"This is war, Marco!" I yelled. "You have to make sacrifices!"
"No really, Xena? REALLY? Gee, 'cause I sure didn't know that! Oh, thank you, thank you ever so much for imparting such words of ultimate wisdom!" Marco scorned right back.
Hi. My name is Rachel. Just Rachel. And I was one seriously P.O.ed Animorph right then.
I was in the barn, our town's local wildlife rehabilitation clinic and trademark Animorphs meeting quarters. We all were. There was Jake, the unofficially official leader, who was pacing a path down to the dirt floor of the hay-strewn barn. To my left stood Cassie, my best though painfully fashion challenged friend who was transferring an injured but still feisty hare to another cage. Up in the rafters was Tobias, providing look-out duty. Eyeing the fridge where Cassie's dad kept grape Popsicles was Ax.
Then, there was Marco, best buddy of Jake. He must also be introduced as the most annoying twit ever to walk the face of the Earth.
"We all know what sacrifices it takes to fight this war. But the kind you're talking about are unnecessary!" Marco continued to sneer.
As Marco's face swiftly took on a mocking look of No, duh! again, I felt a really bad attitude being jolted alive in my gut. I could tell my deepest desire was to smack him. I was seriously considering fulfilling it.
CLANG!
Sweet, tactful Cassie knew it too because she conveniently swept the hare cage being prepped for cleaning right between Marco and me on the barn floor. It was a good move on her part. I glared at her nonetheless.
See, its hard to smack someone when they're more than an arm's length away.
"Anyone care to grab a pair of gloves and get down and dirty with me?" Cassie interjected brightly, knowing neither Marco nor I would.
"I'll help you, Cassie." Jake suddenly stopped pacing and came over, also knowing neither Marco nor I would.
Marco took time out from our shouting match so he could once more self-indulge with a trademark smirk and dumb joke. "What's next, Daddy Jake? Gonna get a head start and fix the leaky sink pipe, too? You two are going to make the cutest married couple someday, y'know that?"
I suffered the difficulty of smothering a grin at the grated noise coming deep from Jake's throat which was a sure sign of either irritation or embarrassment for him; Cassie also appeared unusually self-conscious. I cocked my head at the two. They would be undoubtedly cute married...
But then, observing the embarrassment radiating from Jake and Cassie suddenly reminded me just how much we were still just kids on certain levels. Much too young to really be dealing with the stuff we were finding ourselves having to deal with.
Yeah, by the way. You are reading all of this right. We were 6 kids in a barn talking war. But we weren't "just" kids anymore. Yeah, I still clung on to being a mall-loving shop-a-holic and went to gymnastics classes. Jake and Marco still had ongoing dumb arguments about which character in some dumb video game they loved were the best to use to win it. Cassie still loved her animals and watched National Geographic nature specials every chance she got. For the most part we all had families to deal with, homework for school. Well, with the exception of Tobias who actually had no family or home anymore. Not even his own human body. He's now a red-tailed hawk. And Ax wasn't even on talking terms with his own species; though according to his species - the Andalite for your information - he was already military age. He's an aristh according to their standards; a low-ranking space cadet. But he's a kid just like us, all the same. A very smart one by Earthling standards.
Yeah, we were just kids, albeit not entirely human. But we were just kids likewise hardened by the grays of an intergalactic war. That's why we were here in the barn, discussing war tactics concerning the extraterrestrial invasion of a parasitic slug species called Yeerks.
Back up. Where's the rewind button and the dictionary? You're probably thinking. 'Animorphs'… 'Yeerks'. Are these words I should know about? And what's this about warring extraterrestrials? Plus… the girl's talking about being friends with an alien space cadet and a Bird-boy. Maybe she's nuts. Yeah, that's it, she must be on the loose from an institute.
Marco may agree with you about the nuts part. Well, actually maybe so would the others. Sometimes my aggression during battles - yeah, that's right, battles - is perceived as brave but questionably insane actions on my part.
I beg to differ. Me? I think I do what needs to get done. I know what I'm doing. You get pushed, you shove back, its life. No reason to ever fear facing things head-on. Subtlety takes too long in most cases in my opinion.
But anyways, first off, Yeerks for sure is a word you should want to know about.
Yeerks are indeed an alien species. Slowly they are taking over planet. But not in a way you may expect. For now, their invasion is all about subtlety. And so far its been working for them. Their gooey slug-like state is pretty much their only defense-mechanism at first glance. They're pretty harmless in their natural state. Yet, for a slimy thing that could fit in the palm of your hand, they've got some major deadliness going on. They learned, in a limited sort of way, they can experience more than their gross slug-like state if they opt for squirming into the craniums of free species and literally becoming a body-snatcher of sorts. In this manner, they gain access to the senses of sight, smell, touch, taste, and hearing. But its totally at the cost of the poor creatures they connect to through their brains. Its not at all a symbiotic relationship, the host of the Yeerk and the Yeerk itself. No, the host becomes enslaved directly through their minds, unable to twitch an eye even one degree while the Yeerk completely controls their bodily functions for their evil. Good-bye free will.
You can still think in your head, watch what the Yeerk wants you to see as it directs your body according to its will. Its what makes them so terrible. You become a tool for them so they can crusade the galaxy in hopes of taking it over in a ruthless conquest, not caring for anyone's lives save their own. Your life as you knew is fully stripped form you.
They've done a good job so far with taking over the Hork-Bajir, Taxxon, and of course their home world with a species called Gedds. But Earth still hangs in the balance with us six kids with shape-shifting abilities given to us by a dying Andalite warrior-prince named Elfangor.
Courtesy ofElfangor, our lives as kids has become action-packed adventures of every kind imaginable. Go to your local Barnes and Nobles and rifle through all the genres: philosophy, action/adventure, most definitely the nature section, sci-fi, children's, history… and, yeah, even romance… and all of our out-of-this world (literally some of the time) wacked out adventures would be right at home on any of those shelves.
I've been all sorts of animals to try and hurt the Yeerks any way I can with my team of warrior-friends. A bald eagle, a dolphin, an elephant… even a flea. Any living animal we touch can have their DNA transferred into our bodies and whenever we wish to become one from thereon we can.
Maybe you think its cool. But its really not. Morphing is disgustingly unpredictable. And our action-packed adventures are terror-filled as well.
Of course, a drawback is that we can only morph for two hours at a time. It gets us into tricky situations a lot. Tobias broke that rule during our very first battle at the Yeerk pool and that's why he's a red-tailed hawk; a haunting reminder to us all. Luckily, he's regained his morphing abilities due to a very supernatural being called the Ellimist. But that's another story on its own.
However, the Yeerks, too, have one weakness which we six kids have learned to exploit. They must feed every three days in a Yeerk pool to soak up Kandrona Rays - a sort of food source for them they can acquire when swimming in the sludgy gray pool. Not a fun place to ever be with all the screams and pleas of the un-infested involuntary hosts coming from their cages until their Yeerks wriggle back through their ear canals. But anyways, as it is the Yeerks must leave their host to do their feeding and its when they're at their weakness.
The most dangerous Yeerk to us Animorphs is Visser Three. He's a very high-ranking war general of the Yeerk Empire who has several bones t o pick with us since we've managed to interfere with a lot of his work for taking over our world. He managed to snag the only Andalite host in all of the galaxy and therefore is morph-capable just like us. But we've definitely had some one-ups on the slightly mad Visser, despite him having all sorts of access to the most unpleasant monster morphs from other worlds.
But every battle leaves us more tired than the last. I've seen and shed more blood than most World War veterans. Had to make more moral calls than any simple kid my age ever should. Jake, my cousin Jake who I witnessed crying when he was grounded when he had hot tickets to some basketball game a fortnight before Elfangor's damaged fighter crashed before our eyes and altered our lives forever, was my own commander. Gentle Cassie was forced to kill when it went against almost every instinct of hers besides survival. Marco who wanted to goof off and simply live out his childhood as best he could with his short height syndrome. Ax who merely wanted to be with his people millions of light years away.
Tobias…
And suddenly facing the fact I had to wonder if Cassie and Jake would never be able to be normal boyfriend and girlfriend because of all this mind-imploding stuff rekindled my anger anew. Stupid Marco kept shooting down what I was trying to get us to do. Just how is it the boy be such an opportunist and yet such a pessimist?
"Look, Marc-. Well, no. All of you. Have you noticed that nearly every time we do a simple surveillance of Yeerkish activity we end up fighting anyhow?" I reasonably stated the obvious. Then, "So come on, let's do it! Might as well go all out, all hard and fast!" I ended up exploding.
"Yeah, seems good at first glance. But oh wait, trouble is, the rest of us aren't as INSANE as you, Xena!" Marco snapped.
By the way, Xena Warrior-Princess is Marco's teasing nickname for me. 'Cause he thinks I'm so gung-ho for this war and pretty or whatever. It annoyed me at first but I sort of like it deep down. Sometimes I wonder if that's how Jake feels when Ax insists on calling him 'Prince', though him being Jake he consistently asks Ax not to. It's the one request from Jake Ax routinely ignores.
Rachel, just what are you saying? Go out hard and fast how?> Tobias voiced in all our heads before I responded to Marco with some soul-crushing remark. (We can communicate by means of what we call 'thought-speak' whenever we're in morph, which proves helpful when we're animals with beaks, snouts, and mandibles and whatnot.)
If anyone else had said it I would have let loose a seriously impatient sigh. Instead I calmly stared up at him. "We're going nowhere. Don't you feel it? We're not doing enough. There's 6 of us against a whole Empire of Yeerks. We're pinpricks to them."
"Pinpricks can be crippling," Marco muttered. "Imagine having 6 pinpricks stabbed into you whenever you're trying to do something important. You'd spasm every time and have a major issue taking over a planet, per-say. Okay, I don't know exactly how this whole 'hard and fast' thing of yours is planned out in your crazy head but I just know its not the way to go. No. We need to continue being a guerilla force. Its our best shot. "
"According to a CNN… Cee. En. Ennuhh…nuh… public poll, three out of five people harbor a phobia regarding the invasively primitive means of boosting one's immune system with disease vaccination. 'Shots' could be fear-inducing to the Yeerks, perhaps? Haps?" Ax suggested helpfully.
Tobias sort of chuckled into his feathers (he was preening) before emitting an audibly loud thought-speak sigh himself in our heads. Cassie, Jake and I also chose to ignore Ax.
Marco decided not to. "You guys! What an auspicious day! I think Ax-man made a joke."
"Really, Marco? Co? Maaaar. Coh? Coh?" Ax said in as excited a voice as I've ever heard him use when he's not around food in human-morph.
"Oh, God. You were serious," Marco moaned.
That's when majority of us giggled. Minus Ax whose eye stalks drooped with bashful confusion, sniffing how humor was overrated. And minus me, who was too steamed to laugh much. Jake was the first to look exasperated and to stop laughing.
"Ok. Excuse me? Let's focus here, people." Jake waved a hand to get our attentions. "Rachel? Lay it out on the table and answer Tobias' question. We're all curious about what you're driving at."
"Yeah, what's wrong with our being a guerilla war force?" Marco demanded incredulously of me. Then, "Wait. I did not just say that. There is so much wrong with it."
"Fine. Look, we start taking every Controller we know. Un-infest them through starvation of Kandrona rays. Relocate them to the valley of the free Hork Bajir colony."
"We can't do that." Cassie said immediately, at last done swiping out the last of the smelly animal dung from the cage.
"Here's some more words of "ultimate wisdom" from the Mighty Rachel," I said self-mockingly, suddenly even mad at Cassie who hadn't even said much until that point . "Back to the 'this is war' thing. We can't be afraid to kill a few slugs in the process."
"Its not that." Cassie's voice wavered with a mix of hurt, anger, and reproach. I winced internally as I realized I had ruthlessly misjudged her statement. Eerily, I somehow just knew then she was going to voice the insight I was expecting Marco to jump to.
"The Yeerks will see their people disappearing. We wouldn't be able to un-infest them all before they catch on and simply call everyone else away before we could get to them."
"Whoa. I was going to say that," Marco frowned.
Yeah, she'd gotten it.
"Why not? We'd be freeing them!" I growled impatiently. Surely she and the rest of them would get the rest of it, too?
"We wouldn't save even one eighth of everyone, Rachel." Cassie continued to say.
I made a point of looking to Jake. "Naturally, we'd hit our families first of course." He looked back sharply.
I resisted the impulse to bite my lower lip. Ooookay, maybe I went a bit low there. His look said it all: don't bait me, I may be the leader who makes big-decisions but don't you ever try and manipulate me like that again to swing things your way.
His older brother, and my cousin was a Controller. His name's Tom. He was adecent cousin, was a good bro to Jake.Jake's reason for fighting was to eventually free him somehow. Unfortunately, his Yeerk was extremely high ranked and suspicions would arise if Tom's Yeerk was starved.
Next to our morphing capabilities, one of our biggest advantages was our anonymity. Tom would be re-captured and Jake and the rest of us would also be infested in an eyeblink if we were the ones to free him.
"That would not be wise strategy for winning the war, Rachel. Ray. Chul. El. Ell-uh. Uhhh," Ax said bluntly. My eyebrows shot up, interested by both the mutilation of my name as well as his provision of a rare opinion by confirming agreement with Cassie's quick assessment. Despite feeling guilty for being low with him, I kept my gaze trained on Jake. "Therefore I believe it can be deduced it is not a good tactic. Tack. Tic. Tiiiick," Ax finished.
Seeing my eyes not lifting away from his, Jake's angry look withered and he sighed, stopped pacing, and ran a hand through his hair. He now held my gaze back warily.
I know it's a big goal to save the world and all but families can't be the only thing to save when things are looking bad. Once humanity goes even the Hork-Bajir colony would see an end. We would.> Tobias supplying his usual cold-water in the face observations. Come to think of it, he could think like Marco, really, just without so many lines of paranoia woven in.
"Rachel, you knew that. What are you really thinking?" Jake finally asked.
"Doing that would force them to go to open war. The military could take over. Yeah, they'd call most human Controllers away before we could get to them. But they've infested enough people so the still larger number of un-infested people would wonder why their doctors, neighbors, nieces, wives, whatever are suddenly disappearing without a trace, whether it was the well-intentioned kidnappings of the Animorphs or the panicked Yeerks. Media would pick up. The government would pick up. The Yeerks haven't gotten everyone yet, they wouldn't be able to cover it up. Out of our hands." I said evenly.
"Rachel, you love this all." Marco narrowed his eyes. "Your role on our team is to be the war-loving warrior. Don't tell me you'd give up fighting, let the petty Marines take over in your place."
I felt annoyed as I felt Cassie's troubled eyes probing me after Marco's statement.
"Yeah, well that'd be my choice to make, wouldn't it?" I said acidly.
We're all sick of this war, Rachel. And don't get mad at me for saying this. But what you're suggesting is a big-time risky undertaking. Would it really be better for the U.S. government to know of the Yeerk invasion? It'd go nuclear for sure.> Tobias again.
"Good point, Tobias. But that's just it! The Yeerks are scared of humans on the large knowing about them. They know we're capable of fighting them back successfully, even at the cost of decimating our own planet. We've got the nuclear means and the grit even if we haven't got the spaceships. Its why they're trying to take over Earth by quiet infiltration. They'd leave before we annihilated our own planet in a suicidal yet so very effective attempt to defeat them by means of mutual annihilation."
Everyone looked uneasy at that.
"That's a big assumption. A huge gamble." Jake voiced out quietly.
"No, Jake. See, what the psycho chick here is saying is that she wouldn't mind having our planet reduced to a molten glop of radioactive sludge just so her sharp appetite for blood will be seen to for the short-term," Marco rolled his eyes.
"What I'm saying is I am so sick of all these stupidly quiet Animorph missions!" I burst out.
"Not sick of the war, right Rachel?" Cassie queried. Not nastily or anything. But in a way that made me feel guilty.
"It's a way out." I didn't know how else to put it for them. "We could stop fighting. Just learn to deal with everything we have been through but no more than that. And… our families.…"
"I don't think we can afford to do this." Jake said very silkily. His voice sounds like that when he gets mad.
"What, no vote?" I disregarded his low but firm tone.
"Fine. Guys?" Jake prompted cooly.
Hearing the muttered 'no's from Cassie and Marco, the silence from Tobias and Ax let me know how the vote went.
"Rachel, we've done some crazy stuff as Animorphs. But its typically been rationalized stuff. What you're suggesting isn't rational for winning the war." Jake continued in his silk voice.
"So is this all you've come to gather this little meeting for? Just asking for some nuclear-war induced blood we voted 'no' against anyway?" Marco asked as he lolled back on his usual bale of hay.
"Marco? Shut. Up."
"Is everything O.K.?" Cassie asked me abruptly, finally done wiping the cage with disinfectant and moving to transfer the hare once more. "Why are you really suggesting this?"
"Same reason we've been fighting this war: to have it end. To be normal again."
"Its no secret you can be reckless," Cassie said simply. "But you usually have a reason for it. What you have in mind would fall on its ear."
"Maybe its reason for Rachel to fight 24/7, no school to hinder her from her fighting ways. Or, once the military takes over, to get Tobias to retire as an Animorph by going human 24/7. Go out shopping with her for more than 2 hours at a time."
Jake shot Marco a look of death.
I did more. I kicked out my foot, upsetting the cage Cassie had put between Marco and me and lunged.
Instantly Marco flailed back and tried pushing me back but my momentum toppled us over the bale of hay Marco had been sitting on.
WHUMPF!
I landed hard on top of him, feeling satisfied at the sound of impact.
"You're nuts, get off, you lunatic!" Marco shrieked-wheezed.
"Hah! Knocked the wind out of you, huh? I always did think you were just a punching bag of hot air, Marco."
I snagged his hair in my hand and drew my other fist back. Instantly Jake's strong grip snarled around my drawn wrist. Wrestling me off the whining, overly upset Marco as best he could.
From a distance it seemed, I heard Cassie ordering me to come to my senses.
Ax shuffled over clumsily, urging me to kindly desist in hurting Marco.
But it was Tobias' fluttering down form the rafters and giving me a hard whack on the head with a sharp down-sweep of his wing that snapped me out of my pummeling rage. I was shocked he dared to hit me.
ME!
Rachel. Stop it. Cassie's dad is just heading out of the house and jogging for the barn. You've got seconds.> Tobias' calm voice cut through my head.
"Watch it, Marco." I hissed.
"Get. Away. From. Me." He breathed shallowly back, outrage spelled all over his face.
"Don't you ever say anything like that again." I continued to snarl.
"Listen to her, Marco." Jake said through gritted teeth. "Tobias, do we have time to sneak out the back way and pretend we weren't here?'
No.>
Cassie panicked. "What is he doing jogging over? If he walked you would have had time. How am I going to explain you all being here?"
"We were playing spin the bottle and Rachel couldn't resist jumping me." Marco gasped.
I nearly tackled him all-out again but it looked like Tobias was about to give me another red-tailed hawk-styled slap. Jake also began to really haul me to my feet anyhow as I hesitated, so I desisted fully.
Marco stayed down on the floor, touching his ribs gingerly.
I huffed and shoved Jake away from me, the amazement at my own actions finally sweeping over me in a belated manner. I felt unpleasant prickles ripple over my body as Tobias' laser stare shot through me.
How obvious had I just been? I never let Marco get so under my skin before.
Well, with the exception of the time I was cleaved in half whilst in starfish morph…
Cassie's dad sauntered in.