruno, who was supposed to be coming with him on this little adventure. He was not sure if it was possible to lose Bruno because of his size, but Charles had somehow managed to do just that. "Me and my eager heart have led me to lost my morphing buddy. How dreadful."

Of course, Charles was not talking loud enough for anyone to actually hear him say that. He was still be cautious on this lax day of adventure. As the old wise master from stories always said, danger lurks around every corner waiting for the lazy student.

[Bruno]

"Now where did he go?" Bruno had only stopped for a moment to pick up a zoo map (example) and when he turned around, Charles was nowhere in sight. How was he supposed to find him? Search the entire zoo?

"He can't have gone that far," Bruno reassured himself. He scanned the area, for once thankful for his height. He soon spotted him on the other side of a group of what must have been tourist. He headed straight toward him.

"You sure have a way of disappearing." Bruno didn't comment further since this was only the first time it happened so far. He held out his map. "Where were you thinking we should head first?"

[Charles]

Charles had not even noticed the fact that Bruno had walked up behind him until Bruno had said something about his ability to disappear. "It's a family trait that is helpful when trying to dodge the cops or other gangs. Just wait until I pop up out of nowhere. That is something that will really surprise you."

Looking at the map that Bruno had, Charles tried to decided where they should go first for the morphing hunt to begin. The map did give him some ideas of where they should go, but the only real thing that caught his mind was one word. Rhino. "Let's go see how the living wrecking balls are doing today."

He started to walk off in that direction, when he realized what he had done. Charles had completely forgotten to ask Bruno if he had anywhere in particular that he wanted to go first. Since Charles had dragged Bruno out here, then it was only fair to let Bruno pick where they went first. "On second thought, where would you prefer we start?"

[Bruno]

Bruno raised a corner of his mouth in response to Charles's remarks about popping out of nowhere, but that was about it. It wasn't that Bruno didn't think it was funny, because he did. It was more so because he was in a public place. Bruno tended to try and act more like he looked when out in public. That is, he tried to look like a big tough guy who doesn't joke around or let anyone mess with him. He just hoped he didn't go to far and alienate Charles somehow, 'cause he enjoyed the guy's company so far.

"I guess the "wrecking balls" are a good enough place to start, whatever they are. Lead the way." The truth was that Bruno wasn't sure what he wanted to acquire, if anything. They would have to literally break into the exhibits to get close to the animals, and he wasn't sure he wanted to do that. Again. Breaking into the flamingo exhibit had been bad enough, and that was when there weren't any guests around.

[Charles]

With Bruno's okay, Charles headed off toward the rhino's exhibit, which should be easy to get into, but that was not what he was worried about. If he remembered right, rhinos were relatively blind at a distance, but once up close they were a force to be reckon with. He would have to worry about that after he asked Bruno to cause a distraction that would draw everyone's attention while he jumped into the exhibit.

His mind did not become eased when he actually saw the rhinos standing there. It actually started thinking that this was probably dumbest thing that he ever thought of doing after jumping into a river. "So Bruno, you got any advice on how I should go about doing this? Like how to come out of there without the assistance of the animal in there." Charles probably should have chosen something a little smaller for his second morph, but he was not really thinking logically at the moment.

[Bruno]

Bruno furrowed his brow and examined the rhino cage. There was a fence for guests to stand behind and then another stronger fence holding the rhinos in. The exhibit itself was in a slight depression and there were short shrubs in the space between the two fences.

"It won't be easy, that's for sure," Bruno said in a low voice so that only Charles would hear. "No way you can just walk up to the fence and climb over. Not if you don't want to get arrested."

Bruno thought for a moment longer then snapped his fingers as he came up with an idea. "Have you considered the raccoon? I bet you could get in with that. Not sure about out though..."

[Charles]

Charles had actually been planning on jumping over the fence and hoping for the best possible outcome, but Bruno's comment had vetoed that course of action. Morphing a raccoon was a good idea, but that still leaved the problem of how he was going to demorph without being seen inside of the exhibit. He could probably hide underneath the fence to demorph provided that no one was looking down.

"Guess I'll have a go at this. Hope this doesn't get posted on the internet or something." Charles went and hid behind a tree that had a branch that extended over the rhinoceros exhibit. As quickly as he possibly could, Charles took off his outer set of clothes and was left standing in his morphing suit. He began to focus on the raccoon morph. The changes went by at the normal rate that it did for most beginning morphs. He got furry, began to shrink, and could hear bones cracking as everything became more raccoon and less him. It was a good thing that he couldn't see himself as it happened or else he might have thrown up.

<<I wonder why they let kids handle snakes, but never let them get near a rhino.>> He was only letting Bruno hear what he was thinking, since anyone else would freak out at hearing voices in his or her head. Charles scurried up the tree and started to make his way out on the branch over looking the rhinos. He was probably about to do the dumbest thing in the world, but for some reason he figured this was going to be the highlight of his day. His little furry paws quickly moved to the end of the branch.

One thing Charles suddenly remembered about raccoons was that they couldn't really jump long distances, so his only option was to sort of hang down from the very end of the branch and hope that it bent far enough for him to not hurt himself. He had to pick the one tree that did not have any other trees close to it. <<Here goes nothing.>> Charles let go of the branch and fell to the ground. Upon impact, Charles landed on his back making a sound like thud. <<How am I doing Bruno?>>

[Bruno]

Bruno stood guard as Charles went into his morph, making sure nobody got too close. He didn't want anyone catching a glimpse of a half-man half-raccoon person. Luckily the rhinos didn't seem to draw large crowds, unlike the river otters across the pathway.

As Charles shimmied down the branch and dropped into the pen, the only people who seemed to noticed were a young boy and girl who started pointing and telling their mother to "Look! Look!" Luckily their mother was talking on a cell phone and not paying much attention.

<<How am I doing Bruno?>> he heard Charles ask.

"Um..." Bruno couldn't really respond without looking like he was talking to nobody. But the kids were still trying to see the raccoon that fell in with the rhinos, so Bruno thought a diversion was in order.

"Hey, kids, did you hear what is about to happen over at the otter exhibit?" The kids looked a little scared as Bruno took a couple steps toward them. He didn't exactly have the most kid-friendly appearance. "I think they are going to feed them soon. That's always fun to watch!"

The kids became wide-eyed with excitement and ran over to the otters, their mother slowly following as she continued to chat on her phone. Now that they were gone, Bruno said to seemingly nobody, "Well, I looks like the rhino exhibit has really cleared out." He emphasized "cleared out" so hopefully Charles would get the hint. That was assuming his raccoon ears could hear him well enough.

[Charles]

"Well, I looks like the rhino exhibit has really cleared out."

Charles assumed that Bruno was giving him the signal to demorph and acquire the animal. This also meant that the hardest part of this whole thing was about to happen. He closed his little raccoon eyes and began to focus on demorphing. He really hoped that no one was going to walk over at that moment. His body began to lose the fur and his tail, grow bigger, and probably started cracking with the bone movements. In a few short minutes, Charles was standing in his morphing suit in a rhino exhibit with a beast that put Rataxes to shame (Babar reference was needed).

Charles looked around to make sure that the coast was really clear before slowly walking up to the animal and placing his hand on its rump. When his hand touched the rhino, he began focusing on acquiring the animal, and if fear of getting hit sped up the process then Charles was acquring the animal at warp speed. The animal started to become very still, so he assumed that it was working. Just a few more seconds and the morph would be complete.

When he was finished, the rhino did not move, so Charles figured that this would be the best time to walk back slowly and turn back into a raccoon. He started to morph and then quickly went up the fence post and headed back to where his clothes were. He demorphed and got dressed while looking at Bruno. "So I think I am not going to do that ever again. I only have two things to ask. Did anyone see me do that and where are we going to next?" He figured that Bruno had a particular spot in the zoo that he would want to go to for a morph or something.

[Bruno]

A flood of relief washed over Bruno when Charles came back. In one piece too. Charles had snuck into and back out of an exhibit during working hours, went through the morphing process four times, and nobody was the wiser. "I don't think anyone saw you. Not while you were morphing or acquiring at least. You were very sneaky."

Bruno almost wanted to pretend he hadn't heard the second question, but he knew he wouldn't be able to get away with it. They came here to get morphs, so that is what they were going to do. And Bruno wasn't about to admit to a scrawny little guy who just climbed into a rhino pen that he was too nervous to do the same thing.

No, he wouldn't admit it, or dodge the question, but he would stall. "I still haven't decided what animal I will acquire yet. It should be different from yours, I suppose. And not where everyone is watching. Lets walk around and see what they have." Hopefully they would have camel rides or something and he could acquire one and call it good, but that didn't seem very likely. He would probably have to climb in with wild animals just like Charles had.

[Charles]

A wave of relief filled Charles's mind when Bruno told him that no one had seen him because he had been very sneaky. "Yeah, I am the ninja Animorph." That was so going to be his own personal title from now on. Well at least in his mind it would be his personal title. Everyone else would probably give him a lecture about the ethics of being an Animorph. With rule one being: Do not enter an exhibit during the day especially if it has a rhino in it.

Bruno had said that he hadn't decided on a morph yet, which didn't upset Charles in the slightest as they really didn't have anywhere else to be yet. He could blame Bruno for being cautious about what morph he got. Charles's method had been reckless and dangerous, but so was the animal that he acquired so it went well together. He wondered what type of animal Bruno wanted to acquire.

"Okie dokie. Maybe they have a trained animal that you could pet or something today." Zoos did have those live shows where certain animals were brought within inches of the audience, so it was possible that they had lucked out today. Their luck was already pretty good since Charles had not been headbutted into the next county by a rhino. For some odd reason, Charles was suddenly starving. He hadn't been before the whole rhino thing, so he attributed it to the fact that he had morphed multiple times in a short period which probably drained him. "Are you hungry?"

[Bruno]

"Heh, I could eat, I guess. I think there were a couple food stands back the way we came from." Bruno started walking in that direction without bothering to ask if Charles wanted to head that way.

When he was about half way there, he spotted something that you would only see at a zoo. There was a zookeeper standing by a group of kids with an animal on a leash. That animal was none other than a spotted hyena. It had a muzzle and seemed friendly enough, but Bruno was still surprised that they would let kids get that close to it. Some kids were even brave enough to pet the thing.

Bruno looked sideways at Charles for a second before making a snap decision. He would seize the opportunity and acquire the hyena in plain sight. It wasn't as if anyone would be able to see the DNA going into Bruno's body anyway.

"Go ahead and get your food. I'll be right back." Without waiting for a response, Bruno headed over to where the zookeeper was spewing hyena facts. He edged his way forward through the small crowd and reached his hand over the heads of a couple kids and pet the hyena on the head. It was already pretty calm, but it got a little calmer nonetheless.

After acquiring it, he stood around the crowd for a little bit so it would seem more natural for him to be there. Just as he was getting to slip back out of the crowd, the hyena came out of its trance and looked right at him. It made direct eye contact. He had never seen an animal do that before and it was disturbing.

After staring at Bruno for a couple seconds, it turned and looked at the zookeeper. The zookeeper stopped mid-sentence, waited a few seconds, then looked directly at Bruno. "I'm sorry, kids," the zookeeper said, "but fluffy needs to go take a break now." Some kids groaned. "Now, now, we'll be back later. In the mean time, why don't you go check out his friends over at the hyena exhibit?"

By this time Bruno was pretty well disturbed by the situation. He turned around and headed over to where Charles was. Little did he know, the zookeeper and hyena were following him.

[Charles]

Charles heard Bruno's comment about where the food stands were, so he immediately began following the silent giant towards them. He didn't even notice the large group of kids assembled around a zookeeper and some animal as he was more focused on getting something in his stomach. His eyes connected with the site of a hot dog stand, and Charles was gone by the time Bruno was making his way toward the hyena.

"I'll have about ten..no make that a dozen hot dogs." The vendor looked at Charles with a facial expression that meant do you have a tapeworm or something. He paid in cash and carried the food over to a picnic table that was unoccupied. He started munching on a hot dog when he noticed what Bruno was doing. His first thought was nice choice, and his second one was should he save Bruno any of the hot dogs. His mind then clicked to the fact that the hot dogs were getting cold, so he began to eat them again.

His eyes caught the fact that Bruno was walking back toward him, but it took him a few seconds to register the hyena and the zookeeper were not far behind. Charles did not know what to do in this type of situation since he had never been in one like this, so he decided to improvise. Yelling wasn't an option, so he picked up a hotdog and threw it over Bruno's head to see if it would cause the hyena to chase after it. Charles did not know if hyena's liked hot dogs, but fleeing like some little kid seemed to be out of the question as was morphing.

[Bruno]

Bruno ducked instinctively as a hotdog flew past his head. "What the- What was that for!?" he asked as he reached Charles's picnic table. Then he looked back to see where the dog had landed. And that's when he noticed the zookeeper and his hyena. They were still giving him the creeps.

Bruno just stared at them blankly as they finished their approach, the hyena paying no attention to the food on the ground. No words were coming to mind.

Unfortunately, the zookeeper didn't have the same problem. "Excuse me sir. Would you, and your friend I suppose, please come with me? Please don't make me call security."

Bruno could tell he was in trouble somehow, but wasn't sure why. Not exactly. Did they have acquiring detectors or something? Bruno still didn't know what to say, so he looked over at Charles to see if he had any ideas about what to do.

[Charles]

Charles had figured that a flying hot dog would have caused that sort of reaction from Bruno. Any sane person would have reacted the same way, but he wasn't normal so he would have assumed that it was a signal of some sort. This is probably why he had been called sort of paranoid when he was involved in a gang for a short time.

Bruno seemed to catch on as he looked to see where the piece of meat had landed. When the hyena didn't even make a go at it, Charles knew that something was up because that was just weird, and that was coming from the mind of a guy who jumped into a rhino pit so that would mean something if he had said it out loud. Unfortunately, he couldn't risk bringing any more attention to them than he had already done.

The keeper had asked them to come with him quietly. Well, he had mainly asked Bruno, but Charles seemed to be 'guilty' because of the fact that he was the person that Bruno had been walking towards. It didn't help that Bruno looked back at him to successfully tell the guy that the two of them were indeed friends of some sort.

As quickly and quietly as he could, Charles had moved over to be standing by Bruno. His mind was already trying to run through what options they had. Half of them were eliminated because they couldn't morph, a quarter of them were taken out because fighting would just be the same as morphing, and the remaining three were impossible because Charles was not carrying any smoke bombs at the moment. This left the choice of going with the man, and Charles did not like that one bit. He gave Bruno a slight nod that meant that they should just see what the guy wants. If all else failed, the two of them would be able to take the guy without hurting any of the people in the zoo.