You take it with you. See ya.

[xenamorph]

Sender: Rachel
To: Everyone
Which: Passive dream recording
Warnings: Death, blood, child soldiers, serious injuries. Nothing in great detail, but still present..



The environment is sterile. Artificial. She recognizes the interior of a spaceship, but it barely registers to her. All she sees are enemies. Targets. Humans and aliens alike, the lead human barely more than a teenager himself, all concentrating on a viewscreen on the far wall. All oblivious to her presence until she’s nearly finished the transformation into a grizzly bear. Only then does one of them see her and yell the word “Animorph!”

And Rachel’s thought-speak voice, cocky as ever, replies <That’s right, genius: Animorph.>

The bear charges for the leader, barreling into him and knocking him across the room. A burst of light- a laser of some sort- hits her shoulder, but the assault on the boy doesn’t relent until he manages, with great difficulty, to slip past her.

Other animals have emerged from the humans and aliens around her then. Two lionesses, a polar bear, a buffalo- the boy she was after turned into a cobra. Outnumbered five to one, and yet they’re all waiting for her to make the first move.

<Well? Scared? You should be.> She sounds like she’s laughing as she says it.

She charges, and everything goes to hell.

A confusing jumble of violence and chaos. The polar bear goes down first, retreats. The buffalo keeps charging her, but she refuses to stay down. The lions both latch onto her, teeth and claws sinking in to try and drag her to the floor. Another voice, from somebody on the screen, keeps yelling a name, but she can’t respond. The screaming voices begin to blur together, the boy on the screen and the boy in the snake’s body, as she tries to fight against the menagerie arrayed against her. It’s not until a different voice speaks- a voice that those in Reverein might recognize.

<Rachel!>
<Help me, Tobias.>
<I can’t, I->

Urgently, she cuts him off.

<Help me get him! Help me get him!>

Another jumble of voices- directions from Tobias, a swipe of her blood-stained paw, and the snake is impaled, screaming, begging the other boy on the screen for mercy.

<Jake! Stop her!>

And then she bites down on his head, and he stops moving, stops speaking.

Everything gets blurry after that, dimly visible as she struggles to become human again despite the fog of her wounds. And then, once she is, once she spits the broken cobra skull out of her human mouth, she realizes it’s over. An ordinary human, surrounded still- polar bear, buffalo, lionesses. She can’t fight them. She doesn’t have to. She got the job done.
She looks at the screen. Tobias is there- human now. Crying. She tries to smile for him.

“I love you.”

Behind her, a voice says <You fought well, Rachel.> A young man’s voice. The voice from the screen. The wrong voice.

Jake’s voice.

Confused, she turns back around to see a Siberian tiger standing where the polar bear had been, swiping a massive paw at her head.

Comments

Sender: Reaper

[b_a_n_g]

Are you actually a trained child soldier, or is this just a nightmare?

[He can already make an accurate guess, but he wants to see it in writing or avoided to confirm his opinion.]

[xenamorph]

I'm definitely not a trained child soldier.

[Nope. She's a totally untrained learned-on-the-fly child soldier. Isn't that so much better?]

[b_a_n_g]

So untrained roped in due to a special skill set filled with bitterness and trauma from what you've seen and done.

[xenamorph]

[Yeah, this guy clearly has some experience.]

Roped in due to being in the wrong place at the wrong time. We got the skillset later.

But it was us or nobody. We did what we had to.

[b_a_n_g]

[More than he would like to admit to, but also not bothering to hide all of it. This was far more interesting.]

War spares no one. How does one acquire such a adaptable and unique skillset?

We did what we had to is literally the mantra of soldiers.

[xenamorph]

Alien technology.

And we were the only thing standing between humanity and being slaves.

[Little defensive, and she knows it, but she doesn't care right then.]

[b_a_n_g]

Damn. I put my money on genetic splicing. Can't win them all.

Also one of the most common reasons to require children. Did they run out of adults?

[xenamorph]

Wasn't exactly a recruitment process. An alien who thought he was the last person around to protect Earth was dying, and we were the only people who stumbled across him before the enemy did.

[b_a_n_g]

Oh joy. The classic, it's us or them military trope. I hope you at least got a t-shirt for the efforts.

[xenamorph]

Gross, corporate event T-shirts are always the lamest. I'd take being able to turn into a grizzly bear any day.

[Yep, that's the important part of what he was saying.]

[b_a_n_g]

So would I. Though, it is corporate, so you would be a grizzly bear in a t-shirt if they had their way. No way to lose advertising opportunities.

[This conversation just went off the rails. That was battlefield trauma for you.]

[xenamorph]

[She's had weirder conversations with the other Animorphs, really. Honestly, all she can think when she reads that is how livid Cassie would be if somebody stuffed a real grizzly into a T-shirt just for advertising.]

I had enough of being a bear in a costume during the flower festival, I think I'm good.

[...Honestly, it is kinda making her feel better. More than she would have expected.]

[b_a_n_g]

Do tell. What were you costumed up as at the festival, hmm?

[Something ridiculous, of course.]

[xenamorph]

A bear.

I turned into a bear to try to get out of the costume and the costume just changed with me. I was a bear in a bear costume. It was just as stupid as it sounds.

[b_a_n_g]

I can't believe I missed that idiocy. I thought a bear in a t-shirt was amusing enough. What kind of bear was the costume?

[Come on polar bear!]

[xenamorph]

Oh, there was plenty of idiocy to go around at that festival.

... and actually it would have been way funnier if it was a panda, but no, it was a grizzly bear costume.

[b_a_n_g]

I'm aware. This place is full of idiocy; after all, it brought soldiers to realm requiring dreams but we are plagued by nightmares.

Surprised they didn't put you in a circus.

[xenamorph]

Don't put that out there, somebody will try it.

I'd hate to have to tear down a whole circus just on principle.

[b_a_n_g]

I might if it involves me getting to watch you in action.

[xenamorph]

If you're eager for a demonstration maybe I could just show you myself.

[Might be a hint of a challenge there. Then again, she has no idea if he could reasonably take on a grizzly bear and win, some people around here seemed like they might be able to do that.]

[b_a_n_g]

Oh ho ho, is that so? Are you willing to fight me to do that?

[This is how he made 'friends' anyway. Come on and maul him, bear-girl!]

[xenamorph]

[Don't give her ideas, she might start trying to meet all her new friends that way.]

Name the time and the place. I'll be there.

[b_a_n_g]

[Reaper welcomes this approach; it's how he made most of his friends. Of course, they were all dead, supposed to be dead, or insane.]

Town square. Sun down tomorrow.