Author: Alara-Sirinial-Amalon
Rating: Probably G
Disclaimer: KAA and Scholastic have all the rights to the names, characters, etc.
Spoilers: Well, if you haven't read the series by now…
A/N: Ugh, another fanfic in the middle of my original series. I blame this one on my little brother (he's 14 and like 3 inches taller than I am, so he's not really little). He does not like Animorphs at all, but he thought this idea was funny. He thought the series would have been better had it ended this way. But he wanted it set during book one, and I couldn't bring myself to do that, so we're after 24, but before 29. Not a bit of this was my idea, though I have to type it all. Please R/R!
~Chapter One – Jake~
"You know, I was thinking," Marco began, but Rachel cut him off.
"Really? An actual thought? From you?" Rachel said sarcastically.
I rolled my eyes. It was just an average day, and we were hanging out at the mall. Yes, all of us, including Tobias and Ax. We didn't have any missions planned, and I was thankful for it. After what we'd been through lately, we needed a break.
"What were you thinking, Marco?" Cassie asked, sounding interested.
He took a bite out of the pizza he was eating. "Welfh, ah wuf feenkin…"
"Coherent words, please," Rachel said, looking sideways at Ax, who was stuffing an entire cinnamon bun in his mouth. Tobias was trying to stop him. Unsuccessfully, I might add.
Marco swallowed and picked up the saltshaker. "Look at this. What do you see?"
He was obviously expecting an answer, so I said, "A saltshaker, Marco. That's what I see."
He shook his head. "No, no. You know, I've been thinking about this ever since the oatmeal incident. And I really haven't had the chance to say anything, what with David and the Helmacrons and all, but this has really been getting to me."
I glanced at Cassie, who shrugged. She didn't understand either.
"Wha-tuh is it, Marco? Co, co, coco. 'Co' is a very strange sound." Ax seemed to have finished his cinnamon bun. He was eyeing the plate like a hungry dog, but Tobias snatched it away from him.
"You're not doing that again," he said.
We laughed.
"Okay, this may look like an ordinary saltshaker," Marco explained, "but this is a very good weapon. A weapon against snow and slugs."
"A weapon against snow and slugs…Marco, you're a genius!" I whispered loudly, making sure nobody in the crowded food court could overhear.
"Thank you, thank you," he replied, taking small bows.
"I do not understand," Ax said. "How can this object-ect-ject harm slug-suh and snow? Wha-tuh does this ob-uh-ject do?"
"It salts things," I said.
"Yeah," Rachel agreed, catching on. "Salting slugs…why didn't we think of that before? The war would have been over a long time ago, had someone thought of that."
"I do not understand," Ax said again. "What might sal-tuh-tuh do to slugs? Ssss."
"Oh, it is a highly advanced human process," Marco said. "You put salt on a slug, and…" he trailed off.
Ax was interested now. "And what?"
"Poof," Tobias said. "Well, not poof, exactly, but they do die."
Cassie was quiet.
"What's wrong?" I asked her.
"Is this right? I mean, there are decent Yeerks in that pool. Yeerks like Aftran. What if we kill them too?"
"We don't even know if this will work, Cassie," I replied, putting a hand on her shoulder.
She smiled sadly. "But what if it does?"
I shrugged. "I have no clue."
Marco and Tobias were trying to describe the effects of salt on a slug to Ax, who was thoroughly confused.
"Do they just disappear? Ear. Eeeear."
"No, they shrivel up and die," Tobias said. "I see a lot of people do that while I'm flying around sometimes."
An older woman was listening to our conversation from a nearby table. "You kids looking for a way to get rid of slugs?"
We fell silent.
"Um, yeah," Tobias replied, turning around. "Do you have any good ideas?"
"I'd bait 'em. That always works on 'em for me. But I guess salt would work too. Good luck getting 'em out of your garden," she said and turned back around to a little girl who was smashing her slice of pizza and rubbing the sauce all over her face.
"Guys, that was a close call. What if that old woman had been a Controller? She would have thought something was up. We don't need to be discussing this here," I said. "Cassie? Your parents going to be out later today?"
"Yeah. They're supposed to be going out to dinner tonight. It's their anniversary…I forgot to get them a present!" she said and started panicking.
"Hey, on our way out, we'll swing by a few stores and find something," Rachel said.
"Good old Xena can't resist a shopping trip, can she?" Marco replied, rolling his eyes.
She said something that I can't repeat.
"Oooh, touchy," he said, taking care to back away from the table. "So what time are we going to meet up? I'm up for anytime. Dad really won't notice. He's been kind of down lately."
"My mom and dad are going out at seven," Cassie said. "We'll have a couple hours before they come back."
"Good," I replied. "How about seven-thirty? Can everybody make it?"
"I'll try to get there before eight," Rachel said. "I'm supposed to watch Jordan and Sara until seven-forty five. I'll come straight over as soon as Mom gets home."
"Ax and I are good for anytime," Tobias said.
I stood up and said loudly, "Well guys, I guess I'll be seeing you at school tomorrow."
Everybody split up. Rachel and Cassie headed back to the stores, Tobias walked Ax out the doors, and Marco and I went to the arcade together. We couldn't look like a group. It would be suspicious if there were any Controllers around.
"How did you come up with salt?" I asked him as we went into the arcade.
He shrugged and put a quarter in the machine. "I don't know. Well, actually, I was watching this little kid the other day, and he was poking this slug on the sidewalk. Next thing I knew, he'd gone into his house and got the saltshaker. The thing shriveled up, and my first thought was 'can we dump a bunch of salt into the Yeerk pool and wipe almost all of them out?' Then I thought about all of the Controllers, and I figured that they'd be the only ones left with Yeerks. And as for the pool itself…"
I caught on. "They won't be able to clean it out completely within three days."
The screen said "Game Over" and he moved to the next one. "Right. They'll all starve."
"And your mom will come back."
"Right. I've already thought about that one."
"Tom will be free."
"That's the plan."
"And this war will be over. At the expense of thousands of Yeerk lives."
He was playing furiously. "I know," he said, after the game ended. "It'll be a big loss. For them. Not us. It's war, Jake. In war, there are lives lost. At least they aren't human."
But the idea still nagged at my brain. I might not do the actual killing, but I'd be the one giving the order. I'd be worse than Visser Three, whose favorite hobby seemed to be decapitating people. He could only kill very few at a time.
I'd be a mass-murderer.