>>4714725
who will Jen piss off this thread?

“Nate usually leads the group, but I usually do what needs done if there’s too much hesitation or indecision. I don’t know how well our group dynamics would translate to Andalite culture.”

<Ah, I understand. You are the tactical officer, while he is the war-prince,> Ax nods sagely. It’s surprising how human his expressions seem to be.

“Not quite,” you frown.

“What is a prince, exactly?” Fred interrupts.

<A leader. One who has authority in battle.>

“Are you a prince?” Fred asks.

Ax looks down and digs at the grass with a hoof. <No. I’m… just an aristh.>

“An aristh?”

<A soldier out of school, but still in training. The lowest rank in our military. According to our customs, I am too young to even fight.>

“So, you’re the only Andalite here, you’re the lowest rank a soldier can be, and you’re not allowed to fight?” you ask.

<That is true. I’m sorry.>

“There’s nothing to be sorry for,” Fred says. “It’s not your fault.”

<I suppose,> Ax replies.


“If it makes you feel better, we’re not old enough to fight by human customs either,” you say.

<But you still fight?>

“Yeah,” you smile. “We still fight.”

--

Ax shows you around the dome. You don’t really get a lot of his descriptions; he tends to use Andalite words for very specific concepts or arrangements of plants that don’t make much sense to you. The way the pool of water is framed by a certain type of trees and meets the grass in a certain way is “enos ermarf”. A cluster of trees being arranged just so on top of a small hill is “gweleb ehn”. For Andalites, natural beauty and the state of their environment are very important. It fits with their spaceships seemingly being giant nature reserves.

“This is interesting Ax, but what technology is here? Are there weapons we can use against the Yeerks?” you ask.

He freezes. <No, there’s nothing we could use.>

His reaction is strange. He’s oddly nervous about a simple question.

“Are you sure?” you press. “Anything here could be useful. Even if it’s something small, we could give proof of alien technology to our government to convince them the Yeerks are here and real.”

<There really isn’t,> he insists. <All of our weapons and other technology are kept in the bridge and engines. The dome is just for us to graze in. Besides, even if there was technology to take, I couldn’t share it.>

“What? Why wouldn’t you be able to share with us?”

<It is forbidden.>

“Why? If it comes down to the Yeerks taking over our planet or you sharing, wouldn’t you do it then?”

<That would be a decision for the electorate, but I doubt they would agree to sharing any of our advancements.>

“That’s crazy. Why not?”

<I can’t say.>

You’re starting to get annoyed. Ax won’t give you anything that will help you stop the Yeerks, and he won’t say why either.

“Is there anything you can share with us that’s helpful?”

>>4714732
<Well, I believe that another Andalite fleet will come to this planet in one or two of your years.>

“Elfangor already told us that.”

<Ah,> he looks embarrassed. <I’m not sure if there’s anything else then.>

“Could we tell people about this ship?” Fred asks. “All we would need to do is to get someone with a submarine down here and show them.”

<The dome won’t last long. It was made to withstand the vacuum of space, not the pressure of this ocean, and it was already damaged in combat. I sent out the distress call because I was afraid it would collapse soon. Once it shatters, there will be little evidence anything was even here.>

“So what did we even come here for?” you say frustratedly. “We risked so much getting the morphs to come here, and for what?”

<I am sorry that I can’t help you, but I can offer my aid in combat. I may just be an aristh, but I am ready to fight the Yeerks. So long as you promise that I may kill Visser 3, I will fight with you.>

You and Fred look at each other. The lack of any technology or evidence that an Andalite ship came to Earth is a big let-down, but having Ax with you to fight the Yeerks could be a big help. He definitely knows just as much about them as you, if not more, and that tail blade looks like it could do some damage in a standup fight.

“I’m alright with that,” you say.

“Me too,” Fred agrees.

<Then it is settled. I have already acquired a morph from this planet’s oceans. We should leave soon.>

>Let’s go
>I have some questions first (write-in)

>>4714727
That’s up to you, but so far it looks more like Ax is pissing her off than anything else

>>4714733
>Let’s go

>>4714733
>You will need human morphs to stay subtle topside, right? Want to swap? The Yeerks think we're Andalites so far, so it'd help us sell that ruse in missions too if we acquired each other.

>>4714733
>Vizzer 3 still thinks we're andalites. You'll be hunted down even more than us once you're up there.

>>4714733
Supporting >>4714795

>>4714733
>What about the raygun he used to stun us? If we'd had a non-lethal option like that we wouldn't have had to kill the politician.

>>4714795
Also this.

>>4714795
>>4714733
>>4714823

>>4714733
>>Let’s go

Assuming the reluctance to give technology is to prevent the Yeerks from getting it.

Same reason advanced nations don't give 3rd world countries their best military tech. No matter how kind/good the Andalites seem to us, Earth is still just a backwater battlefield to them I expect.

>>4714795
>>4714811
>>4714871
>>4714823
>Asking about swapping morphs and the shredder
>>4715016
>>4714753
>Let's go

Asking a couple questions, swapping morphs, and heading out. Writing

>>4714733
“Wait. You’ll need human morphs. You’ll stick out like a sore thumb the way you are.”

<Ah, of course,> Ax says, before reaching one of his spindly arms out to you. Mirroring his gesture, you take his hand in yours. Without realizing, you start to zone out. Your focus fades away as you slip into a trance. [i]So this is what being acquired feels like[/i].

The feeling fades quickly, and Ax releases your hand. Then, he turns to Fred and repeats the process with him.

“Can we acquire you as well?” you ask. “The Yeerks think that our group are all Andalites. It would help if we could use Andalite morphs to really sell that.”

<Uhh, I don’t think we can do that,> Ax awkwardly says.

“Is there an actual reason why not? Or is it more [i]oh, we Andalites could never share anything with humans, and of course we can never say why not either[/i]?”

<The latter,> he quietly responds.

You sigh. “What about that raygun?”

<The shredder?> he asks, raising the device from earlier.

“Yeah.”

<Again, I can’t share technology. Even if I could, there’s no way I can think of to bring this to the surface. It wouldn’t survive being submerged, and there’s no way for us to carry it in morph.>

That’s disappointing, but it makes sense.

“Alright, let’s go then,” you say.

Ax goes to the side of the dome, and opens up a metal panel. He makes some adjustments inside the panel and then closes it. The lights begin to dim.

<That will ensure the dome collapses after we leave,> Ax says. <There is very little here that would be of use to the Yeerks, but it is still our policy to leave nothing for them.>

Knowing that this beautiful place will be gone soon is sad. There’s no time to mourn, though. You pile into the exit along with Ax and Fred. As the water begins to flood the chamber, you and Fred morph back to dolphins, while Ax begins to transform into a shark. Your dolphin instincts are put off by being in such close proximity to a shark, but you do your best to control it.

The swim back to shore is more boring than the trip to the dome was. On the way back, there’s no new scenery to look at. At least this time there’s no sharks in the way.

You have to stop part way through for everyone to morph back. It’s a challenge keeping Ax’s Andalite form afloat, and he sounds a bit panicked while you do it, but between you and Fred, you get it done. After that, the rest of the swim is short.

File: ax fredjen.png (1.26 MB, 2048x2048)

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>>4716233
It’s well into the afternoon when you arrive at the beach. At this point, school will have been over for a couple hours. You and Fred turn around as Ax quickly morphs to his original form and then to a human. Luckily, Fred left a spare change of clothes where you stashed your clothes, phones, and towels. Ax has a strange blending of your and Fred’s features. If you were judging just by his face, you wouldn’t be able to tell if he was male or female. His body is thankfully much more similar to Fred’s than yours.

“That’s really, really weird,” Fred says. “This might be strange to say, but I’m not sure if you look more like a pretty guy or a manly girl.”

“Definitely,” you say. “You’d be a cute guy if you didn’t look so much like me. It’s weird.”

“W-w-w-weird,” he says, eyes wide. An amazed smile spreads across his face. “Weeeeiiiirrd! It’s weird! I-i-its! W-w-weird!”

“Are you okay?” you ask.

“This is incredible! In-cred-cred-cred-ible! Ible ible ible! You humans just make these sounds with your mouth. S-sounds. Mouth sounds. Ounds. This is so weird!”

You and Fred look at each other in astonishment, before bursting out laughing. Ax is acting exactly how you do in a new morph, except this morph is a human. He’s figuring out how his new body works.

“What are those sounds? Sounds, ounds ounds ounds.”

“It’s laughter,” Fred explains with a smile on his face. “It means we find something funny,”

“Funny? Fuh, unny?” Ax looks positively bewildered. You’d try to explain to him, but you’re laughing again. He looks between you and Fred with a jerky motion, and then suddenly loses his balance and falls over.

You and Fred rush over to help him.

“Are you okay?” Fred asks.

“This body is very, very shaky. Sh-sh-sh-shaky. Shaky achey. How do you humans walk around on only two legs? L-l-legs?”

“Somehow, we manage,” you answer with a smirk.

After letting Ax wander around the beach, you and Fred towel off and get dressed. You fish your phone out of the pile, and glance at the notifications. There’s a couple texts from the rest of your group asking if everything is going alright, and then a text from your mom. It reads [i]Where are you? Come home immediately, we need to talk.[/i]

“Shit!”

--

The bus ride is uncomfortable. You and Fred had to frogmarch Ax straight to the back of the bus to avoid him acting weird in front of anyone. He makes some weird sounds while you’re riding, but the bus is mostly empty so nobody hears him.

After you texted the group about Ax and needing a place for him, Tony said that you could use his barn for the day. You’ll leave it to Fred to introduce Ax; you have to go home.

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>>4716236
After you texted the group about Ax and needing a place for him, Tony said that you could use his barn for the day. You’ll leave it to Fred to introduce Ax; you have to go home.

All throughout the bus ride and walk home, a million possibilities run through your mind. The most likely is that your mom found out about you skipping school, but you can’t stop yourself from imagining walking in the door to see a dozen Hork-Bajir and Visser 3. The only reassuring thing is the knowledge that if the Yeerks found out who you were, they wouldn’t bother setting up a trap at home. They’d have found and taken you already.

You open the front door, and trepidatiously step into the house. You don’t see your mom at first, and for a moment you dare to think that she won’t actually be home. That hope is shattered when she calls out your name from the kitchen.

You don’t make eye contact as you walk into the kitchen. Hopefully, she’ll just complain at you for a bit and then you can leave without any consequences.

“Care to explain where you were today?” she asks.

“I… was feeling under the weather.”

“Really? So you felt too sick to go to school, but you were just out on the town. Where’d you go?”

“I went to the beach. I thought it might help me feel better,” you awkwardly lie.

“Who did you go to the beach with?”

>Just humor her. Feed her whatever line of bullshit it takes to get out of this as quickly as possible
>Give her a piece of your mind. She couldn’t care less about you, and yet now she decides it’s the time for a full interrogation?
>Write-in

>>4716244
>Give her a piece of your mind. She couldn’t care less about you, and yet now she decides it’s the time for a full interrogation?

>>4716244
>Give her a piece of your mind. She couldn’t care less about you, and yet now she decides it’s the time for a full interrogation?

>>4716244
>Write in
Mom. Are you a yeerk?

>>4716244
>>Give her a piece of your mind. She couldn’t care less about you, and yet now she decides it’s the time for a full interrogation?

>>4716236
>Mouth sounds
that's not the only thing humans do with their mouths, Ax

>>4716244
>Give her a piece of your mind. She couldn’t care less about you, and yet now she decides it’s the time for a full interrogation?

>>4716244
>>Just humor her. Feed her whatever line of bullshit it takes to get out of this as quickly as possible

>>4716302
reminder that humans are so horny they can make yeerks horny enough to bang other human controllers

>>4716302
>>4716775
Do NOT lewd the Ax!

>>4716251
>>4716262
>>4716296
>>4716320
>Give her a piece of your mind

>>4716495
>Just humor her

Writing

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>>4716244
“Why is that any of your business?”

“Because I am your mother--”

“I don’t care! You’re never here, you don’t give a shit about me!”

“Don’t speak to me in that way.”

“I’ll speak to you however I please. You don’t get to only drop into my life whenever you want to complain about me and ignore me the rest of the time.”

“That’s not what this is. If you can’t act reasonably and uphold your responsibilities, then there will be consequences.”

“Fuck you,” you try to keep your voice from shaking, but you can’t quite manage it. “This is why Sarah moved out. She couldn’t deal with how fucking insane you are.”

“Fine then. You’re grounded. The only time you’ll be leaving this house is to go to school or to go to swim practice. I won’t have you hurting your future and my reputation in some misguided attempt at teenage rebellion.”

“I wish you had died instead of Dad,” you blurt out.

Mom just stares at you. Her face twitches slightly as she grimaces. Without saying anything, she turns away from you and clutches the counter.

“Go to your room,” she quietly says.

You ignore her and walk back out the front door, fists clenched. She doesn’t try to follow you.

Checking your phone once you get outside, you see that the others have been texting about Ax. The plan seems to be leaving him in the woods. According to Tony, there are several large sections of the forest that people don’t hike in because of the wolf reintroduction project. It should be a perfect hiding spot for Ax.

Otherwise, the group split up while you were out. They’re all at home right now.

Who are you going to get in contact with?

>Anna
>Nate
>Fred
>Tony
>Ax
>Write-in

>>4717173
>“I wish you had died instead of Dad,” you blurt out.
DAMN. Savage.


>>4717173
>>Nate

Nate has seen us at our worst. We can really let this all out with him without getting too much judgement or awkwardness. He'll get it.

>>4717173
>Fred

>>4717173
>Fred

>>4717173
>Nate

>>4717173
>Nate

>>4717173
>>Anna
She's our closest friend.

>>4717173
>“I wish you had died instead of Dad,” you blurt out.
Ooof

>>4717186
>>4717564
yeah, it was definitely a hardcore line
Even a Yeerk would have to feel bad about that one, if one's in her...

>>4717173
>Anna

>>4717186
>>4717329
>>4717401
>Nate
>>4717207
>>4717237
>Fred
>>4717564
>>4718005
>Anna

Writing

File: Nate's House.png (1.07 MB, 1283x691)

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>>4717173
For some reason, you find yourself wanting to see Nate. You tell yourself you’re just making sure everything is okay with you and him after last night, but you’re not actually sure why you’re going to him.

You send him a text asking if you can come over to his house and he quickly replies [i]sure[/i].

There’s no point taking a bus when he lives so close to you. It takes less than ten minutes to walk to his house. The white and red exterior brings back familiar and uncomfortable memories. You used to spend a lot of time here. If you’re lucky, his family won’t be home. You knock on the front door.

“Jen?” the door swings open, revealing Nate’s dad with a huge smile on his face. “Long time no see! How are you? How are your mom and sister?”

“Uh, we’re all fine. Is Nate here?”

“He’s in the living room. How are you really doing? I heard you, Anna, Nate, and Tony were all hanging out again. I guess you guys are getting the old group back together, right?”

“You heard? From Nate? I mean, I guess we are.”

“Dad, is that Jen?” Nate calls from within the house.

“Oh, sorry, I’ll let you through,” Nate’s dad says with a sheepish grin. “I didn’t mean to block the doorway.”

“It’s fine,” you say as you slip past him. Nate meets you in the hallway.

“Hey,” he addressed you with a tight lipped smile. “Dad, we’re going to head out back.”

“Sure thing, bud.”

Nate has a nice deck, with a barbecue and several lounge chairs. HIs dad takes good care of it. The sun is still up, and you enjoy the pleasant warmth as you recline in one of the chairs. You close your eyes as you look at the sky

“Well, what did you want to talk about?” Nate asks, taking a seat as well.

Now that you’re here, you don’t know where to begin with. The events of the other night might be a good place to start.

“Not much,” you begin. “I guess I wanted to make sure we were alright, after last night.”

He’s silent. You resist the urge to open your eyes and look at him. Not knowing where you stand with others is miserable, but hopefully you can figure things out.

“I think we’re alright,” he says.

Somehow, you can tell that there’s something he’s not saying. Letting it be is tempting, but that’s not you.

File: nate.png (309 KB, 512x512)

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>>4718729
“What aren’t you saying?” you bluntly ask. “I know there’s more you’re thinking of. Just tell me.”

“...I was pissed,” he says. “I was pissed that you went off on your own, that you put your own thing ahead of the mission, that you weren’t there to help us when we needed you to be there.”

“That’s not fair--” you begin.

“But,” he cuts you off. “That wasn’t your fault. I was the one who pressed for us to go on this mission. I didn’t trust you when you said the messages you were getting were real and important… and when you went after Berenson on your own, I let you go. What happened is my fault. I should have trusted you. I should have backed you up instead of being so selfish. I’m sorry.”

Your eyes are open by the end of his speech, but you end up looking away from him anyway. You wait to speak until you’re sure your voice won’t shake.

“Do you think I did the right thing by killing him?”

“Jen…”

You turn over on the lounge chair to make eye contact with him. He looks as upset as you felt last night.

>“Just tell me. I can take it.”
>No matter what he says, you don’t think you want to hear it. You’ll tell him about what happened with your mom instead
>No matter what he says, you don’t think you want to hear it. You’ll tell him to get the group together and go see Ax instead
>Write-in

>>4718730
>>No matter what he says, you don’t think you want to hear it. You’ll tell him about what happened with your mom instead


We know the answer to our question.

>>4718730
>“Just tell me. I can take it.”

>>4718730
>>No matter what he says, you don’t think you want to hear it. You’ll tell him about what happened with your mom instead

>>4718730
>>“Just tell me. I can take it.”

>>4718730
>>No matter what he says, you don’t think you want to hear it. You’ll tell him about what happened with your mom instead

>>4718730
>>“Just tell me. I can take it.”

>>4718730
>"Just tell me, I need to hear it."

>>4718733
>>4718758
>>4718968
>No matter what he says, you don’t think you want to hear it. You’ll tell him about what happened with your mom instead
>>4718744
>>4718924
>>4719086
>“Just tell me. I can take it.”
>>4719294
>"Just tell me, I need to hear it."

Calling it for asking him to tell you, but not including the "I need to hear it" write-in

File: food court.png (654 KB, 765x627)

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>>4718730
“Just tell me. I can take it.”

“I don’t know. I wasn’t there. Maybe our best shot at stopping the Yeerks requires that he didn’t live... but maybe it wasn’t necessary. I don’t think it’s fair to you if I judge you on things I didn’t see myself, yet I still can’t see how it could have happened. You were a tiger. He was just a regular human. He didn’t pose any threat to you.”


“It was necessary,” you quietly respond.

“Was it?”

“It has to have been. The Yeerks lost a powerful Controller. I didn’t like that I had to do it, but it was necessary.”

“I don’t know, but I’m not going to tell you that you made the wrong choice. And I’m sorry I let you get put in that situation.”

You want to argue, to say that you were making your own choices to get into that situation, and they [i]were[/i] the right choices. To remind him that you don’t need him to protect you or make your choices for you, but you don’t see the point. After all, you asked him for his opinion. Instead, you decide to just drop the subject. You don’t feel up to talking about your mom or putting together a team meeting, so you pick something easy.

“Want to get something to eat and then fly around?” you ask.

“Sure.”

--

The food court is crowded, but you manage to find a table in a back corner. Nate grabs a slice of pizza while you get some General Tso’s. You’ve always thought it was General [i]Cho’s[/i] but the menu says otherwise. The din of conversation filling the room, along with the distance between you and any other diners, lets you speak comfortably without worrying about someone overhearing.

“Did you meet Ax?” you ask in between bites.

“Yeah. I didn’t get much of a chance to talk to him, but he’s… very weird,” Nate says.

“Oh really? I hadn’t noticed,” you smirk.

He laughs.

“Do you think leaving him in the woods will be okay?” you ask.

“I think so. If Tony says it’ll be fine, then I trust him.”

“Alright. Did he tell you guys anything new?”

“Nah. He said he already told you everything he can.”

“It wasn’t much. Andalites don’t share anything with anyone, apparently.”

Nate doesn’t have anything else to add about Ax, so the conversation strays to more mundane topics. He made varsity basketball, so you talk about that a little before telling him how swim is going. You’d forgotten how easy it was to talk to him. You don’t want to get too comfortable though. Even if you and him have both been studiously avoiding discussing your past, it’s still hanging over your head.

He gets up to grab a cinnabon, leaving you some time to think about what to discuss next.

>Bring up what happened with your mom
>Talk about the breakup. It’ll be like pulling off a band-aid… right?
>You’ve had enough serious discussions for one day. Go fly
>Write-in

>>4720885
>>Bring up what happened with your mom

Breakup talk won't lead anywhere productive

>>4720885
>Bring up what happened with your mom

>>4720885
>>Talk about the breakup. It’ll be like pulling off a band-aid… right?

>>4720885
>Talk about the breakup. It’ll be like pulling off a band-aid… right?

>>4720885
>Talk aboot the breakup. It’ll be like pulling off a band-aid… right?

>>4720885
>Bring up what happened with your mom

I'm just going to lay it oot there, I'm not interested in Nate as Jen's long term love interest

Fred or Ax on the other hand...

>>4720885
>>Bring up what happened with your mom

>>4721201
Fred is bae, that quirky little weirdo

>>4720892
>>4721016
>>4721198
>>4721251
>Bring up what happened with your mom

>>4721052
>>4721169
>>4721194
>Talk aboot the breakup. It’ll be like pulling off a band-aid… right?

Writing

>>4720885
“So, how are you?” Nate asks as he sits back down.

“I thought we already talked about that.”

“No, I mean how are [i]you[/i]? We’ve talked about missions and swimming, but not about how you are doing.”

“I’m… fine. Just busy.”

“Really?” he gives you a skeptical look.

“Well, I am, it’s just that… I had a big argument with my mom earlier.”

“About?”

“I’d say school, but I don’t really know. She was mad about me skipping class, but I’m surprised she even cared or noticed. Normally she doesn’t pay any attention to what I do. I guess someone from the school must have called her, but… she didn’t notice that I’ve barely been at home at all lately, and she doesn’t seem to care that I’m spending all this time at home. It’s like she forgets I exist until something reminds her. Then, she thinks she has to come in and… discipline me or something.”

“That sounds awful.”

“It’s fine.”

“You say that a lot, even when it’s not true.”

You don’t respond. It’s uncomfortable enough trying to explain; you don’t need him to try to be a therapist.

“What about your sister?” he asks. “Is she home? I know she graduated, but does she ever come around?”

“No,” you admit. “She left as soon as she graduated. I don’t know where she is.”

“What? It’s just you and your mom?”

“And the cat.”

He’s not amused. “That’s not okay. You shouldn’t have to live like that.”

“I’m used to it,” you shrug. “Besides, it’s not like I can move out. I just wish she’d ignore me all of the time. It would be better than her dropping in once a month. Honestly, I can’t even remember the last time we had an actual conversation.”

He stares at you, an aghast expression on his face. “Are you serious?”

“I don’t know why you’re making a big deal out of this. It sucks, but it’s really not important.”

“What are you saying? Of course it’s important. I need to talk to my parents or something, there has to be something we can do.”

“No!” you interrupt. Glancing around to make sure nobody heard, you lower your voice before continuing. “I can’t do anything that would risk screwing with the team. Our missions come first, not family drama. Besides, it’s really not as bad as you’re acting. As long as I avoid her and don’t get into trouble at school or swim, she doesn’t bother me.”

“Is this how you’ve been living for the past six months?”

“Nate, please. It’s fine.”

“Stop saying that when it’s clearly not fine.”

“I’m telling you, it’s [i]fine[/i]. You don’t get it, and I can’t explain it, so drop it. Just trust me when I say there’s nothing that can be done.”

>>4722121
He looks frustrated. You feel the same way. Though you would never admit it to him, you do hate how things are with your mom. More than anything, you want your mom to care about you, you want your sister home, and you wish your dad was still alive. You want to have a proper family again. It’s just not possible, and it never will be. If you could explain all that to Nate, you would, but there’s no chance he’ll understand. His family has always been more happy and welcoming than any other family you’ve known.

“Okay, I’ll drop it,” he says. “I guess you’ll be going back to school tomorrow?”

“Yep,” you sigh. Though it will be nice to have a day off from meeting aliens and having near-death experiences, you can’t help but feel school is only a distraction from more important things.

“Have any thoughts about what we’ll do this weekend?”

“This weekend?”

“I figured we should get the team together and figure out what our next step should be. We have to find out what Ax wants us to do, and there’s still that thing with the Sharing.”

>“Let’s deal with the Sharing before anything else. I don’t want that hanging over my head.”
>“Let’s talk to Ax first. I’m sure he’ll have some ideas.”
>Write-in (Other plans? Anything you want to say to Nate?)

>>4722124
>“Let’s talk to Ax first. I’m sure he’ll have some ideas.”

>>4722124
>>“Let’s talk to Ax first. I’m sure he’ll have some ideas.”

>>4722124
>>“Let’s talk to Ax first. I’m sure he’ll have some ideas.”

>>4722124
>>“Let’s talk to Ax first. I’m sure he’ll have some ideas.”

I feel like Ax is going to have wonderful insight into things like the Sharing and maybe how to deal with Yeerks better.

>>4722124
>“Let’s deal with the Sharing before anything else. I don’t want that hanging over my head.”

No update today. I'll tally votes and write tomorrow

>>4722124
>“Let’s deal with the Sharing before anything else. I don’t want that hanging over my head.”

>>4722136
>>4722138
>>4722178
>>4722219
>Ask Ax
>>4722522
>>4724416
>Deal with the Sharing

Writing

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>>4722124
“Let’s talk to Ax first. I’m sure he’ll have some ideas.”

Nate agrees, and you head out of the mall. You’d wanted to fly around for a while, but it’s getting late in the day. Nate texts the others as you head to the bus station.

Nobody else is there when you arrive at the barn. Presumably, Ax is out in the woods and Tony is getting him, while everyone else is on their way. Tony’s dad won’t be home until late, so you can bring Ax to the barn without fear of anyone noticing.

Anna is the first to arrive. She smirks when she sees you and Nate sitting on hay bales.

“So, you two spent the day together?” she says, shit-eating grin on her face.

“We were just talking about what we’re going to do with Ax,” you glare.

“Okay, okay,” she raises her hands in mock-surrender. “I relent. I never meant to imply anything at all.”

You let out an aggrieved sigh, while Nate just looks uncomfortable.

“What’s the plan then?” she asks.

“We were just going to ask Ax what he thinks,” Nate shrugs. “I’m sure he’ll have some ideas.”

“Really? I thought the two of you would have some new suicide mission for us to go on already.”

Nate chuckles weakly and you put on a smile.

[b]THUMP[/b]

Something slams into the side of the barn. You jump to your feet, and get ready to morph. It’s impossible to tell what that sound came from, but you get ready anyway in case it’s trouble. Anna and Nate do the same.

<Hello? Anyone home?> thoughtspeech that sounds exactly like Fred comes from outside.

You rush out towards the source of the original, and see a peregrine falcon lying on the ground.

“Fred?” you ask. It looks at you.

“Yep. Sorry about the noise. Landing is really tough when you’re tired.”

“Did you fly all the way here?”

He doesn’t respond, instead beginning the morph back to human. Surprisingly, he manages to make the morph not look awful. He leaves the wings for last. They’ve grown to match his body, and he almost looks like an angel as he stands up and stretches them out. If you can look past the spandex biking suit he’s using for his morphing outfit, that is.

“Wow,” you simply say. Anna and Nate make similar sounds of amazement behind you.

“Cool, isn’t it? I’ve been practicing.”

That must be what he spent the afternoon doing after you split up.

“I won’t say that’s not impressive, but couldn’t you have taken a bus?” Nate asks.

“I didn’t have bus fare,” Fred frowns.

“You don’t have a bus pass? It’s only, what, 15 bucks a month?”

“My dad won’t pay for that.”

“Oh. Sorry.”

You’re not sure what’s going on there. You know that Fred’s dad is kind of crazy, but you didn’t realize Nate knew about that. It strikes you that you never found out how Nate and Fred know each other.

Before anyone else says anything, an osprey lands on the barn roof and looks down on your group.

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>>4725749
<Hey guys,> Tony says. <Ax is coming. What are you doing outside?>

“Nothing, we’re heading back in,” Fred quickly replies. If Tony thinks it’s strange that Fred is in his morphing suit while the rest of you are in normal clothes, he doesn’t say anything. The group heads around the back of the barn, just in time to see Ax step out of the treeline.

<Greetings,> he says.

“Hey,” Nate replies, looking around nervously. “Let’s get everyone inside. I know Tony said we’ll be fine, but I don’t like having you out in the open.”

You head inside. Once Tony demorphs, you turn to Ax.

“Ax,” you begin. “We’ve been talking about what to do next, and I want to know what ideas you have.”

<Ideas?>

“You know, for what we’ll do against the Yeerks next?”

<Err… I thought you would know what to do next.>

“I’m sure we could come up with some ideas, but you’re the Andalite. Aren’t your people the experts on fighting Yeerks?”

<Yes, but… not with others. Usually we battle in orbit, and attempt to defeat their fleets, to prevent them from ever landing. The few times we have cooperated with locals to root out Yeerks have ended… disastrously.>

“What do you mean?”

<We are not allowed to speak of it.>

Everyone sighs in frustration. Apparently, not just you and Fred got stonewalled by Ax.

“Okay, is there [i]anything[/i] useful you can suggest?”

<I have two ideas. The first is attempting to contact my homeworld. If we get word to the council, they will surely speed up aid to this world. As far as I know, there are a few pieces of human equipment on this world we could use, as well as the Yeerks equipment, of course. The other idea is a direct attack on the Yeerks. We won’t be able to destroy their pool, but if we can enter it, we can find their Kandrona source. Destroying the source would be a crippling blow. Going after the Kandrona would be significantly riskier.>

“We already found a Kandrona source,” Anna interjects. “It was very small and only served one Yeerk though.”

<The Kandrona sources they use for pools are usually large and require a lot of energy. It is very likely that they have one very large source for the nearest pool.>

“We could also go after the Sharing,” you suggest.

<What’s that?>

“Their local operation to recruit new Controllers. One of my teachers is trying to get me to join it. We could mess up their recruitment and find some leads on their plans and operations.”

The group falls silent as everyone thinks. If you want one plan in particular, you should push for it now.

>Contact the Andalites
>Go after the Kandrona
>Deal with the Sharing
>Write-in

>>4725750
>>Go after the Kandrona
>>Deal with the Sharing

These probably tie in with one another.

Let's effing gooooooooooo

>>4725750
>>Deal with the Sharing

>>4725750
>>Deal with the Sharing

Stop the spread first.

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>>4725750
>Deal with the Sharing

>>4725760
To clarify, doing one of these won't permanently exclude you from doing the others at some point. It's a choice of which you'll do first

>>4725750
>Deal with the Sharing
protect our fellow students

>>4725750
>>Deal with the Sharing

>>4725750
“I think we should go after the Sharing. I don’t want Fisher to keep bugging me to go to meetings, and we can find out what the Yeerks are up to next.”

“It’s more important to try to contact the Andalites,” Nate says. “How long will it be until they can get a fleet here, Ax? A couple months?”

<I can’t say. Our fleets are… stretched thin currently. Perhaps we could convince them of the urgency of our cause, but it is unlikely they will rush aid to this planet. It would still be at least one of your years. Additionally, they may be displeased that humans have received morphing technology.>

“Dammit,” Nate frowns. “I think you’re right then, Jen. The Sharing is our next best move.”

“What about going after the Kandrona?” Anna asks. “They won’t be able to do anything, let alone maintain the Sharing, if they lose it.”

“It’s too risky when we don’t have any information,” Nate replies. “It’s safer to deal with the Sharing first.”

Fred and Tony agree with him, and it’s settled. You send Nate an appreciative smile; you weren’t in the mood for another argument today.

“Alright,” Anna shrugs. “What’s the plan then?”

“I’m going to go to the next Sharing meeting,” you say. “I’ll find out from Fisher when it is. Then, you guys can follow me in morph. We can find out whoever’s in charge and start investigating them, as well as seeing whatever they get up to at these meetings. Once we find that out, I can tell Fisher I’m not interested in the Sharing. I don’t want to go to enough meetings for them to decide I’d be a good Controller.”

Nobody has any objections, and it’s starting to get late, so your group gets ready to head out. You’re ready to leave when it occurs to you that your mom will probably be home right now. Seeing her again is unavoidable, but you’d like to put it off as long as possible.

You’re tempted to ask Anna if you can crash at her house. Her parents know you and won’t mind, and neither will she. You’d feel guilty about putting her on the spot by asking her now, even though you know she’d accept.

Another option that comes to mind is asking Fred. He’d understand the situation with your mom, and his house is more than big enough to host you. However, you’re not sure if he’d accept, and it’s a bit strange to sleep over a boy’s house. Then again, there’s no harm in asking. Even if he refuses, you could ask Anna instead or just go home.

Sleeping over Nate’s house is probably out of the question. His parents would think it was something it isn’t. Tony’s dad might not care, but it would still be weird.

Of course, going home and trying to avoid your mom is always a possibility.

>Go home
>Ask someone if you can stay at their house (Who?)
>Write-in

Sorry for the short update. Tomorrow will be a longer one and then we'll end this reprieve to get back to the yeerk fighting action

Rolled 1 (1d2)

>>4727320
>>Ask someone if you can stay at their house (Who?)

>1 = Fred
>2 = Anna

>>4727320
>Ask someone if you can stay at their house (Who?)

Fred

>>4727320
>Go home

>>4727320
>Anna's place
does any of them have enough energy to spy on MC's mom? She's the perfect candidate for a Controller.

>>4727320
>>Ask someone if you can stay at their house
>Anna

>>4727320
>>Go home
Face the music

>>4727565
>>4727320
Honestly, I'm equally happy to go home and face the music.

>>4727331
>>4727345
>Fred
>>4727363
>>4727596
>>4727611
>Go home
>>4727477
>>4727565
>Anna

Going home narrowly wins it. Writing

>>4727320
You’ll go home. Maybe you can avoid your mom on the way in.

Before you leave, you see Nate whisper something to Anna. She glances at you, and starts walking over. You step outside and wait for her.

“I heard you had an argument with your mom?”

“Nate told you?”

“Yeah,” she gives you a concerned look. “Is everything okay?”

You’re about to reply [i]I’m fine[/i] when you remember what Nate said earlier about you always saying that.

“It’ll be okay. Things might just be more weird between me and her than usual.”

“Alright. You know you can tell me anything, right? If something is upsetting you, I want to hear about it.”

“Yeah, I’m sorry I told Nate and not you. I didn’t mean to leave you out.”

“No worries. See you at school.”

“See you.”

--

It’s dark when you get home. Your mom’s car is in the driveway, but there’s still a chance you can sneak upstairs without her noticing.

You’re as quiet as a mouse as you open the front door and tiptoe up the stairs. You allow yourself to breathe a quiet sigh of relief when you reach the top of the landing. Then, you hear a sound behind you.

Wheeling about in alarm, you see your mom standing behind you.

“Jen?” she says. “Go to bed, it’s late.”

“Uh, okay,” you reply. You’re not going to look a gift horse in the mouth. Though it may be a trick of the dim light, as you turn away you could swear you catch a look of disgust on her face.

Putting any thoughts of how your mom may or not feel about today’s argument, you head to your room.

[i]It doesn’t even matter how she feels,[/i] you reassure yourself. [i]As long as she stays out of my business.[/i]

You send Anna a text letting her know everything is fine, and then go to sleep.

In a pleasant change, your sleep tonight is free of both dreams and nightmares. Unfortunately, it’s still interrupted all too early by the trill of your alarm clock.

--

You let the day pass you by in a blur. Your mind is solely focused on the next mission; swim practice and school just don’t seem to matter compared to being an Animorph. Not that anything besides swim meets was all that important to you before the night at the construction site.

Luckily, few people seem to have noticed your absence. A couple teammates and your coach ask if you’re feeling better, but otherwise nobody says anything. It’s a strange feeling. On one hand, you’re relieved that there isn't anyone investigating your absence. On the other hand, it bothers you a little that nobody cares.

That feeling goes away when Mr. Fisher sees you in english class.

“Jennifer, can I speak to you outside of class?” he asks.

You already know what’s coming next. There’s no point trying to avoid it, and in fact you’re looking forward to it.

“Yes, Mr. Fisher?” you reply as you step out of the classroom.

>>4728630
“I see you missed a few days of school. as well as the Sharing meeting you said you’d attend,” he smiles kindly at you. “Are you feeling better?”

You’re not fooled by his facade. Lurking behind those eyes is the cruel and alien intelligence of a Yeerk, who wants nothing more than a new recruit to subjugate. There’s no way you’ll let that happen.

“I’m really sorry Mr. Fisher,” you reply without missing a beat. “I came down with this nasty 48-hour bug.”

“Oh, don’t apologize, Jennifer. It happens to everyone at some point. What’s important is that you’re feeling better now.”

“Thanks Mr. Fisher,” you smile back. “By the way, when is the next Sharing meeting? I’d love to attend.”

“Really? That’s great news. I just have one question first.”

“What?”

“Why is that when I called your home yesterday, your mother said you had been out all day, and the day before?”

So [i]that’s[/i] how your mom found out! You don’t have time to think about that though. To get through this, you’ll have to come up with an excuse for Fisher.

You could twist the truth enough to convince him, but that could lead to more uncomfortable questions about your home life.

Maybe it would be wiser to just bullshit your way through this. It wouldn’t be as convincing, but then again, countless high schoolers pretend to be sick to skip school. He’d likely just think you wanted to see your friends and were lying poorly to cover it up.

>“I’m sorry I lied.. but it’s just because I had this awful argument with my mom. Things are bad at home, and I just couldn’t bring myself to leave the house after that.”
>“That’s not true. I don’t know what she was talking about.”
>Write-in

>>4728632
>>“I’m sorry I lied.. but it’s just because I had this awful argument with my mom. Things are bad at home, and I just couldn’t bring myself to leave the house after that.”

And Jen's mom's a controller, folks!

>>4728632
>“I’m sorry I lied.. but it’s just because I had this awful argument with my mom. Things are bad at home, and I just couldn’t bring myself to leave the house after that.”

>>4728632
>>“I’m sorry I lied.. but it’s just because I had this awful argument with my mom. Things are bad at home, and I just couldn’t bring myself to leave the house after that.”

>>4728683
Yep. Maybe we can get Ax to run surveillance on her? That way the rest of us can stay at school and maintain an alibi.

>>4728632
>>“I’m sorry I lied.. but it’s just because I had this awful argument with my mom. Things are bad at home, and I just couldn’t bring myself to leave the house after that.”

>>4728632
>>“I’m sorry I lied.. but it’s just because I had this awful argument with my mom. Things are bad at home, and I just couldn’t bring myself to leave the house after that.”

Can't update tonight, and I'm not sure if I'll be able to tomorrow. Sorry about this

>>4728683
>>4728731
>>4728865
>>4728933
>>4729612
Set. Writing

>>4728632
“I’m sorry I lied,” you begin, trying to play up your already existing nervousness and resentment towards your mom. “But it’s just because I had this awful argument with my mom. Things are bad at home, and I just couldn’t bring myself to leave the house after that.”

“Oh,” Fisher stares at you with an unreadable expression for a second, but then breaks into a broad smile. “I understand. Don’t stress about it, I’ll make sure to extend whatever assignments you missed. There are plenty of people in the Sharing with a similar situation.”

“I’d really like to check it out,” you say, pasting on a fake smile. “Is there going to be a meeting this weekend?”

“There’s a camping trip. Of course, only full members are going to be staying overnight, but I think it would be a great idea for you to spend the day there.”

“That would be nice”

“Here you go,” he passes you a pamphlet. “This has all the information you’ll need.”

“Thanks.”

BBRRRRIIIIINNNNNGGGG!

The schoolbell interrupts anything else he might have said. You keep up the fake smile as you go into the classroom with Fisher and take your seat. Today, you do your best to stay off your phone and pretend to focus on the material. Fisher smiles when he notices you paying attention, and you awkwardly smile back. As the period drags on, it becomes harder and harder to keep up the facade. You can’t help but think about the Yeerk sitting behind his eyes, piloting his every move, forcing him to smile.

The Yeerk is an odd mirror of yourself. It’s doing its best to put on a mask and convince its mortal enemy to trust it, and you’re doing the same. The only difference is that you know what it is, and if it’s bought into your lies, it has no idea what you’re hiding. If you can get through this class, and everything goes according to plan, it never will know what you are.

Your thoughts stray to Fisher himself. Is he still in there somewhere? Is he fighting, doing anything to resist letting the Yeerks take over one of his students, or is he like the chief, a defeated man that wouldn’t even be able to move without prompting? Either way, it doesn’t affect your plans. You’re going to destroy the Yeerks. Saving their victims can come afterwards.

--

English class ends after what feels like an eternity. You wave goodbye to Fisher and leave without saying anything. You’re not sure if you could trust yourself to keep up the act any longer.

You spot Anna in the crowded hallways, moving towards the same exit as you. Before you can call out to her, she looks over and spots you. Smiling, she starts weaving through the crowd to meet up with you.

>>4731534
“Everything go well today?” she asks.

“Yep. Just another boring day at school. By the way, I’m going on a camping trip this weekend.”

“Oh really? The whole weekend?”

“Nope. Just tomorrow.”

“Do you get to bring friends?”

“I don’t think so, but there’s a chance I could sneak someone in if we’re discreet.”

“Really? Well I’ll have to talk with our friends, and see if we can work our plans around that.”

“Sounds good to me.”

--

You don’t bother stopping at home. Mom will probably be home from work and even if she’s pretending the argument didn’t happen, you still have no interest in seeing her.

Instead, you go straight to Tony’s barn. You’re the second to arrive, after the host himself. Next is Ax, then Fred, and then Nate and Anna.

Once everyone arrives, you start to hash out the plan.

You’ll go on the camping trip as a human. Anna has acquired a mouse morph, and she’ll come along with you in morph. Meanwhile, the rest of the team will be flying nearby in their bird morphs. Ax will be waiting further out into the woods, well away from the camping trip. If anything goes wrong and you need backup, him and the fliers will be ready to step in.

Is there anything you’d like to change about this plan or do before going on the mission?

>No changes
>Change (write-in)

The rest of the team, including you, have already acquired the mouse, so don’t worry about forgetting to acquire it

>No changes

Looks good to me! I really am not envying killing Controllers. Every time we kill one we're killing an innocent too.

>>4731537
That hinges on the car ride taking less than 2 hours, right? Is Anna going to be alright?

We should bring something that can spike a kandrona pool, since we can bring a bag and all. Something as simple as a small bottle of detergent(for emergency laundry) will be seriously dangerous to a yeerk, right?

>>4731537
>>No changes

>>4731612
The car ride is under an hour. Also, you already know the pool is under town. From what the visions showed you and what Ax knows, the underground structure won't stretch nearly as far as you're going. For those anons who forgot, we already learned about two entrances to the pool in the mall and in the school. http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/qstarchive/4664115/#p4680023 Here's the interrogation where we learned this if you want to reread it.

>>4731782
Yeah, but if we choose to tail them back to wherever they're coming from, one of those might lead back to a pool either way.

>>4731537
>Just in case it ever becomes necessary for any reason, should we all...acquire each other? You never know when one of us might need to pretend to be another one of us to cover for something.

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>>4731833
>acquire each other

>>4731833
>>4731537
Agreed.

>>4731833
>>4732424
>Acquire each other
>>4731796
>Bring along some detergent

Set. Writing

>>4733435
Dropped trip

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>>4731537
“That sounds good to me,” you say. “Is there anything else you guys can think of?”

The group collectively shrugs. You’re ready to leave it at that when something occurs to you.

“Wait,” you begin, “this might be weird, but shouldn’t we acquire each other? It could come in handy.” You really don’t want to trust the boys with your body, but you justify with the knowledge that, in an emergency, you’d rather have the option of someone covering for you than not.

“That’s… a good idea, actually,” Nate says.

“Are you sure?” Tony frowns. “It’s not that I don’t trust you guys, but the idea of someone else having my body… doesn’t sit right with me.”

“We can agree not to morph each other unless it’s absolutely necessary,” Nate replies.

“I guess that’s okay.”

<I have already told you that I won’t allow myself to be acquired,> Ax states. <I am willing to acquire you all if you consent.>

The group agrees to that, and you start the process of acquiring each other.

You and Anna start with each other. She holds out her hand and you take it.

“This is going to be great,” she smirks at you. “I can’t wait to try this. I think I’ll start by flirting with boys at the mall, and then maybe swing by school to chat with some of your teachers.”

You snort, “If you did, I’d just tell your parents you’d failed a test.”

She widens her eyes. “You wouldn’t.”

“Are you sure?” you smile back, and start acquiring her before she responds. She relaxes and closes her eyes. A tingle runs through you, and it’s done.

Morph acquired: Anna

She returns the favor, and then you move on to the rest of the group. Tony frowns slightly as you reach your hand out to him, but doesn’t say anything.

Morph acquired: Tony

Next is Fred. He gives you a nervous smile as he takes your hand.

Morph acquired: Fred

That just leaves Nate. He hesitates when you offer your hand.

“What are you waiting for?” you bluntly ask.

“Nothing,” he says, and firmly grasps your hand. “I’m trusting you with this, alright?”

“Sure,” you reply, and start acquiring him.

Morph acquired: Nate

Ax acquires Fred, Nate, and Tony, and with that done, everyone has acquired each other. It’s strange knowing that anyone here has the power to become you, but you reassure yourself with the knowledge that it’s for good reason. Besides, they trusted you with their morphs, so you should trust them.

With the preparation for the mission done, you entertain yourself by chatting with the others. The conversation is light, mostly concerning people’s favorite TV shows, and, for the boys, what new video games are coming out. It’s a distraction, but an enjoyable one.

>>4733763
Eventually, it starts to get late. The sun sinks lower into the sky, and commitments like clubs and homework rear their heads. People begin to leave, and you do the same.

Your mom isn’t home. She must be working late at the office. It’s a pleasant surprise.

Homework has piled up this week, so you take the time to finish it. Normally, you wouldn’t bother with it, but you told Fisher you’d catch up. You don’t want to blow your cover on some stupid worksheet. It’s not like there’s anything else you can do right now anyway.

After you finish up your homework, it’s time to pack your bag. You throw in some money, a nice bathing suit, a spare change of clothes, some snacks for Anna in case she gets hungry, and lastly a bottle of detergent. You doubt there’ll be any Yeerk pool out there, and you have no clue if detergent would do anything to it, but better safe than sorry.

With that done, you’re about ready to go to bed. It’s earlier than usual for you, but the bus for the trip is leaving early tomorrow and you don’t want to miss it. The last thing you do is lay out a nice outdoors outfit for tomorrow.

As you’re getting ready to turn out your lights, you hear a car pull up outside. Peering out your window, you see your mom’s car turn into the driveway. She gets out and heads towards the door. Quickly, you turn off the lights, pull your door shut, and climb into bed.

Listening carefully, you hear her unlock the front door and come inside. She starts to move around downstairs. The fridge and pantry open along with some drawers, and then there’s silence again. You try to make yourself ignore her and go to sleep, but it doesn’t work.

Some half hour later, she comes up the stairs. Her footsteps come closer and closer to you, before stopping. Judging by how far away the footsteps were, she must be outside her doorway. You keep quiet and still, waiting for her to open her door.

Instead, the footsteps resume, growing closer again until she stops outside the door.

You freeze, not even breathing, hoping she’ll stop whatever she’s doing and go back to her room. Your door creaks open, and the light from the hallway shines in on you. From your mom’s point of view, it appears as though you’re sound asleep. You don’t want to break that illusion.

“Jen?” she softly calls. “Are you awake?”

Needless to say, you don’t respond. Silently, you plead for her to go away and just let you sleep.

“I’m sorry.”

[i]What?[/i]

“I’m sorry I’ve been acting this way. I’m sorry I haven’t been there at all for you. I wish I could look you in the eye and tell you this, but I can’t. Maybe someday, you’ll understand.”

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>>4733765
She must not realize that you’re pretending to be asleep or not. She wouldn’t be saying this if you were awake. You’ve never seen her act like this. Even before Dad died, and before she started acting differently, she’d never been so… open. Back then, she had been nice, and acted responsible towards you, but she’d never been openly loving. Not like Dad, or any other parents you’d seen.

Hearing her words, you feel a pang of guilt over what you said to her yesterday. Even if it was true, you had no idea she felt like this. However, if she’s being honest, then why now? Why can’t she just act like this? Why does she have to treat you the way she does?

She closes your door and her footsteps move back down the hallway. Try as you might, you can’t find any answer to your questions before you drift off to sleep.

--

Your sleep is mostly dreamless. There are only a few incoherent images that pass through your half-conscious mind. Mom and Sarah cheering on the side of the pool. Dad waiting with a smile on his face after your race. Your family trip to the beach along with Nate and Anna’s families. Happy memories, that you had tried to shut out until now.

--

You wake at the crack of dawn. Not wasting any time, you grab the outfit you’d prepared last night and head for the shower.

For you, a hot shower is the perfect start to the day. You wait a minute for it to heat up before stepping in. The almost scaldingly hot water runs over your head and down your back, while steam billows up all around you, fogging up the glass curtain. This will be your last chance at a reprieve for a while, and you intend to take advantage of it.

You lounge in the shower until the water gets cold enough to force you out. Toweling off, you wipe down the mirror with a hand towel and start applying your makeup. You want to look as good as possible today. People don’t usually question a pretty girl in a nice outfit with a big smile. At least, humans don’t.

After finishing up and getting dressed, you go downstairs. Your mom is eating breakfast as well, and looks at you with muted surprise as you enter the kitchen.

“You’re up early,” she remarks.

“Yep,” you say. Putting together a bowl of cereal, you studiously avoid looking at her as you. You don’t know what last night was about, and now is not the time to try and figure it out.

Once you finish breakfast, you head out the door. She doesn’t ask you where you’re going.

Anna’s house is your first stop. She’s waiting outside for you, and laughs when she sees you.

“Look who’s all dolled up for their first day at camp. I’m sure the Yeerks will swoon when they see you.”

“Shut up,” you laugh. “Let’s go. I don’t want to be late.”

The bus you’ll be taking to the camp is leaving from the school in about twenty minutes. That should give you more than enough time to find somewhere discreet for Anna to morph, but you don’t want to waste time anyway.

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>>4733769
You make a brief stop along the way to the school in a wooded area to morph. A couple minutes later, you pack Anna’s clothes into your bag along with one small brown mouse.

<Geez, be gentle!> she exclaims. <This morph is really small, and really scared.>

“Here,” you say, offering her part of a granola bar. “Just stay in the bag and I’ll wake you when we get there.”

When you arrive at the school, you see a bus and a car in the parking lot. Upon getting closer, you see that Mr. Fisher standing next to the car, looking around. You wave when he spots you. He jogs over with a broad smile on his face.

“Jen, I’m glad you made it. You’re the last one here, so once you get on board we’ll get going.”

Glancing at the windows of the bus, you don’t see many faces.

“I thought there’d be more people.”

“Oh, there are! All the full members drove out last night, these are just the new members your age. Hopefully you’ll decide to become a member too!”

Creepy.

“Sure,” you smile back at him.

“Well, hop on board, and let’s get to it!” Without waiting for a response, he heads back to his car and starts it up.

You get on the bus. There’s about five or six other teenagers on board, and most of them are asleep or trying to sleep. It makes sense; you’d probably be trying to get back to sleep at this time if there weren’t people depending on you.

Taking a seat near the back, you do your best to settle in as the bus starts moving.

--

Forty-five minutes later, you’ve arrived. It’s hard to see through the trees, but you can make out some cabins and trails. Lifting your bag up, you do your best to inconspicuously whisper to it.

“Anna, we’re here.”

<Huh? What? Why’d you wake me up?>

“You were sleeping?”

<I was, until you interrupted.>

“Okay. We’re here. I’m going to let you out as soon as I can.”

<Alright. How much time do I have left in morph?>

“About an hour.”

<Okay. Let me know when.>

You put the bag on your shoulder and join the other teens shuffling off the bus. Fisher is waiting for you outside.

“Hey everyone!” he yells enthusiastically. “Hopefully you didn’t mind the drive up. It’s scenic, but I know you kids hate car rides. I can’t stay to chat, but make yourself at home! There should be some counselors still in the cabins if you want a tour, but most of the campers will be down at the lake. Go make friends, enjoy yourself!”

“Hey, Mr. Fisher, where are you going?” you ask.

“I’m meeting with the other trip organizers and supervisors. Sorry, there’s no campers allowed at the meeting, but you should go have fun instead.”

“Right.”

>>4733770
Now that you have some information, you can come up with a plan. First, you’ll drop Anna off in the woods so she can get some distance and remorph. While you’re out there, Nate or somebody else will probably contact you. He texted you while you were on the bus to let you know everyone was morphing and on their way to the camp. With the winding forest route the bus took, he almost definitely beat you here. After that, you’ll need to pick somewhere to start

>Try to eavesdrop on the meeting
>Meet up with one of the counselors and get a tour
>Go meet the other campers at the lake.
>Write-in

>>4733769
Not necessarily the outfit Jen is wearing today, I just wanted to repost the art because I don't think I've posted it since thread 1

>>4733771
>>Try to eavesdrop on the meeting
If Fisher doesn't want us there then we want to be there.

>>4733771
>Meet up with one of the counselors and get a tour
Leave the eavesdropping and snooping to our friends. Their morphs are far less suspicious than us doing it.

>>4733769
If it's actually a yeerk then she just revealed one juicy weakness to save her.

>>4733771
Can someone else handle the eavesdropping? We don't want anyone thinking Jen is missing.
>Take a look at the vehicles, check if they're being watched.
>Meet up with one of the counselors and get a tour

If the cars are unguarded, we could slash all the tires. We're a long way from those pools, enough that if we pair it with something else they'd have to call someone else to pick them all up.

>>4733904

support

What's the smallest creature that can effectively slash tires? The biters will be too slow for the sheer quantity of cars and rubber, but a tiger is pretty big.

>>4733771
>Go meet the other campers at the lake
If we find out where The Sharing is drawing their new recruits from we have a good target for future surveillance and some insight into their operational mindset
>See Anna can talk to the others and have someone eavesdrop on the meeting
>Do NOT slash any tyres

>>4733928
>>4733904
>If the cars are unguarded, we could slash all the tires. We're a long way from those pools, enough that if we pair it with something else they'd have to call someone else to pick them all up.
This seems like a bad idea.

Slashing their tyres is an obvious act of opposition and the yeerks are an underground conspiracy engaged in a shadow war with shapeshifting aliens - they're not going to be so naive as to think this is just random vandalism by a disgruntled kid, they're going to assume one of the campers is part of the opposition. Most likely they'll assume it's one of the 5 or 6 new kids and from there it's not hard to draw a link to the kid who's always absent from school at the time the '''andalites''' launch an attack. They probably won't jump to the conclusion that the andalites shared their treasured morphing tech but it'll definitely draw attention we DON'T need.
And for what? So they are mildly inconvenienced by having to call a few taxis and tow trucks on an expensive trip out to the woods?

>>4734064
It's not about what we do NOW, it's about what options we can take, as humans or animals. Staging an animal attack on the tires isn't out of the picture, even though that itself shouldn't be done unless we're particularly sure we can keep them on the mountain long enough to get nervous.

>>4734064
Support.

>>4734064
>>See Anna can talk to the others and have someone eavesdrop on the meeting
>>Do NOT slash any tyres

Changing to this. If we can possibly keep them on the mountain long enough like >>4734075
said then we can consider slashing.

>>4733778
>Eavesdrop
>>4733786
>>4733904
>Meet up with a counselor
>>4734064
>>4734820
>>4734869
>Go to the lake

Set. Writing

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>>4733771
The first thing you need to do is get Anna into the woods so she can demorph. You glance around the carpark. There’s five other busses as well as plenty of cars and vans. The thought of slashing tires to strand the Yeerks here occurs to you, but there’s no way it would work. The only morph you have that could destroy tires in a relatively quick fashion is the tiger, and even then it would take way too long to stop all these cars from leaving. There’s also no chance anyone in the nearby cabins wouldn’t notice a tiger chewing on tires for hours. If you had Ax’s help, his tail would likely make quick work of tires, but he would be even more conspicuous. Even if you did it, and got away with it, the Controllers would just call in someone to come pick them up. You’re not that far from town.

The rest of the new recruits are milling around the parking lot and chatting with each other. Though you’d like to talk to some of them, and potentially dissuade them from joining the Sharing, there’s more important things to do. Hopefully they’ll figure out that this place isn’t what it seems on their own.

You’ve wasted enough time. You quickly start walking down the trail leading towards the lake. Once you’re out of sight of the parking lot, you get off the path and start walking into the woods. The trees are particularly thick here, and in under a minute you’re out of sight.

<Hey,> Nate’s voice seems to come from above you. Looking around, you don’t see him. He must be high above you in his eagle morph.

“Hey,” you quietly respond, trusting his excellent hearing to pick up what you’re saying. “Am I clear to let Anna out?”

“Nobody’s anywhere near you. You’re all clear.”

You trust him. There’s nothing on Earth that can sneak past a bird-of-prey in woods like these. Taking your bag off your shoulder, you unzip it and let it fall to the ground.

“Hop out,” you instruct Anna. “You better not have made a mess in there.”

<I’m hurt you don’t trust me,> she says. You can sense the amusement in her thoughtspeech. She crawls out of the bag and onto the forest floor, and begins the morph back to human.

“Are Tony and Fred with you?” you ask Nate, looking away from Anna. Seeing someone morph is always disgusting.

<They’re checking out the camp right now. Anything you need us to do?>

“Fisher is going to a meeting with the leadership here right now. Can you check that out?”

<Of course. Anna, when you finish morphing back, I’ll grab you and fly you over.>

“Can’t I just fly myself?” she asks, having finished the transformation back to her original state.

<You’re going to have to go back to being a mouse anyway if they’re indoors at all, and mice don’t really cover much ground on their own. Would you rather fly with me, or take your chances going through the woods on your own?>

“Point taken,” she says, and starts the morph back to mouse.

>>4735514
“I’m going to the lake,” you say to Nate. “I’ll try to find out where they’re getting new recruits from,”

<Sounds good to me. You should get going now, the people in the parking lot are starting to spread out. You’ll want to make it to the lake before them.>

“Gotcha.”


Zippering your bag back up, you throw it over your shoulder again and start heading back to the trail. The walk to the lake is short, and after cresting a small hill, it comes into sight.

It’s beautiful. The sun is high in the sky, and reflects off of the waves lapping gently against the shore. On the docks and in the water, dozens of teens in bathing suits are running, shouting, and laughing. In the distance, across the lake, the forest stretches from the treeline by the shore all the way over the hills. If you kept going in that direction, you could travel for dozens, if not hundreds of miles before reaching the mountains.

As your gaze turns to the campers, you almost wish you could join them. Swimming, fooling around with your friends, and spending days out here just soaking up the natural beauty sounds better than anything you could think of. Unfortunately, you’re here on a mission. Besides, you’d never be able to relax knowing at least some of these people are Controllers.

You walk down to the docks. As you approach, a young man climbs out of the lake and runs over to meet you. He raises a hand in greeting, and you start to make out some details as he gets closer. He looks slightly older than you, either a senior in high school or a young college student. There’s a boyish grin on his face. He’s in good shape, and not wearing anything but a pair of swim trunks.

“Hey, are you one of the new members?” he asks.

“Not a new member,” you politely smile back. “At least, not yet. I’m just coming up for the day.”

“We’re glad to have you either way. My name’s Curt,” he says, sticking his hand out for you to shake.

“Jen,” you reply, and take his hand. He firmly shakes it.

“Want to come swimming? I can introduce you to everyone. There’s some changing stalls over there if you brought a suit.”

“That sounds fun. Are you one of the counselors?”

“I’m just a CIT right now. A counselor in training. I’ve been a member for a long time now, though. I think I’ll become a full counselor soon.”

“Nice. I’m going to go change and then I’ll come back and join you.”

“Great! It’ll be nice to have some new people. I’m sure you’ll love it here.”

You smile and nod. He starts heading back to the water, and you walk along the shore to the stalls. You’re not sure yet if he was a Controller or not. It seems likely, seeing as he said he’s been a member for a while. Then again, how many teenagers would the Yeerks really want to recruit? Surely not everyone here is a Controller. A Yeerk wouldn’t be of much use if all its host did was do homework and go to the mall.

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>>4735516
It doesn’t really matter either way. You’ll be treating everyone here as though they’re a Controller.

You change into your bathing suit and exit the stall. As you start walking towards the docks, something catches your eye. In the woods, on the other shore of the lake, it looks like someone is standing by the treeline, watching the campers. You’re not certain if it’s just an odd shadow or a person, until it moves and disappears. That was definitely a person. You wish you had the vision of a hawk right now, but sadly you’re trapped as a human for now.

Curt sees you standing on the shore and calls out to you from the lake. There’s no time to keep staring at the woods. Maybe you’ll get the chance to find out who that was later.

You run back to the docks, and jump in. The water is pleasantly cool. Curt introduces you to some of the other campers, and for a while you just play water polo in the shallows.

After the game finishes up, you join Curt in climbing back onto the docks.

“So, what’s going on today?” you ask.

“Not much right now,” he answers. “It’s our first full day here, so everyone is just relaxing now. I think most people will head back to the cabins area to eat lunch pretty soon, and then split up again. There’ll be some hikes, fishing, more swimming, really anything you could think of. It’s a lot of fun. Then we’ll have dinner. I think it’s a barbecue and bonfire tonight.”

“That sounds nice, but I think I’ll be leaving before then. It’s for full members only, right?”

“Yeah, but… if you wanted to, I could see about persuading the counselors to let you stay. You’d probably have to say you wanted to become a member though. You should do that. You’re having fun, right?”

“I am. How did you join the Sharing?”

“My uncle got me into it. I want to go to law school, and he’s a lawyer. He said a lot of people he knows from work are in it as well. Important people, not just other lawyers. He said that if I joined, I could get some really good recommendation letters.”

“That’s cool. One of my teachers at school recommended it to me.”

“Really?” he frowns. “I thought we weren’t allowed to recruit at schools right now because of the whole police thing.”

“What police thing?”

“You didn’t hear about it? It was all over the news.”

You’re certain you know what he’s talking about, but you ask anyway. “I didn’t. What happened?”

“The town police chief went missing. Now his replacement is going crazy, saying that it’s the Sharing’s fault he disappeared and a bunch of crazy stuff like that. We’re not really supposed to be recruiting at schools right now because of that. He went to the news and said we’re ‘indoctrinating kids’ or some bullshit like that.”

Something must show on your face because he gives you a reassuring smile and laughs.

>>4735519
“We’re not scientologists, you know. We go on nature walks, we don’t plot big conspiracies.”

“Right,” you force a smile. “That sounds crazy.”

“I know, right? Hey, do you want to go back and get lunch? We’re supposed to be out in nature and all that, but there’s a little restaurant set up by the cabins that serves great food. We could go back before everyone else and get there before there’s anybody.”

The information about the chief is important. You should probably get this back to the others, and try to find out what’s happening at the meeting.

However, that would mean missing out on getting more information from Curt.

There’s also that person you saw on the shoreline before. You couldn’t make anything out about them, but you’re still curious

>“That sounds great.”
>“I think I’ll just explore the camp for a bit. Want to meet again a little later?” (Meet with the others)
>“I think I’ll just explore the camp for a bit. Want to meet again a little later?” (Try and track down the stranger)
>Write-in

>>4735519
>Now his replacement is going crazy, saying that it’s the Sharing’s fault he disappeared and a bunch of crazy stuff like that

This sounds like a potential ally. I don't know about trying to explain all this to a random person, but if this is human who is panicking about the conspiracy they've uncovered we could really use their help before they get controlled.

We really don't have anything to benefit from meeting with the others. We'll find out soon enough and they'll warn us if we're in danger.

While I am VERY curious about the person on the shoreline, we're here for info gathering about the Sharing. I think we should stick with Curt.

>>4735526
>Write in
If possible, try to contact one of the others somehow to investigate the stranger. Otherwise just go with:

>“That sounds great.”

>>4735526

>“That sounds great.”

>>4735526
>>“That sounds great.”

>>4735539
>If possible, try to contact one of the others somehow to investigate the stranger. Otherwise just go with: “That sounds great.”
Also this. I assumed we'd have Fred or Tony keeping an eye on us from the sky for safety while Nate and Anna checked out the meeting but apparently not. If we had one of the other two watching us then we could signal to them about the person in the woods just be staring intently in that direction.

>>4735526
>If possible, try to contact one of the others somehow to investigate the stranger. Otherwise just go with: “That sounds great.”

>>4735539
>>4735563
>>4735676
>>4735729
>That sounds great
>Contact the others

Set. Writing

>>4735519
Man, the former and current police chief are NOT having a good time.
>On the run, didn't pack anything, bank account probably frozen.

>Found a fucking alien pool in the house of your former boss, counting the days until you yourself get flying spaghetti monster'd

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>>4735526
“That sounds great,” you keep up the smile. “Can I just dry off and change first?”

“Yeah, I need to change too.”

You and Curt walk along the shore back to the stalls. You enter one, and he goes into another.

<Jen, can you hear me?> Fred’s voice interrupts as you’re toweling down. <Sorry, stupid question, I’m definitely too far to hear your answer. If you can hear me, then, uh, just stick your hand up in the air when you come out and I’ll know. I didn’t want to interrupt you earlier, and I don’t like to fly over water anyway. I don’t have anything to report, I just wanted to let you know I was keeping an eye out for you. Be careful.>

Even though you’d like a little more information about what everyone else is doing, you’re glad there’s someone watching out for you. You’ll have to find some way to get away from the camp later to update Fred and ask him to check in on the rest of your friends. After drying off and changing back, you exit the stall and quickly raise your right hand into the air.

Curt steps out of his stall shortly after you.

“All done?” he asks. “Let’s head back then.”

He walks closely next to you on the way back to the main camp. You try not to let your discomfort show as you discuss sports and school with him. He plays football and is graduating from high school this year. He seems very nice, but there’s no telling what he’s really thinking. You’re not sure why Fisher wanted to recruit you, but it’s entirely possible he told the other Controllers to pressure you into joining, and Curt could be one of them.

Soon enough, the campsite comes into view. Now you see what looks like a dingy little diner and cafe off to the side of the cabins.

“It doesn’t look like much,” Curt says, “but it’s great. I promise.”

You follow him in and take a seat. A bored looking waitress comes to take your order. You pick the first thing you see on the menu, scrambled eggs. Curt gets a steak sandwich and resumes the conversation once the waitress leaves.

“So, what do you want to do after high school?”

“I’m not sure. I think I’ll go to whichever college I can get into that has the best swimming team.”

“Awesome. I don’t think I’ll do football after high school. It’s fun, but I’m not good enough to do it in college.”

>>4737153
You’re not sure what to pressure him on next; the powerful people he mentioned earlier, the police chief, or maybe just about the Sharing in general.

He’s been asking a lot of questions about yourself, so it might be strange for you to ask him a lot of questions that barely have anything to do with him. The amount of time you spend here is also a concern. Fred will probably alert you if anything goes on outside, but he’s not perfect, and you want to check back in with the rest of the group soon.

What questions will you ask, and how many?

>“You said your uncle knows some powerful people in the Sharing. Who?”
>“Was there anything else about that story with the police chief? What happened to the chief, and who’s his replacement?”
>“When did the Sharing start? What’s it about? I don’t really know much about it.”
>Write-in

>>4737156
>“Was there anything else about that story with the police chief? What happened to the chief, and who’s his replacement?”
You can't drop a bomb ass story like that and not follow up on it

>>4737156
>>“Was there anything else about that story with the police chief? What happened to the chief, and who’s his replacement?”

And what's the deal with the ban on recruiting kids?

>>4737156
>>“Was there anything else about that story with the police chief? What happened to the chief, and who’s his replacement?”

>>4737156
>“Was there anything else about that story with the police chief? What happened to the chief, and who’s his replacement?”

>>4737190
>>4737214
>>4737223
>>4737408
“Was there anything else about that story with the police chief? What happened to the chief, and who’s his replacement?”

Set. Writing

>>4737156
“Was there anything else about that story with the police chief? What happened to the chief, and who’s his replacement?”

“Oh, I probably made that sound like more than it was. It’s not really a big deal.”

“Come on, I’m curious.”

“Alright,” he laughs. “I guess I should start with the police chief. His name was Mr. Thompson. I never met him, but he was a Sharing member for a long time. He really helped us out, actually. It’s because of him that we have all these recruiting drives and we get to go to schools and stuff. The mayor here used to be really against all that, but he won him over I think.”

“Won him over?”

“They were friends, and Mr. Thompson got him to come to some meetings. The mayor didn’t join, but once he saw what we’re about, he started helping us out.”

That’s concerning. You’re not sure yet if the mayor is a Controller too. Him suddenly getting on board is suspicious, but then wouldn’t he join the Sharing too?

“Anyway,” Curt continues, “Mr. Thompson ended up disappearing a few days ago. Nobody really knows what happened, not even his family. He just vanished from his house overnight.His replacement doesn’t like the Sharing for whatever reason, so he’s blaming us even though it obviously has nothing to do with us.”

That means the Yeerks didn’t find the chief, or at least not yet. You can’t see why they wouldn’t have put another Yeerk in his head and sent him back if they found him.

“Who’s the replacement?” you ask.

“The deputy chief I guess. He’s crazy. He thinks the Sharing kidnapped or something. It doesn’t make any sense. Why would we do that?”

“I don’t know. Why would he believe that?”

“I mean, I guess…” he hesitates, “no, there’s no reason. He’s just crazy.”

“Really? It seems like there was something you wanted to say.”

“It’s not a big deal, but,” he lowers his voice and leans in conspiratorially, “I heard that a while back Mr. Thompson got into some sort of trouble with the leadership here. It might just be a rumor, but from what I’ve heard he got kicked out of all the important meetings. Obviously, don’t tell anyone about this. That might have something to do with his replacement attacking the Sharing, but it’s probably just him being crazy.”

“Geez. So the deputy chief is saying, what, the Sharing murdered him?”

Curt gives you a serious look. You try to laugh to break the awkward silence, but it just comes out stilted. As he stares at you, the waitress comes back with your food. You both thank her and start eating in silence. You can’t come up with anything to say to break the silence. Eventually Curt puts down his fork and knife and sighs.

“Something like that I guess. We shouldn’t be talking about this. It’ll get fixed soon, anyway.”

“Fixed?” you dare.

>>4739627
“Yeah. There are a lot of people out there with crazy ideas about us, and a lot of journalists willing to entertain them. Usually they end up embarrassing themselves publicly with some nonsense, or someone famous or important endorses us. It’s not fair that we get treated like this, honestly. You’ve seen what we’re about.”

“You’re right,” you clench your first beneath the table, as if concentrating all your tension there will stop it from showing on your face. “Everyone has seemed really nice.”

“I’m glad you’re having a good time,” he beams at you. “So anyway, have you started looking at colleges with swim teams?”

--

It takes another hour or so of entertaining him with pointless conversation before you get a chance to break away.

“Can we have the check please?” he asks the waitress. She agrees and heads to the back again.

“The Sharing doesn’t cover the food here?” you ask him.

“They do for the trip, but not at this restaurant. Don’t worry, it’s my treat.”

You’d have liked to ask him more important questions, but you don’t risk it. You might get a chance to ask him important questions later.

You return to the main campsite after he pays and you leave the diner. More campers are here now, having returned from the lake and whatever other parts of the camping ground you haven’t seen yet.

“I’ll show you around camp a little,” Curt says.

“Sure,” you reply.

As you pass through, a few campers wave to Curt. He returns the wave, but doesn’t seem interested in talking to them, until one boy splits off from his group to meet you.

“Hey!” he calls out. “I missed you down at the lake. Who’s your…” he looks you up and down, “friend?”

“Behave,” Curt admonishes him. “This is Jen. She’s new around here.”

“Oh, so you… took her under your wing?” he smirks. “Got lunch together, just the two of you, to make sure she… settled in?”

“Quit it!” Curt complains. “You don’t have to embarrass me.”

“I’m just kidding!” he turns to you. “I’m Jared. Anyway, want to come with us, Curt? We’re going on a hike soon. You can come too, Jen.”

“Actually,” you say. “I think I’m going to head off. I never got a chance to look around the camp. We can meet up again after your hike.”

“Are you sure?” Curt frowns. “You should come with us.”

“I’m going,” Jared interrupts. “The group is leaving in a minute. You should come now if you’re going.” He turns around and jogs back in the direction he came from.

“It’s fine,” you say. “I’ll see you later.”

“Is this about Jared being weird?” Curt asks. “I’m sorry about that.”

“No, really, it’s fine. I promise I’m not upset. Just go on the hike.”

He hesitates, then shrugs. “Alright. As long as you’re not upset. And again, I’m sorry if he was creepy. I’ll make sure he doesn’t do it again.”

>>4739630
“Enjoy your hike.” You wait to watch him join the other group.

Finally, you’re free of him. You don’t hesitate to head in the opposite direction. Once you’re out of sight of any of the campers, you start jogging into the woods. You make it well out of sight of the campgrounds, but still neither Fred nor any of the others contact you. After a minute of waiting, you start waving your hands in the air.

<Are you alright?> Fred’s voice asks.

“Yeah, are you?” you respond, looking up. After glancing around, you spot him sitting on a tree branch high above you. “What were you waiting for?”

<Oh. I didn’t realize you wanted to talk.>

“Why else would I be out in the middle of the woods?”

<Sorry.>

“It’s fine. Is anything happening? Have you heard anything from the others?”

<Nothing so far. Who’s that guy that you’re with? I think I heard you call him Curt? I don’t like him.>

“Huh? He’s just a CIT here. I don’t think he’s even a Controller. Anyway, can you try to find Nate? I want to find out what happened at the meeting he was checking out.”

<Sure. Just don’t trust that guy, he wouldn’t give away that he’s a Controller.>

“I’m being careful. Oh, before you go, did you see someone down by the lake earlier?”

<There were a lot of people.>

“I mean someone in particular. I could have sworn I saw someone split off from the rest of the group, standing by the far shore on their own.”

<I don’t think so. I would have spotted anyone if I looked over there. I was mostly focused on you and the campers, though. I guess it’s possible there was someone and I didn’t see them.”

“Damn. Can you get Nate then?”

<Okay, I’ll try to find him.>

He takes flight, leaving you alone in the woods. You wait impatiently for him. Nobody should come across you out here, you’re too far from camp, but you’re still nervous. Having to keep up your cover is starting to get to you. You just want to get your information and get out.

Your thoughts are interrupted by the fluttering of wings as a peregrine falcon lands on a nearby branch, followed by a golden eagle and an osprey.

“How did it go?” you ask.

<Very good,> Nate replies. <It was all Controllers. There’s been some sort of a power struggle in the Sharing between two of Visser 3’s underlings. One of them supports basically abandoning the Sharing and instead just kidnapping important people and making them into Controllers. The other guy wants to focus on more slow recruitment and expanding the Sharing. It seems like the slow recruitment guy is in charge now.>

“Slow recruitment?”

<He thinks the other guy’s plan is too risky. Instead, he wants to get a lot of people to join the Sharing, and start recruiting important people that way. He wanted young people too, but we didn’t catch a reason for that.>

“And he’s the one in charge?”

>>4739633
<Yep. He wasn’t even at the meeting. Instead, he had some representative speaking for him. I think we should focus on dealing with this guy. He seems scarily competent. The one arguing with his representative didn’t have a lot of support at the meeting. How were things on your end?>

“Good. I spent most of my time with a CIT here. His uncle got him into it by saying that there were a lot of important people here who could get him into law school. I’m pretty sure he’s not a Controller, but he knows a lot about what’s going on. He said that the police chief was an important member, and now that he’s missing, the deputy chief is kicking up a fuss about it. He thinks the Sharing killed the chief or something.”

<Really? He can’t be a Controller then, but the Yeerks will probably do something about him soon.>

“That’s what I was thinking. He said that people who attack the Sharing usually end up getting embarrassed or shut up by someone big and important. It’s only a matter of time before that happens if we don’t do something.”

<You’re right. Is there anything else?>

“Not much. The CIT said that the mayor was friends with the police chief. The mayor let the Sharing start recruiting at schools after the chief got him to come to a couple meetings. The mayor never joined, so I’m not sure if they made him a Controller or not.”

<I’ll try to find that out if I can. Either way, we’ll need to do something about the deputy chief after we leave. Are you still planning to leave early with the rest of the new members?>

>>4739637
Only full members of the Sharing are staying the night, but Curt had said he could convince the people in charge here to let you stay. You’d be able to get the most information that way, but there’s also the risk involved. Even though you don’t think they’d try to make you a host on your first night, it’s still a risk. You would also have to keep your act up with Curt for much longer.

You were planning to leave this evening with the rest of the new campers, and you can still do that. It wouldn’t give you as much opportunity to get information from Curt, but it would give you an easy excuse to leave.

Something else occurs to you. You’ve gathered enough information, you could leave now. They wouldn’t force you to stay if you said your friend texted you, it was an emergency, and you had to go. This way there’d be no more having to deal with Curt, Fisher, or any other campers. You could also try and make contact with the deputy chief today instead of waiting until tomorrow, though it might be hard on such short notice.

“Are the busses still in the parking lot?” you ask. “Are any of them going to leave soon?"

<I think so?> Nate says. <I spotted one or two people getting back on them after the meeting. You could ask somebody and probably leave if you go now. Why?>

>“I honestly don’t think I can keep up this cover for the rest of the day. I’m going to try and go home.”
>“It’s nothing. By the way, I was invited to stay the night, and I think I’m going to. I can get more information this way.”
>“It’s nothing. I’m going to stay until the evening, gather whatever information I can, and then go home.”
>Write-in

>>4739627
>but then wouldn’t he join the Sharing too?

I'm thinking maybe this is part of the power struggle with the Yeerks. Maybe a disagreement on the best course of action. That or he's just too important to be directly involved with this maybe.

>>4739633
>I don’t like him.
Good old Fred! Not sure if this is jealousy or intuition

>>4739642
>>“It’s nothing. By the way, I was invited to stay the night, and I think I’m going to. I can get more information this way.”

I say we go for it. Risk it for the biscuit. If our friends work in shifts we can probably have some coverage overnight. Do we have an owl morph?

>>4739642

>>>“It’s nothing. By the way, I was invited to stay the night, and I think I’m going to. I can get more information this way.”

>>4739663
>Do we have an owl morph
Yep.

Morph list. The rest have the same morphs except they don't have the tiger. Nate, Fred, and Anna have gorilla morphs, and Tony has an elephant morph
>Cat (Bubbles)
>Wolf
>Peregrine falcon
>Red-tailed hawk
>Golden Eagle
>Squirrel
>Raccoon
>Horse
>Great Horned Owl
>Siberian Tiger
>Nate, Fred, Tony, Anna

>>4739684
Don't we also have a dolphin?

>>4739642
“I honestly don’t think I can keep up this cover for the rest of the day. I’m going to try and go home.”

>>4739778
>Don't we also have a dolphin?
You do, my mistake

>>4739642
>“It’s nothing. I’m going to stay until the evening, gather whatever information I can, and then go home.”

kino! got my vote in!

>>4739642
>“It’s nothing. By the way, I was invited to stay the night, and I think I’m going to. I can get more information this way.”

>>4739663
>>4739672
>>4741741
>“It’s nothing. By the way, I was invited to stay the night, and I think I’m going to. I can get more information this way.”
>>4739778
>“I honestly don’t think I can keep up this cover for the rest of the day. I’m going to try and go home.”
>>4741707
>“It’s nothing. I’m going to stay until the evening, gather whatever information I can, and then go home.”

Set. Writing

>>4741784
Trip dropped again

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616 KB PNG

>>4739642
“It’s nothing. By the way, I was invited to stay the night, and I think I’m going to. I can get more information this way.”

<Are you sure?> Nate asks, tilting his head slightly as he stares at you with the serious glare only a bird-of-prey could have.

“I’m sure.”

<You don’t have to do this,> Anna says. <You can leave if you want to. We won’t mind getting to take a break from flying and go home early.>

“I said I’m sure. It’ll be okay as long as I stay focused.”

<Okay,> Nate replies. <Don’t be afraid to signal us if you need us to bail you out early. Anna and I are going to go back to following the higher-ups here and Fred will keep an eye on you. Tony is around somewhere, but I haven’t spoken to him since we split up earlier. He’ll probably find you and Fred if he has anything urgent to report.>

“Alright. You guys should get back to it then. I’m going to head back to camp.”

<Got it. Stay safe.> He takes flight, and Anna follows him after giving you one last look.

<Let’s go back, then,> Fred says. <I’ll keep an eye out for that person you mentioned earlier. And by the way, please be careful. I don’t trust that guy you were with, or anyone else here.>

Everyone worrying about you is starting to get on your nerves. You’re tempted to tell Fred to knock it off, but you can’t bring yourself to snap at him. You have enough to worry about already without getting into fights with your friends.

Instead, you nod and start walking back to camp. While you were gone, most of the campers seemed to have moved. Curt’s group is missing, presumably on his nature walk. There’s a large dining hall near the cabins, and glancing through some windows you see that most of everyone else is eating lunch. Otherwise, there’s only a few small groups and stragglers moving through the campsite. Now is the best time to look around and see what you’ve missed.

Apart from the cabins, dining hall, and small diner, there’s not much else at the main campsite. There are a few rudimentary basketball courts and a small soccer pitch, all of which are empty at the moment. A road leads to the parking lot, still full of busses and cars. Another path that you’ve already seen leads to the lake. Several trails lead into the forest.

You decide to check out the trails. Even though you don’t plan on it, if you need to make a getaway later it’ll be useful to know the lay of the land.

The trails are mostly the same. Just winding paths through the hilly forest. On the first trail you decided to check out, you spot a group ahead of you in the distance. It may or may not be Curt’s group, but you still don’t want to run into them and get sidetracked. You turn around and go back to camp.

>>4741892
The other trails are mostly empty except for one or two other hikers. You pass them with a friendly smile and wave and keep going. After around an hour of walking, you think you’ve mapped them out well enough in your head for later.

When you return to camp, people are starting to move around again. The dining hall is emptying out and larger and larger groups of people are passing through. Somebody has put together a game of basketball on one of the courts. The camp is starting to come back to life, which means Curt and his friends will likely be back soon.

“Jennifer!” a voice calls out. You look over, already knowing who it is. Fisher is standing, waving at you.

“Hey Mr. Fisher,” you call back and walk over to him.

“How are you settling in?” he asks, a too-wide smile on his face. Before, you would have thought it was the exaggerated false cheer most high school teachers have. Now you know better.

“It’s great!” you smile back at him. “Everyone’s been really nice here. I’m having a really good time.”

“Well, aren’t you glad you came along now?”

“I really am.”

“You’ve made some friends then?”

“I have.”

“Who? I might know them.”

“A guy named Curt. He’s been showing me around.”

“Curt is a very nice young man. I’d say he’s a good influence for all the other campers his age.”

“He is, I think. He’s been very welcoming.”

“May I ask, have you considered joining the Sharing? I know you were just coming to check it out, but would I be right in saying you’re enjoying seeing what we’re all about?”

“I have thought about it. Actually, Curt mentioned that it might be possible for me to stay the night tonight with the rest of the full members.”

“Did he?” Fisher frowns. “He should know that’s not for new members.”

“He does, but he said if I wanted to join I could ask. I’ve been having such a good time here Mr. Fisher, I just thought, if it was at all possible…”

“Well… I can see what I can do. We’d be happy to have you as a full member, and if you really were interested… then it could be possible.”

“I’d love that.”

“I’ll see what I can do, then. But don’t take this for granted! We don’t make offers like this every day, you know.”

“Of course, but I really am interested in joining.”

“Like I said, I’ll see what I can do. No promises, but you should make yourself at home either way. You can drop off your things in that cabin,” he gestures at your backpack, and then points at one of the nearby cabins. “You’ll stay there, if I can sort things out. Anyway, tell me about what you’ve been doing today. I’m eager to hear what you’ve been getting up to.”

Looking over Fisher’s shoulder, you spot a group of campers coming towards the main camp from one of the trails. At the front of the group are Curt, and that other boy from earlier, Jared.

>>4741897
You stick your hand up and wave at them.

“I’m sorry Mr. Fisher, but my friends just got back. Is it okay if I go hang out with them?”

“Oh, go right ahead. I wouldn’t want to keep them waiting.”

“Thanks,” you smile again, and start walking away. Fisher bought your bullshit yet again. Now you just need to get the rest of the information you wanted from Curt, and spend the night safely.

“Jennifer?” Fisher calls behind you again. A droplet of cold sweat slides down the back of your neck.

You stop and look over your shoulder. “Yes?”

“I’m really happy to see you coming out of your shell.”

“Thanks,” you say, and quickly walk away. You meet Curt and his friends in the middle of the campsite.

“Hey!” he says.

“Hey,” you reply. “How was your hike?”

“It was good. By the way, Jared has something he wants to say to you.”

Jared looks between you and Curt, embarrassment clear to see on his face. He’s silent until Curt punches him in the shoulder.

“Ow!” he yelps. “I just wanted to say that I’m very sorry for earlier. I was being a… a ‘creep’ and a ‘dickhead’ and I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable. Or upset you. Sorry.”

“That’s… okay,” you frown. “I wasn’t upset.”

“He’s sorry anyway,” Curt says. “And he’ll be twice as sorry if he does it again,” he finishes, glaring at Jared.

“What he said,” Jared follows up.

“Anyway, we were going to go back to the lake. Want to come with?”

“Sure,” you say.

--

You idle the afternoon away sunbathing on the docks in between periodic dips into the pool. Curt’s friends are all nice, and do their best to make you feel at home. Or, at least as ‘at home’ you can be while infiltrating an organization designed to gather new recruits for an evil intergalactic empire of mind controlling space slugs. It’s still hard to believe that’s what’s really going on here, but you can’t forget it.

Unfortunately, with all these people around, there isn’t much chance to ask Curt more questions. It’ll have to wait until later. For now, you just enjoy the pleasant weather and beautiful view.

It’s as you’re enjoying that view that you see it again. A familiar silhouette, standing on the other side of the lake. Your human vision can’t make out much from this distance, but from what you can see it’s looking straight at your group. At you?

Without thinking, you’ve risen to your feet. The others stare at you.

“You good?” Curt asks.

>“I… need to go for a walk real quick. By myself. To… enjoy nature.” (Chase down the person)
>“I… need to go for a walk real quick. By myself. To… enjoy nature.” (Send Fred after them. You’ll be on your own while he does that.)
>“Yeah, I’m just going to hop back into the lake. I’m getting a little sunburned”
>Write-in

>>4741902
>“I… need to go for a walk real quick. By myself. To… enjoy nature.” (Send Fred after them. You’ll be on your own while he does that.)

>>4741902
>I have to go do mysterious things in the vague direction of the bathroom. Boys aren’t allowed to know about it, I’m afraid.

“I… need to go for a walk real quick. By myself. To… enjoy nature.” (Send Fred after them. You’ll be on your own while he does that.)

>>4741902
>>“I… need to go for a walk real quick. By myself. To… enjoy nature.” (Send Fred after them. You’ll be on your own while he does that.)

>>4741902
>“I… need to go for a walk real quick. By myself. To… enjoy nature.” (Send Fred after them. You’ll be on your own while he does that.)

>>4739642
>>“It’s nothing. I’m going to stay until the evening, gather whatever information I can, and then go home.”

>>4739663
>That or he's just too important to be directly involved with this maybe.
That's what I'm thinking. Don't want to put all their eggs in one basket and taint the mayor if the Sharing gets bad press.

>>4741902
>>“I… need to go for a walk real quick. By myself. To… enjoy nature.” (Chase down the person)

Let's fucking gooooo.

This honestly could be a plot to lure away our guardians. I also don't think we can count on on the others to find this person. Strange that we've seen them twice and the literal raptor vision people haven't. I don't want to miss this chance.

>>4741923
>>4741930
>>4741961
>>4742013
>Send Fred
>>4742501
>Chase down the person

Set. Writing

>>4741929
To clarify, Curt's friend group is about 5-10 people and not all of them are boys.

>>4742135
A little late for that vote but I appreciate it anon

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>>4741902
You stand. There’s no way you’re letting whoever this is get away again.

The others look at you.

“I… need to go for a walk real quick,” you say. It’s the only thing you can think of. “By myself. To enjoy nature.”

“Uh, is everything okay?” Curt asks.

“Yeah, I’m fine, I’m just getting an urge to walk.”

You start briskly walking along the docks, and then onto the shore. You cut into the forest, and when you’ve covered enough distance you call out to Fred.

“Fred! I saw the person again. They were in that direction,” you point, “on the edge of the forest.”

<Sorry,> he says. You don’t see him, but that’s to be expected in the woods. <I wasn’t looking.>

“That’s fine. I just need you to fly over there and find them.”

<You’d be on your own.>

“I can deal with that. Just find out who that was and what they’re up to. Go now, before they can get away.”

<I’m on it. Stay safe.>

“Will do.”

With that done, you head back to the docks.

“What was that about?” Curt asks.

“I dunno,” you smile. “I just felt the urge to walk around a little.”

“Okay, I guess,” he slowly says.

“Want to hop back in the water?”

--

The afternoon slips by in mixed stretches of sunbathing and swims in the lake. As the sun sinks lower in the sky towards the mountains, hunger and fatigue start to drive campers back towards the cabins. There’ll be a barbecue and bonfire tonight, and it’s all everyone is talking about

You delay returning to camp with excuses about wanting to enjoy the view for as long as you can, but you can’t buy enough time for Fred to return. Eventually, you have to go back with the rest of the group. You hope Fred is okay on his own.

When you reach the main campgrounds, the bonfire is roaring and all of the campers are gathered around it, lying on towels or sitting at benches and tables the organizers have brought.

As far as you know, all the temporary campers have left by now. Nobody has said anything to you, so you assume Fisher sorted everything out.

It’s cool outside, but the heat of the flames warms you. You get a plate of food and sit at a table with Curt and his friends.

His group is boisterous, laughing, joking, and talking loudly as they eat. You do your best to seem friendly without appearing fake, quiet without appearing withdrawn. It’s difficult to strike the balance, but you think you’ve managed to achieve it.

It’s getting late when you get your chance to ask Curt more questions. The group has split up, some going to talk to other friends, and others going back to the cabins early. It’s just you and him, sitting at this table

“I’m glad you decided to stay,” he begins.

“Me too,” you say.

“Are you going to stay tomorrow?”

“I don’t think so. I’d really like to, but I have to get home. Maybe I can stay until the afternoon.”

“That’d be nice. You were serious about joining, right?”

>>4744157
“Yeah, I think so. I’ve had a really good time here. It’s nice to get away from home for a while.”

That much is the truth at least. As stressful as it’s been trying to keep up your cover while finding out whatever information you can, you really have enjoyed your time here. You didn’t realise how badly you needed a break until now. You don’t really like Curt nearly as much as he seems to like you, but you have to admit he’s not so bad. It’s a shame he’ll end up a Controller some day. The thought of trying to warn him or convince him somehow is tempting but pointless. Your mission is more important than trying to save one boy. Everything will end up alright anyway if you and the rest of the Animorphs can succeed in stopping the Yeerks.

“So,” you say, “since I’m probably joining, I have some questions about the Sharing. When did it start? What’s it about?”

“It was founded, I don’t know, maybe ten years ago?” Curt answers. “Our founder was a man named Lore David Altman. He was a genius, and he had all these great ideas about friendship, cooperation, all that. And he wasn’t one of those ‘world peace’ idealists without any actual plans. He really knew what he was talking about. It’s a shame what happened to him.”

“What do you mean?”

“He died just a year or two after the Sharing was founded. Some rare form of blood clots that nobody knew about until it was too late. He just passed one night.”

“That’s awful.”

“I’m sure he’d be happy with his legacy, though. The Sharing does so much good.”

“Like charitable donations?”

“That, and a million other things. They help so many people. I’m glad to just be a part of it. And I’m happy you’re a part of it too,” he smiles at you again.

“Me too. Anyway, you mentioned earlier that there are important people in the Sharing? Who were you talking about?”

“There’s a lot of people. Names aren’t really important. But I wanted to talk a little more about you instead of the Sharing.”

Damnit. Stonewalled again, and you didn’t even get anything you couldn’t find in a brochure. Hopefully you’ll get the chance to ask more later.

You entertain Curt for a while longer, until the campsite starts clearing out. Most people are going to the cabins to sleep, while a handful are going back to the parking lot. Presumably they’re full members, but not able to stay the night for whatever reason.

<Jen, we need to talk,> Nate’s voice interrupts. <Can you get away from that guy for a bit?>

You don’t let your surprise show. Instead, you keep up the conversation until it reaches a lull.

“I’m going to go to the bathroom,” you say. “I’ll be back in five minutes.”

“Sure, take your time,” Curt says.

Once you get far enough away, you use the darkness and buildings to slip towards the woods once again.

“What is it?” you ask, assuming Nate will be able to hear you.

>>4744160
<You need to get out of here,> he says.

“Why? I’m getting close to answering all my questions.”

<I found out why the Yeerks are recruiting young people. More Yeerks are arriving from their homeworld, and they want the perfect hosts for them. They’re planning to get a bunch of young hosts to put through college and start inserting into important positions. That’s why Fisher wanted to recruit you so badly. You must have been picked for whatever reason.>

“Shit. Do you think they’re planning to do that tonight?”

<I… don’t know. We should get you out of here anyway. I don’t want to take any unnecessary risks.>

“Where are the others?”

<Anna was with me. She’s making sure nobody comes out here right now. Tony’s the one who let us know about this, and he’s back watching the important Controllers. I thought Fred was with you, but I didn’t see him.>

“I asked him to check on someone suspicious earlier, and I haven’t seen him since then.”

<That’s just what we needed. It’s a crisis and Fred’s missing. He shouldn’t have left you on your own.>

“It’s not his fault. I asked him to do it. Are you sure I can’t stay the night? Was there any sign that there are Yeerks here they’re ready to put in a host?”

<I didn’t see any, but that doesn’t mean anything. We’ve gotten enough information, we should go.>

“I haven’t got enough. We haven’t found anything about the Kandrona. Trust me, I can get more.”

<Now isn’t the time to be taking risks. If they get you, they’ll get all of us.>

Nate has a point, but you still can’t just let this go. You’re close, you can feel it. Besides, leaving early could blow your cover. You’ve already told Curt and Fisher you’d stay the night.

You’re also not sure how much of this is Nate being cautious, and how much is him being protective of you. You don’t like to think about it, but he might be driven by more than just a desire to complete the mission.

Then there’s the question of Fred. He’s still out there somewhere. You’ll make sure the others go look for him, no matter what, but you need to make a decision as to what you’re doing now.

>“Fine. I’ll make an excuse and leave as soon as I can.”
>“I can get more. Just give me a little time and then I’ll get out. I promise.”
>“I’m not blowing my cover. It’ll be too suspicious if I leave now. I’ll stay the night and leave first thing in the morning.”
>Write-in

>>4744163
>“I’m not blowing my cover. It’ll be too suspicious if I leave now. I’ll stay the night and leave first thing in the morning.”
Jen can handle herself

>>4744160
>>“I’m not blowing my cover. It’ll be too suspicious if I leave now. I’ll stay the night and leave first thing in the morning.”

>>4744163
>>“I’m not blowing my cover. It’ll be too suspicious if I leave now. I’ll stay the night and leave first thing in the morning.”

>>4744160
>>“Fine. I’ll make an excuse and leave as soon as I can.”

We're not learning anything new and the potential for this to go sideways is very high. We need to get gone.

>>4744524
>“Fine. I’ll make an excuse and leave as soon as I can.”

>>4744163
>>“Fine. I’ll make an excuse and leave as soon as I can.”

>>4744163
>“I’m not blowing my cover. It’ll be too suspicious if I leave now. I’ll stay the night and leave first thing in the morning.”

>>4744163
>“I’m not blowing my cover. It’ll be too suspicious if I leave now. I’ll stay the night and leave first thing in the morning.”

Orgo chem exam tomorrow. No update tonight. If I haven't committed suicide by tomorrow night I'll tally and write then

>>4744163
>>“I’m not blowing my cover. It’ll be too suspicious if I leave now. I’ll stay the night and leave first thing in the morning.”

>>4744163
>“Fine. I’ll make an excuse and leave as soon as I can.”

>>4746410
all cool

>>4746410
All is forgiven, my son.

>>4744183
>>4744198
>>4744237
>>4746014
>>4746146
>>4746469
>“I’m not blowing my cover. It’ll be too suspicious if I leave now. I’ll stay the night and leave first thing in the morning.”
>>4744524
>>4745119
>>4745715
>>4746597
>“Fine. I’ll make an excuse and leave as soon as I can.”

Set. Writing

>>4744163
“I’m not blowing my cover. It’ll be too suspicious if I leave now. I’ll stay the night and leave tomorrow morning instead.”

<I disagree,> Nate says, <but it’s your choice.>

“It is, and I’ve made it. You and Anna should morph owls. It’s getting dark.”

<Okay.>

With a flutter of wings, he descends from the sky in a dark blur to land next to you. He begins the morph back to human right away. It’s impossible to make out anything in the dark except for a mess of shifting and growing limbs.

His morph finishes and he stands next to you.

“You should morph quickly,” you tell him. “I don’t want to spend too long out here.”

He shrinks, his legs receding into his torso. After another few minutes, that morph finishes as well.

“If you’re ready, I’ll go back to the campsite. Can you tell Anna to go looking for Fred while we’re in camp?”

<Okay,> he says, now an owl. <I’ll pass the message on. I’m ready to go whenever you are.>

You turn and start walking back to camp. Truth be told, you are feeling nervous about this. There’s a pit in your stomach, and you’re sweating in spite of the cool evening air. You’re almost done, though. You’ll just need to press Curt a little more and then you can go to bed and be done here.

It’s nearly impossible to navigate through the woods back to camp in the dark, but Nate guides you. After a few minutes of stumbling, you start to see the lights of the cabins in the distance.

You cross the main campsite to where you left Curt. He’s still waiting for you there.

“Hey, I’m back,” you say to him.

“I know I said to take your time,” he says, “but you really didn’t rush, did you?”

You just laugh.

“It’s getting a little late,” he continues. “I think the counselors are going to make everyone go back to their cabins in an hour or so.”

“We can hang out until then,” you say.

“That sounds fun,” he grins. “You should probably go back to whatever cabin you got put in and check in first though.”

“Okay, I’ll get that done.”

The walk to the cabin where you left your belongings is eerie. The electric glow from the light posts around camp casts long shadows. Around every bush or building could be an enemy, but you have to appear unafraid. You have no clue who could be watching, besides Nate.

His unseen, unmentioned presence is reassuring. He may not want you to be here, but that’s all the more reason for him to be especially vigilant, ensuring nobody can surprise you.

You arrive at the cabin you’re staying in. Inside, there’s a dozen beds, and a bathroom in the back. Your backpack is still where you left it, sitting at the foot of an otherwise unoccupied bed. A few girls are sitting on some of the other beds, chatting with each other. A tall, dark-haired woman stands imposingly in the center of the room, staring at a clipboard in her hands. She looks up when you enter.

>>4749057
“Hi, I’m Jen,” you introduce yourself. “I’m staying here tonight.”

“Jennifer?” she asks, looking at her clipboard.

“Yep.”

“I see. You were added to the list late. I’ll check you in now,” she scribbles something on her clipboard. “I’m Rachel. I’m the counselor for this cabin. Make sure you get back here in the next hour for curfew and we’ll be fine.”

“Sure. Sounds good.”

With that done, you go back to meet up with Curt. After regrouping with him, you take an empty table near the smoldering remains of the bonfire.

“So, you didn’t answer my question earlier,” you begin. “Who are the important people in the Sharing?”

“In our local branch, Mr. Fisher is pretty important because he organizes all of the trips. I don’t know too much about the rest of the leadership. I only know the counselors. I can tell you about them, if you want.”

“That’s alright. What about the national part of the Sharing. Is there anybody famous, by any chance?”

“Everybody always wants to know that,” he laughs. “I’m not sure actually. I know Senator Berenson is a member.”

“Senator Berenson? The state senator?” you interrupt. That can’t be anyone other than the man you’re thinking about from the capital. The man you… dealt with.

“Yeah. I’m surprised you know him. No offense, but I didn’t think you were into politics.”

“I… just recognized the name. I’m not sure where I knew it from.”

“Well, he’s not important nationally or very famous, but he’s supposed to run for governor later this year.”

“Oh, that’s cool,” you say. You’re sure Berenson is gone, but it must not have been reported yet. You’re not sure how the Yeerks covered it up. A huge office building going up in flames, the massive police response, and a senator going missing or dying should have been a major new story.

“Apart from him? I’m not too sure. There is an actor I can think of, but it might just be a rumor.”

“Tell me.”

“Again, I can’t say if it’s true or not… but a lot of people have been talking about Leon DeMarcio, and saying he might join and give us an endorsement. I’m not saying it’s for sure true, but that sort of rumor doesn’t come from nowhere.”

“Really? He’s okay. I mean, he’s good looking. Really good looking, actually. I think my best friend has a poster of him on her wall. And he was incredible in Romeo and Juliet… but he’s not that big of a deal.”

“Yeah, I don’t see the appeal,” Curt agrees. “Girls only like him because he’s famous.”

He’s actually probably the biggest heartthrob in the nation. Of course, you’d never be interested in that sort of thing, or let on that you were, if you were interested at all. Which you’re not. But you can’t deny that lots and lots of people are. Mostly girls your age, but still.

“Do you really think he’s joining the Sharing?” you ask.

>>4749062
“I hope not,” he sighs. “All the girls and half the guys keep talking about it. I can’t imagine how much worse it would be if he actually joined.”

Though you really wouldn’t mind meeting him at some point, you can’t help but agree with Curt, though not for the reasons he’s thinking of. Someone that famous, with that many fans, telling people to join the Sharing would be disastrous.

“Anyone else famous?” you press.

“You’re full of questions,” he teases. “I can’t think of anyone else off the top of my head. Besides, I’m not in this to meet famous people. I joined to get into a good school, but I just fell in love with it. It doesn’t matter to me how many Leo’s join or don’t join.”

“Yeah,” you agree. “It’s not that important.”

Again, the conversation turns to mundane topics. For close to an hour, you keep the conversation going, until it’s finally time to go back to your cabin and go to bed.

Somehow, you managed to make it through the day. Fred still has yet to be found, and you have to get home safely tomorrow, but you’re almost done. Then, you can leave and never look back at this place. Your time here wasn’t too bad, yet it was hard to enjoy it with the stress of maintaining your cover.

“I’ll walk you back to your cabin,” Curt suggests.

The walk is short. You didn’t think it would make a difference, but somehow having Curt here makes the trip a little less spooky. It’s not because you’d expect him to protect you; if anything, it would be the other way around if something were to happen. It’s just the presence of another person at your side, something that can’t be provided just by having someone flying overhead. It makes you miss having the team work together on a mission. You’ve felt isolated today, having to deal with these people with only the slight support of the knowledge that there’s an eye in the sky.

“Here we are,” he says, and stops short of your cabin. You stop as well.

“I guess this is goodnight,” you say.

“I guess so,” he replies. For a second, he hesitates, staring at you in the dim light. You wait for him to speak, expecting him to say goodnight and let you go. Instead, he steps in, puts a hand on your shoulder, and kisses you before you can react.

You raise a hand in between you, ready to shove him away and gain some distance. You want to shout, to get him off of you right now, but something stops you. As much as you hate this, is stopping it the right thing to do?

>Get him off of you right now. You can’t do this
>Let it happen. It’s just a kiss. The mission comes before what you want or don't want

>>4749063
>Let it happen. It’s just a kiss. The mission comes before what you want or don't want

>>4749063
>>Let it happen. It’s just a kiss. The mission comes before what you want or don't want

>>4749063
>>Let it happen. It’s just a kiss. The mission comes before what you want or don't want

>>4749063
>>Get him off of you right now. You can’t do this
False expectations on his part can be disastrous. We came make a lame excuse or apology afterward, but this can't happen.

>>4749063
>Get him off of you right now. You can’t do this

>>4749063
>>Let it happen. It’s just a kiss. The mission comes before what you want or don't want

>>4749063
>Get him off of you right now. You can’t do this

>>4749095
>>4749063

Changing my vote to get him off.

>>4750250
kinky

>>4749077
>>4749376
>>4750104
>Let it happen. It’s just a kiss. The mission comes before what you want or don't want
>>4749494
>>4749625
>>4750145
>>4750250
>Get him off of you right now. You can’t do this

Set. Writing

>>4749063
You hesitate. His lips press against yours, his eyes closing while yours remain wide open. As his hand moves to the back of your neck, you extend your own hand, pushing him back.

“No,” you blurt.

<Jen! Are you okay?> Nate says.

“I-I’m sorry?” Curt asks at the same time.

“I’m fine. I mean, I’m sorry. No, I mean--” you stammer.

Fuck!

“I thought-- I didn’t mean to… I thought you liked me,” Curt says. His face is crimson, an expression of pure humiliation fixed on it.

<This motherfucker,> Nate spits.

“No!” you say. Curt is still staring at you. Your hands are shaking, and you don’t know why. It was just a kiss. All you need to do is tell him you’re not interested, or that you don’t want to do that, but you can’t make the words come out.

“What?” he asks.

“I’m sorry, that’s not what I meant. I don’t know what to say,” you tell him the truth. “I don’t want to do that. Sorry.”

You berate yourself internally. It was a mistake to apologize.

“I’m sorry,” he awkwardly responds. “I thought we were…”

<Are you okay?> Nate asks again. <I don’t know what the hell this guy’s problem is.>

You’d prefer if he just let you handle this on your own. It’s impossible for you to reply to him, and knowing that he’s watching this makes you deeply uncomfortable.

“I need to go to bed,” you say.

“Okay. I’m sorry, again,” Curt frowns.

“It’s alright. I just need to go.”

You turn around and walk away without waiting for a response. That can’t have been the best way to handle it, but what was the alternative? Let him kiss you? The mission might be important, but you’re not doing that for it. Not when it risks getting more involved here. Hopefully, he’ll just let you go.

<Jen, you need to tell me if you’re okay,> Nate repeats himself.

“I’m fine,” you whisper, trusting the hearing of his owl morph to pick up what you’re saying. There’s a pit in your stomach and a lump in your throat, but you’ll survive. As long as you can go to bed and pretend this didn’t happen, it will be alright.

<Are you sure? What was that?>

“It’s nothing. It didn’t happen. Please don’t tell anyone.”

<Really? Man, I want to teach that guy a lesson.>

“Don’t. We got the information we needed. Let’s just finish here. And again, please don’t tell the others about this. Is he still looking at me?”

<Okay. I won’t say anything about it. He’s walking in the other direction now.>

The cabin you’re staying in is getting closer. You pause to collect yourself. Nate is silent, leaving you with your thoughts.

You’re still fixated on what happened. Remembering the way he touched you makes a wave of physical revulsion go through you. Try as you might, you can’t make your body behave. Your hands are shaking, and you feel woozy.

“Do you know what time it is?” you ask Nate.

>>4751228
<I think you have about five minutes until your curfew. Once you go to bed, I’ll hang around here until Tony comes. Then we’ll take shifts.>

“Five minutes is enough time,” you lie. “I just need a second before I go in.”

You take deep breaths in and out. You’d like to morph a tiger right now, to put aside these human emotions and feel the raw power of that morph run through you. It’s impossible, though. You have to go inside.

<You’re almost out of time,> Nate reminds you after a while.

“Okay,” you say, and finish the walk to the cabin.

“You cut it close,” Rachel says as you walk through the doorway.

“Yeah, sorry about that,” you try to put on a nonchalant air.

“Just get ready for bed.”

---

You’re awoken by Rachel yelling. You jump to your feet, ready to fight.

“Up, up, up girls! You don’t want to miss breakfast! Showers are first come, first serve, so wait your turn if you’re not quick enough.”

You sit back down on the bed. Everything is alright, until you remember what happened last night. You mentally kick yourself. How could you have handled that so poorly? You shouldn’t have hesitated. You shouldn’t have let that happen the way it did.

“Jennifer, are you up or not?” Rachel interrupts your thoughts. “You can’t hang around here all day.”

“I’m up.”

---

Tony contacts you once you leave the cabin.

<Hey,> he begins. <Everything went okay. I found out some important information, and we found Fred.>

That catches your attention. You can’t react with this many campers around, so instead you sneak into the woods again.

>>4751229
“What happened to Fred? What’s the information?” you ask.

<Fred found something weird. He says it’s an alien that looks like a human.>

“What does that mean? Is it another type of Controller?”

<No, they’re not allied with the Yeerks at all. In fact, I think it’s the opposite. He said he wasn’t able to get much information from it, but that if we’re willing to meet it as a group it will talk to us.>

“They’re an enemy of the Yeerks? Can you tell me a little more about them? And what do they know about us?”

<From what Fred told us, they’re not an ally of the Yeerks. He didn’t have much else though, just that they wouldn’t tell us anything else unless the whole group came. They knew they were five of us and Ax, but I don’t think they know we’re humans.>

“That’s all? What information did you get?”

<The Controllers were talking about moving the Kandrona. It’s somewhere in the capital right now. They were afraid of the ‘Andalite bandits’. Apparently getting rid of Berenson really got Visser 3 mad.>

“That’s good. Where in the capital?”

<I don’t know. I heard from the others about the police chief’s replacement. Nate wanted to know what you think we should do next.>

>“The alien could be a very useful ally. Let’s meet them.”
>“The Kandrona is still the priority. We need to deal with that first.”
>“The deputy chief isn’t going to last long without help. We can use this opportunity to expose the Sharing.”
>Write-in

>>4751231
>>“The deputy chief isn’t going to last long without help. We can use this opportunity to expose the Sharing.”

If we can scope out the new chief and decide to either try to tell him the truth of what's happening here or (if we don't think he can handle it) we can at least feed him a convincing lie to make Yeerk life more difficult. I think the sooner we get this guy on our side in some way the better chance we have and the more likely he is to survive.

>>4751231
>“The alien could be a very useful ally. Let’s meet them.”
All very tempting. Hm.
Us rejecting the kiss and feeling awkward about it is a great excuse to stop going to the sharing and to head home early

>>4751231

>“The alien could be a very useful ally. Let’s meet them.”

We can save the police-chief when we're back home.

>>4751250
>great excuse
Fantastic point. We should leverage that.

Just heard from AnimorphsQM: no update tonight.

More time for us to agonize over this choice.

>>4751231
>“The deputy chief isn’t going to last long without help. We can use this opportunity to expose the Sharing.”
Unless the alien gave us a time limit this could get one more ally than meeting with the alien

>>4751231
>>“The alien could be a very useful ally. Let’s meet them.”

>>4751231
>>“The deputy chief isn’t going to last long without help. We can use this opportunity to expose the Sharing.”

Rolled 1 (1d2)

>>4751237
>>4753574
>>4754778
>“The deputy chief isn’t going to last long without help. We can use this opportunity to expose the Sharing.”
>>4751250
>>4751255
>>4754460
>“The alien could be a very useful ally. Let’s meet them.”

I am alive, but the vote is tied. Rolling. 1 for deputy chief, 2 for alien

>>4751231
“The deputy chief isn’t going to last long without help. Let’s use this opportunity to expose the Sharing.”

<Alright,> Tony says. <I’ll pass that on. Hopefully the alien is patient and we can get this done before they move the Kandrona.>

“Hopefully.”

<I’m going to contact the others. I’ll keep an eye on you, but I won’t be in reach of thoughtspeak for a while. Stay safe.>

“Will do,” you say, and start walking towards camp. The campgrounds are getting busy again, with all the campers leaving their cabins to meet up with friends or get breakfast. You’re getting hungry, so you head towards the dining hall. As you reach the entryway, Curt exits. He stops with a grimace when he sees you.

“Hi,” you say, raising a hand in greeting. You don’t know how to handle this. Do you pretend nothing happened and act friendly, or just ignore him?

“Hi,” he replies, brushing past you without saying anything else. It looks like he’s making that decision for you. You don’t mind; as long as you can get out of here without anyone asking any more questions, everything will be alright.

You scarf down your breakfast. All the running around and scheming has really built up an appetite.

After you finish, you step outside again. Curt is nowhere in sight. You walk around the camp aimlessly for a while. You’ll be leaving soon, and you don’t know what to do with yourself. Your group has gathered plenty of information already so it would be a pointless risk to spy. There’s no one to talk to either. It would be suspicious to try and leave early, so all you can do is wait.

It takes forty five minutes, but Fisher eventually finds you and flags you down.

“Jennifer!” he exclaims. “I’m glad to see you, I was getting ready to leave along with the other campers who are going home early today. You’ll be coming along with us, unless you’d like to stay later? I know we agreed you’d leave early today, but I can arrange things for you to stay the day.”

“No, that’s alright,” you answer. “I’m ready to go home.”

“Are you sure?” he asks. “I thought you were having a good time here.”

“I was,” you say before you can catch yourself. Frustration briefly shows on your face.

“You were?” Fisher narrows his eyes.

“I mean I am,” you try to correct.

“Is something wrong? What happened?”

“It’s nothing.”

“Jennifer, you need to tell me if something happened. Weren’t you with Curt? Where is he?”

“Really, it’s nothing.”

“Obviously it’s not,” his ‘innocent schoolteacher’ act is gone. “I’ll track him down and talk to him if you don’t tell me what’s going on here.”

“You don’t have to do that,” you protest.

“I do and I will unless you answer me.”

“I just had an argument with Curt. That’s all. I’d prefer to go home..”

“What kind of argument?”

“I’d prefer not to talk about it.”

“Then I’ll have to speak to Curt.”

>>4755600
“It’s personal.”

“I know Curt is a good young man, and I don’t want to stir up drama, but you have to tell me what’s going on, Jennifer.”

Fisher's like a dog with a bone. You’ll have to tell him the truth, or at least something like it. It’s the only way you can think of to get him off your back.

“He… wanted to be more than friends,” you awkwardly say.

“Oh,” Fisher replies. “Well, that’s not acceptable with a new member. I’ll have to speak to him immediately.”

“Don’t!” you blurt. “You don't have to say anything."

"No, that behavior isn't acceptable. I'm going to go talk to him now.

"Can't I at least go home first?”

Fisher pauses, looking at you consideringly.

“Well,” he starts, “I could do that. But I’d like to know that you won’t be leaving the Sharing for good. If you can tell me that you’ll be willing to come back once I sort this out for you, then I’ll drop you home and talk to Curt. Otherwise, I’ll have to talk to him first. It’s your choice, of course.”

This bastard’s starting to get on your nerves. Obviously he’ll do anything to either keep you here, or make you come back. However, you just need to get out of the camp. You’re too vulnerable here with all these Controllers around.

“I’ll consider it,” you lie.

“I’m afraid that isn’t good enough,” he frowns. “I’d really like a commitment from you.”

“Fine. I don’t want you talking to Curt, but if you have to, then I’ll come back if you do it privately after I leave.”

“Very good. I’m glad we were able to settle this. Do you want to come to the parking lot now?”

“Okay.”

---

The ride back home is slow and quiet. The bus is empty except for you and one or two other campers.

Before you left, Tony contacted you again to let you know that the others had agreed to go help the deputy chief. They’re flying home now as you take the bus.

A text comes through on your phone as you’re almost home. It’s from Nate.

[i]We’re all home. Going to contact you-know-who today. We can’t agree how much to tell them though. What do you think?[/i]

You'll respond in code, but what should the gist of the message be?

>“Tell him everything. Claim that we’re Andalite survivors. He won’t last long if he doesn’t know what’s really going on.”
>“Tell him about the Sharing and Berenson going missing. That should give him enough to dig up information we can’t and really expose the Sharing.”
>“Just tell him about the Sharing recruiting kids. It’ll give him enough to shut down their operations nearby and embarrass them.”
>Write-in

>>4755603
>“Tell him everything. Claim that we’re Andalite survivors. He won’t last long if he doesn’t know what’s really going on.”