Right, this is my second Animorphs fanfic! I prefer writing it in a humerous way, so this is another "funny" story, like my other (The Hostages) Ani-fic...
Anyways, this chapter is really sort of the introduction to the problem occuring in this story, so just hang in there and the second chapter where all the fun starts will be out in no time!
Still - please read, and review!
***
MARCO: A SLIGHTLY PLAYFUL DRODE
My name is Marco.
What more is there to say that you don't already know? These books have been printing like crazy now, I think about every person on this planet has heard of us. Why tell the story of the Yeerks all over again?
This particular story is not about the Yeerks.
It's basically about a very handsome, modest and charming young man who goes through a living hell.
That's right. I'm talking of me, Marco the Magnificent.
Unfortunately, I fear after reading this story you won't find it as terrible as I do. I actually fear you might enjoy it, or be amused by it. God forbid. Because this is no joke.
"So, if I was to take off right now... I mean, run about like a madman and then decide instead to go home and watch some TV - what would you say to that?"
"We'd kick your ass, Marco. This is teamwork, and you're a part of this team."
"Oh yeah, right. Thanks, Rachel. That makes me feel oh so much better."
We were all wandering through the forest. It wasn't like one of those normal occasions when we'd wander through the forest - those being the occasions when something completely insane and terribly dangerous was about to be decided.
No, this was a fully peaceful operation.
It was a school thing, really. Orienteering, I think it's called. The school board had made this looney disicion that every now and then, the students were to be taken out of school for a day and have what they'd called "nature day".
No doubt Cassie loved that day.
And on this particular "nature day" (seriously, who came up with that name?), the school had decided to send their kids out on orienteering in the forest. We were devided into groups, using a handy map to search through the forest for these special posts or whatever, and then if we were the first to gather the information from all the posts, we'd win.
Sounds horrible, doesn't it? I know. But don't worry. There was something about to turn up that day that was to be worse than some boring walkabout in the forest...
As you could easily imagine, it was Cassie taking care of EVERYTHING. She had the map and the necessarily equipment, and she was leading us through the thick of the forest, claiming wherever we went to be "a short cut that is sure to take us into the lead in this thing"! How she managed to sound so enthusiastic, I'll never know.
"Why would you want to take off, anyway?" Jake asked me while waving his hand at a fly or something.
"Well," I said, "apart from this being the most boring this I've ever had to do in this forest - and that speaks for itself, mind you - there's actually a very fascinating show on bikini fashion I'd love to watch right now. Why do they ever air those things when people are at school?"
"So immature losers like yourself won't be able to watch it," Rachel grinned.
"Oh, haha," I sighed. "Very funny. Immature, me? Bah. That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard. Coming from someone as stupid as you for that matter, Rachel. D'you hear me? I'm not immature. You're stupid. Haha."
"Will you two ever stop fighting?" Jake asked. "It's like The Odd Couple or something."
"Except we're The Young Couple," Rachel said, then added, quickly: "And we're not a couple."
"Damn right," I agreed. "Hell freezes over the day I find myself in a relationship with Rachel."
"Then we're agreed."
"Yes, so we are."
"Great."
"Fine!"
"Oh please, just SHUT UP," Tobias said.
Yes, Tobias was there as well. And Ax.
You see, at first we'd decided just to get through the day like we would do any other day, but then we thought: Maybe if Bird-Boy and Ax-Man were to help us out with finding these posts, we'd be finished earlier and go home earlier. So that's what was going to happen.
The trouble was, Ax and Tobias couldn't really spot any of the posts from the air, seeing as how they were hidden all too well between the trees. So after a while, both Ax and Tobias morphed into humans and walked with us instead.
"How many posts do we have left to find?" I asked Cassie.
She checked her notes. "Uhm... five. They've all got questions about nature and stuff, so we'll have to cooperate to finish this in time for your bikini watch, Marco."
"Oh, great. This is sooo gonna be the worst day of the week."
Yep, I was right about that. I just didn't know HOW right.
"You know what would be great now?" I said after a while of us walking in silence.
"You shutting up for a change?" Rachel asked.
"No," I said, angrily, "but for the Ellimist or something to turn up and give us all the answers to those posts! Then we wouldn't have to do this wandering through the damn forest-thingy."
"But it's good for you!" Cassie said, laughing at my misery.
"The Ellimist would never do a thing like that," Jake said. "It's too small for him, wouldn't you say? If he was to help us out with questions, he wouldn't help us with the questions for some orienteering, he'd rather be helping us out in the finals of Jeopardy or something."
"Yeah, but we're not on Jeopardy," I argued. "Now what about Crayak? D'you think HE would do it?"
"I doubt it," Jake said. "Although I guess that little thing of his would have."
"The thing?"
"You know, the Drode. He'd love to play around with us. I'm sure he'd do it, just to mess everything up afterwards and then have a laugh."
Jake and the Drode don't exactly get along, as you might have noticed...
The again, who could get along with someone as insane as this slave of Crayak.
All of a sudden, Jake stopped walking. The rest of us went on for a few seconds before we realized he was standing behind.
We turned to face him. He looked concerned, or suspicious, in some way. It's difficult to explain, but it seemed certainly as though something was wrong.
"Jake, my man," I said, "what's wrong?"
He hesitated to answer, but then finally said: "I think something just happened. It felt as though it did... It was really weird!" He walked up to us, and gazed around the group for a second to make sure he had everyone's attention. "It was, well... It felt kind of as it has those times the Eye of Crayak's come to me, if you know what I mean. Only, it wasn't as painful as it usually is. It was like, a laugh, only it terrified and concerned me."
The rest of us just stood there staring at him for a moment.
"Jake, did you even hear yourself talk?" I finally asked.
"Would you please shut up?" Rachel said angrily to me. "Maybe he's right! Who knows when that lunatic of a Drode - or Crayak for that matter - could turn up. Nobody knows better than Jake how that feels."
"What are you saying, Jake?" Cassie asked. "Do you think Crayak just contacted you in some way?"
"It sounds so weird, I know," he replied. "Seeing as we just talked about him and everything, but I swear I could FEEL it was either him or that stupid Drode. It didn't feel good at all. It actually felt like a positive thing at first, then turned into something bad..."
"Like in a nightmare, where Carmen Electra turns into the Hulk," I said helpfully.
Jake looked at me. "Uhm... Yeah, just like that."
"So what was it, really?" Tobias asked. "I mean, do you know what it was?"
"I'm not sure," Jake said. "But..." He hesitated for a minute, and seemed to be thinking really hard. Then he looked up at Cassie. "Hand me those notes, Cassie. The one where you've written the answers to the other posts."
"But why?" she asked curiously as she handed them to him.
He looked at the notes for a second, then his concerned face turned even more concerned. He handed the notes around for us all to see.
When it reached me, I almost felt my chin drop. All the answers were there. But not only those from the posts we'd been to - I mean ALL OF THEM. Including the ones from the five last posts we yet hadn't visited.
"Oh God," Cassie whispered. "How did that happen?"
"It must have been Crayak," Ax said definite. "Like Prince Jake said, he is playing a game with us."
"No," Jake said, and he seemed very certain as he spoke. "It's not Crayak. The Drode. I know it. This is like his playtime, his spare hours, when he's not serving Crayak. And he's chosen to fool around with us."
"How can you be so sure?" Rachel asked.
"I just know it. Believe me, this was exactly what I felt. Those answers, they were that positive sensation I first felt."
"But you said in turned into the Hulk," I argued.
"Yes, it did." Jake nodded, seemingly worried. "But I don't know what that negative thing was. I can't tell. I don't think... I don't think it has happened yet."
"All right, what exactly is going on?" I asked angrily. "Are we on a quiz-show or something? That old show 'Candid camera'? On this week's edition, Mr. Drode is going to fool around with the Animorphs' orienteering game! Stay tuned!"
"Just SHUT UP," Rachel said furiously. "It's serious, haven't you noticed? This Drode is actually quite powerful, and we don't know what he's up to!"
I nodded. "He's obviously going to take something back," I suggested. "I mean, he gave us the answers, and I'm sure he did that because we said we wanted the Ellimist to do it for us, although that was a joke... In any case, I bet the bad feeling Jake had is reflecting on something bad that's going to happen to us in the next few minutes. Something the Drode choose to do in return for those answers."
"Which were the positive feeling," Cassie concluded.
"Exactly."
"That makes sense," Tobias said. "That idiot Drode is probably just working out how to make us repay his debt. This is not going to be fun."
And oh by God, how Tobias was right.
It was NOT going to be fun.
"Wait," Jake suddenly said, "I think it's going to happen now...! This damn Drode must be basically communicating through me... I feel as though I'm going... well, bad!"
He said some other stuff, but I didn't really pay attention anymore.
Something weird was happening to me. I felt dizzy. Everything around me started to spin, and all I could do was focus on keeping my balance. What was going on?
Suddenly, swift as lightening, it felt as though I was pulled harshly out of the group and was floating above all of them, observing as an audience or something. It's difficult to explain. The weirdest part was I could still see myself down there. as if I'd left my body or something.
I'm going crazy, I thought, still trying to fight the dizziness which was stronger than ever now, even though I believed I was floating in mid-air.
All of a sudden, a horrible pain came over me, and I instantly felt it coming from my eyes. It hurt to watch! It hurt to keep my eyes open! And instinctively, I closed them. The pain vanished.
I hesitated for a little while, still keeping my eyes firmly closed, until I finally dared to open them and look around once more.
I discovered three things when I did this.
First of all, the pain in my eyes was gone.
Second, the dizziness had vanished.
And third, I was still standing in the forest with all my friends, only this time, I was facing myself.
An identical copy of ME stood there, right in front of me.
It was ME!
***
And there we are, first chapter. Reviews, please?!
Anyways, this chapter is really sort of the introduction to the problem occuring in this story, so just hang in there and the second chapter where all the fun starts will be out in no time!
Still - please read, and review!
***
MARCO: A SLIGHTLY PLAYFUL DRODE
My name is Marco.
What more is there to say that you don't already know? These books have been printing like crazy now, I think about every person on this planet has heard of us. Why tell the story of the Yeerks all over again?
This particular story is not about the Yeerks.
It's basically about a very handsome, modest and charming young man who goes through a living hell.
That's right. I'm talking of me, Marco the Magnificent.
Unfortunately, I fear after reading this story you won't find it as terrible as I do. I actually fear you might enjoy it, or be amused by it. God forbid. Because this is no joke.
"So, if I was to take off right now... I mean, run about like a madman and then decide instead to go home and watch some TV - what would you say to that?"
"We'd kick your ass, Marco. This is teamwork, and you're a part of this team."
"Oh yeah, right. Thanks, Rachel. That makes me feel oh so much better."
We were all wandering through the forest. It wasn't like one of those normal occasions when we'd wander through the forest - those being the occasions when something completely insane and terribly dangerous was about to be decided.
No, this was a fully peaceful operation.
It was a school thing, really. Orienteering, I think it's called. The school board had made this looney disicion that every now and then, the students were to be taken out of school for a day and have what they'd called "nature day".
No doubt Cassie loved that day.
And on this particular "nature day" (seriously, who came up with that name?), the school had decided to send their kids out on orienteering in the forest. We were devided into groups, using a handy map to search through the forest for these special posts or whatever, and then if we were the first to gather the information from all the posts, we'd win.
Sounds horrible, doesn't it? I know. But don't worry. There was something about to turn up that day that was to be worse than some boring walkabout in the forest...
As you could easily imagine, it was Cassie taking care of EVERYTHING. She had the map and the necessarily equipment, and she was leading us through the thick of the forest, claiming wherever we went to be "a short cut that is sure to take us into the lead in this thing"! How she managed to sound so enthusiastic, I'll never know.
"Why would you want to take off, anyway?" Jake asked me while waving his hand at a fly or something.
"Well," I said, "apart from this being the most boring this I've ever had to do in this forest - and that speaks for itself, mind you - there's actually a very fascinating show on bikini fashion I'd love to watch right now. Why do they ever air those things when people are at school?"
"So immature losers like yourself won't be able to watch it," Rachel grinned.
"Oh, haha," I sighed. "Very funny. Immature, me? Bah. That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard. Coming from someone as stupid as you for that matter, Rachel. D'you hear me? I'm not immature. You're stupid. Haha."
"Will you two ever stop fighting?" Jake asked. "It's like The Odd Couple or something."
"Except we're The Young Couple," Rachel said, then added, quickly: "And we're not a couple."
"Damn right," I agreed. "Hell freezes over the day I find myself in a relationship with Rachel."
"Then we're agreed."
"Yes, so we are."
"Great."
"Fine!"
"Oh please, just SHUT UP," Tobias said.
Yes, Tobias was there as well. And Ax.
You see, at first we'd decided just to get through the day like we would do any other day, but then we thought: Maybe if Bird-Boy and Ax-Man were to help us out with finding these posts, we'd be finished earlier and go home earlier. So that's what was going to happen.
The trouble was, Ax and Tobias couldn't really spot any of the posts from the air, seeing as how they were hidden all too well between the trees. So after a while, both Ax and Tobias morphed into humans and walked with us instead.
"How many posts do we have left to find?" I asked Cassie.
She checked her notes. "Uhm... five. They've all got questions about nature and stuff, so we'll have to cooperate to finish this in time for your bikini watch, Marco."
"Oh, great. This is sooo gonna be the worst day of the week."
Yep, I was right about that. I just didn't know HOW right.
"You know what would be great now?" I said after a while of us walking in silence.
"You shutting up for a change?" Rachel asked.
"No," I said, angrily, "but for the Ellimist or something to turn up and give us all the answers to those posts! Then we wouldn't have to do this wandering through the damn forest-thingy."
"But it's good for you!" Cassie said, laughing at my misery.
"The Ellimist would never do a thing like that," Jake said. "It's too small for him, wouldn't you say? If he was to help us out with questions, he wouldn't help us with the questions for some orienteering, he'd rather be helping us out in the finals of Jeopardy or something."
"Yeah, but we're not on Jeopardy," I argued. "Now what about Crayak? D'you think HE would do it?"
"I doubt it," Jake said. "Although I guess that little thing of his would have."
"The thing?"
"You know, the Drode. He'd love to play around with us. I'm sure he'd do it, just to mess everything up afterwards and then have a laugh."
Jake and the Drode don't exactly get along, as you might have noticed...
The again, who could get along with someone as insane as this slave of Crayak.
All of a sudden, Jake stopped walking. The rest of us went on for a few seconds before we realized he was standing behind.
We turned to face him. He looked concerned, or suspicious, in some way. It's difficult to explain, but it seemed certainly as though something was wrong.
"Jake, my man," I said, "what's wrong?"
He hesitated to answer, but then finally said: "I think something just happened. It felt as though it did... It was really weird!" He walked up to us, and gazed around the group for a second to make sure he had everyone's attention. "It was, well... It felt kind of as it has those times the Eye of Crayak's come to me, if you know what I mean. Only, it wasn't as painful as it usually is. It was like, a laugh, only it terrified and concerned me."
The rest of us just stood there staring at him for a moment.
"Jake, did you even hear yourself talk?" I finally asked.
"Would you please shut up?" Rachel said angrily to me. "Maybe he's right! Who knows when that lunatic of a Drode - or Crayak for that matter - could turn up. Nobody knows better than Jake how that feels."
"What are you saying, Jake?" Cassie asked. "Do you think Crayak just contacted you in some way?"
"It sounds so weird, I know," he replied. "Seeing as we just talked about him and everything, but I swear I could FEEL it was either him or that stupid Drode. It didn't feel good at all. It actually felt like a positive thing at first, then turned into something bad..."
"Like in a nightmare, where Carmen Electra turns into the Hulk," I said helpfully.
Jake looked at me. "Uhm... Yeah, just like that."
"So what was it, really?" Tobias asked. "I mean, do you know what it was?"
"I'm not sure," Jake said. "But..." He hesitated for a minute, and seemed to be thinking really hard. Then he looked up at Cassie. "Hand me those notes, Cassie. The one where you've written the answers to the other posts."
"But why?" she asked curiously as she handed them to him.
He looked at the notes for a second, then his concerned face turned even more concerned. He handed the notes around for us all to see.
When it reached me, I almost felt my chin drop. All the answers were there. But not only those from the posts we'd been to - I mean ALL OF THEM. Including the ones from the five last posts we yet hadn't visited.
"Oh God," Cassie whispered. "How did that happen?"
"It must have been Crayak," Ax said definite. "Like Prince Jake said, he is playing a game with us."
"No," Jake said, and he seemed very certain as he spoke. "It's not Crayak. The Drode. I know it. This is like his playtime, his spare hours, when he's not serving Crayak. And he's chosen to fool around with us."
"How can you be so sure?" Rachel asked.
"I just know it. Believe me, this was exactly what I felt. Those answers, they were that positive sensation I first felt."
"But you said in turned into the Hulk," I argued.
"Yes, it did." Jake nodded, seemingly worried. "But I don't know what that negative thing was. I can't tell. I don't think... I don't think it has happened yet."
"All right, what exactly is going on?" I asked angrily. "Are we on a quiz-show or something? That old show 'Candid camera'? On this week's edition, Mr. Drode is going to fool around with the Animorphs' orienteering game! Stay tuned!"
"Just SHUT UP," Rachel said furiously. "It's serious, haven't you noticed? This Drode is actually quite powerful, and we don't know what he's up to!"
I nodded. "He's obviously going to take something back," I suggested. "I mean, he gave us the answers, and I'm sure he did that because we said we wanted the Ellimist to do it for us, although that was a joke... In any case, I bet the bad feeling Jake had is reflecting on something bad that's going to happen to us in the next few minutes. Something the Drode choose to do in return for those answers."
"Which were the positive feeling," Cassie concluded.
"Exactly."
"That makes sense," Tobias said. "That idiot Drode is probably just working out how to make us repay his debt. This is not going to be fun."
And oh by God, how Tobias was right.
It was NOT going to be fun.
"Wait," Jake suddenly said, "I think it's going to happen now...! This damn Drode must be basically communicating through me... I feel as though I'm going... well, bad!"
He said some other stuff, but I didn't really pay attention anymore.
Something weird was happening to me. I felt dizzy. Everything around me started to spin, and all I could do was focus on keeping my balance. What was going on?
Suddenly, swift as lightening, it felt as though I was pulled harshly out of the group and was floating above all of them, observing as an audience or something. It's difficult to explain. The weirdest part was I could still see myself down there. as if I'd left my body or something.
I'm going crazy, I thought, still trying to fight the dizziness which was stronger than ever now, even though I believed I was floating in mid-air.
All of a sudden, a horrible pain came over me, and I instantly felt it coming from my eyes. It hurt to watch! It hurt to keep my eyes open! And instinctively, I closed them. The pain vanished.
I hesitated for a little while, still keeping my eyes firmly closed, until I finally dared to open them and look around once more.
I discovered three things when I did this.
First of all, the pain in my eyes was gone.
Second, the dizziness had vanished.
And third, I was still standing in the forest with all my friends, only this time, I was facing myself.
An identical copy of ME stood there, right in front of me.
It was ME!
***
And there we are, first chapter. Reviews, please?!