Any Animal When Needed

Any Animal When Needed

     Two large lions¹ are fighting each other tooth and nail. One slashes the arm of the other one. It screams out in pain as it back paws the slasher lion. This continues on back and force for several minutes with one strike after another one. They are screaming a lot. But other than that, nothing is happening. It’s a very normal fight so far.

     Watching that fight is Jannesse. She’s just beyond it. But she’s not the only one there, though. There are two others. They are male. And they have weapons. Both are using those weapons to watch the fight that’s going on there. It also appears they are about to use those weapons.

     Suddenly, that fight is over. And one of the lions is limping away in pain. One of the males shoots that lion and it falls never to get up again. The other male shoots the other lion. Just as it is changing back into Pavim. Jannesse screams and rushes over to Pavim.

##

     “Your father never got up again?” Brium asks.

     “No, he didn’t. and those two males just left,” answers Jannesse. “I could see the shock on their faces as they left him like that. They didn’t even try to see if they could have helped him.”

     Brium leans forward in his chair² and places his hands on his desk. “Do you know what happened to them?”

     “Yes, I do. They were sent to detention for twenty years for what they have done to him.”

     “It isn’t enough for what they have done,” continues Jannesse. “If I was old enough, I would have changed into a lion or fiercer and did what they did to him.”

     Brium leans back in his chair and looks at Jannesse sitting across from him on the other side of his desk. “How old were you when it happened?”

     “I was eight,” answers Jannesse. “I’m thirty-one now.”

##

     “Why are you asking me these questions?” Jannesse asks.

     Brium gets up and walks to the other side of his desk. Then he leans back to sit on the edge of it. “Because I want to know how you have been living for the last twenty-three years. Who has been helping you?”

     “No one,” answers Jannesse. “It was just my father and me. Once he was no longer here, I was on my own.”

     “How did you do that?” Brium asks. “Especially, since you were so young when it started.”

     Jannesse looks up at Brium for the first time since coming into that room. “Even on this planet, most of you think of me as a child. But from where I come from, I was a lot older than I looked.”

     “Why do you want to know how I have been living? Asks Jannesse. “I thought you wanted me to use the animal side of me to solve a problem that you are having.”

##

     “I do,” says Brium. “But I need to know that you can handle it.”

Jannesse smiles sheepishly. “I can handle anything now.”

     “The first couple of years on my own were very hard for me. I had to get food my way by taking it from others. It got better once I started to become an adult. But even then, I could only change into small animals.”

     “Those small animals got me into places easier. And for the next five years, I lived a whole lot better. I still lived among those trees or in large hill holes when the weather was bad. But getting food and clothing was easier to do then.”

     Jannesse took a deep breath and lets it out slowly. “At fifteen I got the ability to change into much larger animals. When I turned twenty, I could change into any animal that I wanted to be. And I have been helping anyone who needs help ever since then.”

##

     A large bird about the size of an eagle comes soaring toward a big residence that is surrounded by a lot of other places within a tall concrete wall. On top of that wall, numerous individuals are trying to kill that bird as it heads for the surface there with the Power Balls they are firing from long weapons.

     That bird is twisting and turning to avoid those Power Balls. But when it gets close to one of those individuals it grabs him by his shoulders with their feet. That individual is screaming and thrashing about as he is used to taking out the other ones one after another. Getting hit by a lot of Power Balls as it’s happening.

     After all the individuals have been knocked into the water that’s surrounding that walled residence or dropped into it, that bird lands on the surface near one of the smaller places there. Then Jannesse changes from a bird into a snake that quickly gets into an opening in that place.

##

     As Jannesse is taking out those individuals on top of that wall, an alarm starts bellowing. By the time Jannesse becomes a snake, there are a lot more of those individuals coming out of those smaller places. Some are heading for the top of the wall. But most of them are running around the open areas between those places and the residence.

     Jannesse is peeking out her snake crack. Watching all the running about that’s going on from where she’s at. But they aren’t just doing that. They appear to be looking for someone or something. Some are pointing their weapons toward the sky above them. And some are using them to look among those places.

     Those individuals are constantly getting close to where she’s at. One almost steps on her. His foot is about to hit her snakehead when she wiggles back deeper into that crack to avoid getting crushed beneath his feet. Another second or two and he may have killed her.

####

     The running around has stopped. Those individuals are still looking for someone or something. But now they are doing it in small groups of four or five. Jannesse can see several groups from where she’s at. None of them are looking down. Most are all looking toward the sky. The others are closer to eye level.

     Jannesse finally sees her chance to leave that snake crack. Once out she stays close to that place. Staying in the darkness there. She also changes from a snake into a small mouse. When she gets to the end of that place, she stops. Jannesse peeks around the corner. And sees there are no groups within her sights.

     So, Jannesse quickly runs toward the next place. She barely gets there before another group comes around the corner at the other end of it. Still using darkness, she peeks back around that corner. They are heading toward her. And two of the four are looking right in her direction.

##

     Slowly, Jannesse backs up from the darkness where she’s at until she’s about halfway down the side of that place. Then she turns and runs to the end of it. She peeks around that corner too. What she sees is the large residence not too far from here. But there is a lot of open area between her and there.

     Jannesse also sees a lot of dogs and cats too. The dogs are walking around the residence in no particular pattern. They are just roaming free. But the cats are more organized. The cats are checking out the sides of the places that are surrounding that residence.

     As Jannesse starts running toward several dogs, she changes from a mouse to a dog. Just as four cats are about to pounce on her. Instead of attacking a mouse, they end up hitting a large dog. Dazed and confused looking, those cats scurry away from there.

##

     Now that she’s a dog, Jannesse can get slower to that large residence. And that is what she’s doing right now. At first, it may look like she is roaming around wildly as all the other dogs there are doing. But slowly, she is making her way toward that residence.

     Also as the other dogs are doing, she is constantly looking are around her as she heads for that residence. Suddenly, she stops as two adult Yannins have come out of the entrance of that residence with a young girl in the middle of them. She appears to be about twelve or thirteen.

     The young girl is connected to the two Yannins with a thick bracelet on her wrists. Both Yannins have one too. But theirs are on the inside arm near the one she has on. The young girl also has a similar bracelet around her neck. That’s not why Jannesse has a shocked look on her dog face. It’s because of the two Yannins. They are the two who killed her father.

##

     “We know that you are here somewhere,” says the Yannin who killed her father. “If you don’t show us your human side, we will kill this girl.”

     Jannesse has no choice. She changes from a dog to her human side. But she only does it for a brief second before she changes into an extremely large prehistoric-looking bird. As she starts to take off, one hand reaches out to grab the young girl while the other one uses a long fingernail to slice through her three bracelets. The second-hand joins the other one to protect her completely as they head toward the sky there.

     “KILL BOTH OF Them,” shouts the other adult Yannin. Jannesse looks back at them with her bird head. Then it quickly turns away from the individuals who are now trying to kill her. Almost all of their Power Balls are hitting her back, wings, or head. None of those balls are killing her. Now they are too far away to be killed. But that isn’t going to stop them from trying to do it.

##

     “Why did you do it?” Jannesse asks as she slams through the entrance where Brium is.

     Brium slides underneath his desk. “Because you didn’t help them after they accidentally killed your father.”

     “All you needed to do is come forward when asked to back up their side of what happened. But you didn’t do that.”

     “You know why I didn’t do that. It wasn’t because of my anger for them. But because I couldn’t help them. I wasn’t old enough to show them the animal side of me.”

     Jannesse leans over the desk until she is almost face to face with Brium. “As you can see, both me and Theama are still among you.”

     “Where is Theama?” Brium asks.

     “Why do you want to know where she’s at?” Jannesse asks as she heads for that entrance. “It doesn’t really matter. You will never find out us.”

##

     Theama sits in a chair opposite Jannesse in a large room. “They thought that I was you when I started changing into animals for the fun of it.”

     “Some Yannins saw me do it. The next thing I remember is that I was caged in a very small one after I changed into a hamster to prove to some of them that I could do it.”

     “I’m not sure how long it was before those two Yannins came for me. But it wasn’t too long, though.”

     Theama takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly before she continues. “According to them, they didn’t know how we aged on HuVan. That’s why they thought I maybe you. When they found out I wasn’t, that’s when they decided to use me to get to you.”

     “You are safe now. They aren’t going to hurt you ever again. Especially, after I return to them and Brium.”

     “Give me almost seven years and I will join you. Maybe I don’t have a good one with Brium. But I also have a reason to return to them.”

The Word Count = 1,976

¹The animals used in this story aren’t from Earth. And neither are any of those within this
 story. This isn’t an Earth or Earth colony story. They are humans. But they aren’t from
 Earth. No, they are from Yannin. Jannesse and her father are from HuVan. That planet is also
 human. But not from Earth either. I only use these Earth animal names because I can’t
 remember their real names or if I do, they are too complicated to explain in a Short Story.

²Some of the terminologies that I use in this story aren’t native to Yannin or HuVan. It’s
 just easier to use them instead of taking up my Word Limitations.