I have started this story.  I've had it brewing for about a year or so now and I finally started it in August.  The reason I started (FINALLY RITE) was because of school.  We had to write a fiction story, so I thought this was my opportunity.  You see, I start a bajillion stories but then... never finish anything.  So I was determined to have this one become written FOR REALS!

It doesn't yet have a name, but I gave it a temporary one.  To me, it's really cheesy, but eh.  When a good one comes to me I'll use it.

It was based off of the plot of an RP (the first I made on Res) and I didn't always intend it as an RP afterwards.  It never kicked off, so I just sort of made a few adjustments and created a story out of it.

My goal is to make this into a full book, so I don't have much done... owo  It probably won't be finished by the end of the school year.  Every semester/quarter thingy I have at least five pages or more done.  So posts are organized by what I turned in for each semester/quarter thingy.  It's not much right now, but it'll grow <3

Comments and critique welcome! <33

Gah, I'm babbling, aren't I?  Let me just... Start getting to the story..

~Prologue~

I was sixteen years old when he came. The nutjob, that is. My life was great, apart from one tiny detail. I was a shapeshifter. It's not that bad, really. Anyways, I had settled in for the night after finally finishing my essay due the next day. It was about 11:00 P.M., I think. That's when I heard his footsteps.

There's an old legend put out on the internet by an anonymous source. It said, "Six special and gifted children witll kill the evil who wishes to ravage the souls of our universe and create living Hell all around." Of course, nobody believes the internet with stuff like that.

But we should have.

The footsteps neared my room. I pulled back my lime green covers and sat, alert, in my navy blue PJs. The golden doorknob on the door turned ever so silently. I grabbed a purple hairbrush sitting on my nightstand and braced myself. Yeah, it's a stupid weapon, but it was all I had.

A man, possibly in his thirties, with short, choppy, jet-black hair sprang at me and I let out a short scream, but it was soon cut of by a pale-skinned hand covering my mouth and nose. Something scratchy was in it as well. I breathed just once and the last thing I saw were his shiny pitch-black eyes.

~Prologue II~

The thing was, this guy had captured me and five others a year ago. We all have a similar story. I'm Alesa, and I'm now seventeen. Back when I was sixteen, Shay, Niki, Jason, Dylan, Ryku, and I were taken by this man.

The man wanted to torture us, experiment on us, and, at times, probably kill us. Within a week, all six of us became a group and ran away. His home was in the middle of nowhere - wilderness all around us. We got into our flying forms and ventured off.

A year later, we're in Iowa. None of us know where we started, but who cares? All that matters is that we're away from the shiny-eyed man. But we've started to see him around town now... and I think he brought some friends.

These friends, however, don't have shiny eyes and are rather normal, apart from the fact that they're evil and out to get us. Just great. So now, we're on our way to Rhode Island. Hopefully with no uncalled-for delays!

Now, about the shapeshifting thing... We were just born that way. All of us have three forms - one land, one sky, one water. Along with that comes a disadvantage - at least one form is weak.

Now that you know all this, let's get this started!

~Chapter 1~

The hawk unfurled its wings and sprung from her perch. Her bark-colored feathers spread out fully, slightly angling upwards. The bird gained altitude, soaring in a graceful arc about a bridge. She went on steadily towards her destination, her light-crimson tailfeathers glinting in the sun. The hawk spotted an abandoned park with a single, fresh, wooden home.

To tell the truth, it was more of a large treehouse on the ground. Alesa landed on a railing. Light enveloped her for only a moment, and then she was human. Her sandy-blonde hair drifted in the slight breeze, her bangs going off to the left instead of their usual right position. She fixed it, then entered the home they called Rendezvous.

Alesa's ocean-blue eyes showed determination and an excitement for what lay ahead. "Morning, Alesa," Jason greeted. She nodded in reply to the other seventeen-year-old.

Jason and Alesa were the oldest in the group, both the same age. Ryku was the single 16-and-a-half-year-old, then Niki and Dylan were both sixteen. Shay is the absolute youngest, and far from the sixteen to seventeen age range. She was eleven.

Niki sat on sat on a table (as she always loved to sit on tables more than chairs) in Rendezvous. She started to speak a moment after Alesa entered. "So, when are we headed to Rhode Island? I've got this idea about how we'll get there, and I think we're going today 'cause then what else will we do today? I mean, we always-"

Alesa cut off her somewhat chatty friend, "Now that I'm here, and all of you are as well, I'll start with saying that our next destination is Rhode Island. How we get there? I've got an idea, but how about we'll let Niki take a stand and share her idea?"

Ryku snorted, and Alesa shot him a look. Ryku was always so arrogant, yet mainly silent. Niki didn't notice and chattered about her plan. "Let's fly 'till Ohio or something, then take a train or car or bike to New York. Then we can somehow get to Connecticut or Massachusetts and afterwards make the trek into Rhode Island!  Of course, we'll need to hear Alesa's plan, first," Niki finished.

Alesa smiled and had to admit, it was a good plan, but she had another thing in mind that was quite similar to Niki's idea.

"Well, I was thinking we'd take a car, then fly, then walk," she said with a mischevious tone.

Dylan's eyes got wide. "Oh no. No, no, no, no... NO!" he protested. "No more car rides with you! Last time was enough of a disaster for me!"

The thing is, the gang had hijacked a car before, and it was Alesa behind the wheel. Keep in mind that none of them had ever driven a care before. So, Alesa gave everybody the ride of their lives!

Jason agreed. "I'd rather have Shay drive then you, the pedal-crazy road maniac!" He said it as a light joke, though still quite serious. Shay smiled, but to her, the last ride was a great adventure, so she didn't mind. Alesa only laughed at the others' comments.

She calmed them down a bit then stated, "I've had... practice."

"How in the world did you get practice?" Shay asked inquisitively.

"I'm glad you said that, my friend. Let's just say I have my ways."

Better to leave it at that than pester Alesa.

"I have a question that I've wanted to ask for a while now," Shay piped up once more. "What are we going to call ourselves? Shouldn't we have a name or a ti
tle or something?"

"A name is stupid," Ryku retorted.

Shay was a bit offended, but didn't show a significant change in mood. Dylan pondered the comment as Alesa replied, "That's a nice idea. Let's all just think of names until we find on that's good, 'kay?" Shay nodded, happy about her approved suggestion.

"Enough with the chit-chat, let's get this show on the road!" Jason shouted exuberantly as he pumped his fist in the air. Of course, things can't be all this easy, right?

Everyone headed out of Rendezvous and what they saw was nothing near empty.

~Chapter 2~

Wonderful. Just wonderful, Alesa thought. Shay was a bit scared, but put on a brave face. Ryku stood and galred. Everybody prepared for battle.

The reason to that was the giant amount of paddicks standing before them.

~Shay: Okay, Time Out.~

Give me a second here. You're obviously all like, "What the heck are paddicks?" That's why I'm here. Let me explain.

That creepy scientist with shiny black eyes prodded about us for a while, inspecting us. He somewhat wanted to make replicas; more shapeshifterse. His first experiment failed, resulting in a weird human-animal combo thing.

It could be a regular human, all normal-looking and stuff. Except for their speech. They can't talk well. They mispronounce words and aren't always grammatically correct. Sort of like cavemen (heehee!).

In their "animal" form, they normally have a bit of a hunch to their back and they only have one "animal." Usually, they act like that animal, but the thing is, they add viciousness.

Now, why is it that it was a fail, apart from hunched backs and speech issues? Well, they had fur going all from the top of their head, running down their backs, and down the back of their legs until the soles of their feet. Sort of like really weird capes. This fur is the pattern of their animal. Along with that comes pale yellow skin.

So, those are paddicks. The shiny-eyed scientist made more after our escape so they'd hunt us down. I was even able to get a pretty picture for you!

　

-insert picture here-

Yeah... maybe not that pretty.

~Chapter 21/2~

(A.K.A. "Chapter 2 Continued")

At first there was only forty, but more piled in, making it about a hundred! Niki gasped at the huge number. It was the most they'd ever seen. "Attack!" exclaimed a white tiger paddick.

The mass charged forward. The shifters struggled to fend them off. Alesa kicked up her leg, hitting a paddick's head with a solid thunk. She tackled it and slammed it to the ground so it landed on its back. in one swift motion, Alesa sprung her legs forward so that she was in a crouch on the paddick's chest. She jumped up and kept smashing its ribcage until a porcupine paddick came up from behind and barreled into her.

Prickles touched her beach-tan skin, a few only scraping, but some poking in. Meanwhile, Shay had managed to hold onto a paddick's head as if she were on a piggyback ride and Jason was punching the lights out of another. Dylan was pinned, but was wrenching his way out, while Niki had gotten into a mini wrestling match with a snake-like paddick. Ryku hit another paddick wtih a punch to the jaw and nose.

It wasn't long before they were completely and utterly overpowered. Let me tell you, trying to fight ten people at once is not easy, especially if they're not even human!

Before you knew it, they were stuck in the back of a van (Stanley Steemers? Really?). Captured. Shay was afraid. Afraid that they'd go back to the shiny-eyed man. Niki sensed her fear and comforted the young eleven-year-old.

"What's going to happen now?" Dylan asked in a whisper, just in case they'd get punished for talking.

"I don't know," Jason said, a bit agitated. Alesa noticed his tone and gave him a short hug. They were all like family.

"What's on your mind, Jason?" she asked.

"It's just that I'm sick and tired of living like this! I don't want to run all my life, run away from monsters! I... I want to be normal!" he said, his voice rising until it ended in a shout.

One of the two human henchmen in the front banged against the little door separating them from the shapeshifters. It was like the little airplane door. A small amount of wall was on both sides of the airplane door.

The bang echosed shortly and Alesa seemed a bit angered by Jason's actions. "No need to yell," she hissed, then changed around to her good side. "Sometimes... it's OK to not be normal."

"Normal is boring," Dylan butted in with a smile. That seemed to lift Jason's spirits a bit more, but nothing could change the fact that they were still in the back of a van.

A Stanley Steemers van.

Driven by a creepy man's henchmen.

Probably driving towards the creepy man.

But... they had an option for escape.

If they can do it in time.

The hawk spotted an abandoned...

slammed it to the ground...

the only mistakes I saw. Otherwise, interesting and exciting!