Gaining power...the good kind (Open)

[Jake]

It was a dark night, darker than normal for New York City. Jake was walking around at this time on the main streets of the city where there were still a to of people. The city that never sleeps. They got that right. I'll probably never get used to that. He took a turn off away from the main roads. Jake was still experimenting with his powers, since his parents had found out they sent him to New York to "get some help" as they put it.

He was not interested in getting help he was just interested in learning to control it and be better at it. Without looking where he was going he found himself at the gate to the New York City Zoo. The gates were locked but that was no trouble for Jake. He took a look around and saw a few bushes. He didn't have many morphs yet but that was partly a reason he was here. He took his clothes off until he was in his morphing outfit, bike shorts and a under armor shirt. Jake hid his clothes in the bushes stood there in the night air. He only had the one morph of his dog and that wouldn't help him much. He climbed over the gate and landed hard on the cool ground. "Now where do I want to start?" Jake said to himself.

Jake walked around for a little while looking at all the empty animal cages. He came to the birds first. "Now lets see." He walked around and saw an owl. "That will be very helpful." found his way into the aviary which let him into the rest of the zoo. He walked up to a Eastern Screech Owl slowly and touched it. He held a piece of food that the owl would have liked. He felt the weird feeling of having a part of the animal stay in his body when he removed his hand from the owl.

He moved on to other animals, getting ones that looked cool and ones that will eventually come to helping him and others. He walked along the rows of cages where most of the animals were kept over night. A lion, an elephant, an american kestrel, and even some of the more ridiculous or rare animals. A mouse, a polar bear, and a red panda, a black bear, a bangle tiger; even insects like a roach, and a fly. That creped Jake out a lot. He was never a big fan of insects, but he thought they might come in handy.

The list was getting long. He was getting carried away with all the animals that were now at his disposal. He walked out along the main trails between the areas where the animals were normally shown during the day. Let's try one. But which one? He'd already morphed the dog many times but now he had a whole bunch of morphs to choose from. "Well it is dark out, so maybe the owl would be the best morph to go with right now."

Just as Jake was about to morph into the owl he heard footsteps. He didn't want anyone to know he was a mutant, in fact it was probably better they didn't know if they weren't mutants also. It would take him too long to morph so he hid as best he could. However, given the things around it wasn't a very good hiding spot.

[X'Sharri]

X'Sharri had just gotten back from a rather nasty piece of buisness in Gotham. The buisness had involved "disposing" some people for money.Over all, X'Sharri was glad to be back at New York, especially because of the night life. He had gone back to the secret underground abandoned bar that he had set up his lodging, and changed into some more sensible clothing. He put on his general fighting outfit, a black tight sleeveless half-shirt with a black skort, gothic combat boots, and general black long gloves that covered his X'Shar military tattooing.

Messing up his blonde hair with his hands, the alien made sure it had gone back to it's original punkish shape before he left his home. It was a cool night, a perfect night for some chaos, but he wasn't in the mood. For some strange reason, he just wanted to visit the zoo again. The earth creatures were strange, strange things for the Sharoan, and they endlessly fascinated him.

The wind started to pick up as he reached the zoo entrance, getting past it with very little to some difficulty. X'Sharri, once he'd gotten past the security, started to walk around the cages, looking at the earth creatures. Walking around, he ignored any and all signs that someone had been here before him- taking too much interest in the lions, monkeys, and owls. The animals didn't seem to like him that much, avoiding the alien's touch.

Not bothering to speak English since there were no humans around, he assumed, he started to speak to the owls in the common language of his planet. X'Sharri thought he heard a rustle, like someone moving, and turned his head, looking back.

[Jake]

Jake found himself back around the owl cages. Since he was getting ready to leave it only makes sense that he was back where he started. Jake was hiding, though not very well, behind a trash can that people usually have in their houses. His legs were sticking out and one of his arms. Jake did his best to hide his entire body but it wasn't working.

Slowly he poked his head above the top of the trash can and saw someone who Jake thought might be a guy but it was hard to tell with the long blond hair and the weird clothing. Who am I to think people are wearing weird clothing. Look at me. I look like I just got out of a gymnastics competition's. Jake thought to himself.

Just then the animorph, as he called himself, heard the stranger talking to one of the owls in a weird language. The stranger heard him move and looked around right at Jake. Man he's seen me. Jake was about to stand up and confront the person when he decided that he didn't know if this person was friendly or not, and given his past circumstances he wasn't to willing to try. Jake morphed into his golden retriever and walked out from behind the trash can and up to the stranger.

This person smells different. He doesn't smell human almost alien. It's weird. Jake didn't want to get and closer, however, the dog had other plans. The dogs curiosity was peaked, there was so much excitement, so many new smells, so many different animals that he wanted to investigate. The dog's main focus was on the person and Jake wasn't ready for his insatiable curiosity about the person.

Jake found that the more he morphs his dog the easier it became and not only was it becoming easier he also learned new things about the animal every time he morphed. Jake had found out that Dash, his dog, had more curiosity for people than for other animals. Jake, as Dash, walked up to the person and gave a little friendly yip to get the person's attention.

[X'Sharri]

X'Sharri thought he saw an arm and two legs, but just shrugged and looked back at the owls. He was smart in the book-sense, but crippled by his not-so-smart common sense. X'Sharri continued to speak in his native tongue to the owls, the owls avoiding the alien and even going to the opposite side of the cage.

He gave a sigh, about to go and look at some of the other cages when he heard another sound that was like a small yip, a certain four-legged creature perhaps? X'Sharri turned around and saw the dog right in front of him, apparently wanting his attention. "Hello there," he said in English, patting the dog on the head with his three-fingered hand.

X'Sharri couldn't help the half-smile that came onto his face, however, after a few seconds he shook his head and his face became neutral again with a small frown. "Your human master let you outside didn't he?" X'Sharri retorically said, straightening his back to full upright position. He started to walk, looking over at the creature and said, "If you can even understand me, want to take a walk you...furry creature."

X'Sharri turned around and started to walk again, pushing his thoughts about how the dog was "cute" or "pretty" out of his mind. He couldn't go into a "female" mindset now, there was too much stuff to see without all of those complicated, and silly emotions!

[Jake]

Jake went smelled the persons hand. Once he was close enough to see the person he and he patted Jake on the head with his three fingered hand. That told Jake that it would be alright for him let the guy know he wasn't really a dog but a person.

"Hello there," "Your human master let you outside didn't he?" "If you can even understand me, want to take a walk you...furry creature." the guy said to Jake.

<I don't have an owner.> Jake said in thought speak to the guy. Jake paused for a minute to see the reaction the guy would give. <So you speak English too. I know you can understand me. You're hearing me in your head. It's the dog talking.>

<I'd love to go take a walk with you. What's you name?> Jake said trotting up to the guy's side and keeping pace.

It was hard to see since it was so dark out tonight. Even the dog couldn't see very well. There is one morph that I just got that would help me to see better. My new owl morph. Jake thought as he trotted along the mans side. Just before he began to demorph he thought he picked up on a different sent. This person Jake was next to wasn't man and wasn't a women. Jake didn't know what this person was or if he was interpreting the right scents.

Jake began demorphing. It wasn't a pretty sight, or sound for that matter. It never was. It even disturbed Jake. It wasn't so much the sight as much as the sound. The sight was pretty gross if you weren't used to it; however, the sound was worse. The sound was of Jakes bones crunching and grinding as they reshaped in his body to form human bones. His insides were mostly unnoticeable to everyone but him. He stood up from being on his hands and Jake was Jake again. He paused for a second because he figured this might freak out the guy he was with.

A couple of minutes after he finished morphing Jake began remorphing. This time he was becoming an Eastern Screech Owl. Again his bones twisted and ground together. His intestines changed, and feathers grew out of every part of his body. It actually looked a lot better than the previous morph. It looked rather mystifying and even a little beautiful.

He shrunk down and was completely formed into an owl. Sitting on the floor for a minute he looked around for the first time with owl eyes. Everything was bright as day. His head swiveled around 180 degrees. He felt confident like he ruled the night. Nothing could stop him he was the ruler of the skies at night. While looking around Jake regained his sense of human mind. He realized it was Jake in an owl morph not an actual owl. He spread his wings and took off circling above the man. <Well, you still interested in going for a walk or are you too freaked out by that?> Jake said, again in thought speak and continuing to circle above the guys head.

[X'Sharri]

X'Sharri blunk, looking at the dog as he heard a person telepathically communicating to him. He'd had commanders do the same thing to him to give him mission briefings and such, but it still felt weird. He gave a calm appearance though, thankful that at least part of his emotion-controlling lessons had not been wasted. X'Sharri listened as the dog-person, as far as he could tell, telepathically talk to him.

He looked back as the dog trotted up next to him, and asked him his name telepathically. X'Sharri's antennae lifted up, separating themselves from their alien owner , apparently without the alien noticing. They twitched as he gave a small, dark chuckle, saying outloud with a grin, "Name's X'Sharri by the way. What's yours?" He looked around the zoo, noticing finally how dark it was. X'Sharri's eyes had adjusted, but he still found it a bit hard to see sometimes.

He looked back and saw the animal man morphing, and not very prettily it seemed. X'Sharri had a high tolerance for messy situations, but his antennae twitched in the manner to suggest that he was near to throwing up. He barely survived the first transformation, the second one got him even closer to emptying his bowels on the ground- which thankfully he didn't. His skin did turn a sickly near-white aqua color.

X'Sharri managed to pull himself together, his skin darkening until it was back to it's normal skin tone. He looked at the owl as it took off and looked up to where it was circling him. "I've seen worse, and felt far more disgusting things," X'Sharri said with a confident laugh, at least partially telling the truth. He'd had several of his appendages hurt in far more disgusting-looking ways. He was actually confident that if he didn't have his accelerated healing he'd be either dead or have cybernetic implants everywhere on him.

"So, you're a human...person... with the ability to morph into animals?" X'Sharri asked out loud as he continued to look at the strange animal person. He was interested in this creature, very interested.

[Jake]

While Jake was morphing and after he thought he noticed X'Sharri seemed queasy or at lest that's what Jake thought the twitching antennas meant. <X'Sharri, huh. That's not a name you hear often.> Jake said in owl morph. <My name's Jake by the way.>

<And yes I'm human.> Jake said. <Ya, I can turn into any animal I can touch. Or person for that matter; however, I don't really like to morph people for certain reasons.> Jake explained a little. He didn't know much about this strange person so he wasn't very forward with his information. He didn't know whether or not this person was going to be friend or foe. Jake personally was hoping for friend, he could always use more friends in this world to help him out.

[X'Sharri]

X'Sharri couldn't help but give a rude reply to the comment about how his name wasn't common, "Duh, weird person, weird name- it always happens like that...well from what I've seen, anyway." X'Sharri smirked, sticking out his tongue. It was long enough to go a little ways past his chin and was like a snake's. Rolling his tongue back into his mouth, he whistled a disturbing, dark tune under his breath for a moment. He was glad he had worn the skort with actual pockets in it, sticking his hands in there just to put his mind off of making an apology.

"Jake, eh?" X'Sharri replied back with one eyebrow up and a curious, yet slightly glaring emotion on his face. He crossed his arms, looking up at the sky and not at the owl person flying above him, although the look could be mistaken ed for looking at Jake because of the arch of his neck and his eyes. "Probably a bit more uncomfortable," X'Sharri commented to the comment about how the boy didn't like to morph into people.

[Jake]

Jake smiled inwardly at X'Sharri's remark to his own comment about his name. Jake knew he didn't mean to be rude. After all he did deserve it. In Jake's mind it really was a Duh comment.

"It's a bit more complicated than that, but yes. That's the general idea." Jake said trying to avoid explaining to much about that particular part. It was just weird turning into someone else who has a family and friends and can communicate effectively with other humans. Animals couldn't do this, obviously, so it made it easier for him to get past using the animals however he wanted.

As Jake flew above X'Sharri he thought X'Sharri was looking up at him. However, Jake was just paranoid. Being a mutant tended to do that to people. Especially if they were young like Jake was.

Jake was eager to explore his morphs capabilities and how it handled. He flew higher, then lower, then farther away heading towards the entrance of the zoo. Then he would fly back to X'Sharri just so that he knew Jake didn't leave without saying anything to hint at it. Jake was a little anxious to be getting out of the zoo. He had everything he needed; however, he wanted to stay around X'Sharri because he was the first person that Jake had seemed e could connect to.

Jake began slowly flying towards the way he came in seeing if X'Sharri would follow him or if he wanted to stay a little longer.

[X'Sharri]

X'Sharri didn't get why this kid found it more difficult to turn into a human than an animal. Although with the whole family and communicating thing that animals didn't have, he supposed he at least slightly understood. X'Sharri watched as the superhuman explored the owl's capabilities, being reminded of a few things from his own past. When the owl flew away from him, he assumed that the owl was leaving him, but when he came back the alien assumed that was to show that he wouldn't leave without saying something.

X'Sharri watched as the owl flew a bit towards the entrance, getting the memo quite easily for a person who wasn't really in touch with emotions other than anger and rebellion. He turned around and started to head for the zoo entrance, not bothering to pay attention to a shadow that was starting to creep behind him. The silence of the night was cut off by a police guard, or at least a person in police-esque clothing shooting a gun. X'Sharri's eyes went wide for a moment as a bullet pierced his left leg and his right side.

It wasn't a fatal wound, but there was a lot of blood and it looked serious. X'Sharri, despite his attempts to keep himself from uttering any sort of sign that he was in pain, gave a sharp gasp and fell on his side, gripping his right side. His organs were in different places than in humans, due to being an alien, and the bullet that had gone in his right side had gotten in dangerously close to one of his hearts. X'Sharri coughed, and looked up to his attacker.

Gone down to stealing animals to sell, eh?

Those were the words that the alien heard as the man looked at him, taking out a net of sorts to catch the owl. "Come here owl," the man said gruffly, moving towards Jake with the net. There had been a owl missing from the owl cages for about a week, and it turned out to be the same kind that Jake was currently borrowing the form of. X'Sharri focused his technopathy, bringing out one of his spider legs, two or more would have been too much to handle with the pain that he was in, and sent it towards the police officer, hoping that it at least tripped him.

[Jake]

Jake was slowly flying above X'Sharri enjoying the freedom of flying, feeling like he left all his problems back on the ground, and nothing could touch him up their in the air. Then all of the sudden two ear splitting gun shots. The two shots hit Sharri and one of the guards started chasing after Jake with a net.

<Why did it have to be this species of owl missing and not a different kind.> Jake said to no one really in particular but so that Sharri could hear him. After he said that he dodged the net bing thrown at him. He missed it by inches.

Jake flew down at the police-looking men. He brought his claws forward, so that it looked like he was going after a mouse, and scratched at the mans face. Jake hit the man a few times with one of is talons and drew some blood from the mans face. He screamed in pain as Jake took off again to avoid the net and to gain more altitude to go at the other mans face.

There wasn't much he could do to help Sharri out in this morph but he didn't want to demorph and then morph into something else because that would have taken to much time and they needed to get away from these people. They kept swinging their net at Jake without success. Jake kept flying high and diving at the men so that they wouldn't be able to do much as Sharri did whatever it was he did best.

[X'Sharri]

"Lucky us, no?" X'Sharri said sarcastically as his spider leg pierced the man's upper shoulder. It wasn't a fatal wound, but one that would hurt badly. The man fell on the ground, writhing in pain as X'Sharri got up, his leg healing rapidly. X'Sharri coughed up two bullets into his hand, and dropped them on the man as he brought out more of his spider legs to steady himself.

He kept a hand over his side wound that was making his black clothes around the area slightly bluish with his blue blood. "Shoot that at me again, and you'll know the meaning of 'death's not the most painful thing'," X'Sharri threated the man, twisting the leg that was in the man's shoulder to provoke a chilling scream. He removed his spider leg from the man and started to walk, or rather limp, towards the exit. "Stupid earth scum and their stupid, useless, guns," X'Sharri growled as he tried to ignore the searing pain in his side.

He looked back at Jake, saying with a smirk, "They're gonna be looking for you, wanna stay at my place for an hour or two until the earth creatures give up?" X'Sharri usually didn't offer anyone the chance to stay at his home for even a few minutes, but he felt kind of sympathetic towards this kid. Knowing the earth police, they'd probably chain him up somewhere if they found out he was a mutant.

Then again, some of them weren't that ruthless, but with all of the riots going on it was hard not to think that all of them were ruthless. X'Sharri knew he'd have to stay in the shadows for a bit after this policeman attack, they'd be looking for him too most likely. He could help a small dark chuckle as he realized he was kind of envious, wanting the ability to change his appearance.

[Jake]

Jake watched as Sharri stuck a metal leg into the guards shoulder. The guard let out a scream as Sharri twisted the leg farther into the guards shoulder.

"They're gonna be looking for you, wanna stay at my place for an hour or two until the earth creatures give up?" Sharri asked Jake as he hovered above him.

<Sure, that sounds like a pretty good idea. They'll probably be looking for you as well. But I doubt they'll be looking to hard considering they'll never find an owl loose in this big city.> Jake said taking Sharri up on his offer.

<Lead the way Sharri. By the way what's your mutation? Is it the leg thing or what?> Jake said waiting for Sharri to show the way to his apartment.

[X'Sharri]

"Feh, Stupid Humans could never take me in," X'Sharri responded confidently as he limped towards his place. There were several drunks, most of them asleep, too drunk to care about the alien's appearance, or hurling from a drink too many. X'Sharri made sure to sidestep them, not wanting to get anything else on his clothes that night.

He raised an eyebrow to his comment, wondering how this boy didn't realize what he was speaking too. However, X'Sharri considered it a good thing, and replied, "Nope, Healing Factor." X'Sharri took a side alleyway until they came to a small door with the entrance sign "The Outcast Bar".

Growing, X'Sharri took out the key from under his shirt and opened the door, coughing as he stepped in. The bar was dusty, and his normal clothes piled onto the bartop. "It's messy, didn't think I'd have anyone over," X'Sharri said, sitting down on one of the barstools.

He still had his hand over his wound, and removed it to reveal a bad-looking wound that was healing pretty well. Normally, when X'Sharri got home the first thing he'd take off would be his gloves, but he didn't want to right now- especially with a guest.

[Jake]

Jake flew above Sharri as they walked towards Sharri's place. It turned out to be a bar. Jake flew in through the open door and landed, not so gracefully on a bar bar stool. When he went in for the landing, he missed the chair and hit the ground. <Ow. I need to work on my landings.> Jake said flying back up onto the bar stool. There were clothes everywhere, but that didn't bother Jake. He was used to messes.

This was a nice place as far a Jake was concerned. Ever since he arrived here in New York and through his travel up here he had spent almost his entire time as a dog living off what he could find, peoples hand outs, and hope he got lucky and found some cash.

After sitting around for a while Jake decided to demorph. He began to grow while his bones expanded, reshaped and hardened to form human bones. The grinding was still disgusting while his feathers shrunk and disappeared. Jakes was almost completely human again except for the fact that his entire body had a reddish-orange tint to. Finally he was back to normal. He was perched on the stool. Jake sat down on the stool as a human and relaxed.