002 ( text / action )

[jumpiness]

Missing: one teenage girl. 5'3, strawberry blonde hair, green eyes, fair skin. last seen around 48 hours ago, wearing green dress, boots, and a black jacket. subject may be hostile but unarmed. report sightings or location to this ID.

[ that's all he's putting on the network, because he's hoping - fuck, he really is - that someone's seen her. it seemed like everything was okay - awkward, but okay. but she hasn't been back to the apartment in two days and stiles has torn up and down omega looking for her. and then aria's announcement saying she was thinking of letting people get shot -

no, calm down, stiles. maybe she just got lost. hell, even kidnapped.

without a ransom?

he heads for the markets again. maybe there's someone who's seen lydia. maybe he'll find lydia again. but there's a dejected drop in his shoulders that says he's starting to lose hope. ]

Comments

[shutupmarco]

[ That first remark makes Rachel purse her lips, looking like she just bit into a lemon. She really wants to know what's going on in Stiles' world, but...

Well, he's already seen her morph. And there aren't any Yeerks on this station, she's sure by now. Telling him might even help him someday. Either way, this isn't the place to have this conversation. ]

Let's go back to the apartment, okay? And then we can talk. ...I promise.

[jumpiness]

[ stiles watches her, expression curious. he's almost about to speak up, to say he was just joking, when she finally says that they can talk. and it makes him relax, a little, even if he wishes he had lydia here. ]

Okay. Uh, can I take one last look around for her? Then we can go back. Or I can meet you there.

[ hopeful to the end. ]

[shutupmarco]

[ Rachel sucks in a breath, ready to say no, because come on, she's gone, but -- she exhales, nodding, a rueful twist to her lips. ]

Yeah, okay. We can look one last time.

[jumpiness]

[ stiles gives her a thin smile. ] Thanks.

[ he ends up giving one last circuit around zeta looking for her, leaving her another message just asking her to tell him that she's okay, she doesn't have to come by.

then he makes his way back to the house, ready to talk to rachel. at least this is happening, even if he wishes lydia were here too. ]

[shutupmarco]

[ Whew, okay. She'd said she was ready to talk about this and all, and if it's just going to be the two of them she really should -- after all, if Yeerks ever managed to come to the station, he should know about them, right? -- but now that it's time to talk about it, she feels uneasy all of a sudden. She's never told...anyone. None of them really have. It's always just been the six of them.

Well, she's alone out here. The Marco here, he isn't even an Animorph. And if Stiles is the best friend she's got...well, he did take her in, even after seeing her go Hork-Bajir all over some vorcha. That's worth something.

She takes a deep breath, looking up at Stiles. She wonders if she should tell him to sit. If she should sit. ]

I have to warn you, this is going to get pretty weird.

[jumpiness]

That's fine, weird is kind of the norm back home. That and incredible danger.

[ his attempt at levity falls a little flat, though. he's never really told anyone besides lydia what's going on back home. everyone figured it out, on their own - he only told scott, at teh beginning.

he gives her a look, a mixture of curiosity and excitement, a little bit of dread as well, but he sort of half gestures for her to speak. ]

[shutupmarco]

[ Whatever Stiles' world is like, whatever danger he's got back home, Rachel is pretty convinced that none of it could possibly match up to her situation. It's hard to imagine anything could.

She tries to figure out how to start. Where do you start with this kind of thing? She moves to sit down on the couch, but then she gets up again, pacing almost nervously. Not that she'd ever admit to being nervous. No, she just needs to think on her feet, that's all. She looks at Stiles, all of the cute teen girl levity gone from her voice. ]

There are these things called Yeerks. They're basically big slugs, right? Big, ugly, alien slugs. Deaf and dumb and blind, pretty much. They're almost totally harmless. Unless you get one in you. If one of those things decides to crawl into your ear, flatten itself around your brain, that's it. You belong to the Yeerk, now. You're a Controller. You don't so much as breathe or blink unless that slug in your head decides it wants to. Not even your thoughts are safe. It can open up your brain like a book, page through all your memories, every wonderful or embarrassing thing that ever happened to you. And it can be you just as well as you can, and nobody will ever even know the difference.

[ She stops to take a breath, tries to keep her voice from shaking. God, she hates those things. She can't help but think of that time not so long ago that her own cousin Jake had been infested, when they'd had to lock him up for three days to starve the slug out of his head. She trudges on ahead, determined not to stop talking. She's not sure what'll happen if she does. ]

Back on their own planet, Yeerks couldn't get around much. The only hosts for them there were big and slow and stupid. They couldn't do much of anything. Until some sentimental idiot decided he felt sorry for them, and gave them a way off their planet. Because there are never enough hosts for the Yeerks, not even after they destroyed and enslaved an entire race of peaceful creatures just because they thought their bodies would make good weapons. And now they've come for Earth. They came to enslave us, they're doing it right now, and nobody even knows they're here.

[ She clenches her hands into fists, staring past Stiles at the wall. If she had laser vision, there'd be two smoking holes where she's staring. ]

Except for us. Just me and my friends. We're the only ones fighting them.

[jumpiness]

[ the thing is, it doesn't. it doesn't match up, because as she explains it, his jaw drops a little, and he stares, his eyes huge and wide. aliens in your brain - the joke marco made coming back unsettlingly at the thought.

but it's similar. being one person fighting a danger only you know about. ]

So - jesus, these are aliens hijacking someone's body and brain? And no one would know. There would be no way to explain without sounding crazy.

[ much like back home. he rubs his hands over his head, staring at rachel. ]

But your shapeshifting - what does that have to do with it, is it like a - a side effect of them taking you over? Or is that just - something you can do, back home?

[ maybe she's from an earth that almost was. ]

[shutupmarco]

[ Rachel shakes her head, her expression still grave. She can't bring herself to smile or make a stupid joke like Marco would. Not when all she can think about is that back home, her friends are probably fighting this war without her. Can they even do it on their own? ]

No, nothing like that. The morphing technology was developed by the Andalites -- the same guys who took pity on the Yeerks and let them begin their empire. It's the only major piece of Andalite technology they don't have, and we can't let them have it. The only reason my friends and I can morph is because we met a dying Andalite prince after his ship crashed on Earth. He knew humans didn't stand a chance alone. He did the only thing he could: he gave us the morphing power, so we could fight.

[ Her eyes drop to the floor. They'd only ever known him briefly, but thinking about Elfangor...it still stings. Maybe even more so since they met his brother, Ax. ]

It's not even just about sounding crazy. The Yeerks have Controllers everywhere, Stiles. We can't go to the cops or the news stations or our teachers. There are Controllers in every organization. They're probably even in the White House, by now. And they've even got their own front organization to get new hosts. We woke up to this war when it was already in full swing. There's nobody but us who can fight. Nobody we can trust. And right now, the only thing that's saving us is that they think we're just a bunch of Andalite bandits, stranded on Earth. If they knew we were human, it'd be over in an instant. And the worst part is, they wouldn't even kill us. [ She lets out a dry, humorless laugh. ] Morph-capable humans? No way. We'd be far too valuable as hosts.

i wonder if asari make rachel think of andalites

[jumpiness]

[ stiles, for once in his life, is mostly quiet, listening to rachel. as hopeless as he'd felt his situation was? that's just his life, not the world. he doesn't know if he'd be able to handle that without going crazy.

a lot of things make sense in retrospect with that. ]

Wow... jesus, I don't even know what to say. Besides the fact that you're, I dunno, incredibly badass?

[ brave, what have you, all words are applicable. ]

So - wait, Marco, does he know about all that?

[ he knows you two know each other, for one. marco hasn't been quiet about that. ]

they probably would if she knew more about them

[shutupmarco]

[ That remark makes her smile faintly, despite herself. But when he mentions Marco, her brow furrows, and she looks at him quizzically. ]

You know Marco? [ Well, stranger things have happened. The two of them probably get along famously, too, for all that Marco has his head up his ass. ] He knows...most of it. The basics, at least. He's from a different timeline. Some kind of...weird alternate reality where we never became the Animorphs. The Marco I know, he's one of us. For as much as he whines about it, he fights them, too.