(This post brought to you by System of a Down)As the night grows darker our heroes, almost all of whom are safe and sound in their own homes, consider how best to face the next day knowing what they now know.
Alright, there should be a way out of this. Just have to think up some convincing lies.
Pressed in against by expressions that range from suspicious, to nervous, to inscrutably alien,
Sophia begins desperately weaving some deceptions, using her observations of the Hork-Bajir's usual speech patterns and the culture of the Yeerks as a whole. [
6] "Climbed tree to see better." She slurs the words a bit, unfamiliar with the alien mouth structure. "See far. Went that way." She points in a random direction and two of the controllers run off that way.
"Very well. Disciplinary action will be postponed pending successful acquisition of the witnesses. Come with me - let's go
catch them, Yindrat-213 and Kanak-481."
EDIT: lolnope nevermind all that we're hecka broke!
For now try to remember the faces of the people who were there with me. Could I make out any distinguishing features? Did they seem high-school aged, college aged, what?
((How is the passage of time accounted for when we're split up like this? Do you want us to try and stay more or less synched up, or can some people be days ahead of others?))
Bobby gives up on his his thoughts of buying a new gun legally, considering his financial situation, turning instead to trying to remember who he saw at the construction site. [
3] Mostly younger than himself, middle- or high-school age, mix of genders. He thinks he could put one name to a face, though.
(Again it'll be up to you who you recognize and how. Time wise, well, I'm kind of winging it, but hopefully it doesn't get actual days out of sync. I'll kludge the timelines for the sake of my own sanity if I have to. Keep track of your possessions and circumstances that you're leaving at home, I'll put it in your character block if you take it with you.)
“Of course not! Why in the world would you think that? It’s been a long day and I must have been daydreaming, I can’t believe that you would even suggest that….”
Go up to my room and practice shadow boxing to take my mind off of recent events.
Having made his excuses,
Chris heads up to his room and works out some of the unresolved anxiety and aggression from the evening. After a few minutes he can just barely make out the familiar footsteps of his father walking up to his door. A few more minutes after that, the footsteps recede.
Get some crumbs or such, and put them on the windowsill outside my room. If a small animal comes, acquire it.
Zack heads up to his room after grabbing a late-night snack, placing the cookie crumbs on the window sill and sitting back a bit. [
3] A little while later a group of California harvester ants have discovered the crumbs and he takes the opportunity to acquire one. It sits still for a few seconds as its DNA is scanned and then immediately moves out again as if nothing happened.
Zack has acquired a California harvester ant morph.Isabella knows Chris (Knightwing), though he doesn't really know her. A couple weeks back he punched out a bully who was hassling her, though he actually only did it because of a personal dispute with the guy--he has no idea Isabella had even been there at the time. Since then, she's been kinda crushing on him, and facebook-stalking him, though they have barely spoken. She actually hasn't had any significant interactions with Chris before yesterday, when she finally got the courage to speak to him. The conversation went well, and was why Sophia was at the construction site--their conversation had continued as they walked home.
Assuming Knightwing is fine with the above, Isabella will call Chris and ask if he's okay. She'll also hold Tripod (her three-legged pet cat) in her lap while she talks, and acquire him.
Chris and
Isabella chat into the night about plans and the group, and she takes the opportunity to acquire her Russian Blue, Tripod.
Isabella has acquired a Russian Blue Cat morph.engage taxxon form. use stray rocks to shrink the entrance of my cave and use stray dirt to make it look like it had always been that way. make it just big enough so that my squirrelform can squeeze through, but no larger.
[
6+
Morph Dancer prevents overshoot] The first transformation comes easily, almost naturally, to
Fred. The changes are not as chaotic or random as they were when Sophia transformed - not that Fred saw it - but the body plans of human and Taxxon are so radically different that it's still impossible to make the process look
good. A couple minutes later Fred stands on twenty insectoid legs and views the world from four eyestalks and experiences for the first time the
hunger. The desperate, mindless, painful hunger of a creature on the verge of starvation who is surrounded on all sides by delectable food. It's not an emptiness that begs to be filled, but a void so profound that no amount of material could possibly make a difference against it. Fred's mind easily overrides the Taxxon's own sharp intellect, enjoying its lightning-fast reflexes and keen senses but there is nothing,
nothing that can be done about this desperate hunger. Ignoring it is impossible. Trying to remember feeling satiated in the past makes it worse by comparison. Fred uses the Taxxon body to alter his cave's layout, a task for which the form is supremely well-adapted, but even experimentally swallowing the moved stones and dirt does absolutely nothing to take the edge off of the hunger.
ChrisStatus: Alive
Form: Human
Acquired: German Shepherd Dog
Name: Chris Jackson
Background: A popular jock kid, Chris has serious anger issues he channels into football and boxing. Often makes bad decisions due to being bullheaded and stubborn. Has a strong hatred for the name Crayak.
Description: Generic popular jock, blond hair albeit with uncommon red eyes and very muscular.
Trait: Born Warrior
IsabellaStatus: Alive
Form: Human
Acquired: Russian Blue Cat
Name: Isabella Lori
Background: Isabella is sixteen, and the only child of a wealthy diplomat, who is currently abroad with his wife until the end of the year. She was left home at her request, ostensibly so her school schedule wouldn't be interrupted--but really because she dislikes traveling, especially after a particularly bad experience from the last time her father took her abroad. This has left her largely unsupervised (although her worrywart mother still calls her several times a week just to ask how she's doing), which she hopes will let her actually make and maintain lasting friendships. She lives with two dogs named Ko and Alyona, and a three-legged cat named Tripod, all rescues.
Description: Isabella is tall and tends to wear very formal clothes, mimicking her professionally-minded parents. She keeps her sandy blonde hair in a ponytail, and tends to look serious... though internally she's rather anxious, especially around people her own age. She tends to act more mature than one would expect of a sixteen year old, but again it's a behavior born from mimicking her parents rather than anything natural; Isabella doesn't really know what acting natural even is. Despite her family's wealth, she wears little adornment, aside from a fancy medallion with a sparkling blue sapphire set into it--a gift from her father, bought for her while abroad a couple years ago.
Trait: Morph Dancer
SophiaStatus: Alive
Form: Hork-Bajir (approx. 1 hour and 40 minutes remaining)
Acquired: Hork-Bajir
Name: Sophia Astos
Background: Sophia was born as slave, never knew her parents, and has seen the deaths of other kids she considered family. When she saw a chance to escape on her own, she took it. Having had a hard life, she sees no problem with focusing on killing as many evil brainslugs as possible.
Description: A fairly destitute-looking homeless 15 year old, though she doesn't seem unhappy about her situation, just happy to be free. Distrustful of others and swift to violence, though not un-altruistic. Rust-red hair and eyes. Also, illiterate and uneducated as you might expect.
Trait: Ruthless Strategist
HenrikStatus: Alive
Form: Human
Acquired: None
Name: Henrik Gregorio
Background: Henrik has always loved to take things apart and see how they work. His family liked to call him a genius - he'd take apart anything. Math equations, the themes of a book, how a computer program works. The occasional animal. He's not a bad person, exactly. He doesn't seem to understand that there's a difference between a living thing and a complicated machine. In his view, there isn't one.
Description: Light blue eyes, messy blonde hair with a dyed blue streak, just under 5'10" (178 cm). He tends to dress in fairly plain or functional clothes, almost always in some shade of gray or blue. He never seems to take off these little reading spectacles, no matter where he goes.
Trait: Tech Savvy
FredStatus: Alive
Form: Taxxon (approx. 1 hour and 50 minutes remaining)
Acquired: Taxxon, grey squirrel
Name: Fred Freddie
Background: stunningly normal life.
Description: overwhelmingly average
Trait: Morph Dancer
ZackStatus: Alive
Form: Human
Acquired: California harvester ant
Name: Zack Olos
Background: Intelligent, but somewhat lazy, Zack is always more interested in having fun than doing his best work. Overall, he's a fairly ordinary kid mostly interested in having fun and sliding through life.. this is a point of view encouraged by his hardworking parents and older brother, who work long hours and take home honor student accolades, respectively.
Zach has mostly interested in a string of brief, but dropped hobbies.. science, writing, art, a dozen more.. but mostly of late he's been exploring his hometown, poking around for secrets.
Description: Medium height and a bit on the wimpy side. Wears T-shirts, polo shirts, and jeans, just easy-to-wear and simple clothes. Except for a pair of skateboarding shoes.
Trait: Aerial Ace
BobbyStatus: Alive
Form: Human
Acquired: None
Name: Bobby Serafin
Background: Descendant of Jewish immigrants from Poland, he'd been raised sheltered, and was often spoiled by his doting grandmother. She used to tell him stories about the old country and why they had to flee, which made a lasting impression on him.
Description: Dark haired, light complexion, mix of Caucasian and Slavic in looks. 30 years old, thin and a bit of a shut-in. Too online, lost in life lacking a real purpose. Has a broad interest base and spends his time as a research associate for the failing history department at the local college.
Trait: Ruthless Strategist