Warning: This chapter contains a book-54 spoiler. It's one that most people (even if they haven't read 54) know about by now, but I figured I'd warn you, just in case you're one of the lucky ones who doesn't.
And, as usual, sit back, relax, and enjoy the sleep-deprived, sugar-induced fun!
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Jake, Rachel, Marco, Cassie, Tobias and Ax limped out of the Animorphs Anonymous room, and down the long hallway to the restrooms. They all walked into a conveniently located non-gender-specific bathroom, glancing around suspiciously as though worried they might have been followed. Then they each went into a stall, and simply stood there for a few minutes.
Finally, Rachel broke the silence. "Let's do it!"
"Wait just a minute. We can't just go storming in there like the marines. If we raid this meeting right after the six of us all got up and went to the bathroom, don't you think the Yeerks will put two and two together? They'll figure out we're human!"
"Jake, haven't you read book 49? The Yeerks already know we're human."
". . . Uh, they have us outnumbered?"
"Nope. Visser Three's the only one in there we would need to worry about in our battle morphs. Try again."
"Okay, fine. I just want to get through this meeting without incident, because I hate life and don't want to exist anymore."
"Oh, cut the emo crap. That's Tobias's schtick."
"Jake, stop being a moron, and let's go kill Yeerks!"
"Listen, I think Jake is making the right choice here. For a fictional character to have an addiction to reality can be a very dangerous thing in the long run, and I think we should all-"
"I WANT TO KILL YEERKS!"
"Geez, not so loud! They'll hear us!"
"I'm using thought-speak, you moron."
"Oh. Right. I knew that."
"Okay, let's take a vote."
"I WANT TO KILL YEERKS!"
"You guys, I think we should give peace a chance!"
"I follow Prince Jake."
"At the very least, I think we owe it to the world to put Norman out of his misery."
"I think I actually agree with what Jake said. Get through the meeting. Cease to exist. Sounds pretty good to me."
"Tobias! How can you say that? What about us?"
"I'm sorry, Rachel, but . . . you're dead, remember?"
"Oh yeah."
"Wait, what? When did that happen? Wait a second . . . TOBIAS! Was that in the last book!? You know I haven't read it yet! You have to warn people when you're going to say a spoiler!"
"Whoops. Sorry."
"Okay, so we have two votes yes, and four votes no. So it's decided. We'll just demorph, go back in, and try to act like sane people long enough to get through this."
"Hah! Good luck, Rachel."
There was a CLANG, CLANG of slamming stall doors, followed by a loud thud.
"Ow! See, case in point."
After a few minutes, everyone emerged from the stalls. They still had all the same injuries from before, but Marco now sported a bloody nose. Rachel had matching blood on her knuckles.
They went back to the Animorphs Anonymous meeting room to find everyone in the room equipped with a pencil and paper. Most were writing, but Esplin was simply glaring at Norman with his arms crossed, and Jara was inspecting the pencil, apparently not quite sure what to do with it.
"Uh, what's going on?" Jake asked.
"We are writing fanfiction, in order to help everyone come to terms with being a fictional character. Here's paper and pencil. Start writing," Norman replied.
Marco's eyes widened. He shot a terrified glance at Ax, but quickly looked back at Norman again. "No no no no, not . . . fanfiction! Please, anything else!"
"You have to hurt if you want to heal," Cassie said wisely.
"Shut up! This isn't about the whole 'fictional character' thing! I just have . . . issues, with fanfiction, alright?!" Marco shot another glance at Ax, who was now looking utterly confused and bewildered.
"Just. Write," Norman said, sounding irritated.
Jake, Cassie, Marco, Rachel, Tobias and Ax all took pencil and paper and began to write. Marco looked up every now and then to glare around the room, as if hoping to catch someone in the act of writing something he didn't like.
Suddenly, the silence was interrupted by a loud crunch. "Aaah! Strange yellow stick not taste good!" Jara exclaimed.
Ax suddenly stopped writing and looked at his pencil. After a moment of inspection, he licked it. "Mmmm."
"We're about to need another new pencil over here."
CRUNCH.
"Ah, such delicate woody flavor, with wonderful undertones-zuh of paint!"
"Oh, he likes it. Better make that five. Wait, how do you know what paint tastes like?"
"I believe the answer to that question is fairly obvious."
"Get back to writing, both of you. And everyone, stop eating the pencils!"
After a while of writing, Marco visibly relaxed. Smiling contentedly now, he wrote steadily, hunched over his paper. He giggled to himself every now and then, as if amused by what he was writing.
"See, Marco? Fanfiction isn't so bad," Cassie whispered.
"Mmmm-hmmm. It sure isn't," Marco replied gleefully, licking his lips. "Not so bad at all."
Rachel looked up as she overheard Marco and Cassie's conversation, and narrowed her eyes suspiciously at Marco. She tried to lean over to see what he was writing, but he managed to block her view.
Finally, by the time Ax had gone through about five boxes of pencils, most of the people in the circle were finished writing. Ellimist was still working on his story, which was long enough at that point to have been a novel, but everyone else was long-since done.
"Now we will be reading these out loud to the group," Norman said, finally giving up on waiting for Ellmist to finish.
Marco instantly went pale. "What?!" he screeched. "You never said we had to read them out loud!" Panicking, he started erasing practically everything he had written.
"Marco, you seem excited. Why don't you go first?" Norman asked as Marco stopped erasing and began to write furiously.
"No no no no, um, Jake should go first! He's the leader!"
"Now Marco, let's not be shy. I'm sure what you've written is fine."
"No, it's not fine! Animorphs is rated, like, PG, for crying out loud!"
By this point, several people in the circle were leaning forward in their seats.
"Reeead it, reeead it, reeead it," Taylor began chanting, smiling and giggling to herself as Marco squirmed.
"Shut up! I can't read this! My mom is sitting right there!"
Soon, others had joined in the chant. "Reeead it, reeead it, reeead it, reeead it, reeead it." Before long, the whole circle was chanting. "Reeead it, reeead it, reeead it!"
"Enough!" Norman shouted over the chorus. When the room quieted, he continued. "Everyone is curious to hear your story, Marco. It would be mean of you to keep it to yourself."
Marco sighed, knowing he was defeated. Nervously, reluctantly, he held up his paper in front of his face, and cleared his throat.
To be continued . . .
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Author's note: I apologize to anyone who would want me to continue, but I have to admit that I have hit a dead end with this story, and haven't been able to do anything about it for a very long time now. I know the general idea of what Marco was supposed to have written, but every time I go to write it, it sounds like stupid. Which, granted, is sort of the tone of this whole story, but it's, like, the not-funny kind of stupid.
If someone else wants to attempt Marco's story, I would welcome it so that I can finally move on with this fanfic. I've had a funny idea for the ending rolling around my head for a while now, and I'd like to some day make it that far.
So, for those of you interested, the general idea is
[spoiler]Marco originally wrote a dirty story about his sex fantasies with Rachel. At the last moment, however, he managed to erase all the blatantly bad parts and replace them with thinly veiled 'innocent' things, possibly managing to cobble it all together into a semi-coherent new story. He may or may not have also 'changed names to protect the innocent,' but once again, they were very last minute changes, so they should be something obvious like Raquel and Marconi. Have fun with it, you guys, and see if you can keep it in the same general tone as the rest of the fic.[/spoiler]
