OOC: Cool. Let's just say the people that dropped out told and them and their families were killed by the Animorphs xP
IC: Skye was at the same spot she had been last night. She figured that as long as she had the chance, she would try and save humanity. After all, she didn't want to be one of the Controllers. She would rather be fighting against them than unwillingly being made into one of them. She'd just have to keep it from Ian.
Her fingers brushed the blue cube, and the morphing power flowed into her. In a way, it felt kind of disturbing, but in another way, it felt perfectly normal, like she was born to do this.
Jacob explained about the battle and bird morphs, and she looked around the zoo. "I think..." she started to say, then finished with, "...I think I'll be able to deal with this. It'll be hard, but as long as I'm protecting Ian, I'll be able to do it."
The others split up, and she did the same. She didn't like being alone in the dark zoo at night. She had an unusual fear of being alone in the dark, mostly because of the fact that she wasn't very strong and she probably couldn't protect herself. But with this new morphing power...the sensation still tingled in her fingers.
Bird morph first. Just in case the battle morph animal tried to attack her, then she could morph the bird and fly away. What bird was fast, strong, and could fly well?
Skye was so excited for this. She'd always loved the sensation of flying, even when it was only in her dreams. The sensation of owning the sky, of swimming except in air, and it was much easier. She couldn't wait to become a bird and actually feel what she had been dreaming.
She was in the bird section now. She looked over the collection. Red-tailed hawks, eagles, peregrine falcons...none of them were right. They didn't have that special something. The peregrine might have been really fast, but she didn't want fast as much as she wanted control. Both would be nice, but she wanted the control more. If she couldn't control her own body, what use would it be?
Finally, she saw exactly what she wanted. Albatross. It could fly almost continuously, shutting down one half of its brain to sleep while the other stayed awake. They made trips around the world all the time, and their feathers were specially designed to be able to withstand water. That way if a storm came, she wouldn't be in trouble. Plus, the sign in front of the cage said, "Caution: Animals may bite." That was always good.
She wondered how she would approach this. The albatrosses were sleeping in their birdhouses, which were a couple feet up on branches. The treehouses overlooked a pond. Overall, the albatross exhibit was rather large. She'd have to be careful.
The door opened easily, and she felt a slight sense of guilt at sneaking into the room. Whenever she came across this exhibit with Ian, she'd feel kind of weird at knowing she'd been inside and had the power to turn into one of the albatrosses in there.
She was climbing now, climbing the steps on the treehouse. The birds still hadn't woken. That was good. When she finally popped her head over the side, she could see the sleeping white form inside. It surprised her how it wasn't awake yet, even though she was a clumsy human and had to be pretty loud. Oh well. She slowly stuck her hand inside and touched the soft feathers of the female albatross. It didn't wake up.
Time for the next step. Just as she'd been told, she concentrated on the bird and formed a mental image of it in her mind. Just like when she'd touched the cube, she felt a tingling sensation go all the way up into her arm and through her whole chest. The bird was part of her now. She could turn into it at any time she wanted. To herself, she whispered, "Well, that was pretty easy. If it's going to be like that all the time, I could absorb the DNA of Noah's Ark."
The albatross woke up.
"Figures," Skye said before dropping out of the tree and landing on the ground a few feet below (painfully, mind you). It started squawking angrily, so she ran out of the exhibit and closed the door behind her, happy she'd survived her first acquirement (is that the word...?).
Okay. Time for the battle morph. She'd already chosen. She remembered how whenever she and Ian came here, they'd both marveled for at least ten minutes how amazing this particular animal was.
She headed towards the cage of the Siberian tiger.
When she reached it and looked inside, she could see it sleeping across the ways. It was so beautiful, like every time she saw it. Before she could change her mind, she was inside the exhibit and walking slowly toward the tiger. As if she had no fear at all. But of course, she did. She was just on temporary euphoria.
Before long she was within ten feet of it. It woke up, naturally.
She remembered reading somewhere that tigers could smell fear, like dogs. If you were afraid, they'd eat you. Simple as that. Or at least attack you.
"Uhm...please don't eat me," she said, soft as she could. Maybe her voice would calm it down. "Listen," she continued, walking forward a tiny bit with each second that passed. "I'm trying to save humanity, and I kind of need your power for that. I promise I'm not going to hurt you. I just want to acquire you and then I'll be done. Promise."
The tiger just kept watching her. Skye noticed a cub next to it, not a tiny one you could fit in the palm of your hand, but not a gigantic one either. More like a teenage cub. Pretty big, probably bigger than a human if they stood up, but not a full-blown roaring alpha male tiger. Perfect. But then there was the problem of overprotective mothers and the fact that she might eat Skye if she tried to touch her baby.
Skye Allegheri: Tiger Whisperer, she told herself.
"Can I touch your cub? Please?" Skye knelt down next to the cub and reached out a hand, petting first the tiger and then slowly doing the same to the cub.
This was seriously weird. It should have attacked her by now.
But it was giving her such a sad look with its eyes. Like it was saying, Go ahead, acquire my baby. If it will save us all. Please help save Earth.
Skye could feel tears on her face. It was just so emotional. Earth could be destroyed if they didn't do a good job, and she had an otherworldly sense that this mother tiger wanted her to take her cub's DNA and save the planet for everyone. So she did. She touched the sleeping baby - male, she discovered - and acquired its DNA.
Then she backed away. "Thank you," she whispered, and closed the door to the cage.
She ran back to Jacob. Ran all the way.
"I'm done," she said, out of breath. She hoped he wouldn't notice the light eyeliner trails down her face.
OOC: Sorry for the long post. I do it all the time ^^;
