The Other Resistance
Written By: The Ascended Ancient

Disclaimer: Animorphs is owned by K.A. Applegate, and I am not making any money from using her material in this story. However, there is quite a lot of original stuff in here too, and all of that is purely mine.

Chapter I
"The Escape"

Josh

My name is Josh. Josh Hammond. That should've blown your mind right then and there, at least if you've read any of those other chronicles about the war. Those people don't tell you who they are, or where they live (by the way, I live(d) in Trenton, New Jersey). They have good reason to keep quiet about these things. After all, the secrecy of their identities is the key to their survival. I, however, don't have a secret identity. The Yeerks knew about me long before I knew about them.

For you newbies out there who haven't read any of this crap before, a Yeerk is an alien slug that crawls in your ear, sinks into your brain, and takes control of you (hence the term 'Controller' for anyone who's been infested). They do take a break from this every three days to bathe in their Yeerk Pool and eat Kandrona Rays, but this brief respite from enslavement is spent in a cell with all of the other hosts whose Yeerks are right where yours is. Basically, it's not a fun existence, and that's something I know firsthand. That's because for a little more than a year, I was a Controller.

It all started when I was a Junior in High School. Back then I was just muscular six foot one guy with long blonde hair, shiny blue eyes, and a perpetual five o'clock shadow that girls said gave me a rugged, sexy look. I was the king of the social order (and was even crowned that at two consecutive Homecomings), not to mention the captain and quarterback of the school's football team, and I even got pretty good grades. Every girl wanted me, every guy wanted to be me, the whole cliché. I guess that's why they came after me.

The Yeerk leadership had already decided that the risks of being exposed by going after political leaders right away was too great; those people were far too much in the public spotlight, and there was always a good chance that they were never completely alone. So they came after people like me, people with influence that had been earned by our personalities and our actions instead of a title. They thought that if they could get enough of us, they could use us to get the fickle masses to follow us blindly into throwing away their freedom. What really sucks about all of this is that they were right.

The Yeerk in my head was named Yelsin 112, but it held the rank of Sub-Visser 52. Basically, the little bastard was in charge of the whole operation in the tri-state area, and he'd chosen Trenton to be Ground Zero (Mostly because it was a major urban area without much existing subterranean infrastructure compared to other cities in the region, which made their efforts to build an underground Yeerk Pool far less difficult). He made me into the poster child for the Sharing, a club that I'd heard about in chat rooms but had never existed in our area before. I learned quickly that the Sharing was the busty blonde waving the flag to draw you over the finish line – into enslavement. Everyone who joined worked hard to become a 'senior member,' and every senior member got a Yeerk in his or her head.

During that year, I helped infest over a third of my school, both teachers and students. I also oversaw the construction of the Trenton Yeerk Pool, as well as the gradual expansion of Yeerk control not just over Trenton but over all of New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania. It made me sick, but there was nothing I could do. Every so often, if I fought long enough and hard enough, I could twitch my finger for a moment, but that was it. The Yeerk was too strong. So rather than try to retake my body with the slug in it, I tried to make a break for it a few times when it wasn't. Unfortunately, the only time that happened was at the Pool, where the Yeerk cavalry is. On top of the fact that the Hork-Bajir Controllers are practically walking knives, they're also extremely strong, and I could never break free of them long enough to get anywhere.

After about six months I gave up. The fight was getting too tiring, and I'd achieved nothing from it. I hated myself for this newfound compliance with my enslavement, but what was there to do at that point?

Then came that fateful day that changed my miserable life forever. I was in my cage at the Pool, sitting in the corner and brooding on how any minute that slimy little piece of shit would be back in my head and I would be once again watching my species being enslaved. Suddenly, the lights flickered. Alarms went off, blaring so loudly that I clamped my hands over my ears. Outside, the Controllers were running all over the place. I walked over to the bars and watched, for a brief moment hoping beyond hope that the Pool was being attacked, and the United States military was finally about to save me. It was a fantasy I'd had for some time now, that the secrecy of this whole invasion would fail and the army would come in and blow the bastards into the next galaxy.

Well, that wasn't the case here, as I realized as soon as I heard cries about the reactor. Just a technical glitch, I thought glumly. Just a lousy, god damned…

Half the lights in the chamber exploded. Glass and sparks fell to the floor, causing even more chaos as Controllers frantically moved to get out of the way. A few moments later I heard the sound of explosions from the command center, followed by more screams and panicking. I smiled at all of this; it may only be a malfunction, but it was giving the Yeerks a hell of time. Then, there was a small explosion far closer to where I was standing. I could barely believe what I was seeing as sparks shot out of the electronic lock for my cell, but when one of my fellow prisoners pushed the door open, none of us wasted any time. We ran out of there, and the Pool descended into true chaos. It was all of the cells, and not just ours, that had short-circuited, so there were hundreds of people now pouring out into the middle of the room. Controllers blended in with humans, everything was total chaos. Orders were shouted out over the roar of the throng, and the Hork-Bajir were brought in. They cut down a few of the fleeing hosts before planting themselves at the exits, and with frighteningly vicious efficiency were able to repel or kill any human attempting to pass them.

I stayed away from the Hork-Bajir, and the main exits in general. After all, I didn't need them. I'd had the bastard who'd helped design this place in my head for the past year; I knew the Yeerk Pool better than some of the Controllers here did. The main exits weren't the only ways out.

Moving carefully through the throng, I spotted a Human Controller waving around his Dracon Beam, firing shots into the crowd to try and bring it under control. I slugged him in the face and took his weapon before moving out. Slipping out of the group, I dashed over to the side of the pool, behind a pile of storage crates, and there it was: a ventilation grating covering the mouth of one of the Pool's air shafts. Drawing my weapon, I blasted it apart before crawling into it. It was a tight fit, but I managed. The Sub-Visser had been meticulous about every part of the Pool's design, so I knew the layout of the air shafts about as well as I knew any other part. Even though I was moving as quickly as I could, it still took an hour until I reached the surface. Blasting apart a sewage drain, I dragged myself up onto the streets of Trenton and breathed my first breath of fresh, free air in a long time. Tucking the Dracon Beam into my pocket, I began to run. I knew then just what I know now: the Yeerks won't just let me get away. They'll hunt me until I'm either dead or a host again. The only way to stay alive and free is to stay one step ahead of them, but no matter how hopeful I get I know that it's wishful thinking to believe that I can keep going forever. Sooner or later, they're going to catch up with me. When that happens, I can only hope that I can take enough of them down with me to make them regret the day they ever decided to put one of those slugs in my brain.

End of Chapter I

A/N: So, what do you guys think? Please, review and tell me if I should keep going, or if I'm wasting my time and breath with you guys.

For those of you who are interested, however, the next few chapters will involve introducing several other major characters and bringing them together to form the resistance force that I'm talking about. I'll cover their own fight against the Yeerks, but eventually you will be seeing the Animorphs and my people coming into contact with one another.