Animorphs and other books

To Kill A Mockingbird

2009-01-19T18:20:00.000+08:00

To Kill A Mockingbird. At the start, I had no idea what it was about. The first few sentences made no sense to me, but it is about racism. This is a big issue, which even now the countries today face. this story was based on a true incident and I do pity the black man. Sometimes I just can't understand why they were treated this way in the past, as low life. White people treating blacks this way isn't nice and thats downgrading your own species, humankind. Hope you might want to read this book, it is great and an award winning book.

Birdwing

2007-07-27T23:03:00.000+08:00

Just recently read a book called Birdwing by Rafe Martin

The story is ok, although I think it gets boring at times. But the book is worth reading.

Its about a boy who was a prince and he and his brothers were cursed by their stepmother. They were turned into swans and they only turn back to narmal was when their sister sowed shirts for them which they wore and that changed them back. Unfortunately, the smallest, the one for this boy whose name is Ardwin, one of his sleeves was missing so his right arm remained a wing. He was shunned by many. To know more, read this book!

More about Ax

2007-03-24T23:08:00.000+08:00

Age:14(in human years)

Role:
Intergalactic Connection
Girlfriend:Unknown

Relatives:
Mother : Forlay-Esgarrouth-Maheen
Father:Noorlin-Sirinial-Cooraf
Brother : Prince Elfangor-Sirinial-Shamtul
Nephew :Tobias

A story

2007-03-24T23:03:00.000+08:00

If this story is done by you and you want it removed then please tell me.

The Hunted By: Psychomorph
Author's Note: This story takes place right after book 18 and contains violence and cursing.

CHAPTER ONE
I dug through the trash to see if I could find some cans for recycling. No such luck. Good luck had been a hard thing to come by lately. The weather had been harsh, cold, bitter rains and long periods of hard, dry heat. No wonder everyone was miserable. Shelter had also been hard to come by. So had friends. But then, friends had always been hard to come by when I was around. It's not something I do on purpose, I just don't attract people that well. I meandered over to the mall. There was always the possibility I could find some tips people left on the tables. Baja (the city, not the penninsula), California isn't exactly the best place in the world for a homeless fifteen year old. Baja was a large town with a population of about 40,000. A mall, themepark/zoo called the Gardens, and a Planet Hollywood. Not that I care. There were a lot of things that I didn't care about lately. My dad had died about three months ago, leaving me alone. I took to the streets. I knew it was a dead end way of life, but at the time was to numb to think ahead for the next day, let alone the rest of my life. Dad's death left me feeling empty and hollow. Things like that usually do. My mom had left my dad not too long ago. I loved her, but she was gone. It felt like it had always been just me and dad. He had been my entire family. Mother as well as father. I loved him. He wouldn't really like the lifestyle I lead, but that doesn't change anything. I've come to prefer the shadows and back streets. I don't know them that well, but I've found that I have an knack for getting where I need to be. Right now, I needed to be in a nice dry area instead of the pounding, cold rain. The mall was crowded, normal for a Saturday. I looked around, absorbing the sights, sounds, and smells. Shops everywhere were screaming "Come here, buy here!" There was everything from bookstores to New Age shops. Everyone was walking around, some in a hurry, some window shopping, and some, like me, searching for something without really knowing what it was. People always talked in the mall; it was never silent. Malls even have their own smells. The new book smell of the book stores, the spicy scents of the taco stands in the Food Hall. What caught my attention right away was a strange boy about my age running. He was running in a very strange way, almost as if he had just adjusted to walking on two legs, stumbling every few steps. Two security guards were chasing him. "Hey! Hey you! Stop!!" The boy ran into me. He looked around frantically as he tried to get his bearings. For a split second, we were looking each other in the eye. He was afraid. Afraid in just about every way possible. Like me. Those guards, when they caught him, weren't just going to let him off with whatever he had done. They were going to hurt him. He knew that, and then, so did I. As he started off in some other direction, I called out to him. "This way!" He looked at me, confused. The guards were getting closer. "You don't have much of a choice! Come on!" The boy followed me. I grabbed his arm and jerked him into a new shop with me. The shop was part of the expansion of the mall, but hadn't been fully constructed yet. The guards barged in with almost half a dozen gawkers after them. It doesn't matter where I go, I still find gawkers. Gawkers are those creepy people who stare at bodies after people have jumped off of buildings, stare at a person still alive who has half their body mangled after a hit and run, stare at a person who had a gun to their mouth, almost egging them on. I hate those people. "Behind the barrels," I hissed. The boy just nodded and followed. We crouched behind the rancid barrels, both full of residue from some foul, nauseous chemical. His breathing became short and ragged. "Calm down; they'll find us if you don't breath quieter." The boy sucked in a lungfull of air and held it. Still crouching, I lead him out through the supply door. Then, after wedging loose some plank boards, we were free.
CHAPTER TWO
"Do you know where to go from here?" I asked. He looked confused. "Why did you assist me? Sisst?" "I don't know." I turned and started to walk away, but looked back. "Hey, are you going to be okay?" Hesitantly he answered, "I do not know. I need help in finding my way back home." Surprise crossed his face for a moment. "Strange, that I call this place home now." He added, "Nuh-ow. Now." "What's your name?" "My name is... Phillip." "Mine's Chariss." Phillip and I walked through the streets for a short time. "You said that you didn't know why those guys were chasing you. You wouldn't have run if you didn't have a reason. You wouldn't have looked so scared without a reason." He didn't look at me. "I cannot tell you." I think I got the message. "There are some people who have to hide. Others do it by choice. Somehow, I get the idea that you're hiding something that could be very, very dangerous if the wrong people got it." Phillip stared at me. His mouth hung open slightly, almost like I had guessed the answer to some riddle that he and only he was supposed to know the answer to. "Yeerk!" Phillip was crazy. He was lost, obviously scared by something, but he was crazy. Slowly it began to dawn on me as to why he might have been running from those guards. "Are you okay? In the head I mean." After I got a blank stare, I elaborated. "Are you crazy?" "I am not insane! Ane," came the indignant reply. I laughed gently. "Then why do you play with sounds like that?" "I do not. Dooo not." Phillip never told me where his home was. He stayed with me for a few days. While he acted sane most of the time, I still thought he was a little touched in the head. Phillip had this strange tendency to disappear about every hour and a half. One day, I actually took the time to clock every time he vanished. It was only for a few moments, and there he would be, shaggy brown hair hanging down from his head while he peeked around a corner. I told him a little about my life, and he a little about his. He was separated from his family. His brother had been killed in a war. Phillip had became a friend.
CHAPTER THREE
"Where are you going?" "I have to leave. Luh-eave. Eave. I will return. Urn. Eave." I heard noises. A rustle of jackets and hushed voices. Stealthy footsteps approached us. I heard only a few scattered words. "...went this way...hurt them for...our territory." "The...girl is mine...want to...real bad." I heard enough. I grabbed what meager belongings I had, and then Phillip's arm. He looked at me in alarm. "No time. We've got to run." He ran. I wasn't too far behind him. The voices had gotten louder. Closer. I saw a flash of knife. I motioned for Phillip to follow me into an alley. To the owners of the voices, it was a dead end. For us, it was a way out. I lifted the loose plank on the fence in the end of the alley, getting splinters in my hands. Shoving Phillip in, I followed. I lead the way to a building that was almost ready to collapse on the spot. No way out if they found us here, but the chance of that happening was very unlikely. We crouched in the shadows. Perfect. Phillip was starting to get twitchy. He jerked away. "I have got to leave." "This really is not the time. We have to hide. Those guys are going to show us a whole new level of pain if we don't. If you have to use the bathroom, hold it. If you have to do whatever it is you do when you vanish, wait until they're gone." He was panicking now. "I have to go. Now." As he was getting up, I jerked him down beside me hard. I grabbed his chin and forced him to look me in the eye. "If you go out there and they find you, they will kill you. And if they find you, they'll know I won't be that far behind." "Rob, they went through the fence! I can see a loose plank!" "Good work!" someone shouted, most likely "Rob." "We need some new hosts, and these guys are the lucky candidates, practically Controllers all ready!" Phillip went nuts. "We have to move! Now! Now! Before they find us!" So much for very unlikely in finding us. I silently cursed my arrogance. Never get yourself into a situation you couldn't get out of. On the streets, that was one of the many things which separated the survivors from the stiffs. "We've got to fight." Something about this was strange, and dug under my skin. Phillip had not seemed really worried until those guys mentioned the word "Controllers." Something about the way Rob said that sent chills down my spine. Whatever he meant, it was something evil, unclean. "Please do not fear me," he begged. "What?!" Suddenly Phillip began to change. Bluish fur sprouted from his arms. Two eyes upon stalks rose out of his head. Phillip fell to the ground, unable to support himself due to the fact that his feet had become hooves. Two legs exploded out of his chest. A tail with a dangerous looking blade/claw grew out of the base of his spine. His mouth disappeared. Blue fur burst out of his skin like weeds in a time lapse film. He stood before me on four hoofed legs, a centaur-esque creature, arms crossed over his chest and head hung down. I just backed further into the corner. Afraid.
CHAPTER FOUR
Phillip, though I doubted that was his name, ran to the voices. I heard screams of "Andalite! It's a god damned Andalite!" These screams did not last long. When he returned, I was still hiding in the corner. I heard a strange voice in my head. I looked around, only to relieze it was Phillip. <> He sounded worried. I just stayed in the corner, shaking. My friend, my only friend in almost an eternity of time, had mutated into some freakish monster and killed people. I could guess how. The sickle-like blade at the end of his (its?) tail. He saw me crouching, hiding in the corner, praying that he wouldn't. I nearly screamed. <> I finally managed to speak. "Who-- no, what are you? What did you do to those people?" His eye stalks lowered. <> "What did you do to them?" I demanded. <> "You killed them." He said nothing. He walked over to a shadowy corner. The changes that had occurred earlier reversed themselves. The last thing that I noticed in the shadows as he changed was a single drop of blood falling from his wickedly curving blade, once gray, now red. A few moments later, he sat before me on the ground. "Never tell anyone about this," he murmured sadly. With that, he turned and ran, a dark figure rushing out to meet the coming night. I wept. Crouched in that corner until dawn, I wept. I didn't know what else to do. This time I didn't feel numb. My stomach churned with a thousand emotions. He was an alien. My friend had transformed into some freak and killed people. They were going to kill us, but when someone that you care about kills someone else, it digs into you. Phillip, Aximilli-whatever-whatever, had saved my life. I was so glad that it was the punks and not me. I was grateful that I was alive. I was worried about him, even though he was an alien. But most of all, I was afraid. I hate that, I hate fear. Fear gnaws away at you from the inside, weakening you. Fear devours your soul while you huddle in a corner, wishing, hoping, praying, that something would happen. The end. Freedom. Anything to just to set you free from the fear....
CHAPTER FIVE
The fear left me when the sun rose. I just felt empty after that. Nothing. Void. I know that sounds stupid, weak. Watch someone mutate before your eyes, someone you thought you knew.See how you like it when all your former boundaries of reality are shattered. Where I come from people don't transform into blue monsters. I went back to my normal routine of life. Digging through trash cans, familiarizing myself with the backways of Baja. I acted like Phillip never existed. I still had the dreams, the nightmares. But life went on. Once again I was forced to take sanctuary in the mall again. This time the sights, sounds, and smells didn't appeal to me as they did the last time I had been there. Everything just seemed artificial now. Were there others like Phillip here? Hiding? Changing in the shadows? Earlier that day I had managed to snag some change. I'm not proud of the fact that sometimes I have to steal, but it's either that or an empty stomach. I returned the wallet and only took twenty bucks. Not enough to start a brand new future, but maybe enough to get a decent meal and new clothes at the Five and Dime. The Cinnabon, a coffee/donut shop, looked about empty. I walked in and ordered a cup of coffee, black, and a bagel. Sitting down, I looked around at the other people who were in the Cinnabon. A mother and sticky, glazed donut munching child. A sad old man who looked like he needed someone to talk to. Another such as myself, sitting alone in a booth only for two that seemed so large with just one sitting in it. A group of six people about my age walked in. I choked on my bite of bagel and dropped the rest in my coffee. Phillip. With a yelp I grabbed my pack and ran. "Chariss!" "Get down you idiot!" I ran out the Cinnabon. I was too busy looking behind my shoulder to notice the security guard in front of me. I bowled into him, nearly knocking him over. Phillip ran into me, while the group he was with ran into him. The security guard looked at me with piercing eyes. "What seems to be the problem here, ma'am?" It was a tense moment. On girl in the group looked like she wanted to kill Phillip. The others just looked tired and weary, almost as though they had gone through something like this almost daily and were getting tired of it. Phillip looked at me with pleading eyes. I forced myself to walk over and shake his hand. "S-sorry I didn't recognize you, Phillip." I turned towards the guard. "I'm sorry, sir. It was just a slight misunderstanding. Sorry to have bothered you." I tried to slip away from the concerned look of the guard and the querying looks from Phillip's "friends." But most of all, away from Phillip. Phillip gently gripped my arm, but I flinched as though touched by a branding iron. "Please." His eyes filled with hurt, but I ignored the sudden change in emotion. I didn't need this. The group started to walk away, half dragging me with them. Out in the parking lot, we "talked." Although not without attracting alot of attention as we walked out, all six of them surrounding me like Secret Service Agents around a witness to the Mafia. "Could we discuss this some place dry?" A young male whined. "No, we can't," another snapped. "Who are you?" I just stood there. Silent. "A question for a question. What are you?" He stared at me. "My name is Jake. I am a human. What. Is. Your. Name?" He spoke to me as though I were a stupid child. "I'm not an idiot! Name's Chariss O'Conner. He's not human, and as far as I know, humans don't go mutating into aliens," I said as I motioned toward at Phillip accusingly. He, in turn, looked as though I had slapped him There was nothing about Phillip that didn't look human. He had the right amount of fingers, and facial features. I looked at the others to see if they held any secrets such as his. A tall blond dressed in very fashionable clothes stood like a cat ready to pounce. The boy who had whined about the weather was a Hispanic. Jake was about the same height of the blond, but with light brown hair. A short African-American girl dressed in cutoff shorts and an old T-shirt stood nearby. A tall, lanky boy who kept squinting stood off to the side, watching. Jake turned to Phillip. "Ax, how do you know her? Is she the one that helped you out when you were missing a few days ago?" "Yes." Suddenly Squinty walked over to Jake. Obviously, Jake was a leader of some sort. "Jake, we were looking for a seventh? Look she already knows about Ax. And back there, with the security guard, she could have fried us, but she didn't. If Chariss were a Controller, she'd be all over trying to contact her buddies." I looked nervously for a way out but was blocked by the blond. "Look, you don't have to be jumping all over the place, it's not like we bite or anything." Almost as an afterthought she added, "Well maybe Marco does, but he's had his rabies shots." She motioned over to the Hispanic. Marco came over and made an elaborate bow. "Glad to be of service!" he said with a cocky grin. I looked over to Jake, Phillip, and Squinty, who were in a heated discussion about something. Me, most likely. The small trio broke up and walked over. "I think it's time to take a long walk, Chariss, a very long walk," Jake sighed.
CHAPTER SIX
"...and that is how this whole mess started," Marco concluded. The story was both long and interesting. Apparently, an alien invasion was taking place on Earth by mind controlling slugs known as Yeerks. One of the only hopes against the Yeerks were the Andalites, Phillip's race. An Andalite prince, Elfangor, crashed on Earth and gave the power to morph to five children. Morphing involved "acquiring" the DNA of an animal. They called themselves the Animorphs. Later, the Animorphs found Phillip at the bottom of the ocean. Incipiently, Phillip was Elfangor's brother. Now, they were offering this power to me. The power to turn into any animal I chose. I had calmed down considerably since the mall fiasco. The walk had lead us to a large barn near the woods. I wanted to stay outside with the coming darkness and damp earth. "My parent's shouldn't be here until midnight, so we can go in and talk," Cassie said. Cassie was the African-American girl. Squinty was really named Tobias, and Rachel was the one with whom I got the impression of a cat, seemingly unalert, but ready to pounce. The barn, more officially known as the Wildlife Rehabilitation Center, was large and had rows of cages along either side of the walls. Many of these cages held injured or recovering animals. Phillip demorphed into his true form. I shuddered. Tobias, it turned out, was really a hawk with a human mind. Later, that was explained. Early on, Tobias had been trapped within hawk morph. Staying in morph for more than two hours results in permanent morph. Later, a being known only as the Ellimist, returned his morphing ability and took him back in time so he could acquire himself in human form. "All right, let me get this straight, you guys found this Andalite cube on the beach that only has one 'charge' left. A cube that could give me the ability to morph, as you put it. You want me to have these morphing powers so I can help fight off the bad guys? Right?" "Right." "Right." "Duh." <> "I'll do it."
CHAPTER SEVEN
My first morph was a panther. Morphing, I found out, was not gradual or logical, but a jumbled, nightmarish mess. Black fur sprouted all over me in a thick, rough coat. A tail grew from the base of my spine, lashing ans twitching as it gained length. My fingernails sharpened and reformed to the dangerous killing claws. Bones shortened, some lengthened. My ears distorted their shapes and moved further up my head. All the while, I felt absolutely no pain. It was like being pumped up full of novocaine while the dentist is drilling away at the nerves in your teeth. You can feel the drill cutting through your teeth, and know it should hurt, but doesn't. The mind of the panther was beautiful. It knew no fear. It had the power to stand and fight. It wasn't the arrogant pride that I had anticipated, but rather a cool calm. The panther knew that it could handle itself. Case closed. I looked around through the panther's eyes. Through my eyes. The cool calm and lack of fear were my cool calm and lack of fear. In every way possible, I was the panther. Movements were as easy and natural as they been were when I was human. The night air was impossibly alive with sights, scents, and smells. To my human eyes, the night was an inky blackness. To my panther eyes, it was as bright as a full moon on a cloudless night. Sounds and scents never before registered in my human brain poured in by the thousands. It is impossible to describe the life, the energy that I knew was around me. The forest itself was alive. I was in the forest testing and practising new morphs under the supervision of Tobias and Aximilli. Aximilli was Phillip's real name. I was still a little testy around him. Casting a glance out of the corner of my eye, I noticed him doing the same. <> Tobias said from the tree he was perched in. I spoke hesitantly in thought-speech. <> <> Tobias didn't say this bitterly or like he regretted what happened, but like a person might discuss surgery. A bit of nostalgia, but nothing to really worry about. <> <> <> <> <> Earlier that day, I had gone to the Gardens with Cassie. Because her mother worked there, Cassie got in free. I had to pay, but didn't mind that much. The Gardens had been full of animals and many interesting rides. The hawk, panther, and striped dolphin had been somewhat easy to acquire. All three were tame and part of the petting zoo. The rat I acquired later in the barn, and then only because it had been captured in a trap. <> Tobias flew off into the night, leaving me behind with Aximilli. I demorphed. It was impossible to morph with loose clothing on, but I had managed to incorporate a tight, black swimsuit into my human form. Stolen, of course. I pulled on my shorts and an old army jacket of my dad's. That jacket was one of the few possessions I had. A compass, an old tattered copy of an animal encyclopedia, blade that I carried for defense, and the worn out pack they were in were my only other possessions. I pulled on my boots and turned to leave. <> Aximilli inquired. "Back to Baja," I replied without even looking back. <> "Why shouldn't I be?" I shot back. "You didn't tell me. You didn't trust me." <> he countered. I glared at him. Not an easy thing to do when he was glaring right back with all four eyes. I just wanted to turn it all back. I didn't want to face that we were being invaded by soul less creatures from another planet and our only hope lie in the Animorphs, me, and creatures such as Aximilli. I also didn't want to face that one of my only friends had been lying to me all along. "You killed those people, didn't you?" <> "That doesn't change anything." <> "I'm going back to Baja; that simple." Aximilli just stood there. <> He looked me directly in the eye. That's when I noticed something. Even though he had changed form and his eyes were now a shocking green instead of brown, he was still the same. Aximilli was still the same person I had befriended. Still the same person who risked discovery and himself to protect me. And I was the one who hated and feared him because of that. A tear slipped down my cheek. "Forgive me," I whispered. "Forgive me." Nothing more needed to be said.
CHAPTER EIGHT
The first mission was one that I wish I couldn't remember. Apparently the Yeerks had discovered another area nearby where they could build another Yeerk pool. Our job was to infiltrate the new pool and find a way to destroy it. A new Yeerk pool would provide a new source of Controllers. Because it was still under construction, we had a chance to destroy it before it became to much too handle. Splitting up into three groups, we continued on to our individual parts of the mission. Rachel and Tobias were to use their Hork-Bajir morphs to infiltrate the area. Marco was staying behind as backup. Jake and Cassie, using cockroach morph, were scouting the area. It was left to Aximilli and me to hack into the computers. Morphing flies, we set off. Little was said on the way to the main building where the computers were housed. Morphing a fly was incredible; it made the hawk I morphed earlier look like it was still on the ground. No roller coaster could ever have compared to the thrill ride I was having at the time. <> Aximilli said. It was hard to tell through the strange, distorted eyes of the fly. He demorphed. So did I, but I quickly remorphed into the panther. After a curious look, I answered, "I know nothing about hacking into computers. The most I can do is stay near the entrance and keep watch. > <> <> Aximilli quickly set out on the keyboard, fingers flying over the keys. Odd symbols appeared on the screen. It seemed as though he could read them. I turned my attention to the doors below on the ground floor. Two men approached, but left after a brief moment. <> <> Aximilli replied in a distracted manner. <> <> Suddenly, I saw the same two men return running. My sensitive ears picked up what they were saying as clearly as though they were right beside me. "The computers--" "I know! I know! We have to get there before anything else is screwed up! The Visser will have our heads!" <> <> I attacked. Before they could scream, I dropped out of the shadow and struck. My claws raked through their flesh. Soon, they stopped struggling. They lay there, limp, unmoving. Others came. Others fell. Their Dracon beams could not stop me. I jumped and leapt out of their reach. A gorilla came thumping in. Marco. <> A full attack was on. Hork-Bajir and Taxxons gathered near, roaring and yelling in a strange language. Marco punched one of the Hork-Bajir and it went down. Hard. I felt a slash along my flank. Growling in pain, I struck, leaving four deep trails of blood in one man's face. My mind receded into the battle, a murky pool of chaos and screams. It wasn't the morph, but my own human savagery. Something that we've all seen at times, blind hatred surfacing, translating itself into physical violence. A bizarre, deadly desire to harm another living being rather than face the growing rage and madness within. The battle continued on. My sanity was beginning to resurface. I saw them. I saw those who were shooting at me, injuring me. I saw those whom I had killed. Some faces I recognized, some I didn't. My blood sang for the kill, human savagery combining with the panther's potential to kill. I fell into the darkness of my own soul.
CHAPTER NINE
Things after that blurred. The next thing I remembered was being carried by Marco, who was still in gorilla morph, to safety. Somehow I had morphed back to a human during the battle. We had succeeded in sabotaging the new Yeerk pool. The others didn't talk about what happened. I got the feeling that they, too, had terrible memories of the battle and area where it took place. I went out to the forest, to talk to Tobias and Aximilli. "So, what happened with you guys?" Such a pointless and casual question. "So, what happened with you guys?" Like asking about the weather or a hockey game. A cold, impersonal, heartless question. Forget the question or talking. I walked through the woods, thinking about something of my own. Why had I killed those people? Why was it so hard for me to forget the look in their eyes? I leaned against the trunk of a tree; the harsh, rough bark was a painful anchor to reality. Tears fell freely down my cheeks, each one a physical manifestation of the silent screams welling within my soul. <> "Who else would it be, Aximilli?" Aximilli knelt down on the ground next to me. <> I looked up from my tears. "What did I do out there? I can't remember, but it's still-- I mean..." <> "Please, I have to know." <> He paused before continuing. <> "Thank you." I tried to hold back the fresh tears that threatened to pour from my eyes but failed. "I never really saw any of them. One of them could have been my own mother." I didn't really know my mother that well; she and dad had split up when I was much younger. She would come to my birthday party, and at Christmas, but later, she stopped coming as often. Then, after a while, she stopped coming altogether. "Why did I do that? Why did I kill them?" <> "There's a difference in killing to survive, and killing in cold blood," I murmured. "I could have let them live. I could have knocked them out, or something. Couldn't I? You said that in war, one had to make sacrifices. Did I sacrifice my own soul?" <> "This is supposed to make me feel better?" I said with a cold laugh. <> "Yes, Aximilli, that was sarcasm." <> "Tell me about him. About the Andalite." And he did. We talked far into the night. Aximilli had become a friend.
CHAPTER TEN
When I awoke the next morning, I was alone. I stretched and walked around. Though my soul still screamed with the memories of those who died, I felt I could face the morn and not be ashamed. I found my boots and jacket. I slung my pack over my shoulder and headed towards Baja. I looked out towards the field and saw Aximilli running. He trotted over. <> he asked. "I'm going back to Baja. Back where I belong." I looked at the ground guiltily. "I don't belong here. My home's on the streets of Baja." Little had changed since I had left. The world still revolved around the sun. People still walked the streets, some free, some infested. It took me a while to realize that I was the one who had changed. The battle had taken something in me and killed it. What it left.... It was forbidden, by courtesy of our leader, Jake, to morph whenever not necessary. I still felt better knowing that if I had to, I could morph the panther and fight my way out. I was no longer prey. But I wasn't going to be a predator. One of the main reasons I returned to Baja was to have time to think. So much had happened in so little a time. So much had happened that would forever change my life. So I roamed the streets, morphing when needed to reach shelter or obtain food. I wish I could describe the beauty of being atop a tall building and looking out into Baja. Of looking out and seeing the city shining like a sea of stars. Of looking down and seeing the other people of Baja, asleep and safe from the harsh reality. The Animorphs said that when they morphed, they experienced two clearly different minds; their own, and the instincts of the morph. With me, there was no distinction. My mind was one with the panther's. It came to the point were the morph almost was addictive. One time I stayed in morph for one hour and fifty-five minutes, according to a watch I saw. After that, I was much more cautious. It was not long after that I discovered something about myself and the panther morph. Morphing the panther was becoming easier and easier. Too easy. I would peek around a corner to see if the coast was clear and already the morphing would begin. It became a reflex. Whenever I felt afraid or threatened, I could feel the changes beginning. Morphing was supposed to take two to three minutes. It only took me one. I never mentioned this to Aximilli or the others. We had all become friends. Good friends, but not... I don't know how to explain this. We were friends, but lacked the closeness the group had on its own. I was accepted and befriended, but I did not feel that closeness. Still, I learned many things about them. Rachel, though she seemed the ever eager warrior, had fears and doubts of her own. Cassie and Jake were very close. They thought it was a big secret, but we just humored them. Marco was annoying, but held unusual and often useful insights to things that most people would overlook. Tobias and Aximilli were shorms, an Andalite word meaning "tailblade." Shorms were the Andalite equivalent of blood brothers. I felt I could never be that close to them or anyone else like that. It was something that I often regretted.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
I and the Animorphs, with the exception of Rachel went on a second mission to investigate the remains of the second Yeerk pool. If they had rebuilt or repaired since our last mission, now would be the time to act. "Look, guys, I can skip the gymnastics meet. You don't have to go without me." "Look, Rachel, we can take care of ourselves, okay? It'll be hard, but I think we might be able to manage without ol' mother Xena hovering over us like a demented psycho warrior hen." "Marco, you don't need 'ol' mother Xena' to look after you; you need twenty-four hour a day, seven days a week supervalience from the nuthouse." "Oh yeah! Well you need--" Jake held up his hand. "Children, please. We've been through this before. We stick to regular activities. If we suddenly drop everything, people are going to be suspicious." "All Marco has to do to make people suspicious is to act normal. Then people are really going to know that he's up to something," Rachel quipped. Tobias fluttered in the rafters and said, <> Cassie laughed. Rachel and Marco both just stared at them like they were starving cats and Cassie and Tobias were fat mice. I knew that if they said anymore they would be in big trouble, but they continued. "Yeah, they must like each other. They're just so weirded out by it that they pretend to hate each other," Cassie snickered. Sighing, I heard Jake mutter, "Sometimes I don't even know why I try." By the time the meeting was over, we had more or less prepared for the second mission. Again we split up into smaller groups, this time I was going with Cassie and Tobias. We were to be backup. <> Tobias said in that silent voice of his. "Because it's our turn, Tobias. Last time you were in all the action and Marco had to stay behind." Tobias grumbled, but said nothing. It was Cassie's natural ability to be a peace maker. It was just something that she did, without making anyone else feel dumb or useless and without making herself look like an idiot. "I'm not sure I really mind being backup." <> Tobias retorted only half-jokingly. Cassie and Tobias were each in their original forms. I had opted to morph into the panther, ready in case anything happened. <> Tobias asked. Cassie replied with, "Either that, or they really drive each other crazy." <> Cassie just shook her head. All the while I had remained silent, waiting for something to happen. Then, it did. <> It was Marco, very far away. I ran out into the night, towards the pool. Despite the fact I was running toward great danger, I still noticed the dark beauty around me. The trees tore past, the ground a blur. The moon was bright overhead, casting strange shadows upon my midnight black hide that twisted and contorted for the briefest of moments. Tobias took off after me. <> I stopped for a moment, my sides heaving. I saw Cassie morph into a wolf and come loping towards me. We flew together through the night. Cassie and I upon the ground, Tobias in the air. A battle was growing by the time we arrived. Hesitating, I leapt into action. This time, I did not kill. I dove in and out of the paths of the Dracon beams, getting hit only once. The beam tore across my left flank, leaving a path of burning pain. Cassie ran to aid Jake, but by then it was hardly necessary. Jake was in tiger morph, an animal both stronger and faster than the panther or wolf. The battle that followed was nothing like the last. Then the Yeerks had expected the "Andalite bandits," at least to the extent that extra security was placed on the computers. Thinking we were Andalites, they did not expect another attack so soon. 'Unhonorable,' I suppose. We held the element of surprise. I realized with a start that my two hour limit was almost up, due to the long wait. I ran to the shadows and demorphed. Before I could remorph, a fallen Hork-Bajir shoved me out of the way, thinking I was another Controller blocking its path. I fell into the Yeerk pool. A small pool had been installed. The brackish grey water frothed and writhed with the disgusting demons that swam within its waters. Only I couldn't see all this. Not yet. The water was thick and warm in a disgusting way. Like the warmth of someone's breath. Or someone's blood. I tried to swim to the surface, but was bogged down. I could feel the Yeerks swimming past me. It was like being in a real pool with fish. I heard someone's thought-speech. <> Marco most likely. A felt a burning pain in my head, and all went black. I wasn't carried from battle this time. I just sprawled ungracefully on the 'shores' of the Yeerk pool. I could hear distant rumblings of what had to be wounded Hork-Bajir, most likely abandoned until the survivors could be sure of safety. I tried to move my head but couldn't. I just laid there for an immeasurable amount of time, my head drumming, sight swimming in and out of focus. My thought turned to the battle. Had the Animorphs won, or just driven away? Again, as it had with "Phillip" and the human Controllers in the alley, something plagued me. Why would the Yeerks build a new Yeerk pool above ground? Why where we might be sure to find it? Why with so little protection? A trap? <> A sourceless voice echoed through my head. A Yeerk. I was a Controller.
CHAPTER TWELVE
<> The Yeerk twisted and distorted that word until it sounded like only a cruel parody. Suddenly, my eyes focused. I got up and walked. Only I wasn't the one controlling the movements. The Yeerk was. I tried to fight. I tried to move my eyes, my arms, or even just to scream. To no avail. I was trapped in every horrible, unimaginable way. I tried to wrap my thoughts up, to bundle them. The Yeerk must not discover them. <> <> I screamed in my own silent scream from some far corner of my brain. <> the foul creature crooned in a smooth, vicious tone. All they while, the Yeerk had walked further into the forest in my body. I wanted to throw up. I wanted to scream. I felt sick. All because of this horror within my very self. It was like some terrible gaping, pus filled wound in my head. I wanted to scratch it out, dig it out, burn it out, ANYTHING TO GET IT OUT OF ME!! <> I retorted. <> the Yeerk whispered in a cruel tone. <> And I knew. I knew that this foul beast would not rest until it had hunted down and killed every one of them. Tobias. Rachel. Jake. Marco. Cassie. Aximilli. Dear stars, no. <> The Yeerk knew, if it truly knew where Cassie lived, then it knew that I would never bend under its rule. <> it sneered in the silent thought-speech only I could hear. <> Crooning in a foul, hideous voice. <> <> Again I saw the battle. Again I felt my claws rip through them. Again I felt the searing pain of Dracon beams and talons raking against my hide. Again I saw the death. Only this time it was different. This time I could see and hear and smell and feel it all around me. I could not sink into the darkness that soothed the impending madness the first time. And I knew, I knew every time I tried to rise against it, the Yeerk would send me back there, back to the memories, vividly and painfully aware. Aware of everything. No tears ran down my face, no whispers for mercy left my lips, no pleas for salvation were uttered. Only my own silent screams echoing unheard throughout the night.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
I slept, I don't know how it was possible, or for how long, but I slept. And I dreamed. I am a young girl once again. I call out to my father, but he isn't there. I had been asleep in my bed, but a monster had woken me up. The monster comes out of the shadows. It is my mother. Suddenly, she morphs into a panther. My mother wails and cries, "Why did you kill me? Why did you kill me?" over and over. "I didn't mean to," I whisper. Just as suddenly as my mother appeared, she vanishes, leaving behind only a memory. Abruptly, I appear in the same meadow where I had rediscovered that Aximilli was still my friend, regardless of form or species. <> "Back to Baja." <> "You killed those people, didn't you?" <> "That doesn't change anything." <> "Forgive me." I awoke. Only to my imprisonment. Only to the Yeerk. <> The Yeerk all but wallowed in its triumph. I just remained quiet, powerless to do anything but watch. <> I pleaded. <> I simply said nothing. All that I said, thought, or felt, that monster would know. I don't know how far we traveled, or for how long. Looking through my own eyes was strange. I could not control were they looked, or at what. The Yeerk did not morph, did not change into something that could travel faster. I knew why. It wanted to break me. It wanted to be sure that when really mattered, I would offer no resistance. It was long before we reached the meadow where Aximilli and Tobias would often meet. They were there, both of them, Aximilli and Tobias. I longed to reach out of my prison of flesh and mind and warn them, but couldn't. So I watched. I waited. It was Tobias who spoke first. <> He fluttered over and perched in a nearby tree. "I was trapped at the pool," the Yeerk replied through my voice. Aximilli was looking at me with suspicious eyes. <> "I couldn't get out without being noticed; that's all." Inside, the Yeerk was seething. Inside, it spat out <> with the same vehement tone Aximilli used when he said Yeerk. <> I screamed. With every fiber I could muster, I attacked the Yeerk. <> I twitched. That small, incremental victory caught their attention. I couldn't move, couldn't speak, but I got their attention. The Yeerk quickly summoned up visions of the first battle. I struggled to rise from that hell and failed. <> Tobias asked. "No," the Yeerk replied. "I'm still shaky from last night." Aximilli still stared at me, but said nothing. I was afraid. Again the fear gnawed at my gut, tore at my heart. The Yeerk, too, felt this fear. Not as much or as strongly, but it felt fear. That fear was enough to give me strength. I rose against the Yeerk again. Again, I gained a response. Aximilli placed a comforting hand on my shoulder. But this time the Yeerk wasn't prepared. The battle flashed before me again, but not before the Yeerk said the fatal words that branded it for what it was. "Don't touch me, Andalite freak!" the Yeerk screamed. Not a threatening whisper of things to come, but a scream. Aximilli's touch was like a Dracon beam cutting through it. <> The tailblade meet with my throat faster than I could blink. "Your death," the Yeerk hissed in a twisted version of my voice. Tobias flew off. <> The Yeerk knew that it had been discovered. It also knew that I could morph faster than Aximilli. The morph began almost instantly. Aximilli stepped back, startled. As soon as the claws were there it struke through me. The Yeerk snarled through my panther morph and swiped viciously at Aximilli's face. His tailblade flashed. The paw quickly hit the ground. The Yeerk quickly morphed back. " 'This is a war. One does what they can to survive. Sometimes in this survival one must make sacrifices. What someone once believed was right and wrong. Or, someone's life.' " The Yeerk paused. "Those are your words, Andalite. Do you wish to make this sacrifice? Do you wish to sacrifice her life?" Aximilli's tailblade quivered slightly. <> he said quietly.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The others arrived soon after. Aximilli kept that tailblade to my throat. Never wavering, never ceasing to keep the Yeerk at bay. Tobias only managed to find Marco and Cassie. Jake and Rachel weren't close enough to risk searching for. "So you are telling me she's a Controller. Great! This is just great." Marco stared me in the eye. "I bet you planned this just to mess around with my hectic schedule." "Marco, this is serious. Chariss, if you can hear me in there, you will be free." "I doubt that, human. This host suits me fine." Cassie stiffened. "We deinfested Jake about one year ago. He had more morphs, and Ax had to morph him. Ax who goes crazy around food. Ax plays with sounds. We pulled it off. We can do it again." "True enough, but you didn't deal with this host or this Yeerk. If I have to, I can abandon her and contact the others. But I won't do that. Because I won't have to." Marco stepped in. "Listen, ladies, if you don't mind, I have homework. Let's get Chariss deinfested so I can study for that killer exam we're having tomorrow. Ax, if you will, keep the blade at her throat. Tobias, look and see if we can use the same shed we did last time. Cassie, help me hold our friend here until Tobias gets back." The past three months on the streets had conditioned my body. I was lean and thin, but very strong and fast. The Yeerk knew how to use advantages when it saw them. While Cassie and Marco watched Tobias fly off, the Yeerk dropped and kicked at Aximilli's legs. The Andalite went down, temporarily. Marco, who still had a hold on my shoulder, received an elbow to the gut. I ran. I could feel the lungs I no longer controlled heaving in and out, but could not stop them. Aximilli had gotten up and was after me. I morphed. The panther dove in and out of the trees, not faster than Aximilli, but fast enough to use the head start. The Yeerk leapt up a tree. Leaping from branch to branch, dropping to the ground only when necessary, we evaded our pursuers. All the while, I could do nothing. I watched as the foul creature used my morph to escape. I watched, as I injured two friends and could do nothing about it. That was all I could do. When Aximilli had lost the trail, the Yeerk trailed back, listening. Marco was still having difficulty breathing. "What just happened here?" <> Aximilli's head was hung low. <> "Ax, don't beat yourself up about it," Cassie replied. "Chariss doesn't know where any of the others live, just me, Tobias, and you. I don't think she knows our full names, either." "This is great! Just great! From now on, I will not open my window to that fleabag of a bird." He paused. "Chariss's gonna turn us in, isn't she? She knows enough to do us in major league." He continued. "What are we going to do if we find her? Take her in, make her surrender, or will we have to ki--" <> Aximilli snapped. "Okay, man, I get the point. One of us waits for Tobias to show up, the other two go after Rachel and Jake, and we decide what to do." All the while, we lay among the branches of a nearby tree. The conversation was easy to hear because of the panther's acute sense of hearing. No, the Yeerk would not 'turn them in' as Marco had put it. It would hunt them, as others before it hunted their enemies and others to follow. <>
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The Yeerk did not hunt unprepared. A weapon was obtained from the original Yeerk pool. A dangerous weapon, even to the most dangerous morphs. <> I begged to the cruel Yeerk. <> At night, when the Yeerk slept, so did I. We would dream. Dreams not unlike the first one. Always strange, twisted, distorted Some dreams would be that of the Yeerk's, controlling me even in my dreams. Others would be peaceful, of running in a strange city that resembled both Baja and the forest, merged into one. I would be running with someone, always out of my sight. But always there. Someone I could trust and be trusted by. But these dreams always ended with the Yeerk. No matter where I was within them. I was always found. The hunt began with Aximilli. The Yeerk's action was a bold one. It simply strode right out to the field where Aximilli had been feeding. It just stood there, in my body. He stopped and approached me carefully. Tailblade meet throat. <> The Yeerk just laughed. "Do you think I am here to bargain for my life or to surrender? You are wrong. Do you know what this is?" The Yeerk pulled out a small, golden sphere from my pocket. "This is a small version of the Gleet BioFilter. This can destroy all organic or living material within a ten foot radius." <> "Your host" was said in a strained voice I could barely hear. "Of course, if you're fast enough, you can kill me before I activate it. It's a gamble Aximilli-Esgarrouth-Isthill. A deadly gamble. Me and the host, or all three of us." He just stood there, not responding. The Yeerk continued. "I do not care if I die with you. The short satisfaction of knowing that the last Andalite who carries the same bloodline of Beast Elfangor will perish with me is more than enough, no matter what the cost." <> Aximilli finally said. <> "You do not know that, Andalite filth. You have not been within the Yeerk pools. You have not seen the latest reports of the invasion. You have not been on the Andalite homeworld for almost two years. I have, Andalite. I have." <> Aximilli asked again. "There is something you have forgotten; technology has advanced much in the past year. This BioFilter will allow me to leave here unscathed. You, however, won't even be allowed the dignity of becoming ashes." The Yeerk began to activate the miniature BioFilter with my hand. Then stopped. I did not know it was possible. I was rebelling. <> I fought back without really knowing how I was doing it. The Yeerk tried to retaliate by forcing me back into the nightmare. Aximilli used the diversion to grab the BioFilter. The Yeerk just stood there. <> My small rebellion had been cut short. While Aximilli had snatched the BioFilter, the Yeerk had forced me back into the battle. Only this time it was much worse. Those that I struck down became my father and my friends. They all whispered silently, "Why Chariss? Why did you kill us? Why?" This was real. All memories of the battle had been intensified and distorted to fit the Yeerks needs. I did not know what was happening, save the replayed memories of the battle. That was my world now, whole and complete. <> I screamed to myself in the thought-speech of the panther morph. It did not help. The battle raged on for what might have been hours. My mind contorted into a kaleidoscope of images. I saw the world through the eyes of a Hork-Bajir, one who had volunteered to become Controller to save its family, only to have been the one to destroy them. The memories of strange creatures floated through my mind. Others were of an alien ocean world with yellow frog-like creatures. I saw a small, furry rodent which the Yeerk had enslaved. Incredibly intelligent with a deadly venom that was perfect as a host. Hork-Bajir forcing several Andalites down into an unidentifiable Yeerk pool. All these and more kept pilling in my mind. This was not torture designed by the Yeerk. This was madness. Pure, unadulterated madness. Suddenly, I was aware of a sharp pain racking my body. My eyes were opened and a bright light blinded me. The pain was everywhere in my body. Every joint, bone, tissue, tendon felt the same pain. Then, it was gone. My head was pounding like a drum, but the pain was over. I felt someone pull me up to my feet. I fell. The Yeerk made no move to stop the fall or brace for it, it just let me fall. I blacked out. When I came to, I was aware of laying upon a hard floor. The air around me was musty and stale. A groan escaped me. "Hey Tobias! She's up!" It was Rachel. I heard her walk over to me. I was lifted up roughly by the shoulder and again hoisted to my feet. "Chariss, you in there? Talk to us. Chariss, you're free." I tried to move, to speak. It was difficult, but I could move. Of my own free will, I could move. The Yeerk no longer dwelled within my head. I opened my eyes, only to find that I couldn't see. Everything was a shadow with no depth, just a murky field of white. "I can't see," I whispered. "Don't worry; that thing is out of you now," Rachel said, still holding me up. "No," I said laughing. "I can't see." I hugged her tightly in my happiness. "Don't you get it? I can't see!" I laughed. My laugh. I leaned against the walls of whatever place we were in and laughed. It was a weak, breathless laugh, but it was my laugh. <> It was hard to identify where Tobias was, but I could sense the relief in his voice. "No, you don't get it. I can't see. Not 'the host' can't see, but I can't see." Rachel than said, "Look, morphing would heal that, but I'm not sure you're in the best of shape at the moment." "I'm fine. Trust me, I'm fine." I morphed into the panther. Once again, I could control where I looked. I could look towards the claws growing where finger nails had been. I could feel the tail growing. I could feel and see what was happening to me. The panther's eyes, my eye's, appeared and healed. When the transformation was complete, I demorphed. I slumped against the wall again. "Don't worry," I murmured before sleep claimed me. "Don't worry." I fell into the first peaceful sleep in what seemed to me ages. Into a peaceful dreamless sleep of my own with a smile on my face. I was free.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
"How did you guys free me?" We were all in Cassie's barn, talking. Aximilli and Tobias were in human morph. Marco, as usual, was sprawled ungracefully on the bails of straw and hay. Jake was trying to get the 'meeting' to order, and failing, as usual. Cassie and Rachel were helping an animal that had been injured. "I modified the Gleet BioFilter to screen out the Yeerk. It was fairly easy, once I had the BioFilter was hooked up to a computer," Aximilli replied. Marco stared at him a moment and whispered to Jake, "He's not playing with sounds anymore. Weird!" Almost as if to contradict him, "Puter, er. Com, pu-ter. Er." Marco just flung his head back and groaned. Meanwhile, Jake had been trying to get Tobias and Rachel from arguing about some washed out band called Hanson. I walked over. "Jake, you don't have to worry. The Yeerk didn't tell anyone about you guys. It wanted to play it solo." I paused, breathing raggedly, "It wanted to hunt you." Jake placed a hand on my shoulder. "That's over now. You're free. It's hard to believe for a few days, and memories of what you did or almost did haunt you, but it's over and you're free." I hesitated before continuing. "It's not just that... It's memories of the past hosts, of the Yeerk itself, they, well they're apart of me now. Always will be, I guess. Did they leave you?" "No." Jake managed a weak smile before turning to Cassie. It wasn't long before the meeting split up and everyone went home in little groups. Rachel went home on her own. Marco had to make up the same report Rachel had worked on almost two weeks ago and needed Tobias' help. Jake had been invited to join Cassie and her family for dinner. During the confusion of everyone leaving, I slipped out. I ran. Not from anyone, or in fear; I ran just for the sheer joy of it. Because I could and because I was free. The night was clear with a million stars out. Animals were going to sleep; some were awakening. I didn't morph into the panther; I wanted to enjoy this as a human. The grass was slick and I fell a few times, but I always got up and continued. I don't know how long it was before I realized Aximilli was running with me. Nothing was said. We just ran. Soon, I had to slow down and rest, lungs heaving in and out to get fresh air. Looking around and thinking, I couldn't help but wonder about something. "Aximilli, what happened?" <> I walked around and leaned against a tree that looked like it had smoother bark than any of the others. "I mean, what happened to me just before-- Well, just before I blacked out or whatever it was." <> "Thanks. Look, are you okay? From the Dracon beam, I mean." <> "I, um, I'm sorry about whatever happened back there." <> I got up and started to head towards Baja, but stopped. I walked over to Aximilli and hugged him. "Thanks. Thanks for helping me get free." I walked a way, but not before noticing one of those strange Andalite smiles.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
My dreams the next few nights were those of the memories of the Yeerk. Terrible memories. But I learned from those memories. I learned of entrances to the original Yeerk pool, of events happening in far corners of the galaxy, and of new parts of the invasion. There was something else I had learned from the Yeerk. Something I couldn't bear to tell Aximilli. The Yeerk had been telling the truth when it said that the invasion had reached the homeworld of the Andalites. I got the impression that one of the main things that helped Aximilli have hope in the future was the fact that his people were free. That his people, though they may never be able to return him home, would be able to fight the Yeerks no matter what. That was just one of the hopes he held. I couldn't tell him that his own people were being enslaved. No other morph-capable Andalites, but Andalites nonetheless. If the Animorphs knew of this, there hopes would also be shattered. I didn't want to be the one to look them in the face and tell them that all their efforts may have been in vain; that all they did was delay the inevitable. The Yeerk that infested me was not the only hunter of the Yeerks. Many were starting to doubt Visser Three, some even to form their own rouge groups. Hunters. Hunters that cared just as much about the conquering as they did the conquest. I still harbored one shred of hope that we might win, that we might at least be able to pave the way for others to learn of the invasion, for others to lay the foundation that might save those conquered by the Yeerks. And as long as I held that hope, that terrifying secret would burn inside of me, never to be told. I did tell the others of new entrances and of how far the invasion had spread through Baja. Even Marco was grim when I spoke of this. <> "We're being invaded by mind controlling slugs from another planet, our only hope to stop them is by becoming bugs and cute bunnies, and the guy who is stuck eating mousie buggers for the rest of his life suggests this is not good. You might have a point." <> I have always looked to the stars for guidance and protection. Now when I gazed upon the celestial beauty above, I could think only of how the scourge of the Yeerks came from that same source. I could only think of how cold and lifeless that beauty is now. Looking up at those same stars, I shivered. The nights had been growing imcreasingly cold. Snow very rarely fell in Baja, but it wasn't an abnormal occurrence for the winter. Cassie had called an emergency meeting. Her parents were working late at the Gardens, so the meeting could take place in the barn without fear of discovery. The others arrived in bird morph. I took to the backstreets and alleys, following Tobias, who contacted me. Cassie was pacing around the barn nervously. The others were sitting in chairs brought from the house. Marco and one boy were sitting on a bale of hay and talking. A boy I had seen in the Yeerk pool. Running up to him, I drew my blade and pressed it against his throat. The others stared at me. The boy just looked up at me, confused. "Controller!" Jake ran over and pulled my arm from his throat. "Erek, this is Chariss. Chariss, this is Erek the Chee. A friend." "Jake this guy is no friend! I saw him down in the Yeerk pool; he's a Controller!" "Chariss, Erek is not a Controller. He's an android built by the Pemalites. The Pemalites died thousands of years ago. He pretends to be a Controller and a human by using holograms. Trust me, he's with us." The others by that time had more or less relaxed. I sat down not that far from Erek, to watch him. "Those are good instincts. Dangerous, but good," Erek said, speaking to me for the first time. "Those instincts are what kept me alive this long," I replied in a cold voice. Jake just sighed and tried to get the meeting started. "Okay, from what I've heard so far, Erek called Marco and said that he needed to meet with all of us now. It's something important. Really important." Erek got up and started to pace the barn with Cassie. "This is something I wish I didn't have to tell you. The invasion had reached the Andalite homeworld. Several Andalites have been taken as Controllers. Six Andalite-Controllers will be arriving in less than a week. The only name I have is Noorlin-Sirinial-Cooraf. Do you know him, Ax?" I glanced over to Aximilli. All the while, his face had been a stoic mask. <> Without waiting for an answer he ran. Jake just looked shocked for a few moments and called to Tobias, "Follow him. See if he's okay." Before Tobias could answer or fly off, I was up and heading towards the door. "Jake, let me handle this, okay?" Outside, I morphed into the panther and took off into the dark night. Aximilli was far ahead of me; I could neither see or hear him. Following his strange, alien scent, I was soon able to find him. Aximilli had run as hard and fast as he could, and apparently fell or something. I found him lying in the dirt of the forest floor, breathing hard. I demorphed and did my best to help him to his hooves. "What Erek said back there, what was it?" <> Aximilli broke off. Had he been human, I know he would have been crying. "Who?" I pressed as gently as I could. <>
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
It took a few moments for the entire realization of what he was saying to sink in. "Oh no. That Noorlin guy, one of the Andalite-Controllers. Look, I'm sorry." <> His main eyes were downcast, but his stalk eyes glared at the night skies above him with a cold dark hatred. <> Inwardly, I shuddered. The only time I had seen that same look in someone's eyes was when I had seen my own reflection in the Yeerk pool during the first battle. I gripped Aximilli firmly by the shoulders and shook him hard. "Aximilli! Snap out of it! He's not dead. We can and will free him." He just jerked away. <> "I know that, Aximilli," I said coldly. "I know that much better than you ever could." <> "No race is meant to be enslaved!!" I yelled at him. "No race is meant to be controlled like that! Aximilli, you Andalites have fought off this invasion singlehandedly since it began, but you are not immune to the disease the Yeerks are!" Aximilli looked as though I had struck him. "Your race is no more superior in resisting infestation than humans or Pemalites or Chee or whatever," I continued in a voice of cold steel. "You have to accept that. You have to accept that you are indeed mortal, that you are just a kid, just as scared as the rest of us." I slumped down to the ground and leaned against a tree, hugging my knees close. Aximilli just stared at me before answering. The look in his eyes told me that I couldn't have shattered what hope in his race he had left if I had gift wrapped him and personally hand delivered him to Visser Three. <> He turned away and walked deeper into the forest. "Aximilli! Wait up! I never said that! I never said I didn't hope." <> I walked ahead and stood in his path. "No. If you go out there, you are either going to get really depressed or do something really stupid. Either way, I can't let that happen." I paused a moment. He stopped and listened. "When I was a Controller, I felt nothing, no hope, only fear. All the time I was like that, I wished there was someone, anyone, even Marco I could talk to, someone who wasn't the Yeerk. And I know you feel like that right now, Aximilli. Even if you won't even admit it to yourself, you need someone." I sat down on a log and waited. Waited for him to leave, or to answer. He left. I stayed, too wrapped up in my own conflicting emotions to care.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
No mission was going to be arranged to free the imprisoned Andalites. When the Yeerks left their hosts to feed in the vile Yeerk pool, the Andalites were so heavily guarded that there was no way we could free them without too many loses on our side. We were sent on frequent missions to scout the area for any suspicious moves made by the Yeerks. Rachel and I were scouting by air. I was in my hawk morph, Rachel was a bald eagle. <> <> Rachel replied in a dry, annoyed voice. <> <> <> A sudden thermal tore her from sight before I could hear her answer. With a mental sigh, I flew towards where I last saw her. The winds were strong with the coming storms, the skies turbulent and grey. A sudden bolt of lightning pierced the sky and came hurtling towards me. By some grace of the stars, a gust of wind blew me out of the path of the lightning. I fell to the ground, the skies too wild to fly upon. I don't know how long I was out, but demorphing proved I was not trapped in hawk morph. My head still pounded, even though the demorphing took care of all injuries the lightning and fall had caused. I saw the source of my headache: a large tree, one that obviously broke my fall, or else I would not be alive at the moment. I looked around the park I had fallen into. A thick, pelting rain began to pore from above. I ran to the nearest shelter, an area to get food and snacks from vending machines. I sat huddled in the corner until the morn came. And I dreamed. I run through forgotten paths deep within a forest. Again there is that strange assurance that someone who is a friend runs with me in the darkness. The same friend who ran with me in the dreams before. We run together, never seeing one another, but knowing still of the other's presence. The scene suddenly shifts. I am in a strange hallway with mirrors lining the walls. I look into one and am startled to see that I am changed. Instead of the haunted grey eyes, and short, shaggy blazing red hair, I see a strange youth with the eyes of a panther and a midnight-black mane of hair. A dark mist swirled around my ankles. Darkness falls upon the already dim hallway. A voice without words speaks to me. We are to be hunted, it says. The Animorphs and I are to be prey for some monster even the Yeerks would fear. We are to prove ourselves to this beast. A single voice fills my mind to the brim with the monster's name. A name that makes my soul quake. VIRON. I woke up screaming. I knew beyond any doubt that I had been warned. The warning was mine to heed or ignore. We were to be hunted.
CHAPTER TWENTY
The first person I contacted that morning was Rachel. I called her on a pay phone. Lucky for me I guessed it right the first time when I looked her last name up in the phonebook. "Hello, ma'am. I know that it is terribly rude for me to be calling this early on a Saturday, but I have to talk to Rachel." A groggy voice called out to Rachel. "Hello, who's this?" "It's me, Chariss. Sorry I baled out on you so soon last night. I got really caught up in watching the storm. I was almost struck by lightning--" "Chariss. You had better have one heck of a good reason for leaving me hanging like that. I was worried sick! I even had Tobias look for you! What happened?!?" she spat out in a cold voice. "I told you! I got wrapped up in the storm. I can't tell you on the phone. I'll have to meet with you guys at the Cinnabon." Before she could reply, I hung up the phone. A strange thought came to me and grew even before I could stop it. What if I was going crazy? What if all that had happened had finally caused me to go crazy, believing in pointless dreams? What if all that had happened never really happened, and I was someplace in a straight jacket? We never meet at the Cinnabon. We meet instead at Marco's place. It was small, but clean and well furnished. "Don't touch the CD player, 'kay, Chariss? My dad would fry me mercilessly if I messed with those settings. Ax! Put the ashtray down!!" Marco was almost frantic to keep the place in order. Everyone had to stifle a smile or laugh as Marco tugged the ash tray away from Aximilli who was now in human morph. Even I had to keep myself from grinning widely at the comical scene. When things calmed down, I began to tell everyone about what I had noticed about the latest happening in our lives. About the storm. About the dream. "I know it's just a dream, but still... You said you found Aximilli because of a dream both Cassie and Tobias were having. The creature's name was--" "Viron," Aximilli and I said at the same time. He continued in a soft, haunted voice, "The name of the monster was Viron. A voice without words warned that we were to be hunted." I could barely manage a whisper. "Yes." Everyone stared at Aximilli and me for a few moments before Jake began to speak. "If Ax and Chariss are having the same dream, it might mean something. We don't know anything about this Viron character, so we'll just have to wait and see what happens. There may be a chance that this is all just a big coincidence." "Yeah right," Marco snorted. "Since when has anything this weird been 'just a big coincidence' lately?""That's just what I'm worried about. If this is--" Whatever he was about to say was immediately forgotten. Everything stopped. The sound of the cars outside. The news blasting on the radio. Jake's nervous pacing back and forth. My heartbeat. Everything just... stopped.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Just as suddenly as everything stopped, it began again. We were all the darkened hallway of my dreams. The mirrors and mist were there, just as they had been in my dream. "I don't think we're in Kansas anymore, Dorothy," Marco said to Rachel. "I don't think we're on Earth anymore, Toto," she replied wryly. I AM SORRY, MY FRIENDS. I heard someone moan in thought-speak, <> It was Tobias. A slight hint of fear showed could be heard in his voice. I saw Aximilli standing off to the side, returned to his true form, shaking. I had not known him long, but in all that time, I had never known him to be truly afraid. Apprehensive, yes, cautious, yes; but never had I known him to show his fear as visibly as this. That scared me. The mist that had been swirling around our ankles began to gather and condense into a pillar that took on a vaguely humanoid appearance. What finally formed of the mist was anything but human. The creature was a male. Its skintone was a pale, softly glowing blue. Long white hair ran down the creature's back. Its ears swept up to end in almost elven points. What was truly inhuman about the manifestation before us were its eyes. Its eyes were the darkest of night skies. The darkness of space. Yet within those same eyes were brief pinpricks of light; almost as if the creature somehow encompassed the entirety of a galaxy within those alien eyes. "I am sorry my friends. I never meant to bring you here; I had no choice in this matter." <> "It is not a matter of what I want, Tobias. It is a matter of what it wants." "You mean Viron," I said. The Ellimist, or whoever he was, hung his head down low. "I have no choice in this matter, just as you don't. I did not wish to bring you here." <> Aximilli asked in shaky thought-speak. THIS MANNER OF A CREATURE, YOUNG PEST. This voice was like the Ellimist's when he first spoke to us, an enormous thought-speak filling our minds. Only this voice was stronger, malevolent. This voice shone like a beacon in your mind illuminating and magnifying every fear in your heart. We all looked around for the source of this voice only to find none. I AM CURIOUS. CURIOUS ABOUT WHAT DRIVES YOU TO LIVE, TO FIGHT. YOU ARE MORTAL, YOUR TIME IS VASTLY LIMITED, YET YOU CONTINUE ON. ODD. I WISH TO LEARN WHY. "You have no right to do this!" Rachel screamed shaking a fist at the ceiling. WHAT RIGHT DO YOU HAVE TO CONTINUE LIVING? "The right we were born with!" I said coldly to the faceless voice. Viron continued, THE RIGHT YOU YOURSELF HAVE REPEATEDLY VIOLATED AND STOLEN FROM OTHERS? AHH, SILENCE FROM THE ONE WHO SOUGHT TO DEFEAT ME WITH LOGIC. "We fought to survive." YOU COULD HAVE WAITED FOR THE BATTLE TO COME TO YOU. "Survival isn't just about covering your own tail! We fought to survive, we as in us, as in our family, we as in all the intelligent species who the Yeerks now control!" ENOUGH!! I HAVE HEARD ENOUGH OF YOUR MEANINGLESS PRATTLE! We fell to the ground, the Animorphs, the Ellimist, and I. We all shook from the force of the monster's voice. I felt warm saltwater falling down in tracks on my cheek. Tears. EACH OF YOU SHALL FACE YOUR FEAR. A FEAR THAT HAS GROWN INSIDE OF YOU SINCE THIS BATTLE BEGAN. FOR EVERY ONE OF YOU, THERE IS ONE FROM THE YEERK EMPIRE OR ONE WHO IS AN ALLY OF THE YEERKS. WHOSOEVER HAS THE GREATEST NUMBER OF SURVIVORS SHALL RETURN HOME TO WIN THIS INFURIATING WAR. Fear coursed through my veins. Already an inkling of the one fear that was held within started to grow. The others looked around, worried. Some looked at the Ellimist with undisguised hatred and fear. Not that I blame them. He was the one who brought us here. RACHEL SHALL FACE THE FEAR THAT SHE MIGHT FAIL HER FRIENDS IN BATTLE. Before the monster had even begun to finish talking, Rachel vanished. No bright lights, no poof, not even a slight sigh of wind to fill in the area where she once stood. JAKE SHALL FACE THE BURDEN OF LEADERSHIP. MARCO SHALL FACE THE FEAR OF BATTLING HIS OWN MOTHER. AXIMILLI SHALL FACE THE GUILT OF ABANDONING HIS PEOPLE. CASSIE SHALL FACE THE SHAME OF HER LIES AND FEAR. TOBIAS SHALL FACE THE PAIN OF BEING TRAPPED. THE ELLIMIST, THOUGH NOT A PART OF THIS TEST, SHALL HAVE TO WATCH, HIS WORST FEAR AND GUILT. WATCHING BUT BEING UNABLE TO AID. With each name it spoke, that person disapeered. The voice continued to the name that I knew would come, but prayed wouldn't. CHARISS SHALL FACE--
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
The hallway was suddenly replaced with darkness. There was nothing all around me. No ceiling. No floor. No walls. Nothing. I could see nothing, hear nothing, feel nothing. It was all darkness and silence. The nothingness was not empty; it was full and thick with malice and hatred, just as the voice of the beast Viron. In my panic, I morphed into the panther, too frightened to keep control. It was strangely comforting to feel the power and strange unity of mind. I still couldn't see, hear, or feel anything, not even a cold wind. Just as suddenly as it happened, the darkness vanished. I was standing in the hall of mirrors once more. I demorphed and looked around. None of the others were there. I was alone. "Look, I don't think we can trust her. It's just too convenient. She accepts the entire Animorphs bit and she's not a Controller and she trusted Ax? That's just not right. We can't be that lucky!" I whirled around to find the source of the voice. No one was there. "We need all the help we can get." "Yeah, unless that help would happen to be a Yeerk." The voices came from a mirror. Above the mirror, a small sign read, "The Mirror of Truth." "As if this couldn't get any cornier," I mumbled to myself, half meaning it. The mirror's glass showed a scene in the woods. Marco was talking to Jake and Cassie. "Marco could have a point. I mean, Chariss did run away from us. She is gone a lot of the time. I don't want to think that she might be a Controller, but there is that very possibility," Cassie said. "Yeah," Marco replied. "She may not even be a Controller. She may just be some weirdo who thinks she can cash in on this." Jake interrupted with, "She would have had plenty of time to go tattle off to Visser Three or some tabloid." He looked thoughtful for a moment. "Better have Tobias follow her for a while when he's got the time, just to be sure." The scene blurred. "Any question you ask shall be shown to you," a soft musical voice from the mirror said. "Aliens invading Earth and magic mirrors. This is starting to look like the combined nightmares of George Lucas, Walt Disney, and Stephen King." "Any question you ask shall be shown to you." "How do I get out of here?" "Any question you ask shall be shown to you." "I just asked a question; how do I get out of here?" "Any question you ask shall be shown to you." "Stupid mirror." I sighed and ran my fingers through my hair. I walked down the halls to find an end. My feet padded dully on the blood red carpet. The scene never changed. Always the mirrors placed on the walls. Always the never ending hallway, vanishing off into the horizon. Always the growing silence. Always the silence. I started whistling to make any kind of noise. Row, Row Your Boat, Bingo, Old MacDonald Had a Farm, anything to keep my mind off the silence no matter how mundane. Complete silence gets to you after a while. Echoes of your footsteps somehow become a stranger following you. Each breath brings to mind someone breathing down your neck. It enfolds you, crushes you, leaving only the thuds of your own heart and the whispers of an overactive imagination. Suddenly, without warning, each of the mirrors showed a scene. A funeral of a Controller killed in the Yeerk pool. Jake telling Tobias to follow me around. The cautious distance the others kept during the first meeting. Erek's look of surprise as my blade meet with his throat. Slain Controllers from the first mission. Then I heard something that chilled me to my bones. A voice from the not-so-distant past. The Yeerk.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
<> "No!! You're not real! You died! I'm not a Controller anymore!" <> I fell to the floor of the endless hallway, hugging my knees close. My breath came in ragged gasps as I struggled both to breath and answer the atrocity that now spoke to me from the grave. "The others told me you were gone. I went more than three days without returning to the Yeerk pool. I can still think and move on my own! You are dead!" <> "You couldn't do that for more than two weeks without my knowing! You couldn't have." I rose to my feet. "You died. You are nothing more than a dream concocted by that monster Viron. YOU AREN'T REAL!!" <> As the foul creature spoke, its voice began to change. It became the voice of Viron. NOT IN THE FORM YOU EXPECTED AT ALL. "How could you have known about the Yeerk?" I gasped. I WAS THE YEERK, PATHETIC CREATURE. I CAN TAKE MANY FORMS; A YEERK IS ONLY ONE AMONG MANY. YOU HAVE SERVED YOUR PURPOSE WELL, MY CREATION. "I am not your creation! I am a human! Not some thing!" YOU ARE ANYTHING BUT HUMAN, CHARISS. YOU ARE MY PAWN IN THIS LITTLE TEST, YOU ARE MY CATALYST FOR THE HUNT. MORE THAN THAT; YOU ARE THE HUNTER. My response was almost a scream. "You said this was nothing but a test, not a hunt! Not a hunt!" I AM AMAZED, USUALLY YOUR SENSE OF INTUITION IS STRONGER THAN THIS. I TOLD YOU THERE WAS TO BE A HUNT. The voice paused, a thick silence settling over me. Almost as bad as its voice being heard, was the fact that it had no body for me to see or strike. THIS IS NOT PART OF THE TEST, AS YOU WOULD LOVE TO BELIEVE. THIS IS A HUNT, LITTLE ONE. THIS IS THE TRUE HUNT. Images of those who represented the Yeerks swirled in my head. Visser Three's paranoia of other morph-capable beings. Visser One's battle with her host. A Taxxon never able to sate its eternal hunger. A Hork-Bajir who Visser Three nearly killed. A strange, ratlike creature that was an ally of the Yeerk's listening to the screams of those it killed for the Yeerks. Visser Two, a Hork-Bajir, facing raving insanity. A Controller who lead the Yeerk rebellion against Visser Three. Most frightening, I saw that the beast was right. I was its creation. All memories of my past were mere fabrications used to make me a more useful subject. The decisions made were mine, any interference from Viron would have ruined the project. Viron made other changes, though. It was Viron who started the Yeerk rebellion against Visser Three, Viron who led to the capture and infestation of the Andalites. All for the sake of this hunt. All the lives torn and lost, merely so this beast could prove a point. My life among them.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
The hunt would begin soon. I would hunt down and kill my only friends, and be aware of every moment of it. The true hunt was to begin with Rachel. Rachel's 'test' was nearly as bad as my own. She was forced to re-live countless battles in which she failed us. The final seconds it took on a morph before she could get to someone. Her own fear rooting her in place. Rage clouding her judgement. <> I called out in panther morph. <> Rachel, the ever constant warrior, was far from being caught up in the illusion taking place in the Yeerk pool. The 'deaths' of her friends obviously chilled her to the bone, but she fought only to save herself. <> It was only Viron, controlling me as ruthlessly as it had when it was a Yeerk and I the host. Of course every word I uttered was false. Words that would only trap her. <> <> Rachel lumbered after me in bear morph. The sharp claws glistened with a liquid that I knew wasn't water. By that time, I wasn't that far from the brink of insanity. <> <> <> <> Suddenly, I began to morph within a morph. Claws grew and strengthened to become talons. My hind legs grew longer and contorted to a shape that could support me standing like a human while still able to lope on the ground at good speeds. The long tail became serpentine and whiplike. My overall shape was becoming more and more human, but still so alien. The fur receded into a muted blue leathery hide. My sense of smell grew even stronger; the water of the Yeerk pool was like ammonia. <> Rachel bellowed as a paw big enough to cover my face came at me. Hard. Fast. Rachel's paw slammed into me like a ton of cold iron. A blow like that should have crushed my head if not rip it off. My nose bled a little. The huge behemoth that was Rachel backed away, studying my new form. The normally dangerous canines of the panther had sharpened and lengthened to become deadly venom delivering fangs. My eyes were a slightly luminous grey. I was swift, strong, agile. Deadly. Even to a grizzly. Rachel's next blow was even harder. This one was aimed at my throat. Viron twisted me out of the way, talons raking through the thick, protective fur of the bear. Blood seeped through. My talons dug in deeper. The mere nosebleed had been followed by a severe headache. My arm felt like it had been ripped out of the socket; it nearly was. A bloody gash decorated my face. Rachel was in much more worse shape. Her fur was matted in several places with blood. I could see the bone, a sick shade of pink, peak through in some wounds. Suddenly, Rachel shifted position. Fangs sank down in her neck. Venom flowed. She dropped, limp. Dead.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
<> I wailed. <> <> Rachel, the warrior, the strength of the Animorphs. <> <> <> There was no answer, no response to my screams. Viron was silent, mocking me. Taunting me with threats yet unheard. <> <> The world twisted and blurred, becoming another place. A graveyard. Two fresh graves lay near me. Jake knelt crying between each of them. Without looking at the headstones, I knew who they were. His parents. "Mom, Dad. Why did I tell you those lies? You'd still be alive if I had just told you-- Just told you the truth-- Not lies!" His voice became sharp and broken. "I had to be the leader." <> Viron morphed my strange and contorted form back into a human. "Jake," "I" said softly. He turned around, startled. "Chariss?" "Hey! Hey, it's okay. It wasn't your fault. They had no way of knowing...." "That's the point! If I had told them they might still be alive!" He knelt again at the graves, the freshly ripped earth pungent and strong. HE couldn't see the hand I no longer controlled reach into my pack which I shouldn't have been carrying. He couldn't see me pull out a blade I had never seen. He couldn't see the shimmer along the edge of that blade as it was pulled back, preparing for the plunge which would kill her. That blade gleamed as it sank through the air-- <> --and was buried hilt deep in the dirt. YOU The world shifted-- WILL --hall of mirrors-- NOT --Yeerk pool-- HURT --graveyard-- MY --the Baja/forest. FRIENDS! Darkness.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
A sweet, soft darkness. A gentle rustle of leaves in the wind. A beautiful song sung by some unknown bird. My eyes fluttered open to a darkness like that of a church after a storm, a darkness like that which brings a parentless child dreams of a loving family. I got to my feet and looked around. It was the Baja/forest of my dreams. Tall buildings melded with trees, looking freakish and somehow right at the same time. Thick brush filled the streets. "Chariss."
I nearly screamed at the sound of my own name. I whirled around, mind prepared to morph the panther, claws already growing. It was the Ellimist. "It is over, Chariss. The hunt has ended." "What do you mean the hunt is over? What about Rachel?" "You defeated Viron. It created you, but you proved stronger. Viron will no longer harm you or your friends." I fell to my knees and wanted to cry. I wanted to cry because I was just fifteen, still just a kid. I wanted cry because of Rachel, because of the father I loved but who never existed. I wanted to cry from relief, from pain. But most of all, I wanted to cry because I was trapped, trapped within some twisted, insane nightmare that would just not end. That would not just end and let me die in peace. But the tears would not come. It seemed they would never come. The Ellimist waited patiently. "I cannot interfere, but I can set right what was unjustly destroyed. The others have been returned to where they belong. Rachel, as well." I turned and looked at him with eyes that had become so weary, so damned ancient in such a short time. "Child begot of demon soul. Shall you have to right this mistake, too, Ellimist?" I asked quietly. "That will be your choice." "What do you mean?" "You will have to choose. You can return with the others, remembering everything, knowing who you are, knowing what you are. Or I can uncreate this entire event." "Including me." I didn't need him to affirm my comment. "They are my friends, I care about them, I need them. They need me." "So shall it be, Chariss. 'Child begot of demon soul,' you have greater strengths and powers than Viron could ever possess. Those powers will surface soon. All else will continue. The others will remember little of the hunt, the Andalites captured will continue to be Controllers, the rebellion against Visser Three will continue." "And so will I." "Chariss?" "Yes?" "The Animorphs are your family now." Sweet, soft darkness.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
"--as big as I think it is-- We're all back where we started!" Jake trailed off. We were back. Back on earth, back in Marco's apartment. "What in the hell was that?!?" Marco yelled at the top of his lungs. "What in the hell just happened here?!?" Cassie just went to the window and pulled aside the tightly drawn drapes. She looked outside and murmured in an awed voice, "We're back. We're back and this is real!" Rachel was tightly hugging Tobias, who was in human form. "We are alive! We made it out in one piece!" "I won't be if you keep squeezing me like this!" Tobias said with a laugh. I found myself hugging Aximilli tightly as well. I laughed. Not the hard cynical laugh I had grown accustomed to, but an honest laugh. I whirled around in a circle, still holding Aximilli, laughing. He pulled back, a bit startled, but hugged me back when he realized where we were. We both laughed. I knew that there would be other battles, other Hells, other hunts to live through. But for now, that wasn't important. For now, all that mattered was that I was home. I was with people that I cared about, and who cared about me. After all, isn't that what really matters?

2007-03-24T22:46:00.000+08:00

Animorphs

2007-03-21T20:29:00.000+08:00

You might not have watch the series on tv before but you can watch it on YouTube.

Midnight Library

2007-02-24T21:22:00.000+08:00

A series by Nick Shadow. So far, I have three of the books, namely Voices, The Cat Lady and The Catch. Each story does not end that well. For its supposed to be scary and horrifying. Its nice but not that scary.

Scream shop

2007-02-03T22:11:00.000+08:00

A series by Tracey West. Lets you choose your own path!
webs:
www.traceywest.com/

Old Master Q

2007-02-02T22:41:00.000+08:00

Its not really a book but a comic. It is hilarious and maybe mind-bending. There are thousands of different books, big or small.

webs:
www.oldmasterq.com/
http://masterqa.idv.tw/

Charles De Lint

2007-01-30T16:44:00.000+08:00

The book is Wolf Moon. Quite rare to find. Out of print.

http://www.sfsite.com/charlesdelint/wolfmoon-desc01.htm

Alex Duval

2007-01-30T16:31:00.000+08:00

He has only four books and I have only read two of the books.

http://www.simonsays.com/content/destination.cfm?tab=25&pid=517104

Christopher Pike

2007-01-30T15:44:00.000+08:00

I only like his horror stories. Like Remember me, Spookeville and Master of Murder.

webs:

http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/p/christopher-pike/

R.L Stine

2007-01-29T22:49:00.000+08:00

I know I might be too old for this kind of books but hey, I am childish. LIke two series. Find out later.

websites:

www.rlstine.com

www.scholastic.com/goosebumps/books/stine/

Goosebumps

2007-01-29T22:43:00.000+08:00

I only like a few of the books in this series. The rest aren't that nice. Check out the webs for more......

Goosebumps webs

2007-01-29T22:35:00.000+08:00

www.scholastic.com/goosebumps/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goosebumps
www.tv.com/goosebumps/show/996/summary.html

Ghost of fear street

2007-01-29T22:32:00.000+08:00

A very old series by R.L Stine.

Ghost of Fear street webs

2007-01-29T22:18:00.000+08:00

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghosts_of_Fear_Street

Warriors

2007-01-29T20:15:00.000+08:00

Quite recently like it. About forest cats.

websites for warriors

2007-01-29T18:39:00.000+08:00

www.warriorcats.com
www.freewebs.com/thebug7/

Warriors-cats of choice

2007-01-29T18:20:00.000+08:00

My favourites are:
Fireheart
bluestar
tallstar
Yellowfang
Dustpelt

Hardy Boys

2007-01-28T23:16:00.000+08:00

Another of my favourite series. About Frank and Joe hardy following the footsteps of their father. Detective work!

Hardy Boys websites

2007-01-28T23:15:00.000+08:00

www.geocities.com/Heartland/Hills/5567/
www.hardyboys.com/
http://hardyboys.bobfinnan.com

Animorphs

2007-01-28T19:48:00.000+08:00

Animorphs is a series about a group of kids, namely Rachel, Jake, Tobias, Cassie and Marco, see an Andalite, Elfagor crash land on Earth. He gives tham the power to morph before he gets eaten By a andalite who is infested with a yeerk who is known as Visser three. As they battle the yeerks, Tobias becomes a nothlit and they get help from an andalite that they call ax. find out more in this blogspot.

the next blogspots by me

2007-01-27T16:20:00.000+08:00

http://www.pokenat.blogspot.com/
http://www.natathotwheels.blogspot.com/

some pictures of the animorphs

2007-01-27T14:17:00.000+08:00

About the contents of the animorph page

2007-01-27T00:24:00.000+08:00

This is about the animorphs. If this doesn't interest you, then you should not come here. The links have been taken out(discretion). You must ask me first.

K.A Applegate

2007-01-25T23:05:00.000+08:00

The only series I like by her is Animorphs. But its cool enough for me.

Websites

2005-10-06T11:13:00.000+08:00

these are some websites about Animorphs....

1. http://www.scholastic.com/animorphs/index.htm
2. http://www.angelfire.com/hi2/animorphs54/about.html
3.http://epguides.com/Animorphs/
4.http://www.tvtome.com/tvtome/servlet/ShowMainServlet/showid-3249/Animorphs/
5.http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Quasar/5849/index.html
6.http://www.angelfire.com/pa/animorphsarethebest/index.html
7. http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Hollow/5374/transcript.html
8.( Must see! They have something about "The Beginning #54")http://www.kidsreads.com/features/010613-applegate.asp
9. http://fanlisting.kairo.us/Animorphs/
10.http://www.scholastic.com/animorphs/books/animorphography/bkal1.htm

11.http://www24.brinkster.com/animorphsector/shrine.html

12.www.geocities.com/Area51/Quasar/5849/index.html

parts of books

2005-10-06T11:11:00.000+08:00

#54

My name is Rachel.
I knew what was coming. I knew.
I’d seen it in Jake’s eyes.
And you know what? I was scared.
I never thought I would be. Cassie thinks I’m fearless. Marco thinks I’m reckless. Tobias . . . Well, Tobias loves me.
I guess they all do, in different ways. Jake, too. But Jake had to do the right thing.
I felt sorry for him, you know? He’s carried the weight so long. He’s made hard decisions. None as hard as this maybe. I didn’t blame him, not even for a minute.
But I was scared.
I guess no one wants to die. I guess everyone is scared when the time comes. We were so close. We were right there, right at the finish line, I’d already survived so many times when I shouldn’t have. It seemed unfair. To come this far, get this close?
Jake gave me the job because he knew that only I could do it. Would do it. Ax might have, sure, but he was needed for his skills. Me, I’m not the computer genius. I’m the one you send when you need someone to be crazy, to do the hard thing.
I don’t know whether I’m proud of that or not.
I was Jake’s insurance policy. He thought maybe he wouldn’t have to use me. He hoped, anyway. But down deep he knew, and I knew, and we both hid the truth from the others because Cassie couldn’t let Jake make that decision, and Tobias couldn’t let me, and those two, by loving us, would have screwed everything up.
It was a war, after all. We had to win.
We hadn’t asked the Yeerks to come to Earth. They made that call on their own. They’re a parasite species, not very big or impressive to look at, just these snail-like things that can enter your head through your ear. They have a capacity to anesthetize the inner ear enough to allow them to burrow through the soft tissue. It still hurts but not as much as it should. They dig their way straight to your brain and then flatten themselves out, spread themselves down into the crevices, tie directly into your synapses. They take control.
Absolute control.
They read your thoughts, they sense your emotions. What your eye sees, they see. What your tongue tastes, they taste. If your hand moves, it’s because they moved it. If you speak, it is the Yeerk who has spoken through you, made you into a ventriloquist’s dummy.
Over the course of years they spread like a virus. Invisible. Undetectable. They are your teacher, your pastor, your best friend. They are the police officer, the TV newsman, the soldier. Anyone.
Jake’s parents had recently been taken, they were human-Controllers - people controlled by Yeerks.
Jake’s brother Tom, my cousin, had been a Controller for a long time. He was a powerful Yeerk. Jake still cared for him, still hoped somehow he could be saved.
Jake had sent me away with Tom.
I understood. I approved. If Jake hadn’t sent me I’d have gone anyway.
Still, though, I was scared.
I had power myself. We all did. The strange, unsettling power to absorb DNA from any living creature, to then alter our physical bodies to become that creature.
I’ve been a whole zoo, you know. Everything from a fly to an elephant. Bat. Owl. I’ve flown, way up in the sky with eagle wings. I’ve flown up there with Tobias. Way up in the clouds. If there’s something better than that, well, I never found it.
It’s not magic. Just technology. Of course technology always seems like magic at first. Haul a tenth century knight into the modern age and show him your cell phone or your TV or your computer or your car. Magic.
This technology came from the Andalites. The Andalites are enemies of the Yeerks, and I guess allies of ours, though right at the moment they were more likely to annihilate Earth than the Yeerks were. You know the old saying, “With friends like these, who needs enemies?”
Anyway, it began with a chance meeting. An Andalite prince named Elfangor crashed his shot-up fighter in our path. Coincidence? No, history. And a helping hand from the Ellimist who of course never lends a helping hand. Elfangor died, but not before he told us what was happening and gave us the morphing technology.
I’ve been a rat. A dolphin . . . Oh, man, do they have fun. That rush when you’re zooming straight up through the water, when you see the ripply surface of the sea, when you blow through that barrier and soar through the air . . . And then, splash! And do it all over again.
So, anyway, we decided we had to try and stop the Yeerks. Jake and Marco and Cassie and Tobias and Ax who is Elfangor’s little brother, and me. We lived this secret life. We fought and mostly lost, but we survived. We frustrated the Yeerks. We ruined Visser Three’s life, though he still managed to be promoted to Visser One.
Maybe we did too good a job frustrating the Visser. The Yeerks grew tired of infiltration. Visser One had been craving open war. And when we blew up their ground-based Yeerk Pool, the source of heir food, the center of their lives, it was gloves off.
So much the better as far as I was concerned. The time had come to settle things.
The Yeerks obliterated our town to create a dead zone around their construction of a new Yeerk Pool. They were in a hurry. Without a functioning Pool they were getting hungry.
But there was a worm gnawing at the Yeerk race. They had acquired morphing technology themselves in part because of what Jake thought was Cassie’s betrayal.
Cassie sees further than I do. Further than any of us. She sees deep. The girl cannot dress or accessorize to save her life, she’s a girl who wears manure-stained Wal-Mart jeans for crying out loud, but Cassie sees connections and possibilities that others don’t.
She let Tom take the morphing cube. And that changed everything. Some Yeerks began to see a way out of their parasite lives. The hunger-crazed Taxxons - arace held captive by the Yeerks - began to dream of a life without their Yeerk overlords. A revolution was brewing.
At the same time, the Andalite fleet was closing in, ready to obliterate Earth as the only way to stop the Yeerk infestation. They had watched the Yeerks concentrate their forces on Earth. They were ready to bring down the curtain: obliterate Earth and the Yeerk Empire would be gutted.
Too bad about those creatures who got in the way. What were they called? Oh yeah, humans.
But Tom betrayed his Visser, betrayed the Yeerk race. Not for the sake of poor old humanity, but for his own ambition. He would escape with the morphing cube and with a hard core of faithful Yeerk supporters. He would abandon the Yeerk people to the Andalite vengeance, destroy the hated Animorphs, and if H. sapiens was annihilated too, well . . .
That’s where Jake saw his chance. Tom’s Yeerk is smart. Jake is smarter. Now Jake and the others had control of the Yeerk Pool Ship. Tom had control of the Visser’s own personal Blade Ship.
Tom - the Yeerk in Tom’s head - was closing in for his final act of betrayal: he would kill his master Visser One, and doom his fellow Yeerks. He thought we were already dead.
Surprise, Tom.
My favorite morph was the grizzly bear. Seven feet tall standing erect. You cannot imagine the power especially when united with human intelligence and knowledge. Compared to my grizzly morph a human being is like something made out of glued-together Popsicle sticks.
How many times have I felt that change as muscle piles on muscle, as the thick bown fur covers me, as the rail spike claws grow from my fingers?
The grizzly bear and I had been through a lot together.
I would go to grizzly to kill Tom.

Animorphs #48: The Return

David asked abruptly.
He scurried along the outside wall of the cube. Nose quivering. Malevolent, beady rat eyes shining.
Satisfying himself that I was really, truly trapped.

Suddenly, and certainly, I knew this was not a dream.
Suddenly, I felt dread -- heavy, leaden and cold -- draining down my limbs.
It has to work or we . . . all of us . . . we will have to become killers.
I didn't want to know David's story. Didn't want to hear anything he had to say.
I could imagine it all well enough. I had imagined it. Over and over. Even when I didn't want to.
And when I did imagine David's situation, when the grim images of isolation invaded my brain, I invariably broke out in a cold sweat.
David sat up on his hind legs, his little pink nose twitching in the air. Searching for food?

David hadn't asked who the mastermind of the plan was.
I felt a hot flush cover my neck and face. He was right. We had. David had zeroed in on the discomfiting truth.
he went on.
His voice was controlled, but barely. In it I heard incipiant mania. Madness.

"I feel that way every time I eat in the school cafeteria," I said. Determined not to let him see he was getting to me.
David snapped.
I recoiled.
Maybe David was perceptive. Maybe he just had a good memory.
he said.
As if he had read my mind!

"What are you talking about?"
Even to my own ears my voice was thin. Uneasy.
David said, gleeful now.
Suddenly, David the rat scampered in a circle. Then another, tighter. Faster. Then another. Like a rodent whirling dervish. Or like he was trying to throw off some bad feeling. Or a bad itch.
After about ten revolutions, he came to a rest. Once again facing me.
Briefly I thought of making a snide remark about his getting himself some Prozac or Lithium or whatever. But I kept my mouth shut.
David spoke. His voice breathless from the manic exertion.

"Forces?" I laughed. He really was insane! "What forces?"
David laughed back, mimicking me.

"I thought rats couldn't swim."
They just drown, get stuck in your shirt, weigh you down.
Terrify you.
David said.
I hadn't.

It hadn't occurred to any of us that anybody would find a reason to visit that godforsaken pile of rock.

David paused. If he was waiting for applause, he'd have a very long wait.
he went on, voice growing more excited with each syllable.
Okay.
"So now what?"
David said, gesturing toward the punks with his twitching nose,
I looked at the two witless thugs. David's willing hands and feet. Maybe I could stir up a little dissension.
"You guys realize you're working for a rat, don't you?" I said.
Tattoo shrugged.
"He pays good."
"He pays good?" I snorted. "What are you talking about? He's a rat. You're working for cheese?"
David laughed wildly.

I saw Tattoo and Grease exchange a glance. Tattoo swallowed hard. So did Grease. Just thinking about money was making them salivate.
David said. To them as well as to me.
"So what am I doing here?" I asked. "If you're poised to rule the world, what do want with me?"
David laughed.

NOOOOO!
David stopped his nervous twitching and pacing. Came to sit perfectly still, tiny black eyes on mine.

MEET THE STARS

This was written by a great friend of mine who's got more guts and determination than all the Animorphs combined. He's an aspiring writer, and I Iook forward to enjoying his books (or screenplays!) someday soon.
Thanks, Scott, for all you've taught me.-K.A. Applegate
"We can't tell you who we are. Or where we live. It's too risky, and we've got to be careful. Really careful. So we don't trust anyone. Because if they find us... well, we just won't let them find us. The thing you should know is that everyone is in really big trouble. Yeah. Even you."
I will miss reading Animorphs. I have been a fan since 1997 when the first Animorphs book, The Invasion, was published. What has kept me reading each and every book is how well Katherine Applegatemixes reality and fantasy, making them come together for one enjoyable read after another. When you are reading Animorphs it makes you think you are capable of doing the things the characters are doing to make the world a better place. SOme of the stoylines evolve around life messages like learning how to deal with the death and loss of a loved one and how a war can tear families apart.
There are four story lines that hit home with me: Firstly, all of the books that revolve around Tobias are very special in that they explore him trying to find himself again as a young person agter being trapped in a morph for such a long time and losing his sense of reality. What appeals to ame about these stories is his explanation of life from the perspective of a himan and as a red-tailed hawk.
Secondly, the David storyline that deals with the idea that things aren't always as they seem. Divid is really diabolical - a nice guy who has now lost his way.
Thirdly, (and this would be my top choice for the best life lesson) is the story line in the book The Other where Ax learns to treat people who have disabilities with respect. I think that is a good lesson for the readers to learn.
Last, but not least, is my favorite plot revolving around Marco's mother being the host for the leader of the Yeerk army, Visser One. It is a very unusual twiest to the story and interesting because you would never expect a boy's mother to be enslaved by and alien parasite who leads and army of space alierns who want to take over our planet!
So what does it mean to me to be an Animrophs fan? Every month I have looked forward to going to my local bookstore and picking up the next installment and sepnding as much time reading as I can! Every now and then a great series comes along that you can never forget. When Animorphs is finally finished as a series, I hope Katherine will write another series equallly as exciting and interesting for kids my age.Scott Bremner CanadaReader since 1997

MEGAMORPHS #1 - The Andalite's Gift

Okay. Okay, maybe it was a little immature to sneak into Darlene's party as a mouse. But you didn't hear what she said about me!
Me and Ax morphed in a vacant lot a block away. Then we toddled on over on our little mouse legs to the party.
Of course, first we had to get used to the mouse morph. See, when you morph you don't just get the animal's body. You get it's brain, too. And most animal brains are loaded with different instincts. Usually hunger. Also fear.
The mouse had a lot of each. He was very obsessed about food. And he was one scared little animal. It's often that way when you first morph a new species. As soon as Ax and I achieved total mousehood, those instincts kicked in big time.
RUN! RUN! RUN! RUN!
The mouse didn't like being out in the open, in broad daylight. He was scared of predators. Seriously scared.
RUN! RUN! RUN! RUN!
So we ran. It was like one minute you're a normal human thinking, Hmmm, isn't it fascinating shrinking down like this, growing a tail, having big whiskers? And the next minute that mouse brain kicks in and suddenly you are charged up with the energy of a thousand cups of coffee on top of a thousand bowls of Captain Crunch, and you are ENERGIZED!
Ax wailed.
I said.
Let me tell you: Mice can move on those little legs. It was like being strapped to the front bumper of an Indy 500 car.
ZOOOOM!
We hauled butt, zipping in wild terror over leaves of grass as big as trees, pieces of gravel the size of beach balls, and bugs the size of collies. That much I'm used to. I've morphed small animals before.
But what was sick was that I really, really wanted to stop and eat some of those bugs. There was this one beetle, kind of bluish-black, and the mouse brain was like, Ah, cool, lunch!
But it was more terrified than it was hungry, so we just kept running like out-of-control lunatics, and I missed out on the flavor of bug. Eventually, we were able to get some control.
I called to him in thought-speak.

Ax said darkly.
I said.

In any case, we toddled off to the party, two little mice looking for a good time.
Mouse senses are excellent, fortunately. Hearing is great. The sense of smell is great. The eyes are decent, but it's hard to see much when you're only an inch tall and your face is down at dirt level.
Still, I was able to locate Darlene by the sound of her voice. She was talking to her friends about the usual stuff: school, music, some cute guy on TV. Ax and I hid underneath Darlene's chair, so I was able to hear everything pretty well.
All I could see of Darlene was this enormous chair roof over my head -- stretched bands of interwoven plastic, bulging down like they might burst and crush me. Quite a distance away I could see her legs, looking like two gigantic pink pillars.
I said to Ax.

I said. Then it occurred to me. I could thought-speak to Darlene! I would just say the word "Marco" in her head. She wouldn't know where it had come from. She'd probably think someone said it aloud. With thought-speak, you can either do it so everyone hears you, or sort of aim it at just one person.
I said.
"What?" Darlene asked. "What about Marco?"
"Nothing about Marco," this girl named Kara said.
"Good, because I don't even want his name mentioned at my party. He's such a jerk. I mean, after what he did? Throwing Baby Ruth bars in my pool? Panicking everybody?"
"He's so immature," a girl named Ellen said.
"No duh," Darlene said. "He thinks he's so cool and so cute, but he's totally not. He always makes jokes about stuff that aren't even funny."
Well. I could stand them saying I was immature. That's what girls always say. But saying I wasn't funny?
I would show them funny. Oh, yes.
I took off. I ran for the legs. Ax came after me, yelling,
I yelled back. I ran for that big pink leg. I saw the foot pressing heavily down on the grass. I shot past her heel, which was like a wall to me, and aimed for the toes.
Let me just say this: Darlene thinks she's perfect in every way. But her toenails definitely needed trimming.
I scampered right onto her foot. I zoomed across her foot, then scrabbled wildly around her ankle and back over her toes.
I crowed to Ax.
"Oh! Oh! Ohhhhhhhhh!" Darlene screamed.
Up flew the foot! I jumped off just in time. And then she was outta there, screaming and yammering like a total ninny.
Naturally, I chased her. And naturally, Ax came with me.
It was total, absolute fun! I'm sorry, I know it was wrong and all, but man, it was so cool.
That is, until I heard Hans yelling about how he was going to stomp me. That would never do. I did not intend to be stomped by Hans's big stinky foot.
I heard Jake's big voice yelling. And Cassie's sweeter -- but still annoyed -- voice.
I said to Ax.
I raced for cover, looking for a place to morph back to human. Big stomping feet were landing all around me. They were slow, but man, they were big. Everyone was totally overreacting. I mean, give me a break, I was two inches long! How scary could I possibly be?
Then it occurred to me. The house! We could run inside, race down to the basement where no one would be, morph back real fast, and then...well, and then there I would be, just me and an Andalite. That wouldn't look too strange.

ZOOM! Over the threshold onto the patio! ZOOM! Into the house itself! ZOOM! Past a hysterical Darlene, who was on the couch with a pillow over her head.
ZOOM! A long carpet till we hit linoleum.
Suddenly, the scent of dark places. Mouse places! Yes, it was going to work!
We ran across a step and leapt, falling ... falling ... PLOP! to land on the next step. Again and again, step after step, at a speed that felt like we were flying rockets.
It was so cool! If you overlooked the fact that it was maybe slightly stupid.
I called to Jake in thought-speak.
We lost our pursuers. No one followed us down the steps. And even as I ran, I started to demorph.
I was halfway back to human, a strange mix of mouse tail and huge ears and human legs -- a scary-looking creature. The way Mickey Mouse would look if he'd been invented by Stephen King. Ax looked even worse, half-mouse, half-Andalite.
Just as I was thinking, Hey, this will all be fine, the entire world just flew apart.
Crrrrr-RUNCH!
Sunlight streamed down! The entire roof had been ripped away! The entire roof!
Wood and beams and concrete just shattered and ripped and fell in huge chunks. I couldn't even make sense of it. I mean, the entire world around me was just being shredded. Shredded, like the universe was being run through a food processor.
Then I saw it. It was gigantic! Enormous! A creature that seemed to be made of nothing but teeth and blades and destruction. It was like twenty Hork-Bajir glued together and given dragon wings.
B - R - R - A - A - A - K !
It was ripping the house apart with unbelievable power.
The noise was terrifying. The scream of ripping wood. The shattering crunch of concrete being torn up -- just torn up, like it was nothing! Pipes bending. Wires sizzling and popping as they exploded into showers of sparks.
"Look out!" I yelled to Ax with my now-human voice. Beams were falling around us. Splinters were flying through the air.
I barely noticed that I had finished morphing. I was human again. Somehow Ax had kept his concentration and was now fully in his human morph.
We were defenseless. Two kids without a weapon between us.
Above our heads, where there had been a house just seconds before, the beast hovered in the sun.
It looked down at us with a dozen weird eyes that seemed to be stuck here and there at random. It stared at us the way I'd seen Tobias stare at his prey.
It was going to destroy us. There was no question in my mind. And no question that it could.
"Oh, man," I moaned. "I don't like this."
Then ... the eyes all flickered at once. The beast seemed uncertain.
And to my utter relief and utter amazement, the thing began to disperse. He became dust again. Just a cloud of dust that thinned and disappeared.
I was shaking so badly I couldn't stand up. But I was alive.

ALTERNAMORPHS: The First Journey

Okay, listen up. It's Jake. You probably already know what's going on around here. But just in case you don't, here's the deal: Rachel, Tobias, Cassie, Marco, and me are five kids and one alien out to save the world.
No, this isn't a joke. It's real. About as real as you can get. Real enough for screaming nightmares about the things you've seen and done.
Because sometimes the stuff you see in the movies, the stuff you thought could never, ever happen to you... well, it can happen. It does happen. I've seen it.
I can't tell you my last name. Or where I live. There's an alien invasion going on. Right here on Earth. But I'm not talking little green men with ray guns. I'm talking a much smarter way to conquer a world. Just invade people's brains.
I'm not nuts. I've seen it. And because of that, my friends and I were given a special power - the power to morph into any animal we touch. To acquire it's DNA. It's the only way we can fight the Yeerks - that's what they call themselves. We have to find a way to stop these slugs that get into people's heads and make them slaves.
But things have gotten worse. We need backup. A new Animorph. We've tried this once before and it didn't work out. At all. We're going to try again. So, if you're interested in joining us, let's go. Just remember not to read these missions like a normal book. Check out the instructions and follow them.
You get to choose your morphs, but I'm warning you now - choose them very carefully.
You have to deal with the consequences. They can either help you, or get you totally annihilated.
This isn't a game. It's serious stuff. So if you can handle it, turn to page one.
Oh. one more thing? Good luck. You'll need it.

Ellimist Chronicles

2005-10-06T10:55:00.000+08:00

this is chapter one of it.

My full name is Azure Level, Seven Spar, Extension Two, Down-Messenger, Forty-one. My chosen name is Toomin. I like the sound of the word, which is all the reason you need for a chosen name.
My 'game' name is Ellimist. Like Toomin it doesn't mean anything in particular. I just thought it sounded breezy. Never occurred to me when I chose the name that it would follow me for so long, and so far.
Pangabans were an interesting race well-adapted to their unusual world. They lived beneath an eternally gray, clouded sky. They had never seen their own sun clearly, had no notion of stars or other planets. This was particularly ironic because their own planet was in fact a moon that orbited a much larger planet well-suited to life.
Had they been blessed with an occasional break in the clouds they might have become a very different race. It is hard to imagine that any species could have lived beneath the sky-filling arc of the main planet, with all its obvious lushness, and not become obsessed with a desire to learn space travel.
But the Pangabans knew nothing of this, nothing at all of anything beyond their own damp and gloomy world.
The Pangabans were six-legged, which is a common enough configuration. They carried their heads high above the slender, muscular body that was little more than a junction of the six long legs.
They were skimmers. Their feet were large, webbed, and concave which allowed them to walk on the water that covered most of the planet aside from a few soggy islands. They fed by lowering a sort of net from their body down into the water and trawling for microscopic plants and animals of which there was an abundance.
They were intelligent. Not Ketran intelligent, perhaps, but self-aware. They knew who they were. Knew that they existed. Had a language. A culture, mostly involving amazing water dances, feeding rituals, and a religion that centered on belief in underwater spirits that either gave them food or witheld food.
DNA analysis indicated a potential for development. The Pangaban world received a decent dose of radiation, nothing deadly, just enough to cause a respectable rate of mutation. And despite their awkward physiques and the limitations of their planet's natural resources, I believed they could be brought to a level of technology equal to, say, the Illaman Confederation.
There was one possible problem: the main planet around which the Pangabans revolved, was populated by an aggressive species of four-legged, two-handed rodents called The Gunja Wave. The Gunja Wave were primitive creatures, only dimly self-aware. But their DNA held promise, too. And their aggressiveness might give them an edge if the two races ever collided.
Still, I had an instinct. I memmed my friend Azure Level, Nine Spar, Mast Three, Right-Messenger Twelve. His chosen name is Redfar. Hi 'game' name is Inidar.
"I'll take the Pangabans, if you choose to accept."
"Gladly," he memmed back. "You underestimate the value of sheer aggression. You're an idealist, Ellimist."
"Oh? Well, step into my lair, said the dreth to the chorkant."
Inidar laughed. The laugh worried me a bit. He seemed very confident. But I wasn't going to show him my own doubts. "Shall we immerse?" It was the ritual challenge of the game.
"On the other side," Inidar agreed, accepting the challenge.
I checked my real world position, checked to see whether there were any pending memmoes for me to deal with. I didn't want to be interrupted. Then I opened the shunt and was all at once inside the game.
I floated bodiless above the Pangaban world. Drifted above an endless gray-green soup choked with seaweeds and algae and gliding eels that could reach lengths of three miles. I skimmed above one of the mossy islands, brushed one of the squat, stunted, unlovely trees and found a colony of Pangabans.
The Pangabans were trolling as always, but also playing at something. A game that involved moving in slow, ever tighter circles around one central person. Not a complex game, certainly not in comparison with the game I played.
Still, I was heartened. Surely an ability to conceive and execute a game was a good sign in any species. It was a gentle, slow and nearly pointless game, but that could evolve. Games had evolved on other planets, among other peoples. My own people, the Ketrans, being perhaps the pre-eminent example.
I wondered what Inidar would do with the Gunja Wave. The essence of the game was minimalism: do the least thing needed to accomplish a goal.
I knew the least thing. I knew what I would do. A single, simple movement: I would part the clouds and cause the skies to become 10% clear on any given day. If I had understood fully, if my instincts were correct, that single change in the parameters would launch a revolution among the Pangabans.
I slowed, floated, righted, deployed my wings and settled down to stand upon the water, invisible to the solemn, slow-moving Pangabans.
I like to feel the texture of the game. I like to be inside it. Only there, only with the alien wind in your wings and the ground beneath your pods (or water, in this case), can you fully know the place. And the place is integral to the species.
I looked up at the unbroken blanket of gray clouds. I couldn't let in too much light or the entire ecosystem would collapse. Just a glimpse.
I felt a thrill of anticipation. The Pangabans were on the verge of an experience they could not even guess at. Their eyes would be open for the first time. Their universe would expand by a factor of a billion percent.
I smiled. And I memmed the game core: part the clouds.
And the clouds parted.
It was night. The clouds tore apart, a slow, silent rip. And above the Pangaban the stars appeared. And into that swatch of speckled blackness rolled the planet, all green and blue and orange-scarred.
Slowly, one by one, fearful, the Pangaban did what none of their species had ever done before: they looked up.
They looked up and moaned their gurgling cries.
I heard Inidar's memo in my mind. "Shall we accelerate?"
"Fire it up," I answered and memmed the game core.
A hurricane! A hurricane of wind and water and earth and time itself. A swirling madness of change. This was the ultimate moment in the game. We had made our changes and now watched time reel forward.
I broke out the displays: DNA mutation, climate changes, technology index, population. For the first two hundred thousand years there was very little change. Then I began to spot the DNA differences in sight and body shape. The Pangabans were selecting for longer range vision, for color vision, for neck length.
And then, all at once, trouble. The algae count was dropping like a stone. It couldn't be! Increased sunlight almost inevitably means an increase in flora. But it was true, the seas were dying.
And then, as I stood untouched amidst the hurricane of change, the first of the carnivore eels emerged to attack the Pangabans. The Pangaban population was decimated in a flash of time.
DNA evolution began to come to the rescue of the Pangabans. They selected for size, downtrending. The smaller were faster, able to evade the eels. Smaller and smaller till the once-towering Pangabans were scarcely larger than one of us Ketrans.
The eel threat diminished. And now at last came the first fluctuation in the technology index. The Pangabans had learned to make a tool. A weapon, of course. A simple spear that could be used to turn the tables on the eels. In short order Pangabans were hunting and eating the eels. Primitive seine-fishers had become true predators.
A million years passed and a very different species now crossed the planet's seas armed with spears and bows. They formed hierarchies dominated by warriors. Their culture shifted ground, favoring a sky god who brought the gift of weapons.
Yes, yes, it was working well enough. Another million years. Perhaps two, and they would learn to move beyond weapons, to . . .
And then, in a flash so sudden it was barely a blip of time, every index went flat. The Pangabans had disappeared. Extinct.
I cursed and heard Inidar's memmed laughter.
I reeled back and slowed the playback speed. There it was: the Gunja Wave, still rodentine, but now walking erect, arrived on the Pangaban world in astoundingly primitive space craft and promptly killed and ate the Pangaban. They hunted them to extinction and left the planet devoid of its only intelligent species.
"Shall we call the game?" Inidar offered.
I sighed. "What was your move?"
"Oh, a very small one," Inidar said. "I increased their rate of reproduction by a very small percentage. This heightened their natural aggression. And I guessed that your move would be to open the Pangaban skies. Population growth pressures, a limited food supply, and the ability to see the Pangaban surface very clearly . . . My Gunja Wave wanted to eat your species."
"Yes, and they did," I said. "I call the game."
"You have to learn to avoid naivete, Ellimist. It's not the good and worthy who prosper. It's just the motivated."
"Yes, and you can go surface," I muttered. "See you at the perches for free flight?"
"I'm there, Ellimist."
I shut down the game and opened my eyes to the real world around me

Animorphs #31: The Conspiracy

2005-10-06T10:50:00.000+08:00

this is a little bit of it.

Silence.
The empty kind, when you know nobody's there but you.
"Dad?" I yelled anyway, running into the hallway. "Dad? Tom?"
No answer.
Heart pounding, I took the stairs two at a time.
"Dad?"
Looked in my parents' bedroom. In Tom's. In mine.
Neat - except for my room. Empty.
Which made me feel a little better, but not much.
"Jake," Marco said from right behind me.
"Yaaahh!" I yelped, going airborne.
"Sorry."
"Don't do that!" I said harshly, pushing past him and heading back down the stairs to the kitchen.
I swung around, searching the kitchen for something, anything that would tell me where they'd gone.
Cabinets. Sink. Glass jars full of cookies and pasta and coffee, lined up on the counter. Coffee machine. Refrigerator. Toaster.
Orderly. Nothing out of place.
I exploded.
Slammed against the side of the refrigerator.
BAM!
One of the magnets fell off. The apple, which had been holding my mother's note about Grandpa G.
Only the second note, the one that had been tacked beneath it was gone. Had someone taken it? Why, when it had the flight number and details about what to bring when we drove out?
The garbage.
Frantically, I grabbed the plastic can and flipped open the lid. Knelt and peered inside.
Lying crumpled atop the banana skins and the coffee grounds and the empty yogurt container was a wad of pink paper. Crumpled. I rose and smoothed it out on the counter.
The top of the note was the one from my mother with the flight information. At the bottom of that note was my father's handwriting.
Jake: Went to a Sharing meeting with Tom to explain why he can't help them out this weekend. Be back soon.Love, Dad.
"Oh, God," I whispered.
My father hadn't thrown away the note. Tom had. He'd been covering his tracks.
Tom was taking my father to The Sharing.
But not so he could be excused from his obligations.
He was going to make our father a Controller. He would watch as they forced him to his knees and pushed his head down into the thick, sludgy Yeerk pool. He would listen to his pleas. Listen to his cries. His screams of horror and disbelief and panic. Listen and laugh.
No.
I started to shake.
I should have known. Should have seen it sooner. Marco had seen it, why hadn't I?
"We have to find them," I said, searching my mind frantically for a way to do it.
"How?" Marco said. "We don't even know where they are."
"Marco, this is my father!" I shouted, losing it. "I'm not letting them take him."
"Even if we find him, you may not have anything to say about it," he said quietly. "It might already be too late."
No, it couldn't be too late. Couldn't...
No. They wouldn't have my father. I was going to stop them. Even if it meant stopping my brother.
Any way I had to.
Marco re-crumpled the notes and put them back in the trash.
Placed the apple magnet back on the fridge.
I stood there, frantic, vibrating with impatience, waiting to go, go GO somewhere, anywhere, just get going and find my father.
"We have to cover our tracks, Jake," he explained. "We can't let Tom know that we know."
"Right, whatever," I said, hurrying towards the door.
I didn't tell Marco, but at that moment I just didn't care about keeping our secrets. I didn't care about saving the world. I was saving one man. The rest of the world could take care of itself.
There were some losses I wasn't willing to take, no matter what. I'd lost my brother. That was it. I wasn't losing anyone else.
"The Chee," I said suddenly.
I reached for the phone, Marco pushed the receiver back down. "Not from the house, man. Look. Jake. Jake, listen to me."
"What? WHAT?"
"You're the boss, Jake. You're the fearless leader. But not right now, okay? You're too messed up over this. Let me call the plays."
I knew he was right. I said nothing. I hated Marco, right then. Hated him because he wouldn't have made the mistake I'd made. He would have seen...
Hated him because he'd already lost his mother and he knew what the inside of my head was like, because he knew I was scared and just wanted to cry.
"Come on, man," Marco said.
We went down the block to a pay phone to call Erek King. He's a Chee.
The Chee are a race of androids. Pacifist by design. But definitely anti-Yeerk.. The ultimate spies. Our friends. At least as much as a nearly eternal machine can ever be a friend to a weak, short-lived human.
The Chee would know of any Sharing meetings scheduled.
"There's nothing scheduled," the human-sounding voice said.
"But there has to be," I said desperately, pacing the length of the stupidly-short phone cord. "Tom's taking my father to it! C'mon Erek, please!"
"Jake, you know I would tell you if I knew," Erek said with calm regret. "Perhaps Tom asked for an emergency meeting to deal with this problem."
"Then how are we ever gonna find out where they are?" I said, glancing at Marco to see if he had any suggestions.
He shrugged, looking miserable.
I turned away, wanting to cry.
Fighting to get hold of myself.
Think, Jake.
If the Chee didn't know where the Yeerks were gathering, how were we supposed to know?
"Wait," I blurted. "Stupid! I don't have to find the Yeerks to find my father. All I have to do is find my father and we'll find the meeting. Should have thought of it."
"All right," Erek said cautiously.
"No, it's easy. He always carries a cell phone. I'll just call and ask him -"
"You can't," Marco and Erek both said at the same time.
"Why not?" I said.
"Jake, if you call and ask your Dad where he is, and then the meeting gets broken up by us, don't you think the Yeerks'll put two and two together?"
"I don't care," I said, before I could stop myself.
The sympathy on Marco's face evaporated. "You're not getting me killed to save your father!" he snapped.
"There may be another way," Erek said, interrupting. "Give me the cell phone number. You hang up, dial the cell phone and I'll tap into the frequency. You call but don't speak. If your father picks up, I'll analyze the auditory data and we may be able to determine his location."
I didn't look at Marco. Couldn't. "Good. Great." I gave Erek the number, hung up and redialed my father's cell phone number.
It rang once.
Twice.
My hands were shaking.
Marco was staring at me, eyes narrowed. His body was tense, ready to snatch the receiver if I as much as opened my mouth.
I closed my eyes, willing my father to answer.
Praying it wasn't too late

blogspots

2005-07-14T10:32:00.000+08:00

these are other blogspots:

www.nat11.blogspot.com
www.nathotstuff.blogspot.com
www.schoolhouse2005.blogspot.com
www.marc9879.blogspot.com
www.tuffguy6230.blogspot.com

the other kids

2005-04-28T09:16:00.000+08:00

here are the profiles...... ( Some other not important imformation of the same things in the other sections like Jake, Cassie etc....)

Cassie

PERSONALITY
Perceptive, caring, compassionate
Focused, levelheaded
FAMILY
Lives on a farm
Dad, John, vet on the farm
Mom, Alisha, zoo vet
Only child, many pets
SPECIALTY MORPH
Wolf
HOBBIES
Animals, animals, animals!
NICKNAMES
Earth Mother
ATTITUDE
Loyal, empathetic
Got to do what you got to do
CLOSEST FRIEND
Rachel
TRADEMARK
Best morpher of the group
CAREER GOAL
Zoo vet
MORPH ADVICE
"Wear a skintight leotard!"
Cassie books -

Message
Secret
Unknown
Departure
Suspicion
Sickness

Marco

PERSONALITY
Cute
Charming
Witty
Smart
Sarcastic
FAMILY
Dad, Jeremy, engineer/night maintainance
Mom, Laura, presumed dead
Only child
SPECIALTY MORPH
Gorilla
HOBBIES
Anything video
Thrill rides
Hanging with Jake
Giving Rachel a hard time
FAVORITE SAYING
"Are you INSANE!!"
ATTITUDE
Whatever
CLOSEST FRIEND
Jake
TRADEMARK
Came up with the name "Animorphs"
BEST TRAIT
Great sense of humor
MORPH ADVICE
"Kids -- don't try this at home!"

Jake

PERSONALITY
Strong, leader type
Cool under fire
FAMILY
Dad, Greg, pediatrician
Mom, Nikki, writer
Tom, brother, human-Controller
Rachel, cousin, Animorph
SPECIALTY MORPH
Siberian tiger
HOBBIES
Video games
Sports
NICKNAMES
Prince Jake
Fearless leader
ATTITUDE
Take responsibility
Take charge, when necessary
CLOSEST FRIEND
Marco
CAREER GOALS
Navy pilot, M.D.
CRUSH
Cassie
MORPH ADVICE
"Forget shoes. Stay cool."

Rachel

PERSONALITY
Smart
Adventurous
Headstrong
FAMILY
Dad, Dan, TV news weatherman
Mom, Naomi, lawyer
Parents divorced
Sara, younger sister
Jake, cousin, Animorph
SPECIALTY MORPH
African elephant
HOBBIES
Gymnastics
NICKNAMES
Ms. Fashion
ATTITUDE
Take no prisoners
CLOSEST FRIEND
Cassie
BEST TRAIT
Courage
MORPH ADVICE
"Keep your focus."

PERSONALITY
Straightforward
Brilliant
No sense of humor (but funny, anyway)
SPECIALTY MORPH
Human (a combination of DNA from Jake, Rachel, Cassie, and Marco)
NICKNAMES
Ax-man
Horse-boy

About Tobias

2005-04-28T09:01:00.000+08:00

Wanna know about Tobias? Well.... I got the profiles about him....

PERSONALITY
A paradox: a thoughtful human mind trapped in the body of a red-tailed hawk, but also a bird of prey
Thoughtful
A dreamer
FAMILY
Parents presumed dead
Various aunts and uncles on both coasts
SPECIALTY MORPH
Red-tailed hawk
HOBBIES
Reading
Hanging at the mall playing video games
NICKNAMES
Chicken legs
ATTITUDE
Caring and instinctive
CLOSEST FRIENDS
Rachel
Ax, Elfangor's younger brother, an aristh
DIET
As a hawk -- mice, rabbits and other small animals
MORPH ADVICE
"Take it from me, two hours, max."

Ax

2005-04-18T06:50:00.000+08:00

( Some of the facts that I am giving you now are in the section " The other kids " and " About Tobias " Thank You. )

Ax: The Alien

After Ax's Dome Ship lost a battle above planet earth to the Yeerks, Ax's part of the ship was jettisoned, and crash-landed in the Atlantic Ocean, where the Animorphs found and rescued him.

He is a valuable member of the Animorphs' team, because he knows more about the Yeerks and alien technology than anyone else.
Full name: Aximili-Esgarrouth-Isthill
Family: his parents (Noorlin-Sirinial-Cooraf and Forlay-Esgarrouth-Maheen) and his brother (Elfangor-Sirinial-Shamtul.)
Secret: Tobias is his nephew (Ax doesn't know this yet)
Favorite Earth Foods: Chocolate, cinnamon buns, spicy chili.
Oddball Fact: While in human morph, he enjoys trying out different "human mouth sounds."

Marco

2005-04-18T06:38:00.000+08:00

Marco: The Joker

In the face of strife and warfare, Marco always has a joke to tell.

His motto is that there is a humorous side to anything.

Marco was reluctant about joining Animorphs, until he discovered that his mother, who was once presumed dead, is a Human-Controller.
Age: around 12 or 13
Family: his parents.
Hobbies: sports, video games
Secret: his mother is not in fact dead, but is Visser One, one of the top leaders of the Yeerk Empire.
Oddball fact: Marco enjoys teasing Rachel.

Tobias

2005-04-18T06:36:00.000+08:00

Tobias: The Nothlit

A few days after he became an Animorph, Tobias stayed in hawk morph for longer than two hours, thereby trapping himself and becoming a nothlit.

Surprisingly, Tobias doesn't seem to mind so much being trapped as a hawk.

To him, living as a hawk and being able to morph back to human form occasionally is better than the life he had before, being shuttled back and forth between relatives.
Age: around 12 or 13
Family: his father (Elfangor), his mother (Loren), his aunt and uncle, and his uncle (Ax).
Pets: Dude (a cat)
Hobbies: drawing, daydreaming, dinosaurs.
Secret: he has a crush on Rachel.
Oddball fact: He knows more about dinosaurs than the people on Jurassic Park .
Nickname: "bird boy"

Rachel

2005-04-18T06:35:00.000+08:00

Rachel: The Warrior

Rachel is the warrior in the Animorphs.

While Jake outlines a plan of what to do, Rachel is the one who says,"let's do it!" Always energized and aggressive, she is a direct contradiction to her blonde haired, fashion model appearance.
Age: around 13 or 14
Family: her divorced parents, her sisters Jordan and Sara, and Jake who is her cousin.
Hobbies: shopping
Secret: she has a crush on Tobias.
Nickname: "Xena, Warrior Princess."

Cassie

2005-04-18T06:31:00.000+08:00

I gat facts about Cassie. Check it out:

Cassie: The peacemaker

Cassie is passive and peaceful, the opposite of her best friend Rachel.

She wishes there was a non-violent way to defeat the Yeerks, although she knows that this is not possible.

Cassie is often the one who stops an argument and tries to help reconcile both sides.
Age: around 12 or 13
Family: her two parents
Pets: all the animals at the Wildlife Rehabilitation Clinic
Hobbies: animals
Secret: she has a crush on jake
Nickname: "Tree-hugger"

Jake

2005-04-16T20:11:00.000+08:00

Jake
Jake is the leader of the Animorphs. Jake is the responcible one. He is a quick thinker and a generally calm person. He rarely ever gets angry, but when he does he never yells. Jake has had to grow up alot since becoming an Animorph. He has faced a lot of horrible situations and has seen a lot of things. But unlike the other Animorphs Jake also has to worry about making the life threatening decisions that come with being the leader. His decisions could wind up him or getting one of his friends killed, and Jake must deal with that evryday. Jake has matured a lot over the coarse of the series. He started out as a reluctant hero who unwittingly became team leader nd is now a serious, no-nonsence, and hard nosed commander. Jake was always a serious person and had a hard time relaxing and cutting loose, but now he's even more serious than before and is totally dedicated to leading the Animrphs to victory. Marco is Jakes best friend. The two are totally opposite whn it come to being laid back; Marco being a totally relaxed and fun-loving guy and Jake being almost uptight. Marco always encourages Jake to cut loose and have a little fun and Jkae usually doesn't want to. Rachel is Jakes cousin and Rachel's best friend Cassie is Jake's girlfriend. Cassie and Jake started out as two people who liked eacother but never really expressed there feelings beyond holding hands or smiling at eachother in the hall, but have since taken there relationship to a new level and are officially calling themselves a couple. Jake's brother Tom is a Controller, meaning he has a Yeerk in his head. Jake has pretty much come terms with this fact but Jake is determined beyond anything to free Tom and destroy the Yeerk enslaving him. Jake's mom is a writer and his dad is a pediatrician. He has a dog named Homer, who was also his first morph. Jake has had two death's in the coarse of the series. ahais great grandfater, Grandpa G passed away and Jake went away to prepare for the funeral and ended up stopping Tom from making their dad into a Controller. He and Rachel's cousin also died He was hit by a car and went to the hospital, but this was around the same time that the Animorphs had adopted a new member into their fold named David who turned ot to be a traitor. David had morped their cousin while he was in the hospital in order to have a new identity so the Yerrks wouldn't find him. David hid the cousin away and he eventually died. Luckily David was caught and stopped by the Animorphs but were unable to save their cousin. Jake morphs a siberian tiger in battle, which to a degree represents Jake well. Like the tiger jake is quick witted, smart, and can be very dangerous when need be. Jake's bird morph is a peregine falcon.

Animorhs: The second coming-New friends

2005-04-16T18:52:00.000+08:00

How bout reading a story? Read this.

Chapter 1

My name is Tom. I guess it's a normal enough name - if you're from Earth. But here, it really sticks out. 'Here' would be the Andalite Homeworld. How did I end up here? Well, I'm sure you're heard of the Animorhs, five human kids and one Andalite kid who had the power to morph into any animal they touch and used that power to fight brainstealing slugs called yeerks? Well, once they finished fighting the yeerks on Earth, for some reason unknown to me, they came to live here. Now after came here, four decided to get married. Namely, Jake and Cassie then Rachel and Tobias. Of course, Prior to the marriage, Tobias relinquished his hawk form for good and became trapped in his human morph. Now, skip ahead a cuople of years and ......voila! They have kids. Jake and Cassie had twins, me and my sister Catara-Fitalia-Goroara. At about the same time, Rachel and Tobias had their first kid, the infamous Ritora-Fuloa-Maheen. She and Catara bacame fast friends, leaving me out in the cold. Boo-hoo. Alright, two years later Rachel and Tobias had another kid! Yes! A friend for me, right? Wrong. It's Ritora's highly insane and annoying kid sister, Jordan. The kid's a nutcase, believe me. Now you may be wondering whatever happened to the last two members of the Animorphs. Marco's living next door to me by hiself, but visits Dad practically every day, so he might as well be a member of the family. Now, what happened to Ax? Or Prince Aximili, as I know him. Yep, that's right. The council decided that he wasn't such a bad guy, restored his honor, and he's worked his way up the ranks to become Prince Aximili-Esgarouth-Isthill. And so the Animorphs and Andalites lived together in a happy, utopian society for a while. Us kids grow up to be teenagers who have also been given morphing powers so we'll fit in better. Then, insert dramamtic music here, disaster strikes. Turns out, the Andalites and Animorphs didn't totally destroy the yeerks as originally thought. Nope, now they've decided to come wreak havoc on us over here at the Andalite Homeworld. So, guess who're the new recruits to fight? You guessed it, the only humans on the planet with the power morph. Us. Why wasn't the military drafted? Their forces are spread too thin just trying to protect the planet from an all out invasion to worry about ground troops. But, we do get help from Prince Aximili, not as much as we used to, but some. We have to be careful now, yeerks are taking Andalite hosts now. Meaning, any one we meet could be a yeerk. There is one Andalite we trust though. Prince Aximili's younger brother, Abata-Elfangor-Aximili. He's one of us. Slightly weird at times, and highly annoying with his Andalite superiority complex, but he's pretty cool. But, we also have an informant who can't be taken by the yeerks. Tellay-Mator-Calla of the shape shifting race, the Zupas. A very odd group of aliens, of course, I probably shouldn't be talking since to the Andalites I'm a very odd alien, that were practically destroyed when the yeerks attacked their planet. We've done a pretty good job fighting the yeerks so far. We've destroyed their first ground based kandrona. We've found 'good yeerks' on Earth and used a weapon they gave us to fry a bunch of yeerks. And we've met our handy informant, Tellay. So, we figured we deserved a break. But could the forces of the galaxy leave it at that? Could a bunch of human kids just sit back and relax for one weekend? Of course not. A major war just had to break out, didn't it?
chapter2
I was lounging on the couch, snacking on some pop corn, watching a really cheap movie from Earth on our TV. We, Mom, Dad, Aunt Rachel, Uncle Tobias, Marco, Ritora, Jordan, Catara and me, visited Earth about a month ago and we picked up a TV while we were there. Due to highly advanced Andalite technology, we can pick up Earth TV channels, and no monthly fees! Anyway, I was relaxing on the couch watching the cheesy movie. Mom was out with Aunt Rachel and the girls doing...someting. Girl stuff. I don't understand it. Uncle Tobias and Marco were upstairs with Dad in his study doing...something. Again, stuff I don't understand. They're adults, they don't care if I understand what's going on or not. Suddenly, when I was about to fall asleep from the sheer boringness of the movie, I heard my dad and the guys start shouting upstairs. "Oh, my God!" "How the heck did it happen?" "How long has it been going on?" I leapt from my place on the couch and ran up the stairs two at a time. I put my ear to the door to listen. A feminine voice: "We need your help, guys." Uncle Tobias: "What can we do? We're billions of miles apart!" The woman: "A few of us who oppose the war, and even some of us who are for it, have decided that this is no place for the children. We want to get them to safety, but there's no place for them on Earth. We've managed to obtain a small ship we could use to send the kids away from here, but we need to be sure they'd be welcome where we want to send them. Can we send them to you?" Dad: "We don't have much room here. But I'm sure Rachel and Marco would be more than happy to take some kids in as well. We should have enough room for all of them." The Woman: "Thanks alot, Jake. Speaking of Rachel, how's she doing? I tried reaching her at her house, but nobody was there." Marco: "Oh, she's as crazy as ever," he laughed, "She's out with Cassie and the girls doing...stuff. What're they doing again, Tobias?" Uncle Tobias: "I'm not exactly sure. Rachel rarely ever tells me what exactly she's doing when it involves her and the girls." The woman laughed, "That sounds like Rachel. Will you tell her I called?" Dad: "Of course, Melissa. Should I tell her to call you?" After a moment the woman, Melissa, answered, "Yeah, it should be alright. Communications aren't being monitored too heavily in this area." "Alright, Melissa. Talk to you later," I heard the sound of a communication panel being flipped down. Then Dad spoke, "Well, I guess I'd better go tell Tom we'll be having house guests soon." Before I could move away from the door, Dad opened it and I fell forward onto his feet. I looked up, embarrased, "Um. Hi, Dad! Uh, What's up?" Dad glared at me, but Marco just laughed, "Eavsdropping again, young Tom?" "Um. No?" Uncle Tobias laughed, "Yeah, right. Get up, Tom." "So, how much of that conversation did you happen to over hear, Tom?" Dad asked as I got to my feet. "Some woman named Melissa is gonna send a bunch of kids from Earth over here to escape some war thing. Why's there a war on Earth, Dad? I haven't read anything about a war brewing in news pads lately." "I'll explain it when your mother and the sister get home." "Hey, Guys! We're back!" Mom shouted up the stairs. "Hey, Mom!" I jumped down the stairs. "Everybody go sit on the couch, Dad's got some stuff ta' tell ya' about." Mom looked concerned, "What's going on, Jake?" "Bad news," Dad said as he sat down on the couch next to Mom. Everyone looked at him expectantly, except for Uncle Tobias and Marco, who already knew what was going on. "There's a sort of war going on on Earth." " 'Sort of' war?" Aunt Rachel asked. "Well, it's more of a world wide protest right now, but it's going to be a full scale war soon if something isn't done about it." "Get on with it, Uncle Jake," Jordan said impatiently. "What's this thing all about?" "Alright. A new leader has come into office in North America. He's not on the World Council, at least not yet. But he's started an "Earth for Humans" movement. Apparantly, a minority of people on Earth, North America, especially, have become nervous about the growing Andalite population. Now, with this power hungry guy in control of North America, he's raised the practically miniscule ammount of Andalite Protesters in North America to a world wide protest." "What's so wrong with Andalites being on Earth?" Ritora asked. "Everyone seemed fine with the Andalites when we visited." "As I said, only a small ammount of people had a problem with the Andalites untill recently. What people are upset about are rising prices on food, and a few radicals are saying that if the yeerks could have infested people by the handful and infiltrate our society with ease, why couldn't the Andalites do the same?" "That's outrageous!" Aunt Rachel shouted. "The Andalites wouldn't do that! Those people are idiots." "Anyways. Melissa Chapman called me today and said she and a few other people are gathering some children together and want to send them someplace safe untill all this blows over. She wanted to know if the kids would be safe here." "How many kids?" Mom asked. "Let's see...There's Melissa's son, her neice and nephew and her friends two daughters. Five kids all together. "We could take two, Rachel and Tobias could take two, and Marco could take one," Mom suggested, " It shouldn't be two much trouble. After all, how long could this last?" "Hold it," I interupted, "Has anybody thought about asking us about this? I mean, we're the ones who're gonna be affected by these new kids." "Alright, Tom. Catara. Ritora. Jordan. What do you guys think about bringing the kids here?" Mom asked. "Sounds cool to me," Ritora said. Jordan and Catara agreed. Everyone looked expectantly at me, "I don't have a problem with them coming. I just wanted to make sure you didn't forget about us." "Alright, then," Dad said, "Rachel? Why don't you call Melissa back. She wanted to talk to you in the first place. Find out when they'll be coming and stuff. We'll meet back here in an hour and make the plans for them."
Chapter 3
"A week?!" Dad asked when we were all back in the living room. Rachel nodded her head, "Yep. One week. It's a slow transport, by our standards, and they've already been on there for two days. Things have been kind of hectic around Melissa's and her communications network was just repaired today, but they couldn't waste anytime in getting the kids away." "How come?" Marco asked, "I mean, didn't Melissa say nothing really bad was happening in her area?" "Not much is going on around her house, but her neice and nephew are from out of town. From a big city. And the riots are awful in big cities like New York, San Francisco, Paris, London." She pulled a couple pads out of her pocket, "She sent me some pictures of the riots, take a look" She handed one to Dad and Mom, one to Marco and one for both Catara and I. The scenes were awful. They were digitized newspaper articles, so there were captions under the pictures. "Outraged mobs outside the North America Capitol Building beat anyone thought to be an Andalite in morph," I read. "The death toll from such beatings are over 100," Catara read in shock. "Those are some of the nicer pictures Melissa sent," Ritora said quietly. "There are worse ones?" Dad asked in disgust. Jordan nodded grimly. Mom quietly set down the pad. "Well,then. I'm glad Melissa did send the kids quickly. Let's get those rooms ready."
Mom, Dad, Catara and I spent the rest of the afternoon cleaning up one of our two spare rooms. When Catara and I were younger, it was our playroom, but now it was just a room where a bunch of old toys were getting dusty. We were going to clean our so called "guest room" tomorrow. It really isn't a guest room. It has a bed and a chair in it. The floor isn't even carpeted. But it'd due for awhile. The living arrangements were going to be as follows: We would get Melissa's neice and nephew, Ritora and Jordan would get Melissa's son, since Melissa was one of Aunt Rachel's close friends, and one of Melissa's friend's daughter, who fortunatly is one of her son's best friends. Marco would take Melissa's friend's last daughter. The week seemed to fly by. We were all busy, either cleaning or the adults were sending us kids out to find some food--either getting berries and junk from the forest, or flying out to see Prince Aximili to give him our food order. We have to give him a list of the food we need once a week since there aren't exactly any grocery stores here. Andalites eat by absorbing nutrients through there hooves, which explains the lack of McDonalds'. After a week of nervous anticipation, the day had arrived. The cupboards were stocked to the brim with various food items and our hoses had never been so clean--especially Marco's. Ritora, Jordan, Catara and I strained to see over the crowd of Andalites at the spaceport before we saw a glimpse of long red hair. "Hey, Dad? I think I might have seen one of 'em," I said. "Where?" "Right over..."I pointed where I had seen the red hair, "They were there just a second ago. I saw somebody with long red hair. And last time I checked, the only species around here with red hair were humans, unless some Andalites grew their hair out and dyed it red." "Um. Excuse me? Would any of you happened to be Rachel?" We turned around to see a group of five kids, all about Catara's and my age, except for one girl, she looked to be about Jordan's age. "Yeah, I'm Rachel," Aunt Rachel told the group, "Would I be correct in assuming that you're Sondra?" The girl--Sondra--nodded, "Yep, I'm Sondra, this is Lindsey," she pointed to the younger girl, "That's Julie and Kevin, the twins, and lastly David." Both Catara and I arched our eyebrows, "Twins?" we asked in unison. Julie and Kevin were giving us the same look. "Well, why don't we introduce ourselves, then we can head home," Mom said, "I'm Cassie, this is my husband, Jake. Catara and Tom are our two kids. You've already met Rachel, Tobias is her husband and their two kids are Ritora and Jordan. Jordan's probably about your age, Lindsey." Lindsey smiled shyly. "So, how we gonna get to your house?" David asked, "You gonna morph somethin' and carry us there?" Dad shook his head, "We're close enough to walk." Besides I added silently, as far as you know, they're the only ones who can morph. We'd decided not to let on to the new kids that we could morph just yet. Security precaution and stuff. We walked most of the way home in silence. The adults tried to get us into a conversation, but they always ended after a couple sentances. Us kids were trying to size each other up. The new kids were very suspicious and kept giving us suspicious glances. Except Sondra. Sondra was very bouncy tried to join in conversations. I'd pretty much figured out who was related to who. David was Melissa's son. Sondra and Lindsey were the kid's of Melissa's friend. Julie and Kevin were Melissa's neice and nephew. Interesting how that worked out, huh? The twins end up staying with us, and the girl who's the exact same age as Jordan gets ta' stay with her. Normally, Sondra would have stayed with her sister, but David wanted to get to know Rachel, and Sondra thought Marco was interesting, and somebody who'd get most of her jokes. Once we were back to our houses, we worked on getting everybody settled. Julie and Kevin hadn't brought much stuff, just one small bag each. They each had a couple changes of clothes, and a book each, so it didn't take long to get their stuff unpacked. After unpacking came the real test. Dinner. We were eating dinner by ourselves for once. Just Mom, Dad, Catara, Julie, Kevin and I were there. Mom had made pizza. Not as good as the stuff we had on Earth, but it was decent. Julie and Kevin didn't say anything, but you could tell from their expression that the pizza didn't live up to their expectations. "So. Why don't you two tell us a bit about yourselves and how stuff's going back home," Dad said, trying to start a conversation. Kevin was busy trying to disconnect a string of cheese from his pizza, so Julie answered. "It's horrible back home. We were shipped out of a space port near Aunt Melissa's, and it was amazing how calm it was out there. We're from just outside New York, and it's absolutly horrible out there. Mom made us stop going to school about a month ago. "Darn," Kevin said sarcastically after finally breaking the cheese string. "And we couldn't even go outside of our house to get the mail. We had to stay inside, and away from windows whenever possible." We were all shocked. "But, on a lighter note, not every place is that bad. It's only really bad in big cities." "What's this whole revolution thing about?" Catara asked. "Don't tell me it's just about rising food prices." "It's not," Julie replied. "At least, I don't think it is. I'm not quite sure what's going on with some of those people. I don't see what's wrong with having Andalites back home. But, I suppose all it takes is one person to have a grudge against Andalites to set off these riots." "Anyway. Enough about the riots and such. Tell us about yourselves," Mom said. Kevin finally looked up from his pizza to answer. "We're 14 years old, live just outside New York City, and I'm older than Julie." "You are not!" "Am so!" "Are not! I was born a minute before you!" "Yeah, right." Over their arguing, I heard Dad whisper to Mom, "Remind you of anybody you know?" Mom smiled. I stuck my tongue out at Dad so he knew I'd heard him. "Anyway," Catara interupted. "What kinda stuff do you guys like?" "Julie's into Dinosaur music," Kevin said. Julie sighed, "I can say stuff for myself, you know. And it's not dinosaur music you skalop. It's called classic music." I raised an eyebrow at Julie, "Skalop?" "Skalop. Idiot. Dimwit. Jerk. Younger Brother," she explained, glaring at Kevin. Catara laughed, "Yep, those sound like good definitions of a younger brother. Hey, Classic Music wouldn't happen to also be called oldies, would it?" Julie wrinkled her nose, "Yeah, but it sounds so dumb that way." "I love that music!" Catara explained. "You have some?" Julie asked incredulously. "We have been to Earth before." "Cool! Can we listen to 'em later?" "Sure!" "What kind of stuff do you like, Kevin," Dad asked. "Eating and watching TV," Julie answered. "I can say stuff for myself you know," Kevin replied, imitating his sister. "I like to watch TV, play sports, video games, stuff like that." "What kind of TV?" I asked. "Anything. But especially sci-fi and sports." Now it was my turn to be confused, "Sci-fi?" "You've never heard of Sci-Fi? Science Fiction?" "Our lives are sci-fi, Kevin," Mom said gently. Both Catara and I were confused, "What the heck is Science Fiction?" "It's...It's...fiction that has some stuff rooted in science," Kevin explained weakly. Both Catara and I nodded, as if we understood, but I don't think either of us did. "Well, we've got a TV, maybe we could find some...sci-fi," I suggested. "Cool!" We spent the rest of dinner telling eachother about ourselves. Kevin and Julie weren't that bad. In fact, they were practically perfect matches for us. Same age, same likes. Yeah, they're cool. I could get used to living with them.
Chapter 4
The next day, Catara and I went over to Ritora and Jordan's. Ritora had called a meeting of some sort. When Ritora calls a meeting, that usually means we're gonna do something stupidly dangerous. I hate danger. We were all up in her bedroom. We still weren't completely trusting of our new arrivals, and the less they knew about our fight, the better. "What stupid, dangerous, suicidal thing do you want us to do now? As far as I've heard, the yeerks have been quiet. No more kandronas, no more yeerk pool entrances, no more blowing up ships in space. What's the problem?" I asked. "The problem is, is that the yeerks are too quiet," Ritora answered. "What? How can they be 'too quiet'?" I asked, probably louder than I should have. Catara grabbed my arm and told me to be quiet, "We don't need our guests hearing you sound like an idiot." "Too late," Jordan taunted, "He's opened his mouth around them. They already know he's an idiot." "Ha ha." "The point is," Ritora continued, "is that the yeerks are still here. There are ships in orbit, and there's machinery way back deep in the forest. Meaning, that they're still here. And quiet yeerks equal trouble for us." "So everytime the yeerks take a breather, we're going to jump them?" I asked. "Yep." "I hate my life." "No you don't," Jordan said. "Without the yeerks, all you'd get to do is sit around in front of the TV all day." "That wouldn't be a problem for Tom," Catara said with a laugh, "Definetly not a problem." She turned to Ritora, "So, what're we gonna do now?" "Just some night flying over the forest. Just trying to see if we can find signs of the yeerks." "Oh, yeah. Our new friends aren't going to think it's too weird for us to be sneaking out in the middle of the night." "That's why we're going to be quiet about it," Ritora told me. "Uh-huh. Sure. Then I guess the kid's gonna be staying home through all these missions?" "Ha ha," Jordan replied. "We're all going on every mission. First one's tonight. We're going to morph owl about midnight, fly out a ways, maybe even morph agbs and see if there's anything going on below the trees. We'll cover one section of the forest each night untill we've either found yeerks, or can confirm the fact that the yeerks have moved out of here." Ritora said. "Oh, joy. Another late night mission. How am I supposed to get my beauty sleep?" I complained. "You'd have to sleep a couple millenia to see any improvment in your 'beauty'," Jordan teased. Ritora threw up her hands in exasperation, "Can we say two sentances with out you two picking on each other?!" Catara calmed her best friend, "They're both younger siblings, Ritora. They feel they need to do something to get attention." "I do not!" Jordan and I said in unison. Ritora and Catara broke into a fit of giggles. "Alright, that's it. I'm not going to stay in a room of giggling girls. I'm going back home, maybe Kevin's found something good on TV," I said as I left the room. "Remember, midnight!" Ritora called after me.
Chapter 5
I spent the rest of the day watching TV with Kevin. Not much was on, but watching TV was better than hanging out with the girls. At exactly midnight, I crept out of my bedroom and out the front door to meet Ritora and Jordan. As I was walking down the stairs, I could have sworn I heard the door from one of the bedrooms open and close, but it must have been my imagination. Catara was already out there, and Kevin and Julie were out cold. Still, I kept looking over my shoulder all the way across the lawn untill I was over in Ritora's front yard. "What's the matter, Tom? Boogey Man after you?" Jordan teased when she saw me look over my shoulder for the fifth time in as many minutes. "No, it's just...never mind," I said. "Can we get on with this?" Ritora asked crankily. She gets cranky when she loses a bit of sleep. Yet she's the one who makes us go on these stupid late night/early morning missions. She's as nuts as her sister. I concentrated on the owl morph I'd acquired early on. I felt the familiar shrinking sensation. My eyes grew larger till they took up most of the room on my face, except for where my nose and mouth were melting together to form a fierce beak. My skin became brown and gray, then formed feather paterns. But they didn't become actual feathers not yet. First my arms lengthened. My fingers melted together to form wings. My toes melted together, then split apart to become talons. After I was totally owl, the drawn on feather patterns became real feathers. I streatched my wings a couple times, ready to take off. Just beneath my conciousness, I felt the mind of the owl. It wasn't full of fear, like an agb, but it wasn't cocky like a kafit bird. It was just sort of there. <> Ritora said. I flapped my wings, and flew off above the houses, over the forest.
Chapter 6
We spent almost our full two hours scanning an area of the forest approximatly 3 miles square. No sign of the yeerks. In other words, a totally pointless mission when I could have been sleeping. Once again, as I crept up the stairs as quietly as I could, I thought I heard one of the guest rooms being opened and closed quickly. This time it probably was just Catara going into her room. What felt like way too early that morning, Dad was knocking at my door, telling me someone was here to see me. I was too asleep to hear who. I smoothed my hair into place, got dressed, and walked down the stairs slowly. Ritora was standing with Catara in the living room. "Oh no," I said when I saw her there. "Hey, Tom. Wanna go out with us?" The tone in her voice was to light and cheerful to be serious. Something was up. "Sure. Why not?" I followed them out the back door and a little ways into the woods where Jordan and Abata were waiting. "What's this all about?" I asked when nobody volunteered any information. "They're on to us?" Ritora stated. "Who's on to us?" I asked, still too tired to have my brain function properly. "Lindsey and David and the rest of the new kids." "How do you know?" "Well, we don't," Jordan said, "But both Ritora and I think we heard them opening the doors of their rooms, and then they closed just before we got there." I nodded, "The same thing happened to me last night, but I figured it was either Catara or my imagination." "We can't cancel our missions. We need to keep looking for the yeerks, but we need to be extra careful tonight," Ritora said. "Maybe later we'll be able to tell them who and what we are, but I don't trust these guys yet." I yawned, "Yeah, yeah. Sounds good. Can I go back to bed now?" Jordan stared at me in disdain, "It's almost noon. You're still tired?" "Well, I seem to remember having to stay up untill two A.M. to look for non existant yeerks." "Oh, stop complaining, Tom and go back home to bed," Catara told me. "Tell Mom and Dad I'm gonna hang out with Ritora and Jordan for awhile. And if you see Sondra or Julie, tell them to go over to Ritora's. Us girls are all gonna hang out this afternoon." "Yeah, sure." I turned around and went back home. I spent the rest of the day zoned out in front of the TV. I faintly remember Kevin coming in and trying to get me to talk, but I guess it isn't much fun to talk to a zombie. I wouldn't know. I've never tried. Against my better judgement, we went back out at midnight to look for the yeerks. We stayed out for almost four hours this time. Of course, we demorphed after about an hour and a half. And, probably just to spite us, there weren't any signs of yeerks in the forest. Around noon, both Catara and I came stumbling out of our rooms for breakfeast...or lunch. But before we could make it to the dining room, Julie and Kevin stopped us and wouldn't let us pass. "Before you two do anything, you're coming outside with us," Kevin stated. "Why?" I asked, stifling a yawn. "Just do it," Julie said. "Jordan's already out there, and Ritora's getting your Andalite friend. Abata, right?" Catara and I just stared at each other. The new kids had definetly been spying on us. We hadn't told them about having Andalite friends, much less Abata's name. If they knew we hung out with Abata, they probably knew we could morph too. We obidiently followed Julie and Kevin out into the woods where Jordan, Sondra and Lindsey were already waiting. "Catara? Do you have any idea what's going on?" Jordan asked. Catara wiped some of the sleep from her eyes. Normally I would have been glad to see somebody else suffering from our constantly interupted sleep, but I was just confused right now. "I know absolutly nothing. I just woke up about five minutes ago." Just then, Ritora came walking up with Abata. "Now would you mind explaining what's going on to us?" Ritora asked in a voice clearly saying she was ready to morph her chatma, her power morph, and teach these kids with way too much attitude a lesson. "We know you can morph," Julie stated simply. "And we want to know why that was kept a secret from us." One by one, we all looked at Ritora. She was probably the only one who knew why we had kept it a secret. "Because...we had to," Ritora said after a moment. "Oh, yeah, that explains alot, Ritora. 'We had to,' I'm glad we have you here to explain things so clearly for us," I mocked. "I'm afraid I have to agree with Tom on that one, Ritora," Sondra said, "What's the real reason you never told us?" "It wasn't safe to," Jordan said. "Why wasn't it?" Lindsey questioned. "Because if we said one wrong word, made one wrong move, we'd be hosts right now," Ritora said. "You thought you couldn't trust us?" Julie asked. "It was an extra precaution. We were going to tell you after a couple weeks, maybe sooner if the need arose. We knew we wouldn't be able to keep sneaking out of the house with out you guys knowing it forever," Catara said, seeming more awake now. "Was I the only one who didn't get this?" I asked in frustration. Jordan grinned at me mockingly, "Yep." "I think it was an aragat reason not to tell us," Kevin said. "Aragat? Oh, no, not more Earth slang!" I moaned. "Aragat would mean what?" "Stupid." "You people come up with the strangest words for simple phrases." "How come you guys have been sneaking out around midnight every night? Where are you going?" Julie questioned. Ritora gave her sister a momentary helpless look,"We...well...look, can we talk to our parents first? They're the experts on this sort of thing." The new kids all looked at each other, and, in silent agreement, agreed to let us talk to them. As we walked back to the house, Animorphs walking a couple feet ahead of the new kids, we whispered back and forth to each other. "Did anybody else feel like they were being interogated for a major trial?" I asked. "Yeah, you'd think we'd done something wrong," Jordan whispered back. When we got back to our houses, we met with Aunt Rachel, Uncle Tobias, Mom, Dad and Marco in Ritora's and Jordan's house. The other kids went and hung out in our house. "What's up?" Rachel asked when she saw the worried looks on our faces. "They know," Ritora said simply. "What?" Dad asked. "They know we can morph, and they know we hang out with Abata," Catara explained. "They've seen us the past two nights when we've gone out yeerk hunting." "That's why they wanted to meet all of you out in the woods?" Mom asked. We all nodded our heads. "What are we supposed to do?" Jordan asked, "Are we supposed to tell them our life story? Say, 'Nope, sorry. The yeerks aren't gone, they're alive and kicking and trying to take over the planet. You're not any safer here than you were back on Earth,'?" Marco got up and brought back a personal communications panel. He pushed a few buttons, and soon Prince Aximili's face appeared on the screen. "Hello, Marco. Jake, Cassie, Rachel, Tobias. Is something wrong?" The communications panel translated Prince Aximili's thought speak into regular speach. "Hey, Ax-Man. You know those kids that came here from Earth? Remember how you warned us not to let them onto the kid's secret? They found out on their own," Marco said. "This is a problem."
Chapter 7
"Yeah, you could say that," Marco said. "What are we supposed to do?" Ritora asked, stepping up behind Marco. "They've seen us the past two nights going out on spy missions. They've seen us with Abata. They've seen us morph, and now they're demanding to know why we didn't tell them." "Bring the children here. I shall help explain to them why the could not be told." "Thanks, Prince Aximili." "Alright, let's go get those pain-in-the-butt new kids," I said. Half an hour later, Ritora, Jordan, Catara and I were all morphed and carrying a kid. It would have taken forever to walk as humans to the base, and it would have been much quicker to fly, but they were all too big to be carried by birds. So, we morphed our power morphs and were running towards the base. Ritora, in her lion-like chatma morph was carrying David. Jordan's morph was a day glo orange and yellow spiked gorilla sort of animal called a kear, she was carrying Lindsey. Catara was this huge blue reptile called a meader and carried Kevin and Julie. I was carrying Sondra in my vuri morph. It's kind of like an Earth wolf, but shorter and stockier. It makes up for that by being incredibly fast and a really long snout with hundreds of sharp pointy teeth. Not an animal you want to get in a fight with. After running for about half an hour, we entered the perimeter of the military base where Prince Aximili was waiting. Sondra juped lightly off my back and started looking around in awe while I demorphed. The green fur melted together and became my own skin. The sharp vuri eyes dimmed and became my pathetically weak human eyes. My ears slid down the sides of my head and went from being pointy and furry, to being round and smooth. My snout started to melt back into my face. My mouth became itchy as teeth disapeared or became blunt. Finally, I was pretty much human, except my knees were the wrong direction. With a sickening lurch, they switched directions and I stood up. <> Prince Aximili said simply when every one was demorphed, with the new kids looking slightly green. Morphing is always weird, and I imagine it always will be, and even I become slightly sick at the sight of one of my friends morphing. But you get kind of used to it after awhile. No more nightmares about morphing any more, at least. Prince Aximili led us through the base to his office. There were 9 chairs in there for us humans to sit in, a shelf where Prince Aximili kept some stuff, I don't know what, and Abata was in there, too. "Hey, Abata," I greeted him. <> Behind me, Lindsey giggled, "Hee hee, Prince Ritora. But you're a girl, Ritora!" I gave her a shove to get her to shut up. It's obvious Ritora's a girl, but even female warriors, once they reach prince or war prince status, are called 'prince'. And it makes sense. I mean, in the Earth military, are female generals 'generalettes'??? I didn't think so. Prince Aximili stood in front of us as we all sat down. <> They all nodded. <> When he said yeerk, you could practically feel the air vibrating in hatred. The new kids looked shocked when they heard this news. <> Aximili noted. "Heard of them?" David asked, "At least once a week we have to learn about them in history at school. I've heard of them waaaay too often." The others nodded in agreement. <> "So how come they can morph?" Kevin asked, pointing at us. <> "Why isn't your big, bad, superior Andalite military taking care of it?" Sondra asked. Prince Aximili looked down with his main eyes as if this was a subject he didn't like to talk about. But he did, <> Lindsey got a serious look on her face as if she were thinking very carefully, "Could we help them fight the yeerks?" I looked at her, "Fight the yeerks? You guys? All you know of the devastation the yeerks have caused is from pictures in your history books. We've all witnessed it first hand." "Oh, yeah, we've led a really sheltered life back there on Earth," Julie shot back. "Let's see, our parents cry at least once a day remembering loses from when the yeerks were on Earth. Loses that could have been prevented if your parents had--" Ritora, Jordan and I jumped up from our seats at the same time and glared at Julie, "Leave our parents out of this," Ritora said through clenched teeth. "If it weren't for our parents, you wouldn't be sitting here this very moment. Although perhaps that would be a good thing." <> Prince Aximili said loudly, <> We reluctantly sat down, but continued to glare at Julie as Prince Aximili stepped forawrd and stood in front of her. <> His face got a shadowed look, as if remembering horrors from his past. After a moment, he regained his composure, <> He looked to Lindsey, <> Prince brought down a plain blue box from a concealed place in the wall. The new kids wouldn't recognize it, but I knew instantly what it was. The blue box, also known as the Escafil devise, also known as the morphing cube. In short, Prince Aximili was planning on giving these inexpirienced, pushy kids the power to morph! <> Prince Aximili continued, <> We watched as the new kids, first Sondra, then Lindsey, then David, then Julie and finally Kevin, each placed a tenative hand on a side of the cube. It was weird watching them get that power. I mean, I was sure that they weren't responsible to use this power. Perhpas Sondra was, but the rest of them would probably go run off and try and defeat the yeerks single-handedly with kafit bird morphs! And yet...I don't know, some weird, irrational part of my mind thought perhaps maybe we'd be able to call on them in a pinch. As I said, it was an irrational part of my mind. there was no way we were going to ask these guys for help. After a moment, all five of them pulled back from the cube simultaniously, all looking kind of dazed. <> Everyone except Abata seemed confused. We were all wondering what Prince Aximili meant by that. Either Abata knew what was going on, or I'm just not really good at interpreting Andalite facial expressions. <> Prince Aximili promptly left the room. Ritora sighed and looked at the new kids dejectedly, "C'mon, let's go get you new kids a morph to fly home."
Chapter 8
We walked out of the base single file, Abata in the lead, Kevin bringing up the rear. When we were just outside the base, Ritora stepped out in front, "Okay, you can have an osprey, bald eagle or peregrine falcoln morph." "How can we get those morphs?" Sondra asked. "Those are all Earth birds, and in case ya' haven't noticed, this ain't Earth." "Hadn't noticed that yet, thanks for pointing that out to us," I said sarcastically. "You can acquire morphs from morphs." "I'll take a bald eagle," Kevin and Julie said in unison. "I'll have an osprey," David announced. "I'd like a peregrine falcoln," Lindsey said quietly. "I'll do that one, too," Sondra said. "Okay. Um, Tom, why don't you morph osprey. Both you and Jordan don't need to since only David is going to be acquiring the osprey." Jordan smirked at me as I concentrated on my osprey morph. My hair suddenly sank into my head, which was turning snow white and was being decorated with feather patterns. My nose and mouth hardened and started to push out into a hooked beak. My legs narrowed untill I could barely stand on them and my feet split into talons. Just as I was about to fall forward since my legs were too thin to support me, I shrank all the way down to the osprey's height. I was totally osprey, except for my wings, which were still human arms, really small arms, but arms. As everyone else finished morphing, my fingers quickly melted together and grew feathers. I was fully osprey. With my amazingly sharp osprey vision, I saw David step towards me and bent down to put his hand on my head. "Okay, now concentrate on acquiring the DNA. Concentrate on the bird you're acquiring. They'll go into a trance, and the DNA of the animal will become part of you." I watched as David closed his eyes to concentrate. I looked around and saw Lindsey standing in front of Catara, her eyes closed and concentrating. Kevin was do the same by Ritora. I waited to go into the acquiring trance, but it never came. <> "Of course I am!" he snapped. <> I asked. <> Catara said. <> <> Abata said. <> <> I said as I started to demorph. "So we have to go catch them a kafit bird so they can fly home," I continued as I changed from mostly bird to mostly human. It's not fun to catch a kafit bird. They're huge birds with wickedly sharp beaks. These are birds who spear they're prey as they're flying through the air. You do not want to get on their bad side. Ritora was thinking the same thing. As she emerged from her Bald Eagle morph, she asked, "Do you think you could get us one of those, Abata?" <> and he ran off into the near by woods to catch a kafit bird. "What's a kafit bird?" Julie asked. Catara looked up over the woods, "See that bright bird with six wings over there?" She pointed. "That's a kafit bird." The kids stared in awe as the bird speared a small bird in mid air, "You're sending Abata out to catch one of those things?" Kevin asked skeptically. "Hey, Abata's a lot tougher than he may look," I said. "Those birds know to avoid an Andalite with a tail. And they know that if one sneaks up on them, they do not move." Moments later, Abata returned with a surprisingly passive kafit in his weak Andalite arms. <> One by one, each of the kids acquired the bird. David, the last one to acquire it, finished just in time. The bird came to just as David was pulling his hand away and started snaping at him. Abata brought him back to the forest as we watched the kids start to morph. We wanted to watch them to be sure that the kafit bird's instincts didn't get the better of them. So we stepped back and watched the kids start their first morphs.
Chapter 9
We each chose a person to watch. I watched Kevin, Catara watched Julie, Jordan watched Lindsey, and Ritora watched both Sondra and David, since Abata was returning the kafit bird. Kevin suddenly started turning bright red and shrinking. As he shrank, his mouth hardened and pushed out to become the long, piercing beak of the kafit. Four extra wings bursted out of him as his arms melted and withered and became wings. His feet split and became talons, and his legs became yellow and scaly. After almost five minutes, everyone was finished morphing. They all looked at each other, then started screaching and flapping and trying to spear each other. "What the...hey, cut it out!" Jordan shouted. No response. "Hey, guys, you are human, remember that? Remember being human?" <> "Um...what he said. But in english. Meaning GET CONTROL OF YOUR MORPHS!" <> one of them asked as they slowly remembered that they were human, not kafit birds. "All of you got lost in the instincts of the kafit bird," Ritora explained, "It happens sometimes. Even if you're prepared for the instincts, sometimes they're so strong they over power your human conciousness." <> David... I think it was David, shouted. <> "David," Catara soothed, "It's alright. Everyone was overpowered. We were overpowered the first time we morphed kafit birds. Kafits are very hard animals to control, that's why we wanted you to have Earth bird morphs. You know them, and they're much easier to control." <> "Don't try flying off just yet. Wait for us to morph our birds and then we'll head home," Ritora instructed. I began to conctrate on my osprey morph again. The changes happened quickly, and soon all ten of us were in the sky.
Chapter 10
<> Sondra shouted. <> Ritora asked. This was getting annoying, we couldn't understand what these kids were saying half the time. They might as well be speaking a foreign language! <> Catara asked. Julie laughed giddily, <> We flew around for almost an hour and a half before heading home. Catara, Kevin, Julie and I demorphed on the front lawn and thundered into the house, laughing and talking, untill we saw the serious look on our parents' faces. "What's wrong?" Catara asked as Mom and Dad ushered all four of us into the living room. "Abata wouldn't happen to be with you, would he?" Mom asked, looking out the window. "No...he went home...why?" I asked. "Oh, nothing important. I'll leave it to his mother to tell him the news." "What news?" Julie asked impatiently. "We've been called to Earth," Dad stated simply. "Oh cool! We get to go back! That's awesome! Now, why do you two seem so tense?" I asked. "We're not all going, Tom," Mom explained gently. Catara can calm people so easily because she inherrited that talent from Mom. "Just the adults, and Abata, are going." "And why?" "The leader of the Earth government contacted us this afternoon, just half an hour ago," Dad said, sitting down across from us in a chair. "We're going to help convince the rioters in North America that the yeerks aren't going to attack again, and that the Andalites aren't going to try and take over Earth society." "And why's Abata going?" Kevin asked. "The government wanted Ax to go, but he was too busy holding off the yeerks here, so they asked for his younger brother." "And nobody bothered explaining that he's needed back here?" Catara asked. "I'm afraid he's needed more back on Earth. Ax is going to be coming to, as soon as he can get some time off. The people of Earth need to see taht Andalites and humans can live in peace, and have been living in peace for years." "How long you going to be gone? Are we going to be here by ourselves?" I asked. "We'll be gone anywhere from six months to a year, and yes, you'll be by yourselves. But, we'll be contacting you every day to talk to you guys," Mom said. "When're you leaving?" Catara asked. "On the next transport. We have to go get packed. We have about three hours, and we need to walk over to the transport base since Tobias can't morph." Mom and Dad hurried up the staris to their bed room to start packing. "Tobias can't morph?" Kevin asked. "I thought your parents were the Animorphs. Animorphs are humans who can morph animals. What's up with Tobias?" "Early on, Uncle Tobias was trapped in his red tailed hawk morph. Then, this all powerful being the Ellimist gave him his morphing powers back, but he stayed in his hawk body. When the war ended, he became a nothlit again, in his human morph, so he could marry our Aunt Rachel," Catara explained. We'd heard the story dozens of times. The girls all found it romantic. I found it weird. Flying is the best thing in the world, I don't think anything could keep me from flying. We sat around in the living room for awhile, talking and adjusting to the idea that we weren't going to have our parents for a year. Niether Catara or I had been away from Mom and Dad for more than a day. This was going to take some getting used to.
Chapter 11
An hour later, everyone was collected in front of Ritora and Jordan's house. We were almost lined up in two rows. Parents opposite kids. Even Abata's parents came, a very odd occurance. I don't think I've ever met them outside of their scoop. We said our final goodbyes, and stayed outside as our parents and Abata walked towards the transport base. Once they were out of sight, we said goodbye to Abata's parents, and then we all went inside Ritora and Jordan's house. We had a party that night. Not like the huge parties that Kevin, Julie, David, Sondra and Lindsey described, but big by our standards. We were free of our parents for the next six months, maybe even a whole year. Yeah, it was going to be weird at times. But hey, we're all teenagers, and with our new friends, I think Catara, Jordan, Ritora and I will be able to handle not having our parents for awhile.

My favourites

2005-04-10T18:13:00.000+08:00

Marco,Tobias, Cassie and Aximili.