Animorphs: Redux

[Gumby]

This. is. THE BEST FREAKING FANFIC ABOUT THE ANIMORPHS I HAVE EVER READ! KEEP IT GOING MAN!!!

[Kitulean]

Thanks guys! I'm glad you like it so much. It's great to get these story ideas out.

Now the little part at the beginning here was written in response to a review on fanfiction.net questioning whether Melissa might be turning into a Mary Sue. I left it in here for my post here just in case anyone on this board had the same feelings.

Hey there. Just for a second here I'd like to address netrat's possible concerns. I understand the potential for worrying about mary sues, so this isn't to say there's anything wrong with being concerned, but I thought it would be good to at least attempt to speak on the issue.

The last thing I want is to make Melissa a Mary Sue, in any way or fashion. However, I also have to avoid making her too INcapable. In an earlier chapter, Melissa's inexperience led to David getting away which has led to Cassie's current situation. So I wanted to give her something to try to counter that. It's a difficult scale to balance sometimes, and I hope to make her likeable, but not have her take over everything. That's why she was set to go with Marco rather than Jake so the focus could go to Jake and Rachel.

But again, I understand your concerns, so I'm going to address each point you brought up for what she's done in the last little bit. First, you said that Rachel and Marco were powerless against David but Melissa fights him off. This isn't exactly true, because Melissa simply didn't fight at first. Then she attacked David, distracting him just long enough for JAKE to fight him off. Second, you said that she kept the peace when Marco and Rachel were arguing. This is true. I don't think that giving someone traits such as talking people out of arguing is quite mary sueish, but I can understand the quick thoughts that it could turn out that way. I promise to be careful with it.

As for cynical Marco not being suspicious of her, there are several reasons for that not being shown. There's a lot going on right now, plus she's done nothing to warrant suspicion. He was ready to try to accept David before except things about that psycho struck him as wrong, understandably. Melissa on the other hand is quiet and as you said, accepting of a lot. Possibly because she's grown over the past year or so to recognize her parents lack of affection and as wild as it is, it's much easier for her to accept that her parents were taken over by alien space slugs than that they just for no reason stopped loving her. At least this she can affect, and understand. Marco is trying not to overly upset the girl yes, but she's also done little to nothing to EARN his skepticism, unlike David did before. I thought it better to do it this way than to drag out the 'will they or won't they trust her' schtic that's in my mind so incredibly cliche and aggravating.

 I definitely agree that not every animorph should get along fully with every other one. That's part of their dynamic. So don't worry, she's not going to be loved by everyone and end up saving them all. At the end of the day, she's another animorph. But aren't all the animorphs special? They all stand out apart from being average, and I hope to make Melissa the same way, without making her 'mary sue'. I promise you now that she will not be the key to saving the world. She will not develop special powers no one else has. She will not be someone that everyone falls in love with. Some people reading the story might dislike her, and some might love her. That's what I hope for the most, because that's how all the animorphs are seen. Some love them. Some hate them. I promise you that this is not a story about Melissa. This is a story about Jake, Tobias, Rachel, Ax, Marco, Cassie, AND Melissa. She's part of a group, and I won't forget that.

Thank you for reading the story, and please continue to enjoy it. I definitely understand the concerns about ruining the story by making Melissa into a Mary Sue, but I promise to do everything I can not to let that happen. She will be special, but no more so than any of the others. She will succeed at some things and fail at others. Some people will like her and some people won't. Some characters will trust her, others will not. That's the same as can be said for any of the others, and that's my goal.

Thanks for listening to me ramble, and please don't take it as criticism or anything about your worry. I do completely understand it, and just wanted to take that excuse to address it as any worry anyone reading this might have. Thank you for giving me a reason to do so.
Here's the next Chapter. Enjoy, I hope.

Chapter Three


I stared at Rachel, and she glared back. In the background I could see Marco and Melissa both watching us, but not saying anything. Rachel looked like she might punch me, and I almost welcomed the idea. But I had to get her to start thinking. I hated myself for it, but there was no choice. "Rachel, if you go through that field, it'll kill you."

"I don't care!" Her face was inches from mine as she yelled at me. "I don't care, Jake! Jordan is my sister. I have to find a way to get to her. I have to.... I..." Her voice choked off, as she couldn't find the words.

From the other side of the room, Marco shook his head. "There's no way. Even if you made it past all the paranoid security now, the field isn't just going to let you pass because you're worried. And the yeerks aren't going to call time out on taking over the world either. Not to mention whatever David's up to."

Rachel started to wheel on Marco, but I kept hold of her shoulders. "Rachel. Rachel! I know. I know you want to go to Jordan. We have to find a way out of this field, but right now... right now the only thing that you can affect and actually do anything about is this mission. Jordan is in intensive care. There is literally nothing you being there could do. You'd have to sit in a chair and wait. I promise you that we will find a way to get out so you can go there, but we have to focus on this first. We have to figure out where David is. Marco and Melissa can handle staking out the banquet room, but I need your help with David. Jordan we can't help right now. Cassie we can. Please help me."

I wasn't sure it would be enough at first, as Rachel continued to glare at me for a moment. Then she sighed and lowered her gaze briefly before nodding uneasily. "Okay. Let's go bag that ****." I squeezed her shoulders, and she shot me a brief grateful look before hugging me quickly. It was an entirely unRachel like thing to do, especially in front of Marco. So I knew the news about her sister's accident had hit her hard.

Looking up, I nodded to Marco. "I don't think we have time to wait for everything to quiet down. We have to figure out what their plan is as soon possible, so we can make our own.You guys go on, we'll be fine. Meet us back here in an hour and a half."

Melissa took the time to hug Rachel, and then the two of them headed out. Once they were gone, I turned back to Rachel. "Let's think. What would David be doing here? Assume he's trapped like us, except he can be any of the security people, or anyone else he gets his hands on."

Rachel ran both her hands back through her long blonde hair with a long sigh. "I don't know. If he could do all that before, why did he let himself get caught at the barn? Why did he act so terrified of the Visser? Why did he act trapped for as long as he did? None of this makes any sense at all. Let alone... who was he babbling about?"

"Someone named Crayak. Any ideas?" I asked her, knowing she probably had as l little idea of who that was as I did.  The name gave me an uneasy feeling, but I wasn't exactly sure why. It reminded me of... something, and I had the idea that it should scare me. But I couldn't figure out why I had that kind of reaction to a name I knew I'd never heard before.

Shaking her head, Rachel paused to consider. "No... I... don't think so. It's weird, it's like the name gives me this bad feeling but I can't really remember why. I have this horrible feeling that when we think of why we hate this guy, it'll make everything worse."

I nodded, feeling the same way. "I know. But right now, David's here. Where could he go?" I waited a moment, and then groaned while answering my own question. "Anywhere. He could go anywhere, and be anyone. I'm starting to realize why Visser Three hates us so much."

We talked for a few minutes, trying to figure out where to search, and what to do when and if we found him. Finally, I had an idea about the first part. "Wait, say David doesn't want to leave, just assume that much. If he wants to be here, it has to be about the banquet. He's not here to talk to the yeerks, because we'd be done in already and halfway to our own brainslugs by now. He's not here to help us. So that leaves the world leaders. He wanted to be here, for whatever reason, so he let us bring him."

Rachel caught on, and stood up. "If he's here for them, then he's probably scoping the place out too. Like a bug or even some guy that can walk around the room without being stopped."

"Like security." I nodded and then added. "But it's worse than that. If he could be security, he can go right up into the main monitor room and watch everything. He could even take in one of the yeerk's people and see everything they're doing too. He's playing his own side in this, Rachel. Whatever he's trying to do, we have to stop him. I think right now that means getting into the security room and trying to figure out which one is him."

We both agreed and then realized there was the problem of getting from where we were to the security room without being caught. We could go small, but then we wouldn't be able to get to the place before we ran out of time in morph. There also wasn't any guarantee that we'd even be able to find it without our normal senses.

In the end, we came up with a plan together. Sneaking out of the room, we made our way up to the twelfth floor and found another room to break into.

Once we were inside the new room, Rachel went to the patio door and slid it open. While she did that, I went to the minibar and found a bag of peanuts. Together, we spread the peanuts over the balcony like someone had dropped them and then scattered them into the room. After that it was a simple matter to sit back and wait for a few birds to land on the balcony and start picking at the nuts.

One of the birds made its way inside to the nuts we had scattered on the floor. Looking at its bright red head, black wings, and white body, I shook my head. "What kind of bird is that anyway?"

Rachel worked her way cautiously behind the thing. "I think it's a woodpecker. You know, like Woody." She very slowly closed the glass door so the thing couldn't get away.

"If he's a woodpecker, why isn't he pecking wood?" Not that I was complaining, I just didn't know much about them.

"I remember Cassie saying they gather seeds too. Besides..." Rachel crouched down, and the bird looked to her as if to dare her to make her move. She froze. "We did sort of offer a free meal."

"True." I took a step that way, and reached out. Instantly, the woodpecker shot into the air and nearly took my eyes out with its beak. I had to lunge back with a yell.

As I swatted at the thing when it tried to fly right through my face, Rachel leapt forward and grabbed the thing. It beat its wings and squawked, but she hung onto it. A moment later, it stopped fighting and became still. I blinked. "You're acquiring it?"

"Sure." She shrugged and then carefully turned the thing over. "Who knows when it might come in handy." She plucked a feather from the bird while it was in its trance, and then as the thing woke up and screamed at her, she let it go. Angrily, the woodpecker flapped up to the far corner and perched there, squawking furiously at us.

Rachel handed the feather to me, and I stepped over to the phone. Knocking it off the hook the way I hoped a bird could have by bumping into it, I randomly ran my hand over the buttons, making sure to hit 0 first for the hotel operator. In the office below, some clerk would be hearing random button noises as well as bird sounds. Hopefully it would be enough for them to send security to check it out.

As soon as I thought I'd done enough with the phone, I stuck the feather on the desk next to it for added evidence, then nodded to Rachel and we both started to morph. Slowly, we shed our human forms and turned into one of mother nature's most successful, and utterly disgusting projects. That's right, we were becoming ****roaches.

Morphing together while turning into the nasty little bugs was always worse than doing it alone, because when you're with someone else there's the added disgust of actually seeing what's happening to you if you look at the other person. We both turned away from each other and did the morph as quickly as we could.

Within a couple minutes, there were two little roaches scuttling around on the floor near the door. This was the dangerous part. We had to morph early enough that we'd be ready when the security guy came, but we also had to morph late enough that we weren't too tempting of a snack for the woodpecker. Hopefully he'd had his fill on the nuts and was still too startled from his brief capture to go hunting.

We could feel the vibrations as someone walked toward the room. Above us and on the other side of the room, the woodpecker squawked. In a sudden flutter of wings, the thing went from sitting above the window to flying right at us.

It landed on the floor inches from where we huddled and started to **** its head back to peck down. <Scatter!> I yelled to Rachel, and we broke apart just as the beak the floor right between us.

****roaches are fast, but woodpecker beaks are faster. We probably would have been caught within seconds, but the door opened and a male voice yelled. "Whoa! ****, there really is a bird in here." Another voice from the hallway said something, but I couldn't make it out. Sometimes it's hard to understand voices when you're a bug.

<Now?> Rachel asked while the security man lunged for the bird which had abandoned us to fly away from the guy who was now lunging around trying to grab it. I heard laughter from the doorway, so his partner must have thought the whole situation was funny. That was good. We didn't want them to think of this as anything serious. We just wanted them to think that some bird had gotten in somehow and been trapped when a maid closed the patio door.

<Go for it.> I agreed and shot away from the floorboards. It was insane, as Marco would have said. We were going to hitch a ride on the security man's pants right into the office.

Together, we shot up over the man's shoe and under his pant cuff. We were careful to cling to his sock without touching his skin, so that he wouldn't notice us.

Once we were both on, it took both men a few minutes to chase the bird out to the balcony and away from the room. Then our guy started moving again. I heard the clang of him hanging up the phone, and then he apparently found the feather because he mentioned it to the other man. They laughed about the crazy bird and then started out, turning the light off on their way.

<Think they'll head straight back to the office?> Rachel asked after a moment while the men walked down the hall.

<Hopefully they'll have to go back and report about the bird.> I replied, while struggling to hold on without alerting the man. It was much harder to cling to a moving foot, even as a bug, than it was to stay on a wall. Especially since with each step the roach brain screamed at me to run away. They are terrified little bugs, which is a part of why they manage to survive everywhere. Sometimes their instincts were helpful in avoiding trouble. Other times they made it a pain to focus on more important things, like not letting the paranoid security guy know that two ****roaches were catching a ride on his feet.

We fell silent for awhile, each focused on not falling off or touching the man's skin while the two security guys walked to the elevator and then rode it down. I knew Rachel was quiet because she was worrying about her sister, as well as Cassie. I wished I knew what to say to her, but knowing what to say to people isn't one of my strong points. I can get them to do things, but understanding how they're feeling and talking them through it is much harder.

A few minutes later our ride walked into what we assumed was the security room from the sound of people typing and what had to be some kind of football game on a television in the corner. The guy we were perched on said something about birds screwing around in the room, then someone made a joke about that not being the only screwing around going on in there.

Just as I started to settle down and look for the best time to scuttle off the man's shoe, we both got a shock. <Okay, let's try again. Rachel? Marco? Jake? Anyone? Melissa? Somebody?>

<Tobias?!> Rachel demanded. <How did you get in here? Where are you?> She sounded as startled as I felt.

<I'm with Ax and Erek. Turns out the Chee can overload the field, but only very briefly. Erek says he won't be able to do it again for awhile. Erek's playing vending machine in the top left corner of the room and we've been calling out for you guys every time someone new comes in.>

<Overload the field...> Rachel repeated, sounding hopeful. <Can he get me out? I have to go. Jordan's in the hospital.> She took a moment to explain urgently.

There was silence, and then Tobias answered. <Erek says he can do it. He can get you out. But there's two things. First, he can't do it for another two hours. Second, once he does it the second time the field will adjust to his signature and he won't be able to do it again." He paused, and then clarified. "Rachel, that means if you go out of the field, you won't be able to get back in. We'll be doing the rest of this mission without you.>

[Kitulean]

Chapter Four

It took a good ten minutes for us to use our pathetic roach senses to find our way to where the other three were hidden behind Erek's hologram. We demorphed under cover, and found ourselves in a room about the size of the average classroom. On both sides of the room were long tables full of monitors covering every area of the grounds and pool in the area directly around the hotel and in the lobby, as well as the first couple floors. The screens kept flipping back and forth between various cameras, and the four men in the room were studying them intently while chatting over colas and a pizza that was sitting on the end of the table near us. The atmosphere was serious, but also kind of laid back, like these guys knew their job and were comfortable with it.

While Rachel spoke in a hushed almost silent tone with Erek, I looked to Tobias. He was in his normal hawk form, as odd it was for me to think of his hawk body as normal, perched on Ax's shoulder. Ever since our first mission, Tobias has been trapped in the body of a red tailed hawk. He was stuck in that one body for months before an unbelievably powerful being known as the Ellemist gave him his morphing power back. But hawk is still his default form. Anything else is just a morph, with the same two hour limit as the rest of us. If he overstays that limit, he's out of the fight.

Ax was in his human morph, since it would have been hard to comfortably hide his andalite body in the space we had. Tobias explained that when they finally met up with Erek, the Chee had said that all entrance into the yeerk pool was closed down for the time being. When he had said that he could bypass the field to get them inside with us, the two had quickly agreed. They had all come here and assumed that at least one of us at some point would enter the security room.

<So we decided to wait, and here you are.> He finished. <Is... Rachel...> He turned his intense hawk glare in her direction, not wanting to interrupt her talk with Erek over what she could do. He knew how Rachel felt about the war. He knew how impossible of a decision was being forced on her right now. She could leave to be with her sister, but it would mean abandoning us in our most dangerous mission so far.

"She'll..." I hesitated. "She'll be okay. She's Rachel." It was as simple as that. Rachel, in some ways, was the strongest of us. She was our warrior, our gladiator. I trusted her. Maybe she wouldn't make what some would call the right decision straight off, but I knew she would make whatever decision she made work in our favor.

Tobias leveled me with his stare before changing the subject. <Where's Marco?> He paused, then as though he had forgotten for a moment, added. <And Melissa? Are they checking out the banquet hall or did Marco detour into the pool?>

"Banquet hall." I confirmed almost silently, because one of the guards was looking around. Something had caught his attention. I didn't know what it was, but the man stood up and leaned over partway toward us. Then I realized that he was looking at the empty pizza box. Wait, empty? It had been half full just a moment... Oh I had a bad feeling about this.

I looked back quickly at Ax, who I just realized had been suspiciously quiet during all of this. In his human form, he's usually hard to shut up. Just as I had suspected, the reason Ax had been quiet was because his mouth was full of pizza. Putting it mildly, a lot of pizza. He must have had at least two full slices crammed halfway into his mouth, pushing at them with his fingers while he made mild pleased noises. There was tomato sauce all over his chin, and I knew that these two slices weren't the first.

"Ax!" I hissed under my breath. "What are you doing? You can't take the pi..."

I fell silent then, because the annoyed guard was standing right next to us, picking up the pizza box. "Hey!" He called out to the other three men. "Which one of you snuck over here and took the last half of my ham and olive? You know that was mine."

All four men started to argue, and I sighed, giving Ax a look. He gave me a pizza smeared contrite look before licking his fingers. "I am sorry. orry... orrrry.. ree, Prince Jake. But the smells were so... enticing. Icing? Ent Icing. I could not resist."

Rachel, who had noticed something else happening while we were distracted, stepped up between Ax and me, looking to the men. She pointed past them at the monitors. "Look." She whispered.

I looked where she pointed, and saw one of the monitors focused on what had to be the banquet hall. There was a platform at one end with a podium that had the presidential seal on it. All around the room were hanging chandeliers and beautiful pillars. There were also a lot of small tables with white tablecloths, where all the guests would enjoy their fifteen thousand dollar dinners while the world leaders gave their speeches.

And on that platform where the leaders of the free world would talk about the problems in the middle east stood the man who trumped all the problems the earth had ever known. It was Visser 3, in what we knew as his human morph. The man radiated evil even through a television monitor, and I repressed a shudder. He seemed to be talking to two of the secret service men. "Remember their faces." I hissed. "They've gotta be controllers."

"I agree, Prince Jake." Ax had finally sucked all the pizza sauce off his fingers. "But we are not the only ones interested in the Visser, it seems."

Blinking, I glanced first to Ax, then at where he was looking. One of the four security men wasn't paying attention to the argument. Instead, the man, who had somewhat unkempt red hair and a trim beard, was staring intently at the same monitor that we had been watching. I realized that the screen had stayed on that view instead of switching to the next camera because he had pressed the button to stop it there. Something was in the man's eyes, a sort of hunger that made me nervous. He was staring at the Visser like, well, like the Visser typically stared at us. Like he was prey.

"There are certain anomalies in his genetic structure that I can't fully analyze." Erek finally spoke up, in a normal tone of voice. It made the rest of us, even Tobias, jump and turn back in surprise, since we had all been whispering. "And I might remind you." Erek went on with a slight grin. "That I am containing all of the sounds within this space. No one can hear you, even if you shout. I swear, someday I'm going to have the Chee manual implanted in the back of you people's eyelids."

"Oh." I said, feeling slightly dumb. "Right, okay then. Anomalies in the genetic structure. I'm going out on a limb to say that's probably David."

<If that's David...> Tobias spread his wings and hopped over to land on Rachel's arm. <Then him being interested in the Visser definitely isn't good for us.>

Rachel reached a hand up gently to stroke his left wing, and Tobias started to preen absently. She looked torn, but like she had made a decision. "Jake..." She said slowly. "I have to go to Jordan. I can't not be there. I can miss a lot of things... but not this. I'll try to help... I'll do anything I can, even try to find a way in again if everything goes okay. But I just... I can't stay here while Jordan's..." She choked herself off, refusing to go on.

I paused before responding. To be honest, the decision surprised me a bit, and that worried me. Why should Rachel deciding to stay with her little sister in the hospital instead of risking her life here and possibly never seeing Jordan again surprise me? What did that say about what I thought of her? With a troubled look that she probably misinterpreted, I nodded. "Okay. Erek, get Rachel out as soon as you can. We'll take care of this. Ax, Tobias, we need to get do a flies so we can follow David when he leaves the room." I added the last since the red headed security guy was already starting to lace up his shoes tighter, like he was getting ready to head out.

"And Erek, please get the other Chee to cover for us. I forgot... to call when we found out about Jordan  before." I waited until Erek agreed, and then put a hand on Rachel's arm. "Rachel... I'm glad you're going to see Jordan. We can handle this. Just... we wouldn't object to your help later if it turns out we, you know, can't." I tried for a smile, and it came out a little weak.

Rachel snorted softly and punched me in the shoulder. "Be good, Jake. Take the creep down, but save something for me to do." She embraced me quickly, like she was half embarrassed about it, and then stepped back. I saw her open her mouth like she was going to change her mind and come with us, but she closed it again reluctantly without saying anything.

Ax started to demorph back to his Andalite body, since we couldn't go straight from one morph to another like David apparently could. We all shuffled a little to the side to give him room, but we were still bunched up together. To relieve some of that, I started to go directly into fly morph. I saw Rachel whispering to Tobias, and she hugged him awkwardly, since it's rather hard to embrace a hawk. Then he started to shrink as well. Rachel watched us for a moment before looking a little sick as she turned away. I wasn't sure how much of her expression was from the sight of my head suddenly erupting into a mess of compound eyes while Tobias's feathers grew all black and sticky as they melted down, and how much was from her not wanting to leave the fight.

It took us a couple of extremely disgusting minutes for all of us to reach full fly morph. By then, the red headed guard we figured was David was on his way out the door. In the end, Tobias and I flew out to keep track of him while telling Ax to catch up when he finished morphing. As we took off, Rachel called. "Good luck!"

Once Ax caught up with us, we all flew crazily down the hall to catch up with David, who was disappearing around the corner. We stayed near the ceiling and prayed that we'd be able to stick with him. He was almost at the end of the next hall by the time we turned the bend, and we hauled fly butt after him and prayed that he wouldn't go too far.

Thankfully, sort of, he had stopped just at the end of the hall, giving us time to catch up. That was the good news. The bad news was that he was talking to Visser Three. They were chatting almost... amicably. It was both strange and disconcerting. It sounded like they were old friends, but both of them were being cagey enough that the old friend routine came off like two political opponents  forced to meet and act like they didn't hate each others guts.

We flew a bit lower to hear better, and I noticed something on the back of the Visser's coat. Dipping closer, I saw that there were two other flies clinging to the space between the back of his neck and his shoulders, on the collar. <Marco, Melissa? That's you guys, right?>

<Nope. Two completely different flies.> Marco answered, and I saw one of the flies shift.

<That know thought speak?> I countered quickly, landing between the both of them. Ax and Tobias followed suit.

Marco was silent, like he was trying to think quickly. <I... crap. Fine, it's us.>

<You should have gone for the Great and Powerful Oz routine.> Tobias observed. <And pretended to be the Visser's hairpiece.>

Ax wondered. <What is a hairpiece? Is it a weapon?>

<Not even close, Ax-Man.> Marco responded. <And hey, what are you guys doing here anyway?> We explained, while listening to the security man that David had taken over and the Visser exchange a few last words. Then Marco reported. <Well, we heard a whole lot of nothing. We couldn't get close enough while the Visser was talking to his boys in the banquet room.>

Melissa added quietly. <They were slapping anything that looked like it could be a bug. They're kind of...>

<Paranoid.> Marco supplied. <Kind of very paranoid. Kind of please god don't let us be seen here on the Visser's jacket, because I promised my dad I wouldn't get squashed and left as smeared fly guts all over the wall until I'm at least twenty one.>

<Wait, now where's he going?> Melissa asked suddenly, as the Visser started to walk again. We entered a brightly lit room, and heard a fan. Melissa answered her own question. <The bathroom? We're in the boys room?> She sounded, amusingly, like that was the scariest thing to happen today. <I can't be in the boys room. I don't want to be in the boy's room either. This sucks.>

<The Visser has to potty?> Marco demanded. <Okay, Jake, I'll do a lot of things, but I am so out of here for that.> He started to fly up off the visser's coat, and the rest of us followed quickly. We had no desire to stick around for it either.

<What is this potty?> Ax sounded confused. <Is the Visser taking this hairpiece into the potty? I don't understand.>

<I hate to interrupt Ax's continuing education in the ways of wigs and toilets...> Tobias interrupted before any of us could explain. <But I don't think David was done with the conversation.> Sure enough, David had stealthily entered the room behind the Visser, who was no doubt accustomed to using his Andalite stalk eyes most of the time, and wasn't used to turning around to look behind himself.

<Oh my bad feeling just exploded.> I said slowly, starting to realize what was going on. <David isn't here for us or the world leaders. We were wrong.> I said, feeling stunned as it hit me. <I was wrong. David's here for Visser Three. If he absorbs him, suddenly he's in charge of the yeerk invasion. That's what he was talking about earlier. He's going to do it right. He'll take over. He'll be the new Visser Three. No one'll know the difference. Except he'll win.>

<Wait... are you telling us...> Marco started.

<Yep.> I confirmed, feeling helpless. We were all flies. What the hell could we do? <If we want to save the earth, we've gotta save Visser Three.>

[Phoenix004]

That David is one cunning little traitor. I love the irony of the situation now though, having to save the Visser! 

[OrcaMorph]

I thought I'd just take this opportunity to say that I began reading this fic last weekend and I'm absolutely hooked. Bravo, mate.  Please, don't keep me hanging.

Your capture KA and the Animorphs' voices brilliantly and I love your story, despite usually having a distaste for people who change the ending of the series and stuff.  All of the action keeps me on RAF instead of doing my homework.  For example, when we first saw David 'acquiring' the guy through his hand, I was like, "Awwwww dayummmmm, David's the One!" and he broke into the introductory paragraph "the one Animorphs...this one this...the one that..." I was practically jumping up and down.  Amazing moment.

[Kitulean]

Thanks. I'm glad you like the bit at the end of the 'first' book. It was a lot of fun to write that bit and build up to that revelation.

Chapter Five

<Oh that's easy.> Marco said conversationally. <I'll just whip out my ten inch claws and leap right into battle.> He stopped as though just realizing something. <Oh wait, silly me, I'm a friggin fly!>

<We're all friggin flies.> Tobias complained, while David approached the Visser. <What are we supposed to do, annoy him into submission? Ask him to wait until we're ready?>

<Nope.> I replied while already regretting my next decision. <Annoy Visser Three. If he sees us, he'll think we're the Andalites.> Even as I spoke, I flipped around in midair and dove for the side of his face to set the example. I powered my wings and shot right around, landing on the human cheek briefly before taking off again and flying right around nearly into his eye. The Visser yelled in surprise and slapped at his cheek. I barely managed to zip up and out of the way.

Marco was right behind me. <Annoy the Visser into attacking us? I don't like this plan. This is a horrible plan. I officially dub it 'Plan Suck'.> Even as he spoke however, he was buzzing around the Visser's left eye, narrowly evading his grasping fingers.

Ax and Tobias joined us with Melissa following them a second later while asking. <D-do you guys ever come up with plans that aren't really elaborate suicide attempts?>

<Not really.> Marco replied while the five of us buzzed right across the Visser's face like a squadron of jet fighters. <Jake is like the Rube Goldberg of suicide. One of these days he'll get it right.>

<Shut up and scatter!> I ordered, as the Visser whipped around with a shout while flailing his hands at all of us.

He yelled. "Meddling ANDA--" Then cut himself short when he spotted the other man. While he was distracted,  we shot to every side as high as we could go. Visser Three stared at the security man that David had become. He was obviously surprised by the man's presence, and panted while darting his eyes around looking for us.

David, who was obviously caught off guard by the Visser's sudden alertness, stopped short. Visser Three glowered at him as though it could have been his fault. "What are you doing in here? What do you want?" He was twitching still, obviously trying to avoid yelling about the Andalite Bandits, which told me that whoever David had taken over, he wasn't a controller. If he was, Visser Three would have been ordering him to kill us immediately.

"I..." David started while shooting an intense glare up at where I sat in the high left corner near the ceiling. His eyes burned with hatred close to what the Visser was shooting our way. Then he shook his head and forced a smile. It wasn't very convincing, but then again, I doubt Visser Three was knowledgeable enough about human expressions to realize that. "I just had to clean my hands." He stepped past the other man, and it seemed like an invisible wall kept the two from getting too close. It was as though the darkness in both of them was so strong that they were incapable of occupying space too near each other. Or I'm exaggerating and Visser Three was just naturally suspicious of the man David had become.

The Visser looked around the room once more and muttered about insecticide, then walked briskly from the room. As the door opened, all of us shot after him into the large hallway. I don't think any of us wanted to be left alone with David in fly morph. Not that it seemed we could do much better in full battle form, but still. Besides, as close as that had been, at least Visser Three would be too suspicious for David to sneak up on him for awhile.

<Well that was a lot of not fun.> Tobias said tensely while we all hit the ceiling and struggled to watch the dim and contorted vision of the Visser striding away. <Could we go do something less dangerous now, like punching a Carcharodontosaurus?>

<Wait, punching a what?> Marco demanded. <A Car car oh darn uh saurus? You just made that up.>

Tobias sounded offended. <I did not. And it's Carcharodontosaurus . They were an allosaurid theropod from mid-Cretacious..." He went on for a minute, and I tuned him out while trying to think about what to do next. We couldn't just follow the Visser around all day trying to keep David away from him.

<Prince Jake, what are Marco and Tobias talking about?> Ax asked me while they argued.

<Like I ever know.> I replied while pushing off to fly down the hall. <Come on, we need to change somewhere and figure out what we're going to do next if David is after Visser Three.>

<I've got an idea.> Marco said once he and the others started to follow. We flew, searching for a place that was private enough to demorph. The hard part was that fly eyes aren't all that good and we had no real way of knowing which way we were going. Anything further than a few inches out was just a glob of color. We would have gone back to our room, but there was no way we could find it in this state.

I thought carefully while responding. <We're not going to order pay per view boxing and raid the minibar.>

<Then I have no plan.> Marco sulked for a moment, then spoke up again. <Unless...> He sounded hesitant, like he was sorry he was even suggesting anything. That was usually the way Marco was just before he had an actual good plan. Mostly because his good plans tended to be the most traumatizing ones.

I hesitated, but the truth was I wasn't coming up with anything spectacular. <What is it, Marco? Spit it out.>

<Well...> He started relunctantly. <Whoever the Visser's human morph is to the people  around here, it's someone important. If we could find one of the people that he's supposed to interact with a lot, we could snatch them and hold them quietly while one of us assumes his role to stay near Visser Three.>

I almost regretted asking. <And you people call my plans suicidal.> I complained before sighing. <But it's probably our best shot. Let's demorph and then figure out who gets guard duty. Then we can try to find a likely candidate.>

It took about forty minutes for us to locate a dark corner, demorph, find our bearings in relation to the stairs, then remorph and get all the way back to a safe room on one of the higher levels. By the time we managed it, all of us were exhausted from all the morphing. If you do it too much, it's like running a marathon, and we had been morphing a lot today.

Melissa fell back on the bed, breathing heavily. "I didn't know... it was this... tiring." She lifted her head with a yawn. "Are we really gonna kidnap someone?" She sounded a little worried about that idea. "I mean... saving the world... but... what about the person we take? Won't they... notice we're just kids?"

<She has a point.> Tobias spoke from his perch on the dresser where he was cleaning his feathers with his beak. <How are we supposed to hold a guy for... however long, without him figuring out what we are?>

"I don't know." I admitted and sighed. "We could keep him tied up... and... not talk around him. Lower our voices or something."

"But... we're.. talking about kidnapping." Melissa's objection was soft, like she wasn't sure if she really should be saying anything. "Can we do that?"

"We can do what we have to do to save the world." Marco snapped a little in her direction. "I'm not saying we make a habit of it, but if it helps us stop David from becoming the new leader of the Yeerk Invasion, then I say we do whatever it takes."

Melissa opened her mouth again, then fell silent before answering hesitantly. "I... guess so... but how exactly do--"

"We just live with it." Marco went on, turning to her. "We do what we have to do. Sometimes it's bad and sometimes it's terrifying and sometimes it's evil, but we do it, okay? And yeah, it's morphing a sentient being. We don't like doing that either, but this is a special situation, especially considering the person who usually tells us not to do that is one of the people we're trying to save here!"

Staring back at him, Melissa paused before responding carefully. "I... was going to ask how we kidnap a grown man without being seen."

Marco blinked and then looked away. "Right.. um, yeah. I guess they might notice the gorilla and tiger tag team abduction, huh?"

Ax, in his Andalite body since we had pulled the blinds tightly closed to hide our presence anyway, asked. <The people who are responsible for the event will sleep here, yes?>

I looked away from Marco and Melissa to nod at him. "Yeah, they've taken over the first two floors to put up all the people they've got here. I guess they figure that's easier than having them drive from home every morning, especially when they need things on the spur of the moment."

Ax twisted one of his stalk eyes to look at the window while the other watched Tobias on the desk. <Then, why do we not just wait for them to be sleeping and abduct our chosen target while he or she sleeps?>

"Good point, Ax." I said and then looked to the others. "Okay, we'll wait until tonight. We need some sleep anyway. But first, we need to figure out which one of us is going to be the Visser's bodyguard."

"See, now that doesn't even sound right." Marco complained with a sigh. "We have to be the Visser's bodyguard? We're babysitting Visser Three? Can I submit a complaint? Our job sucks. Can't we, just for once, tell the world to save itself?"

"Sorry, Marco." I replied while picking up a few of the coffee stirrers from next to the coffee maker that had been provided for the room. I bent one of the stirrers in half  and snapped it, then dropped one half while holding the other tightly in my fist with the other four. "Short straw takes up guard duty."

I held my fist out, and Marco stepped over first. He looked straight at me while putting his hand over mine, then slowly selected one of the stirrers. It was a long one. I nodded and he stepped away, tossing it into the trash. "Not my go, I guess."

Then Melissa stepped over and hesitated  before pulling one of the stirrers up. I think we all breathed a sigh of relief when it was a long one. As good as she had been with all of this so far, none of us, not even Melissa, wanted to test her with something like this so quickly.

Ax was next, and he also drew a long straw. <I do not understand this ritual.> He said with some confusion. <How is it determined that the person who draws the shorter straw is the better candidate for the job?>

<Fate, Ax-Man.> Tobias spoke up while taking a quick hop over to land on my arm. <We leave it all up to fate.> He nudged one of the two remaining stirrers with his beak, and I pulled it up with my other hand to reveal the short stirrer, slowly giving it to him. He paused, then returned to his spot with the stirrer in his beak before dropping it next to him on the desk. <There you go, fate. I'm your bird.>

I shook my head, surprised. Somehow I hadn't really thought about Tobias being the one to do the bodyguard work, but it made sense. At the very least if he had to demorph from the form we got for him, he'd still be somewhat useful, and unidentifiable. "Right... I guess... that makes sense."

Marco yawned and strolled to the second bed to flop down on it before picking up the remote. "Now that's settled, I'm gonna veg out with some Spongebob and catch a few thousand z's before we try to murder ourselves horribly again."

I frowned at the television, then sighed in defeat. "All right, fine, just keep the volume low. We don't need to attract attention." I looked to the door and swallowed. This whole thing made me uneasy. "We've got a long night tonight, so get some sleep. I have the feeling we're gonna need it. I'll stand guard first."


"What we need is a few bazookas and a squad of panzers." Marco retorted while flipping channels. "But I'll settle for sleep."

I let them talk and stepped away to think to myself. Folding my arms, I tuned everyone out, thinking about the mission. Always the mission. I couldn't even take the time to worry about Jordan, because if I did, someone would notice and lose their own confidence. I was the leader. I had to be stronger than anyone should have to be. But I was so tired. So tired, and no amount of sleep was going to cure that. I wondered if anything, even the end of this war, ever would.

I had been changed, forever. And it scared me. In that moment, I desperately wished that I could be at the hospital, worrying about Jordan and comforting Rachel. I wanted to be who I'd been a year ago.

But that wasn't me anymore, and a wise man once said you can never go back to how you were before. You can only be what you've become. The trouble was, as I stood apart from the others and trembled, I wasn't sure what that was.

[Kitulean]

Chapter Six

Finally, I decided that I'd felt sorry for myself long enough. Carefully, I stepped to the door and eased it open. All I really wanted to do was fall down and sleep for a good week, but there wasn't any time for that.

Marco noticed what I was doing and spoke up from the bed. "Hey, what are you doing?" He tossed the remote to Ax, who immediately began chasing commercials to find his favorite ones. No one really complained. I think Melissa was already asleep and Tobias was busy staring out the window at the sky. The sun was still high, and I guessed that it was sometime in the mid afternoon.  A glance to the clock told me I was right.

"I told you." I turned back to him with my hand on the knob. "I'll stand guard. Someone's got to watch over the Visser in case David tries something else today."

"Jake, dude, you're dead on your feet." Marco shook his head and swung his legs to the floor before standing to cross the room. As he moved, Tobias turned his attention back to us, his laser like hawk stare drilling through me as though he knew what I wanted to do.

"So I won't use my feet." I tried a weak joke, hoping Marco would appreciate it. "I'll have wings." When Marco didn't smile, I sighed. "Look, someone's gotta do it. Yeah, I'm tired, but we can't just expect David to take a break for us. He could still go after Visser Three." I didn't mention that I was hoping he'd try it so I could have a rematch with David. Somehow it didn't seem like Marco would really trust that I was thinking straight if I said something like that.

<I doubt it.> Tobias finally interrupted, then turned back to the patio door. <He just left in a limo with a convoy of jeep escorts. My guess is he's heading for his private Kandrona on the mothership so that he's ready for Monday.>

"He could come back." Now I was frustrated, and grasping at straws. "He could take in the rays and come right back."

"Yeah." Marco said dryly. "Because the Visser's always been in such a rush to deny his own comfort.Face it, Jake, we've got the afternoon off. Everything we've seen says that the yeerks have to splash around in their little pool for hours. I bet our little run in with him as the flies convinced the little slug that we're trapped here so he can spend all the time he needs tomorrow hunting us down. But right now we get to sleep. Don't worry, all the screaming and terror and nightmares can come back tomorrow when we deal with David. Together." He enunciated the last word carefully, and the look he passed to Tobias let me know that they both realized I'd wanted a face to face meeting with David without anyone else around.

With a sigh of annoyance, I picked up one of the pillows from the bed and squeezed it hard before letting out my breath. "Fine, okay, I guess we all do need to sleep." I tossed the pillow to the floor and dragged one of the blankets off the bed. While I did that, Marco stepped past me to quietly but firmly close the door, as though sealing me inside. We each gave each other a long look, then I laid down and thought of Cassie. My fist clenched.

I thought it would be impossible to sleep, but I was wrong. Morphing and fighting had taken more out of me than I thought, because the next thing I knew after I pulled the blanket over me, there was a breeze drifting in from the open window. Wait a minute, open window? As soon as that thought hit me, I sat up quickly. My mouth tasted like cotton, but I managed to cough and speak. "What?"

Marco stood by the patio door, looking out at the dark sky. "Don't worry, Tobias and Ax just took off to get some food. Tobias thinks he can catch a squirrel on the golf course since it's lit up in places and he's going to play look out so Ax can run back there. Or at least, you know, jog back and forth." Andalites eat by absorbing trampled grass through their hooves, which is also how they drink. I guess when you don't have a mouth, you've got to take in your nutrients somehow. Marco unwrapped a granola bar he'd taken from the snacks provided for paying guests and tossed it to me.

I nodded after catching the bar, then stood up and took a bite. "Where's Melissa then?" The bed where she had slept was empty. "Ow, and you get the floor next time, dude." I rubbed a harsh cramp in my back and yawned.

"She's in the shower. She said something about dealing with dirty clothes but that she'd be voluntarily crucified before she went a day without a shower." Marco shrugged. "Girls are weird, man." Now that he said it, I recognized the sound of the water running.

"Yeah, weird." I replied absently while walking to the sink to use one of those plastic wrapped cups so I could rinse out my mouth and drink some water. Feeling better after a minute of that, I walked over next to Marco. Together, we stood looking out at the dark grounds. Far below us I could see the ocassional flashlight beam from patrolling guards. Thankfully the lights were off in the room and the television had long since been shut down, so there was nothing to alert them to someone being up here, even if they walked out far enough to see this floor.

"So I guess we need a target." Marco said finally, after a minute of silence where the only sound was the shower in the other room. "Someone close enough to the Visser to keep an eye on him but far enough away that he won't notice if the guy's acting off."

I nodded slowly, then paused before responding. "Yeah.... I had an idea for that but... are we really doing this? Are we taking a guy... kidnapping him, and then taking his.. dna?" Something about it seemed horribly wrong, and I knew part of that was that I knew Cassie would have never stood for it.

"Like I said last night, I don't see a choice." Marco shrugged. "Yeah, it sucks, but this is five world leaders. It's the whole invasion, against one guy being a little inconvenienced? Not even close, Jake. We do it or we fail. How'd you like to explain that to all the new yeerk slaves? Yeah, sorry we couldn't save you, but we were squeamish about interfering with one guy's life."

"When you put it that way..." I sighed and we both looked over as Melissa emerged from the bathroom. She had her morphing outfit on again, but she'd cleaned up. It actually seemed like a good idea, since we had the time. "My turn." I said and stepped past her before Marco could say anything.

I showered for about twenty minutes and when I got out, I felt a lot more human. As I came back out into the room, I could see that Ax and Tobias had returned. Everyone looked at me and Marco spoke up from his spot near the window. "So, bossman. You said something about having an idea about this guy we need to borrow."

"Yeah, I... do." I said after a moment. "I was thinking, with all the cops and secret service guys running around, the ordinary hotel security guys are pretty far down in importance. We'd probably get screwed if we tried to grab one of the big guys, but hotel security? I think we can take one of those guys. Besides, they're not expected to do that much now with all the big leaguers around, besides be visible. If we get one of those guys, we could probably stick around any room the Visser walks through." I tried to say it matter of factly, sort of glazing over the part where we'd have to kidnap a trained security officer.

<Sounds like the best plan we'll get.> Tobias offered after everyone looked back and forth at each other. I had the feeling they'd been talking about what to do if my plan was something like calling David out with a megaphone to rumble. <I don't have much better vision at night than you guys, but if you want to hop on Red-tail airlines, we could go window shopping for the right guy. I think I can figure out where the employee cottages are."

Melissa glanced to Marco like she was hesitant to question anything, then sighed softly and asked. "How do we keep him quiet for however long we need?"

Ax, who had been quiet up to this point, finally spoke up. <If I can acquire the man while he sleeps, I can blend his dna with the other human dna that I've acquired from you, Marco, Cassie, and Rachel, and create another morph using the Frolis Maneuver. This morph would be similar to the man in size and build, but would look different. He would see another human keeping him prisoner, a human he would never be able to identify.>

We explained to Melissa how Ax had taken our dna and combined them to make his human morph, and she asked. "Wait... does that mean you could... like.... take the dna of a wolf and mix it with a bird to make a wolf with a wings?"

Ax swiveled his stalk eyes to her. <No, becuse the Frolis Maneuver only works with different beings of the same species. Marco could acquire another, slightly different looking gorilla and combine them, but he could not acquire a fish and give his gorilla gills. It simply does not work that way.>

Marco sighed, mock pitifully. "Man, and here I thought I could be Scuba Kong." He managed the morose look for a moment before coughing. "Right, so Ax plays jailer. Huh, Ax locked in a room with a guy for hours, stuck in human morph. Are we sure that's not against the Geneva convention or something? I mean, we can barely stand to be around Ax in human morph for thirty minutes."

"Be nice, Marco." Still, I looked at Ax. "You have to act normal. I mean normal for one of us. You can't sit there and... play with sounds or... eat the cigarette butts."

<There will be cigarette butts?> Ax's stalk eye swiveled around to stare at me. He looked a little too eager. <They are very tasty. I do not understand why humans only light them on fire and then throw them away. Will there be chocolate? And the crispy delicious wedges with the artificial orange powder? They are almost as tasty as cigarette butts.>

While Melissa gagged, Marco rolled his eyes. "Doritos, Ax. We told you that before. And stay away from the cigarette butts. They're bad for you. Especially bad when you eat them. Just stay cool and watch the guy. We need this to go smoothly. You can't get caught up in snacking and let the guy get away."

Ax sobered at that. His eyes narrowed and his tail curved up. <I will not fail. I will maintain control of the human morph.>

"Just the same..." I said slowly. "I think we'll leave Marco with you. He can eat all the snacks before you get to them. Just don't say anything around him in your normal voice, Marco. The last thing we want is for him to realize that at least one of his kidnappers is a kid. Be mature. Melissa and I will try to figure out how the yeerks plan to infest the leaders, while we take another look at that ballroom."

<Jake, you're leaving Ax in human morph and Marco as Marco and telling them to  be mature.> Tobias commented wryly.

"Yeah... well... I can dream." I muttered and then clapped once. "All right, let's move it, people. Everyone but Tobias morph to fly and then we hitch a ride on the bird." I waited a moment before matching action to words. I closed my eyes, because frankly, a roomful of people morphing into flies is really far down on my list of things I ever want to see again.

It didn't take long before we were four flies perched on the bird's back, nestled into the feathers as tight as we could get. <Everyone got their seatbelts fastened and their trays in the upright and locked position?> Tobias asked before taking off. My fly vision was so poor that I didn't exactly so much see us leave as feel the sudden tornado of wind that kicked up as we moved. It was all I could do to my little spot. Have you ever tried to cling to a fast moving bird as a fly? Trust me, it's more difficult than it sounds. Actual clinging was impossible. Mostly it amounted to hunkering as low as possible and letting ourselves be thrown against the wall of a feather.

After what felt like hours of  nearly falling off, Tobias finally settled on a balcony. <Hold up, I see a good candidate, but the place next door is lit up and there's a woman by the window. Wait until she moves.>

<Okay guys.> I started to say. <Once we get inside, we have to do this quick. Marco, you keep him quiet while Ax, Tobias and I tie him up. We'll try to do it without waking the guy up but--> I was interrupted as Tobias cursed suddenly and explosively. <Tobias?! What is it, were you seen? What happened?>

<I don't....>  Tobias sounded uncomfortable. <I don't know... that can't be... that isn't....>

 I could hear the lie in his thought speak, but what I couldn't figure out what he'd lie about right now.  <Tobias...> I started with my best warning voice. <If something's wrong, you've gotta tell us. We can't go into this blind.>

He was silent for a few seconds, then he spoke up sounding dazed. <I'm not... positive... but I could have sworn... my eyes are... worse at night but... the light and the...>

<Dude!> Marco said irritably. <Would you just spit it out already? What did you see?>

<I...> Tobias started hesitantly. <saw... see... I see Cassie.>

That got my attention. <What?! You see Cassie? Where? Did David change into her again?> I was almost ready to fly up to that window myself, bracing to take off.

<No, I see David too. He's with Cassie. He's... with... Cassie.> Tobias's voice was slow, and not nearly as ecstatic as I was feeilng right then.

<With her?> I could have died right then I was so happy. <So he's seperated from her. Come on, she needs our help then, he's holding her prisoner. He let her out, she's not dead. Come on! Point us the right way. This is great!>

Tobias sounded pained. <Jake, wait. Yeah he's holding her prisoner, I see a gun but there's something--"

I was starting to get pissed off. <What, Tobias?! What has got you so screwed up? It's Cassie, right? We save Cassie. Now come on! If you don't fly us up there I'll find it on my own, I swear to god!>

<Jake she's changed! I'm not sure... I'm positive it's her but...>

<But what?> Marco took over for me as I sputtered. <What do you mean changed?>

Tobias seemed to take a breath before speaking again. <She's... grown up, Jake.... she's.... an adult. Cassie's grown up.>

[Nateosaurus]

Whoa, I stop reading for a while, been busy, and I come back to all these chapters!
Awesome stuff. The last part confuzzled me a bit though, but this fic rocks!

Some cool plot twists happening too. Great job, keep em coming!

[OrcaMorph]

Oh jeez, I thought Tobias was going to say that Cassie and David were having sex. Yikes

[Preventor]

Thoughts so far....


I have to admit I really enjoyed the first few chapters, I think the viewpoint was a nice salvage of the "ending" we were given before. The premise for the story you're making was written well enough that we, as an audience, can read and believe it. Not to mention, your writing style is very reminiscent of the original series. Almost uncanny.

Initially I was worried about the introduction of the character Melissa as the new Animorph. Partly from stubbornness of keeping the Animorphs the same as I know and love, and partly because it seemed like you might make Melissa a Mary-Sue. Given your explanation contrary to such, my worries were quelled. I think most here are glad you addressed it.

A very nice tie in with The One, but at the same time not quite understandable. I imagine you'll address this in later chapters, but for now we cannot see how David is The One in relation to Crayak. Hell we're not even sure who The One is or his power/influence in relation to Crayak in the original series.

Another thing, while you've hinted that some characters can "feel" certain things, like Crayak's name and implication, or deja vu moments, you have allowed David to retain (at least) partial memories of the original time line. Interesting choice, but I wonder if you'll explain it or take it in an interesting direction.

Lastly, so far it seems as if you are setting up (or foreshadowing) a twist in which Cassie will be reduced to a lesser part in terms of the fight. Now I'd probably say Cassie is my least favorite, but if she's taken out of the fight or ends up drastically changing in personality then that prospect is unsettling.


Until then I will wait and watch. You're doing quite well so far; good job and don't stop.

[Kitulean]

Thanks for all the thoughts, Predator. Some of what you questioned is addressed in this new chapter, some will have to wait for later. I hope you enjoy it, even if it might not stick exactly to what you expect.

As for everyone else, I'm sorry about being so late, so... incredibly late with this chapter. My computer broke down, and is actually still broke at the moment, I'm borrowing this one. I find it hard to write when I'm borrowing time at places like the library or internet cafes, but my roommate has his own computer now, that I am able to use when he isn't. I should be back in business now that I have a somewhat reliable computer to use until I get my own back.

Here we go with another chapter and some more answers. And more questions, naturally. Thanks for reading, everyone, and see you soon!

Chapter Seven

For several long seconds after Tobias spoke, my brain shut down. There was literally no coherent thought going on in my head. Cassie… grown up? What in the world did that even mean?

Marco found his voice first. <What do you mean, ‘grown up’?> He demanded with a confused tone underlying his thought-speak voice. <You’re screwing with us, right? This is just you and your hawk eyes picking on the little blind roaches.>

<No.> Tobias shot back, his voice terse. <I’m telling you. I’m looking right at Cassie and she’s gotta be… nineteen, at least.>

<Are you sure it’s her?> I knew he was sure. It was Tobias. For a moment it was just impossible to accept, or even understand what he was saying.

<I’m sure.> I felt Tobias take off from the perch where he had landed. <I’m getting a closer look. This is insane.> He added, as though it needed to be said. The four of us were stuck pressing ourselves against his feathers while he shot into the air. <There’s just the two of them. The window is open a crack. I’m gonna let you guys off. Fly to the light, you should be able to see at least that much.>

Realizing that Tobias was dealing with this confusion better than I was, I did my best to sound in control. <Right, good. We’ll go in and find a spot to demorph… but… no, we can’t abandon the plan. Tobias… you and…> I thought quickly. Who would be best suited to helping me with David and Cassie and who would be best for kidnapping our security man? Finally, I decided. <Marco, ditch with me, we’ll find out what’s going on. Tobias, take Ax and Melissa and get our security man. Be careful.>

Tobias sounded more than a little doubtful. <If you’re sure… From what you said David did before.>

<We’re ready for it this time.> I tried to sound confident. <Besides, we don’t have a choice. We still need that security guard and Tobias drew the lucky straw on that. Marco and I will get Cassie from David. But in case he gets away, we still need the rest of the plan. That means we need the security guard. Let’s go, Marco.>

The two of us lifted off from Tobias and flew straight at the bright light that filled our fly vision. As we left, I heard Melissa say. <Good luck, Jake… Marco.> Ax and Tobias both echoed her sentiments, and then flew off, to their own mission.

<Ready for this, Marco?> I asked as the air current changed enough for me to be certain we were inside.

<If I said no, would it make any difference whatsoever?> Marco questioned almost idly.

<Not really.> I focused on trying to hear what was happening in the room.

<What if I told you confronting David is utterly insane and we’ll die peeing our pants and screaming in terror? Anything?>

<Nope.>

<Then of course I’m ready. Duh.> Marco followed me in. As much as he complained, I always knew I could count on him to have my back.

I led him past the windowsill, into the room where we could now hear the two rumbling voices. It was difficult to make out what was being said from a distance, but I was afraid if we got any closer David would see us. <Let’s go. Hug the wall until you find another opening. That should be a door. We’ll go to another room, change and find out what the hell is going on.>

<Right behind you, General Bossman.> Marco replied, as the two of us buzzed along the wall until we found an opening.

Once we were in the new room, it only took a minute to demorph. Once we did, we found ourselves in a small bathroom. There was still steam on the mirror from someone’s hot shower.  I turned to the open doorway as we both crouched in the relative darkness.  In the outer room, we could hear David’s voice, as well as another one. It was easy to recognize it as Cassie’s if she was a few years older.

First David spoke. “How could you be here? You can’t be here. He sent me. He gave me a chance. He let me back! Me!” He sounded just a little frantic.

I tensed as I heard Cassie. “Crayak didn’t send me, David.” Her voice was soothing, the same voice I’d heard her use to convince an angry wolf to let her shove pills down its throat. “You know he’s not the only one capable of that.”

Marco shot me a confused look, and I just shrugged back at him. I didn’t have a clue what they were talking about either. We both leaned closer to the door to listen more intently. I thought about barging out there, but something told me we should wait and find out as much as we could. This whole situation had spun completely out of control. It would be nice to have some kind of grasp of what was happening.

“Well he ought to mind his own business.” David’s voice was petulant, and I wondered what ‘he’ the boy was talking about. “You saw what happened the last time Jake got to be in charge. All those people died. All those crippled kids. And her.” His voice was hard. “It’s my turn. I can do it better.”

“David.” Cassie’s voice was closer now, like she was moving to the door. “You need to let me help you. What Crayak is doing… he’s using you. He’s using your frustration. He’s using your fear.”

“I’m not afraid!” David bellowed then, and I jumped, because it sounded like he was just on the opposite side of the doorway from where Cassie was. I hadn’t realized he was coming so close.

Cassie was still as calm as ever. “Yes, you are, David. I can help you, if you let me. You didn’t mean for it to go this far, did you? He gave you the chance to morph again, to be human again, and you took it. You didn’t understand the price. You didn’t realize that you were bait.”

David’s voice was dangerously close now. He was so near the door that I was pretty sure I could stick my hand around the corner and touch his nose. “I am not bait! I’m Crayak’s trusted servant! I take over the invasion, and he leaves earth to me. I can do it better than Jake. I can do it better than any of you!”

“You know Crayak doesn’t trust anyone.” I could almost see Cassie on the other side of the open doorframe. “And no one can trust Crayak.” Her hand came up into view, like she was gesturing soothingly to the boy. I stared, enraptured by her strangely adult hand. “David… what did you do to yourself? You came back here. You found yourself… scared… terrified by the monsters he saw. You saw yourself run away from that parking lot, and you knew there couldn’t be two of you.”

If I’d expected answers, I was becoming very disappointed. All I was getting was a lot more questions. Two of him? What the heck was either of them talking about? I shifted uncomfortably, both because of my confusion and because my legs were cramping up. I shot a look to Marco and he returned a blank stare. I mouthed ‘Morph’ to him, then closed my eyes and began to focus on the tiger inside of me. I wanted firepower. We needed to hit David fast and hard, before he could react. Beside me, Marco shuffled back quietly to have room.

David’s voice came back, angry and defensive. “I did what I had to do! I just took my life back.” His tone turned mocking, but it had an almost desperate edge to it, like he needed to feel superior, or he’d completely lose it. “I did the same thing I did to you. You’re a part of me now, the younger you. I know how you think. I know how you feel. I know what you’re doing. You’re distracting me, trying to make me doubt myself. It won’t work!”

Orange fur, marked by black stripes, sprang up over my body as I continued the morph while Cassie responded, her voice sad. “You’re right, David. I’m trying to make you doubt yourself. I’m trying to make you think for yourself, instead of blindly following what Crayak tells you. You don’t believe that he’ll help you, David. You know what this really is. You know why he sent you here. You can’t do this. You don’t want to do this.”

“I’m The One!” David shot back. “I’m Crayak’s soldier. I’m his lieutenant! I’m the One!” He repeated, like he needed to hear it.

“The one what?” Cassie’s voice was gentle. “David, that’s a name you chose for yourself. It doesn’t mean anything. Crayak doesn’t care what you call yourself. What you are, is the one Animorph who betrayed us, betrayed the world. And you chose that name to remind yourself of that, to tell everyone you remember what you did, who you are. You were the one, all right, the one who felt so ashamed that he threw in with Crayak because he thought he was a monster. But you’re not a monster, David. You’re scared. You’re riding an avalanche and you just keep doing worse things, because you’re lost, and confused.”

“You all abandoned me! You left me on that island as a rat!  You stupid hypocrites, you think you’re perfect? I begged you to let me go, or to kill me. You wouldn’t do it! You trapped me and left me! Your plan! It was your plan! It’s your fault!” His hand shot out and grabbed her wrist, and I felt a rush of anger fill me. I didn’t know what was going on, but he was not going to absorb her again. I wouldn’t let it happen.

Before I knew what I was doing, before I was even sure if the morph was complete, I let out an earth shaking roar and hurled myself forward. I heard Marco frantically call out for me to wait, but I was done waiting. I was done thinking. I was done being confused. I was through listening to the little slimeball who thought he was so picked on that he had the right to try to kill us, who wanted to enslave humanity because he was hurt. I didn’t know who he was, or why he knew us, or what we had done to him, but I did know one thing. David was a pain in the ass, and I wanted a piece of him.

I wanted a piece, and I got it. As I tore through the doorway too small to fit through normally, I nearly got stuck partway before simply powering my way onward and knocking chunks of wood aside in my furious lunge. Before David or Cassie could react, my teeth settled around David’s wrist and I bit down with my powerful jaws. It was absolutely nothing to tear through his bones, like a human chomping vigorously into a sandwich.

My leap carried me straight through into the middle of the room, and as I landed, my mouth opened and I dropped David’s hand to the floor. My muzzle dripped with his blood as David screamed in sudden frantic agony, and I let his cries fill me. I had hurt him. He could be hurt. He could be stopped. <Don’t…> I began, taking a step back that way, tasting his blood, feeling the surge of predator delight from the tiger. <… you….> I took another quick lunge before David could recover,  lashing out with my frying pan sized paw faster than a human eye could follow. <… ever…> My claws cut into David, raking him from chest to gut, opening up a line of gashes while he was thrown into the wall. I felt his ribs break under the force of my slap. <… touch…> I leapt once more, landing on the boy, pinning him to the ground. <… Cassie!> My own voice was joined by the tiger’s roar, inches from David’s face as his own blood dripped from my teeth onto his neck.

I leaned close, smelling his sudden fear, and repeated myself. <You don’t ever touch Cassie.>

David, still sobbing in pain from the sudden loss of his hand and his near evisceration, still managed to give me a shaky sneer as his good hand grasped my flanks. “How… how about if I just touch you then?” He was already morphing his damaged hand away, the pain leaving him as he recovered. As his fingers touched my side, I felt my vision instantly begin to go dark. It was hard to focus, to think about what was happening. He was absorbing me, or trying to. I had to stop him, had to knock him out, or do something to make him lose focus.

Marco solved my problem for me. His hairy gorilla arms reached down and grabbed David by the head. His hands completely covered the other boy’s neck and face. <Hey David.> He began conversationally. <How about you take your hand off my pal Jake before I twist your head off like a soda cap, you little psycho?>

“Jake! Marco!” Cassie’s voice finally made it through to me and I felt her hand replace David’s on my side. I turned my head to look at her, and froze. It was the first time that I had a full view of Cassie at the age she was. Tobias had been right; she was at least nineteen years old, probably closer to twenty. Her eyes were full of concern as she knelt on the floor on my right side, coaxing me with her hand.

I lost myself in staring at her, and before I could speak, she put one finger up to my muzzle as though to stop me. “Shhh. I know.” Her voice sounded pained, which confused me.

<Cassie, what’s going o--> My question was interrupted by David. He’d recovered enough that our momentary advantage was gone. His head, which Marco had been holding, was suddenly his hand as his head reappeared to the side, his entire body rearranging itself in a strange, rapid way like the T-1000 in Judgment Day. Before either of us knew what had happened, he had completely morphed around us so that instead of his head being in Marco’s hands and his legs being pinned under me, he had one hand in Marco’s grip and one hand on my chest.  Then he heaved and Marco flew back into the wall while I was knocked across the room.

Marco was peeling himself off the wall while I got my feet back under me. I saw David break for the door, where Cassie stood. <Cassie!> I yelled, not even sure what I wanted her to do. I lunged. David would have to break to the right to get around Cassie and then I could slow him down long enough for Marco to…

But it didn’t happen that way. Instead, Cassie simply stepped to the side, allowing David to pass. I stopped short in disbelief, staring as David hit the doorway and kept running. From below, I could hear people shouting. The roars from the tiger and all the crashing drew too much attention.

I couldn’t worry about that right then, couldn’t even think about it. Instead, I just stared at Cassie. <Why….> I began carefully. <Why did you let him go? Why did you step aside, Cassie? You could have slowed him down. We could have stopped him, together.>

Marco joined me, his gorilla eyes narrowed in suspicion. <Yeah… what’s going on? Why do you look like that? David’s quick, but you stepped out of the way, Cassie. You let him go.>

I saw tears falling from Cassie’s eyes suddenly, as she struggled to explain. “No… I can’t. I couldn’t.”

<Why?> Marco demanded, angrily. <We need help! Are you one of us or not?>

Her voice was small, and quiet. “… not.”

I sat back on my haunches, stunned. <What? What do you mean? Cassie…> I wanted to reach to her, but I was too confused, and angry. <What do you mean you’re not one of us?>

“I can’t be, Jake.” Cassie’s voice was pleading, as her tears fell. “I can’t interfere. I can’t stop him directly. I can’t change anything. It’s not allowed. It’s against the rules.”

<Rules!?> Marco yelled back at her, furious. <What rules? Now you’re talking like that massive pain in the ass jerk Ellimist!>

Somehow, I knew what Cassie was going to say before she said it. Her words echoed in my head, and would irrevocably change both my life, and the way I fought this war. Her voice was a mixture of sadness and pride, regret and determination as she slowly lowered her head and brought it up again in a single nod. “Yes…” She said simply. “That’s why I can’t be one of you, why I can’t interfere directly. I’m not who I was anymore, Jake. Crayak has the Drode… and now the Ellimist… has me.>

[Phoenix004]

Ah, nice idea using Cassie as the Ellimist's version of Drode. I can't think of anyone better suited for the role.

[Nateosaurus]

Nice chapter once again!

It's good stuff

[Kitulean]

Thanks guys, I can't think of anyone better either. Here's the conclusion to The Threat.

Chapter Eight



<Okay… one…> I said carefully. <What do you mean,  Ellimist has you? What happened to you after David absorbed you?>

Marco continued. <And two, what the hell is a Crayak. Three, what the hell is a Drode, and four, for the love of god, how is David morphing like that? Actually, if you could skip to the last one first, please. I don’t think I’ve questioned my sense of reality so much since the moment Buffy suddenly had a sister.>

After three seconds of a girl and a tiger peering quizzically at him, Marco looked down, waving a gorilla arm. <Rachel would have gotten it. Never mind, just answer the questions. How is he morphing straight from one form to another? Because, you know, besides rewriting every rule of human science, morphing was supposed to have its own laws. Sure we’ve bent them before but that was like… morphing allergy. He’s doing it on purpose.>

<Marco…> I said, starting to shift back to my own form. <Since when do you know anything about the rules of science? You got a D in that. Again.>

<Oh yeah, forgive me.> Marco retorted as he began to demorph as well. <Somehow my ability to realize that a guy shapeshifting into a gorilla is beyond human science didn’t translate into an automatic A. I’m as shocked as you.>

We were interrupted by the sound of Cassie laughing. The two of us were demophing quickly, but for the moment our thoughtspeak had vanished and our human voices hadn’t come in yet. Cassie’s fingers were over her mouth as her shoulders shook a little. She looked apologetic. “Sorry… I’m sorry; I just… missed listening to you guys.”

Marco and I exchanged a look as both of our human heads formed almost simultaneously. Then something occurred to me. “Wait, all that noise had to have alerted the entire resort. We’ve got to get out of here.” Actually it surprised me that we didn’t hear a platoon of soldiers frantically running toward us already.

Cassie shook her head. “It’s okay. I muffled the sound. No one heard a thing. It’s… all I could do.”

“Muffled the sound…Right. So about that explanation?” I pressed her.

Still smiling a little, Cassie let out a long, slow sigh. “I… I’m from the future, Jake.” She corrected herself. “A future. You see, there are—“

“Yeah, we got it.” Marco interrupted, brushing himself off as he stood from the floor. “Multiple possible futures, all splitting off from random decisions. We too read Michael Crichton.”  He narrowed his eyes in suspicion. “So, assuming you’re telling the truth, what are you doing here now?”

Cassie looked torn for a moment, and then spoke again. “I’m from the future before it was changed by Crayak.” Before we could question her again, she held up a hand and went on. “Crayak is  the enemy to the Ellimist. You saw him, Jake, in your dreams.”

Marco turned to me and I got it a moment later. “In my… the eye. The…” I shuddered. Ever since I’d been briefly taken over by a yeerk, I’d been experiencing nightmares about a great mechanical eye that pulsed with evil. I raised my gaze to Cassie’s familiar, yet different face. “That thing has a name?”

“Crayak.” She confirmed. “He and the Ellimist are… opposing forces.  Crayak wants to get rid of every form of life in the universe by pitting races against each other until only one of them is left standing, which would be subservient to him.”

“If he’s an enemy to the Ellimist…” I started with a frown. “Then he could take us out at any time. He could snap his fingers and we’d be dead. What gives?”

Marco answered before Cassie could. “That’s the thing; he is as powerful as the Ellimist, which means the Ellimist is as powerful as him. They probably can’t do stuff like that or they’d wipe out the whole galaxy and nothing would be left at all.”

“Yeah, that’s… pretty much.” Cassie nodded. “They nearly wiped out the universe the first time they really fought, so they made up these rules. They can influence, change things, but they can’t directly affect something except in rare case where they both agree to terms… like a bet.”

“We’re chess pieces.” Marco said bitterly. “They’re playing on fifty different game boards, and we’re just one. The yeerks are on the other side, and they just move us around. Does any decision we make even matter?”

Cassie looked imploringly to both of us. “Yes, yes it matters. Of course it matters. That’s the Ellimist’s entire point to what he’s doing. If he wasn’t here to oppose Crayak, then we’d all be dead. Or enslaved. He’s doing the best he can for us, letting us make the big decisions and trying to ensure that we’re able to make those decisions.”

“Cassie…” I said, wanting to reach out to her, but hesitant. “You said that you’re from a future before Crayak changed it. What happened?”

She smiled a little bitterly. “We won, Jake. We won the war. I can’t tell you how. I’m sorry, I can’t. That’s… part of the rules. We won, but there was…. so much of a price… Crayak… approached one of us, and made a deal that he would reset time back to this point, but no one would remember what happened. We’d have to succeed or fail all over again.”

 That hit me hard. “We won? Wait, we won the war. The yeerks lost, and we beat them?” I rocked back on my heels, absorbing that. “Then… why… why would any of us choose to go through this again?”

“Like I said… there was a price.” Cassie said quietly. “We lost a lot… and… whoever made this deal with Crayak thought we could do it better if we had another chance. We got a do-over, Jake. But before that timeline was erased, the Ellimist and Crayak each pulled one person out of it.”

Marco raised an eyebrow, getting it. “That would be you and David. That’s why David keeps going on about Crayak and… something we did to him.”

Unable to stop her wince, Cassie nodded. “Yeah… we… David found the box originally. We… took him onto the team, but he turned against us. He nearly killed us, and threatened to reveal us to Visser 3 unless we gave the box back to him so he could go off and make his own team. We… trapped him…. We trapped him in rat morph, and then left him on an island. It seemed better than killing him.”

“Okay…” Marco said, since I was still trying to absorb this news. “I guess in a really whacked way, that makes sense, but what about his majesty’s new super-morphing ability?”

We were interrupted then by a quiet knocking at the door. All three of us jumped guiltily. Marco started to get up to creep over to the peephole, but Cassie spoke without moving. “It’s Tobias.”

After giving her a weird look, Marco pulled the door open and sure enough, Tobias stepped inside. He was in his human form. “Hey, guys, we…” He paused, looking at Cassie. His expression didn’t change from his intense stare, but I didn’t know if that was because he’d seen her from the window before or because he still tended to forget to show facial expressions from so much time as a hawk. Finally, he spoke. “So it is you…. Cassie, what…” He looked back and forth between all of us, seeming to realize that he had interrupted her explanation. “Sorry… we’ve got the guy, Jake. Ax and Melissa are watching him.”

I looked to Cassie, who nodded. “I’ll talk to everyone. It’ll be better that way.”  I opened my mouth, and she went on. “I’ll explain everything that I can, Jake. I promise.”

Deciding that had to be good enough, I told Tobias to lead us to the other room, and five minutes later, Marco, Tobias, Ax, Melissa, and I stood around, staring at this strangely familiar yet incredibly different young woman as she explained everything she had already told Marco and myself.  The man that the other three had kidnapped was tied up and blindfolded unconscious in the bathtub, and the door was closed. Ax was sure that he wouldn’t  wake up for a couple hours.

Once she had finished, and everyone else was caught up, I asked her something that had been bothering me. “Did David attack Jordan? Was it his fault something happened to her, to get Rachel away from us?”

We all watched while Cassie seemed to consider that for a long few moments. When she finally answered, her tone was cautious. “I… I’m not sure… he might have, it sounds like something he might do… and he hated Rachel.”

 Melissa, who had been staring intently at Cassie the entire time, as though trying to figure something out, spoke up. “I… I know you. I saw you…”

Cassie turned to the other girl and nodded. “I know. I made sure you were the one who found the blue box. I wanted you to be the one who found it, because… I knew David would go after the younger me, and I wanted them to have help. In… another timeline, when Rachel wasn’t around, Melissa was one of us. So I knew she could help. I made sure she got the box, and that she saw what happened.”

While Melissa went quiet, thinking about that, Marco shook his head. “So let me get this straight, you knew that future David would go after you, so you brought in Melissa to… what, take your place?”

Cassie flinched at those terms. “Not…. exactly like that, but I guess… sort of?” She sighed. “I didn’t want you guys to be at a disadvantage. So I did what I could, within the rules.”

“Well that’s….” I glanced to Melissa, and then looked back to Cassie. “That’s all great but I’ve got news for you, we’re already at a disadvantage. Have you seen what David can do?”

Before Marco could finish demanding an explanation for that again, Cassie said. “Yes, you see… Crayak used David against Rachel. He tried to turn her into a murderer, but she wouldn’t do it. She refused to kill David, so Crayak took him and made him a soldier. He… gave David his new morphing ability, but there was a price.”

“It turned him bat**** insane?” Marco asked, only half kidding.

Cassie nodded to him gravely. “Pretty much. He was never… good, Jake, but he wasn’t this bad either. When Crayak changed him, it… did something to David. It made him… worse. I tried to get through to him in that room, but… I don’t know if it’s possible now. His mind is so messed up. I don’t know exactly what Crayak did, but it tore David apart. And he’s been absorbing people… minds… that he can’t shut out.”

“Sorry, but I can’t work up any sympathy.” Marco retorted. “That guy’s a freak show, and in case you missed it, he absorbed you.”

I asked quickly. “Can we free you? Can we get you out of him?”

After a brief hesitation, Cassie shook her head. “I don’t know, Jake. I don’t… think so…” She looked a little pale. “It’s… I think I’m gone, Jake.”

I reeled from that, putting my hands up over my face with a shudder. I always knew that I liked Cassie. I mean… liked, but I never realized how much she meant to me until she’d been in danger. I felt cold, and distant.

Marco took up the questioning while I couldn’t. “So Crayak sent future David back here while Ellimist sent you. While you were busy pushing Melissa onto our side, what was David doing?”

“I… I don’t know, exactly.” Cassie admitted. “I know he took his own body just after the younger him ran away from the Visser, but I don’t know what he was doing before that.”

Tobias, who had had more contact with the Ellimist than any of us, stepped over by Cassie. “Did he promise you something? Did he do something for you besides send you back here?”

“He…” Cassie hesitated. “I can’t… tell you that part. If I did I’d be breaking the rules, and if we break the rules, Crayak can break the rules. Trust me; you don’t want to give him an excuse. I…”

She was interrupted by Melissa, who had been standing near the window while we talked to Cassie. Her voice was high with surprise. “Hey! David… he just… he just walked off the grounds.” She was pointing out the window.

That brought me around. “Huh? What do you mean he’s gone? David? Where would he go?”

Her head shook a little. “I don’t know… but he’s not on the grounds anymore. I just saw him… he walked up to the edge of the field, put his hand out… then he disappeared and a second later he was on the other side, walking away.”

“How is that possible?” Marco demanded. “That forcefield’s supposed to keep us inside. People with morphing power can’t cross it without…” He made a vaporizing sound and threw his hands apart to simulate an explosion.

Cassie nodded. “There is a field, but David’s different than you guys. He can do things that you can’t, like make his body small enough to fit through the forcefield, then reform on the other side.”

I sighed, feeling a headache as I pinched the bridge of my nose. “So David can come and go as he pleases, but we’re stuck here.”

Ax swung his stalk eyes around to me. <That does not make sense. We have determined that David’s goal was to absorb the Visser and take over the invasion. What reason would he have to leave?”

Marco took up the line then. “Did we miss something? And if he’s got something else going on, what are we supposed to do about it?”

Cassie held up her hands to forestall any more demands for answers. “I don’t know guys. I don’t know. I have… some abilities, because of what the Ellimist did to me, but I’m not omnipotent. I don’t know what he’s doing, but… I have a… theory.”

Marco started to say something, but I spoke up first. “What’s your theory… Cassie?” It still hurt to look at her, but I didn’t care what she thought. There was a way to pull… the real Cassie out of David. There had to be. Just because this Cassie didn’t know about it didn’t mean anything. She’d already said she wasn’t omnipotent. We’d find the way to save Cassie. I kept telling myself that, because at the moment it was the only way I could function.

She hesitated before going on. “I…. Crayak has always had more than one enemy on this planet. Years… centuries ago, he sent his creations against a peaceful race. They wiped them out, killed almost all of them in their war. The rest were killed by a plague…”

Tobias got it, and nodded. “The Pemalites. Crayak was the one who sent the Howlers after them?”

Cassie shuddered, as though she could remember exactly what happened to that poor slaughtered race. Who knew, maybe at this point she could. Cassie had always been empathic in a way I would never understand, and now, there was no telling what she could feel.  “Crayak never saw it as a complete success. The Chee were still around, and since they were creations of the Pemalites, according to Crayak’s logic the race hadn’t been completely exterminated. He’s always looked for a way to force them to either break their programming and become violent, or destroy them.

“But he can’t destroy them, at least not without violating the rules by getting too directly involved.” I said slowly. “Because the Chee are too advanced, too strong.” I paused, then added. “Right?”


“Until now, yes.” Cassie said. “But the powers that he gave David aren’t limited to absorbing organic material. He can also absorb metal, and technology.  All he has to do is lay his hand on Erek, or any of the Chee, and he can take them into himself… gain their abilities… their knowledge… their strength.”

“Why now?” Tobias wondered. “Why is Crayak intent on getting the Chee right now?”

Marco answered him. “Look at what’s going on. This is the Yeerk’s big play, and we’re right here to stop them. Why? Because the Chee told us about it. I think Crayak’s a little pissed about that.”

Ax spoke up then. <So he has chosen to take action while we are confined to this location. There is plenty of time to absorb the Visser before the end of this gathering of your world’s leaders. David in charge of the invasion would be bad, but with the Chee in place we could recover, and we would still have our spies in place that could interrupt his plans. So this Crayak sent David to destroy the Chee and remove that possibility while we are unable to assist them.>

My fists clenched impotently. “He’s going to attack Erek and the other Chee, and they don’t even know he’s a threat.  Even if they did, they can’t fight back. They’re helpless.”

Melissa started quietly. “And since we’re trapped here…”

I put my hands up as the slow realization came full force. “That’s why David wanted us to bring him here. He wanted to be absolutely certain we were stuck, trapped behind the forcefield so it was impossible for us to help. We can stop Visser 3 and the yeerks, but if David takes the Chee, we might as well have lost.”

Tobias shook his head, his eyes on the window. “But we’re not all stuck…”

I nodded and slowly turned to match his gaze to the window. “No…” I looked back to the others.  I knew that each felt as helpless as I did at that moment.

Cassie’s voice said what we were all thinking. “Rachel.”

My voice felt like it was coming from far away, like I was observing myself from somewhere else. I’d never felt so played, so helpless, or so stupid. “She’s the only one who can do anything.” I felt hollow. “Rachel is the only one who can stop David”

Melissa voiced the question on all of our minds. “And… if she can’t?”

“Then…” I said flatly. “We lose.”


To Be Continued in Book 22: The Solution

My name is Rachel…

[Nateosaurus]

oooo Wow. You're such a good writer, this is really intriguing. Can't wait for more.