Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

My name is Aximili.

I did not know how long I had been here, held hostage. Or where "here" was.

I did not know anything about my surroundings. Much of the time I did not remember my past, or my future. I wondered if I were even alive. I am not superstitious, but I did wonder if perhaps this was the experience of being an ixcila. Except I could think. I did have memories.

I had been an Andalite. An extra-terrestrial to Earth. Our species became well known to humankind since the end of my last war. A battle against a parasitic species called the Yeerks, who had started a covert invasion of the planet Earth. My human friends, known as the Animorphs, leading the guerrilla warfare that brought that war to an end. They had been enlisted by my older brother and war-hero, Prince Elfangor-Sirinial-Shamtul.

He was the one who had given my five comrades the power of the Escafil device. The power to morph into other animals, for two Earth hours at a time. They had rescued me - Jake, Rachel, Marco, Cassie, and Tobias dubbed as the Animorphs. I had joined the fight. And over time, I had proved myself. I had moved on with my life.

Into this mess.

When I had left with the Andalite fleet, finally a prince myself – a well established warrior, and a leader – the ranks of our military were being laid off. The war over, there was not much left to do in the military realm other than look for the Blade Ship. The same Yeerks that had killed Rachel, who had been sent on a suicide mission in an attempt to detain the Blade Ship and prevent it from spreading through the galaxy.

I had always thought myself more in control and less affected by the war than young Rachel, but I didn't fit into the Home World or civilian life after the war myself. Besides, I had a vengeance obligation to fulfill for Rachel Berenson.

I was assigned to the Intrepid, the spacecraft assigned to look for the Blade Ship and the renegade Yeerks looking to start a new empire based on the enslavement of other intelligent species. We had not found anything in spite of all our searches. Two years had gone by and we had found nothing – the chances of finding a single Blade Ship in all of space were astronomical. My team had the best assignment around in the entire Andalite fleet, and still, it was a monotonous task.

Maybe I had become lazy. Or just less cautious in favor of recklessness more like my friend Rachel. I had drilled my officers repeatedly and had tried my best to stay on my hooves. Still, I had caused what seemed to be the inevitable end of my team.

We had never found the Blade Ship. We had found an older but much larger vessel. A vessel that when we boarded it suddenly became alive and hostile. It had not been Yeerk, or anything I had ever known. Where in space this creature had come from was unknown to me, and my boarding crew and I had been completely unprepared with no time to morph - and hardly time to fire.

I remembered now. Or at least, I was remembering, as my consciousness resurfaced temporarily. The One could do that. It could make me disappear. Or reappear again.

The One. That being controlling the vessel invaded me, took my mind, had control over my body. I remembered calling for Jake as it was happening. Or maybe The One did.

Maybe we both wanted the same thing, for different reasons.

In retrospect I often felt weak, and hoped no one had heard. But I knew better in my hearts. When it accessed my memories, I felt that it would go looking for the remainders of my team. The other beings who with an army of six staved off an entire planet's invasion. The One would do anything to obtain us. The One needed beings new, live, well-lived. It was a bored thing, looking for a new game. And it would come for Earth, the Andalite Home-World, and anything else for a story. So I waited for my friends. And it waited for my friends as well.

I tried to take solace in what that meant: Maybe those on the Intrepid survived.

Every time my consciousness resurfaced, at least momentarily, I began to try and recall with absolute detail what I had managed to learn. What I had learned while captured by The One: It was a thing that absorbed other creatures that put them into suspended animation. We were not physically being controlled, but controlled in the mind. It fed off of the memories of those it absorbed as it kept the ones it "appreciated."

It was an old thing with collective memory. In the times it had interacted with me, I would sometimes see a planet that had once been nothing but water. A planet that had begun dying, contaminated by its forefather's defeat. The organism had been so integral to the planet's ecosystem the entire planet's water supply had become contaminated with its death.

A planet that its descendants managed to escape from.

Just a ridiculous series of coincidences. A being from another planet had killed The One's predecessor. The planet had begun to decay. The One had begun to grow - offspring, of a sort, that began when its parent died. With the water contamination combined with a lack of organisms, it itself had failed to thrive. It was poised for extinction.

Then: Another species who investigated the planet for resources collected some of the water and left. The One soon had the species and its craft hostage. Its species evolved to survive without the complete submergence of water and had become this collective identity. It was a fast, efficient at absorption and manipulation of living things. Not as powerful as some things on its planet had been. Not as powerful or large as its predecessor.

But, I thought grimly, far too strong anyway.

The One had disposed of most of the Yeerk crew my spacecraft had been searching for when it had first taken the Blade Ship. The One only kept alive what it found interesting or useful. Most of the Yeerks were dead. Some of Controllers - Yeerk-infested humans - had been kept to maintain the Blade Ship elsewhere. The One was with them, looking for others to infest. Most of The One, however, stayed in this older spacecraft, to play games.

I was most interesting to this creature. It 'played' with me frequently. I was a new creature - an Andalite. But not just because I was an Andalite - it disposed of several of my cousins from the Intrepid immediately. It went deeper. I was Aximili-Esgarrouth-Isthill. An Andalite now infamous as a terror to the Yeerks whom it had captured. The creature my friend Marco had described long ago as appearing to be part blue deer, part scorpion, and part human. The creature that had no mouth and ate with its hooves. The creature with the deadly tail blade. The creature with stalk eyes.

Prince Aximili-Esgarrouth-Isthill, of the Animorphs during the Yeerk invasion of Earth? The one who had been under the command of Jake the Yeerk-Killer?

Every Yeerk The One had absorbed had known who I was. Not a single Controller had not known my name by the end of that war.

Because of these things, The One kept me. Alive, feeling, seemingly active. I knew I was merely a puppet absorbed into The One. That my body lay tethered somewhere in a large spacecraft somehow left in suspended animation. I knew my disposal, if I became boring, predictable, unimpressive, would be fast but painful.

I had "seen" much of my crew die. Their deaths, while real, had of course only been perceived by me as The One had allowed me to perceive them. The One had not given me the control I needed over my body to open my true eyes and see what the fate was of someone who was disposed of. But I didn't need to see it: The One had shown me what we looked like in the beginning as a threat.

It was possibly worse than being a Controller. While I had only briefly been a Controller in the past - and by a Yeerk who was trying to help Cassie perform surgery on me - I had at least known what was happening outside. I had had some control over whether or not I was awake. Yeerks, to the best of my knowledge, could not prevent that. The One could turn me off and on. I was in and out of consciousness. I had no sense of time.

The One played games with me. I had opportunities to save remaining human-Controllers and Andalites from my team aboard the spacecraft. While not a friend to Yeerks, I would try for the sake of their host bodies. I would have to win a challenge against The One. But I could never win. The numbers of the humans and Andalites both went down greatly.

I pleaded. I cursed. I begged. The One kept me indifferently to my suffering. I would have to beat The One in order to save anyone from the fate of being disbanded and eliminated from its spacecraft, which I began calling The Cage.

Until there was only one of each left.

At that point I blackmailed The One: If it killed the last two survivors of either spacecraft stuck in The Cage, I would not cooperate with any games. I would stop playing. It would get nothing new from me. No playing whatsoever, or ever again. I also demanded it let the Yeerk within the remaining human-Controller die.

‹Please, leave me these companions - do not make me see another death,› I had told it. ‹Or I will not cooperate. I will not play your game any longer. And you will become bored with me.›

The One could invade my mind and make me do whatever it wanted, of course. I knew it. However, without my own cooperation The One would always get a predictable answer: The answer it made me give. The One was a bored, lonely creature that needed the companion of its living slaves for its own well-being.

It needed me.

And so, the human woman Leah - after three days - and one of my team, Ondrean-Nefaral-Itskeillat, were left with me as companions for both off-time and in games. Both Ondrean-Nefaral-Itskeillat and Leah were people that had made any accomplishments on hard work more than talent. Neither had had the luck I encountered during my own career.

But The One had a favorite and more lasting punishment for my act of defiance and blackmail. From that day on, I could only perceive myself as my human form. A morph I had created with the DNA of Jake, Rachel, Cassie, and Marco. Ondrean pitied me, though I told him that while I missed the notion of galloping I at least had a human mouth.

Internally I felt far less optimistic about my condition. It had been months. I was worried I would be trapped like this forever. Being human full-time even if only a mental perception left me feeling as conflicted as I had occasionally in the past amongst my human friends. I had missed being human. I had missed my human friends, and eating human foods. I had forgotten how comfortable it had become over time to be in human morph and interacting with things as a human. How I had almost gotten used to being without stalk eyes much of the time as a result of frequent morphing. And I knew The One had acted on that to make my days with the companions I had saved miserable, even as I could also re-create and visit all my favorite human restaurants as a human.

I noticed the more games we played, the less The One let me see of Ondrean, my present-day Andalite comrade. The One was more entertained by my internal human-Andalite conflict. After all, what could my relationship with another Andalite provide it? There was nothing controversial about an Andalite acting as an Andalite or having Andalite friends.

So I was left human in its created world during any off-time with the young woman Leah, who lacked any specialty – though I suppose that was to be expected, given the young age of her infestation. She had become a Controller before she had even reached adolescence and had lacked a great deal of time to develop. And she only now was getting any freedom to communicate with anyone other than her Yeerk now, as an adult. While I dealt with the inner turmoil that made me "interesting."

As Leah and I were forced to interact for longer periods of time without Ondrean around, I taught her to fire a Shredder. Ondrean would have been a better teacher. I had not fought with a Shredder during my years on Earth. I was good, but I was not a teacher. Still, she took to it quickly enough. I wondered if the skills she learned in this prison would translate out in the real world.

Leah loved stories. She let me talk about military strategy, or my musings about The One. I told her about Andalite history. And I found, while not particularly gifted or ambitious, that Leah did have the strength of having a shallow breadth of knowledge in quite a variety of topics.

I had a difficult time not comparing her in my mind to my human friends, even if it was unfair. She was knowledgeable in some ways with zoology that surpassed my human friend Cassie during my time on Earth, though her knowledge was not well applied. She was not the natural fighter Rachel had been, but she became more aggressive the more she trained. I worried she could become reckless. She was often sad in ways that reminded me of Tobias. I would think Marco would not like her very much on a few occasions where I attempted to make a joke. I did not see the leadership skills of Jake in her.

Sometimes, she would look at me, and I wondered if there were ghosts of people she associated me with.

I justified the comparisons. I missed my friends. I was alone, in ways I had not even imagined existed before meeting The One. I was hoping my friends would save me, or at least manage to defeat The One before it moved into Andalite or human space zones. So I tried to find them in the one human I knew. Though it was difficult, because I felt human most of the time it was hard for me not to get attached to her as a human.

Knowing The One had anticipated and took glee in such a success in torturing me, my hatred was renewed. I did not know how, or when, but we would find a way out.

So I continued to assess Leah, to train, to teach. I continued to play The One's game. would play the game. We hoped to find a way to win. In the meantime, I hoped - and dreaded - the arrival of my friends, once hailed the "Animorphs."

Leah and I, we waited.

Chapter Text

My name is Jake.

I'm a normal person, I guess. At least I used to be. More recently I was actually a famous war veteran. I guess I'm still one of those. That was why I was on this mission: Andalites and Andalite spacecraft couldn't go into Kelbrid space without starting an interstellar war.

The Andalites couldn't go after Aximili-Esgarrouth-Isthill, but they did want him rescued. Not just because of who he was, but because they had a tense relationship with these Kelbrid people. A kidnapping of an Andalite or two could be an attempt to gather intelligence. It was a big problem for a group they knew to be aggressive and hostile toward them. So the remaining survivor of his crew aboard the Andalite ship known as the Intrepid had gone to inform me of the situation. And to covertly enlist me to find and rescue my old friend.

I couldn't refuse to save Ax, he was one of mine. We'd been through more battles than any of the people around me. We'd known horrors others could hardly imagine. What the rest of the team and I had, it was deeper than friendship. It was a singular relationship.

I had always said I'd rather be me and on my own than being part of something bigger or greater. I hadn't asked for the war, or for the Yeerks to come to Earth. If I'd had nothing but normal friends and a normal life I'd have been happier. But fate had other plans. I had been part of something bigger. An accident of my birth. I couldn't undo that. And I couldn't abandon anyone from my team.

I'm not sure if I had realized that as much then as when Menderash – the sole known survivor of Ax's ship the Intrepid – had told me of what had become of him, and his only hope for survival.

No matter what the consequences of those ties were.

So I gathered Tobias and Marco. I also recruited two people from the class I had taken up teaching intelligence for various nations how to best use morphing technology, Santorelli and Jeanne. I hadn't lied about the low chances of success, but I still felt guilty given the circumstances now. Menderash, an Andalite who had voluntarily become a nothlit so he could go on the mission. He was the one who knew the coordinates, our map.

Not to mention the only one of us who actually knew how to fly a spacecraft. Other than Jeanne and Santorelli, we hadn't been part of any official military movement or undergone training.

According to Menderash the ship we were looking for was a behemoth. It would dwarf a Blade Ship and even many Dome Ships – spacecraft that allowed Andalites to graze. Menderash had said it had reminded some of the Andalites aboard the Intrepid of Earth skyscrapers. That it had shown a high likeliness of being in contact with the Blade Ship, at one point, because it had polar bear hair within it.

Tobias, Marco, and I thought it sounded more like an Iskoort nightmare as he described the different colors of each piece and the lack of symmetry. A space-ship lego structure. But we hadn't known the Iskoort to have huge amounts of space technology, and they were too far away to have reached us out here.

Hijacking a prototype Yeerk craft that had been a mix between a fighter and a Blade Ship, my team and I had gone out in search of the Ax and this unknown alien spacecraft that had attacked the Intrepid. We flew into Kelbrid space pretending to be part of the Federation. In retrospect that hadn't been the best idea. Yeerks had Human-Controllers.

Most humans know a little about Star Trek.

We had searched for months, out in Kelbrid space. Marco and Menderash had become good friends when he gave up on attracting Jeanne's attention. And Santorelli and Jeanne seemed to feel most comfortable with each other as two people from the same class. I mostly kept to myself.

There were amazing things out in Kelbrid space. And we kept looking. We didn't know if we'd find anything, but we kept looking, hopeful, for the ship described by Menderash.

Eventually, the Blade Ship came. It had encountered some sort of being that seemed even to have the Yeerks under control, the being called The One. We couldn't see much about The One, or know what about it was real or not – it had filled the screen up, shifted shapes, taken on even the face of our closest friend.

"Can we shoot ?" I had asked Menderash.

"His Dracon cannon have longer range and greater firing power. And his defensive field have been enhanced. I doubt our cannon can penetrate them."

"I thought so," I said, "But we're faster."

"Yes."

I looked to everyone. Santorelli. Jeanne. Tobias. Menderash. And finally Marco.

"What was it, Marco? 'Crazy, reckless, ruthless decisions'?"

Silence from the crew on board. And I was in my place. After feeling behind on everything for so many years. After the pain. I was home. And I had the perfect plan.

Rachel would have been proud.

I smiled.

"Full emergency power to the engines," I commanded, "Ram the Blade Ship."

Menderash set the commands into the control console and cut the communication with the Blade Ship short. No more communications were necessary. This was battle mode now.

"Are you CRAZY?" Marco yelled. "We're all going to die if we hit that thing at full power! It has higher defenses!"

I knew it. Our chances were pretty slim. But I had to delegate fast.

"Menderash," I said, "Get yourself strapped down as safely as you can for the impact we will have. Everyone else, we need to morph something sturdy. Go to cockroach, as fast as you can, because we have less than thirty seconds."

No one needed to be told twice. Menderash was belted in faster than I could have said "tacos." Jeanne and Santorelli were going to be slower morphers, but they were going and they were going as fast as they could. Unfortunately, it was still too slow. If they had more practice... But no one was as experienced at morphing as my friends and I.

And we were morphing fast.

‹Man. You know, I thought going roach was done. And this whole war thing. I could have been playing as an extra in that new Animorph movie. But here I am getting myself killed to save Ax-man from what looks like evil Play-Doh on our interface. Jake, next time bring Cassie in on this too. She should have as much fun as me.›

I rolled my eyes. For all his whining, Marco was already more roach than human. He was morphing faster than me - he had never stopped morphing. Like I said, a practiced morph was a fast morph.

I looked at the console as my eyes went from human to the compound eyes of an insect. We had ten seconds left to impact.

‹Marco,› I said as I became roach enough to use thought-speak. ‹My last words to you: Shut. Up.›

I just was not in the mood for his whining. I was too busy worrying about whether we - especially Santorelli and Jeanne - could morph fast enough. I was worried for Menderash. We hadn't had to morph in years and hadn't exactly been practicing roach morph on the Rachel, my cousin's namesake.

Nine...

Eight... Six legs now...

Marco laughed. ‹Oh Jake, you know we can't part on a fight, let's kiss and make up. You can't hate me. I'm so Spiderman. Or well, Roachman.›

Five... I had antennae.

‹Call me when you can get Batman on board.›

Three...

I hoped everyone who could morph was done and somewhere safe.

Two... I was about as big as a tennis ball.

One...

My body was almost fully roach and dwindling in size rapidly.

I thought about how long ten seconds could feel when imminent death was the most likely outcome.

The last second felt like it hung forever.

‹The alien vessel!› I heard Menderash's anguished cry. ‹We have been intercepted by the alien vessel!›

That's right, I thought, still morphing. Menderash had said the Blade Ship hadn't been the one to attack. Stupid! Why didn't I remember that? Why didn't we see it?

Of course, none of these thoughts had time to make any sense. Be coherent. Because we had no time left even as I was trying to finish my morph. But there had, there had been another ship. One we had spoken about.

And that one, not the Blade Ship, had attacked the Intrepid.

Zero.

And I felt the impact hurl me across the Rachel, still shrinking as I flew with the force of impact...

But not from the angle I had expected.

Chapter Text

My name is Marco. You've probably heard of me before. If not, I'm a very cute guy. But it's been a few years. Most people know who us Animorphs are.

I had been doing a lot on Earth. I knew celebrities. I'd had a lot of money. I had been living it up, until Jake came in and told me we had to go into another suicidal mission.

Maybe I had been mostly going through the motions. I couldn't blame Jake for my choice to go. I owed Ax big time. He'd saved my life with that tail of his more times than I could count. Leaving him in the dust hadn't been an option, anymore than he'd leave me. I couldn't have walked away from Ax any more than my mother or Jake's brother in the past war. No matter how distant we get from each other, we're all family.

So we'd go and drag Ax's blue butt back out of the Blade Ship. Easy, right? Right. Okay, we had been maybe just a little informed that the Andalites and Kelbrid had a tense relationship. They were not two groups around the campfire singing camp songs. Still, I had thought we would get a good fight going before anything else happened.

I didn't think we were going to die in the first battle.

Unfortunately, Jake apparently had other plans.

As Menderash – the new resident nothlit - set the ship to ram our new enemy, everyone with a bug in their veins began morphing like the devil was at their heels. The problems with this gem of an idea were that a) we had no time to morph and b) being able to morph fast and efficiently takes practice. Something Jake, Tobias and I all had. But not Santorelli or Jeanne.

At least, nothing compared to what we had. We'd fought an entire war on morphing. They had 101 classes.

Oh, and of course, c) Menderash was already a nothlit, so he couldn't morph at all.

I knew this was bad. Jake was already stuck on beating himself up from decisions made during the Yeerk-Andalite war on Earth. But I also knew he was right. We weren't going to get away from this fight. And we didn't have much time. Nothing Jake or Tobias or I could do would make Santorelli or Jeanine better morphers in twenty seconds.

To be honest, our likeliness of surviving wasn't going to be improved very well simply by going roach. There was that whole problem of losing air and other necessary things when our spacecraft's systems went out. The air and other gases in our bodies would expand, rupturing. The temperature would drop incredibly fast. It was not a nice thought to have.

I had a feeling we were going to be checking in, but not checking out. So I did what I do in these situations: Complain.

‹You know, I thought going roach was done. Like, I thought the Andalite-Yeerk War meant no more roach. I could have been playing as an extra in that new Animorph movie. I had a few TV shows waiting for me. But here I am getting myself killed to save Ax-man from what looks like evil Play-Doh. Jake, next time bring Cassie in on this too. She should have as much fun as me.›

‹Marco. You chose to come. My last words: Shut up.›

‹Oh Jake. You can't hate me. I'm so Spiderman.›

‹Call me when you can get Batman on board.›

Tobias remained silent. I wasn't sure whether he was busy mourning Rachel, busy anticipating his own death, or sunk into memories of when she was the one snubbing me. But then, he was here for Ax.

Knowing the ship was headed on a collision course, we kept shrinking. And talking. I tried not to wonder about how far along Santorelli was, or Jeanne. Let alone Menderash, who was pretty much toast in the event of a collision. It didn't matter how unlikely it was we'd live: I knew if we were killed it would probably be quick and painless. Roaches don't tend to be big on pain. But Menderash could be at least slightly less lucky that way.

Suddenly Menderash cried, ‹The alien vessel! We have been intercepted by the alien vessel!›

We had all known about the older, alien vessel Menderash had reported as the attacker to the Intrepid. The one that had not seemed to have life but had evidence of Yeerk presence – Earth DNA. I heard Jake curse, sure he had not intended for anyone to overhear him beating up on himself. We were mostly done morphing. We couldn't stop anything anymore. And I felt the impact, an immense shuddering that sent my little roach body flying into the distance. I could see, with my compound eyes, debris flying everywhere – at least, everywhere within a few inches of me. I felt the structure losing stability and saw cracks grow. Shrapnel from twisting, torn metal. It all hit everywhere.

Everywhere.

I felt the cockroach's instincts rise up, wanting to find a place dark and still. The roach didn't want to be here anymore than I did. But there was nowhere to go and the world was shaking and chaotic and crumbling around my roach body. Internally I felt the fear of wondering whether this was the moment I would be shot out into open space. Or this moment.

Or this moment.

Eventually, though, the shaking did stop and I noticed things stopped flying. I didn't feel my body being destroyed as it would in open space, with no atmosphere. Well, if it would happen as fast to a roach as it would to a human, anyway. I mean, I'm pretty smart, but I'm not exactly a scientist.

‹Jake?› I called out.

Nothing.

‹Jake? Anyone? Jeanine? Menderash? Tobias?›

‹I was wondering when you'd get to me,› Tobias grumbled, ‹I'm alive but I think I'm partially crushed under something. I may need help out before I can demorph.›

‹Jake?›

‹Come on, man,› I continued trying to coax, ‹We have a deer-boy to rescue and I'm not sure me and the winged wonder will do so great on our own!›

Nothing.

Nothing still, and I was getting ready to freak out. But in about another half a minute...

‹Uhhnnnn,› Jake muttered, ‹Ugh. Sorry. I sort of was knocked unconscious since I hadn't morphed all the way through. Out of practice. I'll be fine after I demorph. Hey, I see someone here with me.›

A roach scuttled up next to me.

It's always a bit gross to see another cockroach up close. Even when you are a cockroach.

‹Okay Jake, that's me,› I said.

‹We didn't get the Blade Ship.›

‹That's what I heard. Not that I saw much, you know, roach eyes. Or "heard" in the literal sense. But that is definitely what I heard.›

I heard Jake sigh. Internally I almost wished I could slap him. No one had thought about the alien vessel when they had charged the Blade Ship. It wasn't his fault. Still, another mistake he intended to take credit for.

‹Well. I'm going to start demorphing slowly. If I can't manage it I'll go back to roach. If I give the okay we go look for survivors.›

The roach next to me who was really Jake began scuttling off. I saw it rising off the floor.

Morphing is never pretty. And you never get used to it. But I watched as well as I could with my little roach eyes, to see if it was safe.

Demorphing. Demorphing. I could feel vibrations from the noises created by bones recreating themselves and organs appearing and moving into place – and then just the massive change in weight and mass. Then...

"Okay, I'm able to breathe, but it's definitely on the light side," Jake said, "Man. That was really lucky for us."

‹Too lucky,› I pointed out.

"The other ship extended their force field around us," Jake said. Even from my non-hearing perspective, his voice had taken a strange tone. "That's why we still have any air."

I began my own demorph.

‹This smells really bad. If they were going to - –,› I was cut off as my body changed from roach to human.

What Jake said bothered me. The other spacecraft – from the Kelbrid or whatever it was – made it so we wouldn't die when the impact alone would have completely destroyed us otherwise.

That meant this thing wanted us on board.

I was not a big fan of following the wishes of my enemies.

That old sense, that sense of skepticism and a lack of trust in fortune – it all came back like it had never left me in the first place. It wanted something. I didn't want to give it what it wanted.

When I was fully human, I looked around at everything. The gravity was working, but it was shaky. I could almost feel myself losing touch with the floor from time to time. But the metal, the wires, the pipes were all over the place. Communicator broken.

And you'd never think how much you could miss an automatic coffee maker until it's beyond repair.

Jake looked around, haggard again. I wasn't surprised. Our first mission back in battle and we hadn't gotten a response from half our team. So far, this wasn't going as nicely as our first mission. I noted it internally.

Even though we hadn't confirmed anyone dead yet – we'd have to get some of the debris out of the way and hope someone eventually made a response – it didn't seem good. I've been a roach. They're really hard to kill. But even at the worst it only took a few minutes to come to, so we should have been hearing from people. And if anyone stayed in roach morph too long, they would be unable to demorph. Trapped forever by the two-hour morphing time-limit. At which point they'd probably hope they were dead anyway.

I didn't envy Jake. But I knew we had a job to do. I walked over to him. It was a bit out of character for me - we're not big on emotions and support. But I put a hand on his shoulder. There was no Cassie around to say the right things. He had let her move on to keep doing things right on Earth.

In that moment, I envied her. But I tried to also emulate her.

"Jake, you did what you had to do," I said.

He grimaced and looked up at me. I'm perceptive by nature. I saw the guilt, but it was more complicated than that.  Jake wasn't feeling guilty about the deaths: We'd basically enlisted to die. He had taken advantage of his students and put them in a mission with bad odds, and hadn't even gotten them off The Rachel. He felt relief – glad Tobias and I were okay.

Probably guilty for that relief, too. But you can't help being more attached to the people you know best.

Admitting that isn't a crime of course. Everyone has favorites and preferences. But when you're glad one person has died over another, guilt is also natural. It made me feel guilty too. That guilt wasn't going to help us. We were in a trap. We didn't know anything about The One – whoever and whatever it was. We didn't know if it was allied with the Kelbrid or some rogue on its own. We didn't know what it had done to Ax. We didn't know if he could be saved. We were on its turf, and that meant we needed to keep ourselves together and on the defensive.

I gave Jake another nudge. The movement seemed to shake finally Jake out of his stupor as he sighed and pulled himself back together – looking around.

"Let's look for the others," Jake said.

"Tobias," I said, "If you think you can control it enough, try to demorph the part of your body exposed from the debris. We may find you faster."

We began the search through the Rachel. We tried to move everything really carefully to prevent more pressure being put on any side – lifting it straight up so anything underneath wouldn't get crushed by the movements.

That slowed us down a lot. We could have morphed stronger things than our human bodies and easily moved everything fallen around us. But we were afraid to morph larger animals and accidentally kill anyone that might not be dead yet, since two of us were probably - hopefully - cockroaches. We worked slowly because the air in the ship was precarious and thin. I had a feeling we would have to depart sooner instead of later if we wanted the surviving thing to keep working.

It didn't take long to find Tobias. He had slowly, carefully demorphed the part of his body exposed. It takes a lot of concentration to control a morph and none of us on this mission were particularly good at it – but usually with really good concentration it can be done to some extent. He'd grown his head only.

It was really, really gross to look at.

‹Finally,› he groaned, ‹You have no idea what it's like to be trying to support my head at the end of a roach body.›

"Hey Tobias," I said brightly, "Glad to know you are finally the exact opposite of a peabrain. You could be Jimmy Neutron's songbird now!"

He didn't bother responding. Tobias was not a guy who talked to anyone anymore. And Jake gave me a look that meant I was not going to take any issue with that. Tobias had never really gotten over Rachel, and I was supposed to just let him be. A few years ago, I probably wouldn't have let it rest. But we were kids back then.

Tobias reversed his morph back to cockroach so we could move the thing on top of him more safely - roach bodies are hard to destroy, and brain-dead hawks don't demorph. He had been lucky. The items could have fallen with him in the middle, crushing him completely. Which had happened to another comrade - who, I didn't know.

‹I'm not sure who it was,› Tobias said. ‹They were both next to me when the impact happened. One of them was flung, the other crushed›

But I did not feel as sorry for whoever had been near Tobias as I felt for Menderash.

He was still breathing, gurgling as blood trickled out of his mouth and down his throat. His eyes were unseeing and rolled into the back of his head. A large part of him had been burnt by wiring. The pain had to be unbearable. But even as a nothlit stuck in the body of a human, Menderash was an Andalite warrior. Which meant he was tough and focused. Determined.

Jake began to lift the debris off of Menderash.

"No! Not yet!"

Jake stopped.

I looked over the debris. Some of it penetrated his arms and legs. I wasn't an anatomy major, but I knew some of those areas had major arteries. Some had crushed him pretty well. Our friend Menderash was barely alive, and moving him was going to be dangerous. I looked over it. There wasn't anything we had to work with left over on The Rachel.

"We can't remove the debris," I said. "We might cause more damage. He needs a lot of medical care, and he'll bleed more if we remove it."

"Gauze. We wrap it to stabilize it and stop the bleeding."

‹I can find the gauze,› Tobias couldn't really fly in the ship - the space was already pretty small even without everything torn apart. But his eyes were still useful. He began looking around. It was less than five minutes before I saw him morphing. ‹I got it.›

Menderash groaned. He seemed to be coming to.

"What's up, Sunshine?"

He had probably been the person I was closest to on the ship other than Jake – and let's face it, Jake had been messed up a long time. Menderash and I hadn't had history, but he was more likely to turn around and play a video game.

"Menderash, Tobias is bringing gauze. We're going to get you wrapped up before we move you."

He tried to answer, but the pain from burns and wounds in his upper body were wearing on him. So he used thought-speak. And he said what you more or less would expect of an Andalite warrior. Especially since Andalites tend to see humans as weak, and his body had been badly injured.

‹No point saving me. Save... Aximili,› he gasped.

Jake smiled. "Being down three members won't help Ax."

Tobias scuffled over everything with as much gauze as he found. We began wrapping up the areas that seemed high-risk. We didn't have enough to wrap everything, but the biggest shards of debris were all stabilized. Then we all worked to get the debris on top of Menderash off of him, because there wasn't enough room for me to safely morph gorilla. It obviously hurt a lot - his circulation must have been cut.

I saw Tobias grab his hand while he was gritting his teeth. I could have made a comment, but I let it pass.

We tried to get him out from under the part of the control center – at least, I think it was the control center. It was almost too heavy. Menderash passed out at some point, I'd kind of hoped he would. But eventually we managed. Tobias pulled Menderash out as soon as there was enough pressure lifted. His left leg was pretty badly crushed. He was breathing, but it was shallow and ragged.

"I'm demorphing. I'm looking for Jeanine or Santorelli or whoever it was that was catapulted in the first impact," Tobias said. And he began his demorph. Jake remained silent. He rubbed a hand against his forehead.

Things tapered off into silence for a while. Jake and I stayed with Menderash while Tobias, all hawk now, was using his eyes to investigate the ship.

"Tobias," I called, "Have you found anyone?"

‹Not yet.›

"We could all go hawk or owl to look," Jake said thoughtfully, "Faster. We need to move over to the other spaceship and try to find Ax."

"And I'm looking oh-so-forward to getting out of here to look around on the other spacecraft," I muttered dryly.

‹I won't need you guys to help me look. I found another cockroach,› Tobias said.

"Alive?"

‹No. Jake, it flew into a wiring system that caught fire.›

I shuddered. Cockroaches don't feel much, but I had a hard time imagining the fate that person had been through. We had gone through it situations where insect morphs had gotten burnt ourselves and it had not been pleasant.

A short death, though.

It was official: Six had become four.

Chapter Text

My name is Tobias.

I was a human. Now, I am a red-tailed hawk most of the time.

When I was a human, I hadn't been happy. I was shuttled a lot between my aunt and uncle. I had been bullied. I hadn't known either of my parents. Until the war with the Yeerks had started, I hadn't had anything to live for, really. It gave me a purpose. It brought Rachel and I together. I used the morphing power more than the others, so I could fly. And then I became hawk full-time.

I didn't morph much even after the Ellimist gave me the power back. I guess he'd been right. He knew what I'd wanted. I just hadn't wanted to admit it, especially to Rachel.

She died, though. The war ended. And I left. I had my freedom. I'd earned it. My law was simply nature's law: Eat or be eaten. That's how a hawk lives.

I didn't try to keep in touch. I didn't keep spending time with Loren. She's my mother, and she does love me, in a way, like we should be family. Loren gave me up for my protection, not because I had been unwanted. And I tried, at least while Rachel was still around. I tried to imagine being human. But afterward it was just weird. What did I want to be human for? And if family are the people who raise you, then what is Loren to me? She was a possibility that never happened.

That's how life works. What does and doesn't happen. Loren couldn't be my mother. Rachel couldn't stay with me. I could blame Jake for that, and I did. A lot. The funny thing, though? Even if the war had ended with Rachel alive, I'm not sure we would have happened anyway. I didn't want to give up flying. Rachel didn't want to give up fighting.

And if I'd thought surviving the war was our biggest obstacle to love and happily-ever-after, I only had to look at Jake and Cassie to know that wasn't true. Or Ax and Estrid.

Maybe that was part of why I hated interacting with everyone, except Cassie and sometimes Toby. The obvious reason everyone saw: Rachel was dead, and it was Jake's fault. Yeah. That was part of it. I did hate Rachel being dead, and I did hate Jake making that call. But it was also like I had hindsight. I was a bird who had been a boy, so I knew what it was like for things really not to go back to normal. None of them were trying, really, except for Cassie. And then I had the hindsight of really losing the love of my life on top of that. And everyone out there, in the world, coming up with all these bull reasons for why they can't move on, why they can't be together.

I mean, other than Cassie, they hadn't even given themselves a chance. I checked up on them sometimes. I'd hear about them from people. I'd hear about me from other people, now that everyone knew I was an Animorph. Bullies pretending they had been my friends. My uncle and aunt trying to ride on my reputation for fame. "I raised Tobias Fangor." (Cassie and Ax had found DeGroot's letter. I'm not sure how they did it, but it made 'Tobias Fangor' become my popularized name, even if I never changed it legally. Son of Elfangor-Sirinial-Shamtul. Much to the chagrin of the Andalites, but the war was over. Protecting Elfangor as the poster-child of a perfect soldier wasn't as important as it used to be.)

Sometimes I even checked up on them a bit more directly. Red-tailed hawks are so common, they could never be sure if it was me sitting on that street-lamp or flying overhead. Jake moping by Rachel's grave. Marco morphing things we never even liked morphing to turn chores into bizarre missions. Once? I saw him morph a cockroach to inspect an apartment. Before he'd settled on his mansion. Imagine being so desperate for a mission you morph a cockroach to inspect for cracks in the walls.

It was so weird to actually be the second most-adjusted Animorph when everything was said and done.

When Cassie found me, I knew something was up. I wanted to leave when I saw she'd brought Jake. But when he told me what had happened to Ax, I had to go. We'd let ourselves drift apart. Ax knew what I wanted, more than anyone. But I knew that in spite of everything, I was still his shorm. He was mine.

So I had to go. Bird-boy, and his dysfunctional adopted family.

We had set out. Months had passed. There was no sign of Ax, the Blade Ship, or this alien vessel our informant Menderash had explained as attacking the Intrepid.

And here we were. We found the ship. The Blade Ship. But I had seen that... That thing on the communication screen. It had taken Ax's face. The One. Could Ax even be saved? What did becoming part of The One mean? Was it another type of Controller, or something worse?

Jake had ordered to ram the Blade Ship. We'd all been focused on the Blade Ship, since that was where Ax was supposed to be according to Menderash. A rookie move mistake by some rusty soldiers. We had forgotten about the other strange vessel Menderash had described. Besides, no one had seen it anywhere, not even on our sensors. Maybe it had some sort of cloaking. Maybe that was the same reason the Intrepid had not known it was a live ship when they found it. I'd have to ask Menderash later. If he could come wake up soon. He didn't look good.

Santorelli, dead. And Jeanne. They had died in morph, as cockroaches. So we couldn't even identify their bodies.

Maybe our run on Earth was a winning streak, and our luck was finally out.

The air on our own ship was too thin. Everything was torn apart. We wouldn't be flying it out of here. It made me feel hollow and sad. Mostly because we'd named this after my Rachel. She was completely destroyed. This ship - whatever it was - was actually keeping us alive.

It was pretty clearly a trap set by someone who wanted us there.

Marco was right - he often was about these things. It wanted to meet us. I wasn't really looking forward to it.

"We should see if there's a way in," I muttered.

Menderash had said the ship had been large. But that had been compared to the Intrepid. Which had been a large military-grade spacecraft for Andalites. Andalite ships are already on the very-large side, to accommodate their grazing needs. Compared to the Rachel? It was enormous. I couldn't even imagine how something so large and clunky could move so fast. It seemed wrong. Something so big being so fast and stealthy didn't make any sense to me, not as a person or a hawk.

We crawled through debris and shrapnel and other assorted, dangerous pieces of fallen spacecraft to see if we could manage to get in. If we had broken in at our speed at any point. No such luck.

It took a long time to find our exit through the wreckage. But we found an entrance to the behemoth in front of us almost immediately after. It was directly across from ours. Open. Waiting.

I shot a look at Jake and Marco.

"It intercepted us, at that speed, and still had time to put us in an area where we'd be able to get in? Without killing us? This is not good," I said.

"It is totally 'not good'," Marco agreed. "In fact, I was just thinking 'not good." Those were my exact thoughts, I will admit. 'Not good.' So 'Not good' I would in fact offer other words to describe the scenario, were they child-appropriate."

I mostly ignored him and went to the issue worrying me most. "It was Ax's face in the communicator. His face like. Bubbled up out of that thing. Do you think that was really him. Or some sort of trick?"

"I was wondering about that. If this thing absorbs people, we might not have any purpose here but to kill that evil creep. But if it was him, and he's on the Blade Ship, then going into this thing isn't going to get us what we want."

"Ax was captured on the Blade Ship," Jake pointed out. "We can't know he's still there if this thing is controlling both space-crafts. We can't even know anyone is on the Blade Ship. Both times it's been this other vessel that attacks. That makes it more suspicious. So what do you think? Maybe the Blade Ship has become a decoy? Or do you think everyone's still over there and we need to make our way in that direction?"

"What I think," Marco said darkly, "Is that we have no choice. We can't fly away in the Rachel. She's dead. No life support. We can't get to the Blade Ship even if we do know this is a trap. We're here, and it wants us here, and we have no choice but to go in there and hope we somehow don't give it what it wants even by going inside."

Jake nodded.

"Okay. We tread carefully," he said. "Find Shredders. Board the ship. Marco and I will wait for you when we're on board. We'll have to carry Menderash."

"Wait," Marco said. "What should we call this thing? It's bad luck to get on a vessel without a name. And we have enough bad luck without its help."

"We could call it the One," I pointed out. "Easy, and that's what its master calls themselves."

"Or One-derland," Jake joked.

"Jake, why do you ruin everything?"

Menderash groaned.

"See? Even Menderash hates your jokes."

Jake glared at him, and Marco went back to business.

"Okay, fine, Onederland wins. So I don't have to think about this monster every time I hear 'One' in the future. Back to finding shredders and getting into Onderland."

"Tobias," Jake amended, "Morph Andalite. We could use a tail-blade, and you can't use a shredder as a hawk."

I began to demorph.

Some people have talent for morphing. Cassie always had talent. Ax called people like those estreens. But for the rest of us morphing tended to be gross and unpredictable. I currently looked like I was in, well, an embarrassing position.

"Tobias, you're supposed to find a tree or some bushes to hide behind instead of doing that in front of an audience," Marco called. He pulled a Shredder out and began making his way to the Menderash.

‹Don't tempt me. I'll pay you back later.›

I wasn't in the mood for his jokes anymore. Rachel was dead, Ax was possibly dead, I was not in the mood. It wasn't entirely fair, because I knew Marco probably felt mostly the same way. Jokes are his stress valve. But I had no patience for it right now.

I began morphing again, to the morph of Ax I had from old days. I felt uncomfortable taking on Ax's form. He'd given me permission in the past. He'd been glad I had his DNA. But we hadn't spoken in years. And what if he was dead now? It felt wrong.

On the other hand, assuming he was dead and that my morph was now a mockery of his life also felt wrong. A chill went down my spine that had nothing to do with the morphing. I remembered Cassie had acquired Rachel. Ax had acquired Jake.

Lots of people had acquired me. Mostly dead, now. And, well, I have a pretty short life expectancy as a hawk.

Not the time to be lost in thought, I reminded myself. If Ax is alive, I am going to save him. End of discussion.

Then I'd probably have to give him a piece of my mind for continuing a military career and putting his life in danger. What the heck had happened to Estrid? One of us was supposed to be happy in this mess. Ax was the person who had been military-trained. He was supposed to have an edge on this post-traumatic stress. I wasn't supposed to have to look after him. But he was also my family. I hadn't had much experience with the family thing, period. Trying to turn that around with Loren hadn't really worked.

But Ax had been my shorm and a war-buddy, too. So I wasn't going to give up on him. I was through with tragic endings, and Ax wasn't going to give me another to add to my collection.

God, stop whining, I thought privately to myself. It was one of the hardest things about deciding to come after Ax. I hadn't had to think too much when I was on my own. I'd just let the hawk do its thing most of the time. Everything had been easy in my territory, just regular laws of the wild. Months out here, and I was tired of all the thinking I had to do. Talking to people. Watching the group dynamic. Worrying about Ax. I'd been doing it for months now and it hadn't exactly been easy.

At the same time, it was hard to imagine going back. It'd been months. I'd had to be in morph a lot of the time. I'd had to interact with people – at least, people other than Jake who mostly seemed to leave me alone.

Hard to interact, hard to not interact. What was I going to do?

‹Not time,› I muttered, ‹Think about it later.›

"Think about what later?"

‹Never mind.›

"Hey," Jake called out. "I found two shredders pinned down over here. That means one for you too, Tobias. Marco, I'm headed over."

I heard some scuffling and then a loud thud. "Ow!"

I heard Marco laugh. "If you were wondering, Jake: I'm not kissing that better."

He must have gotten over okay, because I heard the two of them trying to lift something heavy, dragging it in the general direction of the exit's airlock - or what was left of it. That would be Menderash.

In the meantime, I grew two arms, two extra sets of legs, and I shot up as my legs lengthened. My torso came in afterward, and then the head that was more human-shaped, but with no mouth. Three vertical slits – my nose – grew into my face. My eyes became larger but my sight dimmed as I traded my hawk eyes for Andalite main eyes.

Throughout all of this I had for some reason kept my hawk wings and basic body shape. I had a really short body with a torso crammed into one end and four legs all crammed together beneath a bird body. But then, finally, my deer-like section below the torso grew outward with my hind legs moving back. Eyes grew on top of my head in stalks that could move in different directions. My tail and blade suddenly shot out behind me, long, strong, deadly. Feathers traded themselves for the blue and tan fur of a young Andalite. The deer-like ears grew at the side of my head. Finally, it was done. I was Ax.

Well, Ax's body from a few years back. I didn't look exactly like him anymore. He'd grown, a lot. He'd gotten stronger. He was an adult Andalite now like Cassie and Jake and Marco were adult humans. Like I was an older red-tailed hawk. You want weird? My friends were turning twenty this year, and I still had a thirteen-year-old human body for a morph. Like while everyone had moved on and grown up, I was still a kid. So now I was Ax, but Ax from... I think four years ago. I'd acquired him somewhere mid-war.

Finishing my morph, I clamored around the Rachel until I found my way through the door. It was a big harder for me, being bigger than Jake and Marco. They gradually pulled Menderash over inside the door, and put him on his side, with his arm propping up his head to help keep his neck straight. A first-aid recovery position, and unfortunately the best aid we could give to him right then.

We stood there, looking inside into the dark. Almost waiting for something to come up at us. So far every encounter with the Blade Ship and with The One had been a surprise.

I knew Jake was tired of being made a fool. That was okay. So was I.

"Let's move," Jake said. It was so quiet I could barely hear it.

The opening was so full of wreckage from our impact, but it didn't seem very damaged for all its problems. It took some digging to get through, and we had to go one at a time. I stayed in the back because I had weak hands, and could literally see like I had eyes at the back of my head – literally. Giving us an advantage in case someone tried to surprise us from behind.

"I can see out the door," Marco said. "At least, a little bit. Just a hall to get from one section of the ship to the other."

I stepped out from behind them. Looked around, with all my eyes going.

Nothing. No signs of life. I knew that was a lie, but I couldn't see anything dangerous.

Just remember that that was the problem that got Ax into trouble, I thought grimly.

For a few moments we looked around. And maybe it's because I spend most of my time as a hawk, or maybe Andalite eyes are a bit better in the dark. But I finally saw vague outlines that I could interpret.

‹Two doors,› I said. I pointed in the direction of one and the other. ‹The door to the left is a lot wider and has thicker framing. I think it might lead to a cargo bay. The thinner one on the right probably leads to a place with crew or passengers.›

"Cargo bay, or what about holding cells?" Jake whispered. "If we're looking for captives, maybe the wide door is the way to go."

Marco shook his head. "You don't invite the enemy in and gift-wrap what they want. Besides, dead ship. We need to deal with whatever this creep is."

"And don't forget: The last time anyone came through here they thought there wasn't a fight. We know there is one. So let's stay ready. Tobias, keep cover."

I moved back behind them, talk eyes turned, tail as ready as I could keep it. I wasn't experienced at using the Andalite body, but a lot better than the first time. Sometimes, occasionally, I'd used my Ax morph to run. Once or twice I'd even sketched. Not much tail-practice, though. No need without a war.

As we reached the hallway, the door opened automatically. It wasn't fancy, like an Andalite spacecraft would have been. Just an automatic door, mostly like what you would see at any retail store on Earth. Not exactly high-tech, just automated. It wasn't very intimidating. A lot of the things on it seemed more or less normal to human sensibilities. At first thought, comparing it to the Yeerks with their killer robots and Gleet Biofilters, it almost seemed like a relief.

Except then you realized: Whatever was on this ship didn't even think you were a big enough threat to lock the doors.

We searched. Tense, close, jumping at shadows. But we saw nothing. We didn't run into what Marco had dubbed the Play-Doh. Or Human-Controllers, or anything else that would have normally started a fight with us. We didn't see Ax.

I felt like we were being watched. But I couldn't see anyone watching. It was weird, knowing there had to be - since something or someone was flying this ship. But I couldn't see it.

We kept walking in one direction, hoping to find the bridge of the spacecraft. Our plan was pretty simple: Charge. Take Ax. Get home. With no Rachel to get back home in, there wasn't really a stealthy alternative.

Kill or be killed.

We looked a long time. But everything seemed empty. And dark.

"Okay," Jake said. "Maybe whatever it is controls this ship from the Blade Ship? I mean. Nothing's here that I can see. Maybe we morph owls, try to get some night vision."

But before any of us could think of morphing... BANG! BANG! BANGBANBANGBANGBANG!

Overwhelming noise, everywhere. And my eyes straining in the dark could barely make sense of what was happening as it seemed the walls in every direction rushed at me. Figures rushed and danced up at me, but not in any sort of natural movements, instead looking like sick marionette impressions, hanging and controlled by strings. I felt something suddenly grabbing all around me, strapping me down and making me immobile.

"AHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

"AHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

‹AHHHHHHHHHHHH!›

It was maybe ten seconds. But even in that ten seconds I could feel myself losing consciousness.

No, I thought, No.

I was light-years from Earth, in a body that wasn't my own.

And I was losing everything.

Chapter Text

My name is Leah. Leah Assouline.

And I was trying to teach an alien childhood games. Well. Human childhood games.

"'Two truths and a lie' is a game where you state in random order two true facts about yourself and one lie. The other people playing are supposed to guess the lie. Once someone figures it out, it's their turn. It's usually an 'ice-breaker' game. That means it's a game to help people learn about you as a person."

On one hand, I felt like I was baby-sitting. His morph couldn't be older than fourteen at most. And he acted like a kid. The eating strange things probably wasn't a big deal, since we weren't really eating, but I felt like I had to save him from himself a lot. For a few months he played with words a lot, but he got over it. Eventually.

In reality, he was baby-sitting me. The adult who was infested as a ten-year old. The One finally let Essat Nine-Seven-Eight die, because Aximili wouldn't play if it killed me and this other Andalite. A lot of the time, though, I wished he had just let The One off me. I was twenty now. There was a decade of my life stuck in my own head, except once every three days. Like Princess Odette in The Swan Princess only turning human in the moonlight.

Into the arms of a new parasite.

If there's a God, then this definitely counted as cosmic irony. Someone was definitely laughing at me.

Aximili opened his mouth to take his turn, but I cut him off before he could make the same mistake I've seen so many kids do at camp. "It's best if the lie seems natural. Like if I say 'I have wings, I play trumpet, I hike on weekends'? That isn't fun. Because it's obvious I don't have wings."

It didn't make him hesitate at all. I guess he had inferred that part of the game on his own. "I lived on Earth for a while. I was a Controller for a while. I am married."

"Too easy. You weren't a Controller. Visser One was the only Andalite-Controller."

He smiled. Kind of. Human facial expressions weren't natural for him either. "You are incorrect. I was briefly infested while ill with yamphut. A human friend used a Yeerk to help her perform brain surgery."

"Also," he added, "When the Yeerks surrendered, we found more Andalite-Controllers. Alloran had tried to warn me before, unsuccessfully."

I stared at him. Courtesy of years of being a Controller, I don't do facial expressions well. I have to try to act how I feel. Aximili said earlier it was common for long-term Controllers. Especially youth. Apparently doctors on Earth had terms for it like 'emotional blunting' and 'facial disaffection' and 'verbal disaffection.' It still felt like I was trying to move a mask on my head. I tried to make my voice and face match what were - or at least what I thought were - my feelings. "Brain surgery? But you're okay?"

"I am here."

"Okay, point taken. Yes, that's how you play. Good job. Um, so you're not married? If you knew a human and have a human morph, you probably were on Earth at least a bit." I paused. "Or you could have encountered a human-Controller, I guess, but children didn't go off-planet very much."

"I should update my morph someday," he admitted. "The people I acquired were very young when I met them. And I did not acquire a human-Controller. My morph is a frolis maneuver, created from Jake, Rachel, Cassie, and Marco." He paused. "I guess it is sentimental. But I have not wanted to lose Rachel's DNA in my human morph."

My brain slowed down and sped up at the same time.

I knew those names. Everyone who had ever known the Yeerk Empire knew those names. They'd been burned into everyone's minds in the last months of war.

The Animorphs.

"You're one of the 'Andalite Bandits. Not just Aximili. Prince Aximili,'" I whispered. Emotional blunting and disaffection can't hide the awe from my voice. Fainting wasn't something that actually happened.

I mean, I knew he was someone The One found interesting. I knew he had been a captain on the Intrepid. I knew he had encountered humans if he had a human morph.

I hadn't realized he had been one of the people to save my planet.

It all felt surreal. What were the chances that one of the Animorphs was going to be out here? Then, as if from a distance, my brain started remembering other feelings.

"I am so sorry you are here," I said suddenly. "Oh, my God. You did so much for all of us. For our planet. And you're stuck out here." Stuck here with a peon, I added mentally. Insignificance. I was definitely feeling insignificance right now.

He seemed uncomfortable. I got the impression grandeur wasn't something he entertained much. He tried to change the subject.

"I understand the rules to this game. Should we try another?"

"Okay," I rubbed my hands together. "Truth or Dare. It's a game kids pretend they want to play, but almost never actually play. It involves a lot of bravery."

He looked puzzled. "A test of courage?"

I laughed. Or at least, my body ("body") shook kinda the way it would if I were laughing. I didn't actually make any noise.

"Not really. It's just that, the game involves making people feel as awkward as humanly possible. So most people end up refusing to play their turns. One person asks another person to choose between a truth or a dare. If they choose 'truth' they are supposed to answer the question honestly, no matter what it is. If it's 'dare' the first person gives the second person a task they have to complete. Usually people don't want to bare their souls or complete embarrassing tasks, so usually it's just a bunch of kids not doing anything. Like, once I played 'truth or dare' and someone dared me to cut my hair."

"Did you do it?"

"Yep. Then I dared them to put a sock in their mouth until the end of the next turn. They didn't. Coward. It was their own sock. And it wasn't even dirty."

"How do you ask a question someone is too afraid to answer?" Aximili wondered.

I began listing them off of my fingers, while trying to word things carefully. I'd learned from Ondrean and Aximili that Andalites could be very literal. "For humans? Questions of a sexual nature. Questions of a romantic nature - especially if the source of an unspoken attraction is also playing. Uhm. Questions that could put a wrench in a friendship or cause animosity. Like, if I asked you if you'd ever had sex before, or if I asked you if you had a crush on so-and-so, or if I asked you to give your honest opinion on me as a person, like if you think I'm annoying."

"I think I would rather skip this game."

"Exactly."

"However, may I ask you a question about you?"

I made myself smile. "As long as I'm not bound to answer it."

"When I was on Earth, the Animorphs often avoided telling me things they found embarrassing, for whatever reason. But you seem very open. I wonder if you know why?"

I thought about it a bit. "Well, I think a lot of it is this 'depersonalization' you keep talking to me about. I feel so disconnected from my emotions, it's not hard for me to explain things that might otherwise be too awkward. But also, when I was a kid I was a nerd. My favorite branches were the social sciences. So I think maybe I just learned to think about people clinically?"

Aximili nodded. "Ah. So you studied psychology."

"More sociology and anthropology, but yeah, I read a lot of books in the pre-Essat days. Essat indulged in my academic interests afterward, too, out of ambition. If we ever get out of here, I could try to teach you more about humans from an 'academic' perspective. But you can ask me questions. I won't balk. Or if you do manage to make me feel awkward, I'll just tell you to look it up online if we ever get out."

"What is a diaper?"

I stared at him.

"One was relevant to a mission once. It had fecal matter in it, but when I asked them to explain they told me 'when I'm older.'"

I began shake-laughing again. Hard. So much so I fell over. Tears came down my face. For a moment, Aximili looked concerned and almost like he might try to touch me, which I was absolutely not going to let him do. I gasped for air. I forced words out of my mouth.

"No. Okay. I'm okay. Calming down."

I didn't ask him how a diaper could be relevant to a mission. I felt a little proud, being so tactful. At least, after the laughing.

"Diapers," I continued, "Are padded things some humans wear instead of underwear. Or sometimes cloth. Usually babies. See, human babies can't walk or talk, and they don't have control over a lot of bodily functions yet. They don't know how to use a toilet. So they just... Go. Wherever. Whenever. The diaper catches and holds it til their parents or guardians can clean them. This can also apply to adults with incontinence, who are bed-ridden, and some other circumstances."

A look of understanding - and confusion - spread on his face.

"Of course. Humans can't walk immediately after birth as can Andalites. And they don't have thought-speak, so your children learn everything in relation to language acquisition... I wonder what's so awkward about this that they wouldn't tell me?" he wondered. "It is one of the few practical pieces of clothing I have ever heard of."

"Teenagers." I made my eyes roll. "What babies. But basically they decided it was too gross to tell an Advanced Andalite."

"I suppose," Aximili said. "I feel like I owe you the same confidence in return. If you ever want to know about Andalites and our culture, you need only ask."

"I appreciate the offer, but I actually more want math and science lessons. You know, it's weird. I never stopped going to school when I was a Controller, but I was never really in school. I only remember the things that interested me. I ended up learning the words I read. I liked English and reading and history. I liked social sciences. But I don't remember any math or science questions. I used to imagine..."

I stopped. "Well, it doesn't matter. I wasn't paying attention to the material."

Aximili looked like he was going to press me. I tensed up. He often asked me "how I felt" or other questions in attempts to "help" me. I wasn't supposed to repress things, apparently. It wasn't good for fighting my emotional blunting. So I thought he was going to try to make me talk more about my feelings, like he was some sort of shrink. But he must have decided that wasn't his place, because instead he said, "What about another game?"

I explained Red Rover, and Hide-and-go-Seek, and tag. ("Oh. Andalites have a similar game to that.") I told him about Sharks and Minnows and freeze-tag. I explained twenty questions, I told him about board games and card games (I couldn't explain them in depth.) I talked about 'Ghosts in the Graveyard' and 'Marco-Polo.'

Aximili didn't seem to have any questions, so I kept going. Tether-ball. Hop-scotch. Jump-rope. Jungle gyms. Slides. Monkey bars. Hand-ball. Four-square. Soccer games. Saturday morning cartoons. Swim meets. Kick-ball. I remembered wood chips and blisters and hiding under the slides and cooties and...

I stopped suddenly. My throat was tightening and hurt so badly. My nose was getting runny. My eyes stung and watered. I was breathing harder. My chest hurt.

I suddenly realized how unlike Aximili it was not to interrupt me with questions, to put an Andalite narrative into my explanations of human things. Realized he had been letting me talk because asking me to talk hadn't been helping me feel anything. He not someone who listened to lectures. This was intentional.

Bastard. He'd known exactly what he was doing. He looked so calm. I wanted to hit him. Instead, I just gave him a dirty look and stood up to walk away.

"Leah, wait," he said. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to make you feel manipulated."

He corrected himself before I could hold him accountable for the lie. "Well, I did mean to manipulate you. But I was trying to act in your best interest."

He didn't make a move toward me. He didn't try to touch me, or argue for me to leave. He wasn't forcing me to stay. He was asking for my trust.

Aximili was a military leader who fought a war for three years. I couldn't know he wasn't lying. But I also knew he genuinely thought he was helping me.

Other than a very occasional interaction with Ondrean, he was also the only thing in here keeping me from being alone with The One.

"Why are you human?" I asked suddenly. Maybe knowing would help me decide. "Why would The One make you a human when you're an Andalite? Is it some sort of torture? Did you hate Earth and being human so much?"

"I had difficulties with humans and humanity. But I did not hate being a human. By the end of the war on Earth I was very... Confused."

For a moment, I thought he sounded very sad. It sounded honest. But liars are good at sounding honest. Still, I had to make some sort of decision. I couldn't stay here and leave him at the same time. Too tiring to stay with someone I didn't trust. Too lonely to leave someone I did.

 I gave him time to stand up.

"I'm bored. Let's go for a walk."

He started to move with me toward the woods - his woods - when a beautiful girl appeared in front of us. She had blonde hair and blue eyes. She was thin and tall. Breath-taking. She looked like she belonged on the cover of Seventeen. 

The thought that first hit me was she looked like a dangerous love.

"The One," Aximili muttered. The "girl" laughed mockingly.

"Let's play a game, shall we?"

Chapter Text

Aximili

Leah did not seem to recognize the incarnation of Rachel before us. I found this rather strange, as a human-Controller on the Blade Ship. Surely she would have faced Rachel Berenson in the last battle before she died. However, now was not the time to ask. And her face was often quite expressionless.

We were suddenly in a different area. It was one I presumed was one of Leah's memories. There were grassy fields, and woods surrounded us from some distance. Behind us lay a squat log building. Ahead of us lay various objects. Some were wooden animals. Others were square-shaped, like signs. All of these objects had circles painted on them. And some sort of mechanical device lay to the right side. Scanning the area, I saw something familiar propped up by a fence - bows.

Of course. This was some sort of range. A place to practice aiming and firing.

To my left, Ondrean appeared suddenly. It was a shock, given The One had mostly prevented us from interacting with one another for months.

‹Aximili!› he cried. ‹What in the name of naltern are we doing out here? And why are you in that ridiculous morph?›

"Torture. For why he's human," Leah supplied. I was grateful she did not state the exact purpose of keeping me human. I moved back to the first point.

"I don't know why we're here." I looked at Leah. "Is this one of your memories?"

"Yeah." She walked around, touching a bench, the fence, and other objects. "In elementary school - before I got infested - we had a mobile archery class come to the school once. Everyone got to try shooting bows and arrows out in the field. I was better at it than most people in my class. Bad, obviously, but pretty good for a newbie. Hit the target basic target board four times out of five. Most people didn't even hit the board."

She continued. "I begged my parents to let me take classes. I was really into it, you know? Anyway, so this was where I had archery class twice a week."

Leah laughed. "Of course, I never would have been that great. Bad eyes."

As she began walking toward the bench, "Rachel" appeared again, laughing lightly. Ondrean sighed - clearly this was not the first encounter he had with The One. Leah stiffened.

"This is a bow-hunting game," said The One in its Rachel costume. "Let's see who can hit the target first."

And then it vanished.

‹Hitting these targets? With those weapons?› Ondrean cast a glance at the bows and nearby quivers with a stalk eye. ‹Seems like child's play, compared to other archaic tasks I have been presented with.›

"No," Leah said. "The girl said bow-hunting. Not archery. She means there's a live target."

"That still sounds simple enough," I pointed out. "How many times have we been forced to re-live our worst memories? Isolated? Placed in the memories of dead hosts?"

"We don't even know what - or who - the target is," Leah pointed out.

‹Normally The One positions themselves as an opponent. Perhaps in this circumstance it is playing as the target?›

"Three arrows, three bows," Leah muttered dubiously. "Seems do-able, between two military-trained Andalites and someone with archery training. You might want to practice on some of these targets for a while, though. Bows don't fire like Shredders."

She picked up a bow and arrow, aimed, and fired. The arrow hit within the biggest circle.

Then it disappeared.

"It appears we will not be practicing much."

Leah picked up the bows and quivers and handed Ondrean and I one of each. Ondrean and I attempted to follow Leah's example, keeping the bow at hand to be ready to fire - though Leah had not had experience in bow-hunting in the past and her assumptions of bow-hunting were likely as much of a guess as our own.

‹This is preposterous,› Ondrean snorted. ‹No target specified, and three chances each on a weapon only one of us maintains an amateur background in?›

I shrugged. "We do not apparently have a choice, Ondrean. Let us proceed with caution, for those woods up ahead. I strongly suspect we will find our target there."

"You don't think that thing is going to make us shoot a person, do you?"

‹If it wasn't, it almost certainly will now that you have expressed distaste,› Ondrean huffed. ‹Has months of being a part of this monstrosity taught you nothing?›

I sighed. Ondrean was like me some years back. Arrogant and convinced of Andalite superiority. The naivety that came from being indoctrinated in the military, and never having to face the realities of our people while in the clutches of isolation. To him, Leah was a simple human - worse, a past Controller.

"Leah, I noticed you didn't notice the form The One presented itself as for this game." I paused. "That was Rachel Berenson, the Animorph that died aboard the Blade Ship. Did you not recognize her from battle?"

"Oh." Leah stared at her feet. "I uh. I can't morph. The Yeerks on the Blade Ship took some host bodies that wouldn't be missed, and since the Escafil device didn't work on me... I was one of the ones taken."

She laughed. It sounded bitter. "We were being held in the cargo bay."

‹A vecol?› Ondrean laughed. ‹How strange. Why would The One keep you for months over morph-capable host bodies?›

"Just that amazing, I guess," Leah said. Ondrean did not pick up on the sarcasm, but I glanced at him before he could make any further inquiries and made a small wave of the hand. The One had made it so I could not thought-speak.

Fortunately, Andalites are very good at reading expressions and hand-signals amongst one another, thanks to not normally having any mouths.

"Are these woods normally so thick?" I asked Leah. I had noticed the trees becoming very dense.

She shook her head. "Southern California doesn't usually have dense tree forests. This actually looks a lot more like the far northwest."

She touched a tree that was far wider than she could have put her arms around. I looked up and realized it was also immensely tall, for an Earth tree.

"See, this is a redwood. Those trees before were oak trees. And look at the ground, lots of ferns and other green life. Look at how moist everything is. But I haven't been here since my brother graduated from university."

I admired the life around me. "And this is a part of California? What else can you tell us, in case it proves useful?"

She began trying to make her way through the thick foliage, and I began to stumble myself. Ondrean was far better off at the moment as an Andalite.

"It's coastal. It's about as far north in California you can go before reaching Oregon. It doesn't attract a lot of people since the ocean's really cold, so it's called 'The Lost Coast.' It's temperate rain forest, it's overcast most of the year, and it gets fog so bad you can't get into the airport a lot of the time and well, a lot of ships crash in the bay."

"And animals?"

"I know there are deer and elk."

‹So are we to hunt a deer or an elk? What do they look like?›

"I doubt that is the target. Too easy," I said. "I suspect we'll know what we're hunting when we see it."

All of a sudden, I saw a flash of golden hair. I tried to run after it. Then my foot caught a fern, and I fell over. Ondrean moved to pull me up to my feet, but I declined and pushed myself up.

"I knew two legs were less stable. Stay. Bull." I pointed ahead. "I believe I may have seen our target."

Ondrean bound in the direction I had pointed, pulling ahead of us. Leah, too, easily overtook me with her deeper experience of running and trekking through these woods, making her way around these trees. Weaving through saplings and larger trees combined.

It felt strange to be taking up the rear in the company of a human. I could no longer see anyone ahead of me. I hoped Leah would have the sense to wait for me, since the trees and clouds combined would make it hard for a human to find their way back to the archery building. Assuming it was still there.

I became distracted when I suddenly saw "Rachel" again. Immediately I pulled my bow taut and let an arrow fly. It missed her narrowly. I tried to give chase, but following her proved difficult in all the foliage and other things on the forest floor. I wished I was on a paved road.

Then, she appeared again, by a tree. I pulled out another arrow and she posed for me to attempt to hit her, dodging as I let it go. Her laugh and countenance were very much like the real Rachel.

Well, I corrected myself, the way I recall Rachel.

A laugh behind me! I turned around and she was laughing mockingly, with a mouth that seemed far too large for her head. A grotesque caricature of Rachel instead of a seamless imitation. By the time I pulled out an arrow, she was gone.

A noise to my right and I let my last arrow go without thinking, hoping she had been there. But it simply stuck into a tree and disappeared.

"Leah!" I cried. If The One was interested in torturing me this game, so be it.  "Ondrean! I lost her, and have no more arrows!"

As if on cue, Leah screamed.

I began stumbling through the woods, but quickly found a paved road. Once there, I began avoiding the foliage so I could run faster and hopefully reach the others sooner. Ahead of me, I began to hear someone - speaking with mouth-sounds. It had to be Leah. I couldn't make out individual words, but it sounded like she was pleading. Apologizing.

I came to a clearing that lead to a children's park. Leah was kneeling over a human body with an arrow in their shoulder. My heart - full of adrenalin - stopped for a moment until I realized he was breathing. An Andalite held his blade to her throat.

‹You die, Yeerk.›

I realized she was now murmuring words I could not make out. A repeating sequence of six words. Some sort of death chant.

The Andalite at her throat was a very young Andalite.

An Andalite who looked very, very familiar.

"Tobias! She is not a Controller!" I cried.

His four eyes turned on me. Leah continued to stare with great intensity at the human on the ground. Prince Jake. He was unconscious, but he would live.

Tobias withdrew his tail blade. Leah let herself sink into the grass. She muttered some other sentence.

‹Ax,› Tobias whispered. ‹Is that really you?›

Chapter Text

Jake

I had woken up by myself in a clearing, and had seen Rachel standing over me, waving her hand in front of my face.

"There you are. Let's go, Cousin," Rachel had laughed. Her blond hair shook. "You and me."

Then she pivoted and ran from the clearing toward the woods.

I followed her. In hindsight, that was a bad idea. It's not like I didn't know Rachel was dead. I knew this thing couldn't be her.

I followed her into the woods, which began to change. It was a lot greener and there was a lot more foliage on the ground, making it harder to run.

Oak trees to redwoods. Chaparral to temperate rain forest.

Even for a dream, it was pretty wild.

A flash of blond in the clearing! I chased after 'Rachel'. I suddenly found myself in a field with a playground, in between giant redwoods.

Flit!

Rachel disappeared, laughing her mocking laugh.

An arrow buried itself in my chest, and I fell down. I didn't even scream. I was too surprised.

The archer - a woman about my age - did that for me.

"Oh my God! You're Jake! Oh my God!"

She ran up to me, dropped to her knees and leaned over, apologizing. Saying some weird things about trying to win a game of some sort. Inside, I was thinking about my body. Was it damaged? Was I okay? Would I live? It didn't feel like I'd been hit fatally. Years of combat had given me some idea of what hits were bad and which ones were survival. She didn't hit my heart. I was pretty sure I'd be okay...

I must have passed out. When I came to, a familiar kid was looking at me. Behind him stood Tobias and off to the side stood the woman who shot me, with curly light brown hair, brown eyes, a round face. I smiled.

"Hey, Ax-man. It's been a while."

"Prince Jake!" he helped hoist me up. "I am happy to see you, but also sorry you are here."

"Is it me, or do I statistically get shot more than other Animorphs?"

"I have not been keeping count of the times we have been successfully shot, Prince Jake."

I looked down, expecting to see an arrow jutting out of my chest. But instead I looked whole.

"This is all an illusion of The One's consciousness" Ax explained. "It did not want you to die. It was looking for a response."

"Great. A monster with a sense of humor."

"I am really, really, really sorry," the woman reiterated. She kept wringing her hands.

I waved my hand. "Trust me, we've done worse to each other over the years."

"Marco ate me once," Ax added helpfully.

"Speaking of which, where is Marco?" I asked. Tobias and Ax were accounted for, but I hadn't seen him yet.

‹I have a hypothesis that The One introduces new entities at spaced intervals,› the other Andalite said. ‹When we were integrated, we also appeared at different times. If I am correct, he is likely to appear within a few minutes.›

"Okay. And..." I looked at the Andalite and woman sheepishly. "I don't know your names."

‹I am Ondrean. It is a pleasure to meet you, Prince Jake.›

I groaned. Some things never change.

"And I'm Leah," the woman said. "Previously Essat Seven-Nine-Eight."

I noticed her move a good six inches further away from Tobias.

"Okay. So do we wait here or throw a search party?"

Ax looked toward the road leading from the parking lot.

"I do not believe it will come to that, Prince Jake."

As if on cue, Marco came up the road.

"Jake, there you are! You'll never guess who I s--"

His jaw dropped and his eyes widened.

"Ax?"

Marco walked up to Ax slowly, like he was worried he was dreaming. When he reached Ax, he pulled him into a bear hug.

Everyone stared. Ondrean looked disturbed.

Even Ax looked a bit disgruntled, to be honest.

"I can't believe it," Marco cried, breaking into exaggerated, fake sobbing sounds. "Someone is finally shorter than me!"

It was true. Ax's morph hadn't aged, so Marco stood inches taller than his Ax's human body. Ax shrugged out of Marco's arms.

"I am glad to be of service, Marco."

"This is the group that brought down the Yeerk Empire?" Leah asked.

"Trust me," I said. "No one is more surprised than we are."

Chapter Text

Marco

Ax, Ondrean, and Leah began to lead us back out of the woods after our little adventure. As they did, I noticed lots of things. Forests changing all around us. Things vanishing and reappearing. Strange creatures and plants that jarred with each other - things that didn't belong in the same biome. Everything was wrong, and messed up. It wasn't the solid world Leah, Ax, or Ondrean had described.

It almost seemed like that art piece. You know, that one with the clocks melting everywhere. Or a weird animated crossover with two entirely different art styles.

"So, what type of Fantasia world is this? I mean, redwoods, oak trees, conifers, cactuses or cacti or whatever..." I paused, looked at a tree further away in the brush. "Is... Is that an Andalite tree?"

Leah looked over her shoulder to get a view. "Actually? It hasn't been like this for a while. It was stable the last few months."

"Around the same time The One did its last culling," Ax said solemnly. "It seems to have a hard time functioning after four or five people. Its ability to switch between memories and minds decreases the more people it tries to contain. Its largest effort must have been seizing control of the Blade Ship - there were probably a few hundred Yeerks on board in its pool. I imagine it didn't take long to cull through them."

They stopped in front of a redwood trunk.

"The One didn't bother taking anyone still aboard the Intrepid," Ax muttered. He clearly felt guilty. His head hung low, and his shoulders sagged. "It destroyed the ship. The overwhelming majority of my team on the Blade Ship were also immediately culled. I believe most of the Yeerks and Controllers were culled at that point too."

I put a hand on his shoulder. Ax didn't know how to express his emotions as a human so well when we'd last known him, but he shuddered a bit. I guess the last few months had him getting a lot more used to his human morph. Or maybe shuddering was a universal sign of stress and grief.

"Menderash made it out. He came to tell us you needed help. It's how we knew what happened - sort of. Not about The One, but we knew something weird had happened on The Blade Ship. And that there had been another ship out there."

"Though I forgot until it was too late," Jake muttered.

"Well. It's definitely not omnipotent," Leah said. "And it would like to cull me, but Aximili has been a pain-in-the-butt to it. And frankly? It's probably aching to keep all of you."

Leah began to scrabble over a redwood trunk - not at all gracefully. Then she helped Ax, who was even less graceful as a human. He struggled over, and fell into the bushes on the other side.

My mouth twitched. I heard a muffled snort behind me, but neither of us said anything. I guess Jake and I were too happy to see him to tease just yet.

"I hope none of the foliage is poison ivy. No comment about clumsy human legs?"

"The One has made me appear as a human for months. I've found humans don't usually fall much more often than Andalites, though some are more coordinated than others."

"You haven't seen a toddler."

Jake started over the trunk, and I clamored after him. We managed to get over without crashing into the bushes.

Ondrean and Tobias leaped to the other side with some effort, crashing through ferns and other foliage on the other side. Ondrean quickly pulled ahead.

We continued walking back toward where the archery field would have been.

"Where are the others?" Jake asked. "There should be an entire Blade Ship of people here. And there were other Andalites on the ship, right?"

Ax hesitated. "When The One is bored, it culls. There were many of us here and the shifting grew back for a while. As you've noticed, only Leah, Ondrean and I remain."

Leah rolled her eyes. "And I'm only here on borrowed time on Aximili's part. You're all new to the zoo - way more interesting than a morph-incapable human. Which basically means next time it decides that..." She slid a finger across her neck. "Zip. I'm outta here."

"Ax? The knight in shining armor?" I bumped him. "Sounds about right. Except, well, you're still here."

She sighed. "Culling me before you learned my name wouldn't be very entertaining. The One is all about drama. But it doesn't matter. The One has its claws on the Animorphs?"

Leah laughed darkly. "It's not just going to cull me. You're all worth so much I bet it'll cull the entire Blade Ship to make room for you if it hasn't already. I'm surprised I'm around at all."

Jake and I shot each other a look. Tobias pawed the ground. Leah walked a few feet, then stopped.

‹Yeah... We came here to save Ax, Leah. We didn't really need to hear we were going to cause everyone else to die as a consequence of being taken.›

Leah shrugged. "I'm sorry. It's just true."

I tried to keep a blank facial expression and evaluate where Leah came from. A past human-Controller. She looked about the same age as me, maybe younger - so probably my age or so when she was infested. Controllers that young had been known to have issues with interpersonal skills, social development... basic manners. Hard to learn and develop when you're not in control of your own body. On the other hand... It could also mean she didn't care about the cause. It'd probably be a good idea to keep an eye on her. Though she'd been protected by Ax. I usually trusted his judgment of character, at least after Leeran.

Ondrean raised my suspicion a bit more. He came off as more arrogant and superior. He was happy to keep his space between the humans. He seemed a bit chilly toward Tobias.

Jake caught my eye and we had one of our silent exchanges. Tobias, hawk instincts even without his hawk body, saw us and walked our way. We casually flanked Ax. Leah started looking uncomfortable. She probably wasn't used to such close proximity with any group larger than one. She slowed down, allowing us to walk ahead.

Jake lowered his voice. "Ax. Any plans for escaping The One?"

He shrugged. "Prince Jake, I have not met anything like The One. It's much like being a Controller, but in some ways... Much more complete. And I am not sure how to find or exploit any weaknesses from within it."

Ax sighed. "Sometimes, it seems hopeless."

"Well," I said brightly. "Six people. Impossible odds. A hopeless situation. It sounds familiar. Let's get crackin'."

Chapter Text

Tobias

When we made our way out of the forest eventually, we were no longer headed toward an archery field. The area had transformed to a residential area that Ax explained had become something of a home for him and Leah, based on her younger memories. It was suburban, but it was in close proximity to a lot of rural land. Houses side-by-side on one street, farms on a few acres of land behind and across the street.

Leah caught up with us, flanking Ax's side opposite me, to explain where we were headed.

"When I was really young my parents lived with my dad's mom. It's the oldest house in our family, so I remember it best," Leah explained. "That road past those farms we'll turn right, walk a few blocks down that street, turn right and her house is a few down from there."

"Jesus, do pigs really get that big?" Marco asked. He pointed to a large silhouette to our right.

"You guys never morphed a pig?"

"Jake doesn't have to morph a pig, it's his natural state."

Jake gave him a light punch. Marco laughed and walked on ahead, Jake following.

Leah started talking about this specific memory, her first instance of seeing a pig so big she'd thought it was a cow. Ondrean became curious about farm animals and stepped into dialog with her.

Which was good, because I didn't pay much attention to the conversation beyond that. I was busy thinking about what our imaginary world meant. Thinking about how long we'd been here. Or if I had managed to demorph. Or if I would become a nothlit while in any sort of natural bio-stasis. Cassie escaped being a nothlit once. Maybe I'd have the same stroke of fate. But if I was a nothlit again in the outside world, it was unlikely any favors were going to restore me to hawk this time around.

Being around Ax was bizarre. For some reason, my first thought had been when we'd first met Ax, and he was the only Andalite among Animorphs. And I had already managed to get myself stuck in morph. And the sheer stupidity of it all - making myself a two-time nothlit, both times before meeting Ax - was dwarfed by the absurdity that this time he was one of the humans and I was the Andalite. Just. Bizarre. A record on repeat.

I kept trying to evaluate my situation, assess the likeliness of being a nothlit. Contemplating what would happen if I were really stuck as an Andalite in the world currently inaccessible to us. I already felt the grief of not being able to fly, but... There were other thoughts.

I was the son of Elfangor. His story had come out in the two years before I'd left Earth. My background had been churned out in the process of investigating Visser One. I'd been granted Andalite status by the electorate. If I wanted, I would be accepted as an Andalite, because Elfangor had been my father. I could know his parents... my grandparents. I'd be able to learn about him from perspectives entirely different than Ax. People who had known him as a kid, before he was any sort of hero.

Some kids are dual nationality. I was dual - multiple - species. A citizen of two planets. I'd always felt like I couldn't justify being Andalite. But now the choice was possibly out of my hands.

And if that didn't work out, wasn't I still free? I didn't have to rely on humans or Andalites just because I was one. Andalites ate by running. It wasn't the same as being some loser kid in high school, shuttled between two lousy relatives.

You wouldn't be in school anymore even if you had been stuck as a human again, I thought. But I could still provide for myself as an Andalite without conforming to its society. Ax lived on his own for years. Life could still be simple, if I didn't work with Andalites any better than people. My life didn't have to become more complicated than I wanted. Maybe it could even be simpler - I wouldn't have to hunt. I would have fewer human hunters to deal with, and more legal protection.

Or maybe I was just rationalizing the potentially irreversible.

Ax hung pretty close to me. 

He knew me too well to say anything.