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Shatterverse AU Fic
Feb. 24th, 2011 11:13 pmOne of few things Rachel finds annoying about working with "normal" humans is the whole escape route thing. It becomes a lot more complicated when you only have one shape to work with. Not that Rachel has to deal with that much, but her companions do and their setbacks occasionally hold her back and that gets to be seriously annoying. In the past, these things were usually planned for and figured out quickly between all the hunters (Rachel included - sometimes). Sometimes Rachel herself was able to be a solution, morphing to escape and rescuing the others from outside the situation.
Today is starting to look like one of those situations.
Somewhere about dead center of Nowhere, Arizona, a large group is sitting inside a small concrete structure, lit by a couple of small flashlights which illuminate concrete floors and ceiling and an unapparent source of air. The door is a massive metal air-locked bomb shelter deal - because they are actually in a bomb shelter. Despite the expertise and power of them, all six have actually managed to get stuck inside a concrete block.
"Way to go, princess," Rachel grumbles at Steph, and the glare she receives is considerably softened by the accompanying blush. It isn't actually Steph's fault that they're trapped - it's no one's, they couldn't have known. But Rachel is nervous about being trapped in a solid box she can't morph out of and Steph's her best target right now. It was the vigilante who left the cars and, with Mel, proclaimed the location safe. Which would make it just as much Mel's fault but Rachel isn't grumbling at her.
Princess Sweetness is a far better target - and not just because she isn't as likely to throw a punch in such close quarters. Of course, at this point, Rachel might actually welcome the distraction.
Still. When Steph's glare is accompanied by one of Mel's, and Jo adds in a sharp rebuke of "Shut up, Rachel," Rachel shuts up.
Time in box: one minute, thirty seconds.
At least there's light. Sam and Dean both had flashlights and while Dean uses his to examine the line of the sealed door, Sam is walking the small perimeter, gently pushing the others out of his way - and into each other. Rachel swallows back a growl when his fingers brush her back but he doesn't seem to notice, muttering something about an "air tunnel."
Jo has already moved to help Dean inspect the door and Mel and Steph are talking quietly to each other. Rachel could eavesdrop on any of them but has no interest in doing it for either couple. She stands in darkness, as still as she can mange, and is incredibly grateful when Sam breathes a sigh of relief and calls out, "Dean. I found it."
Time in box: two minutes.
"Found what?" Rachel demands immediately, too glad for the distraction to growl properly when Dean pushes her out of the way. There's no light left with the boys standing together but she can feel Jo come up beside her, Mel and Steph waiting behind, Dean and Sam in front of her and a concrete wall on her remaining side. This is tolerated for a handful of seconds before Rachel fidgets and continues fidgeting until Jo grunts at her and moves aside. It's only an inch but it's an inch more space than she had a moment ago.
"Where?" Dean asks, his normally light-hearted voice deep with gravity.
Sam pulls a small sheet of metal aside, off the bracers that were holding it flush against the concrete blocks, and shines his flashlight in the spot. At first, Rachel can’t see what the big deal is, but then the light casts a shadow and she realizes it's a very small hole dug right into the concrete, about four inches wide and three tall, clear and clean and man-made.
"Air tunnel," Jo says, a relieved smile in her voice. She catches Rachel's look in the dimness and nods at the wall. "They cut it into the concrete to let air into the bunker, but long enough that nothing would be able to reach in after them. Probably winds around in there too, so nothing could be pushed in."
"Like what?" Rachel asks.
"Grenade, dynamite, poison." Jo shrugs, unconcerned. "It's not a Cold War safety, this wouldn't be worth shit against an air bomb or radiation. They probably built it after the locals started going crazy."
"The cannibals," Steph agrees in a soft voice and Mel shifts uncomfortably beside her.
The flashlights shift again and the four women plunged into darkness. Mel grunts impatiently and Rachel echoes her unconsciously, shifting her weight from one foot to the other.
"Rachel?" Sam says softly, still crouched beside the hole and in the glare of the flashlight, she sees him look up at her sharply. Maybe all of them are looking at her, due to the sharp sigh of relief she let out at the sound of her name.
She'd step up to him but she's only six inches away as it is.
"I can get through it," she says, without being asked, squinting at the little hole. Four inches by three? No problem. Fly or cockroach, even mosquito, she'll be out in no time.
Sam nods and his brother stands from the crouch and digs through his pockets. Dean reaches for her and with his flashlight pointed aside, she can't see what he's doing until he has her hand and drops something cold and hard into it.
Rachel frowns and palms it. "What is it?"
"Car key. We'll need some stuff from the trunk."
It's small and cold, sharp edges of metal and rounded curves. It weighs a couple of ounces but when the breath leaves Rachel's lungs, she could swear it just doubled - tripled - in density. Sam is still inspecting the hole and Jo and the other two women are standing back and Dean's in front of her, waiting for her to say something. And even when Rachel opens her mouth, nothing comes out. Not yet.
Her vision doesn't swim, but it does tread for a moment. It reminds her to start breathing again, though her lungs might have shrunk for how easy it is. She wants to wobble and lean against the wall but she can't. Even if no one can see her, they'd hear it, or sense it with how close they're standing together.
"Rachel?"
One-one-thousand, two-one-thousand, three-one-thousand. Three seconds between confirmation of the object in her hand and Dean saying her name, calm and unconcerned but a little confused. And that tiny touch of confusion immediately has all eyes on her. She knows, she can feel it.
"You want me to carry this outside," she says - or asks - or breathes. It's soft and a little tight but she can't get air in fast enough and it's taking most of her concentration not to gasp.
Dean says something, some kind of confirmation and maybe a smart remark, and Rachel ignores it and looks over at the hole again. Four inches by three. Her insect morphs can't carry anything. The housecat is too big. So are the rest of her morphs.
Except the rodents.
And the shrew is too small to carry such an odd-shaped, heavy object.
And the mole is too slow and clumsy to get through the maze, probably too fat.
"Rachel."
"What?" she asks. Someone's talking and she doesn't care who, the key is still weighing heavy in her hand and it takes everything within her to ignore the people, to ignore the box, to ignore the air tunnel and focus.
Inhale. Exhale.
"Are you okay?"
Tiny little box in the dark and people standing around her. No adrenaline rush - this isn't a job and it's not a priority. They're stuck in a concrete room but no one's afraid or even worried. They've only been there twenty minutes, at most, and it isn't necessary that they get out right this moment, it's just preferable. They could all stand to wait and figure out another plan, there's nothing pushing them to get out right this second.
"Rachel."
It's harder and sharper now and it gets her attention, jerking her head up and looking in the direction the voice came from - and finding Sam's face in the way, looking at her, frowning a little.
"Can you do it?"
They didn't have to ask before. Now she can only barely get the breath to breathe, she's not sure she could answer and someone touches her elbow and she twitches and jerks away, finds the concrete wall at her back and whoever that was at her side and Sam right in front of her and when she swallows hard she lets out an involuntary, shuddery little breath and closes her eyes tight to hide in blackness, without the shadows of the flashlights.
And that's worse because for a moment, just that moment of darkness, she's in a transparent box in a sewer with two punk kids and a rodent that's speaking to her in her head and calling her-
"Rachel."
"Dude," Dean snaps quietly and she's recognizing voices now, opening her eyes open wide, as if that might keep her from closing them again. There's another voice and it's soft and sweet and it's the first time she's ever heard it and felt relieved.
"Give her a minute," but it's Steph, not Cassie, and they're still in a box.
There's some more scuffling and someone touches her shoulder. Before she can shake it off, it grips tight, holds on, and Jo's soft, firm voice says, "Rachel. Can you do this?"
No. No no no no no. Never again, no.
Voices not far, not talking to her but to each other and one male voice tells the other male voice, "We have to get out of here."
And it's right and they do but she said, she promised, never again, she can hear people breathing on every side of her and they're using up all the air and there's a wall at her back.
"Yes," her voice says, and it's scratchy and raw, but it's an answer.
Sam explains and it's awful. Not what he wants her to do - get to the car and grab a few items to get the door often. It's how he says it, calm and careful, making sure she understands while the others sit back and wait.
It isn't urgent. It's almost idle. He tells her to get out and to the car the same way she used to ask Tobias to grab any magazines he saw while he was out hunting, if he found any.
The only adrenaline rush she can use to ignore her fear is the one pumping through her veins because of fear.
The key is heavy and solid and she grips it tight in one hand. That keeps it still, but the other hand trembles as she gets out of her clothes. Someone gathers them up but the flashlight is pointed in another direction and vision is not her top priority right now. The only thing she can see right now is a hole by her feet, four inches by three, and a maze of concrete she'll need to navigate.
The worst part isn't the dread. It isn't the morphing.
It's that first moment when she closes her eyes and has to focus.
In the old construction site, waiting. The others are hidden around her in morph but it doesn't matter. It makes her feel safer but not better. And the first flash of wings overhead, the first part of the plan that works... that brief flash of triumph is overshadowed by the overwhelming wave of shame for what she's about to do.
Shrinking. It's like falling only her feet never leave the floor. The concrete just rushes right up at her.
He demorphs. Just a boy, her age, only fourteen. Kind of average looking, perpetual bland face mixed with bitter smirks and smiles. He's not great at socializing, but why would he be? He's an army brat, he's been yanked from place to place, school to school all his life. How could he have learned how to cope with people, to form attachments, when he has so few of his own?
Her skin prickles as fur grows, pushing out of her skin like thick gray/brown grass on a lawn.
He thinks he's tricked them, thinks he owns her. He's fixated on her as his greatest enemy - not because she did this to him. She didn't want him to join the Animorphs, she didn't want to trust him. She wasn't easy on him but she could have been harder. For all he screwed up, new and normal kid or not, she'd been goddamn gentle. Until he started fighting them.
Until he attacked Tobias.
Her face elongates, pushing out and out and out, forming a sharp-tipped nose. Her eyes turn round and small, beady and black.
He hadn't killed Tobias but he didn't know that - he thought he had. And he gloated about it. He teased her, knowing how she felt. He gloated about killing a warrior of Earth, a life that was a thousand times more worthwhile than his own, he gloated about killing.
But David didn't fixate on her because of that. David hated her the most because of her reaction to his gloating.
Ears slide up to the sides of her head, thinning out into little half-circle cups, lightly furred and sensitive.
She threatened him a little, but that wasn't it. She held a plastic fork to the side of his head and told him how much she'd like to shove it through his ear, but he'd only laughed at her. And looking at this little-- this--
Her arms and legs shorten, stubby and small, tiny nails scritch on the concrete.
Looking at him, she realized that he didn't value his life enough anymore to care what she said. There was very little he cared about anymore. So she stopped telling him what she was going to do to him.
She told him what she was going to make sure happened to his parents.
She told him she'd find them, down in the Yeerk Pool. If they were infested, it was her right - her duty - to get rid of them. For the good of the Earth. But if they weren't infested, if they were in the waiting line... well... Yeerks lie, you know. And accidents happen.
Her tailbone lengthens within a sickening crunch, pale white bone extending almost her entire body length behind her, then slowly covering itself with skin and pale, thin fur.
And because of what she'd said then, and the absolute certainty with which she said it, David hated her. So that when he came to the construction site at the appointed time, his only thought had been to dominate and terrify Rachel, to own her completely, to control her every action. All she had to do was pretend to be scared and let his ego lead the way.
He never saw it coming.
He never saw the cage.
The animal mind bubbles up beneath her own. Rodents are difficult, they're prey animals, they're constantly aware of all the dangers around them. It's nerve-wracking, one of these morphs. Rachel's never had good experience with them. The shrew's horrible fear and intense desire for rotting flesh. The mole's digging in damp, dark tunnels, dirt brushing at every side.
And the rat.
Her nose twitches. Her tail lashes from side to side. Her ears swivel.
Someone takes a step toward her and Rachel darts for the safety of the hole. She tells herself it's the rat instincts that told her to hide, the rat's nerves.
Not her own.
The key is flat and heavy, too dense to really bite in, and hard to hold. It's absolutely nothing like a small Lego block but when Rachel picks it up and skitters back into the cut of the concrete, she's seeing the construction site again, the PVC piping track that they'd laid out, carefully arranged to look natural. She's hearing the Thoughtspeak voice in her head demanding that she find all the pieces of the Blue Box and put them back together again, she's answering him in scared little whimpers and inwardly seething at his ego, his confidence, the way he taunts her for being powerless and the hawk he thinks he killed.
Four inches by three is a great deal bigger than the PVC pipe from the site but it's all the same to her right now. It's the concrete room, it's the plastic pipe at the construction site, it's the damp dirty hole just above the Yeerk Pool. Her friends are behind her, waiting on her, depending on her, but they're not right there with her. Because in the end, no matter how many people love you, support you, depend on you, you are alone.
Always alone.
The key keeps dropping from her teeth and she has to bend and pick it up, startled each time. The Lego never fell, soft enough for her to sink her teeth into, but David hadn't known that. And when she'd collected several of them, she'd just pushed them in front of her with her nose along the smooth pipe. The concrete is too rough for that and the key too flat to move smoothly and Rachel bumps her nose on a bend in the dark maze and takes a sharp left, her nose twitching to find fresh air.
Left, right, left, left, right, left, right, right, David following along behind her, abusing her and completely unaware of what was about to happen.
Then she saw the light ahead and she had to keep herself moving slowly but she was itching to get out, out of that tiny space and away from the fate that she'd be just as susceptible to as he would, if her friends suddenly--
But they wouldn't do that.
The bunker's walls were thick, amazingly thick, and she vaguely remembers someone saying the exact dimensions but she can't remember them now. Forever would do just as well and she's breathing heavily as she scuttles in the dark, dropping the key frequently and struggling to pick it back up with tiny sharp teeth that don't help much.
Because the rat body is overall useless. It isn't powerful, it isn't strong, it isn't big, it isn't useful. The one thing it can do and do well is get through pipes four inches by three.
That's why, when she'd broken through the PVC pipe and past the wire cage they'd set up, her friends had been waiting for the rat that would follow her.
That's why they closed the cage on David while he was still in morph.
That's why they explained to him what happens when you try to morph a large shape in a small space - suffocation, crushing yourself slowly.
To keep him in morph for two hours.
To trap him in that body.
Forever.
Rachel hasn't had a nightmare in a while. She hurries through the concrete hole and has one in broad daylight.
Bursting out into the sun, she's already demorphing before she's out entirely, tripping and tumbling even while she focuses, focuses hard on her human body. She grows haphazardly, limbs shooting out and blonde hair sprouting and tail sucked back into her spine. Focus, remember, human human human until she's curled up in the dirt and dust outside the bunker in a ball, small shivering seizures and her hand clutched tight around the key.
The sun and the air do nothing. Just like before - she'd made it past the PVC and out of the wire cage, demorphed into a human of light and wind, and spent the next two hours making sure the other rat didn't escape.
And just like before, she can hear his screams, shrill and petrified and ringing in her mind.
When she finally manages to pull herself to her feet, Rachel walks to the Impala. It's not far away, Steph and Mel's motorcycles parked nearby, but it seems like miles to her weak and trembling limbs. When she reaches the car, she puts one hand down on it solidly, flash slapping metal, and uses that to hold herself up. The first attempt at inserting the key fails, her hand shaking too much. She tries again - fails. Again - fails. Again - fails and might have just scratched the paint.
A small sob escapes her lips and Rachel lifts her bracing hand, letting her body drape over the trunk of the car, covering her face with the hand that isn't still gripping the key like a lifeline. Deep breaths. Deep breaths.
Don't breathe too deep. The transparent box she's in has air holes but they're small. And across from her, in an identical box, he's trapped Cassie and the two thugs helping him keep covering the air holes and laughing at her panicked expression.
Morph rat, Rachel, he commands, almost sick with laughter, knowing she'll obey. His nose twitches and his whiskers bob in the faint breeze of the sewer. Morph rat.
No. No, it's not real, it's not happening - it happened but it's over and she's in Arizona, leaning against a car, she needs to open it and get supplies and free her friends.
Morph rat or I'll kill her. I'll kill Cassie if you don't.
It's not happening.
Become what you forced me into, Rachel. I'm going to trap you in rat morph.
It's not happening.
Do it or Cassie dies.
But it happened.
You are already a Nothlit, Rachel.
The metal of the trunk is warm from the sun, hot pressed up against her cheek.
You think you're not just because you were born human. But you're not human anymore, you're a freak and a monster walking around in the wrong body. You're as much a Nothlit as I am.
The key is still clutched in her hand, not longer cool but getting warm and damp with sweat from her palm.
The two kids helping him laughed and jeered as she shrank and grew fur and before her vision got too blurry, she saw Cassie crying.
She closes her eyes against the dirt and the sky and the sweet wind of this broken, ruined world and lets herself drift back to her own - broken but not ruined, healing with her help.
You're a monster, Rachel. You're sick and evil. And I'm not the only one who thinks so.
Dean and Sam and Jo have proof of the existence of demons, maybe angels. Maybe Satan, maybe God. Rachel's never seen proof of any of it, but if there's anything like it they go by different names.
Crayak's voice, dripping with pride and something close to affection, allowing her all the power she wanted and then taking it away, leaving her small and weak and alone at his whim. Be My Champion.
And David, always David, in the background weak and small, bait used to draw her out.
David, weak and small.
David.
Kill me, Rachel. Don't leave me like this again. I can't stand it - kill me.
I'm one of the good guys.
Then do the right thing.
Never use the rat morph again. Never. That awful body, weak and small, fragile and pathetic, ugly and useless.
His voice in her head, begging her for release from the hell she'd put him in.
Do the right thing.
Sam's instructions had been simple. In the trunk, under the false bottom, was a small box of plastic explosives - one of Leah's inventions. All she had to do was take it to the bunker door, attach it around the lock mechanism. The door was about a foot thick of solid steel, so the resulting explosion shouldn't harm anyone inside. And the prisoners had a wealth of lock picks between them and could manage the inner locks. Simple, easy.
Actual time elapsed from entering the bunker and morphing rat: four and a half minutes.
Actual time elapsed from morphing rat to exiting the bunker: two minutes.
Actual time elapsed from exiting the bunker to the explosion on the outer door: one hour and forty-seven minutes.
And when the five humans had emerged from the now-ruined building, Rachel had been sitting hunched and small beside the Impala - but not touching. Her knees were drawn up to her chest and her arms wrapped around them and she stared stoically ahead, brows furrowed almost in anger or frustration.
I'm one of the good guys, but she hadn't been informing him any more than she'd been trying to reassure herself.
When David attacked Tobias, Cassie's house was closer but Jake asked for Rachel to go after him.
David told them all what she'd said about his parents. No one said anything. No one ever said anything.
After the boxes, after Crayak, Cassie knew the question she'd been asked. She never asked Rachel what her answer had been.
Do the right thing.
I'm one of the good guys.
"Rachel?"
You are already a Nothlit.
"Rachel?"
Of the darkness.
A hand on her shoulder. She blinks and looks up at Jo.
Deep down inside.
"Let's go, okay?"
In an alleyway, after all of it, people passing in the main street, peeking in. All they saw was a teenage girl, knees-up in the sun, staring at a dirty rat. All they saw was a rodent on his hind legs, staring back at her.
All they saw was a girl with the world on her shoulders and a boy who couldn't stand to live.
Jo gets her up and in the Impala. Steph and Mel go off, Sam and Dean are in front, Jo is at her side. Rachel can't feel them, can't see them, and when she looks out the window she doesn't see the meadow and forest around them, but the worn bricks and trash-littered alleyway.
Do the right thing.
Rachel, please. Please...
"Is she okay?" someone asks.
She turns to look and in the rearview mirror, catches sight of her own eyes, light blue and cold, inhuman.
"I'm a Nothlit," she says quietly, and retreats back into her mind.
Today is starting to look like one of those situations.
Somewhere about dead center of Nowhere, Arizona, a large group is sitting inside a small concrete structure, lit by a couple of small flashlights which illuminate concrete floors and ceiling and an unapparent source of air. The door is a massive metal air-locked bomb shelter deal - because they are actually in a bomb shelter. Despite the expertise and power of them, all six have actually managed to get stuck inside a concrete block.
"Way to go, princess," Rachel grumbles at Steph, and the glare she receives is considerably softened by the accompanying blush. It isn't actually Steph's fault that they're trapped - it's no one's, they couldn't have known. But Rachel is nervous about being trapped in a solid box she can't morph out of and Steph's her best target right now. It was the vigilante who left the cars and, with Mel, proclaimed the location safe. Which would make it just as much Mel's fault but Rachel isn't grumbling at her.
Princess Sweetness is a far better target - and not just because she isn't as likely to throw a punch in such close quarters. Of course, at this point, Rachel might actually welcome the distraction.
Still. When Steph's glare is accompanied by one of Mel's, and Jo adds in a sharp rebuke of "Shut up, Rachel," Rachel shuts up.
Time in box: one minute, thirty seconds.
At least there's light. Sam and Dean both had flashlights and while Dean uses his to examine the line of the sealed door, Sam is walking the small perimeter, gently pushing the others out of his way - and into each other. Rachel swallows back a growl when his fingers brush her back but he doesn't seem to notice, muttering something about an "air tunnel."
Jo has already moved to help Dean inspect the door and Mel and Steph are talking quietly to each other. Rachel could eavesdrop on any of them but has no interest in doing it for either couple. She stands in darkness, as still as she can mange, and is incredibly grateful when Sam breathes a sigh of relief and calls out, "Dean. I found it."
Time in box: two minutes.
"Found what?" Rachel demands immediately, too glad for the distraction to growl properly when Dean pushes her out of the way. There's no light left with the boys standing together but she can feel Jo come up beside her, Mel and Steph waiting behind, Dean and Sam in front of her and a concrete wall on her remaining side. This is tolerated for a handful of seconds before Rachel fidgets and continues fidgeting until Jo grunts at her and moves aside. It's only an inch but it's an inch more space than she had a moment ago.
"Where?" Dean asks, his normally light-hearted voice deep with gravity.
Sam pulls a small sheet of metal aside, off the bracers that were holding it flush against the concrete blocks, and shines his flashlight in the spot. At first, Rachel can’t see what the big deal is, but then the light casts a shadow and she realizes it's a very small hole dug right into the concrete, about four inches wide and three tall, clear and clean and man-made.
"Air tunnel," Jo says, a relieved smile in her voice. She catches Rachel's look in the dimness and nods at the wall. "They cut it into the concrete to let air into the bunker, but long enough that nothing would be able to reach in after them. Probably winds around in there too, so nothing could be pushed in."
"Like what?" Rachel asks.
"Grenade, dynamite, poison." Jo shrugs, unconcerned. "It's not a Cold War safety, this wouldn't be worth shit against an air bomb or radiation. They probably built it after the locals started going crazy."
"The cannibals," Steph agrees in a soft voice and Mel shifts uncomfortably beside her.
The flashlights shift again and the four women plunged into darkness. Mel grunts impatiently and Rachel echoes her unconsciously, shifting her weight from one foot to the other.
"Rachel?" Sam says softly, still crouched beside the hole and in the glare of the flashlight, she sees him look up at her sharply. Maybe all of them are looking at her, due to the sharp sigh of relief she let out at the sound of her name.
She'd step up to him but she's only six inches away as it is.
"I can get through it," she says, without being asked, squinting at the little hole. Four inches by three? No problem. Fly or cockroach, even mosquito, she'll be out in no time.
Sam nods and his brother stands from the crouch and digs through his pockets. Dean reaches for her and with his flashlight pointed aside, she can't see what he's doing until he has her hand and drops something cold and hard into it.
Rachel frowns and palms it. "What is it?"
"Car key. We'll need some stuff from the trunk."
It's small and cold, sharp edges of metal and rounded curves. It weighs a couple of ounces but when the breath leaves Rachel's lungs, she could swear it just doubled - tripled - in density. Sam is still inspecting the hole and Jo and the other two women are standing back and Dean's in front of her, waiting for her to say something. And even when Rachel opens her mouth, nothing comes out. Not yet.
Her vision doesn't swim, but it does tread for a moment. It reminds her to start breathing again, though her lungs might have shrunk for how easy it is. She wants to wobble and lean against the wall but she can't. Even if no one can see her, they'd hear it, or sense it with how close they're standing together.
"Rachel?"
One-one-thousand, two-one-thousand, three-one-thousand. Three seconds between confirmation of the object in her hand and Dean saying her name, calm and unconcerned but a little confused. And that tiny touch of confusion immediately has all eyes on her. She knows, she can feel it.
"You want me to carry this outside," she says - or asks - or breathes. It's soft and a little tight but she can't get air in fast enough and it's taking most of her concentration not to gasp.
Dean says something, some kind of confirmation and maybe a smart remark, and Rachel ignores it and looks over at the hole again. Four inches by three. Her insect morphs can't carry anything. The housecat is too big. So are the rest of her morphs.
Except the rodents.
And the shrew is too small to carry such an odd-shaped, heavy object.
And the mole is too slow and clumsy to get through the maze, probably too fat.
"Rachel."
"What?" she asks. Someone's talking and she doesn't care who, the key is still weighing heavy in her hand and it takes everything within her to ignore the people, to ignore the box, to ignore the air tunnel and focus.
Inhale. Exhale.
"Are you okay?"
Tiny little box in the dark and people standing around her. No adrenaline rush - this isn't a job and it's not a priority. They're stuck in a concrete room but no one's afraid or even worried. They've only been there twenty minutes, at most, and it isn't necessary that they get out right this moment, it's just preferable. They could all stand to wait and figure out another plan, there's nothing pushing them to get out right this second.
"Rachel."
It's harder and sharper now and it gets her attention, jerking her head up and looking in the direction the voice came from - and finding Sam's face in the way, looking at her, frowning a little.
"Can you do it?"
They didn't have to ask before. Now she can only barely get the breath to breathe, she's not sure she could answer and someone touches her elbow and she twitches and jerks away, finds the concrete wall at her back and whoever that was at her side and Sam right in front of her and when she swallows hard she lets out an involuntary, shuddery little breath and closes her eyes tight to hide in blackness, without the shadows of the flashlights.
And that's worse because for a moment, just that moment of darkness, she's in a transparent box in a sewer with two punk kids and a rodent that's speaking to her in her head and calling her-
"Rachel."
"Dude," Dean snaps quietly and she's recognizing voices now, opening her eyes open wide, as if that might keep her from closing them again. There's another voice and it's soft and sweet and it's the first time she's ever heard it and felt relieved.
"Give her a minute," but it's Steph, not Cassie, and they're still in a box.
There's some more scuffling and someone touches her shoulder. Before she can shake it off, it grips tight, holds on, and Jo's soft, firm voice says, "Rachel. Can you do this?"
No. No no no no no. Never again, no.
Voices not far, not talking to her but to each other and one male voice tells the other male voice, "We have to get out of here."
And it's right and they do but she said, she promised, never again, she can hear people breathing on every side of her and they're using up all the air and there's a wall at her back.
"Yes," her voice says, and it's scratchy and raw, but it's an answer.
Sam explains and it's awful. Not what he wants her to do - get to the car and grab a few items to get the door often. It's how he says it, calm and careful, making sure she understands while the others sit back and wait.
It isn't urgent. It's almost idle. He tells her to get out and to the car the same way she used to ask Tobias to grab any magazines he saw while he was out hunting, if he found any.
The only adrenaline rush she can use to ignore her fear is the one pumping through her veins because of fear.
The key is heavy and solid and she grips it tight in one hand. That keeps it still, but the other hand trembles as she gets out of her clothes. Someone gathers them up but the flashlight is pointed in another direction and vision is not her top priority right now. The only thing she can see right now is a hole by her feet, four inches by three, and a maze of concrete she'll need to navigate.
The worst part isn't the dread. It isn't the morphing.
It's that first moment when she closes her eyes and has to focus.
In the old construction site, waiting. The others are hidden around her in morph but it doesn't matter. It makes her feel safer but not better. And the first flash of wings overhead, the first part of the plan that works... that brief flash of triumph is overshadowed by the overwhelming wave of shame for what she's about to do.
Shrinking. It's like falling only her feet never leave the floor. The concrete just rushes right up at her.
He demorphs. Just a boy, her age, only fourteen. Kind of average looking, perpetual bland face mixed with bitter smirks and smiles. He's not great at socializing, but why would he be? He's an army brat, he's been yanked from place to place, school to school all his life. How could he have learned how to cope with people, to form attachments, when he has so few of his own?
Her skin prickles as fur grows, pushing out of her skin like thick gray/brown grass on a lawn.
He thinks he's tricked them, thinks he owns her. He's fixated on her as his greatest enemy - not because she did this to him. She didn't want him to join the Animorphs, she didn't want to trust him. She wasn't easy on him but she could have been harder. For all he screwed up, new and normal kid or not, she'd been goddamn gentle. Until he started fighting them.
Until he attacked Tobias.
Her face elongates, pushing out and out and out, forming a sharp-tipped nose. Her eyes turn round and small, beady and black.
He hadn't killed Tobias but he didn't know that - he thought he had. And he gloated about it. He teased her, knowing how she felt. He gloated about killing a warrior of Earth, a life that was a thousand times more worthwhile than his own, he gloated about killing.
But David didn't fixate on her because of that. David hated her the most because of her reaction to his gloating.
Ears slide up to the sides of her head, thinning out into little half-circle cups, lightly furred and sensitive.
She threatened him a little, but that wasn't it. She held a plastic fork to the side of his head and told him how much she'd like to shove it through his ear, but he'd only laughed at her. And looking at this little-- this--
Her arms and legs shorten, stubby and small, tiny nails scritch on the concrete.
Looking at him, she realized that he didn't value his life enough anymore to care what she said. There was very little he cared about anymore. So she stopped telling him what she was going to do to him.
She told him what she was going to make sure happened to his parents.
She told him she'd find them, down in the Yeerk Pool. If they were infested, it was her right - her duty - to get rid of them. For the good of the Earth. But if they weren't infested, if they were in the waiting line... well... Yeerks lie, you know. And accidents happen.
Her tailbone lengthens within a sickening crunch, pale white bone extending almost her entire body length behind her, then slowly covering itself with skin and pale, thin fur.
And because of what she'd said then, and the absolute certainty with which she said it, David hated her. So that when he came to the construction site at the appointed time, his only thought had been to dominate and terrify Rachel, to own her completely, to control her every action. All she had to do was pretend to be scared and let his ego lead the way.
He never saw it coming.
He never saw the cage.
The animal mind bubbles up beneath her own. Rodents are difficult, they're prey animals, they're constantly aware of all the dangers around them. It's nerve-wracking, one of these morphs. Rachel's never had good experience with them. The shrew's horrible fear and intense desire for rotting flesh. The mole's digging in damp, dark tunnels, dirt brushing at every side.
And the rat.
Her nose twitches. Her tail lashes from side to side. Her ears swivel.
Someone takes a step toward her and Rachel darts for the safety of the hole. She tells herself it's the rat instincts that told her to hide, the rat's nerves.
Not her own.
The key is flat and heavy, too dense to really bite in, and hard to hold. It's absolutely nothing like a small Lego block but when Rachel picks it up and skitters back into the cut of the concrete, she's seeing the construction site again, the PVC piping track that they'd laid out, carefully arranged to look natural. She's hearing the Thoughtspeak voice in her head demanding that she find all the pieces of the Blue Box and put them back together again, she's answering him in scared little whimpers and inwardly seething at his ego, his confidence, the way he taunts her for being powerless and the hawk he thinks he killed.
Four inches by three is a great deal bigger than the PVC pipe from the site but it's all the same to her right now. It's the concrete room, it's the plastic pipe at the construction site, it's the damp dirty hole just above the Yeerk Pool. Her friends are behind her, waiting on her, depending on her, but they're not right there with her. Because in the end, no matter how many people love you, support you, depend on you, you are alone.
Always alone.
The key keeps dropping from her teeth and she has to bend and pick it up, startled each time. The Lego never fell, soft enough for her to sink her teeth into, but David hadn't known that. And when she'd collected several of them, she'd just pushed them in front of her with her nose along the smooth pipe. The concrete is too rough for that and the key too flat to move smoothly and Rachel bumps her nose on a bend in the dark maze and takes a sharp left, her nose twitching to find fresh air.
Left, right, left, left, right, left, right, right, David following along behind her, abusing her and completely unaware of what was about to happen.
Then she saw the light ahead and she had to keep herself moving slowly but she was itching to get out, out of that tiny space and away from the fate that she'd be just as susceptible to as he would, if her friends suddenly--
But they wouldn't do that.
The bunker's walls were thick, amazingly thick, and she vaguely remembers someone saying the exact dimensions but she can't remember them now. Forever would do just as well and she's breathing heavily as she scuttles in the dark, dropping the key frequently and struggling to pick it back up with tiny sharp teeth that don't help much.
Because the rat body is overall useless. It isn't powerful, it isn't strong, it isn't big, it isn't useful. The one thing it can do and do well is get through pipes four inches by three.
That's why, when she'd broken through the PVC pipe and past the wire cage they'd set up, her friends had been waiting for the rat that would follow her.
That's why they closed the cage on David while he was still in morph.
That's why they explained to him what happens when you try to morph a large shape in a small space - suffocation, crushing yourself slowly.
To keep him in morph for two hours.
To trap him in that body.
Forever.
Rachel hasn't had a nightmare in a while. She hurries through the concrete hole and has one in broad daylight.
Bursting out into the sun, she's already demorphing before she's out entirely, tripping and tumbling even while she focuses, focuses hard on her human body. She grows haphazardly, limbs shooting out and blonde hair sprouting and tail sucked back into her spine. Focus, remember, human human human until she's curled up in the dirt and dust outside the bunker in a ball, small shivering seizures and her hand clutched tight around the key.
The sun and the air do nothing. Just like before - she'd made it past the PVC and out of the wire cage, demorphed into a human of light and wind, and spent the next two hours making sure the other rat didn't escape.
And just like before, she can hear his screams, shrill and petrified and ringing in her mind.
When she finally manages to pull herself to her feet, Rachel walks to the Impala. It's not far away, Steph and Mel's motorcycles parked nearby, but it seems like miles to her weak and trembling limbs. When she reaches the car, she puts one hand down on it solidly, flash slapping metal, and uses that to hold herself up. The first attempt at inserting the key fails, her hand shaking too much. She tries again - fails. Again - fails. Again - fails and might have just scratched the paint.
A small sob escapes her lips and Rachel lifts her bracing hand, letting her body drape over the trunk of the car, covering her face with the hand that isn't still gripping the key like a lifeline. Deep breaths. Deep breaths.
Don't breathe too deep. The transparent box she's in has air holes but they're small. And across from her, in an identical box, he's trapped Cassie and the two thugs helping him keep covering the air holes and laughing at her panicked expression.
Morph rat, Rachel, he commands, almost sick with laughter, knowing she'll obey. His nose twitches and his whiskers bob in the faint breeze of the sewer. Morph rat.
No. No, it's not real, it's not happening - it happened but it's over and she's in Arizona, leaning against a car, she needs to open it and get supplies and free her friends.
Morph rat or I'll kill her. I'll kill Cassie if you don't.
It's not happening.
Become what you forced me into, Rachel. I'm going to trap you in rat morph.
It's not happening.
Do it or Cassie dies.
But it happened.
You are already a Nothlit, Rachel.
The metal of the trunk is warm from the sun, hot pressed up against her cheek.
You think you're not just because you were born human. But you're not human anymore, you're a freak and a monster walking around in the wrong body. You're as much a Nothlit as I am.
The key is still clutched in her hand, not longer cool but getting warm and damp with sweat from her palm.
The two kids helping him laughed and jeered as she shrank and grew fur and before her vision got too blurry, she saw Cassie crying.
She closes her eyes against the dirt and the sky and the sweet wind of this broken, ruined world and lets herself drift back to her own - broken but not ruined, healing with her help.
You're a monster, Rachel. You're sick and evil. And I'm not the only one who thinks so.
Dean and Sam and Jo have proof of the existence of demons, maybe angels. Maybe Satan, maybe God. Rachel's never seen proof of any of it, but if there's anything like it they go by different names.
Crayak's voice, dripping with pride and something close to affection, allowing her all the power she wanted and then taking it away, leaving her small and weak and alone at his whim. Be My Champion.
And David, always David, in the background weak and small, bait used to draw her out.
David, weak and small.
David.
Kill me, Rachel. Don't leave me like this again. I can't stand it - kill me.
I'm one of the good guys.
Then do the right thing.
Never use the rat morph again. Never. That awful body, weak and small, fragile and pathetic, ugly and useless.
His voice in her head, begging her for release from the hell she'd put him in.
Do the right thing.
Sam's instructions had been simple. In the trunk, under the false bottom, was a small box of plastic explosives - one of Leah's inventions. All she had to do was take it to the bunker door, attach it around the lock mechanism. The door was about a foot thick of solid steel, so the resulting explosion shouldn't harm anyone inside. And the prisoners had a wealth of lock picks between them and could manage the inner locks. Simple, easy.
Actual time elapsed from entering the bunker and morphing rat: four and a half minutes.
Actual time elapsed from morphing rat to exiting the bunker: two minutes.
Actual time elapsed from exiting the bunker to the explosion on the outer door: one hour and forty-seven minutes.
And when the five humans had emerged from the now-ruined building, Rachel had been sitting hunched and small beside the Impala - but not touching. Her knees were drawn up to her chest and her arms wrapped around them and she stared stoically ahead, brows furrowed almost in anger or frustration.
I'm one of the good guys, but she hadn't been informing him any more than she'd been trying to reassure herself.
When David attacked Tobias, Cassie's house was closer but Jake asked for Rachel to go after him.
David told them all what she'd said about his parents. No one said anything. No one ever said anything.
After the boxes, after Crayak, Cassie knew the question she'd been asked. She never asked Rachel what her answer had been.
Do the right thing.
I'm one of the good guys.
"Rachel?"
You are already a Nothlit.
"Rachel?"
Of the darkness.
A hand on her shoulder. She blinks and looks up at Jo.
Deep down inside.
"Let's go, okay?"
In an alleyway, after all of it, people passing in the main street, peeking in. All they saw was a teenage girl, knees-up in the sun, staring at a dirty rat. All they saw was a rodent on his hind legs, staring back at her.
All they saw was a girl with the world on her shoulders and a boy who couldn't stand to live.
Jo gets her up and in the Impala. Steph and Mel go off, Sam and Dean are in front, Jo is at her side. Rachel can't feel them, can't see them, and when she looks out the window she doesn't see the meadow and forest around them, but the worn bricks and trash-littered alleyway.
Do the right thing.
Rachel, please. Please...
"Is she okay?" someone asks.
She turns to look and in the rearview mirror, catches sight of her own eyes, light blue and cold, inhuman.
"I'm a Nothlit," she says quietly, and retreats back into her mind.
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shatterverse
