Ok, so I posted some of this a looong time ago. And I've spent some time updating it recently. I am by no means claiming to be a good author, but I would like some constructive feedback. I tried to make it close to the same reading level as the first few books. It is my take on what book 55 might have looked like based on KA's style.
Check it out! I still have a ton of work to do on it, and I'd like to make it much longer. But this is where I got so far.
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Chapter 1
“Ram the blade ship”….
The words had come out so quickly, I didn’t even have time to process what I was thinking. The One had known everything about me and the others. He was waiting for us. We would become a part of his entity. And yet, I wasn’t scared. I wasn’t questioning my decision. It felt as though what I was doing was entirely right. The only option, in fact.
BOOM! BOOOM! BOOOOOOM!
As we neared the ship, we heard loud noises and saw bright white flashes, as if we were in the middle of an explosion. I hadn’t yet figured it out, but Marco had. He was always a few steps ahead of me.
“The Ellimist,” he said calmly.
Suddenly, everything stopped. I had seen this too many times before. I knew what was coming next. An explanation of how there are always two options. One that lets evil succeed and one that gives the good guys the victory. We needed to figure out which option was the right one and the Ellimist was here to “not” tell us how to get out of this situation alive.
I AM HERE TO HELP YOU JAKE, LEADER OF THE ANIMORPHS.
The Ellimist laughed and it sounded like nothing we’ve ever heard from him before.
“How do you want to help us this time, Ellimist?” I asked. Again, Marco had been thinking ahead of me.
“Wait, you can’t directly help us and you’ve never told us that you were here to ‘help’. Which means one of two things has happened. 1) You are losing the fight against Crayak and have decided to break the rules of your game to gain an advantage. 2) The rules of your game have changed and we are not going to like why you are here.”
YOU ARE CORRECT, YOUNG MARCO. THE RULES HAVE CHANGED. MY NEMISIS CRAYAK AND I HAVE DECIDED TO ALLOW A BIT MORE DIRECT INFLUENCE INTO THE GAME. YOU SEE, NEITHER OF US COULD POSSIBLY WIN IF WE ONLY EVER MADE SLIGHT CHANGES TO THE PLAYING FIELD. WE BOTH GREW TIRED OF WATCHING THE ULTIMATE STALEMATE TAKE PLACE. HIS IDEA TO CREATE “THE ONE” WAS BRILLIANT. EVEN I DIDN’T SEE IT COMING. HOWEVER, HE MADE THE FIRST MOVE AND NOW IT IS MY TURN TO MAKE A COUNTER-MOVE…
Chapter 2
“Little brother, you've got to know by now: Wars aren't won with clean hands."
I was back in the Taxxon cave, staring at Tom, my older brother who was infested by an evil Yeerk slug.
The others were with me too, even Rachel. Oh! Rachel! How many times had I cried myself to sleep for ordering her to kill my brother on a suicide mission? She looked so alive now. Screaming at Tom with all her fury, the fury of the Animorph spirit!
But, this was impossible! Well, I guess not for the Ellimist. This was his way of “changing” the game he played with Crayak. We were being given another chance. Or, at least I had been given another chance to make things right. And I knew exactly how I would do that.
“Calm down Rachel,” I said as politely as I could, “Ax. I want you to keep your tail blade on Tom’s throat. If he tries to morph or run away, twitch your tail and end him.”
Then, to Tom I said “We are going to wait three days with you as our captive. You will die of Kandrona starvation, unless you chose to end the suffering before the three days is up. All you have to do is leave my brother’s body and I will let you live. We will give you the power to morph one animal and become a nothlit for the rest of your life.”
I knew what I was doing. I was saving my brother and my cousin all in one day. The only problem I had was that Tom seemed to know something I didn’t.
FLLLAAAASSSSHHHH!
Everything around us turned white and before anyone could react, the scene changed. We were standing in the bridge of the Pool ship again. Except this time things were a bit different. Rachel did not need to be on the Blade ship with Tom, since he was no longer a controller. The memories of what had happened from the time I had changed the course of events until now had been flooding into my brain. I saw my decision to give Tom’s Yeerk the chance to morph into a bird and fly away forever. It was either that or Kandrona starvation. And I’m pretty sure it was the easiest decision that filthy slug has ever made.
I saw Tom going through the plan with our group. He was going to pretend to be a controller until it was all over. We needed him in position on the Blade ship and we needed him to have an escape route. Then I began to remember the other changes I’d made to the plan. Tobias was going to take Rachel’s place on the Blade ship so that he could help Tom fight to get off the ship. Rachel was going to use her firepower to help us on the Pool ship. Tom would play the part to perfection so that the Visser thought there would be no way out. The only way we knew Visser One would crawl out from Alloran’s head is if he didn’t see a way out.
It all made such perfect sense now. Only, there was a very strange feeling in the air when I finally realized I was back in front of Visser One, trying to act like I was in control. I noticed that Cassie, Rachel, and Ax were not there. It was just Marco and I on the bridge this time.
Chapter 3
“Oh, I doubt it. I think the Empire will have its hands full," Tom said cheerfully. "The Andalite fleet is rather close by. It's possible that I misled you on that point."
Perfect. He knew exactly what the Yeerk in his head would have said in this situation. Then things got a bit crazy. Tom ordered his crew to move in on the Pool ship so that he could board it and take out the Visser himself. When they were close enough to board, Tom began a self-destruct code on the Blade ship and set it on course to a blank air space where hopefully nobody would be harmed when it blew up.
The crew obviously took offense to this action and a fight broke out. Thankfully, Tobias had been preparing for just this occasion. He was morphed into a Hork-Bajir and was playing the part of second in command to Tom. They took on the crew in a furious battle, while Visser One watched, amazed.
As we watched on screen, a dracon beam came out of a corner of the Blade ship’s bridge and hit Tobias. He went down hard and landed on top of another Hork-Bajir’s blades. It didn’t look pretty, but we couldn’t really worry too much about Tobias and Tom at the moment, since Cassie came running up to me. She had been fighting with Ax and Rachel in another room. It turns out we needed the extra firepower since the fight on the Pool ship this time around did not go as smoothly as the first time, which seemed like ages ago. I could tell right away that something very bad had happened.
“Rachel,” Cassie blurted out, “Jake, the fight got out of control. Rachel…she is not…she’s gone, Jake. She’s gone.”
I had to fight a gigantic lump from forming in my throat when I heard those words. All that I had done to change the way this battle would go. The Ellimist interfering and giving us a second chance. And I blew it again.
Before I had a chance to process everything, Tom came running into the bridge of the Pool ship and quickly punched some buttons on the dash. The Pool ship rose up and away from the Blade ship as it sped away in the other direction. It would only be seconds until the Blade ship would be destroyed forever and yet I didn’t feel like anything was accomplished. Tom was alive for now. We had succeeded with our plan again, but we lost Rachel.
“Jake!” Tom yelled. “We have to move forward with the plan. Have Aximili contact the Andalite home world now.”
He was right of course. Tom had always been two steps ahead of me. From the time we were just young kids playing basketball together to the times when we fought as Animorph versus controller.
I knew what needed to be done, but I couldn’t help but feel something was missing.
Tobias! Where was he? Why hadn’t I seen him come over to the Pool ship with Tom?
“Ax! Where is Tobias?”
No answer. “Ax?”
<Yes, Prince Jake.> I could hear the sadness in his thought-speak. I knew I was not going to like what I was about to hear.
“Have you seen Tobias?”
<Prince Jake, Tobias has been given the highest honor an Andalite can ever know. He was killed in battle serving a cause greater than him. I will need some time when this is over to grieve the loss of a great friend and a member of my family.>
No! This can’t be happening! Why would the Ellimist give us this chance just to kill more of us?
Chapter 4
BOOOOOOMMM!!! BA-BOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMM!!!
The Blade ship exploded into tiny pieces of ash on the screen in front of our eyes. We made a recording of the event so we could show the Andalite home world in case they didn’t believe what we had accomplished. After the explosion, I went numb.
Rachel still dead. Tobias dead. Tom alive, but forever changed. Countless others had died just like last time. So was it worth doing all over again just to replace Tobias with Tom? This question would haunt me for the rest of my days.
Everything went white again and I thought I might pass out. When my eyes adjusted to the new scene around me, I realized I was on the Andalite home planet standing in a field next to Ax. He was talking about some far off area of the galaxy that he had been travelling to in order to secure the sanctity of some rare species of flower. Apparently when Andalites don’t have a war to fight against parasitic slugs, they are quite the “Go-Green-Recycle-Replenish-Revive-Machine”.
I had no idea what year it was or why I was here, but I had a feeling that the nagging sounds in the back of my mind would eventually clear up and let me know what was happening. When the sounds became understandable, I realized that it was Ax’s thought-speak informing me of his new mission.
<War-Prince Jake, you must come with me. We have reason to believe that there are evil creatures tearing through the Venlosh quadrant of the 5th Regharsh Galaxy. The eye-witness’s description of these new creatures is eerily similar to those of the Howlers we faced many years ago.>
“Wait, Ax. Give me a second here.”
The memories began to flood my mind again. I saw the ending of the war against the Yeerks. I saw peace between Andalites and humans. I saw Marco becoming a famous TV show host. I saw Cassie growing into a beautiful woman, yet there were no memories of our relationship past the ending of the war. Everything I had known had happened again just as before. Tom had become a key piece to the puzzle in counter-intelligence for the Andalite fleet. He took a ship of young Andalite cadets out on missions to scout various locations for any Yeerk forces hiding out or rebuilding.
Things seemed to be pretty similar to what I had experience the last time around after the war had ended. I was beginning to feel skeptical of the Ellimist for changing things around. Hopefully some of our decisions had prevented The One from doing all the damage as quickly this time. I began to feel that this mission Ax was talking about would become a crucial piece to the way things would unfold.
