Chapter Text
My name is Cassie. Normally, I'm a thirteen-year-old girl.
Sometimes, I'm an osprey.
It was Thursday afternoon, and we were gliding above the forest out behind my house. Tobias, our resident flying expert, had offered to give us a flying lesson. He’d said that the best place to fly was above the city in late afternoon and early evening, but we'd decided that a collection of birds like us would look very odd indeed to anybody who happened to glance upward.
Marco, gliding not far from me, was an osprey as well. Two ospreys flying together would only look a little bit odd, but throw in Rachel the bald eagle who was trying to match Tobias' red-tailed hawk acrobatics out ahead of us, and Jake behind us struggling to soar properly on his tiny peregrine falcon wings, and we were definitely a sight that anybody who knew anything about birds would comment on.
We were flying because everybody having a good airborne getaway morph that they knew how to use was a great asset to the team. But we were actually flying because it was really, really fun.
[Woo-hooo!] That was Rachel ahead of us, following Tobias into a dive.
[Yaaaaa ha ha!!] Jake, shooting underneath us in a dive, catching up to and surpassing the other two. Jake's tiny wings weren't the best for soaring, but they were brilliant for diving. His manoeuvrability and diving speed was the perfect offset to Rachel's sheer bulk and strength and Tobias' acrobatic grace. I'd picked the same morph as Marco because we ran out of birds in the Rehabilitation Centre, and the best thing to double up on seemed to be what the other birds lacked entirely – underwater sight. All the birds had great eyesight (including ultraviolet sight, which was a nice but disconcerting surprise – gliding under a violet sky will never feel normal), but only our morphs could see through water, shiny windows and heat haze almost as if it wasn't there.
[They are so childish,] Marco sniffed next to me.
[I know. Stupid little kid competitiveness.]
[Everyone knows ospreys kick their bird's butts.]
[Totally.]
We dove.
Tobias had been right. Flying was the coolest thing ever. Running across fields as a horse didn't even compare. Flying was a whole new level of cool, speed and grace in three dimensions with no obstacles. Of course, if we fell, we would almost certainly die.
Marco and I skimmed the treetops and pulled up again. The others were already gaining lift. I told myself it was because we'd started diving last, but I knew that Jake and Tobias were faster divers than we were.
Zzzziiinnnngggg!
Something went right by my head.
[You guys hear that?] Tobias asked.
[What was it?] Rachel asked.
[I don't know.]
Zzzziiinnnngggg!
I scanned the forest below and saw the problem. [I can see them.] I could hear the hatred in my own mental voice. [Two guys, over in the woods. They have a rifle.]
[Controllers?] Marco asked.
[No, they’d use lasers,] I replied.
[Dracon beams,] Tobias said.
[What?]
[The yeerk lasers. They're called Dracon beams. An adaptation of andalite Shredders.]
[On the list of things that are important right now, Tobias, yeerk terminology ranks somewhere below my love of maple and ginger oatmeal,] Marco snapped.
[Anyway,] I interrupted, [I think these are just morons. Sometimes we get animals in the clinic with random bullet wounds. People think it's funny to go out and take potshots at the wildlife.]
Zzzziiinnnngggg! Another bullet zipped by us.
[I can't believe this!] Rachel was really mad. [I'm an endangered species. I'm a bald eagle! What's the matter with those creeps?]
[He's getting ready to shoot again,] Marco reported. [I can see him taking aim.]
[As soon as you see the flash of the rifle, dodge hard right!] Jake yelled.
The muzzle flashed. We dodged right.
[Argh!] Rachel.
[Rachel! Are you ok?!]
[Yeah, I... I don't think I was hit.]
[You know what? I don't think I like those guys,] Tobias said. Tobias had, understandably, become a lot more defensive about birds in general since our trip to the yeerk pool had left him permanently in hawk form.
[Me neither,] Rachel agreed. [I have an idea. Let's get some cover.]
Rachel, ever the adrenalin junkie, gained some altitude, and then dove below the treetops. Rachel's idea didn't look very safe to me, but my hatred of bored idiots with guns overrode my caution. I followed, diving straight down, the treetops rushing up toward me, and then flaring my wings as I dipped beneath them, trading vertical speed for horizontal.
Ospreys aren't really designed for flying in dense woodland, but the osprey brain still knew a lot more about flying than I did. I let my instincts take control.
Tree! I dodged left. Tree! I dodged right. Treetreetreetree!
The trip through the forest was an insane self-directed roller coaster where one wrong wing twitch could kill any one of us. It occurred to me what a profoundly stupid idea this was, but by then it was too late to pull out.
Suddenly, there they were, just ahead in a clearing. Two teenage creeps sitting in the back of a pickup truck. One guy had a blond ponytail.
The other one wore a baseball cap. They were a hundred yards away, like being all the way down a football field, but my raptor eyes were so good I could count their eyelashes.
The guy with the ponytail had the rifle. The other guy was drinking a beer. They were still scanning the skies, looking for us.
Rachel reached the clearing first. She was the biggest bird, and could carry the heaviest load. They didn't even see her race for them, talons outstretched, until she was plucking the rifle from the man's arms.
“What the...”
By then, though, the rest of us were on him. I could hear Tobias berating the men in open thought-speak, with flagrant disregard for the very real possibility that they might be Controllers.
[Think it's funny to shoot at innocent birds, huh? You get bored and drunk and decide to come out here for a little target practise? Why not just spend your beer money on a copy of Duck Hunt you – ]
“Aargh!” This was from the rifle-carrying man as Tobias raked his talons along the side of the man's face. Deep enough to scratch, not deep enough to scar. He clutched at his face, allowing Rachel to pull the rifle away.
I was busy diving for the baseball cap. Talons out, snap shut, just like snatching a salmon from the water.
“Hey! My cap!”
“Screw your cap, what about my gun?!”
[This is insane,] Marco remarked flatly as he tugged on the man's ponytail, letting go and flying away just as the man swiped for him. [This is so insane that we need to invent a new word for this level of insanity. Any ideas?]
[This... is... JUSTICE,] Rachel screamed in our heads, followed by a peal of mental laughter. She was returning to the clearing, sans gun.
[Where is – ] Jake asked.
[Dropped it in a lake.]
[And Rachel steps neatly in to prove my point,] Marco said.
[Yeah, we should… we should probably go now,] Jake pointed out.
[Just one more thing.] Marco swooped down and plucked the beer from the now capless teenager.
“Hey! That's mine!”
[They're way too young to be drinking,] Marco said in his most parent-like voice, as if he hadn’t just been complaining about everybody else acting insane.
[Stupidity of this little adventure aside, it's been almost two hours,] I pointed out.
And with that, we were out of there.