The Psychics

[Avalene]

This goes from Ashley to Devin, back and forth between posts.

Disclaimer-The Animorphs belong to K.A. Applegate. I’m not K.A. Applegate, so the Animorphs do not belong to me. On the other hand, Ashley is mine. She is a part of my personality, do you cannot have her. Devin is mine, too. YAY! I always wanted to say that. He’s MINE. You cannot have him. Um, second thought, he’s designed in mind of the real Devin (my ex-neighbor…sigh), so Devin owns himself. Oh well.
P.S.—I have not finished this series-because of my insistence of only reading the books I own. So, live with it.

My name is Ashley. It’s a common name. Two of my friends’ names are Ashley, I have a cousin Ashley, and there are a few psychotically cheerful preppies that happen to have the name Ashley at my High School…and I just won’t get into THAT. Preppies creep me out.

I can’t tell you my last name, the name of my High School, where I live, where I just moved from, etc. That’s not just because of crazy Internet stalkers, but also because of the Yeerks.

If I wrote my name down now, I’d be dead or worse. Yes, there’s something worse than death. The Yeerks. After being infested by a Yeerk, you are under complete control that Yeerk. Which would really suck. And don’t expect for anybody to notice. It’s nearly impossible. I was lucky to figure it out…but that’s a way to tell that few could use. Yeerks are really gross slimy slug-like aliens. By themselves, they are blind, helpless, but …a Yeerk can crawl into your ear canal and into your brain, meshing in, taking control. You are basically a prisoner in your own mind, you cannot do anything, just think, and see only what the Yeerk wants to see, say what the Yeerk wants to say, smile when the Yeerk wants to, even nuts when the Yeerk wants to nuts. They have access to memories you can’t even remember, so no one can tell it’s not you. Anyway, I’m getting ahead of myself (haha-that phrase amuses me). –Back to what I was saying.

A description of me;

I’m a sixteen-year-old junior in High School. I have a few good friends and tend to ignore anyone else. I have hair so dark; it looks black, except for (natural) red highlights and its curly. My eyes are dark green, with gold flecks. I like to wear black, black jeans with buckles and studs and chain things and black shirts and camouflage anything. My room is completely camouflaged; you cannot find anything (but I can). I love to read, to write, to draw, and draw/write manga (anime books, for the poor deprived people who don’t know what manga is), video games, computer stuff, and listening to music like Linkin Park, Evanescence, Smile Empty Soul, Good Charlotte, Simple Plan, and all that good stuff. I am a vegetarian, though my mom is trying to stuff meat down my throat. I don’t get that.

Oh yeah. I’m a TWIN! Not a thing you’d think I’d forget. He’s about a half an hour older than me.

Okay, enough of me. This is where my story started- how I found out about the invasion of planet Earth.

“Mom! We’re home.” I called. No one answered. “Huh, wonder where she went.”

My brother sighed, “She’s never home.”

“Devin. I’m relieved she quit smoking.” I told him. “Thirty years of smoking is not good for one’s health. The Sharing is an okay organization.”

“…Yeah, but she changed. Something about her…” Devin shivered apprehensively, “Something is wrong, her aura is all wrong.”

I giggled, not taking him seriously as usual, “You’re taking this ‘psychic twins’ thing too far.”

“That’s not true and you know it. Her aura – it’s all weird, her usual pale blue one is swallowed by a nasty gray cloud.” He shuddered.

“Ugh, I’ll check next time I see her.” I sighed. To tell the truth, I’d been totally ignoring my psychic side, since it gave me a headache, which drove me crazy.

The door slammed. I winced.

“Mom? I just put dinner in the oven.” I trailed off as she stormed past.

“What a great mood she’s in.” Devin muttered.

“Mom, is something wrong?” I raced along the hall after her.

“Get away from me!” She yelled. I paused. My mother NEVER yelled. Freaky. I opened myself up (Mentally, psychically) let down the shields.

I nearly puked.

Her usual pale blue aura was practically gone, swallowed up by a slimy-looking gray, with black and red sparks.

I grabbed her shoulder, and screamed as I fell into her mind.

Mom I whispered mentally.

Ashley? Oh my God, Ashley. Get out of here, you and Devin, run away. The Yeerks (with that I got a flash of thought and feelings, an image of an actual Yeerk and great hatred and revulsion) are going to take over Earth. The invasion has already begun… Go

Human Filth… Leila, what are you talking to yourself? a cold mental voice asked my mother, sneering.

I broke the mental connection with a shudder.

“Mom…” I choked at the cold expression in her eyes. That wasn’t my mom it was a Yeerk…but she was still in there somewhere. “I love you.” Then I knocked her out.

I got up and ran to my room, after grabbing my brother dragging me after me.

“What’s the problem?” He asked.

“Get everything you need and want and toss it in my jeep. We’re leaving.” I grabbed my backpack and shoved random things into it. “You were right. Something is wrong with Mom. I can’t explain it now, just start packing.”

“Where are we going?”

“That cabin on the lake Grandpa left us, but first we’ll have to get the money out of the bank he left us.”

I looked at my shelves of books longingly, but I knew I couldn’t pack all of them. I grabbed a few that I hadn’t read yet, a lot of clothes, for every season, my savings, nearly three hundred dollars. “We’ll need supplies, Food, clothes, etc. and weapons. I don’t know what else. Will you bring this to my car?”

“Okay. Where’s Mom?” He headed down the stairs.

“Her room.” I hoped I didn’t hurt her.

I finished packing and headed down with the last bag, threw it in the jeep.

“Lets go, anything else we need we’ll buy.” I sat in the driver’s side of my nice big black jeep and we took off.

We stopped at the bank and withdrew everything. In cash, that was seven million three hundred thousand dollars. We were rich. I never knew that we had that much money.

We bought a safe to keep it in, a big safe. It was in the trunk.

Then we stopped at a convenience store, got food, etc.

We got to the cabin three and a half hours later.

I explained what I knew to Devin after I sorted out all the thoughts Mom had thrown at me.

“This is insane. Aliens? This really sucks.” Devin glared at the sky. “This is so … stupid. How many B-rated sci-fi movies are about alien invasions?”

“Yeah, but in how many of them was there little slug aliens taking over people’s minds? Huh. In one of her other thought-thingies … there’s a group fighting the Yeerks. The Andalites. Except they’re really far away. You’re right, this sucks.” I rubbed my temples, a headache coming on.

The next morning

I went outside when I realized that Devin was still sleeping. It was just after dawn, but I couldn’t go back to sleep, so I walked to the water.

I sat far out on the dock, my feet dangling in the cool water. I remembered all the summers I swam in the lake, with Grandpa sitting in his chair on the porch, whittling little wooden animals. The cabin was full of little wooden animals, my favorite being a little dragon.

The sun fully up now, I sighed. Devin was still sleeping, the lazy bones.

I stood up quickly and lost my balance, falling into the lake. It was very cold, since it was early spring. I splashed around a bit, laughing. Then I climbed out.

I heard laughing.

I looked up.

Devin was on the porch, bent double with laughter.

“Shut up,” I suggested.

“You are such a klutz.”

“Whatever, just get me a towel.”

[Avalene]

Hello, I'm Devin. I'm sixteen years old and I am sorta different than other people.

There are people who say they're psychic and have powers and such: they may or may not. All I know is that my sister and I can speak to each other in our minds, see auras of people, and if we really try hard we can read people's minds - but Ash said that that wasn't ethical so we usually don't do that.

About two days ago I found out our world was invaded by evil slugs. Not to put too fine a point on it, I'm pissed off. I mean, slugs? It would be funny if it wasn't so disturbing. My twin sister and I found about the invasion, and we ran away (I feel sorta like that was cowardly, but Ash told me I was being stupid, we can't take on an alien invasion without preparation and serious weaponry.

-The Next Day-

I parked Ashley's jeep in front of the cabin and got out. Then I went back in and grabbed the keys, and got out again, bringing the groceries and keys with me that time.

I let myself into the cabin (which opened straight into the front room) and stared in surprise.

My sister, Ashley, was giggling hysterically on the sofa.

That was completely out of the ordinary, since she was usually quiet and withdrawn.

"Ash?"

"Hiya Devin! Found my candy stash from summer. Want some? I have a few bags of pixie stix, a lot of pop rocks, dip stix, jolly ranchers, and some now and laters," Ashley said very quickly.

I then noticed the many pixie stix wrappers surrounding her. I rolled my eyes. Ashley had no restraint with candy.

Then I grinned and grabbed some gummy bears, which were always my favorite.

"I was about to make cappuccino! I know I said that wrong, and I don't care! With chocolate syrup and Hershey kisses and milk and put it all into a blender," Ash said eyes shining.

I froze, "I know you like chocolate, but," I stared at her as she ran to the kitchen. A mix of all that will make her impossibly hyper, and she'll drive me insane!

There were loud noises from the kitchen, crashes, and finally the irritating noise of the blender itself.

"Done," She laughed, "Want some?"

Why not? "Okay."

Several minutes later-

I stared at the clouds, and tried to remember exactly where I was, that I was not a bird, I did not have wings, and I'd get very hurt if I jumped off the roof. I wondered how I GOT on the roof. I could hardly remember exactly what had happened after I'd drank that milkshake, it all seemed like a blur, there was running, laughter, and now I was on the roof. It was almost like the time I got really drunk, except I didn't get a hangover this time.

"HIYA DEVIN! Why are you on the roof!" Ash called from a tree.

"Ah, Why are you in a TREE!" I answered with a question.

"I don't know!"

"Um, lets just get back in the house."

"Ooookay, but Devin, I can't get down."

I laughed.

"You know I'm afraid of heights!"

Okay, I knew that, I'd just remembered that, and that was why I found it so funny she was in a tree.

"Just jump. Your not that high up."

She complained, realized I wasn't going to help her, tried to climb down, lost her grip and footing, and fell.

"Ow."

I winced, able to feel her pain through what I call our twin bond, and decided although she hurt, she wasn't really hurt, so I climbed off the roof, and waited on the porch for her.

"I was thinking, maybe we should try and find out more about those Yeerk things," I told her.

"Yeah. We can check people's auras and the ones with the gross Yeerk aura we can spy on. I wonder if anyone else knows about this," Ashley said. Then she glared at me, "That was mean. Don't try to make me forget it."

"I couldn't have gotten you down anyway, I had to make you get down yourself. Anyway you got yourself up there."

She shrugged, since we rarely fought - with each other. We fought with others all the time.

"Anyway, we can start tomorrow, make lists of who we figure out are on their side and sabotaging plans we discover," I told her, and she grinned.

"COOL! We're spies!"

I sighed.

[Avalene]

“Let’s go now,” I told my brother.

Two days after we had decided to spy on the Yeerks, and we were doing nothing. We had no plans, no idea how to get started.

I was bored to tears. After my caffeine-kick (and I put something else in it that I found in the back of the pantry wonder what it was mwahahahaha) there wasn’t much to do at the cabin that I hadn’t done many times before.

Pushing Devin into the lake is funny only for the first couple of times, I can only eat so much candy before I get sick, I didn’t bring my CD player (stupid me), the radio doesn’t work, and I can’t stand eating my own cooking (and Devin’s is even worse than mine).

“Well . . . okay, but no sneaking around and all that junk. At least not until we decide who we’re tailing,” Devin said reluctantly, putting down a tattered old book.

“Sure.”

“Then – where are we going?”

“The mall.”

“The . . . mall?” Devin repeated, raising an eyebrow.

“We might as well. There’s a lot of people there, some are bound to be infested – also I want to get a few things – I can shop and spy at the same time.”

“OoOkay.”

“Whatever. Let’s go,” I told him, looking for my wallet.

“Umm. I’m ready when you are.”

I frowned at him, and retrieved my wallet from under the dusty brown couch triumphantly.

“I’m ready – wait! Where are my keys?”

Devin rolled his eyes and gestured to the table.

“Oh – thanks,” I muttered, grabbing them.

On the way out, I fell down the porch steps.

“Owie,” I whispered, and glared at my brother, who was laughing at me.

“Sorry,” Devin grinned mockingly, “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” I sighed, and walked to my jeep.

XXXXxxxxXXXXxxxx At the mall xxxxXXXXxxxxXXXX

I had decided to start out at the food court. I was hungry.

I munched happily on my cheesy pretzel while my brother attacked some Chinese food.

I began to check the auras of random people that went by; I quickly lost my appetite.

“Dev? There’re a couple of ‘em over there – no over there.”

“I see them. Huh – their auras are weird like Mom’s. Like normal auras (but really pale) overlapped with an ugly grayish green and something that looked like electrical sparks.”

“We really need some more technical terms to describe what we do or see with our telepathic and psychic abilities,” I muttered under my breath.

Devin shrugged.

“Um - the – they’re looking at us!” I yelped.

Devin sighed, “That’s because you’re staring at them. Stop.”

“Um. Right.”

“Some spy you are,” Devin muttered.

I’ll get better. Hey that girl in the McDonald’s line is one too! I grimaced.

Yeah. I noticed.

And why didn’t you tell me?

Because – hey! Those guys you were staring at one coming over! Devin sighed, and wonder if he’d have to fight them.

Ugh. They are attractive, if you could ignore the aura. I certainly can’t.

“Hello,” one of the guys said. His normal aura was a bright green, but the Yeerk’s aura was like a scummy bubble around it.

“Um,” I said, and then got a (somewhat) brilliant idea. Play dumb. Really dumb.

Time for my airhead routine, I mentally whispered.

“Jared noticed you looking at us – ” a tallish guy said.

“Yeah. You guys are so stylin’, ” I tried not to crack up. These guys were dressed ultra-preppie and their hair – hehehe – there is such a thing as too much hairspray.

“-Thanks-” he looked slightly stupid.

Then I began to flirt with them (all three of them), disturbing myself in the process, and Devin and I commented about them to each other (telepathically), trying not to laugh.

“So, how about you come to the Sharing with us.”

“Ummm. Okay? When’s the next meeting?”

“Thursday.”

“Wait, its not a cult or anything, is it?” Devin asked suspiciously, acting like an overprotective older brother.

Its probably got something to do with the invasion. We have to go. I practically shouted.

Yeah. Devin winced at her, Please don’t shout in my head.

“Of course not. Where did you get that idea?” the first boy asked coldly.

“I just don’t want my sister to go with some strange guys to some weird group – thing. That’s all,” Devin glared at him.

“Why don’t you come with us?” I said cheerfully, ignoring the sudden hostility between Devin and the infested peoples. There has to be a shorter phrase for it. Whatever.

“I – Fine,” Devin shrugged, and glared at the guys again, “Where is it going to be?”

“The beach,” the guy that hadn’t talked yet said. Then he nodded at me, “See you there.”

[Avalene]

“Time to go,” Ashley said cheerfully.

“I don’t want to go,” I complained loudly.

Ashley ran into her room.

It was the day we were going to the stupid Sharing thing to get killed by alien infested preps. Not my idea of fun.

“Ash . . .?”

I heard several loud noises.

“What are you doing in there?” I demanded, wondering what I did to upset her.

“Nothing!”

I tried to open the door but it was locked.

“Ash!”

The door swung open.

Ashley grinned at me.

“Why…?” I stared at her.

Ashley had changed – she was wearing black leather (pants, tank tops, and boots - not real leather!) and lots of weapons that seemed very James Bondish and Matrixesque.

“Where did you get all that stuff?” I asked, having never seen it.

“Here, you should take some too,” Ashley told me.

“We’re going to die,” I sighed.

“No, we aren’t,” Ashley corrected me.

I shrugged and let her strap some weapons to my arms and legs, and hooked a holster on my belt.

“And how are we going to get into the thing they’re at without someone noticing all this?”

“Um – coats? Like – trench coats!”

I sighed again.

“What are you so cheerful about?” I asked.

“We’re finally doing something.”

“Yeah, getting ourselves killed,” I muttered.

“We’re not getting killed, and we aren’t killing anybody. I just want to capture someone and make them tell me everything.”

“How?” I asked. “Do you really think you can make –whoever- tell you anything?”

“I’ll figure that out – but first we have to go to the store,” Ashley grinned.

“…Do I want to know why?”

“Handcuffs,” Ashley murmured, “And rope.”

“Ah.”

“What?” Ash glared at me.

“Nothing.”

Ashley tossed a black trench coat at me (I was wearing jeans and a gray t – shirt), and grabbed a gray trench coat out of the closet for herself.

[Avalene]

(the Sharing)

I grinned at my brother, pretending that I wasn’t scared.

Of course I was scared, but I could handle it.

We just came in, and no one asked us why we were wearing coats – it was really chilly on the beach.

Then I wondered why the Sharing was having a meeting on the beach in such cold weather.

“It’s because no one else is likely to be here,” Devin whispered.

I began to nod, then glared at him Devin, I wasn’t talking to you! What did I tell you about listening in on my private thoughts?

Not to Devin thought back at me But you thought it so loudly, I couldn’t help but hear it. Keep it down. What if those alien things are telepathic

Then they can hear you too I shot at him. Logic, usually not my strong point, but it has its uses.

Then we should stop talking like this Devin whispered mentally.

“Yeah,” I shrugged, “Anyway – theres those guys I talked to the other day. Boy, are they creepy.”

“Um. Here they come,” my brother muttered.

“Hi, girl,” one of the guys said to me.

“Hi, yourself,” I muttered, then I forced myself to smile, “It’s cold today, isn’t it?”

“Yes it is.”

They lead us to a group of people that were talking about how great the Sharing was and how it helped so many people.

It took me a great deal of effort not to laugh or punch them.

I then realized that not all of the members were infested. Yet. That was slightly relieving, but it was also creepy being one of the few humans that knew what was going on and was still able to do something about it.

Devin grabbed my arm.

“Devin,” I began.

“Ashley, it’s Mom,” he whispered.

I nearly stopped breathing.

I snuck a look at her.

She looked much the same as she did when I last saw her, but her regular aura was even weaker than before.

“We have to help her,” I told my brother.

Devin shook his head, “She’s practically surrounded by Yeerks.”

“So. We have weapons.”

“But – no, they have weapons too. See, the guards are infested.”

I forced myself to care, and sighed, “Let’s go before she recognizes us.”

Devin nodded.

“Why are you leaving? You just got here,” someone asked us.

“My sister doesn’t feel well,” Devin told him.

I suppose I looked ill, because the Yeerk-infested man shrugged, and we headed toward our jeep.

Before we got three steps, though, Mom saw us.

“Ashley? – Devin? Get back here!”

Several guards blocked our way.

I panicked and grabbed Devin by the arm, and dragged him off into the sand dunes, running as fast as I could in the shifting sand.

“d**n it,” he muttered.

“They’re heading straight for the meeting – STOP THEM!”

“Oh, this is so not fun,” Devin said, after falling and sprawling in the sand. He got up quickly and dusted himself off.

“Tell me about it,” I muttered.

“Oh, is that the meeting they were talking about?” I asked Devin and pointed out a small bonfire near the water.

“Guess so – are those another kind of alien? Those are obviously fighters,” Devin pointed out some aliens covered with wicked looking blades.

“Heh. We’re obviously busted. They noticed us. They’re coming,” I grabbed a gun randomly off my belt.

“We’re going to die,” my brother said, grabbing one of his.

“Nobody move. We’ve got you surrounded, alien freaks!” I shouted and took aim.

Ashley, are you nuts? Devin mentally shouted at me.

Yep