Note: All characters in this story except Joe are the property of K.A. Applegate. Wish they were mine, though. Happy reading!


Chapter One-Intro

Hi, my name is Joe. Just plain old Joe. There is nothing weird about it, in my very humble opinion anyway. My last name, you might ask? Well, sorry to say, but I can't tell you. I simply cannot without
something beyond unimaginably horrid happening. Oh, believe me, I wish I could tell you, I think that it's a nice last name and it goes well with Joe. Unfortunately, fate never has seemed to like me and
that is how I am in the sorry state I am now.

Just looking at me you'd say that I was a normal, junior-high kid that has a normal and uneventful junior-high life. You know, doing homework, hanging out at the mall with your friends, those sort of things. The typical person would think I was just a blend-in, an average part of the crowd kinda guy.

Unlike 6 of my friends, I am a normal kid who normally does normal things and doesn't change into animals. I know you might be thinking, changing into animals? What kinda freaks really are your friends?!

Well, before I get too involved in explaining about my incredibly crazy future, let me start where it all began. Not too long ago……

Chapter Two-Freedom

Ahhhh, the weekend. The wonderful, wonderful weekend was upon us after the most uneventful and boring school day to date. And I was going to the coolest amusement park around, the Gardens.

You see, the Gardens is a massive amusement park/zoo facility stretching over many, many acres of land. The head vet there is my bud Jake's cousin's best friend's mom who actually lets me and Jake in at a reduced price. Go figure.

The zoo part of the park is always worth a good, long visit. I mean, who in the right mind wouldn't want to visit some of the tightest animals on the planet. They have some of the coolest big cats in existence, such as the incredibly rare snow leopard. Plus, they have a great snake exhibit with some deadly cobras and mambas, and also a great little safari thing where you can go through a simulated landscape of the African Savannah. In other words, on heck of a cool place.

If the zoo's a neat place, the amusement park is absolute Nirvana, well, at least to my bizarre and twisted mind it is. It is so jam-packed with rides and roller coasters that I simply do not know
what to do with myself. You see, I've always been a coaster fanatic, and the though of freefalling at speeds excess 70 mph is always a very tantalizing thought indeed to me. This is why the Gardens is my
Nirvana.

After the final stop at my locker, Jake, Marco, who is Jake's best bud, and I hopped on the nearest ride-on bus due directly to the Gardens. Throwing my bags on the seat, I hastily took out my Walkman and slipped on my earphones to enjoy some music on the way. Marco and Jake sat next to me and did the same as me.

After about a quarter hour of traveling, and about 4 songs down the track, Marco nudged me looking rather serious. Jake was too.

"Hey, waddup?" I said while yawning.

"Joe, we've got something to say, and it can't wait," Jake said in a very serious tone that I had never heard him use.

"Huh?" I replied bewildered. I switched off the earphones.

"Here is the deal, Joe. We're just saying this to warn you. Don't trust anyone anymore, it isn't safe. No one can be trusted, not even us. Not even your parents or your siblings can be trusted either. Be warned," Jake said.

What?! This made no sense. No one can be trusted? Right… Just to make sure they hadn't gone off the deep end, I asked.

"You are telling me this because…" I said a little confused.

"Just to warn you. We can't tell you why, yet anyway. Just don't get in the way," Marco warned in the most un-Marcoish serious voice. I could hear signs of fear and guilt in there.

"OK, thanks for getting me scared, by the way, nice tone of voice Marco, it really wasn't like you. Now, let's forget this and go back to reality, ça va?" I said hoping that they would just go back to
their normal selves.

Unfortunately for me, they didn't. They just stared back at me with a little hint of them being confused. BTW, ça va basically means is that OK in French. Remember, this is a loose translation, I havn't been paying attention in French class anyways.

The good thing was there was no more talk for the rest of the ride, which left me to ponder what the heck they had said to me. I must have been going insane. Or I had just too many cokes in that contest at lunch. Either way, something told me that life was going to get a bit more interesting.

Chapter Three-Anxiety

The Gardens at last! Finally, after a breakdown, several more stops and a half an hour later my little paradise had finally come to me. I made sure I had the admittance fee as I fumbled around with my backpack, then boldly walked off the bus and went straight up to the entrance.

"Tickets please," an old lady with dark gray hair asked kindly. I gave her mine along with Jake's and Marco's, as well as getting a park map.

"So, what's it gonna be today, guys?" I asked to the seemingly reluctant Marco and Jake. "The classic Vekoma SLC hang n' bang Mamba, or maybe the latest S&S Power Sports TA2K Steel Serpent XL?"

Whoops! Drat. I keep using my incredible list of unusual roller coaster vocab around my friends. Normally, they think I'm crazy.

Today was no exception. "Come again?" Marco asked.

I sighed. "Let's just walk around and go on whatever we come across."

And so we did for one heck of a great experience. I just love how the Gardens has so much beautiful landscaping and design, it never ceases to amaze me on how much flowers can fit inside an area the size of a wrestling mat, or how many hot dog and hamburger stands shaped like animals can fit into a tiny pavilion.

Let's see, going back on what I remember, we went to Mamba first which wasn't much fun because of all the whiplash that it had. I complained a lot, but for some reason Marco and Jake didn't. Odd, very odd.

After that, we decided, or more correctly, I decided that we were going to go on this rough wooden coaster called Arachniphobia. Let me just tell you that is was a whole lot of fun and thrills for me, but it was an entirely different story with Jake and Marco. Something was up with them. Why the heck wouldn't they be having fun? Even the dullest people on earth would find that ride very exiting. It almost seemed that they were looking for something elusive and something unseen. I tell you, it
simply was weird, because usually Marco is telling some dumb jokes and Jake is either laughing or acting very casual, I had never seen either this tense. Weird.

Finally, I asked them, "Hey guys, what's with all this tension? I mean, you never act like this."

Jake looked at me in the weirdest way possible. I guess it was a mixture of fear, hatred and suspicion all wrapped into one expression of total weirdness. "You'll find out soon enough, Joe, soon enough."

OK, that did it. That was the ruining factor of my day. What was he talking about? This was starting to scare me beyond believe, well, you put yourself in my shoes. God, it's scary, isn't it? It reminded me of something from, you know, the X-Files or something like that.

As you can imagine, probably anyway, that I didn't reply. What could I have said? Jake, you are a freak, or maybe, you guys are aliens, ahhhhh! Whatever, my brain is twisted enough as it is, and I don't want it getting any more screwed up.

After this little, pleasant (?) chat that lasted less than 10 seconds, I felt a heck of a lot less enthusiastic about going on Steel Serpent XL, the newest attraction. Yet, we still were brave enough to face the hour-long wait that its queuing line had. But still that image of Jake saying you'll find out soon enough, Joe, soon enough, just makes me quiver in fear and curiosity. What the heck could he be talking about? Alien invasion? Well, not likely, but something important must be why they were like that.

Finally, the climax of the day cured my nearly incurable dose of anxiety when I stepped on board the sleek and elegant trains of the Steel Serpent XL. Jake and Marco did the same, in the same tense and reluctant fashion they had been using all day. I was truly beyond scared then, almost at the point of insanity. I have always been a sensitive person to anything, but this was just madness.

Taking a brief side step from freakyville, let me take a break from telling you how my life became hell to telling you about the roller coaster that we were about to go on. Stay with me here, I just find it all interesting, that's all, and if you don't, please skip on down two paragraphs from here. Thank you.

Steel Serpent XL is the 3rd prototype of a series of incredible and mind-numbing coasters that S&S power sports of Utah is planning to build. These prototypes are called the TA2Ks, or the Thrust Air 2000s. The basic principle of the ride is to use incredibly high air-pressure in 2 gigantic vertical pneumonic cylinders inside 190-foot towers to propel the trains from standstill to 100 mph in 2 and a half seconds. Wow. After the initial launch, the trains are hurtled vertically up one of the pneumonic cylinder towers 190 feet into the air, then curve off to a level position, then free fall 190 feet straight down at 90 mph. Some trim brakes will decrease the trains speed to a slightly lower
speed, then whip around a 90° curve into another hill which towers 130 feet into the air. It comes down into a brake run, then ends the ride.

There are 3 currently in existence and there will only be 3 until the full models come out with over 100-mph velocity and more turns, hills, and even loops. One is at the Gardens, one is at some park in Virginia, I forget it at the moment, and the first one at the test track facility in Utah. As you could probably imagine by now, I was giddy as hell.

Despite Jake's mood, Marco started to loosen up a bit as we stepped into incredibly aerodynamic trains.

"Man, you ready?" I asked with great excitement.

"Born to be wild, and this is it," Marco replied. Somehow I didn't think that this ride really
was it.

"Jake, you ready back there?" Marco asked as the attendant came by to check our restraints. Since the rows were only 2 across, Jake had to be in the car behind us.

He sighed, "Let's get this party started!"

"Well then, here we go!" I giddily yelled.

"Please keep your head against the back of your seat before launch and enjoy your ride on the Steel Serpent XL!" A mechanized and recorded voice said.

The room darkened as a set of three lights above the front opening of the station began to light up. The first one was shaded red, then the next that turned on was, you guessed right, yellow. An agonizing 2
seconds passed with a barley audible hiss coming from in front of the boarding platform. And then…

Chapter Four-Eye of the Serpent

BOOM! I couldn't even describe the feeling I had during the beginning split second of acceleration. It was the effect of mind-numbing acceleration, incredible speed and an incredible wave of euphoria. Let's just say I liked that feeling.

Before I could even blink I was out of the station and working up the first tower going a brain melting 100 mph. It was so damn fast that I couldn't even see the green light go on, and I was near the back of the train! Climbing higher, higher, and higher into the sky traversing 190 feet straight up before leveling off and preparing to go down the second tower. I swear that I could touch the sky right then and there.

Before I go on describing by little adventures with Jake and Marco flying along faster than many cars can go STRAIGHT UP, let me ask you if you have ever been scared. Not wimpy scared, like getting startled by someone, or even watching the Exorcist. I mean have you ever been scared? Like, you are in something that you know that the wrong move can be fatal? Well, I was SCARED right then and there. Flying. 90 mph. 190 ft. Straight Down.

And let's face it, you would also be SCARED.

Wham! I was thrown down into my seat as the train leveled out and began to curve a small-angled, banked turn. Man, I was being pummeled by gravity, and it was a feeling I never want to forget. I love weighing 440 pounds for several seconds, strangely enough, at 4 g's.

Coming out of the turn we came upon perhaps the greatest part of the experience, the floater hill. Basically what floater hills are are hills that throw the rider up into the air to create a negative-g,
or weightless sensation. That's what I love, and most of my roller coaster buds, we call it airtime.

And boy, did it have airtime. It was engineered so perfectly that we were never weighing more than .25 gs and we were floating for a grand whopping total of 5.1 seconds. Dang.

Coming out of the glorious floater hill we hit a quick brake run and slowly came to a stop right outside the station. My god that was the greatest 45 seconds of my life! I thought as we caught our breath from the incredible ride. Man oh man was my heart racing, and I was about to kill to ride it again. You see, the only downside to riding roller coasters is that the incredible adrenaline pump becomes highly addictive.

After Jake caught his breath he managed to say, "Wow."

Marco stopped panting and turned around to Jake and whispered something. Jake nodded, then Marco said, "Man Joe, now I can understand why you like to ride these tin toys, jeez." For some reason he gave Jake a wink.

"I've been riding those tin cans for a while, and you should join the party."

"Well, I just might!" Marco said breathing lightly now. He looked unsure.

We all sat there waiting for a while when the train in the station was boarding. The attendant did her drill by saying the stuff, and then, woooooossssshhhhhh! The train ahead of us went 0-100 in less than 3 seconds flat. A slow and loud hiss preceded several rolling wheels that pushed us forward back into the station. We hooted and hollered and screamed as we walked off. I can only say one thing as I looked back on what I had just did walking out of the station.

Wow.

Jake and Marco had some trouble with their restraints, but they managed to get them off after 5 minutes of tugging and pulling. We went down the ramp talking about the ride and how it was so incredible. I simply could never dream of another ride where I would have more fun on. Nirvana.

After we gathered our bearings and yelled some more about ho great that was, we headed back to the entrance of SSXL again for some more fun, but we could not imagine that the 3 hour wait would be worth it for a 45 second ride. So we just wandered around a bit just talking and goofing off for a while, just wasting the time and getting into trouble.

There was something that I didn't like about it, though. Even though they seemed to get back into their normal, loose selves, a hint of the scared and reluctant people they had been at the beginning of the day still showed. It was eerily frightening to see a mixture of the normal Jake with the not so normal Jake.

When it was getting late, and it was almost time to go, Marco said, "Hey, do you want to get some lemonades before we split, I'm kinda thirsty."

"Sure thing, gimme a couple bucks," I said.

Marco handed over some fresh George Washingtons to me, and I went over to the lemonade guy by the entrance. I couldn't help but noticing Marco and Jake whispering to each other. They had their backs turned on me and they were slowly walking the other way. After I got the lemonades, I stealthy walked over to eavesdrop on their conversation. My god was I startled when I heard them.

"Don't be to sure, the Ellimist said he was here, and now, at the Gardens. We just have to keep looking for the one," Jake whispered quietly.

"I have my doubts, man. I mean, come on, anybody can be the one, the Ellimist has been known to play tricks, you know."

"He could have set it up to have us search with Joe, who knows, maybe he told us to bring Joe along because he is the one."

"OK, guys, tell me what this is all really about. What is going on here, who could I be and what the heck is an ELLIMIST? I really need to know!" I practically yelled for everyone to here. This obviously startled them, and something began happening. I couldn't pin point it, but it seemed that both of their skin started to crawl and even change with a frightening electrical shock. I was freaked out.

Jake sighed. "Joe, we never really wanted it to come to you being part of this, but we have to. You know too much, too much to live without joining our little band," Jake sincerely stated.

What?! Huh?! Something did not compute. "Come again?"

Jake winced. "Come on, lets go home and talk about this little band of bandits I lead. After all, you might become one of them."

Chapter 5-Discoveries

"You see, Joe, this reality all what it might seem. Everyone around you might be one of them," Jake said as we stepped onto the bus heading home. It was late, so I was tired and hungry, but I just needed to find out. I simply couldn't live without knowing what this was.

"Who's them?" I asked.

"I'll tell you when we are alone with Marco. I can't tell you anything now except that a war is being fought. Not human vs. human, might I add. I-"

BOOOOOOM! A huge explosion racketed throughout the bus throwing me against the ground. The enormous force of the shockwave threw the bus into a series of flips, and the screams of the people inside were deafening. For some reason, it seemed that I was experiencing this from a bird's eye view. I could feel the pain, but I was not seeing through my own eyes…

"Ahhhhh!!!!" I screamed as a piece of scalding human flesh hit me right in the face. Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God!!! What was happening? It looked like a piece of an arm that had been blown apart and landed right on me.

Oh shit.

A charred arm was sitting on my lap. On my lap. A charred HUMAN arm. All I could think of doing was just to sit there petrified.

The skidding had stopped and most of the bus was quiet except for burning patches of human. Human! Dammit there were dead, burning bodies there! I couldn't believe my eyes. This had to be a dream, it just had to be. But realization dawned. It wasn't.

The sad thing about all this was that I was in one piece. Nothing at all happened to me except an extremely small cut on my arm. I looked at it in wonder, how could I have survived?

"Jake, Marco!" I called out desperately after standing up feeling very shaky. If they were dead, well, let's not think about it right now, OK?

There was a long and agonizing pause. I called again. "Jake, Marco!"

Joe, take the orange piece of metal right by your feet and take it to the field out near the entrance. A strange voice said. However, saying it wouldn't be appropriate. The words just suddenly popped into my head, almost.

"What was that?" I wondered out loud.

I'm talking to you Joe, bring the orange piece of metal by your feet to the field by the entrance to the Gardens.

"Jake?"

I told you this wasn't a human vs. human war. Now go!

Quickly and obediently, I picked up an orange and spherical piece of metal that was very hot to the touch. I was thinking about a bomb or something, but that didn't stop me from dashing out a flaming opening on the roof of the side-ways bus.

What I saw came straight from the minds of the greatest sci-fi writers of all time. Stepping out of the inferno blaze, I saw a large and very conspicuous aircraft flying overhead. However, it would be under exaggerating it to call it just an aircraft. It was a twisted aircraft that looked like a cockroach with no legs. It was swooping above the bus inspecting it, or so it seemed. Luckily for me, I wasn't
seen.

However, I would be seen if I had took a sprint to the field about 60 meters away. I had never been a fast runner. For my intentions then, I did not want to be seen. It's kinda like the first skit in Monty Python's And Now For Something Completely Different.

I've got to get over there, wait a sec, but why? I thought to myself. Why? Were those just weird voices in my head, or really the voice of Jake? Or was I insane? Probably the latter, but I made up my mind to sprint headlong to the feet.

I took off avoiding the debris from the destroyed bus. Something was odd, though, as I ran top speed exhausting the limits of my legs. The odd-little aircraft was not coming towards me. It had barely acknowledged my existence! I then started to wonder if it was the reason that the bus exploded, and they automatically assumed that there were no survivors.

Well, I'm surviving, why don't you take a stab at me? Or you just wimps? I snickered in my head as I slowed down to a slow jog. Hehehehe.

However, even the lumbering and slow me was obviously not a good enough target for the cockroach thingy that hovered about above. Instead of me it was shooting at a location on the other side of the bus that yellow fumes were coming out of. I was very curious about what exactly it was
shooting at, but I knew better, and I arrived at the field in one piece with only a slight cut and an the strange, glowing piece of orange metal.

Then it hit me. What exactly was I supposed to do with this? I foolishly then said, "Abra cadabra cadoo!" Like that would do anything.

Strangely enough, it did.

A huge crack in the ground opened up to reveal a huge, house-sized, glowing ball of electricity. It seemed to crackle and shoot out sparks every time I got close to it to investigate.

Then, since the weird little sayings that I said earlier had worked, I decided to hold the orange piece of metal up to the electricity inferno. Immediately it died down, and I was thrust down into the
pit using the force of 20 hurricanes. I can tell you right here and now that was not the greatest experience of my life getting sucked into a ball of ionic matter at 800 mph, but strangely enough, it didn't hurt that much. Strangely might be under exaggerating it a bit.

"Ahhhh!" I screamed as the winds flew past me at faster than mach. A sonic shockwave seemed to jolt the entire universe with power that refused to die. I swear, I thought that this was the armageddon of biblical proportions starting to take place. Damn, it was bad.

Remember earlier when I was raving about how I was scared on SSXL? Well, if that was bad, this was 50 times worse than the Apocalypse. Or maybe even more if you count in the fact that this was all happening inside a ball of pure, ionized energy.

I managed to hold out for a long time, actually. It seemed a couple hours, but now that I think about it, it might have been as little time as 30 seconds, but in the end, the entire world faded to black.

So, this is what death is. Maybe it's not going to be that bad.

Chapter 6- Alternate Persona

A huge and mighty laughter filled my ears. It seemed to distort the black color of my current sight.

Wait a second, I was alive! Or maybe not, but still, I felt alive enough to call it being alive.

I sleepily started to open my eyes. I had no idea what to expect because of the horrid past hour that all reality seemed to be defied. My eyes revealed to me a startling landscape of dichromatic
silver and bronze seeming to sway in a dream-like state mixing together into a bizarre shade of gold. To add to this weird picture, a humming was going on that went on and off every 2 seconds. I honestly thought that I accidentally had taken an overdose of PCP at the time.

"Ugh," I moaned as slowly stood up from my lying position.

HAHA! WHAT HAS BROTHER ELLEMIST SENT THIS TIME?

"Excuse me?" I asked. It seemed like that thought speech, or whatever, that Jake had used, but it was different, somehow….

OH, BUT I FORGOT, SILLY ME. YOU DON'T KNOW OF HIM.

"Who?"

MY BROTHER, OF COURSE, IS WHO I SPEAK OF.

"Could you please tell me who you are?"

I AM THE BROTHER OF THE SEEMINGLY ALL MIGHTY ELLIMIST. YOU HUMANS WOULD CALL HIM GOD. I CALL HIM BROTHER. WHATEVER THE CASE, HE HAS SENT YOU HERE TO BE "BLESSED" BY MY POWERS.

"Excuse me, blessed?"

SOMETHING OF THE LIKE. NOW, IT MIGHT SEEM LIKE AN ODD FAVOR, BUT THINK OF SOMETHING THAT YOU WISH TO BECOME THAT IS HUMAN.

"What?" I asked, but there came no reply. Hmmm, that didn't make much sense, but I thought for a while. OK, let's see here, I do like Star Wars, it's a cool movie, umm, what else, uh, maybe a Jedi? Whatever, this is stupid. Stupidity at it's finest. Better get out more, yup.

HAHAHAHA!!!! INTERESTING CHOICE, HUMAN. MASS MEDIA GETTING TO YOU? WELL, THERE WERE BETTER CHOICES, BUT A JEDI IT IS. IT'S A COOL CHOICE,
ANYWAY.

"Huh? I just have become a Jedi?"

SOMETHING LIKE THAT, YES. YOU SEE, YOUNG HUMAN, WHENEVER YOU WISH TO RECEIVE THE PERSONA OF A JEDI, JUST THINK OF WHAT MAKES ONE WHO HE IS REALLY HARD, THEN, YOU ASSUME HIS PERSONA IMMIDIATLY, OK?

I thought a bit about this. All righty then, I have taken an overdose of PCP and I have been brainwashed into thinking that I can turn into a fictional Jedi Knight thought up by the mind of George Lucas. Things cannot get any crazier.

WELL, TECHNICALLY THEY CAN, BUT FOR YOUR CONCEPTION, THEY CAN'T, REALLY.

"OK, whatever, I'll buy it for now. However, I have no clue to what mom and dad will think when I get this power, if this isn't a dream."

I though back on what I remembered from the old Star Wars movies, and how the Jedi should be calm and fight for the common cause of the people. It was kinda funny looking back on Yoda's teachings, the odd way of his speaking brought a smile to my face. I thought of Luke, Obi-Wan, Qui-Gon, all these made-up and fictional characters thought up by George Lucas. The chances of all this becoming quasi-reality? 1,000,000 to one.

And yet, something happened right as I began to give up on all possibilities that this was real. A sudden jolt came racing up my spine, and seemed to buzz in my brain for a couple seconds. I twisted and turned against my own will as the electricity seemed to fester in my head. Then, it all stopped as I collapsed exhausted to the floor. I stood up.

Physically, I was identical to who I was before. However, mentally was a different story. You could not begin to describe what I felt. A pulsing and vibrant energy field seemed to lie within my body. I felt an inner calmness and readiness that could only be described as supernatural. And boy,was it a great feeling!

HMMM, WHAT'S MISSING IN THIS PICTURE, EH?

I could only guess, but something didn't feel right about it. Right as meaning normal, not good. Then it hit me, what does every Jedi have in Star Wars? Hehehe…

Almost out of nowhere, a thin piece of metal came shooting out of the sky and into my hands.It looked identical to the ones in Star Wars with several switches and knobs. Curiosity took the better of me and I turned one of the knobs on.

ZZZZZZZ! A thin piece of light came zooming out of the blade's handle until it reached a range of about 4 feet. It glowed bright blue and almost danced before my eyes. I took a couple swings just for fun, and it was just amazing how much energy radiated from its core, just amazing!

"Jeez, and why did you do this?" I asked after the initial excitement had worn down. I was completely freaked out, but at the same time I had curiosity beyond imagination.

MY BROTHER, THE ELLIMIST, TOLD ME TO. HE HAS A LITTLE WAR ON YOUR
PLANET BEING FOUGHT WITH 5 HUMANS AND AN ANDILITE.

"A what?"

YOU WILL FIND OUT SOON ENOUGH. CHANGE BACK TO YOUR NORMAL
PERSONALITY AND I WILL SEND YOU BACK TO YOUR HOUSE. GOOD LUCK, HUMAN.
YOU WILL NEED IT.

"Thank you, whoever you are," I said thankfully.

CALL ME M2

"Thanks, then, M2," I replied. Soon after, I began thinking of my normal, every day life, which I assumed was the way back to my normal persona. It turned out I was right.

BY THE WAY, I SUGGEST YOU DON'T TELL ANYONE EXCEPT JAKE, MARCO,
JAKE'S COUSIN RACHEL AND HER BEST FRIEND CASSIE. IF YOU DO, OR SO SAYS
BROTHER ELLIMIST, YOUR GALAXY WILL BE FINISHED WITHIN DAYS. BON VOYAGE!

A couple more sessions of the 800-mph winds and 5 minutes later, I was back to my normal, everyday home. Or so I thought.

Chapter 7- Answers

"Mom, dad! I'm home!" I shouted as I walked in the front door of my house.

"Hi, sweetheart, your dinner is on the table," My mom called from upstairs.

I hate it when she calls me sweetheart.

I came down to the table in the kitchen seeing my chicken and rice dinner. It was nice to be back in reality, for a change, as I sat down and started chewing on the chicken. I knew it was all a dream,
reality couldn't be that weird, could it? Maybe the fumes of the bus got to me and I fainted for a while. But, what was Jake talking about? An organization of "bandits"? Things couldn't get any weirder.

Or so I thought.

Just then, the telephone rang, as I was finishing up dinner. I ran over and picked it up not knowing what to expect.

"Hello?" I asked.

"Hi, Joe, it's Jake," came the reply.

"Jake! What was all that back there? What-"

"Shhh! We'll tell you about it tomorrow at Cassie's barn. You know the way, don't you?"

"Ya, I think I do. See you," I replied.

"See you too, Joe," came the final statement. And then the phone went dead.

It was impossible to compute all the information and reality distortions that happened that fateful day. I can only think of one word to describe it. Ludicrous.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

The next morning was as slow as molasses in January and almost as exiting as well. No homework, no parents, no little annoying sister to keep me busy, (even if it wasn't very fun), and to top all that off,
the anticipation was greater than words can describe. I can't describe that anxiety to you right now, so, what the heck, I'll skip on down to when I started heading down toward where Jake had told me to go, Cassie's barn.

Finally, after the long and tortuous morning I had suffered through, I headed on over to the place today I call "the Barn". It is actually home to the Wildlife Rehabilitation Clinic or, something like that, run by Cassie's parents. All sorts of injured birds and animals make their temporary home there. Before today, I had only been there once, briefly.

Unfortunately for me, it is located on the edge of town, so it takes me a while to bike there, sometimes upwards of an hour. But still, something told me it was going to be worth it as I caught a glimpse of
the barn coming over a dirt road. Something must be going on in there, I can sense doubt. I thought. Wait a sec, that wasn't like me at all! It was the Jedi! Hmmm, I guess I got to learn to control both
persona.

I stepped warily towards the open doors of the barn, something told me that I was in for a shocking surprise.

And I could never be more right.

A huge tiger jumped out of the shadows in the dark barn. He bared his sharp teeth that seemed to glisten in the sun. His black and orange stripes seemed to sway with exitment. I was yet again, scared.

"Umm, nice kitty, just let me get to Jake and I'll give you my sister for appetizers after this meeting is over," I said almost calmly to the big cat.

Remember what I said? This isn't exactly the kind of war you would think about when you think about war. Not human vs. human. A voice said in my head.

I don't know if it was the sheer anger and hate he had in his voice, or the big cat talking, but I decided to try out what exactly M2 had given to me. It was a crazy idea, but in the Star Wars movies, Luke killed a huge monster with no weapons, didn't he? If I was assuming correctly, that was what I could do. However, I did have the lightsaber on my side.

I focused on who the Jedi was, what made him powerful, what he did for the universe. And then, it happened again, a huge jolt raced across my back, shaking me a bit, but not nearly as violently as possible. It obviously alerted the tiger, which I assumed was Jake, and he backed off immediately.

I suddenly felt the incredible, divine sense of purpose that the Jedi would call the "Force" in Star Wars. As like Obi-Wan said, it was almost like an invisible energy field that pulsed through my body.
A sheer wave of Euphoria hit me.

"You will do as I say, you will stay back and let me through," I said to the tiger. I almost grasped its mind and told it exactly what to do. Neat stuff, if you ask me.

JOE?! What the heck happened? I heard a scream in my head. Obviously the Jake part of the tiger was not effected, but the tiger was scared and was slinking back into the shadows.

"Funny you should ask, yup, it's the roller coaster freak Joe using unimaginably weird powers." I said as I chuckled heartily.

But.., what…I…

"Just tell me what all this stuff is about, OK Jake?"

Fine, stand back, this might freak you out.

And so I did. I expected something like a cloud of gas swirling around the tiger and then reappearing in the tiger's place a human, or something like that, but I got something totally different. Instead, I saw before my very eyes that Jake was actually changing the Tiger's shape into his. A boy slowly emerged out of a tangled mess of hair and whiskers. Jake stood there before me at the entrance of the barn a human. Not a tiger. A human.

"Wow, I've seen too much in the past 2 days," I said coming out of the daze that seeing a tiger turn into a friend caused me to be in.

"Sorry, buddy, but you are about to see more," Jake said.

"I was afraid of that." A pause.

"OK, here is the deal," Jake said with a long, heavy sigh, "we tell you, then you tell us, deal?"

"Um, I guess it's OK, M2 said I could talk to you guys about it."

"Excuse me, M2?"

"I'll tell you later."

"Right then, come on and meet the crew."

With that, I let him get a bit a head of me as I quickly jolted back to my normal personality. I caught up with him to see a weirdly freakish freak-show.

"Guys, meet the newest member of our crew, Joe," Jake introduced me to the little band of some people I knew, and some that I felt that I never would if Jake didn't bring me to Cassie's barn.

I saw before me 3 people who I knew in some way or another. First, there was Marco who I was friends with, as you already know. Then there was Rachel, the cousin of Jake who was stunningly pretty and who you could count on to make a big fashion statement. She was the center of many crushes at school, but I never really cared for her for no reason in particular. Well, there was this one time a while back in 5th grade, but lets not get into that.

Also, just pointing out that we've known each other forever. And do I mean forever, like, when we were 2 or 3. This is only because our moms are friends and we live across the street from each other.

If Rachel was hot (no pun intended) then her best friend Cassie would be cold. She is about as anti-Rachel as you can get; she is a short, African-American girl that doesn't give a hoot on clothes. This
gives meaning to the phrase "opposites attract" because of their lasting friendship since day 1.

Then things started to get interesting. I saw a hawk-like bird on a bale of hay almost "talking" with Rachel. Strange, isn't it? If that was weird, then I could have died with surprise when seeing who was
next to him.

It was in a few words an alien. OK, it might take more than a few words to describe this guy. His front half of his body was hominoid in appearance, with an upper body built identically to a human's, with
arms that had 1 too many fingers. His head was slightly less human; instead of a mouth he had what seemed to be 3 vertical slits, and his eyes were a tad more oval in shape than a human's eyes.

Further down this alien's body was what seemed like a body that was mixed with a deer and a horse. It was a little bit too stocky to be considered a deer's body, but too thin to be mixed up with a horse's.
This alien seemed to resemble a centaur from ancient Greek myths. Until you got to the tail.

I swear, I thought that it was pretty cute until I got to the tail. It was like a snake that was poised, ready to strike at the slightest movement. And at the end of this snake was an enormous, scythe blade
that almost was craving to take a shot at me. Oh, and did I mention that almost all of his body was
blue?

"H-Hi, guys," I stammered as I recovered from seeing the alien.

Prince Jake, are you sure this is the one? A voice in my head rattled. Prince Jake? Since I had no clue to who said that, I assumed that it was the alien. I forced a small, barely audible giggle.

"Don't call me Prince, and yes, I am positive. You should have seen what he did to my tiger, it was just messed up." Jake responded.

"You are messed up," Marco kidded.

"Shut up."

"Well, I still don't like the looks of this, it seems like he could turn into another David," Rachel said looking me over.

"He could be, but this time it will be different. I know Joe, and I trust him the most of anyone outside of the Animorphs," Jake responded. "Besides, he doesn't and won't ever have the morphing power."

"Guys, could you please tell me what is going on?" I cut in.

Jake sighed, "It's a long and very complicated story, Joe, but someone has to tell you the gist of it." He breathed in deeply and then began a long rant. "OK, here is the deal, an army of slugs is invading Earth. Not openly, of course, but using a very stealthy approach. These slugs, called yeerks, are actually parasites that get inside your ear and move
to your brain, causing them to take over your entire body. They will know you most inner thoughts when they take over your body, and you are powerless to move at your own will. You then become a controller, My brother Tom is one of them."

"Now, here we come into the story. About 2 years ago an alien pacecraft crash-landed in an abandoned construction yard near the mall. It was piloted by an andalite, what our friend Ax here is, called Prince Elfangor. He gave us the andalite's technology of morphing, changing our body into some other biological form. We then saw that night him getting murdered by the only andalite-controller in history, Visser 3.

"And that's our story in brief," Jake concluded, "I know you are wondering who this hawk is, well, he is Tobias, remember him?"

Tobias was a kid that I knew a while back that mysteriously vanished. He was friends with my best bud Greg a while back, and sort of friends with me. Everyone felt sorry for him because he was practically a bully magnet, so he gained even more attention than the flashy ones in school. Most of the time, anyhow.

"He was trapped in the body of a red-tailed hawk because he exceeded the 2 hour morphing limit. You see, there is a price for being in morph too long, you get trapped inside the morph never to return to your normal form.

"Fortunately, our friend the Ellimist which you might have already know, gave him the power to morph again, but his true form forever is the hawk."

Although it isn't that bad, Jake, hi Joe. Tell Greg that I said hi. The hawk said timidly.

"Um, hi Tobias," I responded shakily. "A-and I'll do that for you." Whatever.

Cassie then piped up, "Now you might be wondering, how did we know about you?"

I wasn't, but I still nodded.

"Well, the Ellimist was kind enough to tell us of his brother that would grant the "gift" of alternative Persona, and he said that the one who could be given this was at the Gardens. Jake, Marco and you went there after school yesterday, as you know, and headed back home not knowing where the person was. Your bus exploded on the way home, but Jake and Marco had already morphed into a tiger and gorilla to ward off some Hork-Bajir warriors. Hork-Bajir are the bladed shock troops of the Yeerks, although they were peaceful creatures.

"And that's all we know. Jake and Marco managed to hold them off, but they never found you. They only found that the orange steel, a marking of the one who the Ellimist's brother could bless, was gone."

I looked stunned. It was obvious to everyone in the room because Marco said, "Chill man." How could I? It was too much info, too fast.

"Now, keep your side of the bargain, Joe," Jake demanded. I never had seen him so worried and angered before.

"W-well, as you said, the bus exploded and I barely made it out alive. Jake told me to take the orange metal to the field out near the entrance of the Gardens, so I did. Instantly, a hole opened in the ground that revealed a huge sphere of electricity that sucked me into it at a really high speed. I made it to a room that was dichromatic with silver and a bright bronze, where the Ellimist's brother that called himself M2 has spoken to me.

"He said about changing persona and stuff, so I foolishly though of the old Star Wars movies that I had seen the day before. He actually gave me the extra persona of a Jedi knight, then I found myself home. And that's my story," I said.

Interesting, said the alien, who I'd assumed was "Ax".

"Well, let's see it," Rachel said.

"What?"

"What you've claimed to be able to do."

"He can, I saw it, Rachel," Jake said.

"Well, I'd like to see it for myself."

"I'm warning you Rachel, don't anger him," Jake responded in sarcasm.

Why can't we anger him? The alien, or Ax, said.

"It's sarcasm, Ax-man," Marco said with a heavy sigh.

Ah, I see.

"Well?" Rachel impatiently asked.

"OK," I responded. I sighed. There was a discussion we had once while talking on the way home from school that gave me the impression that she was far more open and caring, but no such luck now, she had lots of doubt in her voice.

As I did before, I started to think about the Jedi's strength, power and peace. This time there was just a tiny jolt down my back where I barely flinched. Then, I felt it again, the power, the calmness and the
inner strength of a Jedi. The unbelievable energy field pulsing through my inner self. I could rant on forever about how it felt.

"Um, so?" Rachel asked.

"So? I did it, what you wanted me to do," I said.

"A Jedi?" She laughed.

"Right, a Jedi," was my response. Time to show her what I meant by becoming one.

I saw an empty cage on a bench near Jake. I thought it to be crazy, but I did was Yoda taught Luke to do when raising the X-wing. I concentrated on the cage and controlled it through the "Force". It was
really stupid and crazy, like my life had been for the past two days, but I tried it just the same.

And it moved. The empty cage hovered in mid air and swayed rhythmically to an unheard song. I controlled it by moving it to the feet of Rachel, and then let it drop slowly. I felt exhausted and was almost about to just drop onto the floor.

"A Jedi, huh huh, is who I, huh, am," I said while panting. The Jedi part of me had taken over while I said that, but still, I let it go because I thought it was cool.

They looked at me with disbelieve. Except Jake, who had already believed me and was eager to see more.

"B-but that's impossible!" Rachel burst out.

I do believe that this is what humans call a miracle, Ax said.

"No, it isn't, it is another persona which I can assume. And get a load of this," I responded.

I don't know how or why I was doing this, but I focused on the lightsaber, and boom, a piece of metal practically fell from an opening in the barn. I switched it on. A dazzling light of blue jutted out from
the core to a length of 4 feet. It was full of liquid power; I could almost touch the amount of energy it was radiating.

"Wow, get a load of that! A lightsaber!" Marco exclaimed.

"Jeez!" Cassie stated.

"Now that is what we need to kick some serious butt, not like we haven't been so far," Rachel said, pretty impressed.

That technology is not one I am familiar with, but why are you primitive humans knowing of this?

"You see, Ax-man," Jake said still startled from the lightsaber and laughing from Ax's question, "A movie called 'Star Wars' was produced with characters called Jedi. Our friend Joe here has used M2's persona change to assume the personality of these Jedi. In the movie, they carried weapons called lightsabers. Cassie, um, is it OK for him to, um, do it on that rock out there?" Jake motioned to a large bolder behind the barn.

"I guess so, do it Joe," Cassie said with a sweet smile. Or was it an imtimidating one? Scary.

We all went outside and I carefully took the lightsaber up into my hands. It was really weird how it felt; it was like holding a piece of metal that was radiating as much energy as 15 nuclear power plants
and 25 Jumbo jets. I took a stab at the boulder that was about 5 feet high and 6 wide.

All of a sudden, it was 3 wide.

It was really strange seeing a huge rock being split neatly into 2 pieces by your own strength. I can't describe it, it was a feeling of sheer power and supremacy. Hehehe, die you little slugs. Face my
unyielding wrath. I am god! HAHAHAHAHA! Die. Truly, looking back on this experience I thought I had gone insane.

"Now, imagine that was Visser 3…" Marco said.

"T-t-that's a lightsaber, Ax," Jake explained, "It is what you might call the ultimate hand-to-hand weapon."

This will prove very effective against the yeerks, and I am very surprised at the energy that this is capable of, Ax said looking very stunned. I see it very powerful for a human weapon.

"Hopefully it will prove effective against the yeerks," I said while changing back to my normal persona, "because the way you described
the situation, you guys are on the verge of extinction and will need all the help you can get."

"God, we do," Cassie replied with a smile, "Welcome to the Animorphs, Joe."

Chapter 8-Battle

It was the day after my meeting with the Animorphs and 2 days after I learned I could turn into a Jedi knight. I started to wonder, why was reality so perfect until I went to the best place on Earth? (The
Gardens) Why? Am I a cursed roller coaster freak that can levitate objects and fights an invasion of tiny slugs with his friends that can change into animals? Or have I gone insane? Probably the latter…

"Honey, Jake is at the door for you!" My mom called from the hallway.

I got up from my bean-bag chair that sat in front of the TV to go see what was up with Jake. He usually calls before he comes over, so I assumed that it was something to do with the invasion or something of supernatural nature.

"Sup man," I said yawning. I always yawn when greeting people, you know that?

"Nothing much. Except a life and death mission."

"What? Oh, right."

"I'll fill you at the mall, or rather riding there. Got your bike?"

"Sure, let's go."

I jogged back to the garage where my dad was tinkering around with his latest prototype. You see, my day actually creates bikes, or at least designs them, so I have the tightest and baddest bike around. The
TX type 4 Mini Superbike model 3. Can you say 32 gears? Insane.

"I'm going to the mall, see you round, dad," I called.

"Bye, ouch!" My dad responded. I assumed that he was fooling around with his latest model.

"C'mon!" Jake hurried me on racing along.

We came out of our driveway and into the street heading on towards one of the better places to visit the mall. I hadn't slept well that night so you could imagine I was a bit grumpy.

"OK, here is the deal, Joe. Have I told you about yeerk pools yet?"

"Think you mentioned it before, yup."

"Well, here is what is happening. The entrance to the latest pool construction is at Bob's electronic shop's 2nd bathroom stall. You can thank our friend Erik for solving that stumper. Since this is simply
the construction of a pool, we don't need to attack full force. However, simply would be under-exaggerating it a bit. A very powerful and influential yeerk named Visser 12 is visiting and overseeing
the construction of the pool. Killing him will slow down a yeerk operation to bring us 'andalite bandits' down. The mission is to assassinate the Visser and destroy the pool. Simple hit and run tactics. You with me?"

"Um, I guess. God, you are sounding so much like our history teacher that always muses about Gettysburg's battle and Lee's tactics. Except that they are different, but it still sounds like it. Or maybe you are starting to sound like the old James Bond movies, or maybe like Mission Impossible, or maybe-"

"Joe, I get the picture. We will need your lightsaber swinging to provide back up if we get caught. Is that clear?"

Jake sounded like a military general. It was never as I saw him before; he was a hard-core millitary commander, not a careless, 14-year old teenager without a clue.

"Y-yes sir!" I said with a mock salute getting off by bike as we walked them to the bike rack in front of the mall's parking lot. Just then, Tobias in his human form, Rachel, Marco and Cassie ran up to us.

"Ax is busy wrecking havoc at the Cinnabon place. We got to get him out of that mess before Controller guards start to suspect," Tobias said panting.

"God, not again," Jake replied looking really pissed.

"Hey, what's going on?" I said.

"Joe, just meet us by Bob's in 15 minutes. Don't be surprised if we come back covered with cinnabuns," Jake responded.

"Or maybe hot dogs, ya, hot dogs. Cover in relish, mustard and ketchup. Oh, and some fries on the side with a nice, big coke," Marco put in.

"You are pathetic," Rachel scoffed.

"Hey, I haven't eaten anything today! Cut me some slack."

"Why?"

"Because I'm too irresistibly cute fore normal, sane girls unlike yourself?"

"Nice try."

"Stop it! We gotta get this situation underhand before anyone does anything! Let's go!" Jake ordered.

On Jake's cue I sprinted towards the electronic shop that was about 50 yards away from the eatery and really close to the Gap, something told me that was going to be the place where Rachel would be when this mission was over. Something didn't compute, why was I going into a pit of hellish doom and insanity? Oh ya, because my life had turned that way. Figures.

Avoiding several near-collisions, I made it to Bob's in less than 2 minutes. This was surprisingly fortunate, because the mall is a huge place and normally it takes nearly 10 minutes to get to most stores from the front entrance. Whatever.

"Hey, I know you!" A voice called from in back of me while I was walking up to the store.

"What?" I responded.

"You are the coaster boy! I remember you!"

"From what?"

"School." This was weird because I had never seen this kid at school ever before.

"What do you want?"

"Nothing, just wanted to say hi. You going to Bob's? Great place, you should see what they got in their bathrooms."

"Excuse me?" I said pretending not to know really was back there.

"Go see for yourself," he said with a snicker. One word popped into my mind, controller. Odd, they seem like people and are a lot like normal, but there is something different about them, very disturbingly different…

"Whatever," I casually replied.

"C'ya!"

And that ended our very odd and spooky conversation about nothing. I just loitered around the place for a few minutes to see the crew come up to me covered with cinnamon bun bits and for some strange reason, what looked like bacon bits.

"I don't want to know. I really do NOT want to know." Actually I did, but I would regret thinking that.

"Good, because we didn't want you to ask," Cassie said rather annoyed.

"I still don't understand why humans, muns, uns, consider it a criminal nal act to eat cinabuns, bunz, that are in front of other, er, ther people," Ax said.

Jake whispered to me, "As you know, andalites have no mouths, therefore…" He didn't need to finish.

"Can we go now? Its butt-kicking time for this Animorph," Rachel said impatiently.

"Its always butt-kicking time for you, Xena," Marco kidded.

"OK, we'll split off once we get to the construction site. Joe, you go by yourself to assassinate the Visser, while we take on his guards. Hopefully we can find a bomb and destroy the base with it. Wait
a sec, where is Tobias?" Jake began.

"Here I am, God, humans are so near-sighted," complained Tobias.

"Right, remember, the Gleet Biofilters have not been installed in the facility yet because the construction is not in it's complete stages and it is considered a top secret project. Erik barely got the information we needed. This is primarily a test for Joe's skills, you ready gang?"

"Let's do it!"

"Why do I get a horrible feeling whenever she says that?" Marco sighed.

"Wait, I know there is something cheesy to say since I got this power, hold on, yes! May the force be with us," I said.

"Gag," Marco said.

"Let's go!" Jake barked. And so we did into bathroom 2, or more likely, Hell.

The rest of the crew felt we uneasy and nervous as we started climbing down a stairwell that went down several stories. An eerie green light glowed above our heads as we went down. An English voice blared, "Warning! Construction in progress! Warning!" A very mechanized and unfriendly English voice blared, "Warning! Construction in progress! Warning!" It was to say the least very frightening, so I switched persona.

Jeez! The Jedi mind was still at rest with unimaginable power at his disposal, however it sensed a dark presence. A darker force than that of a really, really bad thing. Cut me some slack, just think of a
really bad thing and it was probably worse than that. I could feel darkness inside me and I needed (and sort of wanted) to defeat it. Insanity.

"Hey, shouldn't you be wearing a cloak, or something? It would be very symbolic," Marco joked.

"Whatever."

"Prince Jake, I feel uneasy in my human morph. Should I demorph?"

"Yes, but do it quickly. And don't call me Prince Jake."

"Yes, Prince Jake."

I saw Ax change into his normal, deadly form that no doubt would have been more powerful if trouble intervened. Which it soon did.

"OK, time we split up guys. Joe, do your Jedi thing and cloak yourself or whatever to get past the Visser's body guards. We'll go rat."

"Good, it's better than a cockroach," Cassie admitted.

Good luck! called Tobias keeping a perch looking for trouble.

We had split off at the entrance to the main pool. It wasn't really a pool yet, it was more of a vast tunnel or cavern that branched off into many other smaller caverns. The ground was paved with a primitive stone covering, probably due to time restraints, and the walls looked identical to a cavern's, you know, like at Lauray?

There were 2 side tunnels wide enough for an adult man to crawl through by the entrance. They traveled along the top of the cavern, almost like ventilation pipe except they were circular and green, so I could strike at will practically anywhere in the entire cave. It was too easy.

I quickly started crawling along the pipes looking through the practically transparent steel that it was constructed of. I suddenly got an ice-cold feeling when I stared down at the floor below. I could never believe what I then saw, but it had emotional power beyond what the mind can normally conceive.

A tiny pool that was located near 6 large cages was bubbling a liquid that resembled something like molten lead. That wasn't the scary part. In the 6 cages were 6 humans that were yelling their brains off and crying. One of them was forced out of their cage by two burly, hork-bajir guards and had their head thrust down into the water. Oh my God. Screams echoed through the cavernous tunnel. And then, it was silent. Shit. The yeerk had gone back into the person's helpless body and now he was powerless to stop the yeerk. I had to do something.

So, this persona finally proves that it is worth something. Let us hope it is worth much more than just saving a person's freedom. "Just".

I still can't get over how corny this entire thing really is. My alternate personality in a sense is completely fictional. However, not in this lifetime.

Since I was a Jedi, the universe was altered due to this rather interesting turn of events. I reached out with the force and contacted the evil that was within this person's head.

You are no match for the watchers, now are you yeerk? I said mentally to the yeerk. I could sense his confusion. Oh, and about the watchers thing? I just made it up. Just shows how corny I am.

Who says that?

I chuckled telepathically. Well, you are the first ever to hear death calling you. And now he comes to claim your soul.

The yeerks fear was enormous, I felt it. So fearful is the race that causes fear in others. Time to pay.

To put it simply, I used the force to literally squeeze all the life out of the parasite. I could feel fear from this guy like crazy. I showed no mercy. He has committed the worst crime ever, to take a being's right to freedom away from them. I will have no mercy. And I did not.

These actions did not have a very good result, however. That is, if you count a good result auspicious for the yeerks. The free human took a stab at one of the hork-bajir with a huge pocketknife that only
God knows where he found it. The guards looked stunned, no one in the history of the Yeerk Empire had ever escaped the yeerk's grasp without Kandrona starvation!

As if they read my mind, that was when the Animorphs picked the time to attack. Two enormous elephants came charging behind a shed, and two rhinos came crashing forward. It was clear that they meant destruction. A hork-bajir marked with a golden band around his neck showed his alliance to the human cause and good old Ax in his normal form. There were also about 6 flattened utility sheds behind them. A huge swarm of taxxons and hork-bajir was the response. What was the final result? It
was butt-kicking time!

However, I did not have the privilege or stupidity to go join in on the battle, but I had a mission to do however dangerous it might have seemed. Climbing down ever further down the tunnel that wound
it's way around the ceiling, I eventually had made it to the place where my friends forced me to go, not that it wasn't that uninviting.

Hell itself.

Actually, it looked like a pretty cozy room. However, 4 hork-bajir warriors that looked pretty bulky and a huge and monstrous hork-bajir that I assumed was the Visser guarded the room. Things looked
pretty bleak. But I refused to believe it.

My life had gotten very weird at that point so I was going to make it even weirder. I concentrated on the sleek and silver piece of metal that I called my weapon. Suddenly, it appeared right in front of me
levitating. I grasped it, then switched it on. A neon-blue blade came bursting out of the handle glowing with pleasant warmth.

The transparent tunnel would be no match for the saber. I swiftly and deftly cut into it a large hole that I could jump through easily. The metal that made up the hole crashed down on top of the lead hork-
bajir guard while I jumped down grasping the blade.

"Gradnishd! Kill!" One of the hork-bajir said in their mixture of English and alien.

"Not on your lifetime, which reminds me, will not be short!"

Instantly, two of the guards were on top of me, slashing their blades at full speed. But I was a Jedi; these were just mere threats. I executed a flip backwards to keep them coming, with my lightsaber in
my hand. Yes, come here. I cannot live a life of weirdness for nothing. They looked confused and disorganized as I made a fist and invited them to come over.

Then I heard from in back of the guards, "Kill him! This is just a mere human!"

"Mere human! I'll show you mere human!"

I slashed my blade of energy straight towards the first hork-bajir assailant. Since it was a weak attack, only several of his blades were scorched off his body.

"Arrrggghhh!" It cried in agony. Oh my god, am I that ruthless to kill slowly? No, I must make my blows on target so these creatures have a painless death.

With lightning speed and agility, I trust my saber directly across the hork-bajir's torso. I did not dare to watch what happened. Instead, I moved on to my next attacker. Not wanting to kill again, I simply
grasped his mind and almost manually shut it down. He fell to the ground still breathing, but as if in a deep trance. Must this be my future?

Since I had killed two of their comrades already, or at least disengaged them, the other two were far more cautious. They each pulled out a long rifle that stretched for 3 feet that was shaped like a phaser from Star Trek, except that it was a lot longer. They started firing mercilessly at me with these rifles.

But I was prepared. Remember that scene in Return of the Jedi where Luke deflects all those speeder bike blaster shots? Hehehehe………

The instant those shots came firing out of the rifles I was ready. With lightning speed I positioned my lightsaber in the precise place where the beam would hit. But know I wonder was it really me who
placed it there? Or maybe the "Force". I'll never know.

Like in the movies, the beam instantly bounced back off my sword of light right into one of the guards. He crumpled to the ground it a heap of scalding flesh.

A-r-r-r-r-r-r! The sound was deafening. The remaining guard let out a howl of disgust and started straight towards me with his 2 meter, 280-pound body at full force. I simply stepped out of the way for
him to go crashing into a wall behind me. I had made up my mind not to use my lightsaber in this final showdown with the guard, so I switched it off.

The hork-bajir was mad as ever. He came crashing at me with all his force, blades whirling at top speed. I could see his devout and zealous anger in his face. This is awfully reckless for a hork-bajir,
wait a second…

When he was practically on top of me, I executed a perfect jump above, yes, above his head and all that force he was intending to use on me was used on the Visser.

"ARRRGGGHHHH!" He yelled with unimaginable pain when I saw him getting impaled by the guard that ran into him. I actually saw the head fly off the rest of his body. Disgusting.

But what was the most interesting thing of all was the reaction of the guard after seeing himself kill his superior. The hork-bajir seemed to be going berserk with fear. And then, a slug shot out of his ear
onto the ground. A yeerk.

"Die, scum."

I squashed its pathetic body into pulp. I suddenly got a feeling of incredible self-accomplishment for no apparent reason. I smiled.

"Het-Loree thank human!" A voice all of a sudden sounded. I turned around to see the freed hork-bajir smiling at me. I couldn't really tell, actually, but it looked like a distorted smile on his face.

"Your welcome," I said humbly.

"I thank you! You take me away from yeerk!"

"Ya', whatever, now, I will take you to a place where there are more free hork-bajir," I said changing the subject. I had heard from the Animorphs that hork-bajir were not exactly that smart, but were very
clever and persistent. They also told me of a place where about 110 free hork-bajir lived in peace. Make that 111. I thought with a smile.

"Thank you!"

It continued on a while as we walked back to the main cavern. The tunnel was too big for Het, so we walked along corridors with as much shadows as possible to keep from being noticed. It was hard to keep quiet, however, because of the constant thanks from Het. Finally, after about 15 minutes of telling Het to shut up, we made it to the main cavern to see the Animorphs whooping some serious yeerk ass. I decided to join the party. Instead of their ass-crushing morphs that they had appeared in, they managed to demorph and re-appear in their standard battle morphs.

"Het, take this golden band and place it around your neck. This is to show my friends that you are one of us. You may go fight the yeerk-infested hork-bajir if you like, but we will need you to come with us
alive. So, don't take unnecessary risks."

"I fight with human!"

"Ya, whatever." It was obvious that the hork-bajir weren't the smartest race in the galaxy.

With that we practically flew to the other side of the cavern where the fierce and ferocious battle was taking place. Me in my mock robe I put together about two seconds before from this piece of heavy cloth on the floor, and Het prepared to fight with her natural, bladed body.

Hey, Joe! I was hoping that you'd come back alive, Cassie said with a smile. Or at least as close a smile as you can get if you are a wolf that's ripping the lungs out of a sentient species.

"Don't worry, Mr. Guy in the weird Jedi robe is here to kick yeerk ass. God, you described them much worse than I encountered," I responded practically gagging at the sight of an exploding taxxon. Practically isn't the word, wait a sec, gagging and throwing up multiple times at the sight of an exploding taxxon.

I was gonna say something about the robe, but Rachel would have a heart attack with it, Marco teased.

I heard that!

At this point I saw Het moving over to Tobias who was fighting away in hork-bajir morph. She seemed friendly with him, anyway, but Tobias didn't seem a bit interested.

"So, where is this Visser 3? I'd like to see him. God, he'll be nothing."

You'll regret ever saying that, Joe, Cassie warned. Good thing I listened to her.

…because here he comes, Jake finished it off.

"What do you-, oh shit."

Oh shit would describe the hellish picture perfectly. From across the cavern a gigantic shadow lumbered towards us. The shadow became far more distinct to form a creature. Mind you that this creature is one that humans had never set eye on before.

It was large. That could be a very descriptive word for this beast. Or thing, whatever you want to call it. It was the size of a house, and had a huge, massive body supported on 2 stubs that could make the
body versatile. The body was mostly just a big, lumpy ball that was brown and was covered with thousands of holes that ran along the ball's perimeter. No, wait, those holes had silver spikes sticking out of them. Nasty, curved and rather dangerous spikes sticking out of the holes on the monster.

Visser 3, Ax sneered.

I almost laughed at the sight. I had always expected the might Visser 3 to be some 20-story tall dragon or whatever that spit flaming acid. This was a joke! Or at least, I hope it was a joke…

Like my little Figavac, my little andalite bandits? Acquired it from the dying pulsar, Pegasi 21. Shall we take a test shoot at this little human rebeller of yours?

I saw Jake's tiger morph trembling with fear. The gorilla in Marco seemed to shake with fear. Rachel's bear and Cassie's wolf were petrified with terror. Even Tobias and Ax looked like crying.

Then, I DID laugh out loud. "This is the Visser 3 that so many have talked about? I shall confront you fairly, but never underestimate the powers of a Jedi." BTW, that was the Jedi part of me talking, not
the real me.

Immediately after, Jake shot me a warning thought speech. JOE! What the hell are you doing?

I just smiled and turned to face the weird and bizarre creature that was the Visser. WHAT?! This lone human decides himself to be worthy to fight me? I think not. Guards, will you do the honors?

What Mr. Visser didn't see was my trusty lightsaber. His overconfidence is his weakness, and these innocent lives shall pay. Instantly, 10 hork-bajir guards were headed straight towards me when I flicked on my handy lightsaber. It glowed with ecstatic energy and just wanted to fight the evil that lay before us. They seemed confused, as did the other Visser's guards, but did not hesitate. They continued on, blades whirling. And that was how 10 guards faced 10 deaths that night.

Szzzzzz! The lightsaber was practically alive with excitement, dodging every blow with every possible amount of skill. It almost seemed animated by itself it was that quick and powerful.

Szzzzzz! Another guard fell down which meant there were 7 more to go. Die, scum. Make these creatures deaths not be in vain. A razor blade of green came twirling at me at astonishing speed, only to be stopped dead in its tracks looking at its gored intestines. Another blade of green came rushing at me only to be stopped by a light of blue blaze. Guard after guard came rushing on top of me until a heap of dead hork-bajir lay before me. I switched off my lightsaber and stared emotionlessly at the weird morph that the Visser was in.

"I await your next challenge," I said with a malicious smile on my face. Wait, that was the Jedi, not me.

Arrrggghhh! Human! You dare test my patience? Well, I shall we put you back in the pool where you belong, foolish human.

I taunted with the rough school boy kinda taunt, "Well, whose gonna make me, huh?"

And that was the key factor in ruining my day. I turned around to see the Animorphs occupied fighting an onslaught of taxxons and to me facing a wall of 200 hork-bajir! Oh shit.

"Oh, so that's whose gonna make me," I said grimly.

Attack!

"I'm dead."

I have no clue why the Visser was sending so many troops into capture me, maybe because he recognized the lightsaber from watching Star Wars in human morph, or he seriously over-estimated me, but none the less, I simply could not fight them, no one could by himself. Maybe 10 coming one at a time like I did a moment before, but this? No way.

The only thing I could do was run. All though I knew it wouldn't work. I dashed off the other direction from the hork-bajir leaping over obstacles for them to have to go around, but when you think
about it, wouldn't they just crush them down? In this case, they were smart enough to do so and caught me within seconds. Rule number one in combat, never try to outrun one of these guys.

"Help!" I screamed for no apparent reason. None was coming. No one could really help, for that matter, so I don't know why I wasted the breath to call.

So, running away? Can't be an andalite then, but still, we'll infest him just the same.

"Oh, I have my ties with the andalites, but don't count on me telling any of the recounts."

In silent or whisper thought speach I heard Jake. Joe, you might have just cost you your freedom. I shrugged it off, foolishly.

You will in time.

With that, one of the hork-bajir grabbed a case of silver that was about a half-foot long and a half-inch thick. I feared for the worst. And the worst did come to me. He slowly opened the bow to reveal a
slug. Well, not quite a slug, but close enough. He picked it up deftly and gently, then put it up to my ear. I started to feel it wriggle through my ear canal and up-

NO! No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no! How can this be my fate? What have I done to deserve a fate such as this? My freedom of free will taken away. None shall ever know the true meaning of terror before
this happens, no one. No soul alive can even imagine the eternal jail of life with a yeerk in their head.

No one.



The one who brings the bubonic plague
The one who kills us all
Why must we be forever tormented?
In the endless fall

Hells deepest depths
Phantom's evil grin
Tortured souls
Blazing inferno
The Apocalypse

All who have lived shall see their demented fears
All who have lived shall be forever tortured

Pain, agony, suffering
The eternal abyss has come
None shall escape
None shall survive
The endless agony
And Hell's hive.




Like it? Wierd ending, but there will be more soon. Please review and don't feel like you have to be nice in your review.