The Rescue

[KingAlanI]

The Animorphs do manage to rescue Tom from the Yeerk pool. In addition to that canon divergence AU, this is set in 2014.

Also posted on FFN and AO3: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10509739/1/The-Rescue and http://archiveofourown.org/works/1900527

Chapter 1 – The Rescue

   Jake, in his tiger form, managed to run up to a human and knock him down with a paw swipe. He was raiding the Yeerk Pool right now in order to free his older brother, but Thomas Berenson was not cooperating.
.
Tom had been locked in a cage while his slavemaster fed, and when released, went into a futile rage against his master’s master. Jake had just barely stopped his brother’s unarmed charge on Visser Three. Even the Andalite tail he’d stolen couldn’t reach far enough.
.
   ((You won’t get away for long, Andalite bandits!)) the Visser raged, as he was wont to do.
   ((We still have to worry, but we aren’t Andalites,)) Marco the gorilla whispered to his rapidly retreating comrades.
.   
   ((In desperation, an Andalite warrior clinging to life gave five humans the power to morph,)) Jake explained. ((One of whom was your younger brother.))
   “So it was you riding to my rescue,” Tom said, his first words as a free man, an ability lost when becoming a full member of The Sharing. Jake’s natural body was nightmarishly coalescing out of that of the tiger. “Thank you,” his big brother cried.
.
   He took in the scene around him. “Apparently Marco knows something about gorilla warfare,” he said to someone who knew how to appreciate bad jokes. “Cass is definitely a workhorse,” Tom added, referring to the only one not looking like a monster while reassuming human form.
.
   “Tobias! Demorph!” Jake said anxiously to their fifth.
   ((It’s too late,)) the bird whispered. He had left earlier for this mission, and hid longer during it before making his escape. That was the curse of the gift – those assuming a form for more than two hours were stuck in it. ((This is who I am now. Worse things to be than a red-tailed hawk.))
   “Like a bullied orphan?” Tom guessed of one of his brother’s close friends. That brought an awkward silence, and all involved left it at that.
.
   There was nothing odd about the five walking together to Cassie’s home with a bird flying overhead. However, the conversation was most highly unusual. The Animorphs were happy they’d freed Tom. Some of the other humans had run off. More’s the pity, since most other free humans would call them insane if attempting to recount their stories. Some had died, and the Animorphs didn’t want to dwell on how that compared to being a Controller.
.
The Animorphs realized that they had obtained a very valuable source of intelligence on the Yeerks. “They take our parents?” Jake worried.
“Hell no,” a relieved Tom said. “But the filshiging dapsens behind The Sharing wanted me to recruit them too.” The Sharing was a Yeerk front organization. The Yeerk in Tom’s head insisted that Jake go. Jake knew better. Apparently many people didn’t. Tom had resisted, but the Yeerks had taken him anyway. The Yeerks tried to talk people into becoming their hosts. What sort of sad person would fall prey to that?
((Could’ve been me, but Jake had my back,)) Tobias said. Jake and Tobias had become friends when Jake caught two guys giving Tobias a swirlie. Such abuse might have led Tobias to join The Sharing, where he would’ve been protected, though at a terrible price.
The Sharing was run by Hedrick Chapman, vice principal at their middle school. He’d ensure it was the Yeerks’ job to abuse them, not petty school punks. How many of their classmates had taken that path? That was one of the most harrowing parts of this fight. Anybody could be a Controller, acting normally except when directly involved in Yeerk activities. Temrash one-one-four, the Yeerk that had been in Tom’s head, had done his best to act like Tom’s normal self.
.
“What are filshiging dapsens anyway?” Marco wondered.
“It’s Yeerk for mother****ing ****s,” Tom explained.
“So you made sure to learn the curse words?” Marco said.
“I used to do that with Earth languages, pieza de merda,” Tom went on.
“It’s pedazo de mierda,” Marco explained, giving better Spanish for ‘piece of ****’. He probably didn’t learn that at home, though his mother is Latina, Jake thought. Was. She disappeared nearly two years ago. Her body was never found, just the wreckage of the family boat.
.
They arrived at Cassie’s barn and could now talk more freely. “People will wonder why I quit The Sharing,” Tom warned.
“Our parents can know, but nobody else can,” Jake suggested.
“It’s not just that. If anybody sees me, they’ll know I escaped. Then they might find the rest of us. If I lie low, they might think I got killed trying to run away,” Tom countered. Visser Three had morphed some sort of octopus hellbeast that spat fireballs.
.
“Can’t much file a missing persons report, you know as well as I do that the cops are full of Controllers,” Tom pointed out
“As if the LAPD couldn’t get any more obnoxious,” Cassie spat out.
.
“So some idiot teenagers with a death wish are our best hope. This is some Red Dawn ****,” Marco observed.
“Hope we’re at least the 1984 version and not the 2012 one,” Tom retorted.
“We could acquire wolverine morphs,” Cassie suggested diplomatically.
“Could I?” Tom wondered.
“We can’t grant the power. The device the Andalite used to grant it to us probably got vaporized along with the rest of his stuff,” Jake admitted. “But you could give us advice on how to counter-infiltrate The Sharing. Let’s see how they like a taste of their own medicine!”
“Hell yeah! Not only that, but intel on other Yeerk activities,” Tom said with righteous fury. The Andalite would’ve been proud of the anger that seeped out of his tone in saying ‘Yeerk’.
.
It wouldn’t surprise people to know Tom played basketball, at least he had before The Sharing. Jake had once feared reporting he hadn’t made the middle school team. That had been about his last normal thought. “Maybe I could still make a decent college team if this ever ends,” Tom hoped.
.
“I always thought Cousin Rachel could be a bear and Marco was a dumb ape. You sure know how to pick ‘em, midget.” Jake was hardly a small boy, but still not as imposing as Tom, and the nickname had carried over from when they were younger. “At least it’s not Cassie calling you that,” Tom whispered. Once that sunk in, the boys got loud and Jake got red.
.
Jake cared not one whit for the teasing, and he doubted the targets did either. It was coming from the real Tom, not a Yeerk mind control slug infesting his head, not any more. Having Tom back offered a better chance to beat those who had taken him.

[KingAlanI]

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10509739/2/The-Rescue
http://archiveofourown.org/works/1900527/chapters/4224177

Chapter 2 - The Truth

   “Haven’t seen my boys like this in awhile!” Steve Berenson said as Tom and Jake walked in together. “Tom’s been too busy with The Sharing,” he observed. “Figured it was just things changing as he grew up, that I wasn’t supposed to mess with it,” he admitted.
   “To put it very lightly, Dad, The Sharing is the problem,” Tom responded in a whisper. “I discovered a dark secret behind the Boy Scout **** and Jake helped me get away. It’s a very long story, one we need to tell Mom too while we’re sitting down in private.”
.
   It was easy enough to find Jean Grundle Berenson. As a freelance writer, she worked from home. In fact, Jake and Tom had been lucky to find their father at this hour. He was a pediatrician, unwilling to rush through a room full of sick kids the way an office worker might be inclined to skip out on paperwork. He still was saddled with lots of pencil-pushing, though. In fact, some of Tom’s impolite vocabulary came from his father’s commentary on health insurance companies.
.
   Tom had already said there weren’t any Yeerk spy devices in the house. Jake and Tom headed for the basement, where passerby wouldn’t notice anything suspicious where they might aboveground. Their basement didn’t even have any windows at ground level.
.
   “Visser Three would think Stalin was bush league,” Tom said.
   “But what if Stalin had Yeerk technology? Both bad bastards, just with different tools available,” Jake countered. It was a far cry from hanging out with Marco arguing over whether Iron Man could beat Batman.
.
   “Honey, Tom thinks The Sharing is a front for the mob or something,” Dr. Berenson explained as they gathered in the basement. He understood his sons’ serious demeanor. However, like the rest of humanity, he would have trouble grasping the severity of the situation. This force sunk even lower than humanity at its ugliest.
   “Worse than the mafia. Hostile aliens,” Tom said somberly. “The Yeerks, they’re called, and I have plenty of things to call them.”
   “What do they need The Sharing for?” Jean wondered.
   “They’re slugs that crawl inside someone’s head to control their brain. They use The Sharing to talk people into that instead of taking them by force,” Tom explained.
   “And you fell for it? What’s her name?” Steve wondered.
   “Tiffany Smith. She was already infested,” Tom admitted. So that wasn’t just their father teasing.
   “Well, hot girls make guys do really stupid things,” Jake pointed out, hoping that sort of thing wouldn’t happen to him. Someone might imply that Jake was safe because Cassie supposedly wasn’t pretty. Even if Marco or Tom did that, it would go over like a lead balloon, Jake thought. Cassandra Atkins was cute in her own way, and an incredibly kind person to anyone and anything.
 “But they had to take me, kicking and screaming mind you. I had shown up at one of the full member meetings, and saw the truth – an alien infested by their leader.” No wonder Tom had been so angered by the sight of Visser Three during the Yeerk pool raid, Jake realized.
   “Now how’d you get out?” Steve wondered.
.
   “That’s where I come in,” Jake tag-teamed. They were gradually bringing in the weirdness. Their parents seemed to believe them. Jake and Tom were children, but still too old to believe overactive imaginations. Their mother, as a writer, might have an instinct for whether people were just storytelling.
   “The Andalites are an alien race at war with the Yeerks. They sent a fleet to Earth but it got intercepted. One of their fighter pilots crash-landed in that abandoned construction site,” Jake began.
   “Going through there was even more dangerous than I thought,” Jean observed.
   “Let me guess, doing something like that, Marco was there with you,” Steve piled on.
   “And Cassie, Rachel and Tobias,” Jake agreed.
“The pilot told us as much as he could before the Yeerks came to mop up. Then he gave us a powerful piece of Andalite technology. The power to morph, to take the form of any animal you’ve touched since gaining that power,” Jake continued.
   “That seems rather useful,” Steve said. “Especially since Cassie’s family runs that wild animal shelter and her mom’s a vet at The Gardens,” he realized. Out of shock, he was barely able to retain his composure, but he was still gamely trying to speak clearly.
   “So you turned into big animals to rescue your big brother,” Jean guessed, correctly.
.
   “Rachel was an elephant, not a bear,” Jake pointed out to Tom.
   “I had reasons for not thinking clearly,” Tom said defensively.
   “He was right that Cassie is a workhorse, though. Marco practices gorilla warfare, but I went for a tiger,” Jake said right before beginning the morph.
It was an incredibly odd sensation as body parts grew and shrunk, stretched and compressed, skin changed. Thank the Andalite scientists that it didn’t hurt, at least. This said nothing of how utterly weird it looked. All of them except Cassie looked like hell during the process. Jean screamed; Jake supposed his father’s medical experience kept him from being grossed out too.
((Those in morph can communicate by telepathy,)) Jake broadcasted once he finished. His parents were evidently as surprised to hear the words in their heads as he had been with the crash-landed Elfangor. ((So can Andalites in their natural state,)) Jake added, likely why their technology was designed this way.
Andalites were covered in fur and as such went unclothed, so morphing hadn’t been designed with clothes in mind. The Animorphs, even Cassie, could only morph in and out of very thin clothes. They’d ruined shoes and heavy clothes figuring this out. Jake reappeared in his thin T-shirt and skintight bike shorts. The morph and demorph definitely had convinced his parents, after the conversation mostly had.
.
   “But since these alien slugs control people’s brains, how’d you get him to come with you?”  Jean asked, attempting to plug a plot hole.
   “They have a critical weakness,” Tom said with righteous fury. “Every three days they have to crawl out of their hosts and swim in a pool that simulates the effects of their home sun. So for a short time Yeerk victims become prisoners instead of mind control slaves,” he explained, having learned the hard way. “And midget here decided to lead a prison break!” he said triumphantly.
.
   “We can also morph small or otherwise innocuous creatures for spying purposes. That’s the way we found out how and when to strike. ‘Homer’ took a stroll along the beach during a Sharing meeting,” Jake said of morphing the family dog.
   “That power is amazing. I’m sure that’s not the end of it. What’s the catch?” Jean said.
   “If it’s been more than two hours, you’re stuck. Tobias is a hawk now. I was gonna roost him in the attic and bring him hamburger or something.”
   “Yeah, we gotta take care of our folks,” Tom agreed. “Tell that to his no-good relatives.”
   “I’ll tell the uncle here who doesn’t care that he’s with the aunt out east who doesn’t care, and vice versa,” Jake countered.
   “Well, him and Tom will both be hiding out here,” Steve observed.
   “We were gonna assume the Yeerks lost track of me during the escape. I could camp in the basement. With Mom working from home, it won’t be odd that the house is busy. Unfortunately, midget can’t give me the morphing power just because he has it himself. Being a leopard would have been cool.”
   “They think we’re Andalites that survived the space battle, considering the power to morph. They aren’t looking for humans, and we better not give them the idea to,” Jake declared. “It’s not just The Sharing. Anyone might be a Controller who’s acting normal,” Jake warned.
.
   “How’d your parents take it?” Marco asked as soon as they got settled at the barn.
   “They believed the truth and understand the need to hide Tom,” Jake reported. “But what next?” he worried.
   “Well, we can’t exactly ask President Flores-Rivera to borrow a few thousand Marines,” Marco quipped. “No way, Alejandro.”
   Jake figured the Yeerks wouldn’t have infiltrated that far up. Would they? he worried. Even if they really hadn’t, how could they reach the White House without tipping off Controllers along the way? How could they get the President to believe? The stranger of such significance presented a far greater challenge than their own relatives.
.
   “Probably should tell my mom too, especially to let her know what really happened to Tom,” Rachel announced. Naomi Jackson was divorced from Dan Berenson. However, it had been relatively amicable. Amongst other things, she still thought of Tom and Jake as her nephews. Dan and Naomi had been driven apart by busy careers, him as a newscaster and her as a tax lawyer. She knew there were things worse than the IRS, but was about to learn how much worse.
.
“Jordan and Sara aren’t hearing a damn thing,” Rachel insisted on behalf of her younger sisters.
   “Yeah, we’re too young for this ****, let alone them. And besides, they might not be able to stay quiet,” Marco pointed out on two fronts. Marco, Cassie and Tobias were all only children. Steve and Dan had a sister Ellen who now lived in another town with her husband their four children. They were safe there; so were Jean’s family in some other city. They’d definitely be left out of it.
.
For now, the Animorphs were still stalling until another Andalite fleet arrived. Their spirits were boosted by the rest of the raid on the Yeerk Pool; it was not the end, not even the beginning of the end, but perhaps the end of the beginning.

[KingAlanI]

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10509739/3/The-Rescue

http://archiveofourown.org/works/1900527/chapters/4417641

Chapter 3 - The Cave

   Jake was bringing a lot of Tom’s stuff down to the basement to lower the risk of anybody seeing his older brother through the windows.
The Sharing used its activities to draw people in as well as provide cover stories for meetings of those who were already Controllers. Either way, camping trips were a common choice. That was proving to be a silver lining, since Tom’s gear could go on the lowest level of their house instead of in a tent or cabin. “Just get me the sleeping bag. Mattresses? I don’t need no steenkin’ mattresses. Those are for old guys with bad backs, like Chapman.”
.
“Though, as we know, he’s evil even for an assistant principal,” Jake responded. Hanging out with Marco their entire lives, some of his flair for dark humor was bound to rub off on Jake.
“Yeah, the Yeerk in his head is Visser Three’s third-in-command. Iniss two-two-six, Sub-Visser Eighty-two,” Tom explained. “The Yeerk Empire has a few dozen Vissers and several hundred Sub-Vissers. I haven’t heard about any Vissers here besides you-know-who, but there have gotta be at least a few other Subs around.” Boys our age should be talking about video game strategy, not serious military intelligence, Jake mused.
.
After the bulk of the camping equipment, Jake started bringing down Tom’s clothes. “Clippers? What’s next, Raiders merch?” Jake teased as he pulled out a red and blue jersey.
“Hey, the Lakers aren’t so hot lately, midget,” Tom replied. Being free to pull this dumb brother **** still meant the world to them. Besides, they were clinging to what few remotely normal things remained in their lives. “You know I don’t like football,” he said teasingly.
“Too bad we don’t like hockey either. Kings got another Cup; I only noticed because that and the NBA Finals games were on different days,” Jake pointed out.
.
“Guess I’m a glutton for punishment, midget,” Tom admitted.
They both recognized a greater weight behind the words. Yet Jake decided to continue poking fun at it. Marco would be proud, Jake assessed. “About that … I saw your posters. I’m not sure you have the best taste in pinups. Are you trying to piss Dad off?” Their old man may or may not have been bothered by the general idea, but Jenny McCarthy aggravated him to no end, and Tom had put up her October 1993 Playboy centerfold.
“I’m not taking her medical advice,” Tom pointed out. “Yeah, pretty much every goddamn doctor thinks her science is bull****, and even if she were right, she’s acting as if autism is worse than the ****ing horrible diseases vaccines go after.”
“Dad’s right about that,” Jake agreed. “But I’m afraid that now that we’re in a war, whether to be a fan of unethical entertainers will be the least of our moral quandaries. And since Mom’ll be down here for the laundry room, pantry or whatever, you probably should put that stuff away anyway.”
“Yeah, us guys can act like that by ourselves, but we gotta behave when the ladies are around,” Tom said. “You can look at some of the stuff yourself if you want.”
“Not my style,” Jake said defensively. “Marco wouldn’t mind some of it, though.”
“If Cassie says anything … three words for ya, Jeremy Jason McCole,” Tom shot back triumphantly. Mr. McCole was a teen heartthrob known for his role on the TV show Power House. Apparently Cassie was a fan. “crittercass.tumblr.com interacts quite a lot with fyjjmc.tumblr.com,” Tom pointed out. “I’ve been on there for basketball stuff, couldn’t help but looking around for our friends.” Tom threw a falsetto that sounded nothing like Cassie or Rachel, but was funny nevertheless. “I watch Power House for the plots … it really does have some good plots.”
“Suppose you gotta stay offline. Who knows what they can trace even if you don’t make it obvious,” Jake advised prudently.
.
A few days later, Jake took a bunch of Tom’s stuff over to Marco’s. Tom couldn’t use it all in his limited hiding status, and even before The Sharing took him, he had more than he knew what to do with. “When your prized possessions start to weigh you down…” Dad had hummed. The Beatles, And Your Bird Can Sing. He’d made clear he thought Revolver was one of the great LP’s. Jake and Tom agreed it was good, but leaned towards stuff of their own era.
.
The Crosettis didn’t quite have that problem anymore. Marco’s dad Peter had lost his good computer engineering job after being unable to deal with Eva’s death. He was doing some sort of grunt work now. Nothing against that, somebody had to do it, but Peter wasn’t suited to it. Their current neighborhood didn’t scare Jake so much anymore. Street punks were nothing compared to Controllers. Still, Jake brought his bike inside rather than leaving it outside, even locked up.
.
Jake had more than Tom’s things to unload. Marco’s father opened the door. “We heard about your brother. Sadly, I have too much of an idea what youse guys are going through.” The other Animorphs weren’t telling their parents yet after all. They didn’t need the worry. If the Animorphs had to disappear on a mission,
“Yeah, it’s starting to sink in that he ain’t coming back,” Jake choked out fairly convincingly. “It ain’t helping to have his things around. He had nearly a foot on Marco, but I figured my buddy could use some of the things besides the clothes.”
.
Marco had a boom box out in his room. “Listening to one of Dad’s old tapes,” he pointed out, handing the case to Jake.
The Ramones – Brain Drain, Jake read. “Zero Zero UFO, real funny,” he announced.
“Would you expect anything less from me?” Marco stated. “Don’t wanna be buried in a pet ‘sematary’,” he went on.
“You sing as well as you drive,” Jake countered. If his performance in racing video games was any indication, it was a good thing for people on or near California roads that he was only 14.
“Seems I’m gonna be operating a stick soon,” Marco said as he saw Tom’s magazines. Admittedly, that would distract from the backpack, duct tape, tools, and assorted media.
.
It would soon be time to publicly fake Tom’s death. To free humans, he’d drowned after being caught in a rip current. Fighting with The Sharing about what happened to Tom would be too close to the truth. Jake needed Controllers poking around like he needed a hole in his head. To the Yeerks, he’d died trying to escape the Yeerk pool, his body rendered unidentifiable by Visser Three’s fireballs. As such, his ‘friends’ from The Sharing were unlikely to care. We are counting on Yeerk callousness, Jake thought. If the Yeerks found them, it would definitely be all over for him, his friends and family personally. It may very well be the end for humanity as a whole. It wouldn’t bode well for free peoples throughout the galaxy.
.
Their father the doctor was all too familiar with when kids couldn’t be saved. Their mother the writer could be creative. Knowing it wasn’t true was comforting but also macabre. Marco also was all too familiar with this. It was almost the two year anniversary of his mother’s disappearance, ‘also’ lost at sea, so the grief for somebody would be real. “Wish I could at least pull a Tom Sawyer and watch it myself,” the very much alive Tom said as his family left the house.
.
Thomas Stephen Berenson, December 28 1997 – September 27 2014, Son and brother full of energy, yet Nature is stronger than us all. Tom’s stone would be placed next to that of Marco’s mother. Eva Morales Crosetti, January 23 1970 – October 11 2012, Devoted wife and mother, Taken by the sea they all loved.

[pallosalama]

That is alot of work for the fanfiction, however for some reason it doesn't seem very convincing. For example talking with parents about Sharing, controllers etc. It wouldn't be that easy and it definitely wouldn't be good idea. They couldn't know if their parents were controllers at that point.
It just doesn't have the touch, but that is only my opinion. Hope you make more for those who enjoy your content.

[NickDaGriff]

It could use a little work.  One philosophy I think is pretty important in storytelling is to make sure every word counts.  Every sentence you write should deliver something meaningful to the story, advance the plot, set up events, reveal something about the characters, etc.  Everything should be immediately relevant to the overall story.  There are quite a few dialogue segments that basically just act like filler.  Either it's banter that goes nowhere, kinda forcing references to plot elements that aren't relevant yet, or it's recapping events that the reader already knows.  Remember, storytelling is for the audience's sake, not the characters'.

The tone kinda strikes me as a little too lighthearted.  Tom literally just got out of imprisonment that was so bad he was willing to suicide rush Visser Three rather than risk getting caught again.  Book #6 showed that he'd been begging for death the whole time.  After escaping something that hopelessly traumatic, his whole attitude would probably be more terrified, and less interested in exchanging quips about sports teams and tumblrs (has this been moved to modern day, btw? nvm that, I derped for a second).  Now Jake, I could understand.  With Tobias as their only casualty, and technically still alive and well, this would be a pretty encouraging victory for him.

For example talking with parents about Sharing, controllers etc. It wouldn't be that easy and it definitely wouldn't be good idea. They couldn't know if their parents were controllers at that point.

Well, I suppose Tom of all people would know if his own parents were controllers.  His yeerk was head of security, and Visser Three isn't paranoid enough to spy on his own underlings at that level.  But yeah, the parents bought into the aliens thing just a tad too fast. 

The pacing was a bit rushed.  One thing you could do is go into more detail.  The escape is a pretty good place to start (in fact, I've got an AU fic in progress that starts in the same spot ), but you just sort of glossed over it here.  There's a good opportunity here for you to have Jake just barely make the right move to save Tom, and it would make one heck of an action scene to kick off the whole story.

It also struck me as slightly strange that you kept referring to the parents by their first names, when the focus is still on the boys.  I'm not even fully sure why, it just felt odd.

One final note (and this may or may not apply to you), it'll be easy to get stuck once you get into the meat of the story if you don't have a clear direction.  Remember to keep in mind why you're making this change.  Think about what purpose Tom served in the original story as a controller, and what sort of impacts freeing him will have on everyone, Jake especially (for example, if he starts getting too confident in his ability to win, defeat's going to be all the more crushing  ).

All that said, it's great that you're writing.  I'm not writing this to discourage you, that's the opposite of my intention.  By all means, keep it up.  Technique grows with practice.

[KingAlanI]

The only edits to the chapter posts so far are typographical.
Other sites were filtering out angle brackets for thoughtspeak as HTML tags, so I changed that to double parentheses. I made paragraph separation clearer.
I post the same here to be consistent, avoid having separate/different versions. Similarly:
I write with italics which FFN and AO3 recognize and I don't want to bother adding italics tags here.
I accept the quadruple asterisks rather than writing without profanity.

-

Thanks for the thoughts.

Not only is this fic new, it’s my first in this fandom. I’ve written a lot for other fandoms, especially Hunger Games and Game of Thrones. Hope I hit my stride with this as well.

@pallosalama:
I specifically have Tom say their parents aren’t Controllers.

@XenoFrobe:
I’m generally good at making a lot happen in few words, so it’s odd to hear that. Even having an issue there, I should be good at fixing it. Rushing things along can be a negative side of that.

I write my fics such that one doesn’t have to know canon. I admit that can be repetitive to people familiar with the original. I avoid repeating pieces of exposition further. I can draw too much on worldbuilding/(head)canon references and foreshadowing – it seems those stuck out to you.

I admit I did have their parents take it awfully well, and that’s also come up in other reviews. I backtracked there by not having the other parents know yet – note the scene with Marco’s father.

Yeah, Tom did get back on his feet awfully quick. Maybe it’s him and Jake experiencing initial relief, it hasn’t really sunk in yet, and/or desperately trying/pretending to be normal.

I know where I’m going with my stories, it’s filling in the middle that I have a problem with.

Not only is this really early in the series, some of their later plans were modified by not wanting to risk Tom, and they had Tom’s Yeerk working against them. I thought that already. So I do understand how much this changes things.

[KingAlanI]

   ((**** rollercoasters!)) Marco reviewed. Jake had to agree that there was something amazing about flying. Tobias was right that there would be worse animals to be trapped as. The other Animorphs had soon followed him in acquiring bird morphs, also with the help of the Wildlife Rehabilitation Clinic run by Cassie’s family.

   Now they were practicing the morphs, practice that was quite enjoyable. It could be hard to do what you wanted with a morph when the creature’s instincts took over, but the instinct on how to fly was needed here.

   Marco and Cassie were both ospreys, Rachel a bald eagle, Jake a peregrine falcon. ((You can outrace even me,)) Tobias told Jake. Tobias was coming to accept his new form. He was proud of his new species, attentive to its rivalries with other birds.
He had left the roost in Jake’s attic and the scraps of hamburger available there. He was now living where a hawk might, in the woods near Cassie’s barn. He was now eating what a hawk would. ((Your feathers are looking a little mousy there, bird boy,)) Marco said. Marco’s knack for thinking everything was funny seemed to help soothe Tobias.
((Physically, it was easy to let the predator instinct take over. Yet it was difficult to watch, to look at myself afterwards. The first one was the hardest, then it got easier,)) Tobias explained. At thirteen, his fellow Animorphs already knew what he really meant.

Obviously, Tom couldn’t leave the house to meet with them, yet the Animorphs didn’t want to all go over there. Tobias’ hawk body would clearly be suspicious. Rachel hadn’t spent that much time with her cousins, maybe with her parents’ divorce pulling her away from her father’s relatives. Jake and Cassie may have grown closer even without being fellow Animorphs, but people may still have wondered why all five, now all four, were together. So they avoided being a group in public. Before the war was only a couple weeks ago, but it was a clear line in their minds, bright red growing darker.

Marco had been hesitant to join the war and stay in it. Peter had been wrecked by Eva’s death, and Marco worried what would happen to the man if he lost his son as well as his wife. However, Marco had been encouraged by the victory of freeing Tom.

((Tom said Chapman has Yeerk communication equipment in his basement,)) Jake passed along.
((Well, maybe we should go see what he’s up to down there,)) Marco said in a tone of voice that made clear he was stating the obvious.
((Melissa’s cat seems like the best way to get in,)) Rachel suggested. As a friend of Chapman’s daughter, would she be less suspicious, or dangerously recognizable? ((Fluffer McKitty, what a name for a snarling tomcat!)) Rachel warned.
((Bait a crate with treats, always works with Homer,)) Jake offered.

They went towards the Chapmans’ neighborhood. Rachel carried the cat stuff, Cassie as her backup on the ground. The others joined Tobias in the air. ((Someone’s letting the cat out,)) bird boy reported. ((Door’s closed,)) he followed up.

“Here kitty kitty kitty,” Rachel said, a classic because it worked, especially when waving catnip. The cat approached the smell and Cassie shut the crate door behind him.
Playing with the plant, he didn’t seem to mind being locked up. ((Looks like kitty scored some good weed,)) Marco joked.
Fluffer was about to get even more mellow. Rachel reached through the bars to touch him. When acquiring a new morph, the animal went into a trance.

((I wish I was this agile in human form,)) Rachel commented. Cats would make excellent gymnasts, Jake thought. Rachel was friends with Chapman’s daughter Melissa, and gymnastics classes were one thing the young women had in common.

It was Melissa who had let the real Fluffer out and the morphed Rachel in. Her Controller parents couldn’t be bothered. Tom was right – the Yeerks had taken her mother as well. Rachel was reporting to Tobias overhead, who relayed to the other Animorphs. They Animorphs didn’t dare cluster too close to the Chapman residence. Once Rachel made it out, she would give an expanded explanation.

((It’s eight o’clock and Chapman’s going down to the basement,)) Rachel reported a few minutes after she got in. Tobias lost contact with her. They hoped the distance or material was simply blocking the thought-speak, like some alien cell phone signal. Thought-speak did seem to have limited range.

   They began to leave the area and discuss the mission while still in morph.
((That’s why Melissa’s been acting strange. She thinks her parents don’t love her anymore, but doesn’t understand they do and can’t show it,)) Rachel began. ((But she’s gonna have bigger problems. The Yeerks are taking her too!))
((The filshiging dapsens!)) Marco shouted.
((It gets worse. Her parents had cooperated to keep her away from the Yeerks,)) Rachel said, her rage even more obvious right now. ((They went into a spasm when Visser Three gave the order.))
((Like when Tom’s face twitched when his Yeerk tried to get me to join the Sharing,)) Jake said. Determined hosts could, for a moment, slightly resist their Yeerk’s control.
((More than that, but same idea,)) Rachel agreed.

((Visser Three is riding Chapman’s ass to find the Andalite bandits, namely us,)) Rachel added. ((At least they still think we’re Andalites, and they said nothing about Tom,)) she finished.
((I’ll take what good news we can get,)) Jake responded. They were only a few weeks into this war and he was already starting to feel that incredibly somber mood.

((Any idea what we get to do next?)) Marco said sarcastically.
((The Yeerks use a transport ship to pick up water from lakes in the area. It’s about to make another run,)) Rachel reported. ((Obviously, their hosts have to drink too, but Visser Three reminded Chapman it’s needed to operate the fusion reactors that power Yeerk equipment..

Jake would be available on Halloween. As he told his parents, “Well, I’ve gotten too old for trick-or-treating.”

A/N

My new fic Lemon Cakes is also set in this storyline. It has M-rated scenes and more of a focus on Jake and Cassie’s relationship. It’s currently at a later point in the story, making it a de facto spoiler.

[KingAlanI]

This chapter is my version of the truck ship mission from #3 The Encounter.

Also available at:
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10509739/5/The-Rescue
http://archiveofourown.org/works/1900527/chapters/6696713


   It was bitterly ironic that Tom was free but nevertheless confined. The Animorphs couldn’t spend much time with any of their families, having a war to fight and needing to at least keep up the pretense of doing well in school. Tom could keep himself busy and the Animorphs less so by helping with their homework.

   “Well, we don’t need to worry about coming up with Halloween costumes,” Jake pointed out, channeling some sarcasm from Tom.
   “Yeah, it’s in our blood,” Marco responded.
   “Seriously, no morphing that’s not related to the Yeerks. We can’t afford to blow our cover on stupid stuff,” Jake continued testily.
   “Marco provides us with plenty of stupid stuff already,” Rachel commented. Did they actually hate each other, or was it a thinly veiled obsession? Jake wondered.
   “Even something important is probably a small problem compared to the Yeerks,” Jake added. “Like a bird held captive as a mascot for a used car dealer,” he specified, referring to a stunt pulled by Tobias with Rachel’s help.
   “Heard it was a girl red-tailed hawk. Apparently Black Widow isn’t jealous,” Marco said, using his nickname for how badass Miss Berenson was.
   “Anyway, the Yeerks would know all too well what it means when animals behave strangely. They would also find it strange for ‘Andalite bandits’ to be so involved in small-scale Earth issues,” Jake reminded his team.

   Visser Three had reveled in the moment of killing Elfangor. The Animorphs would unfortunately never be able to forget the horrors of the day everything changed. A specific moment came to Jake’s mind. “He said the Yeerks would need two thousand Pools to infest all of humanity,” he said. He then started wondering around about what this meant. “They’re hard enough to fight with one Pool to deal with. Are they waiting until they can enslave all of us or are they going to take who they can and kill off the rest?”
   “Either way, it pays to stall them, and we have to reveal them before they’re ready for it,” Marco assessed.

   “So what are we gonna do about that dihydrogen monoxide acquisition vessel?” Marco wondered. Their science teacher would be proud. This terminology was from a recent project about how the media and the average person could misunderstand scientific topics.
   “Tom said that old man Walker is apparently still using the same lesson plans,” Jake reported. “Well, it’s still a problem.”
   “Imagine what he’d think of the kind of genetically modified organisms we are,” Marco joked.

   “Back to business, we could swim up the intake tubes,” Marco suggested. “The pipes would have to be big enough. And I don’t see why they’d have blades. At worst, we’d run into a filter.”
   “Eagles and ospreys both eat fish,” Cassie pointed out.
   “So me, Rachel or you could acquire something for us to acquire,” Marco said.
   “Catch and release,” Cassie said agreeably. “If we must do this,” she added somewhat sourly.

   The Yeerks picked different lakes throughout the mountains so people wouldn’t get suspicious about decreasing water level in any particular location. When Rachel was spying on Chapman, she had overheard which body of water the Yeerks would be using for the time being.
   The Animorphs who could still morph headed out through the woods as wolves. They found Human-Controllers thinly veiled as park rangers or something like that. There were a few Bug fighters and Hork-Bajir ground troops, but the Yeerks were relying on the fake foresters hiding in plain sight.

    The fake wolf pack encountered a very real one. If it came down to a fight, that would be one of those times where it was a problem to have sentience but not the morph’s experience. Yet the Animorphs realized that retreating wasn’t a good idea either.
A dead rabbit was one thing the wolves may have fought over. Tobias provided a distraction, diving for the carcass. Birds of prey had evolved to grab that prey with their talons, but the bunny was too big for him to carry too far too fast. However, the diversion still worked.
Tobias said he saw the same bird he and Rachel had rescued. So all of the Animorphs had run into problems neither human nor alien. And the Yeerk water ship remained just as much of a threat.

As usual, the Animorphs would have to operate on the weekend. The rest of the week, Tobias was nowhere to be seen. Rachel gave the impression that he was still having trouble adapting to life as a hawk. When he came back, Rachel seemed to have soothed him. Like Cassie sometimes did for me, Jake thought. For all the Animorphs, he added quickly. We could use the help thinking clearly.

This time, they avoided the real wolves. Tobias was the first to notice a cave near the lake. The bushes in and around the entrance scraped up the physically human Animorphs, but that was the sort of minor injury that was easily resolved by morphing.
Rachel morphed to eagle to go fishing. ((Don’t clench your talons too tightly,)) Tobias advised. ((We want it to make it back into the water,)) he said. Cassie looked pleased he remembered that part of their plan. Besides, the Animorphs were of the understanding that they couldn’t acquire a morph from a dead creature.

“It’s a trout,” Cassie observed.
“The lake was out of lemons and tartar sauce?” Marco said incredulously. The fish stopped flopping as Marco sent it into an acquisition trance. Cassie and Jake took their turns as Rachel returned to human form.

Bird Marco put the fish back where it came from. The Yeerks weren’t here yet, so the Animorphs had time to morph in the water rather than fly Talon Airlines in fish morph.

However, the Animorphs expected the Yeerks soon. ((Controllers incoming!)) Tobias warned when they finally approach
((This thing is utterly huge!)) Tobias reported. Jake hadn’t really noticed; maybe it was hard to sense below the surface of the lake. Jake supposed it had to be. Maybe it could be, not needing to carry lots of crew or weapons, and not needing to maneuver in combat. On Earth’s oceans, the largest cargo ships and passenger vessels were bigger than even the longest aircraft carriers.
((Like flying, amusement parks ain’t got nuthin’ on this,)) Marco added as the trout bodies sensed a massive sucking motion. The Animorphs weren’t exactly knocked out, but once the sensory input became more clear, they noticed they were in a large tank.

Now they needed to get out of the tank, but they were nowhere near the top. They also needed to get out of morph. ((Now would be a good time to learn how to swim,)) Jake commented.
((Just paddle, dawg,)) Marco replied. Jake didn’t need to hear whose thoughtspeak voice it was to know who generated those thoughts.

Fortunately, there were no Yeerks right in this room. Maybe they were afraid the water itself would be turned against them. Maybe they guarded it from the outside, expecting infiltration from the other direction.

Eventually the tank filled up enough that they could grab the rim. Rachel was best at doing the pullup, and not only because she was nearly as tall as Jake. Gtymanstics didn’t leave you ripped, but it did develop strength. It was a steep drop from there, but their bird morphs offered some ability to glide to the deck.

   ((The Yeerks will eventually figure…)) Jake said before he was interrupted.
   “Andalite bandits in water area!” a Yeerk used a Hork-Bajir mouth to say. Raptor hearing picked it up well even though the walls of who knows what metal.
   “Ghafrash!” another answered.
   “Haff hruthins for Visser,” the first voice seemed to correct.
   ((…out that something’s going on. Combat morphs!)) Jake finished and ordered. Well, the last time I turned into a tiger I saved Tom, he thought hopefully.

When the Hork-Bajir barged in, their blades only seemed to annoy the magnificent beasts. The Animorphs’ screams were a mixture of pain and rage that no one should have to know, let alone a bunch of fourteen year olds. The Controllers seemed to hold their Dracon fire around the water tanks. There was nothing the Animorphs could do about the thick glassy material, but an energy blast would likely damage it.

Eventually, battered Animorphs barged through. ((Storm the bridge!)) Jake ordered. ((Marco, you not being able to drive is a good thing. We want this thing to crash!)) he added.
((Besides, I don’t think paws would work the controls,)) Marco agreed.

They found the bridge several innocent host bodies later, several more Hork-Bajir, and a few human. ((Not much joy over this joystick,)) Marco said as he knocked out a Hork-Bajir to take the helm. Cassie took a bite out of the poor pilot before the stun wore off – even harder than a paw swipe, and coming from the one who was especially distressed by the carnage.

Marco messed with the controls until he figured out which made the craft go downwards. Then he jammed a button to send the ship further into a dive. ((Where does a four hundred pound gorilla fly to? Anywhere he wants!)) Marco said with exhilarated relief.
The truck ship might be escorted by Bug fighters or some would be scrambled. Well, if they shot it down, that was exactly what the Animorphs wanted. The ship shuddered, but Jake wasn’t sure if that was due to a Dracon hit or the mechanical stress Marco was putting the vessel under. ((You guys be ready to abandon ship in bird morph,)) Marco suggested. ((I should be right behind you. This is insane!))
The ship soon slammed into some trees – well away from the original lake, but still in the mountains. This minimized casualties on the ground but also kept the existence of the Yeerks from being revealed. The Animorphs had apparently destroyed the ship, and would take what victories they could get.