Animorphs II

#3 The Fortress

By: Howler99

Chapter One

 My name is Mark.  Not to be confused with Marco on the other team.  The killing, butchering Marco.  I'm not like him.  I don't kill innocent people.  I don't want to take over the world.  I want to stop him, the rest of his team, and the Yeerks who want to take over the world.
 Chances are, you already know about it.  So I won't go in depth.
There's five of us.  Courtney, who has a real short temper,  (Don't mess with her, trust me.) Alice, who is kind of
drawn back.  She doesn't talk much.  Then there's Gary, who is similar like Alice, very quiet and cautious.
 There's also David.  He's the one who gave me, Alice, Gary, and Courtney the power to touch and acquire DNA from any animal we touch.
 The other Animorphs turned him into a nothlit, but somehow, he got free.
 Then there's me.  People say I'm arrogant and boasting.  That's probably true.  It's not my fault I'm so smart.
 This particular adventures starts when David, Gary, Courtney, Alice, and I are at the mall.  Me, Gary, and Courtney are sitting there waiting for David and Alice.
 "Tick-tock," Gary said.  Like I said, he's very cautious, but when he's ticked, he lets you know.  "They were supposed to be here a half hour ago."
 "Maybe they're preoccupied," Courtney suggested.
 "Yeah?  Like what?"  Gary shot back, loosing his temper.  "Washing a car?  It's raining.  Having family dinner?  It's 3:45.  After school ended fifteen minutes ago."
 "Gary?" I said.
 "What?"
 "Shaddup."
 Finally, Alice and David came.  They were soaked.
 "You're late," Gary said when they got into hearing range.
 David and Alice sat down.  David said, "We checked out the building. Not very much security.
 "Why would you need security if you have ray guns?" Courtney said, ticked.
 "We should be able to get in as roaches," David said, ignoring Courtney.
 "BUGS?!" Courtney yelled a little too loudly.  People from all over the mall heard.  The ones in the food court where we were left.
 She lowered her voice to a whisper, but people stll heared her.
"Bugs?  I'm am not going to morph a bug."
 "You can and you will," David ordered.  The two of them stared at each other.  David's hair turned orange.
 Courtney withdrew and David began demorphing.
 "Well that was nice," I said, breaking up the tension.
 "We better go," Alice said.  "I see Rachel."
 Rachel, Jake, Cassie, Marco, Ax, and Tobias are the other team of Animorphs.  They want to rule the world after they kick the Yeerks' butt.  Don't ask me why.
 We stod up and left.

Chapter Two

 I opened the door to my house.  I looked around.
 No one was here. Perfect.
 I ran up stairs and into my room.  I flung my bookbag onto my bed.
 I took of my outer clothes.  There I stood, wearing the minimum clothing we can use for morphing.
 I closed my eyes and concentrated on a morph I acquired after we left the mall.  A black labrador.
 The first thing to change was the fur.  Black fur sprouted from my body.  My teeth grew and my tongue rolled out of my mouth.  My ears scooted up to the top of my head and became long and floppy.
 My body shorten and became dog like.  I had finished morphing.
 Thoughts rushed into my head.  Not memories. You can only get instincts from a morph.
 But what I got was happiness.
 For an hour, I forgot who I was.  I chased my tail, licked my self, and chewed on my bed post.
 That's when my cat, Murphy, came in.  I tried to smell his butt like any sensible dog would do, but he clawed up my face instead.
 I suddenly snapped back to reality and demorphed.
 That's when the phone rang.
 "Hello?" I answered.
 "It's David.  Courtney and I are goin' to a party tonight.  Wanna come?"  I knew what he meant.  We're going to
attack the Animorphs.  We use a kind of a secret language in case the phone is tapped by a Controller.
 "Sure.  Where's it at?"
 "My house."  The mall.
 "When is it?"
 "7:30."  7:30.
 "'Kay.  Be there."
 I hung up the phone.  I suddenly had a flash back at the mall earlier. When David started morphing to a lion.
 Was he going to do that again?

Chapter Three

 The plan was for me to morph the black lab I acquired.  Courtney would desguise herself so she could go in unnoticed. David would be there too in cockroach morph for backup.
 It was a good plan.  Dogs aren't normally allowed in the malls. Luckily, it was "Dog Day" at the mall.  How lucky
could you get?
 Courtney, disquised as an old lady, walked me through the crowd of people.
 Dogs were everywhere!  I could barely control the instincts!  It was an extreme rush!
 Courtney bumped into someone and said in a grandmotherly voice, "Sorry, sonny.  I guess I couldn't see you."
 "That's okay," he said back to her.
 Then I noticed a smell.  Hot Dogs!
 I pulled Courtney over to a hot dog stand.
 "Stop it, Mark," she said under her breath.
 But Mark wasn't in control.
 I pulled, harder and harder.  I broke loose from Courtney's grip!
 I ran to the stand.  A man with mustard on his shirt!  Holding a hot dog!
 I jumped on the man and stole his hot dog.
 The whole time, Courtney was pushing through the crwod in a very ungrandmotherly manner.
 I sat down in some bushes and ate my dog.  When I was finished, I sniffed around and took a leak.
 That's when I was caught.  Courtney came running up, her grandmother outfit torn and falling off.  her bun had falledn off.  her glasses were falling off her face.
 < Nice look, > I said.
 She came up and saw me doing my business.
 "That's great Mark," she said to me.  "Maybe now you can water that cactus over there.
 < What's going on? > David asked.

Chapter Four

 It was early the next morning.  The sun was barely up.
 We had met behind the Rockman Tower where David's parents should be. We where located next to a very nice looking Dumpster.
 "A Dumpster?!" Gary asked, ticked.  "We might as well be in a landfill waiting to be rolled over by earthmovers!"
 "Okay everyone," David said at last.  "let's morph."
 That was find by me because I was standing in a very unpleasant pile of dog poop.
 Suddenly, I felt the changes begin.
 Two brown, hard, and very ugly antennae popped out of my head.
 SPROOT!
 They just shot out and headed to Courtney.  She jumped up five feet and landed in Gary's arms.
 They kind of looked at each other, embarrassed, while gossamar wings exploded from my back.
 Gary let Courtney down while insect legs popped out of his chest.
 I started falling down, but I wasn't.  I was shrinking.  I was about three feet when another set of human arms popped out of my chest.
 But they soon turned into very nonhuman arms.
 I continued to shrink.  Luckily, my eyes went blind before I saw anything else change.
 When we were done, we were five very unattracted cockroaches.
 It took us a few minutes to make sense of things, but we finally found out.
 We headed toward the door.
 Thirty minutes later, we turned around because we realized we were going the wrong way.
 Once we were in and was sure we were safe, we demorph.
 Unfortunatly, I saw it all happened.
 I puked the second I got my stomach back.  Then I puked again.
 We finished demorphing and found our selves in a closet.  I found my self in a puddle of barf.
 "Okay," David said as two antennae wiggled back into his head.  "When we came earlier, the map in the lobby said that a computer room should be across the hall.  Gary, go take a look.  We'll go out one by one. Gary.  Me.  Courtney.  Mark.  Alice.  Alice stays as back up and morphs into cougar.  I morph golden eagle.  Mark, since
your the computer whiz, you hack in and find what we want to know.  Then I demorph, morph lion. Courtney morphs black panther, Mark to cheetah, Gary to leopard.  We'll bust out and into an alley two blocks away.
Demorph, morph birds, and go home."
 "Nothing to it," Gary said.  "Just a regular, suicide mission."
 He stuck his head out and walked into the room.  David flew right after him.
 It was easy going.
 And that's when it happened.

Chapter Five

 Footsteps!
 I hissed at Courtney, "Hurry up!"
 She scooted to the other side.  I was next.
 I stuck my head out the door and looked around.  I could hear voices too.
 I ran across the hall.
 Alice stuck her head out and began running across, when the guards came.
 "Andalites," one of them said with pure hatred.
 Alice got into pouncing position and bared her teeth.  The guards drew they're rifles.
 But that was all the time I needed.
 I ran out the door, and around the guards at 40 miles an hour.  I was still circling the guards when I reached 45, 50, 55, 60!
 The clock kept ticking.  I was about to reach maximum cheetah speed, 75 miles per hour.
 That's when the guards chose to run.  I demorphed and went back inside.
 I sat at the nearest computer.
 I went to company records.
 I typed in a password.  Incorrect.  I typed in a hack.  Correct!
 "Yes, thank you.  I know I'm great," I whispered to my self.
 I typed in David's mom and dad's names.  A short file came up.  A really, really short file.
 That probably wasn't a good sign.
 I quickly read it and started morphing.
 < Where are they? > David asked as he demorphed and remorphed into lion.
 <Oh, about six feet under?>
 "THEY"RE DEAD?!" he raged when he was half human and half lion.
 < Yeah. >
 < NO!! >
 David busted down the door in full lion rage.
 < Come on, > Alice urged.  < Let's get him before he kills himself! >
 We ran out the door with me in the lead.  I cought up with David.  I grabbed him in his hindquarters.  Courtney did the same.
 The two of us where able to pull him to the ground.
 < Guards are coming and they've got really big guns, > Gary said, hysterically.
 We turned the way we came and ran, full speed.
 < Turn, > I elled.  I was in the lead.
 Unfortunately, I turned a little late and crashed into a wall.
 We ran as fast as we could from th guards, but things weren't looking too good.

Chapter Six

 While trying to escape, we lost our way.
 We ran up a sat of stairs and into an office.
 < Look!  A window, > Courtney pointed out.
 < Help me push this desk through it, > David said as he started pushing a desk.
 Courtney, Alice, and Gary helped him.  I was too weak to help.  Speed was my thing.
 They managed to push the desk out the window.
 CRAASH!
 Bree-eep!  Bree-eep!
 < An alarm, > I yelled frantically.
 < Come on, let's go, > David urged.
 He jumped out the window, two floors up.
 When he was out of sight, I whispered something to the others.
< David's gone nuts.  Meet up at the beach after the mission. >
 I saw Courtney's head nod.  Alice turned away.
 I leaped and landed on my feet in the Dumpster where it all started.
 Alice landed next to me.
 TSEEWW!  TSEEWW!
 BAMBAMBAMBAM!
 Dracon beams and guns fired.
 Courtney landed on the ground gracefully.
 David beagan to walk out of the alley as Gary landed in an old shopping cart.
 < This is nice, > he said.  < Four cats in a dumpster.>
 We got out and ran for our lives.
 A couple blocks away, we met up with David who was already human.
 We demorphed and morphed birds of prey.  Mine was a goshawk.
 I concentrated as gray feathers spread over my body.
 Before I flew off, I reminded everyone.  < The beach, one hour. >
 I spread my wings and flew off.

Chapter Seven

 Everyone was there.  Except David of course.
 "He's gone nuts," I said when Alice finally arrived.
 "What're we going to do?" Alice asked. "Mutiny?"
 "If we don't do something, he's gonna get us all killed.  And for what, saving his dead parents?"
 "How about saving the world," Gary said.
 "He gave us the power," Alice said.
 "So what?" Courtney said.  "He's gonna get us killed."
 "It'll all be over when the Yeerks are gone and the Animorphs are killed," Alice said in David's defense.
 It's not like Alice to be so bold.
 "I think David was ly-"
 I was interrupted by thought-speak.  < What's going on, Mark? >
 David!
 I looked at Alice, skeptically.  She blushed and turned away.
 David demorphed.
 He stepped toward me, his nose two inches from my own.
 He drew back his fist and it met my jaw.
 That got me going.
 I drew up my leg and kicked him in his chest.
 "Black belt, third degree," I said as my other foot met his nose.
 David jumped back and pinned me to the ground.
 I couldn't move, he was smothering me.
 He was morphing lion.
 Gary and Courtney finally got between us and shoved us away.
 I spit out sand and went home.
 Everyone else left after me.
 David probably threatened them.

Chapter Eight

 On my way home, I saw a golden eagle above me.
 That image stayed in my nightmares that night.
 I woke up in a cold sweat.
 < Having bad dreams? > David mocked.  He sat on my windowsill.
 "What do you want?" I asked him.
 < Just wanted to make sure you don't ever try to do that again.  I will kill you.  I'll kill you slowly. >  I took a deep breath and said, "Don't threaten me, orphan boy."
 The eagle was on me in a flash.  he landed on my head, talons slowly squeezing my head.
 Blood ran from my forehead.
 < Remember, Mark.  I'll kill you. >
 He opened his wing and flew away.
 He had managed to turn everyone against me.  He had Alice in his grasp, his own personal toy.
 Courtney, scared to death.  Gary was with him, partly, trying to be a hero.
 Me?  He didn't scare me.  But I couldn't do anything.  If I did, I'd have to face my friends and David.
 I tried to go back to sleep, but I couldn't.
 I stayed awake for an hour, and finally drifted off to my sleep.
 The nightmare of David ripping open my skull and tearing out my brain with his deadly, ripping, tearing beak.
 God, I hated him.  I hated him.  David will die.
 

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